Symbols of Transformation

Copyright © 2008 by Michael John Malone All rights reserved

The Dissertation Committee for Michael John Malone certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Symbols of Transformation: Reconceptualizing the Boundaries of Organicism in the Music of Béla Bartók









Committee:



Elliott Antokoletz, supervisor



Andrew Dell’Antonio



D. Kern Holoman



K. M. Knittel



David Neumeyer

Symbols of Transformation: Reconceptualizing the Boundaries of Organicism in the Music of Béla Bartók by Michael John Malone, B.A.; M.M.

Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy

The University of Texas at Austin May 2008

In memory of my brother, Timothy John Malone (1974–2007)

Acknowledgements This essay has been a long time in the works, and I am happy to have the opportunity to thank the many people who have supported and encouraged me along the way—without them, this project would not have been possible. I am indebted to the faculty and staff at the Butler School of Music at The University of Texas at Austin, and particularly to my advisor, Elliott Antokoletz, whose weekly meetings were always stimulating and invigorating. I have benefitted greatly from the advice and guidance of Rebecca Baltzer, Andrew Dell’Antonio, Kay Knittel, and David Neumeyer, and it is with fondness that I recall the many enlightening conversations I had with the late Gerard Béhague. It is with deepest gratitude that I thank my friends and former colleagues at the University of California, Davis, for encouraging me to attend graduate school in the first place—especially Ulla McDaniel and Wayne Slawson. Cheers to Jonathan and Mickey Elkus whose long and lasting friendship has enriched my life. And for the many years that Kern Holoman has been my teacher, mentor, and friend, I offer him my most profound thanks for his enthusiastic support, and for inspiring me to be a better musician and a better person. Since much of this dissertation was written in Columbus, Ohio, I am obliged Charles Atkinson for making sure I had access to everything I needed from the library at The Ohio State University, and



acknowledgements to Danielle Fosler-Lussier, who has been more of an inspiration than she probably realizes. This project could not have happened without my family and friends: thanks to Jeremey McCreary for the many rousing conversations (and to our family for putting up with them); to Kiersten Walker and Cathy Thomas, for food, lodging, and support at a moment’s notice; and Andy Austin, whose friendship has been a constant source of strength. For their lifelong love and unconditional support, I extend my heartfelt thanks to my parents, Barbara and John Malone, and my sister Marie. I am tremendously grateful to my wife, Helen, whose enduring love and endless patience make our life a joy. Finally, it is with deepest sorrow that I dedicate this project to my brother, Tim, whose strength in life was an inspiration.

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Symbols of Transformation: Reconceptualizing the Boundaries of Organicism in the Music of Béla Bartók Publication No. ____________ Michael John Malone, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2008

Supervisor: Elliott Antokoletz This dissertation uses Béla Bartók’s 1943 Concerto for Orchestra as a focal point for investigating conceptual models of music based on early twentieth-century notions of organicism. In particular, this project brings together two traditions—one structural, one narrative—in an attempt to integrate motivic allusion and programmatic discourse, and places this piece within a metadiscourse of musical ‘Fate’ stories that continually point back to Beethoven. Based largely on the work of George Lakoff, chapter 1 is an overview of modern category theories that rejects objectivism and establishes a philosophical view of meaning that is shaped by our conceptual models. Chapter 2 is a comparison of the writings of Schoenberg and Bartók that invoke organicist values of musical development and variation. Stemming from Bartók’s claim that Schoenberg’s Op. 11 vii

abstract showed composers the “new ways and means” of modern composition, this chapter speculates on potential influences and involves a reinvestigation of Schoenberg’s Op. 11, No. 1. Chapter 3 examines the difference between strict hierarchical models of music and metonymic reductions. Following a critique of Fred Lerdahl’s recent attempts to apply his Chomskian prolongational model to post-tonal and atonal music, this chapter traces the integration of motivic parallelism and key architecture in tonal music as a primary organizing feature of musical form, foreshadowing their use by Bartók as replacements for the structural functions of harmony. Chapter 4 investigates the relationship of musical motives and post-Beethovenian narratives of fate/overcoming and fate/death in music by Bizet, Verdi, Tchaikovsky, and Richard Strauss, providing a context for Bartók’s motivic and programmatic allusion to—and transformation of—that very tradition. Chapter 5 draws the material from the previous chapters together in a structural-programmatic reading of the Concerto for Orchestra that situates it as a transformation of the evolving traditions that inform it.

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Contents List of Music Examples, Figures, and Tables . . . . . . . . . xi Prologue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1

Chapter 1 Imaginary Boundaries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Categorization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Objectivism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Effects of Linguistic Categories and Naming Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Semiotics, Meaning, and the Conduit Metaphor. . . . . Idealized Cognitive Models. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Metaphor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Frames. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Metonymic Models and Hierarchy . . . . . . . . . .

13 32 37 42 43 44 51 52

Chapter 2 Organicism and Developing Variation. . . . . . . . . . . 55 Organicism and Folk Music. . . . . . . . . . . . . Developing Variation and Coherence. . . . . . . . . Terminology and the Problem of Signification . . . . . On the Relationships of Idea, Motive, Gestalt, and Grundgestalt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Unvaried Repetition. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hidden Relations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Boundaries of Tonality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Form. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Schoenberg’s Op. 11, No. 1. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter 3 Hierarchical Categorization and Metonymy . . . . . . . .

56 62 65 68 73 76 81 85 87

122

Tonal Pitch Space Theory in Post-Tonal Contexts. . . . 124 ix

contents Metaphors of Hierarchy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134 Key Architecture and Motivic Parallelism in Tonal Music. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 Chapter 4 Allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate . . . . . . . . . . 160 Narrative Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 Toward an Interpretation of b6ˆ . . . . . . . . . . . . 178 ‘Sighing’ and ‘Fate’: Beethoven and Beyond . . . . . . 193 Chapter 5 Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235 Móricz’s Sketch Studies and the Composition of the Concerto for Orchestra. . . . . . . . . . . . Bartók’s Developing Variation . . . . . . . . . . . . Sub-Surface Developing Variation. . . . . . . . . . Transformations of Fate. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Epilogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

237 250 261 267 278

References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282 Vita. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294



List of Music Examples, Figures, and Tables example 2.1  Schoenberg, Op. 11, No. 1, mm. 1–33 . . . . 91 example 2.2  Schoenberg, Op. 11, No. 1, mm. 50–end. . . 95 example 2.3  Schoenberg, Op. 11, No. 1, mm. 1–3, alternative divisions of opening phrase . . . . . . . . . 96 example 2.4  Schoenberg, Op. 11, No. 1, developing variation through systematic expansion of intervals: (a) mm. 1–4; (b) mm. 3–4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 example 2.5  Schoenberg, Op. 11, No. 1, mm. 1–2 and 2–4, developing variation of secondary motive from “soprano” voice to “alto” voice and subsequent inversion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 example 2.6  Schoenberg, Op. 11, No. 1, mm. 1–2 and 2–4, developing variation of secondary motive from “soprano” voice to “bass” voice. . . . . . . . . . . 99 example 2.7  Schoenberg, Op. 11, No. 1, emergence and development of chromatic vs. whole tone as secondary motive. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 example 2.8  Schoenberg, Op. 11, No. 1, motivic “folding” as sub-surface motivic parallelism. . . . . . . 102 example 2.9  Schoenberg, Op. 11, No. 1, two kinds of surface motive “unfolding”: (a) from m. 1 to m. 2; and (b) from m. 1 to m. 4. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 example 2.10  Schoenberg, Op. 11, No. 1. Developing variation of an “idea” (large intervals followed by chromatic intervals). . . . . . . . . . . . .

106

example 2.11  Schoenberg, Op. 11, No. 1, mm. 1–2 and m. 13, reinterpretation of initial motive through developing variation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

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list of music examples, Figures, and Tables example 2.12  Schoenberg, Op. 11, No. 1, m. 15, developing variation of initial idea. N.B. combination of references: G#–G§ (chromatic tail) from a (mm. 1–2), and F#–D§ from a´´ (m. 9). . . . . . . . . . . . 108 example 2.13  Schoenberg, Op. 11, No. 1, developing variation through combination of parameters (and symmetrization of intervals): (a) mm. 1–3; (b) m. 4; and (c) mm. 9–11. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 example 2.14  Schoenberg, Op. 11, No. 1: (a) m. 11; (b) mm. 63–64 (end of piece) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 example 2.15  Schoenberg, Op. 11, No. 1, mm. 9–11, “unfolding” of 4 +/–2 in accompaniment. . . . . . . . 113 example 2.16  Schoenberg, Op. 11, No. 1, mm. 2–3, potential for 4/2 relationship in accompanimental voice-leading transformations. . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 example 3.1  Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 4, movement I, mm. 1–7. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 example 3.2  Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 4, movement I, mm. 11–20: (a) piano reduction; (b) reduction of bass arpeggiation as diminished cycle with Db interruption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

141

example 3.3  Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 4, movement I: (a) analysis of key architecture as unfolding of interval-3/9 cycle; (b) dual cyclic unfolding as complex key architecture (N.B., secondary unfolding of interval-4/8 cycle). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143 example 3.4  Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 4, movment III, analysis of key architecture as augmented triad. . . . 146 table 3.1  Richard Strauss, Don Juan, sonata form, etc. . . 153 example 3.5  Richard Strauss, Don Juan, opening. . . .

157

example 4.1  J. S. Bach, Mass in B-Minor, Crucifixus, mm. 5–9 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

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list of music examples, Figures, and Tables example 4.2  Josquin Desprez, Miserere mei deus, opening: ‘sighing’ motive in all parts foreshadowing repetetitions in tenor voice. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189 example 4.3  Johann Mattheson, Der Vollkommene Capellmeister [1739], examples of emphasis: (a) chapter 8; (b) chapter 12. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191 example 4.4  Ludwig van Beethoven, Piano Sonata, op. 13 (“Pathétique”), movement I: (a) introduction, mm. 1–5; (b) end of introduction, m. 10 (second half). . . . . . . 199 example 4.5  Ludwig van Beethoven, Piano Sonata, op. 13 (“Pathétique”), movement III, opening: nested ‘sighing’ motives. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200 example 4.6  Ludwig van Beethoven, Coriolanus Overture, op. 62 (1807), end: death of Coriolanus . . . . 201 example 4.7  Beethoven, Symphony No. 5, movement I, opening . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

203

example 4.8  Beethoven, Symphony No. 5, movement I: (a) transition, mm. 38–43; (b) second theme, mm. 59–66; (c) recapitulation, m. 268. . . . . . . . . . . . 205 example 4.9  Beethoven, Symphony No. 5, movement I: (a) coda, mm. 398–406; (b) coda, mm. 452–60. . . . . 206 example 4.10  Beethoven, Symphony No. 5, movement I, emphasis on b2ˆ : (a) development, mm. 125–33; (b) coda, mm. 374–88 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208 example 4.11  Ludwig van Beethoven, Symphony No. 9, movement III: (a) ‘sighing’ motives as introduction to main theme; (b) mm. 25ff., expansion of ‘sighing’ motives as contrasting theme. . . . . . . . . . . . . 211 example 4.12  Verdi, La Traviata, act III: (a) mm. 31–33; (b) end of opera. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214 example 4.13  Verdi, Macbeth, mm. 11–12, murder of King Duncan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214 example 4.14  Verdi, La Forza del Destino, opening . . . xiii

216

list of music examples, Figures, and Tables example 4.15  (a) Wagner, Die Walkürie, Wotan’s ‘Magic Fire Music’; (b) Tchaikovsky, Francesca da Rimini, mm. 7–9, Dante’s descent into hell; (c) Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 4, movement I, mm. 1–7. . . . . . . . 219 example 4.16  Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 4, movment I, mm. 21–26 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

220

example 4.17  Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 4, movement I, P1 (m. 27ff.). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220 example 4.18  Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 4, movement II, opening. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222 example 4.19  Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 4, movement II, mm. 290–end. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222 example 4.20  Bizet, Carmen, ‘Fate’ motive at initial entrance of Carmen. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

223

example 4.21  Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 4, interval-3/9 cycle and Db interruption in ‘Fate’ fanfares: (a) movement I, mm. 13–20; (b) movement IV, mm. 205–13. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225 example 4.22  Bizet, Carmen, final scene . . . . . . . . 227 example 4.23  Richard Strauss, Don Juan, mm. 581–88. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

232

example 5.1  Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra, movement II, mm. 123–46, B section (brass chorale). . . . . . . . 241 example 5.2  Comparison of main themes: (a) Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra, movement I, m. 76ff.; (b) Bartók, Violin Concerto No. 2 (1938), movement I, m. 6ff.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244 example 5.3  Bartók, Violin Concerto No. 2 (1938), movement I, opening, mm. 1–7 . . . . . . . . . . . . 246 example 5.4  Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra, movement V, mm. 256–65, beginning of development . . . . . . . 247 example 5.5  Bartók, Violin Concerto No. 2., movement I, mm. 56–73, pitch reduction of transition. . . . . . . 249 xiv

list of music examples, Figures, and Tables example 5.6  Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra, movement I, organic developing variation from introduction to first theme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252 example 5.7  Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra, movement I, mm. 39–47: (a) symmetrical use of primary motive; (b) outline of symmetrical interval-3/9 (diminished) cycle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253 figure 5.1  Model of basic hierarchy for organicism . . .

254

example 5.8  Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra, movement I, organic unfolding of theme from a single interval . . . 256 example 5.9  Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra, movement I, mm. 6–10. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

257

figure 5.2  Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra, movement I, “hidden relation” through compression of intervals. . . 257 figure 5.3  Ordered interval-class distances derived from the interval-5/7 cycle (as it partially unfolds at the opening of the Concerto for Orchestra) . . . . . . .

260

example 5.10  Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra, movement I, mm. 1–34, pitch reduction of the first three phrases. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262 example 5.11  Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra, movement I, mm. 76–155 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262 example 5.12  Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra, movement I, mm. 76–80 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263 example 5.13  Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra, movement I: (a) S1 in exposition, m. 155ff.; (b) S1 in recapitulation, m. 402ff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265 example 5.14  Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra, movement I: (a) S1 in exposition, m. 155ff.; (b) S1 in recapitulation, m. 402ff.; (c) combined pitch structure of second themes; (d) Introduzione, mm. 1–6, opening pentatonic. . . . . 265 example 5.15  Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra, tonal plan of the five movements (varied motivic parallelism with Th. 1 motivic structure) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266 xv

list of music examples, Figures, and Tables example 5.16  Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra, movement I: (a) mm. 1–3; (b) mm. 3–6; (c) mm. 77–78 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

269

example 5.17  Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra, movement V: (a) introduction, m. 1ff.; (b) “wrong” fugue subject, m. 148ff. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273 example 5.18  Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra, movement V, m. 188ff. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274 example 5.19  Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra, movement V, “correct” fugue subject, m. 201ff. . . . . . 274 example 5.20  Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra: (a) intro, mvt. I; (b) intro, mvt. III; (c) A´, mvt. III; (d) intro, mvt. IV; (e) intro, mvt. V . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276

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Houdini’s first magic act, you know, back when he was just getting started. It was called ‘Metamorphosis.’ It was never just a question of escape. It was also a question of transformation. —Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

Prologue Sometimes a person has to go a very long distance out of his way to come back a short distance correctly. —Edward Albee, Zoo Story

In 1920, Béla Bartók wrote a short article for the Viennese Musikblätter des Anbruch in which he specifically associates Schoenberg’s Op. 11 with what he calls the “new ways and means” of modern composition in a post-tonal era. In 1912 one of my pupils brought me a copy of the then unpublished Three Piano Pieces (op. 11) of Schoenberg; it was the first of his music that I became acquainted with. It is understandable that the new ways and means of technique and expression manifested in Schoenberg’s works, because of the abolition of tonality principles, exerted a more or less great influence on some of our younger, nay, even more mature composers who were striving toward similar trends. I use the word ‘influence’ in its best sense; that is, it is to be understood not as a servile counterfeiting but as a process similar to that perceptible in Stravinsky’s work (since about 1913, especially in Rossignol). Stravinsky’s personality lost nothing under Schoenberg’s influence; on the contrary, it developed, so to speak, in a still more unrestrained way—the course pointed out by the latter led the former in a similar direction but on another path. While Bartók mentions Stravinsky as one of the composers influ-

 Béla Bartók, “Arnold Schoenberg’s Music in Hungary [1920],” in Béla Bartók Essays, ed. Benjamin Suchoff (New York: St. Martin’s Press), 467. János Breuer notes that the student was probably Imre Balabán, who, in 1910, had written to Schoenberg asking for some manuscripts of Schoenberg’s new works for piano, which Schoenberg appears to have sent; see Breuer, “Schoenberg and His Hungarian Advocates,” New Hungarian Quarterly 29, no. 110 (1988): 227.



prologue enced by Schoenberg’s “new ways and means” (whose influence nevertheless, Bartók notes, led Stravinsky down a different path than Schoenberg)—it is tempting to believe that Bartók also included himself in that group of composers who were “striving toward similar trends.” Bartók clearly knew Schoenberg’s piano piece well—he performed numbers 1 and 2 at least as early as 1921, and he owned at least four copies of the Op. 11. If his claim is true, then he was studying the piece before it was published, and reflects (from 1920) that this particular piece—and perhaps others of Schoenberg’s middle period—changed the way composers thought about modern posttonal composition. Given that Bartók did not further elaborate in writing on what those “ways and means” might have been, one of the jumping off points for this dissertation is a speculative investigation of this influence—based on a reconsideration of Schoenberg’s Op. 11—centering around Bartók’s transformation of Schoenbergian developing variation in his Concerto for Orchestra. When describing his own development as a composer, Arnold Schoenberg often characterized his middle period (circa 1909) as a stepping stone on the path toward 12-tone serialism. With a stated goal of replacing the structural functions of harmony, his middle period compositions were a crucial stage in the search for new means of organizing musical materials in the absence of traditionally meaningful diatonic glue.

 See Bartók, “Musical Events in Budapest, March–June, 1921 [1921],” in Béla Bartók Essays, 479–80; for a list of Schoenberg’s music in Bartók’s personal library see János Breuer, “Bartók and Schoenberg,” New Hungarian Quarterly 29, no. 112 (1988): 190



prologue Ever since 1906–8, when I had started writing compositions which led to the abandonment of tonality, I had been busy finding methods to replace the structural functions of harmony. Yet, while Schoenberg may have felt that the culmination of this process was the development of the twelve-tone method of composition, the same was not true for Bartók. It is well known that, throughout his career, Bartók was attempting to synthesize folk music elements with art music composition, and many of the processes of that synthesis have been well investigated. Though Bartók often tested the boundaries of tonality (and experimented with 12-tone themes), it is clear from his writings that he had no intention of entirely giving up a basic notion of tonality. For Bartók, a concept of tonality—no matter how distant from the functional harmonic progressions of Mozart and Haydn—was such a basic element of the folk musics he was interested in that to give it up entirely was to give up a fundamental essence, central among the elements in the synthesis that he

 Arnold Schoenberg, “Composition with Twelve Tones (2) [c. 1948],” in Style and Idea, ed. Leonard Stein, trans. Leo Black (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1975), 247.  See Elliott Antokoletz, The Music of Béla Bartók: A Study of Tonality and Progression in Twentieth-Century Music (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1984); Antokoletz, “Concerto for Orchestra,” in The Bartók Companion, ed. Malcolm Gillies (Portland: Amadeus Press, 1994), 526–37; Judit Frigyesi, Béla Bartók and Turn-of-the-Century Budapest (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1998); Benjamin Suchoff, Bartók: “Concerto for Orchestra”; Understanding Bartók’s World (New York: Schirmer, 1995).  C.f., “The Problem of the New Music [1920],” in Béla Bartók Essays, 455– 59; “On Modern Music in Hungary [1921],” in Béla Bartók Essays, 474–78; “The Relation of Folk Song to the Development of the Art Music of Our Time [1921],” in Béla Bartók Essays, 320–30.



prologue believed would produce the “‘new’ Hungarian art music” (as he describes it in his Harvard Lectures). It should be noted, lest the reader get the wrong impression, that I do not mean to imply that Bartók’s modernist aesthetics came exclusively from, or even originated in, his interest in Schoenberg’s Op. 11. I am also not claiming an exclusively one-way relationship from Schoenberg to Bartók. To be sure, one of the pieces Schoenberg cites in his 1911 Harmonielehre as a justification for his notion of the emancipation of dissonance is the tenth bagatelle of Bartók’s Fourteen Bagatelles, Op. 6 (composed May, 1908, and first performed in Vienna on 29 June 1908). Accompanying the example from Bartók’s tenth bagatelle, Schoenberg writes that “the chord -building capacity of dissonances does not depend on possibilities of or tendencies toward resolution.” By at least 1920, Bartók had also read Schoenberg’s Harmonielehre, and refers to Schoenberg’s discussion in that

 Bartók, “Harvard Lectures [1943],” in Béla Bartók Essays, 352–92.  The composition dates and first performance of the Bagatelles are given in the introduction to the Piano Music of Béla Bartók: Series I, ed. Benjamin Suchoff (New York: Dover, 1981), ix. Breuer notes that the same student that brought Bartók the Op. 11, Imre Balabán, also sent Schoenberg the Bagatelles for use as an example in his Harmonielehre at Bartók’s request. In a letter of 2 May 1911, Balabán wrote to Schoenberg, “I showed your kind postcard to Mr Bartók for inspection, and on his behalf asked the Károly Rozsnyai publishing firm to forward the 14 Bagatelles and the Two Elegies to you by today’s mail. Mr Bartók thinks you will find sections suitable for your purposes mainly in the elegies and the Bagatelle in C”; quoted in Breuer, “Schoenberg and His Hungarian Advocates,” 228.  Arnold Schoenberg, Theory of Harmony, trans. Roy E. Carter (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1978), 419–20.



prologue work of atonality as having partially originated in the free treatment of keys in the development sections of sonata forms. Nevertheless, given Bartók’s specific interest in Schoenberg’s Op. 11, the present essay is to a large extent an exploration of the potential influences that Schoenberg’s middle period music (prior to 1920) may have had on some of Bartók’s music—especially, for the purposes of this study, the Concerto for Orchestra. In his writings, Bartók does not go into detail about which aspects of Schoenberg’s composition showed him the “new ways and means” of modern composition. Thus, this exploration will be a largely speculative project on my part, and will, among other things, require a re-investigation of developing variation in Schoenberg’s Op. 11—a workhorse of analysts that has a long history of its own. This reconsideration of the Op. 11, with a mind toward understanding its potential influence on Bartók, raises other questions, not only about the Concerto for Orchestra, but also about the Op. 11 and post-tonal music in general. Thus, I will use this historical moment (between the Op. 11, No. 1, and the Concerto for Orchestra) as an opportunity to reflect on several issues of analysis and interpretation. What ties these disparate reflections together is a broad concept of transformation—both musical and historical. Given a loose theme of transformation (though not necessarily what has come to be called neo-Riemannian transformational theory), I am aware of the paradoxes inherent in traditional slice-of-time  Bartók notes, however, that “it does not seem to be right to interpret the principle of tonality as the absolute opposite to atonality,” and seems to agree with Schoenberg’s reasoning for prefering the term “pantonality” over “atonality.” See Bartók, “The Problem of the New Music,” in Béla Bartók Essays, 455. For Schoenberg’s discussion of the terms “atonal” and “pantonal,” see his Theory of Harmony, 432.



prologue type of analyses. For a long time I have struggled with the phenomenological limitations of structural analysis (and its façade of objectivism), and yet I am still drawn to it as a means of describing how I understand some kinds of music. In my master’s report, I turned to the musical semiotics of Jean-Jacques Nattiez in order to give my analyses more perspective on composer/work/listener relationships, and to help me locate differences in meaning as it is constructed from different perspectives. However, despite the fact that the semiological perspective allowed me to explore the notion of plural texts (or plural meanings based on multiple “traces” of a single “text”), I still felt that I had inadequate means of talking about how and why multiple meanings come to be, or come to have different levels of significance for the same person at different times. Though structural analysis becomes a way of describing an idealized situation—either the way I do understand the piece (sometimes) or at least might understand the piece—it is important to understand that it represents our conceptual models more than it represents “the piece itself.” In one sense, this dissertation has been a process of overcoming the limitations I have felt in my work previously. In chapter 1, I begin that process by investigating theories of categorization and conceptual models—as an alternative to approaches based on semiotics—in order to explore how it is that we come to find things meaningful in general. Following the earlier work of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Erving Goffman, Eleanor Rosch, and others, cognitive linguists like George Lakoff have theorized processes of categorization as a way of understanding how we make sense out of the world. Focusing mostly on the work of Lakoff, chapter 1 is 

prologue an overview of category theory and cognitive models, providing the basis for discussions of motivic variation, hierarchy, met­o­nymy, and narrative meaning in later chapters of this dissertation. In chapter 2, I explore the transformation of Schoenbergian developing variation by Bartók (with Schoenberg’s Op. 11 as the model) involving musical processes influenced by the metaphor of organicism—a metaphor which itself implies processes of transformation. Among the many difficulties when dealing with Schoenberg’s writings are those that involve his subtexts and motivations. How much of his theoretical writing—or his composition, for that matter—was about constructing a history of music that would not only validate his ideas about music but also authenticate his identity? While this issue does not, at the present time, fall within the scope of this project, it raises provocative questions with regard to the kind of history Schoenberg writes, the composers he chooses to emulate, and the relationship of his music with social and political forces. However, without (for the time being) addressing why Schoenberg may have felt the need to justify his career in the way that he does, it remains clear that, for whatever reason, Schoenberg did spend a considerable amount of energy attempting to connect himself to the past. Whatever his motivations for this, he must certainly have been aware that as a composer he was attempting to transform concepts basic to the understanding of Western art music: motive, theme, phrase, idea— even the concept of transformation itself: developing variation. His writings on these concepts and on the composers art—of “logical” presentation (whatever that means)—are interesting precisely because they were apparently difficult for Schoenberg to articulate. 

prologue Why is it that he needed to revisit definitions for concepts like “motive” throughout his career? Schoenberg’s struggles to articulate precisely in writing things he felt intuitively have been well explored—though perhaps not fully explained. His difficulty in finding a translator for Harmonielehre is one indication of this struggle, and his letters to potential translators are an indication of just how picky Schoenberg was about the rendering of terms and concepts.10 In light of Schoenberg’s own attention to the plurality of meanings, chapter 2 is a comparison of Schoenberg’s and Bartók’s writings on organicism and issues relating to developing variation, in which I attempt to tease out the similarities and differences in their concepualizations of musical process and development in connection with the metaphors in their discourse. Richard Cohn has described post-tonal music as music that “lures the attention of analytical models designed for diatonic music … yet … is notoriously unresponsive to such attentions.”11 We might describe both Schoenberg’s Op. 11, No. 1, and Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra as post-tonal in the sense that Cohn describes, and extend the term to include music that is not fully atonal or has been unresponsive to models designed for other kinds of atonal organization. In chapter 3, I address the issue of hierarchy in post-tonal music, distinguishing between true strict hierarchical models and met­o­ 10 C.f. his discussion of Darstellung in his 1931 letter to potential translator Adolph Weiss. A discussion of this, along with the original German and an English translation of the letter appear in Bryan Simms, “Review of Theory of Harmony, by Arnold Schoenberg, trans. Roy E. Carter,” Music Theory Spectrum 4 (1982): 160. 11 Richard Cohn, “Introduction to Neo-Riemannian Theory: A Survey and a Historical Perspective,” Journal of Music Theory 42, no. 2 (1988): 168.



prologue nymic reductions. What happens, for instance, to our ability to identify hierarchical structures (including so-called middleground and background structures) in music that lives somewhere beyond the boundaries of traditional tonality? I also attempt to trace the growing relationship between motivic transformation and formal structures in the nineteenth century as a tradition that leads to one possible concept of post-tonal compositional design. Although he never defines it precisely, Bartók alludes to the possibility of organizing post-tonal music according to principles of “key” architecture. Close readings of Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony and Strauss’s Don Juan shed light on the growing integration of motivic parallelism and key architecture in nineteenth-century tonal music as models for the kind of post-tonal “key” architecture we find in some of Bartók’s late works (the Violin Concerto No. 2 and the Concerto for Orchestra). Yet, Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony and Strauss’s Don Juan also share a common narrative thread with Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra. Given Bartók’s description of the Concerto for Orchestra as a programmatic transformation from darkness to life-assertion, chapter 4 deals with the historical transformation of narratives of fate after Beethoven and the motives they share in their dramatic structural unfolding. Beginning with a prehistory of conventional associations of b6ˆ with sighing, grief, and other emotive descriptions, I trace the expansion of these associations in musical narratives after Beethoven in Schubert, Bizet, and Verdi, and revisit the analyses from chapter 3 of Tchaikovsky and Strauss to evaluate the dramatic role of the motivic parallelisms and key architecture in the narratives of those pieces. 

prologue Ultimately, this dissertation has been a personal journey of the kind Edward Albee refers to in Zoo Story: I feel that I have traveled a very great distance in order to overcome the limitations of my own analytical process and say a few things—hopefully a few interesting things—about Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra. In chapter 5, I position the Concerto for Orchestra as a transformation of the ‘Fate’ narratives I explored in chapter 4 with respect to musical allusions and Bartók’s stated program for the piece. Within the musical structural narrative, I explore the nature of developing variation and the relationship between motivic transformation and compositional design at multiple levels of structural organization, and the ways in which the structural design and the narrative allusions coincide to dramatic effect.

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Chapter 1 Imaginary Boundaries Someone says to me: “Show the children a game!” I teach them gambling for money with dice, and the other says, “That sort of game isn’t what I meant.” —Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations

How does categorization affect our perception? What, if anything, does our perception have to do with the “reality” we try to describe? Does it matter what things are called? How do our linguistic labels and naming strategies interact with our perceptions? Is it meaningful to talk about “meaning” as the disembodied interactions of abstract symbols? How do musical structures or events come to have meaning in relation to the people perceiving the structures or events? How do our conceptual models inform our perception of the musical structures we attempt to transform? These are not easy questions to answer and this dissertation makes no claims about the right answers—to be sure, some of these questions have been central to Western philosophy for over two-thousand years. However, since they all touch on an issue that has plagued me for some time (namely, what does it mean to analyze musical structures?), I will begin by looking at recent scholarship in cognition, linguistics, and philosophy, (as well as music theory), in the hope of articulating a coherent argument for my current views on the relationship of musical structures and meaning. However, since this dissertation is not primarily a philosophical investigation of the nature of meaning, this chapter 11

chapter 1 ◆ imaginary boundaries will simply serve to set up the philosophical arguments I will use as the basis for my musical analyses and my approach for situating the writings of Bartók and Schoenberg in relation to their music. With regard to music analysis, it is crucial to note that the analytical tools we use (and especially the language we use) to transform musical structures and describe meaningful musical experiences are a reflection of the conceptual models that shape and structure our perception of reality. In his recent work on conceptual models and (what he calls) cross-domain mapping, music theorist Lawrence Zbikowski has shown how competing metaphors of hierarchy have led well-respected theorists to conflicting analyses of the same piece. By beginning with the analytical models employed by different people (and the metaphors that inform those models) Zbikowski is able to describe why different analyses are at odds with each other. This approach is not about arriving at a single correct description of a piece. Instead, the crux of Zbikowski’s argument becomes about how the models themselves function with respect to the structures they attempt to transform. With this in mind, I would like to go back to some of the theory that informed Zbikowski’s recent work, and, together with Zbikowski’s own models, re-evaluate issues relating to the metaphor of organicism in the early twentieth century. One of my primary concerns, however, will be to explore the nature of met­

 See Lawrence Zbikowski, “Conceptual Models and Cross-Domain Mapping: New Perspectives on Theories of Music and Hierarchy,” Journal of Music Theory 41, no. 2 (1997): 193–225; and Zbikowski, Conceptualizing Music: Cognitive Structure, Theory, and Analysis (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2002).

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chapter 1 ◆ imaginary boundaries o­nymic models and hierarchical reductionism within the context of category theory. Central to the issue of conceptual models is categorization. In addition to the work of Zbikowski, a review of the work of George Lakoff and others will give us a better understanding of how categories and conceptual models might actually function (in relation to human experience) by addressing the folk theory of objectivist reality based on a two-thousand year old myth of “classical” categorization. It will also reveal how modern category theory is situated with regard to semiotics—whose application to music has been much investigated. Taken together, I hope the various aspects of this approach will provide the basis for a better understanding of the models we use to describe and interpret music. Categorization Modern theories of categorization effectively began in the 1930s and 1940s when Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) began to seriously question the nature of Aristotelian classical categories. In particular, Wittgenstein questioned the long-standing assumptions about category boundaries (and the relationships of category members within categories) in his famous discussion of games. His philosophical investigations, as he called them, sparked a rethinking of the assumptions about categorization and have recently led to rigorous theorizing about the nature of categorization itself.  See Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans. by G. E. M. Anscombe (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 2001, 3rd ed.). The first edition was published, posthumously, in 1953.

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chapter 1 ◆ imaginary boundaries In his book, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things (hereafter WFDT) the linguist George Lakoff argues for the fundamental importance of understanding categorization, which he argues guides not only our thoughts and perceptions, but also our actions, and “is central to any understanding of how we think and how we function, and is therefore central to an understanding of what makes us human.” He notes that most of the words in our lexicon are not words for specific things, but rather are words for categories. Words for specific things are proper nouns, like Lake Tahoe or Bob’s Taco Shack. Words like lake and restaurant are not words for things, but categories. Furthermore, Lakoff points out that even most of our categories “are not categories of things; they are categories of abstract entities” that include “events, actions, emotions, spatial relationships, social relationships, and abstract entities of an enormous range: governments, illnesses, and entities in both scientific and folk theories, like electrons and colds.” One pervasive and long-standing view of the world is that the universe divides up into natural kinds of things, and that the names we give to categories are an accurate description of which things naturally fit into which categories. Most people, Lakoff argues, view categorization as a container: if something naturally contains a set of essential qualities that match a set of membership criteria then it goes into the “container,” and if its essential qualities do not meet the  George Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 6.  Ibid., 5–6.  Ibid., 6.

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chapter 1 ◆ imaginary boundaries criteria then it does not go into the category. In WFDT, however, Lakoff refutes this objectivist view of reality and describes at least eight different types of categories: (1) classical categories; (2) fuzzy categories; (3) prototype-based categories; (4) graded categories; (5) generative categories; (6) radial categories; (7) basic-level categories; and (8) complex categories. The following summary of these category types, in addition to a discussion of Lawrence Barsalou’s studies of ad hoc categories, will show how many of the historical assumptions about categories are inaccurate, and will serve as a foundation both for the following discussion of conceptual models and for the discussion of Schoenberg’s and Bartók’s writings on music in chapter 2. Cl a s sica l C at eg or i e s.  The concept of classical categories extends back to Aristotle’s arguments about categorization and logic in 350 b.c.e. For Aristotle, at the core of all things are a set of essential qualities that define those things and relate or differentiate their natural existence from other things (making trees like other trees, but making trees different from cows). These essential qualities, for Aristotle, are what define the categories that describe those things at different levels. (For example, all trees must share some similar essence that makes them tree-like, and though all plants are not trees, all plants—including trees—must share some essence that makes them plant-like). In his treatise, Categories, Aristotle discusses the relationship between categories of a specific nature (species) and more general categories (genera). He argues that since members of different categories at the specific level—say, humans and oxen—can belong to the same general category (animals), there must be distinct 15

chapter 1 ◆ imaginary boundaries sets of essential qualities that naturally define and differentiate each of the categories at the different levels. A man and an ox are both ‘animal’, and these are univocally so named, inasmuch as not only the name, but also the definition, is the same in both cases: for if a man should state in what sense each is an animal, the statement in the one case would be identical with that in the other. In other words, an ox and a man clearly have aspects that distinguish them from each other at the specific level. Yet, Aristotle notes that at a more general level they both belong to a class of things called “animals.” He argues that there must, therefore, be some set of essential features—some set of common properties that are shared by both men and oxen—that allows them both to be included in the same category at the general level (genus). When this essentialist logic is applied to all members of the category animals, the set of shared features ought to define exactly what is (and what is not) a member of the category—and will be exactly the same for all animals. According to this conception, if all the members of the category animals share a single common set of features, then that set of common features becomes the definition for the category itself. What this line of reasoning produces (aside from 2000 years of wondering “what really makes people different from animals?”) is a conceptualization of categories in which membership is defined by a set of necessary and sufficient conditions. Based on those necessary and sufficient conditions the boundaries of the category become

 Aristotle, Categories, trans. E. M. Edghill (available from ).

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chapter 1 ◆ imaginary boundaries clear and absolute—a thing is either in the category or it is not. Categories of this sort are referred to as classical categories. For some categories, this well-defined boundary conceptualization seems to work well. Take the category odd numbers. As children we are taught that there is a set of definable conditions (which are both sufficient and necessary for membership) that determines whether or not a number is odd. According to those conditions there can be no in-between. A number, unlike graduate students, cannot be “sort of” odd—it is either odd or it is not. This pervasive view of categorization, (that all, or at least most, categories of the world are classical categories of this sort with clear and definable criteria for membership) has been the basis for much of Western philosophy since Aristotle and Plato. In WFDT, Lakoff argues extensively that while the folk-theory of universal classical categorization is the most wide-spread, it is not the most accurate— either with regard to the way the processes of categorization actually function for people in real situations, or with regard to the nature of the universe. F uz z y C at eg or i e s.  In the early twentieth century Ludwig Wittgenstein began to question the nature of classical categories. If all the members of a category must share common features, then what, he asked, might those common features be for a category like games? Wittgenstein speculated that for some categories there is no single set of properties that all members have in common which  Eleanor Rosch, “Reclaiming Concepts,” Journal of Consciousness Studies 6, no. 11–12 (1999): 61–77.

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chapter 1 ◆ imaginary boundaries could define the category. Instead, members of a category display what he called “family resemblances,” so that all members of the category are related to some other members through similarity (of some sort). 66. Consider for example the proceedings that we call “games”. I mean board-games, card-games, ball-games, Olympic games, and so on. What is common to them all?—Don’t say: “There must be something common, or they would not be called ‘games’ ”­— but look and see whether there is anything common to all.—For if you look at them you will not see something that is common to all, but similarities, relationships, and a whole series of them at that. To repeat: don’t think, but look!—Look for example at board-games, with their multifarious relationships. Now pass to card-games; here you find many correspondences with the first group, but many common features drop out, and others appear. When we pass next to ball-games, much that is common is retained, but much is lost.—Are they all ‘amusing’? Compare chess with tic-tac-toe. Or is there always winning and losing, or competition between players? Think of patience [solitaire]. In ballgames there is winning and losing; but when a child throws his ball at the wall and catches it again, this feature has disappeared. Look at the parts played by skill and luck; and at the difference between skill in chess and skill in tennis. Think now of games like ring-a-ring-a-roses; here is the element of amusement, but how many other characteristic features have disappeared! And we can go through the many, many other groups of games in the same way; can see how similarities crop up and disappear. And the result of this examination is: we see a complicated network of similarities overlapping and criss-crossing: sometimes overall similarities, sometimes similarity of detail. A category like games is clearly a psychologically real category that people use on a regular basis. It is not a category that causes people

 Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 27.  Ibid., 27.

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chapter 1 ◆ imaginary boundaries to freeze up when they try to apply it, and at the same time it does not seem to cause people problems that they cannot define a set of properties that all games have in common. Wittgenstein notes that the inability to define a boundary for a category like games is not a result of ignorance.10 We can choose to create clear boundaries for fuzzy categories for special purposes, but this is not a requirement for making them usable. Categories with blurred, fuzzy, indistinct edges (Wittgenstein calls them verschwommenen) are just as functional as categories with seemingly clear boundaries. Fuzzy categories are also extendable. The category games is not closed—we can invent new games that will share some common features with existing games, but the category will not be limited by any single definition. Presumably, as long as a new proceeding is perceived to have family resemblances to existing games it could be included in the category, and the category would potentially be infinitely extendable. Wittgenstein compares extendable categories and family resemblances to a rope: we extend our concept [of “x”] as in spinning a thread we twist fibre on fibre. And the strength of the thread does not reside in the fact that … one fibre runs through its whole length, but in the overlapping of many fibres.11 Something else that fuzzy categories can account for is the fact that two categories may be adjacent to each other with overlapping fuzzy boundaries, like the color categories blue and green. Because blue and green are adjacent on the spectrum, the colors between 10 Ibid., 28. 11 Ibid.

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chapter 1 ◆ imaginary boundaries pure blue and pure green (like turquoise or aqua) are some mixture of blue and green and do not belong exclusively to either category. Later in this chapter I will come back to an experiment that investigated the lexical effect on perception of the imagined boundary between blue and green. Protot y pe-Ba sed C at eg or i e s.  Prototype-based categories are categories whose members, for various reasons, are not treated equally. Within a prototype-based category there are best examples or more central examples (prototypes) against which other members of the category are compared or otherwise related. Lakoff argues (after Eleanor Rosch) that the very idea that the phenomena of prototypes exist at all is an indication that category structure must play an important role in reasoning in general, and that “prototypes act as cognitive reference points of various sorts and form the basis for inferences.”12 Prototypes can occur for different reasons in different kinds of categories. “In the case of a graded category like tall man, which is fuzzy and does not have rigid boundaries, prototype effects may result from degree of category membership, while in the case of bird, which does have rigid boundaries, the prototype effects must result from some other aspect of internal category structure.”13 Gr a ded C at eg or i e s.  The two examples above (the categories tall man and bird) are both examples of graded categories, yet the scale of gradation in each case is not the same. Both tall man

12 Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things, 45. 13 Ibid.

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chapter 1 ◆ imaginary boundaries and bird are categories that have central members, whose degree of membership in the category is higher than noncentral members, or that are treated as better examples than other members. In the case of tall man, the category is fuzzy, with indistinct boundaries, yet, we can still grade members on their degree of “tallness.” Although the category bird has much clearer boundaries, its members are also not treated equally, though this is not in relation to some amount of “birdness” that is analogous to “tallness.” Presumably, people believe that if it meets certain conditions then it is a bird. It is not a fuzzy category boundary that leads people to agree, as Steven Pinker humorously notes, “that a blue jay is somehow a better example of a bird than a chicken or a penguin.”14 Gradience is a way of accounting for the fact that some categories have degrees of membership. In fact, research by Sharon Armstrong and Henry and Lila Gleit­ man has shown that not only do people grade goodness of example in categories like bird and fruit, but they grade goodness of example in categories that should not have better or worse members, like the classic example of a classical category: odd number.15 They found that in experimental trials people consistently choose a number like “3” as a better example of an odd number than a number like “2,481.”16 They concluded that One enormous phenomenon stands firm: subjects do give graded responses when queried, in any number of ways, about concepts. 14 Steven Pinker, Words and Rules: The Ingredients of Language (New York: Basic Books, 1999), 272–73. 15 Sharon Armstrong, Henry Gleitman, and Lila Gleitman, “What Some Concepts Might Not Be,” Cognition 13 (1983): 263–308. 16 Ibid.

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chapter 1 ◆ imaginary boundaries So powerful is this phenomenon that it survives even confrontation with the very concepts (odd number) it could not possibly illuminate or even describe. A graded view of odd numbers could not explain how we compute with integers, how we know (finally) that each integer is odd or not odd, how we know that to find out about the oddness of an integer we are quite free to look at the rightmost digit only, and so forth.17 Thus, the notion that many of the categories that people assume are classical turn out to be fuzzy (or have graded membership where membership ought to be either “in” or “out”), does not mean that classical categories do not exist. As Armstrong, Gleit­man, and Gleit­ man also argue, classical categories that are clearly defined, exact, and non-fuzzy are real in the sense that they exist in people’s minds alongside fuzzy categories—sometimes even fuzzy versions of the same category, as in the case of odd numbers. Ge n er at i v e

C at eg or i e s.  Generative categories are

categories that are “defined by a generator (a particular member or subcategory) plus rules (or a general principle such as similarity). In such cases, the generator has the status of a central, or ‘prototypical’ category member.”18 Since there is a generator that acts as the best example, or prototype, for the category (plus some set of specific or general rules), then the members of a generative category belong together via their relationship to the prototype, not necessarily via their relationship to each other. Given the rules of arithmetic, for instance, the entire (and infinite) category natural numbers can be generated from the sub-category single-digit numbers. Furthermore, 17 Ibid., 291. 18 Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things, 12.

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chapter 1 ◆ imaginary boundaries Lakoff argues that because most people understand the properties of large numbers in the same way they understand the properties of single-digit numbers, the category natural numbers is not only generated by the category single-digit numbers plus the rules of arithmetic, but constitutes a met­o­nymic model (see met­o­nymic models below).19 However, he also notes that the sub-model that generates the category natural numbers is not the only means of dividing it: the category can be understood in terms of other sub-categories that are not met­o­nymic, such as even and odd, and prime and nonprime.20 R a di a l C at eg or i e s.  Radial categories are categories with a central case and a cluster of related subcategories that overlap with the central case in some way. Radial categories are not, however, generative categories. Lakoff argues that the deviations from the central subcategory are conventionalized in radial categories and “cannot be predicted by general rules,”21 and he notes that conventional variants of the central subcategory, while not predictable from specific rules, are also not arbitrary but are motivated by the central subcategory. Lakoff uses the category mother as an example of a radial category that has many related subcategories: birth mothers, foster mothers, adoptive mothers, stepmothers, genetic mothers, biological mothers, surrogate mothers, working mothers, unwed mothers, housewives, etc. For the broad category mother, Lakoff argues that 19 Ibid., 88. 20 Ibid. 21 Ibid., 84.

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chapter 1 ◆ imaginary boundaries most people use a model whose central case is something like “a mother who is and always has been female, and who gave birth to the child, supplied half of the child’s genes, nurtured the child, is married to the father, is one generation older than the child, and is the child’s legal guardian.”22 The many types of mothers overlap and deviate from the hypothetical central case in some way, and are (almost) all marked with respect to the unmarked category mother, but they cannot be predicted from the central case. They are also not naturally occurring—the category genetic mother was invented in the twentieth century to account for mothers who provide half of the genetic material for a child but do not necessarily give birth, or raise the child, or nurture the child, but could not have existed two-hundred years ago. Though genetic mothers are clearly related to other kinds of mothers, the category could not have been predicted from a set of rules about the essential quality of mothers. Also, Pinker has pointed out that the prototype for a category can influence stereotypes to the point where a technical non-member of a category can be a better example of the category than a technical member. In the radial category grandmothers, he argues, his maiden aunt (who has grey hair, a cat, and makes “a mean chicken soup”) is a better example of the category than Tina Turner, who in fact has grandchildren.23 Word definitions can also form radial categories. When two words are spelled the same but have different meanings they are called homographs, like tear (“liquid from crying”) and tear (“to 22 Ibid., 83. 23 Pinker, Words and Rules, 274–75.

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chapter 1 ◆ imaginary boundaries rip”). Homophones sound the same but have different meanings, like ball and bawl. Homonyms are both written and pronounced the same way, like well (“a hole with water in it”) and well (“not sick”). In these cases, the meanings of the words are not related to each other, and despite the similarity, there is a separate category for each word that happens to look or sound the same as another word. Homographs, homophones, and homonyms, therefore, do not form radial categories. Polysemy, on the other hand, arises when two definitions of a word are systematically related. Polysemic definitions account for slightly different senses of the same word and form a radial category of overlapping meaning. Claudia Brugman has studied the complexity of relationships among the many senses of the English word over.24 Based on her study, Lakoff argues that the relations among the network of meanings for over is motivated by transformations of the image-schemas that inform the metaphorical conceptual models for the different senses of the word.25 The following are some of the examples Lakoff provides to demonstrate the complexity of relationships among the many uses of over:

i.  The painting is over the mantle.

ii.  The plane is flying over the hill. iii.  Sausalito is over the bridge. iv.  The board is over the hole. 24 Her master’s thesis, “Story of Over” (University of California, Berkeley, 1981), is summarized by Lakoff in case study 2, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things, 416–61. 25 Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things, 460–61.

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chapter 1 ◆ imaginary boundaries

v.  The guards were posted all over the hill.

vi.  I walked all over the hill. vii.  Sam turned the page over. viii.  Sam turned over. ix.  The play is over. x.  Do it over, but don’t overdo it. xi.  You made over a hundred errors.26 The mental representations for the various meanings of the word over include image-schemas like above, across, and covering. Yet, note the relationship between the implications of motion verses static location between ii and iii, and again between v and vi. Even the meaning of location is different between i and iii. Also note that xi is related to an above image-schema but is no longer in the domain of spatial orientation. In this way transformations of the image-schemas motivate a variety of senses of the word and create radial extensions of the category that are not predictable by a single set of rules. Ba sic-L ev e l C at eg or i e s.  Not only can members of categories show gradience (or other prototype effects) within the category, but categories themselves seem to display hierarchical gradience in relation to each other. Basic-level categories are neither the most specific categorical descriptions, nor the most general. They reside in the middle of a hierarchy, but are called “basic” because they seem to have cognitive primacy for the way people organize possible categories. In his description of secondary substances, Aristotle takes

26 Ibid., 418–35.

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chapter 1 ◆ imaginary boundaries for granted the fact that some categories seem more relevant (or are more appropriate) than others when referring to specific cases. Of secondary substances, the species is more truly substance than the genus, being more nearly related to primary substance. For if any one should render an account of what a primary substance is, he would render a more instructive account, and one more proper to the subject, by stating the species than by stating the genus. Thus, he would give a more instructive account of an individual man by stating that he was man than by stating that he was animal, for the former description is peculiar to the individual in a greater degree, while the latter is too general. Again, the man who gives an account of the nature of an individual tree will give a more instructive account by mentioning the species ‘tree’ than by mentioning the genus ‘plant’.27 Aristotle, however, never questions the nature of the hierarchy—he simply states that this is the way the world is, and one should use the system properly. But why is it that some categories (at the expense of others) seem to provide descriptions that are closer to “the thing itself”? The phenomena of category gradience that Aristotle is describing above has to do with what Eleanor Rosch has called basic-level categories.28 They are less specific than individual instances (proper nouns), but are not so general that they could include many subcategories. The psychologist Roger Brown first studied the way people seem to choose one name for an object at a particular level of hierarchy 27 Aristotle, Categories, trans. Edghill. 28 Lakoff refers to Eleanor Rosch, Carolyn Mervis, Wayne Gray, David Johnson, and Penny Boyes-Braem, “Basic Objects in Natural Categories,” Cognitive Psychology 8 (1976): 382–439 for a summary of findings on what they called basic-level categories. However, he notes that Roger Brown is considered to be the first to have studied the concept in his article, “How Shall a Thing Be Called?,” Psychological Review 65, no. 1 (1958): 14–21.

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chapter 1 ◆ imaginary boundaries as more representative of the object than the many other possible names, such as dime, kitty, and flower.29 This basic level of categorization is the first level of categorization children learn and is the level from which we most often generalize actions (like kitties are for petting and flowers are for smelling). It is also the level at which most things are perceived as a single gestalt. For instance, it is easy to tell a tree from an elephant (both basic-level), but it takes more specific knowledge to distinguish an African elephant from an Asian elephant, and it takes more specific knowledge to learn that elephants and kitties are both mammals. Thus, basic-level categories reside in the middle of the hierarchy of categorization, but have a primary cognitive status. This hierarchy has less to do with the things being categorized than it does with the nature of our processes of categorization. Zbikowksi has argued that Schoenberg’s attempts to define motive seem to correspond with what we now know about basic-level categories.30 The features of a motive are neither the most complex music units (themes, phrases, formal units are bigger), nor are they the simplest (being constructed from multiple intervals and rhythms). Yet, they are often considered psychologically basic, they are easy to remember, and they are perceived as gestalts. Com pl e x C at eg or i e s.  One way that complex categories may be structured is through what Lakoff refers to as domain-of-

29 See Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things, 31–38. 30 Zbikowksi, Conceptualizing Music, 34–36.

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chapter 1 ◆ imaginary boundaries experience chaining.31 For instance in Dyirbal (the Australian aboriginal language whose lexical classifier system gave Lakoff the title for his book) all nouns must be preceded by one of four words that classify the noun and linguistically divide the world into four basic categories. According to R. M. W. Dixon, the researcher who studied the Dyirbal, they are (approximately): I. Baya: human males and animals; II. Balan: human females and water; III. Balam: nonflesh food; and, IV. Bala: everything else.32 However, category II also contains crickets, the sun, fire, and the hairy mary grub. Lakoff explains the complex category in the following way: “In [Dyirbal] myth, crickets are ‘old ladies,’ and so are in class II. According to myth, the moon and the sun are husband and wife; consequently the moon is in class I with other husbands, while the sun is in class II with other wives. The hairy mary grub, whose sting is said to feel like a sunburn, is in class II with the sun.” According to the chaining structure, the sun only comes to be in class II because of the marriage of moon and sun in Dyirbal mythology. But once the sun is in class II with women, it links, through association, to other members and brings them, via a cultural domain of experience, into the class also. Thus, the hairy mary grub, through its association with the sun, comes to be in the same category as women.33 There is nothing about the basic structure of class II as a complex category that could 31 Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things, 92–95. 32 Ibid., 92–93. 33 Hence, the title of Lakoff’s book, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things. Lakoff also notes that native speakers of Dyirbal are only partly able to explain how their category system works. To them it is natural, and because they must choose a modifier for every noun, the application of this system within their world view is both unconscious and automatic.

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chapter 1 ◆ imaginary boundaries predict its membership. Instead, the specific links that put women, fire, and dangerous things into the same category are conventional within a specific cultural domain. However, in yet another attempt to dismantle the myth that all categories are classical, Lakoff also argues that complex categories do not function according to the rules of classical set theory (or even classical fuzzy set theory), in which complex categories can only be formed in one of three ways: intersection, union, or complementation.34 He argues that good examples of complex categories are not always the result of the sum of their parts, and that the prototype for the complex category is not necessarily prototypical for either of the component categories. “A guppy might be a good example of a pet fish, but a bad example of a pet, and a bad example of a fish.”35 The following are some of his other counterexamples: •

small galaxy—not the intersection of the set of small things and the set of galaxies

•

good thief—not the intersection of the set of good things and the set of thieves

•

happy coincidence—not the intersection of the set of happy things and the set of coincidences36

Because complex categories (like pet fish) can clearly have meanings that are not simply a computable product of the combination of their parts, Lakoff argues that complex categories must be the re34 Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things, 140. Remember that when given two sets, A {1, 2, 3} and B {3, 4, 5}, the union of A and B is a set that contains everything in A and B, i.e., A ⋃ B = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5}, and the intersection of A and B is the set of elements contained in A that are also in B, i.e., A ⋂ B = {3}. 35 Ibid., 141. 36 Ibid., 143–44.

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chapter 1 ◆ imaginary boundaries sult of cultural experiences, and that complex categorization must be motivated by the way we employ conceptual models in reasoning. “The meaning of the whole is often motivated by the meanings of the parts, but not predictable from them.”37 A d ho c c at eg or i e s.  In addition to the above category types that Lakoff has discussed, Lawrence Barsalou has studied the relationship between ad hoc categories and goals.38 He argues that ad hoc categories (like things to sell at a garage sale or music I’d like to add to my iPod) cannot possibly be representations of the way the world really is, but rather are temporary categories that are motivated and structured by people’s goals. Barsalou also observes that because people dynamically create structured category representations (which, in some cases, they use to make complex inferences about the world) any “object” can belong to an infinite number of categories.39 For Lakoff, Barsalou’s ad hoc categories are one confirmation that prototype effects are superficial and cannot exist prior to human thinking, since the category structure itself does not exist in advance, but is made up on the spot for temporary purposes. And because ad hoc categories display prototype effects, Lakoff argues that prototype effects must be the result of our cognitive mod-

37 Ibid., 148. 38 Lawrence Barsalou, “Ad Hoc Categories,” Memory and Cognition 11, no. 3 (1983): 211–27. 39 For more on this see Lawrence Barsalou, “Abstraction in Perceptual Symbol Systems,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London: Biological Sciences 358, no. 1435 (2003): 1177–87.

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chapter 1 ◆ imaginary boundaries els, and are not the result of a naturally occurring hierarchy among things in the world.40 Objectivism Another issue Lakoff takes up in his book is the pervasive and long-standing myth (as he describes it) of objectivism—which promotes the misconception that categories exist in the world as boundaries between natural kinds of things. His position on realism—perhaps one of the longest debated topics in Western philosophy—is intimately linked to the arguments he makes about classical categories. Lakoff notes that “most categorization is automatic and unconscious, and if we become aware of it at all, it is only in problematic cases.”41 We do not notice that our brain is doing any work when we categorize. Trees just “seem” to be different from cows. Yet, just because we are not able to observe our own process of categorization does not mean that it is not happening.42 Lakoff argues that the ob40 Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things, 45. 41 Ibid., 6. 42 There are many examples of the ways in which our perceptual processes are invisible to us. For instance, it is well known that our visual field has holes in it, and when we look at things we do not notice that our brain is filling in our visual field with information representing a reality we are not actually seeing. See Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works, (New York: Norton, 1997), esp. chapter 4. Similarly, when we hear a musical note, we conceive of the note’s pitch as if it were a single frequency, and we commonly describe pitch by naming only the fundamental. (In other words, our membership requirement for the category pitch only involves the fundamental and ignores other aspects of the soundscape we perceive.) Does that mean we are not able to hear and process the overtones? Of course not. We simply classify the relative strengths of the overtones as something else—timbre. When we listen to people speaking, we use this ability to perceive overtones in order to distinguish one vowel from another. Vowels are distinguished from each other by their overtones, not their fundamentals. If I sing a note and I want to change the vowel, I adjust the relative strengths of the

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chapter 1 ◆ imaginary boundaries jectivist view of the world (in which there is a single correct description of reality) is partly the result of the very fact that processes of categorization seem automatic and invisible to us. “This sometimes leads to the impression that we just categorize things as they are … and that our categories of mind naturally fit the kinds of things there are in the world.”43 Thus, objectivism and the notion of classical categories are closely related—Aristotle’s essentialism was an attempt to discover and categorize naturally occurring distinctions. Furthermore, our use of basic-level categories gives the false impression that the categories we use most often are naturally occurring. In addition to his contribution of fuzzy categories, Wittgenstein also discusses our ability (or inability, in most cases) to observe our own processes of categorization. In his discussion of knowing versus saying, he asserts that we can know something (like what a clarinet sounds like) without being able to describe it.44 Perhaps more famous than his point about the clarinet is his commentary on the aroma of coffee, which one often finds posted in small coffee shops frequented by graduate students. 610. Describe the aroma of coffee.—Why can’t it be done? Do we lack the words? And for what are words lacking?—But how do we get the idea that such a description must after all be possible? Have you ever tried to describe the aroma and not succeeded?45 overtones—not the fundamental—in order to create the change. This is, incidentally, how Tibetan monks are able to sing “more than one note” at a time. Stockhausen’s Stimmung also makes use of the ability to sing a fundamental note and focus the vowels to maximize the volume of specific overtones to the point where they become obviously audible. 43 Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things, 6. 44 Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 31. 45 Ibid., 134.

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chapter 1 ◆ imaginary boundaries Like Lakoff, Wittgenstein is simply pointing out that our processes of categorization can be invisible to us. Just because we cannot describe the members of a category, or the boundaries of the category, or the process by which category membership is determined does not mean that the category is not psychologically real. And just because the process is invisible to us does not mean that we can assume the category boundary is a natural distinction, existing independently of human observation. Taking this position against objectivism, however, does not imply that objects do not exist in the world apart from our observations—they obviously do, and Lakoff does not deny this form of basic realism.46 Physical matter is not, as the philosopher George Berkeley proposed, a collective figment of our imaginations.47 Whether I personally observe them or not, cows, chairs, and bowling balls all exist in the world. What denying objectivism does mean, however, is that our system of categorization that carves up the world in particular ways (and calls them “cows” and “chairs” and “bowling balls”) is only real with respect to humanly embodied experience. In this sense, Lakoff’s objection to metaphysical objectivism is an opposition to an extreme version of realism that depends exclusively on the

46 See Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things, 158ff. 47 For an overview of the Irish philosopher George Berkeley (1685–1753), see Lisa Downing, “George Berkeley,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (winter 2004 edition), edited by Edward N. Zalta, fixed archive URL available at . In particular, Berkeley’s idealism was a claim that reality exists only in the minds and ideas of people, and that material things do not exist outside of human observation. The article also quotes Berkeley’s famous phrase, “esse est percipi (aut percipere)—to be is to be perceived (or to perceive).”

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chapter 1 ◆ imaginary boundaries (Aristotelian) classical theory of categories.48 Matter exists without people—but categories do not. Because, as Barsalou has shown, there are an infinite number of ways to categorize the world, it is our categorization that makes the world meaningful to us. In order to negotiate the world, we need to create and impose the boundaries we use to make relationships meaningful. Even for physical objects, category boundaries that seem obvious to us do not exist external to human observation. It turns out that cows, chairs, and bowling balls are all bad examples from which to generalize a notion of how categorization works because they are all (from a certain perspective) physically bounded and seem so obviously distinct. Chairs, cows, and bowling balls are not even single objects from all perspectives. If we were the size of, say, electrons, cows, chairs, and bowling balls could not be perceived as individual objects, but would be collections of millions of objects. Lakoff argues extensively that everything about our size and physiology as humans determines the kind of categories that can be meaningful to us. Yet, these (and other basic-level categories of physical objects) are the kind of example from which most people do generalize a folk theory of naturally existing (classical) categories. It is clear, however, that beyond the simplest of examples the notion of boundaries quickly gets complicated. Lakoff notes that we can talk about mountains—but where is the boundary between what belongs to the mountain, and what does not? Where does the mountain begin and end? Lakoff and Johnson calls these boundaries

48 Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things, 158.

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chapter 1 ◆ imaginary boundaries artificial boundaries.49 This is a concept I have attempted to articulate previously in my own writings (before I had read Lakoff) when discussing music analysis. Instead of artificial boundaries, however, I prefer to call them imaginary boundaries, in order to avoid the implication that “artificial” boundaries are somehow fake, or not real. The boundaries we create are very real, and an indispensable component of perceiving the world—but it is important to highlight that they exist only in our imaginations and do not occur naturally in the world.50 Lakoff and Johnson further argue that we extend our need to impose boundaries from physical objects to a wide variety of experiences, including events, actions, emotions, and ideas.51 This eventsas-objects construction has many implications, not the least of which has led many to make the false assumption that there is a single correct description of historical events. Some of the other counter arguments to this view include Hayden White’s philosophy of historical writing,52 and Lydia Goehr’s study of the hypostasization of musical 49 George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1980), 25. 50 See also Alexander Miller, “Realism,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy for an overview of historical and contemporary arguments for and against realism. 51 Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, 25. 52 See, for instance, Hayden White, “The Historical Text as Literary Artifact,” in Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978), 94: “Histories … are not only about events but also about the possible sets of relationships that those events can be demonstrated to figure. These sets of relationships are not, however, immanent in the events themselves; they exist only in the mind of the historian reflecting on them.” See also, Hayden White, Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973).

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chapter 1 ◆ imaginary boundaries phenomena as bounded “works.”53 Hilary Putnam has argued that traditional realism has allowed people to talk about events such as World War I as an object, and has extended the notion to what he calls intentional objects (or objects of desire), such as “the novel I wish I had written.”54 The implications of this brand of basic realism continually put the focus on the narrator rather than the object as the locus of meaning, and requires that meaningfulness is dependent on the construction of categories in order to highlight some relationships over others. As Pinker has humorously noted, “even if World War I consisted of nothing by a very, very large number of quarks in a very, very complicated pattern of motion, no insight is gained by describing it that way.”55 The Effects of Linguistic Categories and Naming Strategies The names we use to describe objects and events are related to the conceptual frameworks that categorize and carve up our reality. Like the sound spectrum, the color spectrum is continuous and does not come pre-divided into discrete units. In 1984, Paul Kay (then a professor of Linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley) and Willett Kempton (then an adjunct assistant professor of anthropology at Michigan State University) devised a set of two experiments 53 Lydia Goehr, The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works: An Essay in the Philosophy of Music (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1992). 54 Hilary Putnam, “Sense, Nonsense, and the Senses: An Inquiry into the Powers of the Human Mind,” Journal of Philosophy 91, no. 9. (1994), 450. 55 Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature (New York: Viking, 2002), 70. He refers to this as bad reductionism.

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chapter 1 ◆ imaginary boundaries designed to test the effect of lexical categories on color discrimination.56 Specifically, they wondered whether the names we use to describe colors have any effect on our perception of color relationships along a continuous spectrum. They tested two groups of people: •

Native English speakers (who make “a basic lexical distinction between the color categories ‘blue’ and ‘green’ ”57); and

•

Native speakers of Tarahumara (an “Uto-Aztecan language of Northern Mexico” that “lacks this basic lexical distinction, having instead the basic term siyóname, which means ‘green or blue’ ”58).

In the first experiment, they tested the two groups on their subjective ability to judge the relative distance between three colors that lay somewhere on the spectrum between pure blue and pure green. They predicted that because English speakers had two lexical categories and Tarahumara speakers only had one, that they could measure the perceptual effect of the imaginary boundary between blue and green in English speakers, who would exaggerate color distances across the blue/green boundary.59 56 Paul Kay and Willett Kempton, “What Is the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis?,” American Anthropologist 86, no. 1 (1984): 65–79. Note that Paul Kay is Lakoff’s colleague (emeritus) at the University of California, Berkeley. Willett Kempton, now at the University of Delaware, received his Ph.D. from The University of Texas at Austin in 1977, and was a post-doctoral researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, in the early 1980s. 57 Ibid., 68 58 Ibid. 59 Kay and Kempton define the blue/green lexical category boundary as “that wavelength at which an equal mixture of green and blue is perceived” (68). Blue and green are adjacent in the color spectrum and form “two overlapping gradient categories,” (68) meaning all colors in between pure blue and pure green are some mixture of blue and green. They define the “real” distance between colors on the spectrum as the discrimination distance, against which they can measure perceived distortions.

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chapter 1 ◆ imaginary boundaries Subjects were shown three colored chips at a time and asked to determine which of the colors was the most distant from the other two. This was repeated four times. In test 1 of the first experiment, colors A, B, and C were not evenly distributed along the spectrum, and the discrimination distance between A and B was larger than the discrimination distance between B and C. (In other words, A and B were farther apart than B and C.) However, because the blue/ green lexical boundary fell directly between B and C, English speakers consistently (and incorrectly) chose C as the most different. Kay and Kempton concluded that this is because English speakers call both A and B “blue” and they call C “green,” leading them to the consistently incorrect conclusion that C was farther from B than A was from B. Predictably, the Tarahumara speakers all chose correctly that A was farther from B than B was from C—presumably because there was no lexical boundary to interfere. In each of the four tests in the first experiment, the discrimination distances were different and the three colors fell in different places on the spectrum (between pure blue and pure green). And in each case, English speakers’ subjective judgements were distorted with respect to the discrimination distances, and Tarahumara speakers’ were not. Kay and Kempton concluded that the only thing that could account for their results was the presence of the lexical boundary—which had consistently predictable effects on English speakers (whose subjective judgements of distances near the lexical boundary were always distorted) and had no effect on Tarahumara speakers (who always chose the correct discrimination distances). One of the most interesting things Kay and Kempton did was to 39

chapter 1 ◆ imaginary boundaries explain to the English speakers (after the initial four tests of experiment 1 were complete) what they thought was happening with the lexical boundary. They then asked the English speakers to look again at the groups of colors and suppress their urge to name the colors when making their judgements about distance. The experimenters reported that the subjects continued to choose the “wrong” color, claiming that it simply “looked” the most different, leading Kay and Kempton to conclude that a lexical “naming strategy” (as they call it) creates for the subject an imaginary boundary that “operates at a level that is not only out of consciousness but cannot be brought under conscious control.”60 However, although subjects were not consciously able to suppress their naming strategy (and the boundary distortions it entails), Kay and Kempton devised a second experiment that was designed to suppress the lexical boundary for them. Experiment 2 only involved English speakers. Kay and Kempton used exactly the same colored chips from the first experiment, except that they put them in a box with a sliding top so that the subjects could only see two chips at a time. Here is their summary of the instructions they gave to subjects: Experimenter exposes pair (A, B). “You can see that this chip (points to A) is greener than this chip (points to B).” (All subjects readily agreed.) Experimenter slides cover so that A is covered and C exposed along with B; that is, the pair (B, C) is now exposed, “You can see that this chip (points to C) is bluer than this chip (points to B).” (Again all subjects agreed without problems.) “Now,” experimenter hands stimuli to subject, “you may slide the cover back and forth as often as you like. I’d like you to tell me which is bigger: the difference in greeness between the two 60 Kay and Kempton, “The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis,” 75.

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chapter 1 ◆ imaginary boundaries chips on the left or the difference in blueness between the two chips on the right.”61 What Kay and Kempton did was to block the naming strategy by forcing subjects to (conceptually) call the chip in the middle both “blue” and “green,” even though the subjects could clearly see that there were only three chips. Predictably, subjects’ judgements in the second experiment about the relative distances (being unaffected by the lexical category boundary) consistently agreed with the actual discrimination distances. It is clear from experiments like this one, that naming can affect perception.62 However, it is also clear that categories of naming do not bind us to a view of the world that is exclusively determined by our lexical categories (like having separate names for blue and green). That is, it seems apparent that having names for blue and green is one factor that contributes to a conceptual model of color categorization, but that different strategies of conceptual categorization can also produce differences in perception. Kay and Kempton note this in their conclusions when they deny that their experiment supports radical linguistic determinism, “in which the structure of the language imposes its categories as the only categories in which we can experience the world.”63 61 Ibid., 73. 62 Kay and Kempton seem to support the basic Husserlian phenomenological argument that how one sees or conceptualizes or understands an “object” defines the meaning of that object in the domain of experience. Kay and Kempton, however, trace their position through Whorf and Sapir to Boas, not to Husserl or the subsequent philosophical traditions of phenomenology of Heidegger, Sartre, Beauvoir, or Merleau-Ponty. 63 Kay and Kempton, “The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis,” 75.

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chapter 1 ◆ imaginary boundaries Semiotics, Meaning, and the Conduit Metaphor Between 1906 and 1911 the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure gave a series of lectures at the University of Geneva that were later transcribed by his students as the Course in General Linguistics. His notion that “the linguistic sign is arbitrary” was an attempt to disconnect signs from predetermined (objectivist) signification.64 In other words, he was trying to counter the argument that language consists of “natural” correspondences between signals (written words or sounds) and their signification. However, semiotics, which grew into a significant discipline of its own after Saussure, tends to focus on how symbols (the signals) get their meaning in relation to other symbols, and has been explored extensively as a means of discussing musical meaning.65 Lakoff, however, points out that if we must give up objectivism as a means of thinking about the physical universe, then we must also give it up when talking about meaning. “To question the classical view of categories in a fundamental way is to question the view of reason as disembodied symbol-manipulation.”66 In general, a semiotic approach that assumes that symbols get their meaning exclusively from their relation to other symbols inherently assumes that meaning can somehow be contained in the symbol. Yet, this is one of the most pervasive views of meaning. Michael Reddy has called 64 Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics, trans. Roy Harris (London: G. Duckworth, 1983), 67. 65 Steven Feld and Aaron A. Fox, “Music and Language,” Annual Review of Anthropology 23 (1994): 25–53. 66 Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things, 8.

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chapter 1 ◆ imaginary boundaries this view of meaning the conduit metaphor, which Lakoff summarizes as follows: ideas (or meanings) are objects. linguistic expressions are containers. communication is sending.67 This is the very (common) view of meaning that Nattiez has attempted to overcome through models of poietics and esthesics.68 Yet, the container aspect of the above metaphor implies that words, or sentences, or music, or any other means of communication can have meaning independent of any particular context, which Lakoff refutes. “Meaning is not a thing; it involves what is meaningful to us. Nothing is meaningful in itself.”69 And meaning does not arise magically out of the interactions and transformations of symbols alone. Idealized Cognitive Models In an attempt to explain how meaning arises from our interactions with the world, Lakoff proposes four basic kinds of cognitive models: propositional, image-schematic, metaphoric, and met­o­ nymic. For Lakoff, these idealized cognitive models are approximate representations (hence idealized) of how we structure our thought and reasoning. “Propositional and image-schematic models characterize structure; metaphoric and met­o­nymic models characterize

67 Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, 10. 68 Jean-Jacques Nattiez, Music and Discourse: Toward a Semiology of Music (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990). 69 Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things, 292.

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chapter 1 ◆ imaginary boundaries mappings that make use of structural models.”70 One of the most important aspects of his argument is that these models are a direct result of our physical and physiological existence as humans, and are thus “directly embodied with respect to their content or else they are systematically linked to directly embodied models.”71 Thus, the notion of an up-down image schema is directly meaningful with respect to our human existence, and can be metaphorically mapped into other domains, such as the arrangement of natural numbers, or pitch. Since we understand the relationships in the up-down schema in our physical domain, when the model is transferred to another domain, the relationships remain the same and we use the elements of the original model to create meaning among the elements in the new domain. Metaphor According to Lakoff and Johnson, conceptual metaphor is understood as a basic mechanism for organizing structured thought in which relationships from one kind of experience are mapped into the structure of another kind of experience. “The essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another.”72 Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature. … Our concepts structure what we perceive, how we get around in the 70 Ibid., 154. 71 Ibid., 13. 72 Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, 5.

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chapter 1 ◆ imaginary boundaries world, and how we relate to other people. Our conceptual system thus plays a central role in defining our everyday realities. … But our conceptual system is not something we are normally aware of.73 For Lakoff and Johnson, metaphor is central to notions of understanding how we conceptualize nearly all aspects of the world. It often begins with embodied notions of spatial relationships we experience physically, and maps those relationships into other domains, creating an increasingly complicated web of concepts which we can deploy in constantly changing circumstances. Lakoff and Johnson make a strong case for the importance of metaphor in understanding how we make sense of the world. In their book, Metaphors We Live By, they claim that metaphor is not just a matter of language, that is, of mere words. … We shall argue that, on the contrary, human thought processes are largely metaphorical. This is what we mean when we say that the human conceptual system is metaphorically structured and defined. Metaphors as linguistic expressions are possible precisely because there are metaphors in a person’s conceptual system. Therefore, whenever … we speak of metaphors … it should be understood that metaphor means metaphorical concept.74 In their discussion of the argument is war conceptual metaphor, Lakoff and Johnson note that while arguments and wars are two different kinds of things, the concept of an “argument is partially structured, understood, performed, and talked about in terms of war. The concept is metaphorically structured, the activity is metaphorically structured, and, consequently, the language is metaphori73 Ibid., 3. 74 Ibid., 6.

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chapter 1 ◆ imaginary boundaries cally structured.”75 The notion of conceptual metaphor does not simply govern the way we think about things (in this case one thing in terms of another). Conceptual metaphors, they argue, govern our behavior as well. It is important to see that we don’t just talk about arguments in terms of war. We can actually win or lose arguments. We see the person we are arguing with as an opponent. We attack his positions and we defend our own. We gain and lose ground. We plan and use strategies. If we find a position indefensible, we can abandon it and take a new line of attack.76 However, not all arguments are structured by the argument is war metaphor. Arguments can also be structured by a trade metaphor in which people can be understood to be exchanging time and ideas (each of which, in turn, is structured by an “x” is a commodity metaphor). And in many cases, when there are multiple ways of structuring our understanding of a particular situation, one conceptual metaphor can be hidden by the presence of another. For example, in the midst of a heated argument, when we are intent on attacking our opponent’s position and defending our own, we may lose sight of the cooperative aspects of arguing. Someone who is arguing with you can be viewed as giving you his time, a valuable commodity, in an effort at mutual understanding. But when we are preoccupied with the battle aspects, we often lose sight of the cooperative aspects.77 Lakoff’s notion of metaphor, then—as a basic function of thought and reasoning—allows us to extend directly embodied experiences 75 Ibid., 5. 76 Ibid., 4–5. 77 Ibid., 10.

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chapter 1 ◆ imaginary boundaries (represented by image-schematic structures and other basic structures) into domains of experience that do not have a directly embodied structure of their own.78 For Zbikowski, metaphor and cross-domain mapping (as he calls it) are central to issues of both musical theory and perception, because they get at the heart of why the models we use function the way they do. In particular, he investigates how different conceptual models of hierarchy inform different perspectives of the same musical structures. “Conceptual models do not give us access to deep, timeless, and immutable truths about musical structure. They instead offer us an image of how we construct our understanding of music.”79 Thus, two models of hierarchy (chain-of-being and atomistic) represent an understanding of musical structure based on a metaphorical mapping of relationships from other domains of experience, and construct musical relationships in different ways. Chain-of-being hierarchies model music from the top down and are “the consequence of a single overarching principle that, through elaboration, gives rise to the musical surface,” while atomistic hierarchies are “the result of small patterns that combine to form larger patterns, which in turn combine to form still larger patterns.”80 In general, the chain-of-being metaphor has been applied to theories of music that view the tonic as a controlling entity of tonal music, whereas theorists who have focused on rhythm and meter arrive at atomistic accounts that build larger and larger structures out of repetitions of smaller pat78 Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things, 302–03. 79 Lawrence Zbikowski, “Conceptual Models,” 218. 80 Ibid., 200.

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chapter 1 ◆ imaginary boundaries terns. In the next chapter I will explore the similarity of Bartók’s and Schoenberg’s writings on organicism. While the organicist metaphor results in a chain-of-being hierarchical system for Heinrich Schenker, for both Bartók and Schoenberg it seems to imply an atomistic hierarchy in which natural growth is a mechanistic unfolding and expanding from an original seed. t h e su fr ace/dep t h m eta phor .   One specific metaphor that I want to investigate briefly is what we might call the surface/depth metaphor, which maps the values deeper is better/shallower is worse into other domains. The model is not only extremely common, it is also quite old—going back at least to Shakespeare.81 In English, the metaphor is particularly used to make judgements about a persons intellectual capacity, ability to reason, and capacity for emotion, with the values things at the surface are superficial and things that are deeper are more profound as the following examples demonstrate: She’s really deep. He’s a shallow fool. The professor has an unsurpassed depth of knowledge. On the surface it looks simple, until we look deeper. His arguments lacked depth. The book wasn’t very deep. I’m deeply sorry. Words can’t express how deeply I love you. I can’t fathom it (i.e., I can’t go deep enough to understand it). It’s unfathomable. She is deep in thought. Dig deep within yourself. The depths of despair. He barely scratched the surface. In deep shit.

81 See, for instance, Much Ado About Nothing, act II, scene III, Benedick: “I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much another man is a fool when he dedicates his behaviors to love, will, after he hath laughed at such shallow follies in others, become the argument of his own scorn by failing in love: and such a man is Claudio.”

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chapter 1 ◆ imaginary boundaries The surface/depth metaphor can be applied to many aspects of our everyday interactions, from physical objects (including their boundaries and constitution) to the emotional states of humans Compare the following two uses of the complex surface/depth metaphor: the surface is a superficial boundary deeper levels hold the true substance •

The surface of the lake is calm, but there is a monster hiding within.

•

On the surface Bob seems calm, but there is a monster hiding within.

In the first case, the surface of the lake acts as a physical boundary between what we can observe and what we cannot. In the second case, Bob’s observable demeanor is not as meaningful (with regard to “who Bob really is”) as his emotional state—especially for Bob’s co-workers at the Post Office. Furthermore, his public demeanor, like the surface of the lake, acts as a boundary, hiding his emotional state. Although the surface is superficial in both cases (i.e., the surface is deceptive with regard to some more important truth) it is also the only level at which the observer actually interacts with the entity (whether lakes, or people, or whatever). Under most normal circumstances, the deeper level is not immediately observable. While all levels present some aspect of truth (the surface of the lake is indeed calm)—the deeper level is more important, and hence is more meaningful, to our understanding of the entity as a whole. In both cases, the deeper levels are not impossible to observe, but the most common interaction is with the surface. The fact that in some instances 49

chapter 1 ◆ imaginary boundaries we grade which of the many possible sub-parts of an entity is most representative of the entity as a whole is a met­o­nymic prototype effect. The cultural value distinction between perceived surface and deeper levels may also have many implications for the way we treat genres, styles, composers, performers, musical works, and analysis itself—not to mention other people. (Think of the negative connotations of shallow personalities or shallow relationships.) The notion that a musical reduction constitutes a deeper level than the surface often implies that it is more true than the surface—that the reduction has more truth value (i.e., is more representative of “what the piece really is”) and is consequently more meaningful than the surface alone. This often leads to the false assumption that the reduction is an objectivist truth—that an especially meaningful reduction must be the only correct description of reality. Note that we have alternate terminology for level reductions (including foreground/ background) that do not promote the same values as the surface/ depth metaphor, though, whether Schenker intended it or not, I believe that values about surface/depth levels have come to be embedded in our cultural concepts of reductionism in general, and we need to be aware of them if we are to deploy them (or not deploy them) intentionally instead of unconsciously. Note that in the above examples, there is an essentialist bent to the value system of the surface/depth image schema. Take unfathomable, for instance. It implies that there exists some hypostasization that is so deep that no one can understand it. But according to the conceptualization, “it” is nevertheless still out there—existing 50

chapter 1 ◆ imaginary boundaries objectively in the world, futilely waiting to be correctly described or understood. This is a remnant of objectivist realism and the eventsas-objects construction. Frames In his most recent work, Thinking Points, Lakoff discusses how our everyday language activates culturally embedded metaphors.82 The idea is that frames “structure our ideas and concepts, … shape the way we reason, and … even impact how we perceive and how we act”83—determining normative behavior within social institutions, and defining complex relationships between people, locations, and objects. In other words, frames are complete sets of conventionalized relationships that are invoked by elements of the frame itself. Take the hospital frame: if I mention a surgery, waiting rooms, or gowns without backs I can activate the entire hospital frame, complete with information about physical spaces, objects, actions, and social roles. Patients wait in waiting rooms and surgeons perform surgeries. Visitors do not put needles in nurses, and neurologists do not clean toilets. Understanding the frame is to be competent in its conventional structure.

82 See Lakoff and the Rockridge Institute, Thinking Points: Communicating Our American Values and Vision (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2006), 25ff. Lakoff builds his notion of framing on the work of Erving Goffman; see Goffman, Frame Analysis (New York: Harper, 1974). 83 Lakoff, Thinking Points, 25.

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chapter 1 ◆ imaginary boundaries Met­o­nymic Models and Hierarchy Finally, if metaphor provides a means of understanding one domain in terms of another, then met­o­nymy occurs within a single domain in which one thing is substituted for another. In some uses synecdoche is distinguished from met­o­nymy in the quality of meaning that results from the substitution. Hayden White regards met­o­ nymy as simple name-change substitution (e.g., “Table 2 needs another iced-tea,”) where “table 2” is substituted for the person sitting at table 2. The expression “He is all heart,” however, not only uses a part to stand for the whole, but is synecdochic in the sense that the meaning is not computable from the substitution of parts, but rather allows the part (“heart”) to stand symbolically for some essential quality of the whole.84 However, since synecdoche is simply a special case of met­o­nymy, I will not distinguish between the two but will refer to all single-domain substitutions as met­o­nymy. For the purposes of this project, this will mostly apply to hierarchical reductions in which some reductive musical structure comes to stand for a portion of the piece or the piece itself in a part-whole relationship. Lakoff argues that met­o­nymy is central to reasoning, specifically “what Rosch calls reference-point reasoning,” including using arithmetic submodels for making approximations, making rapid judgements using stereotypes, using familiar examples and typical cases to make judgements about probability, using paragons to make comparisons, and using ideals to make plans.85 Met­o­nymic

84 See White, Metahistory, 31–38. 85 Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things, 145.

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chapter 1 ◆ imaginary boundaries substitutions are not merely referential, but often provide specific ways of understanding one thing based on the characteristics of another. When the member of a category that stands met­o­nymically for the category as a whole is a stereotype, typical example, ideal, or subcategory, then it is also usually a best example of the category and displays prototype effects.86 Met­o­nymic prototypes can also affect our expectations. The housewife model of mother is a social stereotype that is “a case of met­o­nymy—where a subcategory has a socially recognized status as standing for the category as a whole, usually for the purpose of making quick judgements about people.”87 But the prototype does more than just allow us to decide whether someone is or is not a kind of mother—it defines the normal cultural expectations against which other kinds of mothers are judged. Thus, working mother is a marked category with a negative connotation precisely because the housewife mother (as the met­o­nymic prototype) is not simply one possible kind of mother but defines the norms for the category as a whole. Prototype effects are not a feature of models, but arise out of the way we use our models to reason about the world. If met­o­nymic models in general display prototype effects, then what are the implications for hierarchical models of musical reduction? Combined with surface/depth values and prototype effects, we can see that met­ o­nymic submodels can easily be taken as the best example of the category, regardless of how the reduction was achieved. But there is the further complication that musical hierarchies are often treated 86 Ibid., 288–89. 87 Ibid., 79.

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chapter 1 ◆ imaginary boundaries as classical hierarchies that are constructed out of classical categories. Classical hierarchies are structured as embedded containers, are intended to be exhaustive, and necessarily categorize all the elements in the hierarchy according to essential properties that act as the function of the element within the hierarchy. This can be very useful, but we must remember that classical hierarchies are not objectivist accounts of musical truths, nor can they entirely model our perception, which is much more fluid. Like classical categories, however, classical hierarchies are a pervasive view of taxonomic categorization. “People have many ways of making sense of things—and taxonomies of all sorts abound. Yet the idea that there is a single right taxonomy of natural things is remarkably persistent.”88

88 Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things, 119.

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Chapter 2 Organicism and Developing Variation Given Bartók’s assertion that Schoenberg’s Op. 11 showed him the “new ways and means” of modern composition, this chapter is an attempt to evaluate how (if at all) the brand of developing variation in Schoenberg’s Op. 11 may have influenced Bartók’s compositional technique in some of his last pieces. It is my hope that by comparing Schoenberg’s and Bartók’s writings on the development of musical ideas—focusing on the similarities and differences between manifestations of the organic metaphor in their discourse—that we can come to a better understanding of how to organize our conceptual categories for analyzing and understanding their music. At the same time, comparing similar techniques in different contexts, in light of the composers’ own writings, raises questions about the nature of our perspective on issues related to musical development  ence.

See the prologue of this dissertation for the full quotation and refer-

 There are several seminal articles and book chapters on organicism in the writings of Bartók and Schoenberg, including: Judit Frigyesi, Béla Bartók and Turn-of-the-Century Budapest (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1998), esp. chapters 1 and 4; Ruth Solie, “The Living Work: Organicism and Music Analysis,” 19th-Century Music 4, no. 2 (1980): 147–56; Severine Neff, “Schoenberg and Analysis: Reworking a Coda of Brahms,” International Journal of Musicology 3 (1994): 187–202; Severine Neff, “Schoenberg and Goethe: Organicism and Analysis,” in Music Theory and the Exploration of the Past (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 409–33; and Patricia Carpenter and Severine Neff, “Commentary,” in Arnold Schoenberg: The Musical Idea, and the Logic, Technique, and Art of Its Presentation (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2006) 1–86.

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chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation in the early twentieth century, particularly post-tonal prolongation and hierarchy—which will be the subject of the next chapter. Because Schoenberg’s Op. 11, No. 1, has such a varied history of analysis, I will close this chapter with two of my own analyses. The first is a formalist structural analysis and arrives at a reading of formal divisions of the piece based on a motivic interpretation of organic development. The second reflects a narrative interpretation, based on my own experiential perception, and arrives at a slightly different formal emplotment than the first. Organicism and Folk Music For both Schoenberg and Bartók, who constantly remind us in their writings that they wish to be considered “evolutionary” and not “revolutionary,” organic unity was a concept that allowed them not only to position their art in a tradition of intellectual rigor, but also to position the progressive aspects of their music as “natural.” There is always an element of intellectual challenge in music that attempts to be new—not simply in the sense of original (i.e., not done before) but progressive with respect to specific traditions. In many respects, the organic metaphor permeated not only their view of artistic creations, but of their own historical connection to the past, in

 “Natural” often means something different for Bartók than it does for Schoenberg. However, implicit in the metaphor of organicism are the general value distinctions natural is good and unnatural is bad. When organicism as a metaphor for musical works is employed by Schoenberg and Bartók, the positive and negative values of the parent metaphor often becomes the criteria for judging the value of art (i.e., if it is a good example of organicism, then it is “natural” and therefore better than music that is not a good example of organicism).

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chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation the sense that new genius could only grow out of the traditions of old genius. At a time, however, when Dada and other avant garde artists were challenging traditional art in extreme ways, both Bartók and Schoenberg attempted to soften the newness of their music and ideas by reminding people of the traditional aspects of their music—aspects that in some cases have proven neither obvious nor redeeming for the public at large. One way to do this was to utilize a concept of organic unity that would connect them to established traditions of genius. Thus, the view of unity as a measure of a composer’s genius comes to be seen as a means of separating Art from the mediocrity of lesser pursuits. In this sense, many composers (including Schoenberg and Bartók), critics, and historians, have used the values associated with the concept of organic unity to asses the value of art in terms of intellectual (as opposed to, say, commercial) value. The paradox of Schoenberg’s conception of originality—a hold-

 As I stated in the prologue, I am interested in this study primarily in Schoenberg’s middle period, specifically, the Op. 11, No. 1.  See Janet M. Levy, “Covert and Casual Values in Recent Writings about Music,” Journal of Musicology 5, no. 1 (1987): 3–27. In her article, Levy exposes the values that lie behind modern writing and thinking about Western music. Mostly she is interested in demonstrating how language based on the metaphor of organicism reveals a covert set of values that are often assumed to be selfevident. Yet, far from universal, or self-evident, she shows how language that depends on, or employs organic metaphors necessarily invokes an entire value system (a frame, as Lakoff would call it) that implicitly defines both positive and negative values for the music it describes. Note that without herself being explicit about the metaphor, she also discusses surface/depth values associated with notions of music and value (p. 16). In particular, she points out the prevalence of language that refers to “stripping away,” in which the “truth” of musical meaning lies somewhere underneath (p. 16, n. 44). We will see in both Schoenberg’s and Bartók’s writings that they share a notion of musical essence, its true meaning, that lies somewhere below the surface of the compositions.

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chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation over from nineteenth century constructions of genius—results in a tension between his idea that the composer need not rely on outside influence, or preexisting music, for inspiration, and his notion that he was consciously attempting to create “national” German music. In particular, Schoenberg wrote a fairly scathing essay on the use of folk music in art music composition, in which he argued that “the discrepancy between the requirements of larger forms and the simple construction of folk tunes has never been solved and can never be solved.” While he admires the beauty of folk music in itself, the use of preexisting folk tunes contradicts one of his basic conceptions of the role of the composer—to create a motivic “problem” that is worked out in the piece. Yet, while Schoenberg seemed to give more priority to the composers’ ability to create coherence through the manipulation of original ideas, Bartók claimed that folk music (at least the folk music that he constructed as authentic—i.e., the oldest, and “purest” manifestations of Hungarian and other ethnic identities) was already an example of a perfected art. Peasant music, in the strict sense of the word, must be regarded as a natural phenomenon; the forms in which it manifests itself are due to the instinctive transforming power of a community entirely devoid of erudition. It is just as much a natural phenomenon as, for instance, the various manifestations of Nature in fauna and flora. Correspondingly it has in its individual parts an absolute artistic perfection, a perfection in miniature forms which—one might say—is equal to the perfection of a musical  See Arnold Schoenberg, “Folkloristic Symphonies [1947],” in Style and Idea, ed. Leonard Stein, trans. Leo Black (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1975), 163. Note in particular that even though this is from 1947 he does not mention Bartók or the Concerto for Orchestra in the essay.

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chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation masterpiece of the largest proportions. It is the classical model of how to express an idea musically in the most concise form, with the greatest simplicity of means, with freshness and life, briefly yet completely and properly proportioned. … It is a noteworthy fact that artistic perfection can only be achieved by one of the two extremes: on the one hand by peasant folk in the mass, completely devoid of the culture of the town-dweller, on the other by creative power of an individual genius. Thus, for Bartók, the allusion to folk music in the form of an assimilated essence (in a composer’s compositional language) adds a layer of “perfection” to the music. On the other hand, the quality of genius of the composer, for Bartók, is not simply reflected in the origin of ideas (especially those simply borrowed from folk music) or in the mere reference to folk music, but in how musical ideas are developed. This stark contrast to Schoenberg’s attempts to find the “essence” of music’s meaning is evident in Bartók’s 1931 essay on the value of folk music in art-music composition. Many people think it a comparatively easy task to write a composition round folk melodies. A lesser achievement at least than a composition on ‘original’ themes. Because, they think, the composer is relieved of part of the work: the invention of themes. This regrettable opinion is based on erroneous assumptions. These people must have a strange idea of the practice of composing. They seem to think the composer addicted to collecting folk songs will sit down at his writing desk with the intention of composing a symphony. He racks and racks his brain but cannot think of a suitable melody. He takes up his collection of folk songs, picks out one or two melodies and the composition of his symphony is done without further labour. Well, it is not as simple as all that. It is a fatal error to attribute so much importance to the subject, the theme of all com Béla Bartók, “The Relation of Folk Song to the Development of the Art Music of Our Time [1921],” in Béla Bartók Essays, ed. Benjamin Suchoff (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1976), 321–22.

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chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation position. We know that Shakespeare borrowed the stories of his plays from all sources. Does that prove that his brain was barren and he had to go to his neighbours begging for themes? Did he hide his incompetence? And Bartók goes on, not only to defend the position that development is more important than originality, but to trace the bias against folk-music as a remnant of nineteenth-century conceptions of originality. The conception that attributes all that importance to the invention of a theme originated in the nineteenth century. It is a Romantic conception which values originality above all. There are [also] people who believe that nothing more is needed to bring about the full bloom in a nation’s music than to steep oneself in folk music and to transplant its motives into established musical forms. This opinion is founded on the same mistaken conception as the one discussed above. It stresses the all-importance of themes and forgets about the art of formation that alone can make something out of these themes. This process of moulding is the part of the composer’s work which proves his creative talent. A bad composer, according to Bartók, will not create great pieces no matter where the initial ideas come from—but a good composer can reveal their genius through the masterful development of ideas. And thus we may say: folk music will become a source of inspiration for a country’s music only if the transplantation of its motives is the work of a great creative talent. In the hands of incompetent composers neither folk music nor any other musical material will ever attain significance.10  Bartók, “The Significance of Folk Music [1931],” in Béla Bartók Essays, 345–47.  Ibid. 10 Ibid.

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chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation Furthermore, Bartók asserts that whether the “borrowed” material is from folk music, or an established style, the real value is always in the development of musical ideas. As a composer, Dohnányi’s works have an unquestionable value: there is nothing really new in his music and his style is nothing but an epigone of the great Germans—of Schumann and Brahms first of all, of Wagner and perhaps also of Strauss later on—but the artist reveals features in which these different influences can coexist.11 Interestingly, while Schoenberg argued that folk music could not be reconciled with the developmental requirements (as he saw them) of Western classical traditions, Bartók argued exactly the opposite—that Beethoven and Haydn are the model for incorporating folk music into art music.12 [T]he practice of employing peasant music in the attempt to put life into works of art music is not entirely new, but appears merely to have disappeared for a certain time during the nineteenth century. In fact, many symphonic themes—especially in last movements—of the Viennese Classics, Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, suggest peasant music.13 Bartók’s examples are from a collection of Yugoslav folk songs: the first folk song is identical to the finale of Haydn’s Symphony No. 104 in D major, and the second and third folk songs are nearly identical

476.

11 Bartók, “On Modern Music in Hungary [1921],” in Béla Bartók Essays,

12 See Schoenberg, “Folkloristic Symphonies,” in Style and Idea, 161–166. Note, in particular, that Schoenberg argues that Beethoven’s use of folk music can be “excused” as an “obstacle connected with commissions” (p. 162). 13 See Bartók, “The Relation of Folk Song,” in Béla Bartók Essays, 325–26.

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chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation to the first theme of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6. The third of his examples is especially striking in its similarity to the Beethoven. Thus, Bartók and Schoenberg constructed different versions of the historical value of folk music (and quotation/allusion in general) in art music composition. In contrast to Schoenberg’s exclusive concept of a composer’s originality, Bartók’s inclusive concept of organicism results in a web of allusive signification that consciously attempts to connect his compositions to various ethnic and national identities through references to supposed primordial essences (which, of course, are “good” because he views them as a natural manifestation of the people). Developing Variation and Coherence In his essays and books, Schoenberg comes back again and again to the idea that his music is an extension of nineteenth-century principles of composition, and his language about his music (as well as about the music of those he claims to emulate) is steeped in the organicist model of musical coherence—out of which grows his notion of developing variation. “It is seldom realized,” he writes, “that there is a link between the technique of forerunners and that of an innovator and that no new technique in the arts is created that has not had its roots in the past.”14 One of the specific links that Schoenberg uses to connect his music to an organically evolving past is his concept of developing variation—which he claims began with Bach, whose

14 Schoenberg, “A Self Analysis [1948],” in Style and Idea, 76.

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chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation use of the technique “made possible the style of the great Viennese Classicists.”15 Music of the homophonic-melodic style of composition … produces its material by, as I call it, developing variation. This means that variation of the features of a basic unit produces all the thematic formulations which provide for fluency, contrasts, variety, logic, and unity, on the one hand, and character, mood, expression, and every needed differentiation, on the other hand—thus elaborating the idea of the piece.16 Bartók has a similar notion of what makes a piece coherent, and it involves the integration of elements in an evolving process in the music—yet, the idea of the piece is bigger than simply the arrangement of abstract musical parameters. Bartók criticized Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring for its repetition, juxtaposition, and lack of organization. Stravinsky’s Sacre du printemps is one of the best examples of the intensive permeation of art music by genuine peasant music. The work, in spite of its extraordinary verve and power, fails to be completely satisfying. Under the influence of the short-winded structure of the Russian peasant melodies, Stravinsky did not escape the danger of yielding to a broken mosaic-like construction which is sometimes disturbing and of which the effect is enhanced by his peculiar technique, monotonous as it becomes by repetition and by its practice of as it were automatically superimposing several chord-sequences of varying length, in constant repetition, without regard to their consonances. It is not the Russian peasant music that we must blame for this, but the composer’s lack of grasp and power of organization. As a negative example of what I mean, the works of Schoen15 Schoenberg, “New Music, Outmoded Music, Style and Idea [1946],” in Style and Idea, 118. 16 Schoenberg, “Bach [1950],” in Style and Idea, 397.

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chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation berg may be mentioned. He is free from all peasant influence and his complete alienation to Nature, which of course I do not regard as a blemish, is no doubt the reason why many find his work so difficult to understand.17 Furthermore, what Bartók criticizes about Schoenberg’s music in general is its lack of reference to anything outside itself. As Judit Frigyesi put it, “At its best, Schoenberg’s commitment to society was an abstract one based on the belief that the moral value of art transcends the artistic needs of specific communities.”18 Bartók, on the other hand, who was consciously trying to develop a “‘new’ Hungarian art music” held a view of organic developing variation in which reference—specifically to the “natural” traditions of the people—was an integral component.19 [I]n our case it was not a question of merely taking unique melodies in any way whatsoever, and then incorporating them—or fragments of them—in our works, there to develop them according to the traditionally established custom. This would have been mere craftsmanship, and could have led to no new and unified style. What we had to do was to grasp the spirit of this hitherto unknown music and to make this spirit (difficult to describe in words) the basis of our works.20 The indescribable “essence” of folk music was seen as a layer that, for Bartók, had the potential to transform mere craftsmanship into works of art through its inherent “perfection.” And it is this combination of the expert handling of the development of musical materi-

17 Bartók, “The Relation of Folk Song,” in Béla Bartók Essays, 325–26. 18 Frigyesi, Béla Bartók and Turn-of-the-Century Budapest, 40. 19 See Bartók, “Harvard Lectures [1943],” in Béla Bartók Essays, 354–92. 20 Bartók, “The Folk Songs of Hungary [1928],” in Béla Bartók Essays, 333.

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chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation als and the essence (not quotation) of folk music that defines for him the promise of a new national style. Terminology and the Problem of Signification Why is it that Schoenberg was not able to write a single, all-encompassing definition for a seemingly simple term like “motive”? In the Gedanke manuscripts of the 1930s, he seems to spin an ambiguous web around the relationships of motive, idea, gestalt, and grundgestalt.21 In Fundamentals of Musical Composition he devotes two pages to defining “motive,” and rather than being precise (“a motive is …”) he is constantly introducing hedges—such as “the motive should produce …,” “the motive generally appears …,” “which usually implies …,” “the basic motive is often considered ….” And in the biggest hedge of all, Schoenberg concludes the section with, “Every element or feature of a motive or phrase must be considered to be a motive if it is treated as such.”22 In other words, a motive is anything that is treated like a motive. (This certainly opens up the possibilities!) Joking aside, this has less to do with Schoenberg’s inability to write good definitions, and everything to do with the nature of categorization. Definitions, as we commonly treat them, are an attempt to use classical categories to comprehensively account for phenomenologi21 Schoenberg’s Gedanke manuscripts are reprinted and translated in Arnold Schoenberg: The Musical Idea, and the Logic, Technique, and Art of Its Presentation, ed. Patricia Carpenter and Severine Neff (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2006). 22 Arnold Schoenberg, Fundamentals of Musical Composition, ed. Gerald Strang and Leonard Stein (London and Boston: Faber and Faber, 1967), 8.

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chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation cal meaning—which can, at times, be frustratingly obnubilate (as it is for Alice in Through the Looking-Glass). ’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgabe. “It seems very pretty,” she said when she had finished it, “but it’s rather hard to understand!” (You see she didn’t like to confess, even to herself, that she couldn’t make it out at all.) “Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas—only I don’t exactly know what they are!”23 What is most interesting about this famous quotation is that we have no problem not knowing exactly what the nonsense words in the poem mean. We, like Alice, can read along and get a general sense of what is happening without specific knowledge of the definitions for each word. As Wittgenstein observed, just because a category (in this case the precise meaning of a word) is fuzzy, does not make it unusable. We can choose to create imaginary boundaries for particular purposes, (i.e., we can write definitions) but these are temporary, not category defining, and not always a requirement for use. As we have seen from looking at categories and polysemy in the previous chapter, the potential meaning of words in context is always larger than the definitions that try to pin down those meanings into concise “classical” categories. Words do not “have” meanings—they represent fuzzy categories whose members (i.e., meanings) get their significance from the way people use them. Dictionaries are not pre23 Lewis Carroll, “Through the Looking-Glass,” in The Complete Works of Lewis Carroll (New York: Random House, 1936), 155.

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chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation scriptive documents (they can only collect and report some of the ways words have been used some of the time in some contexts), yet they are misleadingly organized (in the Western tradition) according to a system grounded in Aristotelian essentialism and classical categories.24 Thus, we need to approach definitions (especially, in our case, definitions of musical phenomena) with skepticism—not because we worry that Schoenberg or Bartók may have intentionally (or even unintentionally) lied about their music or the meaning of particular terminology or its use, but because as much as we would like for definitions to be “classical,” they are almost always incomplete with respect to the concepts they represent. The fact that Schoenberg struggled to pin down the definitions of terms and concepts like motive, idea, gestalt, and grundgestalt is perhaps an indication that he sensed the inherent incompleteness of his descriptions. Like Aristotle, though, he also seemed to believe that it would be possible to distill category defining essences for these musical concepts. At the same time, he did reflect on the fuzziness of concepts and the terminology we use to represent them. “Almost all musical terminology is vague and most of its terms are used in various meanings.”25 Still, he continued to work over ideas in the unfinished Gedanke manuscripts (including the very notion of a musical idea) and though we must be careful when taking any one of his definitions out of the context of his whole attempt, we

24 Eleanor Rosch, “Reclaiming Concepts,” Journal of Consciousness Studies 6, no. 11–12 (1999): 63. 25 Schoenberg, “New Music, Outmoded Music, Style and Idea,” in Style and Idea, 122.

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chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation should not hesitate to speculate about the possibilities for analytical interpretation. On the Relationships of Idea, Motive, Gestalt, and Grundgestalt “In its most common meaning, the term idea is used as a synonym for theme, melody, phrase or motive.”26 Concepts like theme, motive, gestalt, and grundgestalt, each carry their unique associations (and are not identical)—but for Schoenberg these terms are all somewhat interchangeable with his concept of the basic idea. The basic idea can be a motive, or it can be a gestalt, or perhaps even the grundgestalt. “The presentation of ideas is based on the laws of musical coherence. According to these, everything within a closed composition can be accounted for as originating, derived, and developed from a basic motive or at least from a grundgestalt.”27 But whichever of these (or perhaps more than one) functions as the basic idea, its development creates the musical argument and presents the idea of the piece. “I myself consider the totality of the piece as the idea: the idea which its creator wanted to present.”28 Consciously used, the motive should produce unity, relationship, coherence, logic, comprehensibility and fluency. The motive generally appears in a characteristic and impressive manner at the beginning of a piece. The features of a motive are intervals and rhythms, combined to produce a memorable 26 Ibid. 27 Schoenberg, “Laws of Comprehensibility [11 June 1934],” in The Musical Idea, 112. 28 Schoenberg, “New Music, Outmoded Music, Style and Idea,” in Style and Idea, 122–23.

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chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation shape or contour which usually implies an inherent harmony. Inasmuch as almost every figure within a piece reveals some relationship to it, the basic motive is often considered the ‘germ’ of the idea. Since it includes elements, at least, of every subsequent musical figure, one could consider it the ‘smallest common multiple.’ And since it is included in every subsequent figure, it could be considered the ‘greatest common factor.’ However, everything depends on its use. Whether a motive be simple or complex, whether it consists of a few or many features, the final impression of the piece is not determined by its primary form. Everything depends on is treatment and development.29 Given Schoenberg’s extended discussion of motive in Fundamentals of Musical Composition, we can make several observations about his position: (1) that rhythm and intervals are separate parameters that combine to create a motive’s basic shape; (2) in many (perhaps ideal) cases, the motive will have some kind of relationship with all the music that follows it; and (3) that the process of creating these relationships as the music unfolds provides the connective fiber that holds the diverse elements together, and is the most important aspect of the composition. Like Wittgenstein’s fuzzy categories, a whole piece for Schoenberg (the category) is not defined by a single member (the original motive) but is held together and made coherent by the family resemblances that connect the members. Within this framework, members of the category (sections of the piece of various sizes from motives to phrases to formal units) can be quite diverse from each other, and are held together not by a single thread, but by the variety of individual connections that overlap each other and run throughout the entire piece. 29 Schoenberg, Fundamentals, 8–9.

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chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation The hedges in Schoenberg’s definitions for motive that I pointed out earlier perhaps indicate not only an incompleteness, but also fluidity and interchangeability of terms when describing any particular musical event. A motive can be both a static entity (i.e., a definable musical shape of intervals and rhythms) as well as the latent potential embodied in the original form. While Schoenberg often describes composition in terms of growth from a germ or primary statement of a simple motive, we must also keep in mind that “the final impression of the piece is not determined by its [the motive’s] primary form.”30 If we define a motive by its characteristic intervals and rhythm and go looking for further statements of this “motive” in the piece, we lose the “developing” in developing variation. Yet, often, as analysts, we identify a “motive” that we believe to be obvious because its early presentation in the piece appears simple and straightforward (as Schoenberg himself suggests). So, we group a bunch of notes together, cataloguing the intervals and rhythmic shape, and then go searching through the piece for other instances of this “motive.” In spite of its seeming redundancy, Schoenberg’s assertion that “every element or feature of a motive or phrase must be considered to be a motive if it is treated as such, i.e., if it is repeated with or without variation” is a powerful statement of what a motive can be. Motive is the concept of a whole (a unit) and its constituent parameters—all of which are subsequently redefined in each new musical relationship.

30 Ibid., 8

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chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation XIV.  With a more rapid development, a reference to earlier gestalten will frequently form an effective means of assisting comprehensibility. XV.  Extensively varied gestalten can often—through return, possibly indirect, to initial gestalten—be legitimized later, so to speak.31 In the Gedanke sketches, Schoenberg qualifies the notion of motivic legitimization in the previous statement with the following footnote: Return here conveys the meaning of motion backward through prior stages of development to the original.”32 Schoenberg is arguing that “if it is used as such,” the appearance of a structure in the middle of a piece can cause us to reinterpret the material that is being varied—i.e., the original “motive.” So, we must not only be on the lookout for motives that reach out into the piece developing changes along the way, but we must also be open to continually looking back and adjusting our perspective on earlier motives based on how they are referenced by material later in the piece. Not only can the initial statement of a motive change into new things, but subsequent music can inform a redrawing of the boundaries that define the “initial” motive. In other words, the “primary form”—what we may believe to be the original statement of the motive—can change, or be reinterpreted, as the composition progresses through time (even imaginary time) and new relationships recontextualize the material that is being varied. In this sense, 31 Schoenberg, “Laws of Comprehensibility, [11 June 1934],” in The Musical Idea, 113. 32 Ibid.

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chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation there are at least two simultaneously valid structural perspectives for defining any musical “unit”: one that follows the linear process of variation from a motive (i.e., a new musical idea is a developed version of something heard earlier in the piece), and one that only exists as a retrospective view of the complex web of all relationships within the piece. Developing variation is not a unidirectional process, but a continual game of recontextualization. Finally, along the lines of “anything can be a motive if it is used as such,” Schoenberg made several fragmentary lists regarding the features of a motive in the Gedanke manuscripts. There are several notations from 11 June 1934. In one he writes: In reference to its use a motive will be designated as a complex of interconnected features with regard to intervals, rhythm, character, dynamics, stress, metric placement, etc. … The motive is independent of phrasing.33 On the same day, in a separate entry, he further expanded his notion of the features of a motive: What is:  Features are the mark of the motive. They are indeed primarily of a purely musical nature: pitches (intervals), rhythm, harmony, contrapuntal combination, stress, and possibly dynamics. But nonetheless they can also pertain to expression, character, mood, color, sonority, movement, etc.34 Not only, then, is Schoenberg expanding the category motive from intervals and rhythms to include, literally, anything that might be treated motivically (like perhaps ideas and gestalten), but if mo33 Ibid., 130. 34 Ibid.

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chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation tives are independent of phrasing, then they are also not exclusively surface phenomena and not necessarily tied to the same psychological/structural boundaries that separate themes, phrases, and formal units. Furthermore, ideas and gestalten might be treated motivically, in the sense that they can be developed as a piece progresses. And, as with all other motivic statements, they should have a purpose within a musical argument. I wish to join ideas with ideas. No matter what the purpose or meaning of an idea in the aggregate may be, no matter whether its function be introductory, establishing, varying, preparing, elaborating, deviating, developing, concluding, subdividing, subordinate, or basic, it must be an idea which had to take this place … and this idea … should not be considered as a thing in its own end. It should not appear at all if it does not develop, modify, intensify, clarify, or throw light or colour on the idea of the piece.35 While they may have no particular intervals, or rhythm, ideas and

gestalten can be developed like any other motive—some aspect stays the same, while some aspect is changed. Unvaried Repetition An integral part of coming to grips with defining concepts like motive, theme, or basic idea, in the context of developing variation, is how they are used. Schoenberg describes the concept of developing variation as one component in his synthesis of the music of Brahms and Wagner as opposing forces. “[I]n my Verklärte Nacht the thematic construction is based on Wagnerian ‘model and se35 Schoenberg, “Brahms the Progressive [1947],” in Style and Idea, 407.

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chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation quence’ above a roving harmony on the one hand, and on Brahms’ technique of developing variation—as I call it—on the other.”36 In the new style period following Verklärte Nacht (circa 1909) Schoenberg was intentionally attempting to increase the complexity of development by purging all non-essential material from the musical “argument.” The use of unvaried sequence was to become one aspect of composition whose removal would represent an intellectual evolution in his music. Recall the extension of symphonies by Bruckner and Mahler and other forms by Strauss, Reger, Debussy, Tchaikovsky and many others. Much of this length, except in Mahler and Reger, was due to the technique of using numerous little varied or even unvaried repetitions of short phrases. I became aware of the aesthetic inferiority of this technique when I composed the final section of the symphonic poem, Pelleas and Mellisande. … At the very start I knew that restriction could be achieved by two methods, condensation and juxtaposition. The first attempts that I made prior to this recognition—to use variation, often with far-reaching changes—did not satisfy me perfectly, though in ‘developing variation’ lies far greater aesthetic merit than in an unvaried sequence.37 Variation becomes important for Schoenberg because it is more interesting than non-varied repetition. And by the same measure, developing variation is even more interesting because it threads elements of the musical argument into coherent connections and eliminates extraneous filler. But, furthermore, Schoenberg seems to have believed that by paring down the musical “extras” and maximizing

36 Schoenberg, “My Evolution [1949],” in Style and Idea, 80. 37 Schoenberg, “A Self-Analysis,” in Style and Idea, 76–79.

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chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation the potential for the development of motives, the purity of concise musical arguments represented a promise of greatness. Great art must proceed to precision and brevity. It presupposes the alert mind of an educated listener who, in a single act of thinking, includes with every concept all associations pertaining to the complex. This enables a musician to write for upper-class minds, not only doing what grammar and idiom require, but, in other respects lending to every sentence the full pregnancy of meaning of a maxim, of a proverb, of an aphorism. This is what musical prose should be—a direct and straightforward presentation of ideas, without any patchwork, without mere padding and empty repetitions.38 Yet, remember that musical understanding (according to Schoenberg) requires repetition. However, once unvaried repetition is defined as banal, only varied repetition can stand as the mark of intellectual greatness. Bartók, too, discusses coming to a similar realization. Or take another well-known work, the E flat Piano Concerto [of Liszt]. This is another bold formal innovation, and also perfect; but in content it is not at all satisfying, because the greater part of it is empty fireworks: indeed some of its ideas, for all that they are brilliantly dressed, are mere salon music. With the great Faust Symphony it is just the opposite. This work is made immortal by the wealth of wonderful thoughts, and by the systematic development (Mephisto) of the devilish irony that had first appeared in the fugato of the sonata. But here there is something else wrong; certain formal imperfections, the mechanical repetition of certain parts, the so-called Liszt-sequences. In the symphonic poems, too, new things are scattered among similar sequences …. Mention of the Lisztian sequences leads to the other point of criticism, in that these repetitions, which appear in nearly every work, and all of which tend toward a certain type, provide a 38 Schoenberg, “Brahms the Progressive,” in Style and Idea, 414–15.

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chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation basis for the accusation of monotony and boredom. … It is not given to every composer to be able like Beethoven to break down every difficulty himself, and to create perfection in every single work.39 Note, in particular, that along with his criticism of sequence as an obstacle to musical development, Bartók separates the location of artistic value between the surface and deeper levels. Thoughts and ideas, for Bartók, reside in the content that is hidden below the surface—and are a more important mark of value than the showy surface. And because he values the development of ideas over “empty” surface spectacle, sequence and unvaried repetition lead to boredom because they are extraneous to the musical argument. With repetition, ideas do not develop. Note, furthermore, that given his discussion of surface/depth values in evaluating compositional worth, it is Beethoven that Bartók assumes to represent the epitome of perfection with regard to the kind of musical development he values the highest. Hidden Relations In spite of their disagreement about the value of folk music in art music composition, it would seem that Bartók’s and Schoenberg’s conceptions of the overall compositional value of art music coincide at a composer’s ability to manipulate and develop musical ideas in progressive ways with the ultimate goal of achieving coherence and underlying unity among the disparate elements of the composition. 39 Bartók, “Liszt’s Music and Today’s Public [1911],” in Béla Bartók Essays, 452–53.

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chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation For both composers, (in compositional terms) unity translates as the ability to connect seemingly unrelated ideas across a landscape of (often) traditional formal elements. Far from leading to homogeneity, unity provides the conceptual links between seemingly dissimilar sections of music. The variations of a motif produce new motif-forms, which are the material for continuations, contrasts, new segments, new themes, or even new sections within a piece. Not all the features are to be retained in a variation; but some, guaranteeing coherence, will always be present. Sometimes remotely related derivatives of a motif might become independent and then be employed like a motif.40 The point Schoenberg is making is that musical ideas, which may at first seem quite different (and which may function differently, as he says, within those formal distinctions) can be related by a logical connection—which becomes the locus for intellectual value. As a work-in-progress theory of musical organization on multiple levels, coupled with a Goethian vision of organic relationships, Schoenberg’s concept of unity, then, is not just an extra feature of the music—it connects seemingly remote surface features as well as structural levels and is the organizing principle of the music. A real composer does not compose merely one or more themes, but a whole piece. In an apple tree’s blossoms, even in the bud, the whole future apple is present in all its details—they have only to mature, to grow, to become the apple, the apple tree, and its power of reproduction. Similarly, a real composer’s musical conception, like the physical, is one single act, comprising the totality of the product. The form in its outline, characteristics 40 Schoenberg, Models for Beginners in Composition: Music Examples, Syllabus, and Glossary, 2nd ed., 2 vols. (New York: Schirmer, 1942), 15.

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chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation of tempo, dynamics, moods of the main and subordinate ideas, their relation, derivation, their contrasts and deviations—all these are there at once, though in embryonic state. The ultimate formulation of the melodies, themes, rhythms and many details will subsequently develop through the generating power of the germ.41 For both Schoenberg and Bartók, organicism implies creating the illusion of constant growth, and both composers discuss coming to the gradual realization that in a frame governed by the values of organicism unvaried repetition was a sign of compositional weakness that could be overcome through continual variation and “hidden” connections. Central to Schoenberg’s view of developing variation is that logic leads to a sense of unity by changing some parameters, while others remain the same. For Schoenberg, developing variation accounts for both fluency and contrast.42 While we may often think of developing variation as a process of creating sameness within a piece, the subtlety of the argument is that the potential for development “inherent” in a motive allows a composer to generate material that is both similar to the original statement of the motive or theme, as well as different. This juxtaposition of variety and unity is strikingly similar to Bartók’s discussion of “hidden relations” in his Harvard Lectures. You know very well the extension of themes in their value called augmentation, and their compression in value called diminution. … Now this new device could be called ‘extension in range’ of a theme. … Such an extension will considerably change the character of the melody, sometimes to such a degree that its relation 41 Schoenberg, “Folkloristic Symphonies,” in Style and Idea, 165. 42 See Arnold Schoenberg, Fundamentals, 8–9.

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chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation to the original, non-extended form will be scarcely recognizable. We will have mostly the impression that we are dealing with an entirely new melody. And this circumstance is very good indeed, because we will get variety on the one hand, but the unity will remain undestroyed because of the hidden relation between the two forms.43 Bartók argues that the transformational technique that he describes as compression or extension of intervals (i.e., the mapping of a melodic shape from one space onto another) is good because it produces a kind of organic unity that is natural, and therefore not only acceptable but “perfect”—proven, for him, by its long use in folk music. When I first used the device … I thought I invented something absolutely new, which never yet existed. And now I see that an absolutely identical principle exists in Dalmatia since Heaven knows how long a time, maybe for many centuries. This again proves that nothing absolutely new in the world can be invented; the most unusual-looking ideas have or must have had their predecessors.44 Thus, because of his belief in the natural origins of folk music, Bartók uses the occurrence of interval compression in the music of Dalmatia to deflect any potential criticism of his use of it in art music compositions—and natural comes to mean “untouchable.” For Bartók, at least, the compositional unity produced by hidden relations is not necessarily something we can hear, or need to hear, on a conscious level. The fact that it is there adds, for him, an inherent value to the composition based on a notion of organicism as developmental coherence. One implication of this concept of unity is that

43 Bartók, “Harvard Lectures,” in Béla Bartók Essays, 381. 44 Ibid., 383.

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chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation Bartók is clearly thinking in paradigmatic harmonic spaces: a musical motive or theme can maintain its identity whether in chromatic space, diatonic space, pentatonic space, etc. The transformation, as he describes it “consists of the change of the chromatic degrees into diatonic degrees … by levelling them over a diatonic terrain.”45 But retaining its identity does not mean that it necessarily functions the same way in each of its contexts—in fact, it means that sections that function differently and appear to be different are connected in ways that are not immediately obvious, creating coherence. Another implication of this concept of unity is the ability to conceptualize music in levels: a surface level in which direct development creates contrast and opposing themes, and various deeper levels of sameness (i.e., connection with the original motive or theme). The organic concept of composition, common to both Bartók and Schoenberg, puts the impetus for development on the potential for motives and ideas to become meaningful through overlapping internal relationships in spite of constant change. It is therefore the composer’s job to be aware of the potential for these hidden relationships in order to create a coherent whole. For us as analysts/listeners, the interpretation of organic developing variation (whether in real time or the imaginary time of analysis) depends entirely on our strategies of categorization and how we apply them to the music. Without the conventional signposts of functional tonality to guide us through musical form, the post-tonal developing variation of Schoenberg and Bartók can be a confusing game of identification and abstract signification in which syntagmatic family resemblanc45 Ibid., 381.

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chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation es—the unfolding of relationships across a constantly changing musical landscape—can create coherence in spite of potentially fuzzy paradigmatic musical spaces. The Boundaries of Tonality In both the Op. 11, No. 1, and the Concerto for Orchestra, Schoenberg and Bartók are dealing with systems of pitch organization that intentionally undermine the traditional tonal system. I would like to suggest, in a preliminary way, that a concept of organic developing variation may provide part of the solution to interpreting non-functional “tonal” relationships, especially in the context of assertions by both composers that motives retain their identity under transformations beyond surface variation. The tonal/harmonic language of both composers has been investigated in such detail that it would be impossible to summarize the entire literature here.46 I would, however, like to consider just a few of their own arguments on changing perceptions of the role of tonality after the turn-of-the-century. Early on, Bartók and Schoenberg shared a similar conception of the function of consonance and dissonance in art music. One of the examples that Schoenberg used in his Harmonielehre as a justification for the emancipation of dissonance was Bartók’s tenth Bagatelle, op.

46 Schoenberg’s arguments regarding his position on the emancipation of dissonance are so well known that they need not be repeated here. Investigations of Bartók’s tonal language have been quite diverse. For a summary of articles dealing with pitch-organization in Bartók’s music, see Elliott Antokoletz, “Theories of Pitch Organization in Bartók’s Music: A Critical Evaluation,” International Journal of Musicology 7 (1998): 259–300.

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chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation 6.47 Like his other examples in this section of the book, Schoenberg’s use of Bartók’s bagatelle was intended to demonstrate that by 1911 the notion that dissonance must resolve to consonance was already obsolete for many composers. Bartók had read Schoenberg’s Harmonielehre, and in 1920 published his essay, “The Problem of New Music,” in which he argues (like Schoenberg) that atonality, instead of being the opposite of tonality, is achieved through a conception of harmony that equalizes the value of the twelve semitones. The music of our time strives decidedly toward atonality. Yet it does not seem to be right to interpret the principle of tonality as the absolute opposite to atonality. The latter is much more the consequence of a gradual development, originating from tonality.48 For both composers, part of the dissolution of traditional tonality was brought about by an increasing integration of melodic space and harmonic space. In his Suite No. 2 for orchestra, op. 4, Bartók ends the piece with the chord F#–A–C#–E. He argues that this seventh chord is consonant because it is “a simultaneous resonance of all four (or five) tones of the motive, to a certain extent, a vertical projection of the previous horizontal form. This result is obtained by a logical process, and not, as many objectors believed, through sheer whimsicality.”49 Furthermore, he argues that because the degrees of the pentatonic scale are so important to the history of Hungarian folk music, it follows logically that the harmonies inherent in their 47 Schoenberg, Theory of Harmony, trans. Roy E. Carter (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1983), 419–20. 455.

48 Bartók, “The Problem of the New Music [1920],” in Béla Bartók Essays, 49 Bartók, “The Folk Songs of Hungary,” in Béla Bartók Essays, 335.

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chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation interrelations are inherently consonant also.50 Likewise, Schoenberg connects melodic and harmonic space as two ways of manifesting a single idea: THE TWO-OR-MORE-DIMENSIONAL SPACE IN WHICH MUSICAL IDEAS ARE PRESENTED IS A UNIT. Though the elements of these ideas appear separate and independent to the eye and the ear, they reveal their true meaning only through their cooperation. ...The elements of a musical idea are partly incorporated in the horizontal plane as successive sounds, and partly in the vertical plane as simultaneous sounds.51 In addition to free use of the twelve semitones—melodically and harmonically—there is still, however, the problem of formal organization in the absence of traditional harmonic relationships. Regarding the “tonal” organization of the Fifth Quartet, Bartók gives the following analysis. N.B.—(1) The sequence of tonalities of the single sections [of the sonata form] produce the whole-tone scale. (2) The first theme has two principal degrees: B flat (tonic) and E (dominant-like); the beginning, middle part, and end of the movement produce the following tonalities: B flat, E , and B flat.52 Note that Bartók simply takes for granted that the conceptual model of sonata form can be organized by the relationships of the wholetone scale. This kind of key architecture is made somewhat more abstract by the fact that none of the sections in the movement are tonal in any traditional sense. Yet, rather than describing the piece 50 Ibid., 334–35. 51 Schoenberg, “Composition with Twelve Tones (I) [1941],” in Style and Idea, 220. 52 Bartók, “Analysis for the Fifth String Quartet [1935],” in Béla Bartók Essays, 414.

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chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation as free-form with very little organization, Bartók uses one structure (the whole-tone scale) to make sense out of another structure (sonata form) in a way that might not otherwise be apparent. This kind of key architecture is, for Bartók, a structural remnant of tonal music that provides a means of organizing large spans of music without recourse to traditional diatonic harmonic relationships. Schoenberg also discusses the potential for relationships between surface harmony and “tonal” organization in his 1925 essay on tonality and form. Those who examine in my First String Quartet or in my Kammersymphonie the relation of keys to each other and to the incident harmony, will get from them some conception of the demands that are made, in the modern sense, of the tonal development of a harmonic idea.53 Rather than organizing key relationships according to tonic-dominant relationships, then, Schoenberg is arguing that organic coherence can be created when harmonic organization (as a structural outline) is derived from surface harmony. Thus, the “tonal development of a harmonic idea” may be treated like any other motive, and may be projected into the structural organization of the piece. At the same time it should, hypothetically, still be free to be subjected to the same kinds of transformation and development as motives on the surface. In this sense, tonal organization and surface motivic development would be integrated as two manifestations of a single process. For both composers, then, (given the importance of coherence53 Schoenberg, “Tonality and Form [1925],” in Style and Idea, 256–57.

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chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation producing motivic development and “hidden” relationships, and the integration of melodic and harmonic space) it seems plausible to argue that an overlapping notion of “key” architecture and motivic parallelism—both remnants of tonal music—has the potential to provide a coherent means of conceptual organization. This is not just a potential model for us, but is one that very likely (at least partially) reflects Bartók’s and Schoenberg’s own conceptions of structural organization. Form The notion of form is established by Schoenberg as a relational concept. “All good music consists of many contrasting ideas. An idea achieves its distinctness and validity in contrast with others.”54 The boundaries of a formal unit can only be understood in relation to another section. When this idea is integrated with Schoenberg’s concept of developing variation, sections of music that seem like “something new” are at one level, allowing for thematic oppositions, dialogue, and tension to be created in traditional ways. Fluency, then, provides for internal connections, whereas contrast provides for separation of musical sections, mostly through surface features. Developing variation provides for both simultaneously. One problem with this conception from the perspective of analysis, however, is that traditional formal labels (e.g., ABA´) become difficult to apply to music where some of the features are always changing while others stay the same. How do we give priority to 54 Schoenberg, Fundamentals, 94.

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chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation some parameters over others—rhythm, harmonic structure, intervallic contour sequences, or any number of other parameters? To answer “contextually” seems unsatisfying. How can we describe a section of music as a return (A´) in situations where the music consists of a return of rhythm from section A and a return of harmonic/ intervallic content from section B? Only if we privilege rhythm over other parameters. This confusion becomes almost exponential if we extend the features of a motive to include, as Schoenberg does in the Gedanke manuscripts, contrapuntal combination, stress, dynamics, character, mood, metric placement, etc. Furthermore, do we need to be consistent about which parameters we privilege, or can we be guided by how we think they are used—giving priority to those that seem to be developing at any given time? Thus, if we choose to use an atomistic hierarchy to make sense of organic developing variation, we may find ourselves confronted with issues of formal ambiguity.55 In a chain-of-being hierarchy, in which the conventional relationships of diatonic tonality provide the model for the relationships among structural levels, the hierarchy is always somewhat pre-determined and relationships within the hierarchy are determined by pitch. In a post-tonal atomistic hierarchy, however, relationships need not be exclusively tonal, and there is much more freedom to connect rhythmic ideas (or ideas of general shape, form, or contour). However, for Schoenberg, changing the intervals of a motive, but preserving its rhythm remains closer to the original than preserving the intervals and changing the rhythm. 55 See Zbikowski, “Conceptual Models and Cross-Domain Mapping,” for a discussion of the sources and metaphorical positions that construct atomistic versus chain-of-being hierarchies.

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chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation Watch further the multiple use of motival features, marked a, a1, a2, etc. Advice for this technique might be given as follows: If the rhythm is exactly or approximately the same, the interval may be changed freely, because rhythm is more noticeable than interval.56 This does not mean that we always need to privilege Schoenberg’s position on rhythm, or that this position is always true with respect to the way we hear music. Nevertheless, I will begin by using rhythmic parameters as one of the primary means for dividing up the formal sections of the Op. 11, No. 1 in my analysis that follows. At the same time, I will emphasize the problems inherent in creating formal boundaries based exclusively on rhythmic features. As a basis for comparison with Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra later in this dissertation, I will turn now to my interpretations of Schoenberg’s Op. 11, No. 1. Schoenberg’s Op. 11, No. 1 Since their composition in 1909, the little Op. 11 piano pieces by Schoenberg, especially no. 1, have provided the material for a wide variety of analytical approaches. In the introduction to his 1981 article, “The Magical Kaleidoscope,” Allen Forte invokes Schoenberg on the supposed simplicity of the Op. 11. May I venture to say that, in my belief, … the Three Piano Pieces, Op. 11, or the Five Orchestral Pieces, Op. 16, and especially Pierrot Lunaire, Op. 21, are relatively easy to understand today.57 56 Schoenberg, Models for Beginners, 6. 57 Schoenberg, “A Self-Analysis,” in Style and Idea, 79; also quoted in Allen Forte, “The Magical Kaleidoscope: Schoenberg’s First Atonal Masterwork, Opus 11, Number 1,” Journal of the Arnold Schoenberg Institute 5, no. 2 (1981): 127–68.

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chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation Yet, Forte’s claim (and subsequent analysis) that the Op. 11, No. 1 “depends solely on its atonal musical organization for its coherence and beauty”58 not only contradicts my own sensibilities about why I enjoy this piece, but it seems to contradict Schoenberg’s own position, expressed in the same essay from which Forte quoted. I personally do not find that atonality and dissonance are the outstanding features of my works. They certainly offer obstacles to the understanding of what is really my musical subject.59 As such, this piece has presented a problem of how to conceptualize its pitch organization. Regardless of Schoenberg’s claim that it was one of his first attempts to consciously compose without a “tonal centre—a procedure incorrectly called ‘atonality’,”60 does our understanding of the piece slip either toward tonality or atonality? Is it pitch centric? Do some pitch structures emerge as more important than other pitch structures—or are pitch-class structures more important? To what extent can we talk about prolongational structures in this piece? Joseph Straus, commenting on the multitude of analyses of the Op. 11, writes a tonal hearing and a tonal analysis are virtually impossible to sustain. There exist published analyses of the [Op. 11], by three respected authorities, in three different keys. One says it’s in E; one says it’s in F#, and one says it’s in G. In a sense they are all right, and there are other possible keys to be heard here as well. But no key shapes the structure in any deep or reliable way. Rather, tonality operates in this piece like a ghost, haunting the

58 Forte, “The Magical Kaleidoscope,” 127. 59 Schoenberg, “A Self-Analysis,” in Style and Idea, 77. 60 Schoenberg, “My Evolution,” in Style and Idea, 86.

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chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation structure with its presence, but impossible to pin down in any satisfactory way.61 Yet, clearly, the fact that many have argued for a tonal hearing of this piece indicates that they, at least, are attempting to use tonal models to make sense out of pitch relationships in this piece. In addition to (and likely related to) this tonal confusion, the formal organization of the piece has also occasioned much disagreement. While some aspects of the piece seem to find consistent description among scholars (for instance that measure 53 represents an important reprise of the opening material), other aspects (such as naming an overall form scheme) have not. Some of the ambiguity about formal descriptions surely stems from the particular brand of variation this piece employs, in which elements from earlier sections are continually re-combined as the music progresses. I will attempt to address how I read the piece (and why) as well as how the particular technique of developing variation Schoenberg uses contributes to the ambiguity and contradictions of previous readings. Furthermore, as I have mentioned, I will analyze the piece twice: once in structural-formalist terms, attempting to address issues of motive, idea, gestalt, and grundgestalt, and their relationships to processes of developing variation; and then again in narrative terms.62 These

61 Joseph N. Straus, Introduction to Post-Tonal Theory, 2nd ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 2000), 116. 62 For some readers Schoenberg’s Op. 11, No. 1 will be intimately familiar. However, the following analyses will rely heavily on references to multiple measures for the comparison of particular features, and I will use the formal analysis that I have added to the examples for reference (in most cases). If you are reading this document in electronic format, I recommend printing the two pages containing example 2.1, and the one page containing example 2.2 for reference.

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chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation two readings are an attempt to provide complementary models for understanding different (even sometimes competing) aspects of my experience of the piece.63 A na lysis i.  Given Schoenberg’s stated preference for rhythmic parameters over parameters of pitch—as motive defining characteristics—one way to divide the Op. 11, No. 1 into formal units is in terms of textural divisions that are primarily based on distinctions of rhythm (see example 2.1).64 Temporarily disregarding pitch, then, measures 9 through 11 (a´) are an almost exact restatement of measures 1 through 3 (a), following a contrasting section (b; mm. 4–8). Note also that sections a and a´ are homophonic, while section b is contrapuntal. Focusing on the rhythmic component, we could also say that the boundaries of these initial sections are all delineated by initial rests. Many readings of the piece agree that measures 1 through 3 (my a) are contrasted by measures 4 through 8 (my b), followed by a return of some sort at measure 9 (my a´). But this seemingly natural ease of dividing and naming sections soon breaks down. If we follow this logic of sectional divisions throughout the piece, associating and delineating formal sections based on rhythmic features, it quickly becomes difficult to distinguish between section a 63 I use the terms reading, hearing, and understanding interchangeably. I am not interested in arguments about “but can you hear it?” Rather, my interest in cognition and categorization has to do with applying to music the mechanisms we likely use to make sense out of the world in general. Understanding can affect perception, as the Kay/Kempton experiment in chapter 1 demonstrated, and thus hearing the pieces (literally) and reading the score are intertwined, and both contribute to our continually evolving sense of understanding. 64 In Models for Beginners, 6; Schoenberg writes, “If the rhythm is exactly or approximately the same, the interval may be changed freely, because rhythm is more noticeable than interval.”

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chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation

theme: a

b

a´

c

var i: a

b

example 2.1  Schoenberg, Op. 11, No. 1, mm. 1–33. 91

chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation a´

c

a´´

var iI: a

etc.

example 2.1  (continued) and section b as the original features associated with each section are combined and developed. (This “developing ambiguity” is further compounded by taking pitch and interval relationships into consideration, so we will put that off for just a little while longer.) Without taking specific pitches or intervals into consideration, we could describe the features of section a (mm. 1–3) as a rest followed 92

chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation by a descending upper-voice melody, and two punctuating lowervoice chords (that also follow rests). Taken together, should we consider these features a motive? A theme? This generalized description does not account for specific intervals or rhythm. Is it an idea? A gestalt? In some sense, it can be any of these. The initial b section (mm. 4–8) does not exploit the features of a descending melody or punctuating chords. Instead, the characteristic features of b include an ascending interval (in the soprano voice) and an ascending figure (in the tenor voice). Following a kind of return (a´), section c (m. 12ff.) is distinguished from a and b in tempo, range, note values, and dynamics. While measures 17 and 18 are a varied restatement of measures 9 through 11, I hear the section beginning at measure 15, in between sf statements of an “interruption.” Partly because of what follows, and partly because of the “interruption,” I have called measure 15 the beginning of variation I. At a larger formal scale, the boundary (as I read it) between where the theme ends and variation I begins is ambiguous (see example 2.1). This is made particularly so through the overlap of the “interruption” in measure 14 and the return of the langsamer in measure 15 and 16 which leads directly into an only slightly varied repetition of measures 9 though 11 (a´) in measures 17 and 18. This is the only place that this “interruption” creates formal ambiguity at this level of formal division. The beginning of (what I call) variation II is clearly distinguished from the music that precedes it, and variation III is one of the most agreed upon divisions (though called different things by different analysts) in the piece. One idea that emerges from this perspective of rhythm-based 93

chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation formal divisions is a concept of opposing simultaneous processes at multiple levels of organization. Distinctions between large sections (theme, variation I, variation II, and variation III) undergo a process of becoming clearer as the piece progresses. Along these lines I would argue that measures 35 and 53 are obvious points of return to the initial material from measures 1–3. On a smaller scale, the internal structure of the theme seems fairly clearly delineated texturally (at least sections a, b, and c), and undergoes the opposite process of becoming more ambiguous in successive variations as the piece progresses, to the point that measures 53 to the end are nearly continuous texturally, with only one full—if very brief—rest in measure 58 (see example 2.2). In other words, local structural organization (getting fuzzier) and large-scale structural organization (getting clearer) are one opposition whose unfolding throughout the piece provides a kind of formal balancing act. If we do choose to view this piece as a theme and variations, as I have indicated in the examples, then defining the boundaries of the theme is somewhat problematic. (Some have analyzed this piece as a sonata form, but similar to Straus’s comments about the issue of tonality, pinning down a single answer to this question is less important than revealing the process by which the ambiguity itself is created.) The most obvious opening section (measures 1–11) is divided into three parts, which I have labeled aba´. The first three bars, a, contain two parallel statements (three notes—chord, four notes—chord); the next five measures, b, contain three variations of a second statement; and the last three bars, a´, contain a variation of the opening phrase. Then, at measure 12, we get something 94

chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation

var iII: a

b a´

c

example 2.2  Schoenberg, Op. 11, No. 1, mm. 50–end. new. Because of its treatment in later sections of the piece, and its relationship to the music that comes before it, I consider measures 12–14 (plus the first beat of m. 16) as section c—the closing section of the theme—which overlaps with the first variation (m. 15). While these opening sections (aba´c) are distinguishable from each other through distinctions of rhythm and phrasing, etc., they are also uni95

chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation fied through intervallic expansions and contractions and a series of developing motivic relationships. If we view the first three measures in two halves, based on the rhythmic structure of the left hand and stems-down right hand parts, there are two parameters whose progressions are about convergence. Rhythmically, in the first half of the phrase (mm. 1–2) the first three notes in the right hand come before the left hand chord, and in the second half of the phrase (mm. 2–3) the placement of the chord shifts to the left in relation to the melodic voice so that it sounds during the three-note motive in the right hand (see example 2.3a). Intervallically, the first three measures also present an idea of convergence through a departure and return to [014]. If we look at

3+1=4

4+1=5

(a)

(5+1=6)

(3+1=4)

3+1=4

(b)

(3+1=4)

example 2.3  Schoenberg, Op. 11, No. 1, mm. 1–3, alternative divisions of opening phrase. 96

chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation the four cells in example 2.3a, we see that the right hand is expanding (3+1=4 → 4+1=5), while the left hand is contracting (5+1=6 → 3+1=4). But if we take Schoenberg’s slurs into consideration when creating our boundary division, then the first three measures divide into two unequal parts. Measure 3, which is set apart from the first two measures by the slurs, contains another three-note cell that was not accounted for in example 2.3a. Only by including the Db as a member of the horizontal cell and the vertical cell are we able to see another level of convergence that has taken place (see example 2.3b). Thus, the right hand part in the first phrase can have dual meaning—depending on how we imagine the boundaries—as both an expansion and a contraction back to the original cell [014]. Furthermore, in the second conceptualization, the horizontal elements and the vertical elements have converged into two interlocked statements of the opening three-note cell. This is one means of organized progression based on a process of departure and return other than tonality. The b section (mm. 4–8, articulated by an initial quarter rest, like the opening) also presents three initial notes, this time E–C–Bb (see example 2.4). In example 2.4a, the changes between adjacent statements are minimal, always keeping one interval the same and expanding the other to make the resultant interval expand also. In example 2.4b, the relationship to the original motive is the expansion of the two primary intervals by the same minimal amount (i.e., semitones). Either way we choose to view this dual process from the previous example, the new three-note cell can be seen as a logical expansion of the previous material. 97

chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation m. 1

3+1=4

4+1=5

(4)+2=6

(a)

3+1=4

m. 3

4+2=6

(b)

example 2.4  Schoenberg, Op. 11, No. 1, developing variation through systematic expansion of intervals: (a) mm. 1–4; (b) mm. 3–4.

In addition to their involvement in these consecutive harmonic relationships, the C and Bb (m. 4) can also belong to a melodic progression that develops logically out of the opening. The three notes that intersect the first barline emerge as an independent motive that is immediately developed in the alto voice (see example 2.5). The motive “pivots” on the C and continues in the b section inverted. This overlapping structure in the inner voice on the pitch C crosses the barline and connects the initial a section and the subsequent b section, blurring the local formal boundary at a structural level. (This mirrors the idea of overlap that blurs the boundary between the theme and variation I at the place where the interruption overlaps with the return of the theme in measures 14 through 17.) A similar process happens with the next three notes in the opening melody (see example 2.6). The G–A–F motive emerges out of the texture and is taken up in the bass voice. Note the similarity to the process in example 2.5—the first two intervals are “swapped” while 98

chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation

m. 1

–1+2=1

2–1=1

m. 2

–2+1=–1

example 2.5  Schoenberg, Op. 11, No. 1, mm. 1–2 and 2–4, developing variation of secondary motive from “soprano” voice to “alto” voice and subsequent inversion.

m. 1

2–4=–2

4–2=2

m. 2

–2+1=–1

example 2.6  Schoenberg, Op. 11, No. 1, mm. 1–2 and 2–4, developing variation of secondary motive from “soprano” voice to “bass” voice.

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chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation the resultant interval remains the same. Also note that the inversion of the shape in the bass voice takes up a version of the motive from example 2.5. What is important about these relationships is not simply that a motive, or even a pc-set, recurs in close proximity, but that the new material for the “accompaniment” has actually developed directly out of the initial melodic idea. In this way the juxtaposition of an original seed (like the first three notes of the piece) and the immediate expansion of that seed, produces new motives at their intersection that are immediately subjected to development. Furthermore, the interaction between these emergent motives (from examples 2.5 and 2.6) is itself also treated as a new motive with immediate development. This interaction—which might be generalized as the overlap of chromatic and whole-tone space (see example 2.7)—is not only repeated in the bass voice, but is presented in symmetrical overlap and crosses the local boundaries from the a section (Gb–Bb) to the b section (G#) and through the a´ section (Gb–G§).

m. 1

m. 10

m. 2

example 2.7  Schoenberg, Op. 11, No. 1, emergence and development of chromatic vs. whole tone as secondary motive. 100

chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation Additionally, developing the convergence/divergence idea, the first variation of the overlap idea is reduced from two notes (as it was originally in mm. 1–2) to a single note of overlap in the bass. In the developed version, the motives in the bass retain their previous basic shapes, though now in retrograde. Turning to pitch relationships, the opening phrase (mm. 1–2) descends from B, and after a slight rest on G eventually comes to a longer rest on E. The b section takes the pitch E as a new point of departure and repeats the motion from E back up to G three times, so that we might expect that, in order to round off the section, the music would return through the original intervals to the initial pitch, B. Instead, however, a transformation of the initial motive (3+1=4) with the E–G as its primary component is completed by resolving to F# at the beginning of the a´ section. This creates a variation of the original motive by changing the direction of the half-step in relation to the minor third (see example 2.8).65 However, this process also takes a variation of the initial motive and crosses the local sectional boundary (from section a to section b) and begins to move motivic transformations from the surface in to sub-surface levels, bridging what would otherwise be a gap between local formal units. I have argued that one way to conceptualize the initial three measures of this piece is in two halves: a three-note melodic mo65 There are many names now for this kind of relationship. Joseph Straus models his PIVOT’s on Lewin’s FLIPSTART and FLIPEND, which are related to the transformations Jonathan Bernard calls “unfolding” and “infolding.” See Joseph N. Straus, The Music of Ruth Crawford Seeger (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 44ff.; David Lewin, Generalized Musical Intervals and Transformations (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987), 189; and Jonathan Bernard, The Music of Edgard Varèse (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987), 73–82.

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chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation m. 1

m. 2

m. 4–8

surface

m. 9

sub-surface

example 2.8  Schoenberg, Op. 11, No. 1, motivic “folding” as sub-surface motivic parallelism.

m. 1

(a)

m. 2

(b) m. 4

example 2.9  Schoenberg, Op. 11, No. 1, two kinds of surface motive “unfolding”: (a) from m. 1 to m. 2; and (b) from m. 1 to m. 4. tive (B–G#–G§) followed by a chord, and then a three-note motive (A§–F§–E§) and a chord that has been “left shifted.” The b section of the theme also develops the idea of vertical alignment (between right hand and left hand) to the point that, by the third statement in the b section (m. 7) the left hand gets an extension of its line (Db–C– [D])—a transposition of the intersection discussed above in example 2.5, and an almost canonic imitation of the alto voice directly above it in measure 7 (C–Bb–B§ → Db–C–D§). 102

chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation In light of the “folding” of the semitone discussed in examples 2.8, we should reconsider the opening melodic motive (3+1=4) in relation to its “answer” (4+1=5). Notice that two of the three intervals have remained the same (the M3 and the semitone), and that the second statement can be conceptualized as a version of the original with the semitone “unfolded”—to the outside of the M3 instead of the inside (see example 2.9a). This process of unfolding is itself treated motivically. In another kind of variation on the initial motive, the new ascending figure in the tenor voice (m. 4) begins with a reordering (or unfolding) of the total interval content of the first three notes (i.e., 3+1=4 → 4+3+1+1; see example 2.9b). The first time I described the opening three measures, I dealt with a relationship between two halves of the phrase in terms of an intervallic expansion. The potential for reading the second half as an “unfolding” was already there, but perhaps did not become important until the idea was used again. We could also account for the emergence of the M3 (as a melodic interval) out of the initial idea (in which it was a secondary interval). The initial interval was a m3 followed by a m2 (for a total span of a M3), but conceptually, we could conceive of this as the potential for the m3 to expand to a M3. From this perspective, the potential of the m3 to become a M3 inherent in the first three notes is immediately realized in the second half of the first phrase. In Harmonielehre, Schoenberg discusses this kind of potential for intervallic expansion in Brahms’ Third Symphony. When Brahms introduces the second theme of his Third Symphony (F major [first movement]) in the key of A major, it is not 103

chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation because one ‘can introduce’ the second theme just as well in the key of the mediant. It is rather the consequence of a principal motive, of the bass melody (harmonic connection!) f–ab (third and fourth measures), whose many repetitions, derivations, and variations finally make it necessary, as a temporary high point, for the progression f–ab to expand to the progression f–a (F, the initial key, A, the key of the second theme).66 While Schoenberg characterizes the potential for expansion from the m3 to the M3 as inherent in the motive and its repetitions in context, he does qualify that in actuality this interpretation is a function of our need to see a relationship, causing us to imagine the expansion as if our psychological need for explaining the relationship were also a musical desire of the motive. At the end of the same paragraph above, he writes that [Our logic] cannot imagine that there are causes without effects. Consequently, it wants to see effects from every cause, and in its works of art it arranges the causes in such a way that the effects visibly proceed from them.67 Furthermore, his explanation of Brahms relates a concept of key architecture with motivic transformation. In addition to the above descriptions of intervallic development, we could generalize the opening motive (mm. 1–2) as a large interval followed by a small/chromatic interval—a description that characterizes the motive as a gestalt, or idea, rather than an account of specific intervals. Following this logic, the tenor motive at measure 4 is, then, a logical expansion of the initial gestalt in a way that maintains the basic shape, as now two large intervals followed 66 Schoenberg, Theory of Harmony, 164. 67 Ibid.

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chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation by two chromatic intervals. If we view this new tenor idea as a process of unfolding, as I have argued above, then we could imagine the initial M3 as being unfolded and recombined with the initial motive by adding it to the front (3+1=4 → 4+3+1). This expansion is then balanced by the addition of an extra chromatic interval at the end of the new tenor motive (see example 2.9b). Thus, in addition to processes of unfolding, recombination of the unfolded interval with the initial motive has resulted in an expansion at the head of the motive. And for now at least, balancing the expansion with an extra chromatic interval at the end of the motive fits within the framework of the initial presentation of the gestalt large intervals followed by small/chromatic intervals by adding the large interval as a new head and the chromatic interval as a tail. But, while this new tenor motive is expanded by the addition of intervals at the head and tail, rhythmically it is a compression: where there were quarter notes in the opening measures, the tenor at measure 4 is now in eighth notes, counteracting the fact that the motive now contains more notes. (It also takes less time than the initial three-note motive—a span of five total eighth notes in the tenor motive versus a span equivalent to seven eighth notes in the initial motive). And these kinds of developing variations are also related to the form of the piece as I read it. Measure 12 (see example 2.10) takes the tenor voice from measure 4, expands it and adds a head motive (1+3=4, a retrograde of sorts of the opening motive). This idea of tacking on extra material to the “body” of the motive as it develops grew naturally out of the extra chromatic interval required to balance the expansion of the tenor motive, and can be seen as 105

chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation

m. 1

“large” interval

chromatic tail

m. 4

“large” intervals

chromatic tail

m. 12

(3+1=4)

(3+1=4)

“new” head (1+3=4) “large” intervals

chromatic tail

example 2.10  Schoenberg, Op. 11, No. 1. Developing variation of an “idea” (large intervals followed by chromatic intervals).

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chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation a developing variation of the gestalt, without reference to any specific intervals. Example 2.10 also shows that while the intervals in this process are expanding in size and number from one texturally distinct motive-form to the next, the rhythmic values are progressively contracting. Additionally, measure 12 is marked viel schneller (“much faster”) emphasizing the contraction. Yet, the basic shape of this gestalt (large intervals followed by chromatic intervals)—perhaps even the grundgestalt—remains consistent, at least in pc space. (Though, in actuality the opening up of the “chromatic tail” through octave displacement is a motive of its own in the piece; see, for instance, the left hand at the beginning of variation II [m. 34ff.] in example 2.1.) The c section, in addition to developing the idea of the gestalt, presents a motivic transformation of the opening motive in measure 13 that can be viewed as a kind of retrograde of the opening—but redefines the nature of the opening motive (see example 2.11). This m. 1

m. 13

(3+1=4) – 2

2

– (3+1=4)

2 – (3+1=4)

example 2.11  Schoenberg, Op. 11, No. 1, mm. 1–2 and m. 13, reinterpretation of initial motive through developing variation.

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chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation is not a literal retrograde of the opening material, but takes (3+1=4) as one unit, and the M2 that follows as another unit. It is becoming obvious that in every new relationship that emerges as the piece develops, the nature of the opening material that is being referenced must be recontextualized. Imaginary boundaries must be constantly redrawn in order for the progressions of developing variation to make sense. In measure 15 we come to what I view as the first variation on the opening section. Following the loud “interruption” the opening mood returns with a retrograde of the basic shape—here chromatic intervals are followed by the large interval (see example 2.12). There

m. 15

example 2.12  Schoenberg, Op. 11, No. 1, m. 15, developing variation of initial idea. N.B. combination of references: G#–G§ (chromatic tail) from a (mm. 1–2), and F#–D§ from a´´ (m. 9).

is a return to the original quarter-note motion from the opening (which is immediately contracted), pitch-class allusions to both the original a section (G#–G) and the a´ section (F#–D§), and it is marked langsamer (also an allusion to the a´ section at m. 9). While nothing from the opening is literally repeated here, many parameters point 108

chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation back to a return of the a material from the theme. Measure 15 is now a four-note motive. It is (1+4=5) like the second half of the opening phrase (mm. 2–3) now with the original chromatic tail stuck onto the front as a chromatic head—a combination of the head extension introduced in measure 12 and the chromatic tail idea. Within this new idea, the second half is also a rhythmic imitation of the first half—in diminution. Additionally, measure 15 itself can be heard as a head extension of the phrase to which it belongs, (made possible by the interruption, which separates it from the rest of the phrase in measures 17 and 18) expanding the returning a section from three measures to four (mm. 15–18)—a phrase structure analogy to the expanding head/tail chromatic figures. Furthermore, the large structure (theme—var. I—var. II—var. III) is reversing the process I described in the opening three bars of melodic/harmonic temporal contraction. Variation I overlaps the end of the theme (at the interruption, circled in example 2.1) and variation II (m. 34) is then “right-shifted” so that there is a clear break between variation I and variation II (see example 2.1). In his discussions of developing variation, Schoenberg often writes of the destinies of motives, or the potential for transformation, and the requirements of unbalance to become balanced. These are fairly abstract concepts, but I would like to suggest one way that the Op. 11 presents a problem of unbalance which is developed systematically into a version of tonal balance. I have labeled measures 9 through 11 of example 2.1 as a´. Yet as I noted earlier, this is a convenience of rhythmic similarity with the opening and as a rhythmic contrast with the section that precedes it. 109

chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation However, it synthesizes several elements from all the previous material. If we think of the beginning of the b section (4+2) as having been developed directly out of the opening motive (I gave two possible scenarios for imagining this expansion) then the return of a´ is really a synthesis of the rhythm of the a section and the expanded interval motive from the b section (see example 2.13).

m. 1

Thesis (rhythmic)

(a)

m. 4

(b) Antithesis (harmonic)

m. 9

(c)

symmetrical “large” intervals

chromatic tail

Synthesis (rhythmic + harmonic)

example 2.13  Schoenberg, Op. 11, No. 1, developing variation through combination of parameters (and symmetrization of intervals): (a) mm. 1–3; (b) m. 4; and (c) mm. 9–11. 110

chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation Furthermore, the a´ section takes the idea of large intervals followed by small intervals and symmetrizes the large intervals, achieving a kind of internal balance that was absent before. This internal symmetry is immediately developed further in measure 11, (see example 2.10) which is ultimately referenced by the closing chord of the entire piece (see example 2.14).

m. 11

(a)

m. 63

(b)

example 2.14  Schoenberg, Op. 11, No. 1: (a) m. 11; (b) mm. 63–64 (end of piece).

Additionally, the development of the major-third/whole-step relationship in measures 9 through 11 (as an expansion of the opening motive) can be seen in the accompanimental chords of both the a section and the a´ section. Reduced to their normal form, the chords 111

chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation in the a´ section display a kind of unfolding similar to that which we have already seen in melodic motives (see example 2.15). By choosing the M3 and the whole step as the primary intervals, this conceptualization connects the primary harmonic intervals of the section to the primary melodic intervals, and provides a conceptual link between the idea of unfolding in melodic and harmonic spaces. Note that normal form here is achieved through octave displacement, which is also treated as a motive for development in the piece (compare, for instance, the chromatic tail in measure 12 and the chromatic tail in measure 35.) While the 4/2 relationship in the a´ section can be seen as an expansion of the opening motive, it was also present in the original accompanimental chords in the opening a section (see example 2.16.) The increasing prominence of the major third in the opening sections also has the potential, as Schoenberg would say, to expand into the symmetrical augmented triad. This potential is realized both on the surface and in a kind of architectural background structure. While the opening melodic gesture from B to G outlines one major third, the “tonal” motion of the opening section outlines the other major third, from B, at the opening, to the low Eb at measure 11. As example 2.14 shows, while the symmetrical aspect of measure 11 is realized as a vertical chord in the final measure of the piece, it does not last until the final beat. The final sonority of the entire piece is an octave Eb. Thus, mirroring the opening section, the closing section (m. 53ff.) emphasizes the structural importance of the augmented triad, with G and Eb as goal tones surrounding B. Looking back at example 2.2, we can see that in the final section of the piece (varia112

chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation m. 9

normal form:

Ab Gb 4 E

B 2

G F

4 2

example 2.15  Schoenberg, Op. 11, No. 1, mm. 9–11, “unfolding” of 4 +/–2 in accompaniment.

m. 2

T2

T4

example 2.16  Schoenberg, Op. 11, No. 1, mm. 2–3, potential for 4/2 relationship in accompanimental voice-leading transformations.

tion III) is divided by a rest into two halves. Beginning on B, the first half of this final section has a three measure pedal on G (mm. 56–58) that leads up to the dividing rest. And as I have already noted, the piece closes on octave Eb. I would not characterize B as a tonic, nor would I argue that the sonority of the augmented triad outlined by B–G–Eb is any kind of 113

chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation referential sonority. Yet, together these pitches provide a symmetrical balance to the goal tones of both small and large sections of music—as a kind of post-tonal “key” architecture. In other words, a kind of “tonal” balance in the structural background of the piece seems to be achieved through the symmetrical M3 relations B–G, and B–Eb (whose potential was inherent in the opening motive)—in the same way that Schoenberg characterizes the need for the m3 to expand to the M3 in Brahms’ Third Symphony. Furthermore, we can trace the processes that lead to the construction of the augmented triad—the expansion of minor thirds to major thirds through both intervallic enlargement and unfolding; the symmetrization of intervals in the motive; and the connections between melodic and harmonic spaces. However, if I were to characterize a single element of this piece as a grundgestalt, instead of a tonic, or even a referential sonority, it would be A large interval followed by a descending chromatic interval. It is the development and return of this idea/gestalt that everything else in the piece seems to develop from and refer back to. What has been presented here is by no means a complete and all-encompassing analysis. But it should be clear that what I find meaningful in this kind of structural dissection is the articulation of the ways in which we conceptualize processes of developmental change, for this is, as I understand it, the logic that Schoenberg and Bartók refer to when they describe music in organic terms. A na lysis i i.  I offer the following narrative account of the Op. 11 in an attempt to describe some of the ways this piece is mean114

chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation ingful to me beyond my formalist analysis. Personal emplotments of musical surface are important to the way we experience music, as they contribute to the ongoing negotiation of the possibilities for musical meaning. Although I can clearly only account for my own experience in this narrative, I do so in order to highlight that the structures I analyze have different boundaries under different perceptual conditions. In other words, my experiences of this piece, and the boundaries I create, are different depending on which aspects I focus on as I emplot the formal relationships. Like the remnants of Impressionism in Kandinsky’s paintings circa 1910, I hear in the opening of Schoenberg’s Op. 11, No. 1, a slightly distorted memory of Romanticism.68 A distilled miniature of Wagnerian melodic intensity—of formerly extended emotional longing—compressed into a brief, tormented sigh. In particular, I hear in the first phrase of the Op. 11 an echo of the opening of the Prelude to Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde (without Tristan’s unvaried repetition and sequence that Schoenberg so disliked).69 We might characterize the allusion as a quiet opening gesture (a doleful melodic leap followed by an anguished descending half-step), punctuated by two tonally destabilizing chords, and balanced by a series 68 See especially Kandinsky’s Autumn in Bavaria (1908). The painting begins to hint at a transition away from Impressionism looking toward Abstract Expressionism. The use of brush strokes and the realism of the subject (a lane, with trees, hills, buildings) all feel Impressionistic, yet the colors are all wrong—as primary colors like yellow and blue are beginning to be more prominent. (Eventually, Kandinsky would give up traditional subjects and focus on the relationship of colors and abstract shapes.) 69 If we were to argue this as an intentional allusion, it would be an interesting choice on Schoenberg’s part to have pointed to the opening of a piece that, perhaps more than any other in the Romantic repertoire, signaled the decline of what was considered to be the traditional nature of functional tonality.

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chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation of ascending gestures that end abruptly without seeming to resolve anything. This characterization could apply equally to the Prelude to Tristan or Schoenberg’s Op. 11, No. 1. Like Tristan, the short statements at the beginning of Schoenberg’s Op. 11 are self-contained— though they feel unfinished—and intensely lyrical. In the case of Op. 11, this lyrical descending theme coupled with a decrescendo borders on apologetic—it begins quietly and immediately withdraws, like melancholic grief that temporarily leaves one unable to speak. Furthermore, the opening accompanimental chords move in contrary motion with the melody, so that everything is contracting inward instead of expanding (which would seem to contradict the idea that the motive-as-seed is continually growing outward). In the b section (mm. 4–8) there are three stuttering repetitions of a single idea, and each successive statement seems progressively to lose its balance as the four voices in the texture slowly separate, to the point that new material (Db–C) is added in the tenor voice in measure 7 simply to keep the initial idea from pulling completely apart (literally separating the upper voices from the lower voices temporally). While the ascending figure in the tenor voice (m. 4) balances the opening gesture (mm. 1–3) in both direction and dynamic, the b section as a unit maintains the spirit of the entire opening gesture and ends with a ritardando and a decrescendo, again receding and closing down to silence before the return of a´. In the a´ section (mm. 9–11) a varied repetition of the opening figure begins a fourth lower than the opening (another descent), and is slower (marked langsamer), subverting any inclination toward building tension. (The opposite is true in the opening of Tristan 116

chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation where the short fragments are juxtaposed in an ascending sequence, contributing to a general sense of increasing tension.) So far, in the opening of Op. 11, there has been no build-up of surface tension—at least, not the kind of tension achieved through something like ascending sequence—that needs releasing. The upper voice has descended an octave and a semitone in the first 11 measures. To balance this general opening descent, the closing figure in measure 11 changes direction, and the section ends with an ascending half-step in the top voice—only the tiniest glimmer of hope, and the smallest contrast to the general feeling of depression. Measure 12 has a new feel, and while it is often referred to as the first interruption in this piece, I find that rather than breaking with the mood the first three sections have established, it continues it, slightly more playfully, yet also more intensely.70 The claim (made above) that there has been no build up of tension in the opening 11 bars of the piece now requires reconsideration. The a section (mm. 1–3, characterized by mostly quarter note motion) is marked p and is immediately followed by a decrescendo. Section b (mm. 4–8) introduces eighth note motion, and while there are expressive dynamic swells, the general feel is still piano. Then a´ (mm. 9–11) returns to the quarter note pulse and combines the p with a small crescendo, and expressive hairpins, but predictably ends with a decrescendo. In relation to measures 1 through 11, measures 12 to 13 continue the initial gesture of p followed by a decrescendo. (Section c, m. 12ff., is 70 See Elaine Barkin, “Review of Schönbergs Werke für Klavier, by Georg Krieger, and Arnold Schönberg: Drei Klavierstücke Op. 11: Studien zur Frühen Atonalität bei Schönberg, by Reinhold Brinkmann,” Perspectives of New Music 9, no. 2 (1971): 346.

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chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation not only marked ppp, but Schoenberg indicates that the soft pedal should be added.) In this sense, then, the first real interruption comes at the end of measure 14 with the sf figure in the left hand. The soft, apologetic, lyrical mood of the opening is first interrupted by this short, loud, harsh outburst. We might call each of these emotive characterizations a narreme—a distinct (basic-level?) grouping of motivic features that we can use as a basic unit of narrative structure. In this particular mode of experience, it is the opposition of these two narremes that I find expressive, and whose interaction articulates the emplotment I hear as I listen to the piece. The use of the disruptive interruption in measure 14 reminds me of Steve Mackey’s 1993 Eating Greens (for orchestra), in which a pizza boy interrupts the concert to make a delivery to the principal double bass in the middle of the second movement. Mackey writes in the score that this interruption is not merely a gag, but, for him, a necessary musical device. The most unusual request is for a pizza delivery to the solo Bass player at measure 168. … The reason for this “theater” is to provide external motivation to force the Bassist to stop playing. This is the last step in the surprising series of events which leads the exuberance that dominates the movement into total collapse. … Approach the Pizza Delivery as the only thing that can shake the music back into remembering what it was about. Surprising, subjective, but musical in the tradition of Ives and Haydn.71 For Mackey, the drama of the interruption serves as the only means left to halt the direction the music is taking and get back on 71 Steve Mackey, Eating Greens (unpublished perusal score, New York: Boosey & Hawkes, 1993).

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chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation track. A kind of “time out—do over.” Similarly, by the time we have reached section c (mm. 12ff.) in the Op. 11, the note values have compressed and the dynamic has reduced to a place where taking any further this idea of continuing reduction/diminution (which creates for me that sense of introspection, apology, etc.) seems almost unmanageable. Having reached a place where things could not possibly continue as they are, the interruption in the Op. 11 at m. 14 provides a contrasting mood and then allows the initial idea to reenter and attempt to “start again,” which it does in measure 15, but is interrupted again in measure 16. Finally, measures 16 (end) through 18 restate a modified version of measures 9 through 11. Despite its similarity to a´ (mm. 9–11), I hear measures 15 through 18 as a kind of retransition—a point of departure for the next section: the first variation on a theme that never properly finished, due to the interruption. Unlike in the piece by Mackey, however, the interruption in the Op. 11 becomes incorporated into the fabric of developing variation. And since the pitch material of the interruption can be related directly back to measure 3, rather than thinking of it as an external interruption, we could imagine this piece as an Expressionist conflict of internal moods, attributing the narremes I described above to a single “character”—like the woman in Erwartung trying desperately to maintain a sense of calm in spite of her startling and grotesque discoveries. Variation I begins by articulating a modified version of a (m. 15— interruption—m. 16–18). Section b is distinguished by an initial two quarter-rests, the longest break so far, and there is dialogue between the disruptive idea and a modified version of the tenor motive from 119

chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation measure 4 (that has now moved to the top voice). Like the b section of the theme, there are three successive statements of similar material, and this time the last (m. 24) is loosely inverted, but the section closes with the typical ritardando and decrescendo. An a´ section begins in measure 25 (tempo primo—Mässig), but the original motive is modified and presented in canon, accompanied by inversions of the tenor motive from measure 4. A version of the c section (the fastest section of the theme—originally viel schneller—now alluded to with the tempo marking rascher) returns in measure 28. It is then the c section that is interrupted in measure 29 with a version of the original motive and its contrasting langsamer feel. Following this, there is an extension—a closing section (a´´) of three measures (like the opening section) that concludes pp by descending into the low register of the left hand with two variations of measures 2 and 3. Whereas the theme never got to finish its complete thought the first time around (due to the interruption), variation I is able to round off with a closing section of a´´—(aba´ca´´). The ambiguity of measures 15 through 18 (i.e., as the beginning of a new section, or the closing of the theme and return of a´) has in a way been “explained” by the music leading up to the new section at measure 34.72 We can read measures 15 through 18 as both and end and a beginning—a formal elision between the theme and variation I. Now that variation I seems to have come to a more satisfying close than the theme, variation II begins in measure 34 and the main tune (3+1=4) returns in a new guise, set in a lighthearted skipping 72 Note that we do this all the time with Mozart sonata-forms: we look to the recapitulation to help clarify ambiguous formal divisions in the exposition.

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chapter 2 ◆ organicism and developing variation figuration (with jaunty sixteenth note pick-ups). Against this, the bass, in dialogue, grumbles up the chromatic—still ppp, but with a sense that this half of the dialogue is muttering through clenched teeth. The moods have developed, and are associated with different sets of rhythmic and pitch motives, yet, the narremes are still identifiable in contrast to each other. As if to confront the increasing imposition of the interruption, the main theme returns in measure 53 (variation III) in reinforcing octaves. In this reading, the tension between the two narremes is the primary “problem” of the piece that needs to be resolved. But by measure 55 the interruption is emerging in the bass again (a continuation of the clenched teeth rumbling in variation II), and for the first time in the piece both voices in the dialogue are loud and harsh (mm. 56–57). The confrontation by the loud interruption has transformed the initial mood into itself. Ultimately, however, the initial calm mood asserts itself in response to the interrupting bass and with a final silencing sf in measure 58 returns to quiet fragments of the opening theme, and ends pp with a decrescendo—now utterly broken and spent.

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Chapter 3 Hierarchical Categorization and Met­o­nymy One of the long-standing criticisms of Bartók’s music has to do with what Malcolm Gillies has referred to as Bartók’s “lifelong difficulty in dealing with larger forms.” This echoes, to a large degree, the criticisms made by Gilbert French in his 1967 analysis of Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra: A general look over this whole analysis seems to show Bartók in this work to be a composer with a weak control over larger movements (the first and fifth), an excellent control over simpler forms which tend toward a traditional a–b–a form (the second and fourth movements), and a loose grip ending in total disaster in the middle movement. On the whole, an unsuccessful work as far as larger form is concerned. In general, much of the criticism of Bartók’s handling of form in larger movements is surely due to the sectional nature of Bartók’s formal designs (in spite of his loose use of the term “sonata form”), as well as the ambiguity of his harmonic organizational designs in post-tonal contexts. For French, the accusations of formal failure stems from a strong—though unstated—set of expectations about how Bartók’s music ought to go. Against this imaginary ideal, he evaluates the piece in terms of the ebb and flow of his emotional  Malcolm Gillies, “Review of Bartók: ‘Concerto for Orchestra’ by David Cooper,” Music Analysis 17, no. 1 (1998): 94.  Gilbert G. French, “Continuity and Discontinuity in Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra,” Music Review 28, no. 2 (1967): 134.

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chapter 3 ◆ hierarchical categorization & Met­o­nymy experience of the piece as a psychological progression. While one could argue with French’s opinions regarding the nature of success, his comment about Bartók’s handling of larger forms has made a lasting impression. Furthermore, Bartók’s fluid intermingling of harmonic source materials (often oversimplified to a dichotomy between Eastern and Western influences), and particularly his use of what he called “polymodal chromaticism,” has led to a diverse array of approaches for understanding pitch organization in his music. Elliott Antokoletz has argued that the variety of fragmented analytical approaches is “[o]ne of the main gaps that has existed in determining the primary means of pitch organization in Bartók’s music.” While it may not be possible to discover a “theory comparable to that of the traditional tonal system which draws together all pitch formations in [Bartók’s] music under one coherent set of principles,” we should at least be attempting such theories for individual pieces. Regarding hierarchical structure in Bartók’s music, David Cooper has argued that “it is the surface disruption in Bartók’s music, rather than its deeper level integration, which gives it a living, vital quality.” His arguments are provocative, yet, disruption can only be understood against something. In other words, to argue for the primacy of disruption, one is also implicitly arguing for an underlying coherent structure (even if only as an imaginary ideal) against  See Antokoletz, “Theories of Pitch Organization,” 259–300.  Ibid., 262.  Ibid.  David Cooper, Bartók: “Concerto for Orchestra” (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 76.

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chapter 3 ◆ hierarchical categorization & Met­o­nymy which disruption and interruption are understood. In chapter 5 I will evaluate the nature of some of the surface disruptions in the Concerto for Orchestra with regard to the structures against which they are in play, but for now, I would like to briefly investigate the nature of hierarchical categorization in post-tonal contexts. Tonal Pitch Space Theory in Post-Tonal Contexts The most recent comprehensive theory of musical hierarchy is Fred Lerdahl’s award-winning book, Tonal Pitch Space (hereafter TPS), which extends the work he and Ray Jackendoff introduced in A Generative Theory of Tonal Music (GTTM). The goal of TPS is to integrate models of grouping structure, metrical structure, timespan reductions, and prolongational reductions into unified structural descriptions whose strict hierarchical nature accounts “not for how the music is heard as it unfolds in time but for the final state of a listener’s understanding.” Lerdahl attempts to model his descriptions of the “laws” of tonality by combining concepts of a basic space (the frame for understanding the relative musical contexts of pitches and chords) and a path-governed model of musical distance in Chomskian tree diagrams (which are themselves governed by a set of well-formedness rules). Although the tree diagrams, in conjunction with time-span reductions, can produce interesting results, the nature of the model leaves no room for alternate readings, multiple ambiguous mean Fred Lerdahl, Tonal Pitch Space (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2001).  Ibid., 5.

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chapter 3 ◆ hierarchical categorization & Met­o­nymy ings, or the idea that a listener might use one conceptual model to approach a piece one time, and a different conceptual model to approach a piece the next time. Richard Cohn has criticized Lerdahl’s strict hierarchical system for its inability to deal with multiple simultaneous readings—the fairly straightforward ability to understand a single “event” in more than one way—given that the very nature of a strict hierarchical reading forces the analyst to choose a single function for each event. Cohn writes: “The Waldstein opens with a I chord that locally acts as IV of V; simultaneously acknowledging both ascriptions violates a cardinal principle of hierarchical well-formedness.” One of the problems with Lerdahl’s psychologically based system of hierarchical analysis is also that it presupposes that perceptual hierarchy is objectivist. That is, Lerdahl assumes that there is a single correct way of describing the world (in this case a musical “work”) and that rhythmic and harmonic event priorities interact in the mind of the “educated” listener according to a set of perceptual priorities to produce an overall gestalt hierarchy of that correct description.10 As Henry Klumpenhouwer has pointed out, this leaves no room for alternative analytical or cultural perspectives. “While analyses carried out within Schenkerian (or Riemannian or Ramellian) theory serve as arguments within aesthetic and cultural debates, analyses in GTTM and TPS function principally as actualizations of laws governing musical perception, as demonstrations (if  Richard Cohn, “Review of Tonal Pitch Space by Fred Lerdahl,” Music Theory Spectrum 29, no. 1 (2007): 106. 10 For extensive counter-arguments to objectivism see Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things.

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chapter 3 ◆ hierarchical categorization & Met­o­nymy not proofs) that the asserted cognitive laws are true or at least plausible.”11 Given the discussion of category theory in chapter 1 of this dissertation, we could argue that one limitation of strict hierarchical taxonomies (while, nevertheless, useful and usable in many circumstances) is that any single given model can never completely describe a work, or our understanding of it.12 Lerdahl, however, assumes that given a group of properly educated listeners the correct perception of music is psychologically universal.13 At the same time, from a Lakoffian standpoint, one of the redeeming aspects of Lerdahl’s theory is the incorporation of salience conditions, which are an attempt to account for the characteristics of the conceptual models that he believes govern the perception of tonal music. A partial list of his salience conditions include giving priority to musical events that are “in a relatively strong metrical position,” are “relatively loud,” are “relatively important motivically,” are “next to a (relatively large) grouping boundary,” or are “parallel to a choice made elsewhere in the analysis.”14 In spite of the attempts Lerdahl has made to tweak the salience conditions and rules of attraction to account for atonal and posttonal spaces (“in which there is no referable basic space”15), I find 11 Henry Klumpenhouwer, “Review of Tonal Pitch Space by Fred Lerdahl,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 58, no. 2 (2005): 490. 12 See also Lawrence Zbikowski’s arguments about the different conceptual models that lead well-respected theorists to competing hierarchical interpretations of the same music in “Conceptual Models and Cross-Domain Mapping,” and his more recent book, Conceptualizing Music. 13 Lerdahl, TPS, 4. 14 These are indexed in Lerdahl, TPS, 389. 15 Lerdahl, TPS, 344.

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chapter 3 ◆ hierarchical categorization & Met­o­nymy this extension of his system particularly problematic. One of his justifications for extending his model of tonal music (the book is called “Tonal” Pitch Space after all) to post-tonal and atonal music in chapter 8 is the notion that listeners who are competent in understanding the structures of tonal music probably perceive the pitch structures of atonal music according to the more “traditional” rules of tonal organization. I am not sure whether this assumption itself is a weakness or a strength. On the one hand, it provides a narrow vision of the possibilities for describing the “perception” of post-tonal and atonal music, and limits the scope of analytical interpretation by claiming a kind of absolute empirical authority that draws on the success of Chomsky’s universal grammar (on which this cognitive model is based—though with very little scientific data to justify many of the perceptual claims that are central to his arguments). On the other hand, Lerdahl’s discussion of the cognitive difficulties of understanding atonal (and particularly 12-tone serial) music in relation to tonal music is an indication of the importance of the conceptual models that we use to make sense of the world. If a listener’s primary conceptual model is one that works nicely for most tonal music, and they come across an atonal piece they have never heard, then in the absence of an alternative model, they may in fact default to the model they use for tonality. However, Lerdahl is not generating alternate models. Without a referential basic space for post-tonal music, he must come up with a way to parse musical events so that they can then be organized hierarchically in order to reflect a single state of understanding with respect to his models of ideal prolongation. In spite of its overwhelm127

chapter 3 ◆ hierarchical categorization & Met­o­nymy ing formalism, however, the system is clearly not ruled exclusively by elements found “in the music.” Lerdahl’s system of hierarchical branching is treated as a system independent of the elements at the ends of the branches, with gradations of “good” and “bad” representations of musical tension and release, described in his wellformedness rules of branching. This assumes that independent of any particular musical context, we as listeners have preferences for generalized relationships of tension and release in music. Philosophically, this seems to conflict with the fact that Lerdahl builds his tree diagrams from the surface toward “deeper” time-span reductions. In spite of the absence of traditional harmonic function, Lerdahl assumes that a hierarchical understanding of atonal music is still dependent on generalized rules of relative tension (dissonance) and release (consonance) realized as distance paths between musical events. In order for Lerdahl to calculate the distance between eventstructure x and event-structure y in the absence of a perceptual basic space, his flat-space distance rule (δflat) compares the presence or absence of ics between event x and event y, and adds that number to the comparison of the presence or absence of pcs between x and y. Lerdahl borrows ch from his interspatial distance rule for tonal music to represent the difference in ic content between two atonal “chords” (here x and y—of supposedly any cardinality16) and k to represent the difference in pc content between x and y. The rule then looks like: 16 One of the problems with the flat-space distance rule that Lerdahl notes himself is that “a comparison of sets of different cardinality results in an asymmetry between δ(x→y) and δ(y→x), because of the differing values for k,” though he chooses to ignore “this slightly awkward result” (p. 345).

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chapter 3 ◆ hierarchical categorization & Met­o­nymy δflat (x→y) = ch + k In other words, the distance (δ) between chord x and chord y (in the absence of a basic space) is calculated by adding the number of new interval-classes (ch) to the number of new pitch-classes (k). Lerdahl admits the simplicity of this formula for calculating similarity between event-structures, but nevertheless dismisses the literature on similarity relations as “inconclusive” (without mentioning Eric Isaacson’s extensive work on similarity relations).17 It seems overly simplistic to treat collections of pitches as classical categories in which all members are treated equally and then count up the differences in pitch class between two pitch collections as a measure of how much dissonance the progression has. Ultimately, however, Lerdahl is not interested in the precision of similarity relations, as he intends to use them only insofar as they can help guide left and right branching in the tree diagrams. Yet, are pitch-class and interval-class content really the only two factors in determining perceptual distance as a function of cognitive sensory dissonance? Lerdahl also chooses not to address differences between distinctions of pitch and pitch-class, and intervals and interval-class, yet in his conclusions he cites interval-class preservation (over interval preservation) as a major hurdle to the perception of 12-tone serial music. Nevertheless, the flat-space distance rule relies entirely on differentiation by pitch-class and interval-class, and Lerdahl claims 17 See Eric J. Isaacson, “Similarity of Interval-Class Content Between Pitch-Class Sets: The IcVSIM,” Journal of Music Theory 34, no. 1 (1990): 1–28. Isaacson not only provides a more rigorous version of similarity relations (called IcVSIM— based on the accepted formula in mathematics for standard deviation) but he investigates in detail other attempts to deal with similarity of pitch structures, whether of the same or different cardinality.

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chapter 3 ◆ hierarchical categorization & Met­o­nymy that “[r]efinements missed by δflat are largely neutralized … by virtue of its interaction with the rules of prolongational good form and the three perceptual rules of salience, anchoring/reduction, and sensory dissonance.”18 Cohn takes issue with this kind of circularity in treating prolongational good form as an abstract ideal that both results from and guides the proper perception of musical event relationships. “It seems, then,” writes Cohn, “that nonconforming reductions meet the same fate as ascending or gapped Ursatz: they are returned to the shop for repairs.”19 As a supplement to his flat-space distance rule—where flat-space refers to atonal music’s lack of a priori internal hierarchy—Lerdahl’s atonal branching well-formedness condition defines three kinds of ideal branching for atonal prolongation. They are, however, strangely based exclusively on departure and return of pitch-class: •

strong prolongation (“if the two events share the all the same pcs”);

•

weak prolongation (“if the two events share approximately half the same pcs”); and

•

progression (“if the two events share less than half the same pcs”).20

Note that even here, the concept of atonal prolongation (while fairly generalized) is defined exclusively by departure and return to pitchclass. How is this different from tonal prolongation, except that it removes the traditional rules for prolongational connection between 18 Lerdahl, TPS, 345. 19 Cohn, “Review of Lerdahl, TPS,” 102. 20 Lerdahl, TPS, 346

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chapter 3 ◆ hierarchical categorization & Met­o­nymy the endpoints? This reliance on pitch-class content makes no allowance for the possibility of perceptual and even hierarchical organization by other parameters—such as interval-class relationships or the progressive and systematic development of an idea or gestalt without return to original pitch-classes. Lerdahl suggests—but does not seem to apply in his analyses— that one way to think of prolongational good form is really as a way of separating events into the categories of “the same,” “the same, in altered form,” and “different.” This promises to be a much more widely applicable version of hierarchical relationships, and while Lerdahl indicates that it “could even be applied to nonmusical phenomena such as narrative structure in literature and phonological patterns in poetry,” he himself does not apply it to any musical phenomena other than pitch-class.21 In general, the problem with claiming that sensory perception of consonance and dissonance is more important than “musical” consonance and dissonance, however, is that Lerdahl’s analysis leaves no room for the inclusion of alternative cultural value systems to be imposed on the perception of “natural” phenomena. In other words, he has defined the criteria by which he assumes all listeners categorize their experience of music. One of his basic assumptions at the beginning of the book is the presence of an “educated listener.” He is forced, by the claim of his own assumption, to project this value— that sensory dissonance is less desirable than sensory consonance— as a perceptual reality for all (correctly educated) listeners. There is no room for alternate interpretation of what constitutes consonance 21 Ibid., 350.

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chapter 3 ◆ hierarchical categorization & Met­o­nymy and dissonance, including Bartók’s or Schoenberg’s. And Lerdahl misconstrues (to my way of thinking) that Schoenberg’s concept of consonance and dissonance is itself about a value system—dissonant intervals only have to resolve to consonant intervals if your value system requires it, and this is very clearly something Schoenberg was attempting to get away from. Yet, Lerdahl’s assumption that sensory consonance can be measured empirically, and is preferable to sensory dissonance, posits the natural existence of a preferable state for all listeners. He claims, simply, that biology trumps culture. Schoenberg (1941/1975) supports the elimination of the distinction between consonance and dissonance by arguing that consonance and dissonance fall on a continuum rather than in separate categories and that the higher dissonant partials have achieved greater “comprehensibility” through stylistic change. On that basis he claims the emancipation of dissonance. This view overlooks the fundamental distinction between sensory and musical dissonance and appears to confuse cultural with biological evolution. … The sensory dissonance of a seventh remains greater than that of a sixth, regardless of the musical purposes to which these intervals are put. By disregarding sensory distinctions, Schoenberg does not erase them but rather leaves them—at least at the level of compositional theory—in an uncontrolled state.22 As I hope I made a case for in chapter 1, categories do not exist in the world as divisions between natural kinds of things. Lerdahl is assuming that the categories for consonance and dissonance are fixed and purely biological. It is based on this assumption, then, that he attempts to read “tonal” prolongations in atonal (and post-tonal) music based on “natural” tension and release of surface sonorities as a function of biologically determined cognition. Having never run a 22 Ibid., 380.

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chapter 3 ◆ hierarchical categorization & Met­o­nymy single study on musical cognition myself, I am perhaps out on a limb to disagree. Yet, the study on color categorization in chapter 1 clearly showed that the boundaries between phenomena along a continuous spectrum are not as stable as we might think. And it seems to me that my position on musical realism is the same as the basic realism I expounded in chapter 1 based on the category theories of Lakoff and others: the measurement of sensory consonance and dissonance as functions of wave interactions in space are phenomena that exist outside of my perception of them; but their meaning (i.e., their categorization and the imaginary boundaries that allow for their conceptualization as musical consonance and dissonance) must, at least in part, be determined by cultural constraints. In general, one of the most intriguing aspects of Lerdahl’s system is the concept of the basic space and the implications it has for hierarchical perception (though I’m not entirely convinced that the reasoning he uses to arrive at the numbers—which do, nevertheless, correspond to my own musical intuitions—provides an accurate model of the process of cognitive perception). However, in the absence of a basic space, the extension of his system of hierarchy to atonal and post-tonal contexts is still dependent on describing “the final state of a listener’s understanding” based almost exclusively on pitch-class relationships.23 Despite his attempt to include other parameters, Lerdahl uses salience conditions and time-span reductions only in determining which pitches are more important than other pitches in order to construct strict hierarchical models. He seems unable to give up the priority of pitch centricity as the pri23 Ibid., 5.

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chapter 3 ◆ hierarchical categorization & Met­o­nymy mary organizing principle of cognitive perception, even for music in which the composers specifically claim that pitch centricity is not a primary organizational feature. Metaphors of Hierarchy Music theorist Lawrence Zbikowksi has argued that there are two basic metaphors that govern conceptual models of hierarchy in music: a chain-of-being metaphor and an atomistic metaphor. The conceptual metaphors map a set of relationships from a non-musical domains onto the domain of music for the purpose of understanding, or making sense of, musical relationships. This mapping is not usually a conscious choice, nor is it applied haphazardly. In particular, Zbikowksi has used this concept of metaphoric mapping (what he calls cross-domain mapping) to explain why different theorists (Edward T. Cone, Leonard Meyer, and Robert Morgan) have generated such different analyses of the opening phrase of Mozart’s A major piano sonata, K. 331.24 Chain-of-being hierarchies are governed by a top-down model in which lower levels are controlled by higher levels and a single, mysterious, entity controls the entire model. Schenker’s description of the controlling aspect of a central tonic is a classic example of a chain-of-being hierarchy. Atomistic hierarchies are built on a concept in which small units are combined into larger and larger units. Atomistic hierarchies are usually applied to a conceptual understanding of a piece in which the boundaries of units are defined by 24 See Zbikowski, “Conceptual Models.”

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chapter 3 ◆ hierarchical categorization & Met­o­nymy metrical combinations. Zbikowski has argued that the application of atomistic hierarchies to the domain of pitch (instead of primarily the domain of meter) “has not met with wide acceptance.”25 In spite of this, however, Schenkerian approaches to post-tonal music have failed to provide an acceptable theoretical framework. I would like to propose that one of the problems with applying top-down chain-of-being hierarchical models to post-tonal music is that, in the absence of a controlling entity equivalent to the tonic in traditionally tonal music, the “organic” metaphors employed by Bartók and Schoenberg may be better modeled by atomistic hierarchies—especially in the domain of pitch. But to understand how reductions of this music might function, we must evaluate the nature of the reductive process and the relationship of reductions to the music they represent. In particular, I believe that one of the little investigated keys to this approach is the function of met­o­nymy. While conceptual metaphor and cross-domain mapping have had much discussion, the nature of met­o­nymy in music has received much less attention. Key Architecture and Motivic Parallelism in Tonal Music In musical contexts, met­o­nymic reduction and hierarchical reduction can look similar because they are both at least partly structured by a part-whole schema. Hierarchical models are represented 25 Zbikowski, “Conceptual Models,” 215. He is referring specifically to Eugene Narmour, “Some Major Theoretical Problems Concerning the Concept of Hierarchy in the Analysis of Tonal Music,” Music Perception 1, no. 2 (1983–84): 129–99.

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chapter 3 ◆ hierarchical categorization & Met­o­nymy by a container schema (that itself is structured by a part-whole schema and an up-down schema), making them necessarily comprehensive. Met­o­nymic models, on the other hand, are represented by a part-whole schema in which the source-path-goal mapping between the source and target occurs within a single domain. With met­o­nymy, then, we do not necessarily have to account for the parts that get left out. The meaningfulness of the target in a met­o­ nymy is that it activates the entire domain. In the context of music, the use of significant sub-surface motivic parallelisms to replace traditional harmonic progression can provide met­o­nymic links across structural levels. However, we are not simply looking for repeating patterns. We are making claims of intentionality about compositional strategies of “harmonic” organization and formal design. As an alternative to Schenkerian style harmonic reductions, or Lerdahlian tree diagrams of hierarchical prolongation, I would argue that met­o­nymic reductions can play an important role in our making sense of organizational techniques other than functional tonality in what look like atomistic hierarchies. Specifically, the convergence of notions of key architecture and motivic parallelism may provide a clue to understanding the organization of semi-tonal or post-tonal spans of music within a framework informed by an organic metaphor. In 1920, (around the time of his comments about Schoenberg’s Op. 11) Bartók wrote of the relationships of tonality, atonality, and key architecture: The second movement of the [Kodály String Trio] is the most remarkable of all [events of the last few months in Budapest]: 136

chapter 3 ◆ hierarchical categorization & Met­o­nymy sustained double-thread of mysterious, drawn-out sevenths and ninths …. We are transported to a tonal fairyland, never heard nor dreamed of before. It must, however, be stated that this, as well as Kodály’s other works, despite their unusual combination of chords and their striking originality, are wholly based on the principles of tonality (although not in the established sense of a rigid major and minor system). It will be seen that despite the ‘atonality’ tendencies of modern music, the possibilities of rearing new erections on the basis of ‘key’ architecture have not been exhausted by a very long way.26 It is important to note that Bartók seems to conceive of these various elements as working together, rather than being mutually exclusive: modern music can be tonal (though not in a traditionally functional sense), can have atonal tendencies, and at the same time can be organized by a notion of key architecture. However, given Bartók’s comments on Kodály a year later, it would also seem apparent that the possibilities he sees for the new role of key architecture in post-tonal music are only hinted at in Kodály’s music and likely represent his own ideas for its potential use. One must immediately point out that Kodály’s music does not belong to the kind of music called modern: it has no relation whatever to the new atonal and polytonal schools and is still based on the principle of tonic equilibrium. But his language is new, expressing something hitherto untold and demonstrating that tonality has not yet lost its reason for existence.27 Note in particular that what Bartók finds anti-modern in Kodály’s music is “tonic equilibrium.” Thus, we see Bartók in the process of 26 Bartók, “Musical Events in Budapest, March–May, 1920,” in Béla Bartók Essays, 464. When he mentions the string trio, Bartók is surely referring to Kodály’s Serenade, op. 12 (1919–20), for two violins and viola. 27 “On Modern Music in Hungary,” in Béla Bartók Essays, 478.

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chapter 3 ◆ hierarchical categorization & Met­o­nymy abstracting a notion of key architecture from principles of tonal music, which he can realize as a concept of post-tonal organization in his own music. That he calls it “ ‘key’ architecture” is a powerful statement about the role he envisions for structural organization in post-tonal music.28 I would like to look at two familiar pieces in some detail to evaluate the increasing role of motivic parallelism and key architecture in tonal music as a model for later developments in the post-tonal music of Bartók. Rather than looking at the music of Kodály, I will examine Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony and Richard Strauss’s Don Juan, since I will come back to these pieces in chapter 4 in an attempt to demonstrate that the interaction of surface motives and structural design in these pieces also belongs to a particular tradition of allusion and narrative. For the time being, however, we should at least begin from the assumption that motivic parallelism creates relationships between the surface and sub-surface levels that can allude to the kind of organic coherence that Bartók seems to value in his writings. When used pervasively, this results in a compositional design in which the characteristics of various structural levels have self-similarity, and the contours of deeper levels of organization have precedent on the surface. Tch a i kovsk y: Sy m phon y no. 4 .  I would like to begin with a semi-close reading of the sonata form in the first movement of Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony (1876), in order to evaluate the 28 See especially Bartók, “Analysis for the Fifth String Quartet,” in Béla Bartók Essays, in which he characterizes the structural organization of the sonata form as a whole-tone scale.

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chapter 3 ◆ hierarchical categorization & Met­o­nymy relationship between unusual features of the formal design and their precedents on the surface. One of the intriguing aspects of the introduction to the first movement of Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony is the tonal ambiguity created by the twelve repeated Abs at the beginning of the piece (see example 3.1). Recalling the opening of Beethoven’s Fifth (in more ways than one) we have no indication of what key we might be in until we get the addition of the pitches F–G–Ab in measure 3 (which could, of course, still indicate Ab major). F minor is, however, confirmed in measure 4, and by the descending scale that follows. This new stability is immediately undermined by the modal mixture of the harmony as the fanfare repeats. Ab is recontextualized (m. 7) as the third of a major triad built on scale degree 7ˆ (which we might label as a VIIå53 chord in F minor with a misspelled third:

Bsn., Hn.

+ Tbn., Tba.

example 3.1  Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 4, movement I, mm. 1–7. 139

chapter 3 ◆ hierarchical categorization & Met­o­nymy Ab instead of G#). At the end of the second statement of the fanfare we get a descending series of chords that punctuate the fanfare as it gets quieter and quieter (see example 3.2). In this sequence of five chords in example 3.2, Ab is the common tone (note that the spelling Ab—instead of G#—in the augmented triad, III&, also avoids pointing toward the dominant function of this chord [C–E–G# would indicate a V&] despite its dominant sound.) In this sequence—as well as over the course of the entire introduction—Ab acts as b3ˆ in the tonic harmony (F minor), as the major third in a chord that sounds like an E major triad (though it is not spelled as a nameable triad), and as the bass note of an augmented triad. There is a brief transition (pp) in the clarinet and bassoon that leads directly into the first theme of the exposition (also unexpectedly quiet for a first theme). The tripartite first theme group (P) is monothematic: the theme is presented in F minor (m. 27ff.), A minor (m. 70ff.), and then again in F minor (m. 92ff.). After a brief transition (mm. 104–115), the second theme group begins at measure 116 in Ab minor. The second theme group also has three main subdivisions: S1 (Moderato assai, quasi Andante, m. 116ff.); S2 (Ben sostenuto il tempo precedente, m. 134ff.); and S3 (an extended section two bars after the Moderato con anima [Tempo del comincio], m. 161ff.). In a bit of foreshadowing, the first sub-section (S1) divides into three parts—moving from Ab minor to B major and back to Ab minor—before a V/B sets up the more extended move from the overall Ab minor of S1 to the B major/minor of S2 and S3. (This modulation also includes a change of key signature from four flats to five sharps that highlights the tritone 140

chapter 3 ◆ hierarchical categorization & Met­o­nymy (a)

f:

viiº65/V

Ger&6

III&

(VIIå53)

i/f

(b) m. 13

m. 15

m. 17

m. 19

m. 20

example 3.2  Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 4, movement I, mm. 11–20: (a) piano reduction; (b) reduction of bass arpeggiation as diminished cycle with Db interruption. 141

chapter 3 ◆ hierarchical categorization & Met­o­nymy relationship between F minor and B major.) Measures 134 to 192 (S2 and S3) are then effectively an extended pedal on B. The development section begins in B minor with a variation of the opening fanfare in measure 193. Over a B pedal in the timpani we first hear the fanfare as it was in the introduction—in octaves (though here on D, b3ˆ of B minor). Then it is presented again, now harmonized as a C-major triad (still over a B pedal). Several interesting things happen in the development section. In the middle of the first sequence (A# minor–A minor–G minor; mm. 201–217) there is another key signature change to no sharps or flats that coincides with the A minor section. Following this is a second sequence (m. 218–236) that begins in C minor with a new countermelody played in the bassoons and cellos against the main theme of the exposition (P). Measures 218–223 are then repeated in F minor (mm. 231–236)—giving us a false recapitulation of the primary theme in the tonic! This moves directly into a section of modulatory motivic development of the recently introduced countermelody (mm. 237–252), which is followed by another sequence: the introductory fanfare on E (in A minor—note that the fanfare is now on 5ˆ, instead of b3ˆ), followed up a half-step by a repeat of the fanfare on F (in Bb minor). After a cadence back to B minor (mm. 273–277) we hear the fanfare again on F (m. 278ff.) over an augmented-sixth in D minor that resolves to a V/d pedal at the retransition (m. 282ff.). Over a typical retransition pedal, Tchaikovsky then uses the primary theme of the exposition (P) as the main melodic material of the retransition, set against the trombones, who outline the i64 triad of the extended i64→V7that leads to the recapitulation (m. 295ff.). Like Beethoven, this 142

chapter 3 ◆ hierarchical categorization & Met­o­nymy functions as an anticipation of the recapitulation at the very end of the development, but even though we hear the main theme, the long dominant pedal makes it feel that we have not yet arrived. One of the most unusual things about this recapitulation is that when we do “arrive” after this long dominant pedal, we get neither the return of the first theme nor the return of the tonic F minor. As example 3.3 shows, the recapitulation is not only in reverse order (beginning with S1 in m. 295), but begins in D minor. And here we

(a) intro

expo P

dev

recap coda? S1 S2 P

S1 S2+S3

etc.

(b) intro

expo P

dev

recap coda? S1 S2 P

S1 S2+S3

etc.

example 3.3  Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 4, movement I: (a) analysis of key architecture as unfolding of interval-3/9 cycle; (b) dual cyclic unfolding as complex key architecture (N.B., secondary unfolding of interval-4/8 cycle). 143

chapter 3 ◆ hierarchical categorization & Met­o­nymy have another key signature change to one flat—D minor/F major. (In fact the secondary themes are never completely transposed to the tonic.) Tchaikovsky has set up an interesting situation, because like S1 in the exposition, S1 in the recapitulation is in three parts and tonicizes two keys: D minor (mm. 295–300), F major (mm. 301–306), and D minor (m. 307ff.). In the recapitulation, then, S1 does briefly (and indirectly) touch on the tonic—albeit, in the wrong mode, as the relative major of D minor. The move to F major is further established with the subsequent recapitulation of S2 (Ben sostenuto il tempo precedente; m. 313ff.). Note that this is not a pure arch-form recapitulation: the themes of the second theme-group are presented in their original order, and S3 does not return. In place of S3, at the climax of the stringendo, we get a temporary breakthrough (m. 340ff.) This F major Mahleresque Durchbruch emphasizes the crossrelations between the ascending D§s in the upper voices and the descending Dbs in the lower voices, and after only eight measures finally cadences to the complete tonic (F minor) in m. 348. But the main theme is nowhere in sight, and just as at the end of exposition (leading into the development), this cadence is followed by a short transition of descending motivic repetition. Like the beginning of the development, the coda begins with the introductory fanfare (m. 355ff.)—in the tonic F minor. However, this version in the coda seems to be a recapitulation of the beginning of the development section rather than of the introduction. While the fanfare in the coda is on Ab (back on b3ˆ in F minor) over a pedal F, it lasts only for four measures before moving to a Db major triad (still over a pedal F). This, however, leads to a brand new theme (in 144

chapter 3 ◆ hierarchical categorization & Met­o­nymy the coda—think Beethoven’s Fifth) in Db major (mm. 365–380). The forward motion of the piece is briefly halted with this Db-major interruption (in contrast with the music surrounding this section, it is both p and cantabile). This is soon made up for (m. 381ff.) by the Molto più mosso—which many conductors not only play poco a poco cresc., as the score indicates, but accelerando poco a poco as well. The Molto più mosso, that reestablishes F minor by scalar descent in the bass from b6ˆ to ˆ1 (and, in fact, finally returns the original key signature of four flats), is then interrupted by a harmonic sequence that recalls the introduction (with the major triad on 7ˆ followed by the augmented triad) that leads to the final statement of the main theme. At the moment of arrival of this final statement of the main theme we get another (new) fanfare on IV/f (mm. 400–402), while the violins, violas, and cellos all extend the opening note of the theme (Db). As the strings move on with the theme, the rest of the orchestra completes the plagal cadence to F minor (fff) in measure 403. Even here, the misalignment of the return of the theme and the return of the tonic highlights the b6ˆ–5ˆ tension of the theme. The closing section (Più mosso. Allegro vivo, m. 312ff.) extends and repeats the b6ˆ–5ˆ (Db–C) suspension over the tonic, and eventually simply dissolves it into an F-minor arpeggiation and repeated F minor chords. In the first movement of Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony, the harmonic relationships between the major elements of the sonata form I have described above are based not the tonic-dominant relationships of more typical sonata forms, but on symmetrical cycles. 145

chapter 3 ◆ hierarchical categorization & Met­o­nymy Example 3.3a is a graphic reduction of the key architecture of the first movement (with the addition of the primary motives and indications of mode added in some places as small notes directly under the note that represents the key). This description is aided by the fact that those of us who have any notion of what the term “sonata form” means share a similar conceptual model of prototypical sonata forms. The monothematic first theme group begins in F minor, modulates to A minor, and returns to F minor. Partly because it returns to F minor, and partly because everybody knows that first theme groups (in prototypical sonata forms) do not really modulate to new keys (that is, of course, for second theme groups) the key of A has less priority in my graphs. And the same is true of the end of the movement. As I have notated in the graphic reduction, there is a prominent section in Db major just before the close of the first movement. This Db, together with the tonic (F) and the keys of the first theme-group (F–A§–F), is part of a second set of relationships that foreshadows the key relationships of the third movement—an (augmented) interval-4/8 cycle (see example 3.4). Tchaikovsky has built the structure of the first movement around both sets of third

example 3.4  Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 4, movment III, analysis of key architecture as augmented triad. 146

chapter 3 ◆ hierarchical categorization & Met­o­nymy relationships (minor third/diminished and major third/augmented), and yet, these could not be said to be in any kind of counterpoint— they occur linearly. A linear analysis, then, would need to account for these relationships, especially the prominence of the Db (since I will argue its structural role to be the programmatic focus of the entire piece), in a way that allows us to acknowledge their role in the organization of keys, but does not misrepresent their relationship to each other. However, in this case, both the A§ and the Db occur within what we could describe as more traditional prolongations of F. In my reduction of the first movement (example 3.3a), I have also outlined a primary bass motive of the introduction—the descending minor-third cycle—and highlighted the Db–C motive at the end of the introduction. Example 3.3a, then, does not adequately represent the interval-4/8 cycle, considering the role it plays in relation to the tonic, and in foreshadowing the organization of the third movement, which is also organized harmonically around the augmented triad. Perhaps simply by re-beaming the notes on the reduction (and carefully describing the graph, as I hope I have done) I can account for both sets of relationships (see example 3.3b). The simultaneity of multiple processes (or the simultaneous unfolding of multiple distinct relationships) is not unique to Tchaikovsky, but is a foreshadowing of new developments in sonata form organization employed by composers like Strauss and Bartók. Most interesting, these two reductions (one focusing on the minor-third cycle, and one focusing on the major-third cycle) are not different levels of reduction, or different structural levels of detail 147

chapter 3 ◆ hierarchical categorization & Met­o­nymy within a single prolongation. And one is not part of the other. They cover the same span of music at the same level of reduction, yet they are two distinct ways of making sense of the key structures as they unfold within a sonata form paradigm.29 They are both met­o­ nymies of the whole piece, that together form a graded category. Met­ o­nymies display prototype effects, among which is gradation. Having said that, if we use the prototypical conceptual model sonata form as the basis for evaluating the centrality of membership in the category (instead of a model that defines hierarchy in terms of the composing out of a tonic triad), then the interval-3/9 cycle (of minor thirds) has more importance than the interval-4/8 cycle because the segmentation of the interval-3/9 cycle aligns with the segmentation of the sonata form conceptual model. Thus, although we have two competing models of pitch architecture at the same level of reduction, we need not give up a sense of hierarchy. While I have not stated it explicitly, my conceptual model of sonata form in this example has implicitly included a basic concept of tonic—not in a Schenkerian sense that controls all levels of composing out, but in a sense that involves the sub-model recapitulations bring back music from the exposition and return to the tonic. In the case of the first movement of Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony, however, the return of the tonic and the return of the primary theme do not coincide. However, if our conceptual model is sufficiently generalized we should have no problem under29 As distinct from strict hierarchical categorization, Lakoff calls this phenomena cross-categorization, in which a thing can be a member of several hierarchies at the same level at the same time. See Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things, 31 and 287–88.

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chapter 3 ◆ hierarchical categorization & Met­o­nymy standing this movement in terms of a prototypical model of sonata form. The plausibility of the interval-3/9 cycle-plus-Db as a structural framework for the movement is aided by its alignment with a common conceptual model of sonata form. However, there is another precedent for this structure (including the out-of-place Db) in a motivic parallelism with the introduction of the movement. Example 3.2a shows a piano transcription of measures 11 through 20 of the introduction. In particular notice that the bass arpeggiation can be interpreted as an interval-3/9 cycle plus an odd note out—Db (example 3.2b). Note that while measures 11 through 20 provide a motivic parallelism with the background of the entire movement (compare the diminished cycle in examples 3.2b and 3.3a), that the augmented triad is also present as a surface feature in this chord progression (example 3.2a, m.19). Beyond its use on the surface in the introduction, the augmented triad will serve as the secondary structure of the first movement (example 3.3b), and as the primary background structure of the third movement (example 3.4). Notice that in the third movement also, the Db sticks out of the key architecture, as it does on the surface in the introduction and in the key architecture of the first movement. In the third movement, all of the sections in Db are balanced by a section in A—except for the penultimate section in Db. In structural terms, this asymmetry highlights Db. To summarize, what we see here is that in Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony the introduction not only sets up b6ˆ–5ˆ as the primary melodic tension of the movement (in such a way that it appears as if the 149

chapter 3 ◆ hierarchical categorization & Met­o­nymy main theme grew directly out of the opening fanfare), but through an unusual harmonic progression Tchaikovsky prepares a motivic parallelism with the key architecture of the entire movement. In both the introduction and the key architecture of the piece, the motivic parallelism looks like a diminished cycle with an intrusion by b6ˆ. Furthermore, the treatment of b6ˆ as the intrusion (both in the introduction and in the key architecture) isolates it from its usual dominant resolution (as it usually appears on the surface), highlighting it as a independent entity. R . St r aus s: D on J ua n.  Another example in which there is a significant motivic parallelism between the opening and an unusual sonata form treatment is Richard Strauss’s tone poem, Don Juan (composed in 1888 and first performed in 1889). As a tone poem, Don Juan has proven surprisingly difficult for many scholars to reconcile the programmatic (or implied programmatic) and structural formal elements into coherent readings. Rather than clarifying programmatic readings of the piece, the presence of Lenau’s poem in the score has for some been dissonant with the history of Don Juan stories in general.30 James Hepokoski has reviewed the history of analyses of Strauss’s Don Juan in order to highlight the historical tension in the discourse about this piece, and offers his own analysis—which posits narrative ambiguity and structural abmbivalence as central to an understanding of the piece. Hepokoski traces a general disregard 30 See James Hepokoski, “Fiery-Pulsed Libertine or Domestic Hero? Strauss’s Don Juan Reinvestigated,” in Richard Strauss: New Perspectives on the Composer and His Work, ed. Bryan Gilliam (Durham: Duke University Press, 1992), 152–53.

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chapter 3 ◆ hierarchical categorization & Met­o­nymy for the excerpt of the poem printed in the score as programmatic referent (in favor of Lenau’s complete poem) to comments by Wilhelm Mauke in 1908: “the whole poem of Lenau must be considered, for we find all of its principal episodes expressed here in sounds.”31 Subsequent to Mauke, the assumption that the music represents the whole poem has led to serious problems when attempting to match up a narrative reading with traditional structural forms. For Hepokoski, however, “[t]his procedure [of reading Lenau’s entire poem] encouraged a closer identification of what seems to be unambiguously represented in the musical work: three specific sexual encounters, the catastrophic Carnival Scene and its immediate aftermath, and the concluding suicide-duel, none of which is mentioned in the provided lines [in the score].”32 While Hepokoski argues for an unambiguous program, it is the problematic juxtaposition of this program with the structural elements that has caused him to further argue that this piece is “structurally in no single form; rather it is a structural process in dialogue with several generic traditions.”33 Far from unambiguous, I find the “three specific sexual encounters” one of the most problematic aspects of Hepokoski’s reading. While I will argue for a program of heroic ambivalence—represented structurally—in a piece like Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony, and I have no problem with ambiguous formal structures in general, I tend to disagree with many of the justifications for the kinds of deformative interpretations in Don Juan that Hepokoski proposes 31 Quoted in Hepokoski, 153. 32 Ibid., 153. 33 Ibid., 152

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chapter 3 ◆ hierarchical categorization & Met­o­nymy on the grounds that many of the categories against which this piece is compared need not be as restrictive as they have been treated. (Sonata form is not a single thing against which individual pieces can show deformation—it is a category whose members show family resemblances.) Furthermore, I believe that parallels between motivic structures and formal structures (as well as programmatic structure) may shed some light on how we might read the piece as a mostly unambiguous (if loose) narrative. The following, then, is a description of the piece that attempts to hermeneutically integrate a structural reading with a programmatic reading, in order to demonstrate the growing importance of motivic parallelism as an indicator of formal organization. (Measure numbers for this account of the piece are given in table 3.1.)34 Don Juan opens with an introductory fanfare, followed by a triumphant first theme in E major, unmistakably representing Don Juan. Don Juan (E major) then meets the first girl in the transition section of the first exposition: her music is in C major, then abruptly shifts back to E major for his response. The juxtaposition of keys, as well as dynamic distinctions help define individual characters in the narrative. (Don Juan is marked ff, while the girl enters subito pp, and is marked flebile [tearful, plaintive].) After the transition, they settle into a solidly defined secondary key area of B major for the love-making scene. (Note that he has led her away from her original key of C major and makes love to her in his dominant). The section cadences in E minor, simultane34 My analysis differs significantly from Hepokoski. Compare my table 3.1 with his essay, “Fiery-Pulsed Libertine or Domestic Hero?”

152

chapter 3 ◆ hierarchical categorization & Met­o­nymy table 3.1  Richard Strauss, Don Juan, sonata form, etc. m.

key

form

description

exposition 1 1

E

Intro1

N.B. opening chord progression: (G)–C–B–E

9

E

P1

Don Juan

40

E

T1

44

C/E

T2

Girl 1 (C major); Don Juan (E major)

50

~

T3

Seduction 1 (playful)

71

V/B

T4

End of play; disolving into love-making

90

B

S1

Girl 1 love-making (N.B. dominance of DJ motives)

149

e

C1

His sexual climax = their breakup (also foreshadows end)

153

C

C2

DJ Intro1 theme; N.B. key from girl 1 is “taken” by DJ and becomes his next tonic in Expo 2

156

e

C1

160

Eb

C2

166

V/E

169

DJ Intro1 theme

exposition 2 Intro2

Freedom!

C

P1

V/E → E (in melody), but harmonized as C major

189

~

T5

197

g/D

S2

Girl 2 seduction (DJ = g; Girl 2 = V/g)

232

G

S3

Girl 2 love-making; oboe idyll; (N.B. his key in her mode)

296

G

C3

307

G

C4

His idyll accompaniment becomes unrest… (variation of DJ Intro1 motive)

development HT

313

V/C

Freedom!; Heldenthema (HT alludes to girl 1 key & girl 2 melody—but both are his now)

351

D

“Carnival” (playful)

386

c#

“Carnival” (trouble); N.B. prominence of HT

421

V/E

Retrans1

Fragmented “recollections” of girls; (Hangover); “Katerstelle”

457

V/E

Retrans2

DJ “snaps” out of it; (N.B. DJ Intro1 motives)

recapitulation 474

E

Intro1

476

E~

P1

490

~

T6

Modulatory development of DJ motives

510

V/E

HT

N.B. Heldenthema as substitute for S

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chapter 3 ◆ hierarchical categorization & Met­o­nymy table 3.1  (continued) m.

key

543

C

556

IV/C

form

description “Jubelruf” (triumphant cheer); grand reunion of his themes N.B. DJ Intro1 theme as transition to Coda

coda 567

E

570

V/E

586

iv/e

596

e

coda1 stringendo coda2

poco piú lento

ously signaling his sexual climax (with the return of his tonic), their breakup (with the abrupt change of mode), and, formally, the end of the second group and the beginning of the closing section of the first exposition. In a Classical sonata form, we might expect (after a brief closing section) that the entire exposition would repeat. Instead, Strauss gives us a whole new exposition in which the programmatic and formal sections parallel the first exposition, creating a slight ambivalence of form. In the abstract, the exposition repeats (complete with introduction, first theme group, transition, second theme group, and closing material), yet, the music is through-composed. This formal ambivalence can be read programmatically: Don Juan meets a new girl and has a second encounter (through-composed), while the ritual of his seductions remains the same (with the “repeat” of the exposition). Ultimately, I read this as a variation within a category of sonata forms, not as a variation on through-composed music. The form is ambivalent (pointing to multiple simultaneous functions), but is not ambiguous. 154

chapter 3 ◆ hierarchical categorization & Met­o­nymy The second exposition begins with a newly independent Don Juan, followed by a second seduction, second love-making scene, and subsequent breakup. Instead of returning to the tonic E major, however, for the beginning of the second exposition, Strauss does something extraordinary. The second exposition begins with introductory material in V/E, implying an expected return to E major for the primary key of the second exposition. When he actually arrives at the primary theme (m. 169), however, V/E cadences to E in the melody, but the ‘Don Juan’ theme is now harmonized in C major—the key of the long-gone first girl! In structural-programmatic terms, Don Juan has taken the key from the first girl, transforming his “freedom” music (P1) which we now hear in her original (if brief) key of C major! Don Juan’s interaction with the second girl is even more ingenious (if not disturbing) than with the first. Don Juan introduces himself to the second girl in G minor and she responds in its dominant (D major). The love-making scene that follows—sometimes referred to as the oboe idyll—is in G major. Don Juan has adapted himself to a new girl, and they make love in his key (typical) but in her mode. Expectedly, at the end of their time together, Don Juan becomes restless (his idyll motive becomes unrest at m. 307, after the perfect authentic cadence in G major) and he must be independent once again. The development section that follows begins with a new theme, sometimes referred to as the Heldenthema. It has been shown by other scholars to be related to the music of the oboe idyll (it is an inversion of sorts of the oboe idyll—perhaps a sexual reference to 155

chapter 3 ◆ hierarchical categorization & Met­o­nymy the second girl?). What I find striking, is that in the formal outline of the work, the new theme—the Heldenthema—represents (for me) Don Juan’s freedom in the same manner as the introductory material in both expositions. It alludes to the key of girl 1 (it is in V/C major), the melody of girl 2 (as an inversion of the oboe idyll), and yet it obviously represents an independent (if not triumphant, in sexual conquest terms) Don Juan. In all of these respects, the Heldenthema is not new: it is simply a transformation of motives and ideas already presented in the piece. Don Juan’s conquests are not just about sex—they are about power and appropriation and he takes something from each girl. As if to confirm this reading, the Heldenthema reappears in the recapitulation in the structural place of the second theme—the place formerly reserved for the lovemaking scenes. Through a sequence of developments of keys and motives that culminate in the Heldenthema, Strauss has represented the repentless violence of Don Juan’s personality to appropriate at will, the trait that ultimately secures his fate. If we find this sonata form plausible, with its two expositions and four keys, then is there a model for this unusual harmonic structure? And do the key relationships themselves have any potential programmatic meaning? The answer to both questions would appear to be yes. As with Tchaikovsky, I will evaluate the programmatic reading of the primary structures in the next chapter. But as for the model for this unusual harmonic structure, the first time we hear a juxtaposition of the four key relationships in question is in the opening chord progression of the piece: G–C–B–E (see example 3.5). These four chords are then projected in reverse order as the uncon156

chapter 3 ◆ hierarchical categorization & Met­o­nymy

(G maj) C maj V/bVI bVI

B maj V

E maj I

b3ˆ

5ˆ

ˆ1

b6ˆ

example 3.5  Richard Strauss, Don Juan, opening.

ventional harmonic structure of the sonata form (compare example 3.5 with table 3.1). This kind of motivic parallelism, relating the unconventional key structure of a sonata form and surface motives, is similar to the one we saw in Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony. In this reading, I have attempted to incorporate both structural and programmatic elements in a single unified account of the piece. In doing so, however, I have undermined the notion of a single-tonic exposition (though not a single tonic, as E always represents Don Juan), and replaced the conceptual model of a single-tonic sonata form with a harmonic structural outline derived instead from a programmatic surface motive presented at the beginning of the piece. As with Tchaikovsky, I will discuss the programmatic element of this motive in the next chapter. 157

chapter 3 ◆ hierarchical categorization & Met­o­nymy Gr a ph ic r epr e se n tat ion.  In closing, let me briefly examine the process and meaning of my reductions, and analyze the graphic elements of representation, to see what claims they might (or might not) be able to make about the music they represent. Like Schenkerian-style analyses, my linear analyses of Tchaikovsky are met­o­nymic models—that is, conceptual models in which a part stands for the whole. (For instance, according to the reduction in example 3.3b, the first movement of Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony is the dual unfolding of an interval-3/9 cycle and an interval-4/8 cycle.) For Schenker, hierarchy necessarily stems from the “natural” primacy of the triad and depends on a metaphysics of tonality that, today, is no longer plausible. Furthermore, a strict chain-of-being reduction graph (or group of graphs representing strict hierarchical levels) is an objectivist attempt to accurately describe the essence of a single reality. While met­o­nymic models do let a part (or some parts) stand for the whole, they do not, by themselves, make any claims about the structure of a single correct description of reality. Therefore, we can use multiple met­o­nymic models to represent different aspects (even competing aspects) of the music they are meant to stand for. As Lakoff has shown, met­o­nymic models themselves show gradience and produce prototype effects, allowing us to continue to make judgements about better or worse representations of the whole within the category.35 In my analysis the first movement of Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony, I have structured one conceptual model in terms of another. That is, instead of giving a priori hierarchical primacy to the triad, 35 Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things, 288.

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chapter 3 ◆ hierarchical categorization & Met­o­nymy or tonic-dominant relationships within a system of tonality, I have started with a prototypical model of sonata form (itself only one of many possible conceptual models), and mapped onto it the keys of its major elements—represented on the graph by single unfilled note heads. What I have arrived at is a met­o­nymic reduction of the first movement in which the sonata form model is structured not by tonic-dominant relationships, but by an interrupted interval cycle. Furthermore, since the interrupted interval cycle model itself is part of a significant motivic parallelism, we could say that the primary conceptual model used to understand the first movement (sonata form) is partially structured by another conceptual model defined by a motivic parallelism (interval cycle interrupted by b6ˆ). The source-path-goal schema that structures met­o­nymy in general makes this particular mapping unique to this piece (as opposed to Schenkerian-style, or Lerdahlian-style reduction that finds underlying unity between different individual examples). Clearly, however, our understanding of sonata form in this piece is not exclusively structured by the interrupted interval cycle model. As with Schoenberg’s attempts to expand his concept of motive to include anything that is treated motivically, the conceptual model for the sonata form of the first movement of tchaikovsky’s fourth symphony has other parameters that are constantly being negotiated within the fuzzy category sonata form (such as the meaning of the sub-categories exposition, first theme group, recapitulation, etc.). In the next chapter I will attempt to add to the above readings another layer of meaning within a structuralprogrammatic tradition of allusions to narratives of fate. 159

Chapter 4 Allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate The sixty-fourth season of the Boston Symphony Orchestra opened on 6 October 1944 with Beethoven’s “Eroica” (dedicated “to the heroes of the United Nations”) followed by the Boston premiere of Schuman’s Prayer in Time of War, and Ravel’s Second Suite from Daphnis et Chloé. John Burk’s program notes contain the following characterization of Beethoven’s symphony: The concept of heroism which plainly shaped [the “Eroica”], and which sounds through so much of Beethoven’s music, would give no place to a self-styled “Emperor” who was ambitious to bring all Europe into vassalage, and ready to crush out countless lives in order to satisfy his ambition. … Its suggestion is of selfless heroes, those who give their lives to overthrow tyrants and liberate oppressed peoples. To Dr. Wegeler, one of the two friends whom [Beethoven] could bring himself to tell of his deafness, he wrote in a letter of resurgent determination, “I will take Fate by the throat.” The “Eroica” was his direct act of taking “Fate by the throat.” … In this sense, the idealized heroism of the Symphony can be nothing else than autobiographical. Between Koussevitzky’s dedication and Burk’s program note, it is clear that this particular performance of Beethoven’s Third Sympho-

 Boston Symphony Orchestra program book, 6–7 October 1944, p. 9. While the charter for the United Nations was not signed until 26 June 1945, Koussevitsky is referring to the 26 nations that, on 1 January 1942, signed Franklin D. Roosevelt’s pledge, “Declaration of United Nations.”  Boston Symphony Orchestra program note, 6–7 October, pp. 12 and 18.

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chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate ny was intended as an inspirational narrative of heroes and overcoming that would specifically resonate with American audiences still under the grip of World War II. And the choice to follow it with the Schuman leaves little doubt as to the moral and spiritual effect Koussevitzky hoped the opening concert of the season would have on the audience. In addition to the overtly programmatic nature of the concert programs themselves, the Boston Symphony Orchestra program books that year were filled not only with advertising for war bonds (often incorporated with advertising for things like perfume, “… give her a war bond—and anything by Charles of the Ritz”), but many of the advertisements already looked to the imminent comfort of a post-war future, characterized specifically as “modern.” Paine’s Furniture Company advertised model rooms and decorating tips for “Post-War Modern Homes” that promised to provide consumers a “sense of relaxation, plus the lift of spirit that comes from colors with a lot of dash,” and “point the way to better living.” Advertisements for kitchen stoves listed them specifically as “postwar” (read “modern”) “ ‘gas’ ranges.” Patrons read of perfume called “Laughter” with its “glorious promise of a happier tomorrow” complete with imitation Matisse nudes dancing gaily around the bottle, and Steinway advertised their pianos as “The Instrument of the Immortals.”

 Boston Symphony Orchestra program book, 1944–45, 427  Ibid.  Ibid., 389.  Ibid., 458.

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chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate (“War is hard on plans for tomorrow” the Steinway advertisement goes, “But tomorrow always comes!”) It is in this context that Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra had its world premiere on 1 December 1944. In the program notes for the first performance, Burk touted Bartók as more “modern” than either Schoenberg or Stravinsky—on the same page that The Institute of Modern Art was advertising a performance of Leonard Bernstein’s “On the Town” as the most important event “since the première of Gershwin’s ‘Of Thee I Sing’.” Whatever it may have been in other circles at the time, the “modernism” of 1944 in the halls of the Boston Symphony Orchestra was partly about looking forward to a post-war future of comfort and fine living. This version of modernism was inextricably entwined with an optimistic narrative of heroic overcoming that had yet to finish playing out in the national consciousness. And like Beethoven’s biography and its connection to the program of the “Eroica” that audiences had been reading only months earlier, Bartók’s biography was proffered at the world premiere of the Concerto for Orchestra as the story of a hero, borne out in—or composed into—the music they were about to hear. “Fatherless at eight,” Bartók had to be “taught piano by his mother” in “provincial” Hun Ibid., 23.  Ibid., 446.  It is clear, however, that much of the modernist “post-war” optimism of this particular moment was purely hopeful. The BSO program for the concert following the premiere of the Concerto for Orchestra also printed “letters home” from members of the BSO that were still in France playing for the American troops: a percussionist, two horns, the tuba player, two trumpets, a violin player, and a double bass player; see Boston Symphony Orchestra program book, 1944– 45, pp. 463–66.

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chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate gary.10 And in the same way that Burk had connected Beethoven’s life to the musical programs of the ‘heroic’ symphonies, his program notes for the Concerto for Orchestra associate Bartók’s stated musical program of overcoming and life-assertion with the trajectory of his life following those “provincial” beginnings. The first paragraph of Burk’s program note introduces the voice of Bartók himself, directly connecting Bartók’s program with his most recent personal struggles. “The general mood of the work represents,” so writes the composer, “apart from the jesting second movement, a gradual transition from the sternness of the first movement and the lugubrious death-song of the third, to the life-assertion of the last one.” This remark is interesting, in that Béla Bartók composed the piece during the period of recovery from a serious illness.11 What do we do with this initial perspective as it was presented to audiences in Symphony Hall in 1944? How much of the program for this piece is related to the general mood being promoted in Boston at the time? Can we talk about any musical resemblance to other musical ‘hero’ narratives? Or, to what extent was the program for the Concerto for Orchestra influenced by Burk and Koussevitzky? We can read Bartók’s notion of a gradual transition toward life-assertion generally in the context of World War II and the other constructions of optimistic hope being offered by the Boston Symphony Orchestra at the time (though perhaps in the same way that Hollywood movies of the 1940s were attempting to boost the public’s morale, not reflect it). And we can choose to view the program in the context of 10 Ibid., 449. 11 Ibid., 442.

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chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate Bartók’s biography, as Burk suggests at the outset of his notes. While it very probably did have personal meaning as a program piece for Bartók, we should not dismiss the context of wartime propaganda in which the narrative appeared. Bartók was certainly not unaffected by the war—he had been living in exile in the United States for several years by 1943 when he began composing the piece. In 1939, before he left for the United States, he wrote in a letter of the growing German occupation in Europe as a story of fate that directly affected him on both a personal and professional level. The … political events of last year have on the one hand rather depressed me, and on the other … robbed me of very much of my time. Just imagine: the publishers of practically all my works are Viennese!, the performing right society of composers to which I belonged was Viennese!. The society protecting the mechanical rights of which I am unfortunately still a member, is Viennese! Since that notorious Anschluss, all these have come to Germany. Now, I have a good number of reasons for not being particularly keen on being in any way connected with Germany. The fatal influence of the Germans is steadily growing in Hungary, the time seems not to be far, when we shall become quite a German colony. … I would like best to turn my back on the whole of Europe. But where am I to go? And should I go at all before the whole situation becomes insupportable, or had I better wait until the chaos is complete?12 And eventually he did decide to go to New York. But it is clear that narratives of fate and overcoming, or of a gradual transition from darkness and death to life-assertion, can be read from many perspectives with regard to the composer and his life, the audience, the particular circumstances of the commission and composition, the 12 Béla Bartók Letters, ed. János Demény, trans. Péter Balabán and István Farkas, trans. rev. Elisabeth West and Colin Mason (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1971), 276.

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chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate social and political conditions of the premiere, and the conductor, orchestra, and staff that commissioned the work and produced the first performance. In addition to being aware of these historical perspectives, we might also explore a history of allusions to Beethoven (or beginning with Beethoven) in order to locate a reading of the Concerto for Orchestra within a larger context of historical transformations of the ‘Fate’ narrative among nineteenth- and twentieth-century composers. As we saw in chapter 2 in Bartók’s discussion of Kodály, Bartók seems to take Beethoven’s biographical narrative of heroic overcoming as both given and manifest in the perfection of his (Beethoven’s) music. Whether we interpret Beethoven this way or not, it is clear that Bartók did. By reading the Concerto for Orchestra as a general allusion to the popular narratives associated with Beethoven’s third, fifth, and ninth symphonies (though ultimately, for our purposes, the fifth)—in which, through a heroic struggle, life gradually overcomes and transforms darkness into light—we are including the Concerto for Orchestra in a specific post-Beethovinian tradition. I would like to begin by laying out some of the context for that tradition in this chapter in order to help evaluate a narrative reading of the Concerto for Orchestra in chapter 5. Narrative Analysis Before I discuss the tradition of ‘Fate’ narratives, however, I ought to dedicate a few words to some of the theoretical issues involved in narrative analysis and the interpretation of meaning. The last twenty 165

chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate years have seen a resurgence, in both musicology and theory, of investigations into the nature of musical meaning—particularly, the nature of the semiotic relationship between musical “structures” and emotive meaning. How can we address, Nicholas Cook has asked, the “lack of an adequately theorized conception of how music might support, or not support, the meanings ascribed to it”?13 The problem, as Cook sees it, is not simply one of how music acquires meaning, but also of how to negotiate positions between meaning as a wholly cultural phenomenon (championed by those he calls the Neo-Adornian “New” musicologists: McClary, Subotnik, etc.) and meaning as a product of structural—read “purely musical”—properties (represented by those he refers to as the Neo-Hanslickian formalists: Hatten, Edward T. Cone, etc.). In other words, if musical meaning belongs exclusively to the domain of social ascription as a cultural construction, then musical structures can mean anything anyone wants, and meaning itself becomes purely arbitrary—a bad thing for Cook, and a bad thing for our notion of reading ‘Fate’ narratives in music. If this is not the case, as it surely must not be, then how do we reconcile the notion that listener response cannot be wholly subjective, but is somehow mediated, or guided by musical structures? To ask it another way, what role do “musical structures” play in guiding possible choices for meaning? Can we talk about musical “attributes”—as Cook does in his article—that, without conveying precise messages (like “take out the garbage at 6 p.m.”) narrow the pos13 Nicholas Cook, “Theorizing Musical Meaning,” Music Theory Spectrum 23, no. 2 (2001): 171.

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chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate sibilities for emotional and semiotic interpretation? What Cook and others have attempted to do is to find a middle ground between the two camps in order to define “meaning” (or multiple ways of thinking about meaning) as a negotiation between the supposedly opposing concepts of inherent (“purely musical”) meaning and meaning as exclusively socially constructed. Cook refers to several scholars on this issue who share a common view regarding the relationship of formal and expressive interpretations. According to Cook, Robert Hatten, Edward T. Cone, Anthony Newcomb, and Leo Treitler all seem to advocate a position in which, as Newcomb puts it, “formal and expressive interpretations are in fact two complementary ways of understanding the same phenomena.”14 There is a hidden danger, though (as Cook warns), that attempts to integrate the two positions sometimes dissolves into a substitution of labels—expressive for formal, or vice versa. The central problem, however, still remains: if musical meaning is purely musical (as it is for extreme formalists like Hatten), then how do expressive features interact with formal features? One solution might be to rethink the problem. Instead of talking about features (as if expressive features or structural features existed outside of human perception) we can think of expressive and structural interpretations as different ways of categorizing the world. As we have seen, different conceptual models can result in differing categorization strategies. Why can’t structural interpretations and emotive interpretations both be valid? Why do they need to be mutually exclusive? One of the dangers one faces when addressing issues of 14 Cook, “Theorizing Musical Meaning,” 174, n. 33

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chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate musical meaning involves assumptions about the nature of meaning itself. Meaning is not a single thing—and to hypostasize it as such is misleading with regard to what it is we are looking for. In the preface to their book, Lakoff and Johnson write that their project “grew out of a concern … with how people understand their language and their experience …. [W]e found that we shared … a sense that the dominant views on meaning in Western philosophy and linguistics are inadequate—that ‘meaning’ in these traditions has very little to do with what people find meaningful in their lives.”15 My notion of “imaginary boundaries” is not simply about which notes to circle, but is also about what it means to make decisions with regard to how people categorize what is meaningful to their experience. Fred Maus has also advocated for a rethinking of the narrative/ structure opposition. He proposes that perhaps conceptualizing this issue as a dichotomy is misleading. Instead of an either/or (narrative/structure) dichotomy, he prefers to describe musical structures using analogies to drama.16 In “Music as Drama,” he attempts to integrate emotive and structural description as a way around choosing one side of the opposition—and his method is most interesting. He breaks up an analysis of the Beethoven String Quartet, op. 95, into three parts. After each part he then writes commentary on his own analysis, allowing him to tease out the subtleties of the analytical writing and assess its effectiveness. Similar to Janet Levy’s article on the covert values of organicist language, or Zbikowski’s work on 15 Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, ix. 16 Fred Everett Maus, “Music as Drama,” Music Theory Spectrum 10 (1988): 56–73.

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chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate hierarchical models, Maus attempts to interpret the values behind certain kinds of analytical statements. Maus’s starting point regarding the relationship between structure and emotion stems from his critique of Peter Kivy’s essay, The Corded Shell.17 Kivy’s call to make expressive analysis as respectable as structural analysis is a noble one, yet Maus sees several problems with conceiving of emotive description and structural description as opposite poles of a dichotomy—poles that seem to be reinforced by writers like Joseph Kerman, David Epstein, and the work of Lerdahl and Jackendoff. In particular, Maus finds “the received notion of musical ‘structure,’ as an aspect of music that can be distinguished from ‘meaning,’ to be vague and obscure.”18 His goal, then, is to integrate aspects of emotive and structural description—which ought, one supposes, to meet Kivy’s call for respectability—by replacing an events are objects conceptual model (in which meaning is a product of structure) with an events are actions model (in which meaning is a product of hidden psychological causes). Following his analysis of the Beethoven, then, Maus argues that “the notion of action is crucial in understanding the Beethoven passage,” by relying on an interpretive scheme that is based on “the related notions of action, behavior, intention, agent, and so on.”19 “The scheme works,” he claims, “by identifying certain events as actions and offering a distinctive kind of explanation for those events. The 17 See Peter Kivy, The Corded Shell: Reflections on Musical Expression (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980). 18 Maus, “Music as Drama,” 60. 19 Ibid., 65–66.

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chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate explanations ascribe sets of psychological states to an agent, states that make the action appear reasonable to the agent and that cause the action.”20 While Maus would like us to believe that a metaphorical mapping of elements from the frame of drama provides a better solution to explaining Beethoven’s music than formalist descriptions, what his article actually reinforces, above all, is that the boundaries of interpretive understanding are determined by the conceptual models that inform a particular stance. In addition to the general split between formalist and emotive interpretive traditions is Carolyn Abbate’s work on narrative in her book, Unsung Voices.21 Ultimately, her argument is that, due to the fuzzy nature of musical signification and the absence of momentto-moment mimesis, music is unable to narrate, and thus cannot be narrative. But this position seems to deny the historical meaningfulness of narrative interpretation. Even Eduard Hanslick, who is so often hailed as the father of formalism, does not deny music’s ability to seem narrative (and thus to be interpreted as such). Based on his perception of the essence of music’s value (which for him resides exclusively in the domain of musical structure), he simply appears to prefer music without explicit programs. In his 1892 review of Richard Strauss’s Don Juan, Hanslick does not deny the ability of music to evoke images and tell stories. In fact, his criticism of Strauss for focusing on these elements reinforces the very mode of interpretation that he wants to discredit. He would 20 Ibid., 66. 21 Carolyn Abbate, Unsung Voices: Opera and Musical Narrative in the Nineteenth Century (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991).

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chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate prefer that audiences value the same concept of “pure” music that he does, and, yet, his review reinforces the prevalence of narrative interpretation. That Strauss consciously cultivates the imitation of painting and poetry is demonstrated in his other symphonic poems. The tendency is … to use purely instrumental music merely as a means of describing certain things; in short not to make music, but to write poetry and to paint. These outwardly brilliant compositions are nothing if not successful. I have seen Wagner disciples talking about the Strauss Don Juan with such enthusiasm that it seemed as though shivers of delight were running up and down their spines.22 While Hanslick disagrees with emotive interpretations, he concedes the popularity of such positions and admits Strauss’s skill in “achieving the desired effect” and evoking them. He who desires no more from an orchestral piece than that it transport him to the dissolute ecstasy of a Don Juan, panting for everything feminine, may well find pleasure in this music, for with its exquisite skillfulness it achieves the desired objective in so far as it is musically possible. The composer may thus be compared with a routined chemist who well understands how to mix all the elements of musical-sensual stimulation to produce a stupefying ‘pleasure gas’. For my part I prefer, with all due homage to such chemical skill, not to be its victim.23 Hanslick makes similar kinds of statements in his review of Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony. He does not want to value a narrative interpretation, yet, it is clearly a very real part of his experience of the music. 22 Eduard Hanslick, “Richard Strauss’s Don Juan [1892],” in Eduard Hanslick: Music Criticisms, 1846–99, ed. Henry Pleasants (Baltimore: Penguin, 1950), 291–92. 23 Ibid., 292.

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chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate There is obviously a hidden poetical programme at the bottom of this symphony; the first movement, with its rhapsodic shifting between adagio and allegro, between major and minor, points to a passionate tragedy of the heart. Most listeners would probably wish for a programme to save them guessing; I consider it, rather, proof of the composer’s musical temperament that he lets his music speak for itself.24 Based on the long tradition of characterizing program music as an opposition to what is usually referred to as “pure” or “absolute” music, discussions often conceptualize the program as an extra-musical feature that does not belong to the music proper, but rather, is imposed upon musical structures. For this reason, musical structure is often viewed as more authentic than programmatic accounts. Furthermore, programmatic accounts of music are often evaluated with respect to musical structures—not the other way around. Formalist counter arguments to programmatic interpretation hinge on the fact that narrative accounts—while meaningful to people—cannot be verified in the musical structure. And since programs are perceived to reside at the musical surface, this view is not surprising, given the cultural values associated with the surface/depth metaphor. This is further complicated by the notion of programs invented by someone other than the composer. But denying the meaningfulness of this type of interpretation only reinforces the (false, I believe) notion that “truth” is inextricably embedded in the fabric of art at its inception.25 24 Eduard Hanslick, “Tchaikovsky’s Symphonie Pathétique [1895],” in Eduard Hanslick: Music Criticisms, 1846–99, ed. Henry Pleasants (Baltimore: Penguin, 1950), 303. 25 See chapter 1 on Michael Reddy’s conduit metaphor of meaning.

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chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate In this investigation I am interested in explicating programs or narratives that acquire their meaningfulness through specific cues in the music and the appropriation of—or allusion to—those cues by other composers. For our purposes it does not matter whether Beethoven thought the Fifth Symphony was about fate—the fact that other composers perpetuate the story, and allude to specific musical motives in their own ‘Fate’ stories, makes the narrative real with respect to their (and potentially our) experience of Beethoven’s music. At the same time, I believe that one of the primary musical cues that makes the ‘Fate’ narrative appropriate for certain of Beethoven’s pieces has to do with a musical motive that seems to be largely overlooked in discussions of his music. Yet, in order for the notion of program music to exist at all (specifically in instrumental music without text or lyrics), there must be a general conceptual mechanism for mapping literary narrative categories onto musical phenomena. Whether categories for this process of cross-domain mapping are specifically and explicitly conventionalized or generalized is irrelevant. It is apparent that the mechanism for mapping images, narratives, moods, characteristics, etc.—while perhaps controversial in some academic circles from an analytical standpoint, and difficult to describe—is a very real part of the experience of music for many people. And this tradition is clearly a rich one. (Interestingly, the popularity of giving audience members a program consisting of biographical and narrative accounts of the music and its creation—all playing into the notion of authentic meaning and origins—coincides with proliferating nineteenth and twentieth century discourses on the imagined divide between pro173

chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate gram and absolute music.)26 Clearly, however, the conceptual mapping of musical programs (of all sorts) has long played an important role in what people find meaningful when they listen to music. Part of the modern anxiety that produces in some people a need to explain exactly how music as program music can have explicit reference in terms of some other domain (such as emotion, or a literary narrative) goes back to Wittgenstein’s discussions of fuzzy categories. What is “sad” music? Is there some set of sufficient and necessary conditions for composing music that sounds sad? One way to discount the notion that music can be sad, literally, is to show that we cannot clearly define what sad music is—that is, the exact meaning of any particular set of symbols is at least partly undefinable with respect to its signification. What we have learned from Wittgenstein, however, is that there is nothing wrong with our category (clearly, there is such a thing as sad music)—but that in asking to define the essential nature of a category like sad music we are asking the wrong question. Only classical categories have sufficient and necessary conditions, and as we have seen, very few categories are classical. In fuzzy categories (like music that sounds sad) individual members (pieces) may display family resemblances with respect to each other, but there is no single set of rules that can predict all the members of the category. Additionally, the common counterargument to that kind of meaning—that concedes that music can “make” me feel sad, but cannot represent a tree—is also false. The mapping of sadness (or other emotions) onto the domain of music via musi26 See Nigel Simeone, “Programme note,” Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy .

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chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate cal cues for the frame that includes feeling sad is not independent of the conceptual models of the listener who feels sad when he hears certain kinds of music. Mapping the image of a tree (or chickens, or a wave) onto musical space is no more or less conventionalized than mapping emotion. The historical hypostasization of music has perhaps led to the misconception that there is something out there—“the music itself”—that is stable with regard to a group of listeners, and is therefore more real than something as unstable as a program. As an audience member, I cannot change the notes in the score and parts simply by thinking about it during a performance. I can, however, change my experience of the music by thinking about a different story. (This has more to do with ultra-individualistic meaning than with received codes of interpretation, and is similar to Rolland Barthes’ distinction between individualistic interpretation based on puncta and shared cultural codes that make up the studium.27) But as Zbikowski has shown, variance in formal descriptions by respected analysts reveals that, in fact, the instability of musical structures can also be the result of differences in the conceptual models used by the analysts. Approaching the same piece with different conceptual models does not change the notes—it changes what they mean. Musical allusion, quotation, style, and a variety of other symbolic markers, all play a central role in informing the conceptual categories that become appropriate for mapping narratives onto music—beyond simply residing as an extraneous and removable 27 See Rolland Barthes, Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography, trans. Richard Howard (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1981).

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chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate layer (on an imagined musical surface). These symbolic moments point to larger conceptual frames that in turn guide our thoughts, expectations, and actions. Lakoff argues that framing is automatic, pervasive, and unavoidable.28 When presented with the following: “DON’T THINK OF AN ELEPHANT”—not thinking of an elephant is impossible because activation of the frame that defines our understanding of elephants is part of the conceptual complex. I am using the concept of a “symbolic moment” to mean anything that invokes a particular frame in the course of experience. This “symbol” does not get its meaning from a disembodied semiotic relationship with other symbols, but acts as a cue for initiating specific codes of interpretation. In this respect, it is similar to Hayden White’s characterization of narrative as a metaphorical symbolic structure that “does not reproduce the events it describes; it tells us in what direction to think about the events.”29 The metaphoric narrative structure for White “functions as a symbol, rather than a sign: which is to say that it does not give us either a description or an icon of the thing it represents, but tells us what images to look for in our culturally encoded experience in order to determine how we should feel about the thing represented.”30 For example, I was struck recently by a commercial for NASCAR

28 See George Lakoff, Don’t Think of an Elephant (White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green, 2004). 29 Hayden White, “The Historical Text as Literary Artifact,” in Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978), 91. 30 Ibid.

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chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate which used Greig’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King” as its music.31 I initially found this choice of music highly incongruent with what I thought I knew about NASCAR—except for the fact that the melody was played by what sounded like an electric guitar (though was, in fact, several electric cellos). In this case, the tune is less important to the meaning of the aural/visual combination than the instrumentation and style. The sound of the electric cellos invokes a particular frame traditionally associated with electric guitars, including where electric guitars are usually heard (physical spaces), what kind of audience is typically involved (players), and behavioral expectations (actions) such as dress codes, alcohol consumption, physical norms about movement, norms about vocalizing, norms about participation, typical kinds of relationships between performer and audience, and many more. Thus, the instrumentation and style together form a symbolic moment that invokes a conventionalized conceptual frame and invites us to transform one social model of reception (associated with “Classical” music) into another based on the cultural web of connotations surrounding electric guitars. It is, literally, a symbol of transformation that occurs in an actual moment of human experience in which the guitar (and not the tune) invokes a frame that is congruent with what I expect to be associated with NASCAR. What I am proposing is that one intersection between narrative analysis and structural analysis might be addressed by the notion of frame analysis. Narrative frames come from our experiences with 31 The television commercials ran on Fox sports channels in the spring and early summer of 2002, with the musical rendition of the Grieg by Apocalyptica—a rock/metal group consisting of electric cellos that became known for their covers of famous bands like Metallica.

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chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate individual narrative strategies, learned from specific examples. But the frames that result are an amalgamation of those experiences. Thus, the symbolic moment of recognizing (literally re-cognizing) an allusion, whether in the form of discourse or an element found “in the music,” can activate a narrative frame—an interpretive mode of understanding that allows us to make sense of the world in specific ways. In this sense Abbate is right—music cannot narrate. But it is certainly open to narrative interpretation. Toward an Interpretation of b6ˆ In an early article, Susan McClary investigated the use of the bVI key-area as (what she describes as) an interruption into otherwise stable tonal contexts in 19th-century music.32 She argues that it is the function of bVI as an interruption in an otherwise stable tonal landscape that “is so strongly marked as significant that it virtually demands interpretation.”33 Further, she claims that minor-sixth interruptions “turn out to be one of the principal musical means of articulating certain key 19th-century cultural issues.”34 And she asks that perennial question—namely, how do we reconcile the notion that listener response cannot be wholly subjective, but is somehow mediated by musical structures. How, in her words, “does one bridge the gap between notes and meaning?”35 It is from this perspective 32 Susan McClary, “Pitches, Expression, Ideology: An Exercise in Mediation,” Enclitic 7 (1983): 76–86. 33 Ibid., 76. 34 Ibid. 35 Ibid.

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chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate that she attempts to explain each minor-sixth interruption “in terms of its formal, expressive, and ideological significance.”36 As a footnote, McClary notes that narrative readings of 19thcentury music seem to make more sense than those that employ an architectural metaphor, “as both music and the novel manifest parallel involvements with long-term patterns of conflict/resolution, character (thematic) transformation, organicism, and so on.”37 Assuming this perspective, then, “the placement of the interruption in the course of the piece’s narrative plan influences heavily the way in which it is to be understood.”38 She proposes several interpretations of bVI interruptions: “triumph (in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony), banal complacency (Beethoven’s A Minor Quartet, Op. 132), or lyrical freedom ([as in Schubert’s Impromptu in C Minor, Op. 90, No. 1] or in Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony).”39 McClary claims that one important basis for her emotive readings of the bVI key area is the structural framework that gives rise to them. That is, she argues that these interpretations are possible because of our structural understanding of tonality, and are “forged from an unstable pact between tonic and sixth degree.”40 Though how she arrives at the specific notions of “triumph,” “banal complacency,” or “lyrical freedom” is unclear. In other cases (Beethoven’s Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 127, Pia36 Ibid., 77. 37 Ibid., 85, n. 11. 38 Ibid., 79. 39 Ibid., 81. 40 Ibid.

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chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate no Sonata, op. 26 [“Les Adieux”], and Op. 110, and Schubert’s B-flat Piano Sonata and Moments musicals, Op. 94, No. 6) McClary argues that bVI interruptions “articulate central 19th-century problems of discontinuity, loss of confidence in the individual’s ability to determine his or her fate, and the turn from rational processes to the irrationality characteristic of Romanticism”—ideas that are also central to “the 19th-century novel, poetry, visual art, and political unrest.”41 However, she claims that while both musicology and theory have “recognized the phenomenon of minor-sixth interruptions” they have failed to explain “the purpose of such an interruption in any given composition nor why such remote syntactical relationships became prominent features of 19th-century style.”42 Her proposed solution hinges on an understanding of the ideological bases that link musical structures (like bVI) with specific trends in cultural reception. “The formal mechanisms that emerge in repertories are to a large extent the means by which views of the world and values find themselves articulated. Thus, in order to explain adequately the history of musical repertories and their formal strategies, involvement with meaning—both expressive and ideological—is essential.”43 And thus, she writes, “if we are to begin treating musical compositions as meaningful products of culture, then we must begin to translate our formalisms into human terms.”44 This is my attempt to translate.

41 Ibid., 82. 42 Ibid., 83. 43 Ibid. 44 Ibid.

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chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate From ‘Sigh i ng’ to ‘Fat e’.  It seems that most discussions of fate in music lead inevitably back to Beethoven, and particularly back to what is commonly referred to as the ‘knocking’ motive in the Fifth Symphony (the short-short-short-long rhythmic figure). While this motive has received much attention both in discourse and as a musical allusion, it has overshadowed another motive that is perhaps more integral to the interpretive codes of the ‘Fate’ narrative after Beethoven. McClary has pointed out that there is something special about moments of bVI in nineteenth-century music, and like Cook, feels that the interpretation of these moments in the context of specific musical structures must somehow be mediated by a set of cultural codes of reception. The development of these codes goes back to music written long before the nineteenth century, and is, I believe, a result of a met­o­nymic relationship between sighing and fate. Remember that metaphor and met­o­nymy are different kinds of processes: metaphor allows us to understand one thing in terms of another, while met­o­nymy allows one thing to stand for another within a single domain. Lakoff and Johnson give the following as some examples of common met­o­nymic types: The part for the whole Get your butt over here! The Giants need a stronger arm in right field. Producer for product I’ll have a Löwenbräu. He’s got a Picasso in his den. Object used for user The sax has the flu today. The busses are on strike. 181

chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate Controller for controlled Napoleon lost at Waterloo. A Mercedes rear-ended me. Institution for people responsible Exxon has raised its prices again. The Senate thinks abortion is immoral. The place for the institution Paris is introducing longer skirts this season. Hollywood isn’t what it used to be. The place for the event Let’s not let Thailand become another Vietnam. It’s been Grand Central Station here all day.45 A sigh is a case of met­o­nymy in which the sound produced stands for the struggle that caused the sigh. The particular struggle does not need to be well-defined in order for the sigh to be understood. In other words, a sigh is always understood as a part of some larger narrative—even if that narrative is undisclosed or unclear. The Oxford English Dictionary (2nd ed., online) defines a sigh as A sudden, prolonged, deep and more or less audible respiration, following on a deep-drawn breath, and esp. indicating or expressing dejection, weariness, longing, pain, or relief. In all of the situations mentioned here (there are probably more), the meaning of a sigh is not represented by a simple semiotic link between a sound and a definition, but invokes a frame in which dejection, or weariness, or longing, etc., only exist as part of a larger narrative. In fact, we can often tell, just from the sound of a sigh, whether it represents weariness, or longing, or relief (and the larger 45 Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, 38–39.

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chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate narratives to which those feelings belong). Thus, we could formulate the met­o­nymy as the sound for the narrative. Lakoff refers to this particular met­o­nymic process as the thing perceived stands for the percept.46 For Lakoff, this met­o­nymy accounts for the fact that we can say things like There goes the alarm clock. There goes my knee. These constructions are a combination of metaphoric mappings and met­o­nymic substitutions. In general, there- constructions indicate a location in space (Tom is there). However, the complex conceptual metaphor nonvisual perceptual space is physical space; percepts are entities allows us to understand the met­o­nymies involving alarm clocks and knee pain.47 Regarding these examples, Lakoff notes that “the alarm clock isn’t going anywhere; it is standing met­o­nymically for the beep it makes when it goes off. Similarly, if you have an old knee injury that is acting up … the knee isn’t going anywhere; it is becoming active in producing a perceived pain. The knee is standing met­o­nymically for the pain.”48 In our case, the sigh is standing met­o­nymically for a narrative. Robert C. Solomon has argued that the concept of fate is teleological in a narrative sense.49 Concepts of fate and destiny are embedded in a world view that has only recently begun to change. 46 Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things, 511. 47 Ibid. 48 Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things, 511–12. 49 See Robert C. Solomon, “On Fate and Fatalism,” Philosophy East and West 53, no. 4 (2003): 435–54.

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chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate “Until the twentieth century, the idea that the universe is governed by chance would have been almost unthinkable. As late as the midtwentieth century, such a thought was widely considered ‘absurd’.”50 Solomon argues that, without necessarily distinguishing between God or a group of robed goddesses, the concept of fate usually invokes both agency (from a power other than ourselves) and teleology. In this sense, a concept of fate is narrative in that it involves outcomes: either with regard to circumstances and forces leading up to a present situation, or by viewing some future outcome as the result of forces and circumstances beyond our control. Thus, while different kinds of sighs could indicate different kinds of narratives, I will argue that in all cases a sigh is conceived met­o­nymically as standing for a narrative. (And when we apply the conceptual model for sighs to music, via a cross-domain mapping, we necessarily also map the met­o­nymy.) I am not arguing that all musical sighs represent fate, specifically, but, rather, that all sighs are met­o­nymically related to larger narratives, and that, for the purposes of this study, the narrative that is often invoked by musical ‘sigh’ motives involving b6ˆ (both surface and structural) in this post-Beethoven tradition is a narrative of fate. ‘Sigh i ng’ mot i v e s.   The notion of musical ‘sighing’ motives is not new, so let me be clear at the outset of this section that I am not interested in determining the truth value of claims about musical signification as much as I am in evaluating the historical trend of interpretation that has taken for granted the existence of 50 Solomon, “On Fate,” 437.

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chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate ‘sighing’ motives. In other words, at least for the moment, I do not want to participate in the formalist/emotive discussion about the semiotic possibilities of musical signification. In my attempt to trace the relationship of ‘sighing’ motives and ‘Fate’ narratives as they manifest themselves in musical allusion and historical discourse, I must assume that the signification is real inasmuch as it is historically taken for granted. In a study devoted to the history of ‘sigh’ motives, we might trace several strains of development of note-pairs interpreted as what Albert Schweitzer has referred to as the representation of “actual sighs.” We could look at treatises, reviews, composition lessons, etc. to see instances of descriptions that account for pairs of notes as ‘sigh’ motives. And we could trace instances of text referring to sighing, or grief, etc., to see if there is a trend among musical motives associated with this text. Since this project only treats this topic with a view toward a context for Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra, at present I will only provide a few examples that seem to display features that foreshadow the particular late-nineteenth century tradition to which Bartók’s Concerto alludes. Albert Schweitzer devotes a section of his 1905 treatise on J. S. Bach to what he calls Motives of Grief.51 Schweitzer claims that Bach employed two types of musical motives to represent grief: “a chromatic progression of five or six notes, typifying torturing grief, and a uniform sequence of notes in pairs, that is like a series of sighs.”52 51 Albert Schweitzer, J. S. Bach, vol. 2, trans. Ernest Newmann, (London and New York: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1911), 105. 52 Schweitzer, J. S. Bach, 105.

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chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate He refers to both motive types as ‘sighing’ motives, and argues that pairs of notes are “meant to represent actual sighs,” while the notion of sighing associated with the chromatic descent of five or six notes “is more spiritual, and the motive serves for the expression of noble lamentation.”53 Among his examples of the descending chromatic bass line that represents grief or lamentation is the Crucifixus from J. S. Bach’s B-minor Mass.54 While he does not, we might extend Schweitzer’s notion of “actual sighs” to the upper voices in the Crucifixus (see example 4.1). Schweitzer’s other examples of ‘sighing’ motives include notepairs covering both large and small intervals. However, of note for our discussion of the historical transformation of ‘sighing’ motives, is the use of b6ˆ to initiate the points of imitation in the Crucifixus. Not all of the statements of the descending ‘sighing’ motive contain half-steps, yet the b6ˆ–5ˆ version is given particular weight as the beginning of each phrase. Also (and this will be important later), because the bass does not move, the b6ˆ in the first measure of the example (m. 5) seems like a dissonance against the tonic harmony (though in actuality the B is dropped out of the chord before the C enters) and it is not harmonized as an augmented-sixth chord. But the use of this motive and the cross-domain mapping of a sad is down image schema predates Bach. The sense of emotion associated with the descending half-step or the upper-neighbor half-step 53 Ibid., 106. 54 Lewis Lockwood has argued that based on Beethoven’s 1810 letter to Breitkopf & Härtel requesting a copy of Bach’s B-minor Mass (in which he quotes the bass line from the Crucifixus) that Beethoven must have already known the work. See Lockwood, Beethoven: The Music and the Life, (London and New York: W. W. Norton, 2003), 406.

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example 4.1  J. S. Bach, Mass in B-Minor, Crucifixus, mm. 5–9.

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chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate surely goes back at least to Josquin and his contemporaries, who use versions of this motive to accompany text about weeping (“plorans” in Absalom, fili mi) and grief (“douleur” in Josquin’s Douleur me bat). In Josquin’s Miserere mei deus, the tenor repeats a single musical motive (to the text, “miserere mei deus”) while the other voices sing the 20 verses. Each time the tenor sings the phrase, the motive is transposed. Beginning on a high E, the statements of the motive descend stepwise to the E an octave lower during the first part. During the second part, the statements of the motive begin on the lower E and rises, stepwise, back to the upper octave. The third part begins on the upper E and descends to A. Because the motive only contains two pitches, the whole- and half-steps change depending on which degree the motive begins on. However, because Josquin chose to begin on E, the half-steps are prominent at the beginning, middle, and ending of each section, similar to the Bach Crucifixus. Furthermore, before the tenor enters at the beginning of the piece for the first time, the other voices present the ‘miserere mei deus’ motive in imitative pairs of pairs: the first on B and the second on E (the two versions that produce half-steps). From a modern perspective, the resulting sound quality of the opening is that of a b6ˆ–5ˆ suspension against a tonic (see example 4.2). For another perspective on the special quality of b6ˆ, we could turn to Johann Mattheson’s distinction between emphasis and accent in chapter 8 of his 1739 treatise, Der Vollkommene Capellmeister.55 Mattheson begins by tracing the concept of emphasis to Greek 55 Johann Mattheson, Der Vollkommene Capellmeister [1739], in Johann Mattheson’s Der Vollkommene Capellmeister, A Revised Translation with Criti-

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example 4.2  Josquin Desprez, Miserere mei deus, opening: ‘sighing’ motive in all parts foreshadowing repetetitions in tenor voice.

cal Commentary, ed. Ernest C. Harriss (Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research Press, 1981).

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chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate oratory. He then distinguishes the concept of emphasis from accent in the following way: –7–  Here accent only means unusual sound on one syllable of a word; for we have seen above that in modulation an embellishment or ornament is demanded. In poetry it is called: Accentus metricus, a metrical accent; in music it is called Accentus melicus, an accent in singing. –8–  The mentioned distinction then consists primarily in the following characteristics. First of all the emphasis always falls on an entire word, not according to the sound of it but according to the meaning contained therein; whereas the accent only deals merely with the syllables, namely with their length, brevity, raising or lowering in punctuation. –9–  Second, each word of more than one syllable has at least one accent, if not more; however, not every word has emphasis. Besides one-syllable words often do not have a true accent which often can indeed have an emphasis. –10–  Third, the aim of accent is only the pronunciation; emphasis on the other hand so to speak points toward the emotion, and illuminates the sense or meaning of the performance. Herein resides the difference.56 In order to demonstrate how emphasis can be understood in instrumental music, Mattheson first gives an example of emphasis in vocal music (example 4.3a). Note that in both of his examples of what he calls “emphasis” coincide with a the word pietosa (“compassion”). In the first instance the melody is moving to C major, and so the Ab is b6ˆ in the tonicized key—but is not associated with a descending semitone. In the second instance, we have a more traditional looking ‘sighing’ motive. The function of the upper neighbor is a little more ambiguous here, but we might hypothetically speculate that if the harmony is moving ii–V–I in F major, that the emphasis occurs over 56 Ibid., 369–70.

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chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate (a)

(b)

example 4.3  Johann Mattheson, Der Vollkommene Capellmeister [1739], examples of emphasis: (a) chapter 8; (b) chapter 12.

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chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate ii harmony and we could read it as a 6–5 suspension above the root of the ii chord. In chapter 12 of his treatise (The Distinction Between Vocal and Instrumental Music), Mattheson reasons that, historically, vocal music came first (as the natural music of the body) and was followed by instrumental music.57 He argues, therefore, for a kind of transference of meaning from vocal music to instrumental music by way of well-formed melodies. –43–  If the necessary feeling and expression of the affections in instrumental melodies were mentioned above; then it is easy to see that also the theory on emphasis would belong here only with the difference: that vocal melody derives this emphasis from the words, but instrumental melody derives it from the notes. That is the fifteenth difference.58 He then gives an example of instrumental music, indicating that the student who wants to “make his tones speak with good emphasis” will observe that “this musical emphasis is unusually prominent in the ascending half tone” (see example 4.3b).59 Finally, Mattheson makes the following comment about the fact that emphasis in music is much more commonly related to half-steps than to larger intervals. –44–  It is rather striking that the small intervals generally serve much more often than the large, for such matters of emphasis: almost as much so as we have seen above with seeminglyinsignificant conjunctions. It is also to be considered here that not every melodic accent would contain emphasis; but that the 57 Ibid., 428. 58 Ibid. 59 Ibid.

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chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate latter so to speak would contain a double accent. In the cited few notes 8 are accented, and yet only one has true emphasis, there the asterisk stands.60 Mattheson has singled out the b6ˆ as a special musical event (whose significance he traces from vocal music to instrumental music), but he seems to be arguing that the emotional impact of a moment of “emphasis” is enhanced when it is in a half-step relation. The significance of these moments is not the result of metrical stress (or any other form of performative accent), but rather, the opposite—he is arguing that these moments ought to receive a special kind of accent because they are already understood to be moments of heightened emotional significance. ‘Sighing’ and ‘Fate’: Beethoven and Beyond In spite of the cursory nature of the above history of ‘sighing’ motives, if we are willing to give credence to the historical nature of ‘sighing’ motives and the met­o­nymic connection between actual sighing and narrative (including narratives of fate), then it is time to turn to Beethoven’s music with respect to the popular and pervasive narratives of fate and overcoming that permeate discourses about his music. Be et hov e n, ‘Sigh i ng,’ a n d ‘fat e.’  Maynard Solomon has argued that the key of C minor played an important role in Beethoven’s oeuvre. “Beethoven had earlier (e.g., opus 1 no. 3; opus 9 no. 3; opus 10 no. 1; opus 13; opus 18 no. 4) enlisted the key of C 60 Ibid.

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chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate minor in his search for the expression of ‘pathétique’ sentiments; in his middle Vienna years, C minor would become his ‘heroic’ key, as in the Fifth Symphony, the funeral march of the Eroica Symphony, and the Overture to Coriolan.”61 Solomon seems to be suggesting that through the use of C minor (more than any specific motivic or formal scheme) in his “heroic” period that Beethoven is specifically alluding to the “pathétique sentiments” of his earlier works. Michael Tusa has explored the C-minor connection between Beethoven’s works.62 Based on similar structural characteristics (that produce a “common bond of expression”63) among Beethoven’s compositions in C-minor, Tusa argues that these similarities may be the result of Beethoven’s belief in the “affective quality of keys.”64 Tusa argues that many of the stylistic features that connect the C-minor works (such as “an aggressive gesture answered quietly,” and opening themes that “prominently feature the sixth scale degree, Ab, as an upper neighbor to the dominant”) have precedence in the works of Haydn and Mozart. Additionally, he points out the use of b6ˆ (Ab) as the “preferred key for slow movements”65 and the prominence of b2ˆ (Db) in finales. He is arguing that the fairly consistent use of these elements in pieces in the same key is evidence that Beethoven associated their affective quality specifically with C-minor. Yet, beyond providing a link between the models of Beethoven’s predecessors 61 Maynard Solomon, Beethoven (New York: Schirmer, 1977), 103. 62 Michael C. Tusa, “Beethoven’s ‘C-Minor Mood’: Some Thoughts on the Structural Implications of Key Choice,” Beethoven Forum 2, no. 1 (1993): 1–27. 63 Ibid., 5. 64 Ibid., 2. 65 Ibid., 20.

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chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate (Haydn and especially Mozart) and demonstrating that the works in C-minor display similar characteristics, Tusa does not specifically address the ways in which typical melodic motives and harmonic schemes might be related, or how these features might function with respect to the specific pathos of these works. What I find most interesting about Beethoven’s prominent use of b6ˆ and b2ˆ in works that attempt to evoke “pathétique sentiments,” however, is that it seems to reinscribe, and reinforce, Joachim Burmeister’s 1606 characterization of the Phrygian mode—both melodically and through harmonic projection. While Beethoven’s works are not Phrygian, they tend to highlight the features Burmeister found provocative. According to Aristotle, Aristoxenus, Plutarch, and others, not every mode is appropriate or suitable for every subject. Therefore those that lean toward mourning, sorrow, and lamentation should not be applied to happy subjects and topics, and vice versa. … Where the very same pitches [namely the principium, the duple of the principium, and the midpivotal pitch] begin the semitone and occur many times, as in the Phrygian and Hypophrygian, those modes require lamentful [lamentosas] and doleful [flebiles] subjects.66 Burmeister is saying that the particular affect of the Phrygian mode derives from the fact that there is a semitone between ˆ1 (the principium) and 2ˆ, which is repeated between the octave above (the duple of the principium, 8ˆ) and 9ˆ, and another between 5ˆ (the midpivotal pitch) and 6ˆ. For Burmeister (in what is surely a descriptive commen66 Joachim Burmeister, Musical Poetics [1606], trans. Benito V. Rivera (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1993), 133. Note that Josquin’s Miserere mei deus that we looked at is in Phrygian mode, emphasizing both the b6ˆ –5ˆ relationship and b2ˆ –1ˆ.

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chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate tary, not a prescriptive one) it was the arrangement of the semitones that gave each mode its affective quality. By consistently focusing on these particular scale degrees at key moments in his C-minor works, Beethoven seems to be consciously amplifying the affective quality that had long been associated with the Phrygian mode semitones by projecting the melodic tension of surface motives involving b2ˆ and especially b6ˆ into various sub-surface levels. In her excellent study of the history of the term pathétique, Elaine Sisman points out that Beethoven had read Mattheson’s treatise, which—in addition to the above characterization of Phrygian by Burmeister—is provocative with regard to Beethoven’s treatment of b6ˆ and b2ˆ that Tusa finds central to the “C-minor mood.”67 In this article she does not pursue a potential connection between Beethoven and Mattheson’s writings, however. What she does provide is a thorough context for an understanding of pathos and pathétique in the early nineteenth century in relation to Greek revival traditions and contemporary writers (like Adelung, Rousseau, and Schiller). In particular, she provides a context for the notion that rhetorical dialogue and struggle between musical ideas might be derived from Schiller’s concept of the pathetic, in which the sublime (perceived as the “highest human emotion”) is only possible through the resistance of suffering, and not through suffering alone.68 Thus, in her analysis of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata, Op. 13 (“Pathétique”), she reads the antithesis between the elements from the introduction (pathetic) 67 Elaine R. Sisman, “Pathos and the Pathétique: Rhetorical Stance in Beethoven’s C-Minor Sonata, Op. 13,” Beethoven Forum 3, no. 1 (1994), 82. 68 Ibid., 93.

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chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate and the sonata-allegro first theme (struggle to master the pathetic) as a musical dialogue that rhetorically enacts Schiller’s sublime.69 She also quotes from Rousseau’s essay on Gluck’s Alceste, in which Rousseau specifically associates augmented and diminished chords with a pathétique affect. In general, however, Sisman’s analyses in this article tend to focus on labeling sections of music to show that they can be seen to corollate with the rhetorical schemes that informed discussions of pathétique affects. In her characterization of the Op. 13, it is the first measure that serves as the primary pathetic accent, in which the combination of a diminished seventh chord and a ‘sighing’ motive become the primary generator of the “series of conflicts that must be concluded” in the piece.70 It should be apparent by now that I am attempting to make the beginnings of a case that provides an explanation of the musical codes that connect the ‘sighing’ motives that are so central to the pathétique affects with compositional strategies that accommodate ‘Fate’ narratives in the nineteenth century. The rhetorical notion of struggle is at least in part manifest in the conflict between Phrygian elements and the diatonic, which can be reduced further to the opposition between b6ˆ and the tonic. I would argue that in pieces like the Op. 13 the isolation of b6ˆ (and bVI as chord and key area) alludes met­o­nymically to the heightened tension inherent in initial b6ˆ–5ˆ statements of the ‘sighing’ motives within a complex frame of pathétique affects. If we look at the introduction to Beethoven’s Op. 13 Piano Sonata, 69 Ibid., 102. 70 Ibid., 101 and 104.

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chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate we can see the pervasiveness of both ‘sighing’ motives and multiple uses of b6ˆ (see example 4.4). Note especially Beethoven’s treatment of Ab. In the second measure it initiates and concludes the answer to the opening measure. It is then, subsequently, singled out as a single pitch in measures 4 and 10. It is, in fact, as if all of the music in between these two Abs were simply an improvised cadenza stemming from the first Ab itself—a dream fantasy taking place within the Ab. The cadenza-like run in the second half of measure 4 leads to a dialogue: both the soft music (m. 5) and its answer (ff) are transformations of the opening idea, but it is as if the soft music is attempting to be a real theme. It keeps getting interrupted, however, and with the return of the Ab at the end of measure 10 we realize that measure 5 was not the beginning of the first theme (and, of course, we’re off …). In the Adagio cantabile of the Op. 13, the move to bVI is contrasted not with the dominant of the home key, but with its own bVI. Thus by measure 44 of the slow movement, at the very middle of the whole piece, the music has moved to E major (the enharmonic equivalent of bVI/bVI/C). Note that this architectural framework (C– Ab–E) alludes to Rousseaus’s description of the augmented triad as an aspect of the pathétique. And while this piece returns to C minor for the finale, there is a remnant of the b6ˆ–5ˆ tension built into the theme (see example 4.5) Another work that lends credence to an affective reading of b6ˆ in Beethoven’s music is the Coriolanus Overture of 1807 (see example 4.6). Lockwood has noted that this piece “bridges the Eroica and the

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(a)

(b)

example 4.4  Ludwig van Beethoven, Piano Sonata, op. 13 (“Pathétique”), movement I: (a) introduction, mm. 1–5; (b) end of introduction, m. 10 (second half).

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example 4.5  Ludwig van Beethoven, Piano Sonata, op. 13 (“Pathétique”), movement III, opening: nested ‘sighing’ motives.

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example 4.6  Ludwig van Beethoven, Coriolanus Overture, op. 62 (1807), end: death of Coriolanus.

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chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate Fifth symphonies.”71 While the cause of Coriolanus’s death is different in different versions of the story (murder in Shakespeare and suicide in Collin’s play), there is no doubt that the end of the overture is the end of the hero.72 Beethoven had previously used thematic liquidation to represent the death of the hero at the end of the funeral march of the Eroica.73 But what makes the thematic liquidation at the end of Coriolanus consistent with my other readings is that as the motivic features of the theme dissolve, what is left to represent the final moments of resistance before the inevitability of death is b6ˆ. In a way, this is Schiller’s sublime—the hero has his freedom from the world—but he as not won. Coriolanus has met his fate and lost, but has provided an insight into Beethoven’s understanding of the affect of b6ˆ and its potential connection to the concepts of fate and death. When looking at Beethoven’s Fifth, we might take Tovey’s advice and examine elements beyond the pervasive “knocking” rhythmic motto.74 Particularly with respect to the present discussion of ‘Fate’ narratives, we might look to the role of ‘sighing’ motives and b6ˆ as loci of emotive interpretation. In example 4.7, we can see that in the first 19 measures of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony the only pitch that does not belong to the tonic or dominant harmonies is b6ˆ. We can read it as a melodic development of the Eb–D motion from bars 2 to 4, yet, because of the pervasiveness of the rhythmic motto, it does not 71 Lockwood, Beethoven, 218. 72 Ibid., 264. 73 Ibid., 266. 74 See Donald Francis Tovey, Essays in Musical Analysis, vol. 1, Symphonies (London: Oxford University Press, 1935), 38–44.

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b6ˆ

5ˆ

–

b6ˆ

I

–

5ˆ

V65

I

V65

I

V65

I

b6ˆ – 5ˆ It+6 V

example 4.7  Beethoven, Symphony No. 5, movement I, opening. seem like a full-fledged ‘sighing’ motive yet.75 Also, notice that the bass motion for the first phrase rocks back and forth on the half-step between the tonic and leading-tone. Not until the end of the phrase does the Ab receive harmonic support as an augmented-sixth chord. If we choose to read this as a generative process using an organic 75 Scott Burnham notes that Schenker’s reading of the Eb–D semitone in the opening of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony as the primary motive was a break with the received notion of G–Eb as the primary interval of the first movement. While Burnahm does discuss descending voice-leading, his discussion does not address the connection of ‘sighing’ motives and b6ˆ. See Burnham, Beethoven Hero (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995), 32–39, 91.

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chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate metaphor, we could argue for a reading in which the semitone inherent in the tonic-dominant contrast of the opening (Eb–D) expands to become the semitone motion in the bass and also generates the intrusion of b6ˆ into the otherwise exclusively tonic-dominant realm, becoming the b6ˆ–5ˆ melodic motive which then further expands into the cadential figure. This would certainly not be the first reading that sees this piece in terms of expansion, though usually they are relegated to rhythmic expansions of earlier material (as in the length of the second fermata with respect to the first). While I am skeptical of reading the semitone motion in the first phrase as what Schweitzer called “actual sighs,” they soon turn up with greater and greater frequency in this piece. In fact, their treatment as the piece goes on increasingly foregrounds the descending note-pairs as “actual sighs.” In the transition between the first and second themes they are marked sf and get their own slurs, though they are still very fast (see example 4.8a). The second theme consists primarily of two parts: a variation of the opening motto and a lyrical answer (see example 4.8b). Note that the lyrical answer is itself slurred in two parts, emphasizing the ‘sighing’ motive at the end. Also notice that one of the inner voices (the second violins) have the upper-neighbor version of a ‘sighing’ motive (G–Ab–Ab–G), now, of course, recontextualized as ˆ3–4ˆ–3ˆ in Eb major. The ‘sighing’ motive is given its most prominent treatment in the oboe “cadenza” at measure 268 in the recapitulation (see example 4.8c).76 Here repetitions 76 Richard Wagner describes the oboe cadenza as an expansion of the fermata in m. 21, whose “proper execution” he understands in relation to “expressive singing” producing in him a “touching emotional impression.” His point is that “a conductor might exercise great influence upon the higher musical culture with

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chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate (a)

(b)

(c)

example 4.8  Beethoven, Symphony No. 5, movement I: (a) transition, mm. 38–43; (b) second theme, mm. 59–66; (c) recapitulation, m. 268 of the Eb–D semitone recall the opening fermatas of the movement, but are recontextualized as b6ˆ–5ˆ of the dominant! And much of the coda from measure 398 on is devoted to development of ‘sighing’ motives, culminating in a cadential figure that repeats the b6ˆ–5ˆ motive four times before moving to the dominant (see example 4.9). The last thing that happens in the recapitulation following the final ferregard to execution, if he properly understood his position in relation to dramatic art.” See Wagner, On Conducting, trans. Edward Dannreuther (London: William Reeves: 1887): 11–12.

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chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate (a)

(b)

example 4.9  Beethoven, Symphony No. 5, movement I: (a) coda, mm. 398–406; (b) coda, mm. 452–60. 206

chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate mata is a repeat of the opening phrase of the piece (over exclusively tonic harmony), but with the addition of a b6ˆ–5ˆ ‘sighing’ motive in the oboe (recalling the oboes special role in the recapitulation). There are two other moments in the first movement of the Fifth Symphony that deserve a quick note. They are the parallel moments that follow the end of the exposition material: the beginning of the development section and the beginning of the coda (see example 4.10). If the opening G–Eb of the symphony ambiguously alludes to the possibility of Eb major, as many have noted, then the beginning of the development section plays a similar game. We have come (retrospectively) to understand the G–Eb of the opening measure as 5ˆ–3ˆ in C minor. So when the exposition ends in Eb major (m. 124), and is followed by a statement of the opening motto (without a first fermata) on 5ˆ–3ˆ in Eb at the beginning of the development, we might expect to hear a response in the dominant of Eb. What we get instead is a modulation to iv with b6ˆ–5ˆ/F minor. (Note that b6ˆ/iv is b2ˆ, or Db). At the end of the recapitulation we have a further development of b2ˆ. First the bass motion of the I–iv6–I6 progression at the beginning of the coda outlines an augmented triad, then moves to iv (F minor). This is immediately transformed (by raising 5ˆ/iv to b6ˆ/iv) into a bII6 /C.77 It is well known that the second movement (Andante con moto) 77 Note that bII6 is often called a Neapolitan sixth (as it is by Kostka and Payne). Aldwell and Schachter, however, call it a Phrygian II, which would be more in line with the historical associations between the Phrygian mode and emotions of lamentation and grief. See Edward Aldwell and Carl Schachter, Harmony and Voice Leading, 2nd ed. (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1989); and, Stefan Kostka and Dorothy Payne, Tonal Harmony: With an Introduction to Twentieth-Century Music, 4th ed. (Boston: McGraw Hill, 2000).

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chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate (a)

(b)

example 4.10  Beethoven, Symphony No. 5, movement I, emphasis on b2ˆ: (a) development, mm. 125–33; (b) coda, mm. 374–88. 208

chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate alternates between variations in Ab major and variations in C major (with one in Ab minor beginning at measure 167). But we have another instance of a rhetorical dialogue that seems to reinscribe Schiller’s sublime. The Ab first theme is tonic in this movement, but represents b6ˆ globally. And the first theme is dominated by ‘sighing’ motives. The dotted rhythm combined with the choice of pitches makes almost every pair of notes sound like a ‘sighing’ motive. This is elongated at the first cadence in m. 7, and then the cadence is repeated. When the cadence is repeated a second time the ‘sighing’ motive is interrupted only to be extended by new ‘sighing’ motives that begin on the downbeat of the measure (m. 11–13) Then this extended version of the cadence is repeated. And if the association of ‘sighing’ motives and bVI was not already clear, the second theme in C major contains none. It is built almost exclusively of ascending figures. For further reinforcement of the sighing gestures, the Più moto at the end of the movement extends the ‘sighing’ gesture by outlining Gb–F–Fb–Eb twice over a tonic (Ab) pedal (in other words b7ˆ–6ˆ–b6ˆ–5ˆ), before returning to the cadential ‘sighing’ motives from the first theme. Much has been made of the transformations of the ‘knocking’ rhythmic figure in the last movement, but a similar reading surely applies to transformations of the ‘sighing’ motive as well (and its associations with b6ˆ). The last section of the finale (Presto, m. 364ff.) is built on a two-measure ‘sighing’ motive. Yet, because it is in C-major, the step from A to G is a whole step. Beethoven slurs the whole step, and repeats the two-bar phrase eight times in a row, as if to prove that once and for all the motive has lost its pathos. Immedi209

chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate ately following this Ab makes a final appearance (from measures 380 to 389), but has been separated from its association with the ‘sighing;’ motive. And unlike in Coriolanus, the return of b6ˆ at the end of the piece does not kill our hero, who has literally divided and conquered—but it must make a final appearance in order to prove that it can be resisted if Beethoven is to enact Schiller’s sublime. It is not just the presence of ‘sighing’ motives that is important for our larger argument here. It is the critical move of ‘sighing’ motives from surface instantiations to sub-surface structures, and then to the use of bVI as a tonal area in the formal scheme. Ultimately, through a series of metaphoric and met­o­nymic mappings, b6ˆ (without necessarily its resolution to 5ˆ) comes to be isolated as the prototype for a category of expressive articulation in the 19th century. As an abstract entity, it can met­o­nymically stand for the bVI triad and the bVI key area, both of which in turn are met­o­nymically linked to the unique nature of b6ˆ–5ˆ among possible ‘sighing’ motives. Ultimately, as ‘Fate’ narratives became associated with Beethoven’s Fifth in discourse, composers after Beethoven had more that just the ‘knocking’ motive to allude to in their own transformations of the narrative. post-be et hov i n i a n ‘fat e.’ After the Fifth Symphony, Beethoven’s Ninth is one of the only one of his works to begin in minor and end in major. As perhaps the ultimate reinscription of the

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chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate (a)

(b)

example 4.11  Ludwig van Beethoven, Symphony No. 9, movement III: (a) ‘sighing’ motives as introduction to main theme; (b) mm. 25ff., expansion of ‘sighing’ motives as contrasting theme.

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chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate fate/overcoming narrative, it shares many of the surface and structural relationships I have outlined above with regard to ‘sighing’ and b6ˆ—for instance, the prevalence of ‘sighing’ motives in the bVI slow movement (see example 4.11). But after Beethoven, the narrative is most often transformed back to a narrative of fate/death in which b6ˆ plays a pivotal role. One of the most well-known musical adaptations of the fate/death narrative after Beethoven is Schubert’s Erlkönig. Deborah Stein has illuminated the transformation of b6ˆ from a primary surface motive to an important structural moment that aligns with the narrative in Erlkönig.78 Of particular note is her discussion of transformations of what she calls the N-motive (D–Eb–D) linked primarily to the character of the boy. In G minor this is, of course, our old friend, 5ˆ–b6ˆ–5ˆ. This motive, however (heard in the piano introduction and at “mein Vater!”), also links the boy with the Erlking “through a middleground bass progression, v–[b]VI–v” (the boy sings in D minor at measure 112 and 123, and the Erlking sings in Eb major at 117).79 The boy’s confrontation with fate is realized at both surface and sub-surface levels, and it is b6ˆ that represents the forces of fate (in the form of the Erlking). But there is another allusion to Beethoven’s use of Phrygian elements that we have already seen. Stein notes that “the final line of text then begins on bII6 in what becomes a final transformation-through-synthesis of several significant motives” in which “the use of the Neapolitan [sic] represents the triumph of the Erlk78 Deborah Stein, “Schubert’s Erlkönig: Motivic Parallelism and Motivic Transformation,” 19th-Century Music 13, no. 2 (1989): 145–58. 79 Ibid., 151.

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chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate ing.”80 But given what we have seen so far, I might offer an addition to Stein’s interpretation. When the narrator enters for the first time, the music, which began in G minor, shifts to iv, and the first thing the narrator sings, (“Wer reitet so spät …”), emphasizes 5ˆ–b6ˆ–5ˆ/iv. This not only foreshadows the association of this motive with the boy, but might lead us to reinterpret the first lines of text. While the narrator sings “Who rides so late through night and wind?” he sings the ‘Fate’ motive that will link the boy with the Erlking: thus, his seemingly reassuring answer “It is the father with his child … he holds him safe …” is the same kind of deception (based perhaps on wishful thinking) that we see in the father’s responses to his son. While the narrator’s text tells us that it is just a father and son, the implication is that it is not something worse. But, in fact it is something worse, and the music tells us that “who rides” is, of course, the Erlking. Schubert’s setting implies that the narrator already knows the outcome of the poem. The bottom line is that, as with Beethoven, the primary conflict that represents the struggle against fate is primarily realized as transformations of b6ˆ. In the operas of Verdi we find more examples that reinforce an affective interpretation of b6ˆ in the fate/death tradition. In La Traviata, Verdi deploys the typical combination of b6ˆ and ‘sighing’ motives to foreshadow Violetta’s death in act III (see example 4.12a). (Note the subtly explicit association of this motive with death—morendo). Act III begins in C minor. Violetta’s first words after the ‘sighing’ motives that end the introduction to act III are to call Anina, which she does on 5ˆ–b6ˆ–5ˆ, foreshadowing that her consumption may be 80 Ibid., 156.

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(b)

b6ˆ –5ˆ

b6ˆ 5ˆ

b6ˆ 5ˆ

example 4.12  Verdi, La Traviata, act III: (a) mm. 31–33; (b) end of opera. b6ˆ

5ˆ

macbeth:

example 4.13  Verdi, Macbeth, mm. 11–12, murder of King Duncan. 214

chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate fatal. When she does die at the end of the opera (in Db minor [bII], incidentally) Verdi brings back the b6ˆ–5ˆ ‘sighing’ motive on the word “muor!” Then, just a few measures later, following the final line of the opera (Germont, Annina, and the Doctor together, “Oh, mio dolor!”), Verdi emphasizes b6ˆ–5ˆ again in accented quarter notes one last time before the final cadence (see example 4.12b). Elliott Antokoletz has demonstrated that Verdi’s treatment of the Db–C dyad in Macbeth functions in a manner consistent with the arguments I have been making here.81 Foreshadowed in the introduction, it comes to prominence as an unharmonized melodic event (5ˆ–b6ˆ–5ˆ in F minor) at the moment of the murder (see example 4.13). Its subsequent treatment consists of leitmotivic associations that recall the murder (at text like “blood” and “crown”).82 I would argue that, like the ‘sighing’ motive, these concepts act as central met­ o­nymies for the larger narrative of Macbeth’s fate, in which his own death is linked with the murder.83 Antokoletz sees the projection of 81 Elliott Antokoletz, “Verdi’s Dramatic Use of Harmony and Tonality in Macbeth,” In Theory Only 4, no. 6 (1978): 17–28. Antokoletz uses the term dyad to avoid limiting its potential uses—because the pitches occur “in a variety of rhythms with octave displacements” and are projected as tonal centers, he chooses not to describe them as motivic, though he sees them functioning in a manner “somewhat similar to a ‘leitmotive’ ” (p. 17). 82 Ibid., 19. 83 In response to the question, “How did you get here?” the answer, “Bill drove” is a met­o­nymy for a larger source-path-goal narrative that involves more than just the driving. Another appropriate met­o­nymic response in English would be, “We took the freeway.” An inappropriate met­o­nymy in English would be to use the source as the met­o­nymy of the narrative by responding “I put my shoes on at home,” in spite of the fact that it is a part of the larger narrative to which all the above met­o­nymies refer. In the case of Macbeth, the crown and blood are central met­o­nymies that refer to the fact that Macbeth’s fate is determined by his actions (the murder) as a result of his desires (the crown). On met­ o­nymic responses to questions, see Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things, 78ff.

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b6ˆ

b6ˆ

5ˆ

5ˆ

example 4.14  Verdi, La Forza del Destino, opening. the dyad into the tonal organization of the opera as a dramatic move that foreshadows trends in the twentieth century. By “linking remotely related keys through [their] function” (in this case, dramatic function) Verdi’s treatment of tonal relations serves, for Antokoletz, as a stepping stone toward the “dissolution of traditional tonal functions and the loss of underlying means of progression” in the twentieth century.84 In a discussion of fate and death in Verdi, one can hardly pass up an opportunity to discuss La Forza del Destino. Yet, in the interest of space I must pass it up. That the reader may be as-

84 Antokoletz, “Verdi’s Dramatic Use of Harmony and Tonality,” 27.

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chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate sured that Beethovenian allusions to fate abound in this work, see the opening bars of the opera in example 4.14. Tch a i kovsk y R ev isi t ed.  Given the present discussion, we should return to the analyses of Tchailovsky’s Fourth Symphony and Richard Strauss’s Don Juan that I began in the previous chapter. In his now famous letter to Nadezhda von Meck of 1 March 1877, regarding the program of “their” symphony, Tchaikovsky wrote, “The introduction is the seed of the whole symphony, without a doubt the principle idea.”85 This statement is followed by the first seven measures of the opening fanfare. Following the music example, Tchaikovsky continues: This is fate, this is that fateful force which prevents the impulse to happiness from attaining its goal, which jealously ensures that peace and happiness shall not be complete and unclouded, which hangs above your head like the sword of Damocles, and unwaveringly, constantly poisons the soul.86 Taken by itself, this excerpt seems to imply that fate is represented only by the opening fanfare (the repeated Abs). The fact that this opening alludes so strongly to the ‘knocking’ motive in the opening of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony (with the loud repeated fanfare and ambiguous harmonic orientation) is surely only part of the story. Yet, we have already seen that even in Beethoven’s Fifth, the ‘knock85 To My Best Friend: Correspondence Between Tchaikovsky and Nadezhda von Meck, 1876-1878, ed. Edward Garden and Nigel Gotteri, trans. Galina von Meck (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 185. Also quoted in David Brown, Tchaikovsky: The Crisis Years, 1874–1878, (New York and London: W. W. Norton, 1983), 164. 86 Quoted in Brown, Tchaikovsky: The Crisis Years, 165.

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chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate ing’ motive is less important by itself than it is as an opposition to the pervasive use of ‘sighing’ motives and b6ˆ. In fact, the reference to fate in Tchaikovsky’s letter likely refers to the entire introduction, in which b6ˆ–5ˆ is developed as the primary melodic motive and the diminished-cycle-with-the-b6ˆ-interruption (that will become the key architecture of the first movement) is established. There is another allusion in this introduction that may play into this reading of b6ˆ as harbinger of fate. In measures 4–5, the fanfare takes a leap up a fifth, followed by a scalar descent to E§, an allusion to both Tchaikovsky’s own Francesca da Rimini (1876) and Wotan’s ‘Magic Fire Music’ from Wagner’s Die Walkürie (see example 4.15). Given that Tchaikovsky had only recently attended the first full performance of the Ring Cycle in 1876 as a reporter for the Russian Gazette, the descent into hell in Francesca da Rimini was likely influenced by the Wagner.87 The primary melodic transformation in Tchaikovsky’s Fourth comes with the repeat of the fanfare in the introduction. As the harmonic progression is unfolded in measures 11 through 20, the repeated Abs are getting progressively softer. In measure 22 at the place where the fanfare originally leapt up a fifth, initiating the descent into hell, the fifth is transformed (pp—almost unnoticed) into a minor sixth, which resolves down by half-step to 5ˆ (example 4.16). This new version of the motive, b6ˆ–5ˆ, as a direct extension of the opening fanfare then becomes the ‘sighing’ motive that becomes first theme of the exposition (see example 4.17). In addition to its already rich history of pathos, this new allusion poten-

87 Ibid., 54.

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chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate (a)

(b) Bsns., Tbns., Tba., Vc., Db.

(c)

example 4.15  (a) Wagner, Die Walkürie, Wotan’s ‘Magic Fire Music’; (b) Tchaikovsky, Francesca da Rimini, mm. 7–9, Dante’s descent into hell; (c) Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 4, movement I, mm. 1–7

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example 4.16  Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 4, movment I, mm. 21–26.

Vn. I, Vc.

Str., Hn.

+ Bsn.

example 4.17  Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 4, movement I, P1 (m. 27ff.).

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chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate tially connects b6ˆ and the ‘sighing’ motives in this piece with the threat of hell. As an allusion to Beethoven, however, we not only have the opening fanfare (which reappears throughout the first movement, and once more in the last movement), but we also have an overall key scheme that begins in F minor and ends in the last movement in F major. And like Beethoven, Tchaikovsky recontextualizes b6ˆ in the slow movement. Following the first movement, in which we have just been inundated with Db–C as b6ˆ–5ˆ, the second movement opens with Db–C, but now recontextualized as b3ˆ–2ˆ in Bb minor (example 4.18). The end of the second movement also pays special attention to b6ˆ in Bb minor (example 4.19). Regarding the relationship he saw between his Fourth Symphony and Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, Tchaikovsky wrote to his friend, Sergei Tanyev: Should not a [symphony] … express everything for which there are no words, but which the soul wishes to express, and which requires to be expressed? … In essence my [fourth] symphony imitates Beethoven’s Fifth; that is, I was not imitating its musical thoughts, but the fundamental idea. Do you think there is a programme in the Fifth Symphony? Not only is there a programme, but, in this instance there cannot be any question about its efforts to express itself. My symphony rests upon a foundation that is nearly the same, and if you haven’t understood me, if follows only that I am not a Beethoven, a fact which I have never doubted.88 Tchaikovsky does not actually say what he thinks the program of Beethoven’s Fifth is, but rather assumes that it is so obvious that he 88 Ibid., 163.

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chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate

Ob. solo

Str.

example 4.18  Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 4, movement II, opening.

Fl., Cl.

Vn. I

Hn. Vn. II, Va. Vc., Db. Cl. solo Bsn. solo

Ger&6

i64

example 4.19  Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 4, movement II, mm. 290–end. 222

chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate does not need to repeat it. This can only refer to the common program of fate and overcoming in Beethoven’s Fifth. Yet, while Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony is an admitted reworking of the Beethoven, it is a transformation of the narrative that, through an ironic twist, alludes both to the fate/overcoming of Beethoven’s Fifth, and the fate/death tradition of pieces like Coriolanus, Erlkönig, and Tchaikovsky’s favorite opera, Carmen. According to his brother, Modest, seeing Bizet’s Carmen was one of the most significant events in Tchaikovsky’s life in 1876. He and his brother saw the opera together in Paris on 20 January, and Tchaikovsky would later write, “In my opinion, it [Carmen] is a masterpiece in the full meaning of the word—that is, one of those rare pieces which are destined to reflect most strongly the musical aspirations of an entire epoch.”89 It is not difficult to see that Carmen also fits into the general trend of post-Beethovenian fate narratives. The first time Carmen appears on stage we hear her ‘Fate’ motive (example 4.20). The “ex-

example 4.20  Bizet, Carmen, ‘Fate’ motive at initial entrance of Carmen.

89 Quoted in Brown, Tchaikovsky: The Crisis Years, 59.

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chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate oticism” of this motive is derived from the augmented second between the leading tone and b6ˆ. Note the similarity between the use of loud accented offbeats in the brass to accompany Carmen’s motive and the conclusion on the fully diminished chord and Tchaikovsky’s introduction (with loud offbeats in the brass and the structural use of the interrupted diminished cycle). Following Carmen’s famous Habanera, we hear her motive again, this time accompanied not by the brass, but by ‘heartbeats,’ which also seem to have found their way into Tchaikovsky as the accompaniment of the first theme in the exposition. But one of the closest connections between Carmen and Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony is the common treatment of their endings. Regarding the last movement of the Fourth Symphony, Tchaikovsky writes to von Meck, “If you can’t find reasons for joy within yourself, look at others. Go among the common people. A picture of the folk celebrating a festival.”90 Susan McClary has argued that “the protagonist … has abandoned his own narrative to observe impersonal, social events from the outside.”91 In one respect, I would agree that everything—up until ‘Fate’ makes its final appearance in the last movement—is to be heard from the perspective of the protagonist, whose attempts to immerse himself in the joy of others is increasingly unsuccessful. However, the treatment of b6ˆ, and the relationship of this piece to Carmen and Beethoven provide an alternative to McClary’s reading. 90 Ibid., 166. 91 Susan McClary, Feminine Endings: Music, Gender, and Sexuality (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1991; new introduction 2002), 76.

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m. 13

m. 15

m. 17

m. 19

m. 20

m. 205

m. 207

m. 209

m. 211

m. 212

(a)

m. 213

(b)

example 4.21  Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 4, interval-3/9 cycle and Db interruption in ‘Fate’ fanfares: (a) movement I, mm. 13–20; (b) movement IV, mm. 205–13.

In its final appearance in the last movement, the ‘Fate’ fanfare is almost identical to its original version in the first movement, except for the treatment of a single pitch—Db (b6ˆ). In the introduction, the interrupted descending diminished cycle ends with F minor. In the last movement, the chord on Db (the interruption to the cycle) is repeated following the resolution to the tonic F minor (see example 4.21). And following this, where we originally had the transformation that created the ‘sighing’ motive with the leap up to b6ˆ, we get silence—b6ˆ is not only being emphasized by its addition, but also when we expect to hear it, it is replaced by utter emptiness. This is followed by another descending diminished cycle—landing not on D, however, but Db. And this time, for the last time, not only does

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chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate Db resolve to C, but it is now a double appoggiatura. Following this, we get what seems like a triumphant push toward the end, and Db, which continues to show up in F major, simply disappears several pages from the end. We can read a kind of heroic ambivalence in two possible narrative endings to Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony: one in the sound world and one for the protagonist. On the one hand Tchaikovsky writes to von Meck “Rejoice in the rejoicing of others. Yes, it is possible to live.”92 In the sound world, this piece can be heard as a reinscription of a Beethoven’s Fifth story, in which the hero overcomes adversity and triumphs—albeit vicariously—transforming F minor of the first movement into F major in the finale. After the final entrance of ‘Fate’, the conflict motives, the ‘birch tree’ quotation, and the fight scenes that provide the major conflicts in the fourth movement are transformed into triumphant fanfares, ending in a blaring F major. However, if we read this same finale in an ironic mode, then the sound world “says” the opposite of what the narrative “means.” In the same paragraph quoted above Tchaikovsky also writes, The Fourth movement. … A picture of folk celebrating a festival. Barely have you managed to forget yourself and to be carried away by the spectacle of other people’s joys when implacable Fate appears again and reminds you of its existence. But the others are oblivious of you. They have not even turned round or glanced at you, and they have not noticed that you are lonely and sad.93 I find this aspect of the story compelling, in which the “happy” ending is not for the protagonist, but rather represents (through a 92 To My Best Friend, 187. 93 Ibid.

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(a)

(b)

(c)

b6ˆ

–

example 4.22  Bizet, Carmen, final scene. 227

5ˆ

chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate change of narrative voice at the end of the final statement of fate) the ignorance of the masses, oblivious to the plight of our defeated hero. For this is exactly what Tchaikovsky found tragic about the last scene of Carmen. On this subject, Tchaikovsky’s thoughts on the ending of the opera are particularly revealing. “I cannot play the last scene without weeping;” he writes, on the one hand, the people enjoying themselves, and the coarse gaiety of the crowd watching the bullfight, on the other, the dreadful tragedy and death of two of the leading characters whom an evil destiny, fatum, has brought together and driven, through a whole series of agonies, to their inescapable end.94 Looking at the last bars of Carmen, we can see that Bizet’s use of b6ˆ is very much what we have come to expect by now, with a few exceptions. The opera ends in F# major, but Carmen’s ‘Fate’ motive still contains b6ˆ (example 4.22a)—a modal mixture that highlights b6ˆ as a foreign element in the major mode. At the moment when Don José says that he has killed her, Bizet raises the fifth to b6ˆ to create an augmented triad (I&), which then pivots to become V&/IV (example 4.22b). (Though Beethoven outlines an augmented triad in the bass voice at the beginning of the coda in the Fifth Symphony, surely Tchaikovsky’s prominent use of it in the introduction and as the background of movement III is more directly related to Bizet’s use of it here.) Finally, Don José’s last syllables (the last of the opera) are set to D#–C# (6ˆ–5ˆ), which, as the curtain falls, are echoed as b6ˆ–5ˆ (example 4.22c). Note especially the dynamic markings, which emphasize b6ˆ in the extreme before the final resolution to the tonic. 94 Quoted in Brown, Tchaikovsky: The Crisis Years, 59.

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chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate R . St r aus s R ev isi t ed.  We have looked already at Don Juan in some detail, and have seen that motivic parallelism serves much the same function as it does in Schubert’s Erlkönig and Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony. Don Juan is clearly a narrative of fate, and, like Erlkönig and Tchaikovsky, the transformation of surface motives into harmonic design (and the interaction with sonata form) plays a dramatic role in defining that narrative. In the previous chapter we saw the primary parallelism between the opening chord progression and the four keys of the double exposition (table 3.1 and example 3.5). We are now in a position to evaluate the narrative implications of the motivic and harmonic designs in Don Juan with respect to fate. In Beethoven, the struggle against fate is represented by the gradual masking of the pathos associated with b6ˆ and ‘sighing’ motives through motivic development: they do not disappear in the last movement of the Fifth Symphony—they are transformed. In Richard Strauss’s Don Juan, the process is the opposite. We already know the implications of b6ˆ, but its pathos is hidden at the beginning and its significance is gradually revealed within the structural-musical narrative as the piece unfolds. Given that the first actual chord of the piece is bVI (see example 3.5), a close reading within the historical tradition we have been following surely implies that Don Juan’s fate is not, and never was, in question. The story of Don Juan was never (in any version) a story of the struggle against fate in which the hero might win—his fate and his personality are inextricable. Yet, in its initial presentation, the traditional associations with b6ˆ as a surface event are missing. 229

chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate At measure 44ff., Don Juan’s encounter with the first girl is the first real development in the process of securing his fate. Her key is C major (bVI), and after Don Juan leaves her at the cadence in E minor (m. 149), we hear his introductory music again, but in C major (a key which he will proceed to take with him into the second exposition). We might read this as his ‘freedom’ music, representing an independent Don Juan (since we first heard it before he meets the first girl). Following the conquest, he is independent again, but at the same time is remembering the conquest by reveling in her key. Structurally, bVI is becoming more prominent, emphasizing his destiny, but on the surface Strauss avoids any signs of the pathos traditionally associated with b6ˆ. Then we get the second girl (G minor), and their lovemaking (G major). As the dominant of bVI, his fate is still implied in the second encounter. At the end of the second encounter, his idyll accompaniment becomes unrest (m. 307ff.) and is a variation of the ‘freedom’ music we heard as the introduction and after the first encounter. But the G major of the second encounter becomes V/C at the beginning of the development section with the “new” theme, often called the Heldenthema. As I pointed out in the previous chapter, however, there is very little about it that is new—it is, as its alignment with the sonata form schema indicates, a development of previous material (as an inversion of the second love-making theme), alluding to the keys of both girls. Following the Heldenthema, the development wanders through the keys of D major and C# minor before arriving at the retransition. Over the typical dominant pedal (V/E) Don Juan recalls the motives 230

chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate of the girls in his own key area in Retrans1 (m. 421ff.) before reasserting his own introductory motives in Retrans2 (m. 457). (Note in table 3.1, that the music from the introduction serves as transition material between every major section of the sonata form: at the opening, before P1; after girl 1, leading into exposition 2; after girl 2, leading into the development; at the end of the development, leading into the recapitulation; and at the end of the recapitulation, leading into the coda). With the recapitulation we get a full statement of the Intro1 theme, followed by Don Juan, back in E major. In the second theme group of the recapitulation, however, we get the following sequence of events. The Heldenthema appears (in V/E) in the place formerly reserved for the lovemaking scenes (m. 510ff.)—though as a theme, it never appeared in an exposition. This seems counter intuitive for the recapitulation of the “second theme” to be in the dominant of the home key, but actually, this is the closest it has been, or will get, to the tonic. Given that the first time we heard it the Heldenthema was in V/bVI, we can read it not only as a transformation of surface motives, but also as another allusion to fate through its direct connection between bVI and the tonic. Following this at measure 543ff. we get the grand reunion of Don Juan’s themes in C major (bVI)—what has been referred to as the “Jubelruf.” This triumphant cheer is clearly an ironic move intended to set up the impending fall of Don Juan. But in one last move before the coda, we get another statement of Don Juan’s ‘freedom’ music in F major (m. 556ff.)—the theme from the introduction that had also served as the transition away from the first girl. In table 3.1 I labeled this as IV/C (following the “Jubelruf” in C major), but this transition turns out to 231

chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate

Tutti

V7/E ped.

b6ˆ/iv

Tp.

iv/e

example 4.23  Richard Strauss, Don Juan, mm. 581–88.

be a pivot and, in a move that is strongly reminiscent of Beethoven’s pathétique codas, is bII of the tonic E which subsequently begins the coda. It is not until the arrival of iv/e at coda2 (m. 586) that we hear b6ˆ used as a foreground allusion to fate (example 4.23). But in another reference to the post-Beethovenian tradition of fate, note that it is b6ˆ/iv—which is globally bII/E. Like Don Juan, who realizes the inevitability of his fate too late, the narrative implications of b6ˆ in this 232

chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate piece only become clear retrospectively at the moment of Don Juan’s death. Note also, in example 4.23, the use of b6ˆ without its resolution to 5ˆ. In his final judgement, it is b6ˆ alone that rings out as his deathbell, recalling the triumphant joy (“Jubelruf”) he took in his sexual conquests, the sexual conquests themselves, and the embedding of his fate in the initial representation of his personality. Schoe n berg a n d Wagn er R ev isi t ed.  Based on the previous discussion, I would like to briefly revisit my analysis of Schoenberg’s Op. 11, No. 1 that I presented in chapter 2. In particular, I would like to re-asses my narrative analysis with respect to the discussion of ‘sighing’ motives and b6ˆ, as well as the allusion to Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. I have long felt the presence of Wagner’s opening to Tristan in Schoenberg’s Op. 11, No. 1. In Wagner, without a frame of reference for a key, we (at least initially) must hear the opening A as tonic. The leap up a minor sixth followed by the chromatic descent is then, ˆ1 –b6ˆ–5ˆ–#4ˆ, a concentrated allusion to the Beethovenian pathétique. The Schoenberg Op. 11 also uses a ‘sighing’ motive and b6ˆ: the opening B–G#–G, is (also temporarily) heard as ˆ1 –6ˆ–b6ˆ. Here, in some respect, is one of the “ghosts” of tonality that Straus hears in this piece. But, furthermore, the architectural backgrounds I have argued for in Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony (diminished and augmented) and in Schoenberg’s Op. 11, No. 1 (augmented) take Rousseau’s concept of pathétique into the structural level of compositional design in ways that continue to allude to Beethoven.

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chapter 4 ◆ allusion, Frames, and Narratives of Fate Conclusions.  This chapter has really only touched on this topic in a cursory way, and for the purpose of the present project serves to set up a history to which Bartók alludes in the Concerto for Orchestra. In the next chapter I will make a case for Bartók’s use of b6ˆ, both as an element of the initial surface transformation and a structural element of the formal design, but without the Romantic associations of ‘sighing’ motives as melodic elements on the surface. Given the history of b6ˆ in fate narratives after Beethoven, I think that it will not be implausible to read Bartók’s use of this allusion as one more element among many that found synthesis in this work.

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Chapter 5 Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra In spite of (or perhaps because of) the seriousness of his illness, Bartók tells the story of the Concerto for Orchestra (in the program note for the premiere performance at the Boston Symphony Orchestra) as a progression from darkness toward life-assertion, with an elegy at the center of the work. At the same time, the fact that Bartók was able to compose his (arguably) most famous work so quickly—in the midst of his illness—has attracted much attention. I would like to examine this piece with respect to the traditions I have attempted to set up in the earlier chapters of this dissertation. If Bartók saw in Schoenberg’s Op. 11 the “new ways and means” of post-tonal compositional technique, as he claims, then perhaps we can account for similar kinds of structural processes between the Concerto and the Op. 11. For both of these pieces, it is important to take into account the ways in which the metaphor of organicism can make our structural descriptions more meaningful, and I have attempted to incorporate that aspect into my concept of musical relationships. Given the post-tonal context of Bartók’s musical language in the Concerto for Orchestra, I have also attempted to address issues of hierarchy, motivic parallelism, and the possibility of thinking about extensions of “key” architecture in terms of post-tonal compositional design. We have seen several examples of tonal pieces whose tonal-structural organization subverts in some way traditional harmonic relation235

chapter 5 ◆ bartók’s concerto for orchestra ships—processes that I believe lead directly to the kinds of structural organization we can read in this piece. Furthermore, I wish to situate structural elements of the Concerto (and their relationship to the life-assertion program Bartók offers) in the context of the tradition of fate and hero narratives that I explored in chapter 4. Ultimately, I hope this all leads to a richer experience of the piece and a deeper (pardon the metaphor) understanding of how integrated this piece is with the Western traditions of symphonic music (in addition to its connection to the Hungarian traditions that have already been so expertly explored by those more competent than I). These modest offerings I make here are by no means intended to explain the whole piece—a Utopian impossibility, in any case. I hope, however, that they contribute profitably to further discussion and further exploration of the influences Bartók synthesized in this work. During the course of my analysis I will be referring to sonata form descriptions of the first and last movements, as this is how Bartók describes them: “As for the structure of the work, the first and fifth movements are written in a more or less regular sonata form. The development of the first contains fugato sections for brass; the exposition in the finale is somewhat extended, and its development consists of a fugue built on the last theme of the exposition.” In the piano transcription Bartók made of the Concerto, he also listed the main divisions of each of the movements and their approximate timings. Some authors have found his description of sonata form in this  In Burke, “Concerto for Orchestra by Béla Bartók,” Boston Symphony Orchestra program note, 1–2 December 1944, p. 444.  A facsimile of the piano transcription Bartók prepared himself is reproduced in Béla Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra: Piano Score by the Composer, ed.

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chapter 5 ◆ bartók’s concerto for orchestra piece problematic. Paul Wilson writes that, “the disingenuousness of this ‘more or less’ marks another instance of [Bartók’s] evasiveness as a commentator on his own work.” As I argued in the last chapter, given a sufficiently generalized notion of sonata form (and a willingness to accept it as a fuzzy category), we can easily map Bartók’s divisions onto a prototypical model. We are also by no means tied to exclusively understanding a given movement in terms of sonata form structure—it is well known that Bartók used arch forms both in the organization of themes and in the organization of movements, so to find that his “sonata forms” also display characteristics of arch form is not surprising. Instead of thinking of Bartók’s realization of sonata form elements as deformational (or as not, somehow, being authentic sonata forms) we might instead explore the ways in which this modern work negotiates the relationship between the traditions of “tonal” structural organization and organic motivic development within a radial category of sonata form types. Móricz’s Sketch Studies and the Composition of the Concerto for Orchestra By 1942, Bartók was gradually becoming aware that there was something seriously wrong with his health. On 31 December 1942 he wrote “my health [has been] impaired since the beginning of April: since that time I have every day temperature elevation (of about 100°) in the evening, quite regularly and relentlessly! The doctors cann’t György Sándor (New York: Boosey & Hawkes, 2001).  Paul Wilson, The Music of Béla Bartók (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1992), 168.

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chapter 5 ◆ bartók’s concerto for orchestra [sic] find out the cause, and as a consequence, cann’t [sic] even try a treatment.” Earlier that year, on 30 May 1942, Bartók indicated his general state of mind when he wrote to Ralph Hawkes (of Boosey & Hawkes), “Artistic creative work generally is the result of an outflow of strength, high spiritedness, joy of life etc.—All this [sic] conditions are sadly missing with me …”. He did, nevertheless, accept Koussevitzky’s commission for a new work just before leaving for Saranac Lake in the summer of 1943—a trip that was intended to allow him to rest and convalesce. He took with him the Turkish field book (TFB) that already contained sketches of Turkish folk song, but which was, for the most part, empty. It is the TFB that now contains the majority of the sketches and continuity draft for the Concerto for Orchestra. Klára Móricz, whose dissertation was an investigation of the Turkish Field Book and other sketch sources of the Concerto for Orchestra, claims that “according to [personal communication with] Péter Bartók, at the time of writing the Concerto, Bartók did not have a piano in Saranac Lake.” In the absence of a piano, where he would normally try things out before he wrote them down, Bartók sketched more heavily than usual before making the draft. Based on her analysis of those extensive sketches, Móricz has published two articles outlining the order in which Bartók likely composed  Béla Bartók Letters, ed. Demény, 324.  Quoted in Klára Móricz, “New Aspects of the Genesis of Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra: Concepts of ‘Finality’ and ‘Intention’,” Studia Musicologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 35, no. 1–3 (1993): 185–86.  Benjamin Suchoff, Bartók: “Concerto for Orchestra”; Understanding Bartók’s World, (New York: Schirmer, 1995), 115.  Móricz, “New Aspects of the Genesis of Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra,” 183.

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chapter 5 ◆ bartók’s concerto for orchestra the various portions of the Concerto. I have no reason to doubt her chronology—and, in fact, I find that her analysis of the compositional process sheds light on the kind of motivic development I see as central to this piece. Based on her chronology, however, I would like to offer a new interpretation regarding the structure and meaning of the work with respect to its genesis, and suggest a new hypothesis regarding the notion that this piece was composed so quickly by Bartók’s standards—in less than two months. In her brilliant article, “New Aspects of the Genesis of Béla Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra: Concepts of ‘Finality’ and ‘Intention’,” Móricz points to two revealing letters regarding the genesis of the idea for the Concerto. In the first, a letter from Ralph Hawkes to Bartók on 17 April 1942, the publisher suggested that Bartók write a series of Concertos for Solo Instrument or instruments and String Orchestra. By this I mean Piano and String Orchestra, Solo Violin and String Orchestra, Flute and String Orchestra etc., or combinations of Solo Instruments and String Orchestra. I have in mind the Brandenburg Concertos by Bach, and I believe that you are well fitted to do something along these lines. Four months later, on 3 August 1942 (and a year before the trip to Saranac Lake), Bartók replied to Hawkes, Just before my illness I began some composition work, and just the kind you suggested. But then, of course, I had to discontinue

 The dates of composition listed in the published edition are “1943, aug. 15.–okt. 8”; see Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra (London: Hawkes & Sons, 1946), 144.  Quoted in Móricz, “New Aspects of the Genesis of Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra,” 186–87.

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chapter 5 ◆ bartók’s concerto for orchestra it because of lack of energy, tranquillity and mood—I don’t know if I ever will be in the position to do some composing work.10 From this, Móricz speculates that “the planning for the concerto grosso-like composition” for an entire year “could have played an important role in the unusually speedy composition of the Concerto.”11 There is no reason to deny that Bartók may have been thinking about the piece he wanted to write, or trying out themes at the piano before he went to Saranac Lake. However, the concerto grosso aspect of the piece is almost exclusively limited to the second movement—a portion of the work that is the least thematically and motivically integrated with the rest of the work as a whole. I believe that it was in the course of writing the contrasting chorale for the second movement’s “game of the pairs” that the idea for the piece as we know it began to come together. According to Móricz, “the first fully conceived movement of the Concerto was the second, the Allegretto scherzando.”12 Bartók seems to have first composed measures 9 through 164—that is, the entire A section (all of the “pairs”) and the B section, the brass chorale up to the point of the return of the A´ section (see example 5.1 for the first portion of the chorale). Not only does the material for the independent sections in the chain of pairs have very little to do motivically with the rest of the piece, Bartók noted himself that “thematically, the five sections have nothing in common.”13 The contrasting brass 10 Ibid., 187. 11 Ibid. 12 Ibid., 190. 13 In Burke, “Concerto for Orchestra by Béla Bartók,” Boston Symphony Orchestra program note, 1–2 December 1944, p. 444.

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chapter 5 ◆ bartók’s concerto for orchestra

example 5.1  Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra, movement II, mm. 123–46, B section (brass chorale). © Copyright 1946 by Hawkes & Sons (London) Ltd. Reprinted by permission.

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chapter 5 ◆ bartók’s concerto for orchestra chorale, on the other hand, is closely related to the rest of the work, and all of the music he composed after the chorale can be traced back to it through developing variation. In the first phrase of the brass chorale, the upper voice outlines the following pitches: F#–E–A (i.e., a major second and a perfect fourth). The second phrase begins on G#, and the third phrase begins on C#. Thus, in a structural parallelism of related—but not identical—motives, the outline of the first phrase is mirrored in the beginnings of the three phrases: (F#–E–A) → (F#–G#–C#). These motives are related in that their sequential intervals are the same (M2–P4), however, the second is an “unfolded” version of the first.14 (F#–E–A) is (–2+5=3) and (F#–G#–C#) is (2+5=7). (Note also the inversional relationship between the upper voice and the bass created not only by the contrary motion, but also by the initiating tones of each phrase.) Given the primacy of the intervals 5 and 2 in this piece (and their relation to the pentatonic and interval-5/7 cycle) I consider the two versions of the motive related by their “primary” intervals.15 That is, the “folded” and “unfolded” versions are two related instantiations of the same motive. Or, in Schoenberg’s terms, they are two related motive-forms—two gestalts of the same motive. In my terminology, I call them N- and M-cells. Analogous to the relative sizes of en- and em-dashes, what I call an N-cell is always the “folded-in” version of the motive (and subtracts the second interval in its name from 14 David Lewin has defined transformational processes for this kind of relationship, called FLIPEND and FLIPSTART. See Lewin, Generalized Musical Intervals and Transformations, 189. 15 For an in-depth study of the properties of interval-cycles and the naming convention used here, see Antokoletz, The Music of Béla Bartók, esp. 68, and 271–311.

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chapter 5 ◆ bartók’s concerto for orchestra the first), and the M-cell is the “folded out” version (and adds the two intervals). In other words, an N-5/2 cell represents (5–2=3), and M-5/2 represents (5+2=7).16 What this does conceptually is to give priority to two of the three intervals in the cell for the comparative purpose of relating them to the intervals in another cell. Note that the pitch sequence F#–E–A could either be represented as N-5/2, or M-3/2, depending on what we are comparing it with. I find the specific relationships in the brass chorale of the second movement important for understanding how Bartók then constructed the rest of the Concerto. After finishing the chorale in the second movement, and leaving the return of the A´ section for later, Bartók then composed the exposition proper and the beginning of the development of the first movement (mm. 76–271).17 Measure 76 is the primary theme of the exposition, and shows much intervallic similarity with the structure of the chorale. The theme is built around the pitches (F–C–F–Eb–Ab), or (7+5–2+5). Interestingly, not only is this theme an expansion of the structural intervals of the chorale, it is an almost direct quotation of the main theme of Bartók’s earlier 1938 Violin Concerto No. 2 (see example 5.2). As an allusion to the Violin Concerto, the first theme of the Concerto for Orchestra takes the basic interval structure of the beginning of the Violin Concerto theme, and interpolates its tritone “hiccup” end-

16 Note that my addition and subtraction is often relative, inverting the direction of the first interval. Thus, (–5+2=–3) can also be represented as (5–2=3), so that we see 5 as the primary interval, 2 as the interval that can “fold” or “unfold”, and 3 as the resulting unordered interval span of the motive form. 17 Móricz, “New Aspects of the Genesis of Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra,” 191.

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chapter 5 ◆ bartók’s concerto for orchestra Concerto for Orchestra, P1 (a)

Violin Concerto, P1

(b)

example 5.2  Comparison of main themes: (a) Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra, movement I, m. 76ff.; (b) Bartók, Violin Concerto No. 2 (1938), movement I, m. 6ff. © Copyright 1946 by Hawkes & Sons (London) Ltd. Reprinted by permission. ing.18 Not only does the main theme of the Violin Concerto serve as the basic motive for all the themes in the first movement of that piece, but the third movement of the Violin Concerto is a variation on the first movement. (On the first page of the draft of the Violin Concerto No. 2, Bartók sketched the theme of the third movement between the staves containing the theme and its accompaniment for 18 The facsimile of the first page of the draft of the Violin Concerto No. 2 is reproduced in László Somfai, Béla Bartók: Composition, Concepts, and Autograph Sources (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1996), 64. Note particularly that Bartók did not compose the two-note pickup in the theme of the second Violin Concerto—it was likely suggested by the soloist, Székely, at a rehearsal.

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chapter 5 ◆ bartók’s concerto for orchestra the first movement.) Bartók had worked with this motivic structure on a large scale only a few years before, and was familiar with its potential for a multitude of allusions to both Hungarian and Western traditions, as well as having used it to outline structural motivic parallelisms in the Violin Concerto. Whether the allusion to the Violin Concerto at measure 76 of the Concerto for Orchestra was intentional or accidental at the time of its composition, at some point Bartók must have recognized the relationship between the two. Given that at the beginning of the compositional process for the Concerto for Orchestra Bartók began with the second movement, Móricz’s suggestion that Bartók had been thinking about a concerto-grosso-like piece is apt. But if Bartók had been planning from the beginning to base the Concerto for Orchestra on the main theme of the Violin Concerto, we might wonder why he did not simply begin his sketches with themes based on this allusion. We might speculate that either Bartók wrote the chorale in the second movement and recognized the motive forms, at which point he put down the second movement and composed the primary theme of the exposition as an allusion to the Violin Concerto; or, if he composed the first theme of the exposition first, he must surely have recognized the similarity at some point. In either case, I would argue that this connection with the Violin Concerto following the completion of the second movement chorale provides a much more plausible reason for the speed at which Bartók composed the Concerto for Orchestra, for he had already constructed an entire piece—which is itself a set of variations—on essentially the same theme with nearly the same motivic structure. 245

chapter 5 ◆ bartók’s concerto for orchestra Incidentally, this is not the only allusion to the Violin Concerto in the Concerto for Orchestra. In the last movement of the Concerto for Orchestra, the development section begins with an allusion (note the prominent use of the harp) to the opening of the Violin Concerto No. 2—which also begins the development section in the first movement of that piece (see example 5.3 and 5.4).

example 5.3  Bartók, Violin Concerto No. 2 (1938), movement I, opening, mm. 1–7. © Copyright 1946 by Hawkes & Sons (London) Ltd. Reprinted by permission. 246

chapter 5 ◆ bartók’s concerto for orchestra

example 5.4  Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra, movement V, mm. 256–65, beginning of development. © Copyright 1946 by Hawkes & Sons (London) Ltd. Reprinted by permission. 247

chapter 5 ◆ bartók’s concerto for orchestra Descriptions of the formal structure of the Violin Concerto are, like Schoenberg’s Op. 11, No. 1, made complicated by the fact that all of the main themes are motivically derived from the opening basic motive of perfect fourths and major seconds, and developed continually. While there is not room here to flesh this out thoroughly, I would argue that the form of the Violin Concerto is a hybrid of theme-and-variations and sonata form. This hybrid form is, like the Op. 11, a direct result of the concept Bartók and Schoenberg shared of a metaphor of organicism that ought to produce organic unity through pervasive developing variation. Thus, the Violin Concerto may provide more than simply the basis for a surface allusion in the Concerto for Orchestra. Some of the variations in the Violin Concerto are so elaborate that, in the absence of functional harmonic progressions, it is difficult to distinguish between surface elaboration of the main theme (as embellishment) and the notion that the primary motive forms serve a sub-surface role in organizing the “tonal” motion of “prolongational” spans in terms of what Bartók calls “key” architecture. Compare, for instance, the reduction of the transition section of the Violin Concerto (example 5.5) with the primary theme (example 5.2b). In the absence of a piano, then, the Violin Concerto may have served not only as a model for surface motives and their potential for development and variation (in the Violin Concerto his versatility at transforming the theme extends to several 12-tone versions)—but also may have provided a model for dealing with large scale “harmonic” structure that Bartók had been working on in 1937, based on his concept of extending Kodály’s “key” architecture.

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example 5.5  Bartók, Violin Concerto No. 2., movement I, mm. 56–73, pitch reduction of transition.

56

67 73

chapter 5 ◆ bartók’s concerto for orchestra

249

chapter 5 ◆ bartók’s concerto for orchestra Bartók’s Developing Variation T h e I n t roduz ion e.  Móricz has shown that following completion of the brass chorale in movement II, and the exposition of movement I (from measure 76 up through measure 271), Bartók next composed the introduction to the first movement (m. 1–75)— the Introduzione. In chapter 2 I attempted to demonstrate one type of developing variation in Schoenberg’s Op. 11, No. 1, in which the initial motive develops directly into the motive that functions as the first contrasting element which is then recombined with the initial idea as a game of progressive synthesis. This concept of motivic transformation and recombination provides for much of the processes of development in the Op. 11, and functions in a similar manner in Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra. The idea that an introduction might be created to seem, thematically, to be the genesis of the primary theme of the exposition (and all subsequent material) is, however, much older than Schoenberg. Beethoven also wrote introductions that give the impression that the material of the main theme is generated spontaneously out of nothing (c.f., the finale of his Symphony No. 1). Similarly, I read in the introduction to Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony the presentation of an initial set of quotations and allusions, part of which (the leap of a fifth that prepares the Wagnerian descent into hell) is transformed into one of the main motivic elements of the symphony—the b6ˆ–5ˆ motive—which in turn invokes a narrative of fate, alluding to the traditions of Bizet, Verdi, and Beethoven, and provides the primary harmonic conflict in the piece. The concept that an introduction 250

chapter 5 ◆ bartók’s concerto for orchestra functions as generator—rather than simply preliminary—does not seem particularly unusual, and seems to fit within the conceptual model of organic growth as it might apply to musical processes. In the Introduzione, Bartók’s development of the motivic material seems to combine a process similar to Beethoven’s (spontaneous growth) with the kind of developing variation I outlined in the beginning Schoenberg’s Op. 11 (progressive synthesis). The Introduzione is divided into four fairly distinct sections: (1) mm. 1–34; (2) mm. 35–50; (3) 51–57; and (4) 58–75. Each section begins with a variation on the initial motive, which itself is further varied during the individual section. In a process of developing variation, the initial idea is transformed over the course of the first 75 measures into its own antithesis, which is then recombined with an initial form of the motive, as if the first theme of the sonata form (at m. 76) grew out of a single interval at the beginning of the piece (see example 5.6). While the motive in example 5.6 is being developed, it moves from foreground (as primary melody) to an accompanimental role as a new theme is introduced (example 5.7) and then reemerges at measure 76 as a theme in the foreground again. Thus we also have the beginnings of a hierarchical model of formal structure that depends on motivic similarity across formal boundaries, and could be generalized by the schema in figure 5.1. Like other hierarchical models, every element of the musical surface is defined by its relationship to the motive form at the head of its section (via motivic transformation), which is in turn related to the initial motive form via its place along the “path” of motivic transformations that includes only section “heads.” Note that in this schema 251

chapter 5 ◆ bartók’s concerto for orchestra

m. 1

THESIS Slow introduction

m. 35 expansion

m. 51 rhythmic offset

( )

m. 58

Antithesis

compression (N.B. tritone)

m. 76

SyNTHESIS Th. 1 of sonata form

example 5.6  Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra, movement I, organic developing variation from introduction to first theme. © Copyright 1946 by Hawkes & Sons (London) Ltd. Reprinted by permission. 252

chapter 5 ◆ bartók’s concerto for orchestra (a) m. 39

m. 43

(b)

mm. 39–46

example 5.7  Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra, movement I, mm. 39–47: (a) symmetrical use of primary motive; (b) outline of symmetrical interval-3/9 (diminished) cycle. © Copyright 1946 by Hawkes & Sons (London) Ltd. Reprinted by permission.

the initial idea “controls” the shape of the entire piece—everything of importance is related back to it through variation along hierarchical paths. Also note that we can replace Var I, Var II, etc. with any formal labels (say the elements of sonata form), thus achieving a synthesis of variation technique and other conceptual models of form. If, as Zbikowski has argued, what we recognize as motives function as basic level categories (from which generalizations, etc. are made), then when we recognize that each “new” theme is based on a varia253

chapter 5 ◆ bartók’s concerto for orchestra IDEA

var 1

→

var 2

→

var 3

→

I´

→

I´´

→

I´´´

→

II´

→

II´´

→

II´´´

→

III´

→

III´´

→

III´´´

→

etc.

→

→

Var I → Var II → Var III → etc.

figure 5.1  Model of basic hierarchy for organicism. tion of a single motivic structure we have a hierarchical overlapping of radial categories. One category relates instances of motivic variation at the head of each new section back to the beginning (as the central member of the category). At the same time, the head of each new section serves as the central member for development within that section—like a new branch of a tree. We can also relate this model to a musical surface in the following way: each horizontal line represents a formal section within the piece; the beginning of each new formal section begins on a new line. However, there can be many “branchings” between major formal sections, i.e., there may be several branchings within the introduction, several more within the first theme group, etc. We can trace a deeper level of structure by following the development along the vertical arrows.19 19 Note that in strict hierarchical systems, the path in the source-pathgoal schema is mediated by boundary definitions at all levels within the hierar-

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chapter 5 ◆ bartók’s concerto for orchestra H i dde n r e l at ions I I.   From the perspective of atomistic organicism, it is as if the motive at the beginning of the Concerto for Orchestra grows out of a single interval—the perfect fourth (C#– F#)—a decidedly important interval for Bartók.20 A further peculiarity of these old [Hungarian] melodies is to be found in the frequent occurrence of the skip of a perfect fourth. The frequent repetition of this remarkable skip occasioned the construction of the simplest fourth-chord (which was filled in to be completed as a consonant chord) and its inversions:21 At the beginning of the Introduzione, a perfect fourth is unfolded twice, and like in Schoenberg’s Op. 11, No. 1, the resulting secondary interval (in this case the major second) is subsequently unfolded and instantiated as a melodic interval. Example 5.8 shows one way to conceptualize the unfolding of the initial gesture from a single interval as an organic process. Note that, due to its similarity to Hungarian folk music, Bartók considers chords built on stacked perfect fourths as consonant. Following the initial gesture of the Introduzione, then, is a series of string tremolo chords (mm. 6–11) over the pedal C#. While this music functions as a contrast to the opening gesture, it can also chy (they are part of the path). In met­o­nymy, the relationship between source and goal in the source-path-goal schema is direct. 20 In some instances I describe the piece as an organic narrative of structural unfolding—as if it were literally growing and we were listening to it in real time. Following the development of some relationships in the piece in this way is directly related to the notion of conceptualizing this piece as an atomistic hierarchy, and part of the metaphor of organicism implies that the piece ought to give the impression that the musical materials are themselves generating growth and new ideas as the piece unfolds. We know, however, that in this case this impression was carefully constructed by Bartók after the main theme was already composed. 21 Bartók, “The Folk Songs of Hungary,” in Béla Bartók Essays, 336.

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chapter 5 ◆ bartók’s concerto for orchestra

example 5.8  Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra, movement I, organic unfolding of theme from a single interval. © Copyright 1946 by Hawkes & Sons (London) Ltd. Reprinted by permission.

be seen as a repetition of the first phrase—a “hidden” repetition, in Bartók’s language, in which the intervals of the opening melodic gesture are compressed (and doubled as an inversion), while the rhythm remains nearly identical to the opening, despite being offset from the barline by a quarter rest in the violin I (see example 5.9 and figure 5.2). As we saw in chapter 2, in his discussion of “new chromaticism” in the third of his Harvard Lectures, Bartók described his “discovery” of the technique of extension and compression of intervals as a leveling of chromatic degrees “over a diatonic terrain,” or vice versa.22 Figure 5.2 shows the “hidden relation” between the opening melodic gesture (mm. 1–6) and the tremolo responses in the upper strings (mm. 6–10) in the interval mapping from one to the other. Over nearly the same (though slightly developing) rhythmic pattern all perfect fourths are compressed into major seconds (5→2), major 22 Bartók, “Harvard Lectures,” in Béla Bartók Essays, 381–83.

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chapter 5 ◆ bartók’s concerto for orchestra 6

example 5.9  Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra, movement I, mm. 6–10. © Copyright 1946 by Hawkes & Sons (London) Ltd. Reprinted by permission.

Vc., Db., mm. 1–5:

5→5→2→5→2

h.

h.

h

h

h

h.

Vn. I, mm. 6–10:

2→2→1→2→1

h.

h.

h

h

q

h.

h.

h.

h

x

h. _ h. _ q

x

Vn. II, mm. 7–9:

2→1

Va., mm. 8–10:

0

figure 5.2  Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra, movement I, “hidden relation” through compression of intervals. 257

chapter 5 ◆ bartók’s concerto for orchestra seconds are compressed into minor seconds (2→1), and finally, the minor second is compressed back into a unison (1→0). Thus, the piece opens with a kind of antecedent-consequent phrase in which coherence is maintained through a “hidden” relationship. The initial phrase (mm. 1–11) is then repeated (mm. 12–21), except that this time the unfolding of the initial perfect fourth is expanded by an extra perfect fourth, and the gesture does not return back to C#, but comes to rest on F#. The phrase is repeated a third time (mm. 22–29), continuing to expand the stacking of P4s—an indication that perhaps the interval-5/7 cycle may play a further role in the organization of the piece—coming to rest this time on D#. In addition to stacking more P4s, the third phrase also expands the descent from the midpoint of the gesture following the pattern of P4s and M2s from the previous phrases, this time stringendo. In mm. 22–29 there is only one melodic interval that is not a P4 or M2—a m3 that, perhaps incidentally, coincides with the “tornando.” It is as if tornando refers not only to a return to the initial tempo, but also to “return” the melody to the established pattern of P4s and M2s. But in my reading of the opening, I rationalized the “unfolding” of the M2 from the stacked P4s as an interval that is introduced as the product of a process (extracting the interval-class from the total span of a series of repeating intervals), which in turn is then instantiated as a melodic interval in its own right: (5+5=2) → (2+5+2); but also (5+5=2) → (5+2+5); (see example 5.8). This rationale for introducing “new” intervals to a developing melodic motive follows the same logic that I used for the developing variation relationship in Schoenberg’s Op. 11 between the opening motive and the motive in 258

chapter 5 ◆ bartók’s concerto for orchestra the tenor voice in m. 4 in which (3+1=4) → (4+3+1[+1]). In a way, then, we can think of the m3 from m. 25 to m. 26 as an interruption to the pattern of P4s and M2s, that “resolves” by returning (tornando) to the original pattern. By the same reasoning that produced the M2, this m3 was introduced in the second phrase as the result of stacking three P4s (note the span C#–[F#–B]–E = m3). The interval-5/7 cycle that has been successively (and increasingly) unfolded at the beginning of the first movement can be viewed as playing a role similar to that of a scale in this piece—that is, it provides an abstract model for hierarchical relationships, though here among interval-classes instead of pitch-classes. (In other words, the relationships this model provides are more interesting from the perspective of mapping hierarchical importance onto P4s and M2s, than from a tonal hierarchy of pitch-classes.) Like a scale, however, it need not be the exclusive model for these relationships in the course of the piece. If this is the case, then it is a particularly interesting cycle (see figure 5.3). The interval of an ascending P4 clearly alludes to the dominant-tonic bass motion of tonal traditions, though Bartók almost never uses it that way—except in the fourth movement, which exploits it ad nauseam—but usually substitutes other intervals, such as the tritone, at cadences. In particular, the first five notes in the cycle produce the pentatonic—a scale in its own right that Bartók already associates with the “perfection” of Hungarian folk music. The entire cycle produces the complete chromatic collection (note Bartók’s discussion of equalizing the semitones in “The Problem of New Music”).23 The series of resultant interval-classes from succes23 Bartók, “The Problem of the New Music,” in Béla Bartók Essays, 455ff.

259

chapter 5 ◆ bartók’s concerto for orchestra

(F) C G D

interval-5/7 cycle

A E B Gb

(pentatonic)

Db Ab Eb Bb

m2 (1)

tt (6)

m2 (1)

M3 (4)

m3 (3)

M2 (2)

P4 (5)

F

etc.

ordered interval-class distances: 5 → 2 → 3 → 4 → 1 → 6 → 1 → 4 → 3 → 2 → 5

figure 5.3  Ordered interval-class distances derived from the interval-5/7 cycle (as it partially unfolds at the opening of the Concerto for Orchestra).

260

chapter 5 ◆ bartók’s concerto for orchestra sive stages in the cycle gives hierarchical priority to P4s and M2s (which Bartók connects with Hungarian folk music)—and puts them in opposition to m2s and tritones (both of which Bartók uses in this piece and in the Violin Concerto as dominant substitutes). The interval-5/7 cycle is also symmetrical, in the sense that following the tritone the pattern of resultant interval-classes folds back on itself and returns in mirror image back to the P4. As an abstract structure it contains within its structure the potential (more than, say, a whole tone scale) to point outside of itself and allude to both Western and Hungarian traditions. Sub-Surface Developing Variation In the course of the Concerto for Orchestra, motivic transformations on the surface and along “deeper” levels (such as the vertical arrows in figure 5.1) not only creates an atomistic hierarchy, but also displays motivic parallelism across the unfolding sub-surface structural organization. Example 5.10 shows two pitch reductions of the first three phrases of the Introduzione. Example 5.10b highlights the goal-directed motivic parallelism with the initial surface motive as one organizing feature of the opening section. In his analysis of the opening page of Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra, Paul Wilson labels the goal tones of the first three phrases {C#, F#, D#} as a 3-7, which he describes “forming an abstract connection to the sub-sets of 5-35 [the pentatonic], but not a contour or a pc set of later importance.”24 To conceptualize this structure only as 24 Wilson, The Music of Béla Bartók, 173.

261

chapter 5 ◆ bartók’s concerto for orchestra mm. 1–11

12–21

22–29

(a)

N-5/2

(b)

example 5.10  Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra, movement I, mm. 1–34, pitch reduction of the first three phrases.

First theme group

76

Second theme group

tritone (6) 86

95

102

110

122

135

155

N-5/2

N-5/2

N-5/2

N-5/2

example 5.11  Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra, movement I, mm. 76–155. an incomplete harmonic unit is not wrong, technically speaking, but may, perhaps, be missing the point. While it is useful to conceptualize 3-7 as a sub-structure of many larger structures (the interval-5/7 cycle, the pentatonic, etc.) it is treated on both the surface and at various sub-surface levels as a motive. It is, in fact, the treatment of 262

chapter 5 ◆ bartók’s concerto for orchestra such sub-surface motives (and their relationship to surface motives as motivic parallelisms) that I am attempting to articulate as a replacement for the structural functions of harmony in this piece. The difference between describing {C#, F#, D#} as 3-7, and describing it as a sub-surface motive, is that as a motive it can undergo sub-surface developing variation (in relation to other sub-surface structures at the same or different levels). Compare, for instance, the opening goal tones of the introduction (example 5.10) with a reduction of the first theme group (example 5.11). I would argue that the primary means of “harmonic” motion in this section is achieved through sub-surface development of the opening sub-surface architecture. Furthermore, the N-5/2 cell is also present as the initial bass motion at m. 76ff., after which it undergoes development (example 5.12). The motivic parallelism that provides the key architecture of the exposition first theme group recalls the motivic parallelism that relates the transition of the Violin

76

N-5/2

example 5.12  Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra, movement I, mm. 76–80. © Copyright 1946 by Hawkes & Sons (London) Ltd. Reprinted by permission. 263

chapter 5 ◆ bartók’s concerto for orchestra Concerto No. 2 to the theme. At the opening of the Introduzione, the “interlocking fourths,” (the second half of the opening phrase) is comprised of two N-5/2 cells (A–E–F# and E–F#–C#), whose shape is then projected as the goal tones of the opening section (m. 1–34), and further projected as the “key” architecture of the first theme group (m. 77–155). When we get to the second theme group (m. 155ff.) the primarily N-arrangement of the cell from the first theme group changes to a primarily M-arrangement (see example 5.13a). We also have a change from the pervasive melodic counterpoint in the previous section to a more static vertical arrangement—nearly the entire second group in built over a pedal B. But the second theme also provides an interesting variation in the standard sonata form model. As we saw in Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony, and Strauss’s Don Juan, developments in harmonic design can undermine the traditional function of recapitulations in sonata form. Example 5.13 is a comparison of the second theme of the Concerto for Orchestra in the exposition and in the recapitulation. In a movement in F, the recapitulation has not returned the second theme to the tonic. But as example 5.14 shows, if we reconceptualize the function of the recapitulation as completion of a whole, rather than return to tonic, then we can see that the M-cell from the exposition and the M-cell from the recapitulation (a major second apart) combine to complete the pentatonic (in a transposition a perfect fourth from the pentatonic in the opening measures of the Introduzione). This combinatorial process is similar in some ways to Bartók’s polymodal chromaticism—in which the complete chromatic is achieved by combining different modes. Yet, 264

chapter 5 ◆ bartók’s concerto for orchestra (a)

(b)

( )

example 5.13  Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra, movement I: (a) S1 in exposition, m. 155ff.; (b) S1 in recapitulation, m. 402ff. © Copyright 1946 by Hawkes & Sons (London) Ltd. Reprinted by permission.

155

402

(a)

mm. 1–6

(b)

2 5

T10

(c)

(d)

T7

2 5

example 5.14  Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra, movement I: (a) S1 in exposition, m. 155ff.; (b) S1 in recapitulation, m. 402ff.; (c) combined pitch structure of second themes; (d) Introduzione, mm. 1–6, opening pentatonic. 265

chapter 5 ◆ bartók’s concerto for orchestra here the M-cells are separated temporally, but together point back (through the completion of the pentatonic) to the beginning of the piece, as well as to the interval-5/7 cycle. Interestingly, the second theme group seems to be organized by a completely different conceptual model of harmonic relationships than the first theme group, which does return the primary theme back to its original pitches in the recapitulation. In another parallelism, the “key” architecture of the five movements of the Concerto for Orchestra can also be traced back to the developing variation in the Introduzione that generated the first theme (example 5.15). In example 5.15b, note the similarity with the main theme in example 5.6. Furthermore, this division of the five movements into an N-cell—the same structural N-5/2 cell that organized the opening of the Introduzione and the first theme group—and a (a)

(b)

I

II

III

IV

V

I

II

III

IV

V

example 5.15  Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra, tonal plan of the five movements (varied motivic parallelism with Th. 1 motivic structure). 266

chapter 5 ◆ bartók’s concerto for orchestra tritone, divides the movements after the death (the Elegy) and represents the two extreme poles of the interval-5/7 cycle (placing the perfect fourth and major second in opposition to the tritone). Transformations of Fate If we are going to read Bartók’s program note for the Concerto for Orchestra as more than a superficial allusion to Beethoven, then we would expect to find musical allusions that support a narrative reading. In fact this piece contains a number of potentially symbolic moments that point toward a narrative frame for understanding this piece in relation to the history of fate in the Western music tradition that I attempted to outline in chapter 4. The recognition of allusions to other works by Bartók in combination with a historically informed reading of b6ˆ, provides support for the program that was offered at the premiere. The most important aspect of the tradition of fate narratives I have traced thus far is the abstraction of b6ˆ from its surface instantiations and use at key moments that play a central role in articulating the narrative on a structural level. As Paul Wilson has noticed, Db/C# plays an important structural role in the first movement (the only movement that he discusses) of the Concerto for Orchestra, yet, he sees it as secondary to the tritone relationship between the tonic (F) and the second theme group (B). While he grants that Db/C# plays a primary role in organizing the framework for the development section, he has trouble reconciling it with what is usually the primary opposition in a sonata form (i.e., the opposition between the first and second theme groups). “The 267

chapter 5 ◆ bartók’s concerto for orchestra simplicity and solidity of the large outer-voice structures of the second theme group are challenged in the development section, which in its unfolding throws the centricity of B vis-à-vis F into considerable doubt.”25 Yet, as I have shown, the second theme group does not participate in the sonata form scheme in a traditional pitch-centric way. Tonal centricity is established by the departure and return of F in this movement (and the work as a whole), but traditional tonal prolongational analyses are not going to account for the fact that the second theme is on B in the exposition and on A in the recapitulation. Furthermore, we might give up a notion of a single harmonic conflict in this piece. We have already mixed-and-matched conceptual models in order to account for the recapitulations of the first and second theme groups, and a narrative account of b6ˆ will help to explain another kind of development that is taking place in this piece. The opening of the Introduzione is also an allusion to the “darkness motive” of Bartók’s only opera, Bluebeard’s Castle.26 But furthermore, the first measures initiate a transformation that provides the impetus for subsequent structural allusions to the fate tradition. Example 5.16 shows yet another way to conceptualize the opening transformation and its use in the first theme that creates a primary melodic statement based on the span of a minor sixth. (Remember, also, that the first theme at measure 76 is the first thing Bartók 25 Wilson, The Music of Béla Bartók, 180. 26 Note that Bluebeard’s Castle is also a fate/death story, and there are more allusions to it in movement III of the Concerto for Orchestra. Suchoff has pointed out the allusions to the ‘darkness’ motive in the first and third movements, and the ‘Lake of Tears’ music in the third movement; see Suchoff, Bartók: “Concerto for Orchestra,” 148–49.

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chapter 5 ◆ bartók’s concerto for orchestra (a)

(b)

(c)

example 5.16  Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra, movement I: (a) mm. 1–3; (b) mm. 3–6; (c) mm. 77–78.

composed after he wrote the chorale in movement II, and that the Introduzione was written later.) Thus, not only do the opening six measures point toward the interval-5/7 cycle and the pentatonic, but they point to the possibility of alluding to b6ˆ within those collections (see also figure 5.3). Not only does the Introduzione begins on C# (b6ˆ/ F)—the first movement does not arrive at the tonic F until measure 76, at the first theme group—but another look at example 5.11 shows that the first theme group is organized by overlapping N-5/2 cells, and that the “harmonic” pivot that allows the motion to B occurs on b6ˆ (Db/C#). I I I: El egi a .  Unlike all of the other pieces we have looked at in this study, Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra is a unique transformation of the heroic tradition in the sense that it incorporates both the fate/death narrative and the fate/overcoming narrative. In this sense, there are two emotional climaxes in the work at opposite poles within the narrative: the Elegy and the finale. 269

chapter 5 ◆ bartók’s concerto for orchestra I read one of these poles—the calmo at the end of the third movement—as an allusion to the kind of interrupted moment of fulfillment we find in Richard Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben.27 This is the exact place in the Concerto for Orchestra, incidentally, that Gilbert French describes as a formal disaster. “Unfortunately,” writes French, “at measure 112 the greatest faux pas of the entire work occurs, the stylistically completely dissociated appearance of an old theme. It completely disintegrates the effectiveness of the movement.”28 As a likely model for the narrative strategy in Bartók, however, the interrupted apotheosis in Heldenleben is itself an homage to the 19thcentury Adagio. Margaret Notley has discussed the importance of understanding the emotional aspect of the Adagio in 19th-century German culture.29 But if the Adagio represented acts of the highest beauty and fulfilment, then interrupted Adagio fragments can be seen as moments of disrupted beauty and un-fulfillment. Strauss (expectedly) is closer to the traditional ideal of unendliche Melodie and overlapping voices that Notley discusses than Bartók, but perhaps these moments function in similar ways (Strauss as an allusion to the Adagio, and Bartók as an allusion to Strauss). In Heldenleben, the long awaited cadence to the tonic Eb near the end of the piece (m. 854ff.) leads to a section of seeming fulfillment. Yet, this quiet apotheosis is interrupted, soon to be followed 27 As a student at the conservatory, Bartók played Heldenleben for his teachers at the piano from the score. See Bartók, “About István Thomán [1927],” in Béla Bartók Essays, 490–91. 28 French, “Continuity and Discontinuity,” 129. 29 See Notley, “Late-Nineteenth-Century Chamber Music and the Cult of the Classical Adagio,” 33–61.

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chapter 5 ◆ bartók’s concerto for orchestra by quotations of the ‘sheep’ motives from another of Strauss’s tone poems, Don Quixote. We can read the Eb section as an Adagio fragment: similar to a Schubert valse sentimentale it is not a real Adagio, but a nostalgic memory of the real thing. As an imitation, it invokes Wagnerian unendliche Melodie, but lasts only 13 measures before it is interrupted. Following the interruption of the ‘sheep,’ the hero goes on to recall the ‘battle’ motives, and Heldenleben ends finally with a quotation of the beginning of Also Sprach Zarathustra. Thus, in Heldenleben we might read the failure of the Adagio as the failure of the hero. But the subsequent allusion to the beginning of Zarathustra seems to point toward the potential for a new beginning, but one that, if it does take place, happens outside the music we hear. There is hope, but its achievement is left unrealized. In Bartók, we can read the calmo at the end of movement III as an allusion to Strauss’s interrupted Adagio fragment (without the Romantic aesthetic of unending melody and intense counterpoint). The stark simplicity of the triadic harmonization of the main motive of the entire Concerto for Orchestra is interrupted by the Hungarian dotted rhythm and the ‘birdcall’ in the piccolo—recalling Strauss’s interruption by the bleating sheep from Don Quixote. Furthermore, at the end of the third movement of the Concerto for Orchestra, there are three fragments that represent different “streams” happening simultaneously against the calmo: two statements of the Hungarian rhythm interruption in the horn; a fragment of the ‘birdcall’ from the beginning of the movement in the piccolo, and, once again, an allusion to the ending of Bluebeard’s Castle, ending the movement with F#–C# in the timpani (the final C# recalling the b6ˆ opening 271

chapter 5 ◆ bartók’s concerto for orchestra of the Introduzione, with which this movement is most closely associated). (Note also the similarity of the double interruption at the end of the calmo in the Concerto for Orchestra with the interruption in Schoenberg’s Op. 11, no. 1 at measures 14–16 [example 2.1].) For most of the third movement the B§ in the piccolo has sounded like a leading tone to C. In spite of the several C#s and the presence of the penultimate A# in the piccolo, I continue to hear the B of the flute in the last bars against an imaginary C—as if a frame had been established around the B§/C relationship as integral to the identity of the birdcall earlier in the movement. When only the B of the ‘birdcall’ comes in at the end, the frame is reinvoked, and is enough to recall, ghost-like, the C (which does then become part of the trill in the flute). At the very end of the movement, then, we hear (albeit very quietly) F#–C#–B§, an M-5/2 cell. Thus in Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony and Coriolanus Overture, the death of the hero is represented by liquidation of the hero’s theme. In Strauss’s Heldenleben, the failure of the hero to overcome is represented by an interrupted Adagio fragment. In Bartók, we have a similar failure at the calmo. And here, as in many of the other cases we have looked at, b6ˆ makes a conspicuous appearance in the final moments of the Elegy, stripped of its Romantic pathos, but pointing back toward the ‘darkness’ that began the first movement. V: Fi na l e.  If we read the program of the Concerto for Orchestra as a double allusion to the fate/death and fate/overcoming narrative strategies of the nineteenth century with one pole realized at the end of the Elegy, then the other pole is the finale. The finale of 272

chapter 5 ◆ bartók’s concerto for orchestra the Concerto for Orchestra can be read as a life-assertion on many levels, not the least of which is the energy of the perpetuum mobile in the strings. However, in the tradition we have been following since Beethoven (if this piece does indeed belong to that tradition as I am attempting to show), we would expect the life-assertion to be a transformation of b6ˆ and its associations in this piece with the opening ‘darkness’ and the end of the Elegy. And, sure enough, the final act of overcoming is, in fact, a transformation that involves both b6ˆ and the ‘darkness’ motive. There are two “fugues” in the last movement. The first is more of a fugato—imitative counterpoint, stretto, but ultimately dissolution. At measure 148, the perpetuum mobile fades and we get a fugue subject based on the introduction to the fifth movement (example 5.17). Beginning on Ab, the subjects enter a perfect fourth higher each time: Ab–Eb–Bb–F–C. But following the stretto at m. 155ff. there is an abrupt Tranquillo (m. 161) in which the subject is loosely inverted and

Hns.

(a)

Bsn.

(b)

example 5.17  Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra, movement V: (a) introduction, m. 1ff.; (b) “wrong” fugue subject, m. 148ff. © Copyright 1946 by Hawkes & Sons (London) Ltd. Reprinted by permission. 273

chapter 5 ◆ bartók’s concerto for orchestra liquidated. This further dissolves into a series of misty chords in the strings at measure 175. Out of this haze emerges a new theme in Db major (bVI/F) at measure 188 (example 5.18). Suchoff hears a bagpipe dance here, but this new theme turns out to be the accompaniment for another fugue (see example 5.19).30 Unlike the first attempt at a fugue (which lasted only 13 measures) this second fugue (m. 201ff.)

Ob.

example 5.18  Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra, movement V, m. 188ff. © Copyright 1946 by Hawkes & Sons (London) Ltd. Reprinted by permission.

2 5 Tp.

5

5

5

3

3 5

2 2 2

4

1

example 5.19  Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra, movement V, “correct” fugue subject, m. 201ff. © Copyright 1946 by Hawkes & Sons (London) Ltd. Reprinted by permission. 30 Suchoff, Bartók: “Concerto for Orchestra,” 174–75.

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chapter 5 ◆ bartók’s concerto for orchestra has a 13 measure introduction and lasts 54 measures, taking us directly up the beginning of the development section at measure 256. We can read this formal strategy—of the two fugue subjects and their working out—in terms of their structural relationship within the narrative of the piece. And in this reading, the second fugue in the last movement is a moment at which narrative allusion and developing variation converge. The first fugue subject is a direct motivic transformation of the opening allusion to the ‘darkness’ motive from the first movement (see example 5.20). Given the close proximity of the second fugue subject to the first, we can read it as a transformation of the first which points back toward the origins of the piece. Note that the resultant intervals from the interval-5/7 cycle are presented in order in the second fugue subject (compare example 5.19 with figure 5.3). It is, therefore, both the most comprehensive allusion to the interval-5/7 cycle after the opening page of the score, and at the same time a transformation of b6ˆ (Db/C#) as a harmonic region, which began the first movement, organized the development section of the first movement, and is alluded to at the end of the Elegy. In order to highlight the second fugue subject, Bartók has in a sense given us a “wrong” fugue and shown us its failure. It is as if the music were spontaneously creating itself in performance and has made a mistake—the fugue does not work; but after stumbling, the correct fugue soon emerges. This strategy uses the juxtaposition to point out the musical process itself. The transformation of the “wrong” fugue into the “right” fugue highlights their differences, and emphasizes the importance of the second (more than if it had simply appeared alone). That the culmination of this transforma275

chapter 5 ◆ bartók’s concerto for orchestra Vc., Db.

(a)

(b)

(c)

Db., (Timp.)

Va., Vc., Db.

(d)

Hns.

(e)

example 5.20  Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra: (a) intro, mvt. I; (b) intro, mvt. III; (c) A´, mvt. III; (d) intro, mvt. IV; (e) intro, mvt. V. © Copyright 1946 by Hawkes & Sons (London) Ltd. Reprinted by permission. 276

chapter 5 ◆ bartók’s concerto for orchestra tion places the “correct” fugue within a context of bVI seems more than coincidental, given the history of fate narratives we looked at in chapter 4. Like Beethoven’s Fifth, part of the musical symbolism of heroic overcoming in the compositional design is in stripping b6ˆ of the pathos it presents at the beginning of the piece. Like Tchaikovsky, Bartók has simply reworked this basic Beethovenian idea in a new context. Instead of using ‘sighing’ motives, Bartók has added to the semiotic context of b6ˆ in it structural relationship to the tonic by associating it with a recognizable allusion to his own opera. Thus, even without the history of ‘Fate’ narratives, we could still read the transformation within the context of this piece as a symbol of the life-assertion Bartók offered at the premiere.

277

Epilogue Much of this dissertation has been devoted to an exploration (in one way or another) of the relationship between musical structure and meaning—with a particular emphasis on interpreting processes of development in relation to the conceptual language of the composers, and contextualizing the projection of elements from the surface into other aspects of structural design. Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra makes an interesting subject for these investigations because of its unique relationship to the many traditions that inform a potential understanding of it. Starting from Bartók’s comments about the influence of Schoenberg’s Op. 11, I have attempted to tease out some of the ways in which Bartók’s concept of organicism overlaps with—and diverges from—Schoenberg’s, as it manifests in their discourse and their music. But this investigation has also addressed other ways in which aspects of the Concerto for Orchestra become meaningful with respect to the traditions it transforms, especially regarding the narrative function of allusion in the piece. The Concerto for Orchestra shares with Schoenberg’s Op. 11—to some extent—an ambiguity regarding its post-tonal structural organization. One of the theoretical problems with post-tonal music in general has been in dealing with how we understand large-scale harmonic organization. For Schoenberg, the abandonment of traditional harmonic procedures in favor of pervasive developing variation seems to have left an organizational hole that he would 278

epilogue ultimately fill with the development of the twelve-tone method. Yet, Bartók was never quite willing to give up entirely a concept of tonality, and his concept of post-tonal “key” architecture appears to fill the same structural hole as Schoenberg’s twelve-tone method. While Bartók describes in his writings seeing the possibilities for “key” architecture in the music of Kodály, I trace its use in the music of Tchaikovsky and Strauss for two reasons: (1) to show that this development has already played an important role in nineteenth-century music as a way of integrating motivic transformation and organizational design; and (2) to demonstrate that in many cases significant aspects of motivic parallelism coincide with dramatic moments within a narrative reading. Given Bartók’s program for the Concerto for Orchestra, published at the premiere, I also attempt to make a case for an understanding of the convergence of developing variation, motivic parallelism, and “key” architecture as a transformation of the tradition of ‘Fate’ narratives after Beethoven involving the particular use of b6ˆ. This reading treats the program Bartók offers as more than simply a superficial allusion to the fate/death and fate/overcoming narratives of the nineteenth century, contextualizing the structural use of b6ˆ by Bartók as a specific allusion to that tradition. The tradition of conventional interpretation of b6ˆ goes back at least to Josquin and his contemporaries (though Burmeister traces emotive associations between grief and the Phrygian mode to Aristotle, Aristoxinus, and Plutarch), and is tied to the history of ‘sighing’ motives. Without making specific claims about Beethoven, per se, it is clear that composers like Tchaikovsky read in Beethoven’s music narra279

epilogue tives of fate and were consciously attempting to rework the musical imagery through allusions involving b6ˆ. While the traditional element of ‘sighing’ motives is absent on the surface of Bartók’s music, ultimately I read the dual climaxes of the Concerto for Orchestra (at the end of the elegy and at the fugue in the last movement) as the convergence of harmonic architecture, motivic transformations, and narrative strategies resulting in moments of symbolic saturation that reinforce the narrative frame of interpretation that his program suggests. The central focus for the interpretive stance in this project has been a theoretical framework borrowed from cognitive linguistics based on categorization and conceptual models. This position helps us to evaluate our interpretive decisions—our imaginary boundaries—and uncover why our models allow us to say particular things about the music we analyze. It also allows us to locate meaning as an interaction between interpreters and the musical structures we engage with, refuting an objectivist view of meaning and dissolving the imaginary divide between “purely musical” and emotive interpretations. The most important aspects of this involve an understanding of how categorization functions for people in general, understanding the pervasive function of framing, and differentiating the functions of different kinds of cognitive models (especially metaphor and met­ o­nymy). Of these, an understanding of met­o­nymy has allowed me to avoid the traditional problems inherent in a concept of post-tonal prolongation by disengaging from the notion that all music needs to be understood as strictly hierarchical. Instead, Bartók’s concept of post-tonal “key” architecture can be understood as a structural 280

epilogue transformation of surface motives that can create met­o­nymic links between central surface ideas and larger-scale compositional design. All together, the various symbols of structural and historical transformation in this study point toward a concept of organicism in Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra that allows us to integrate a variety of interpretive positions in a dramatic reading of the piece.

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Vita Michael John Malone was born in San Francisco, California, on 24 November 1972, the son of Barbara Mary Malone and John Alexander Malone. He attended Terra Nova High School in Pacifica, CA, and concurrently took music classes at Skyline College in San Bruno, CA. In 1990 Malone entered the University of California, Davis, where he earned the B.A. in music. From 1995 to 2001 he was the Assistant Production Manager for the Department of Music at UC Davis, and Assistant Conductor of the UC Davis Symphony Orchestra. During this period Malone was a member of the university’s communications committee and the five member architectural diagrams review committee for the $60.9 million Robert and Margrit Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts. He received a staff recognition award for outstanding service to the College of Letters & Science. Malone is also a master compositor of musical scores, and has typeset music examples for books published by Schirmer, Prentice Hall, Oxford University Press, and The University of California Press, and typeset and edited scores for the music publisher J. B. Elkus. He has served as the interim conductor of the UC Davis Symphony (1997), and interim faculty director for the UC Davis Marching Band (1998, 2001). In 2001 Malone entered graduate school at The University of Texas at Austin. He received the James Moeser Fellowship in Historical Musicology (2001) and was elected to the Phi Kappa Phi honor society. He was a T.A. for MUS 302L (Intro 294

vita to Western Music, for non-majors) and MUS 313N (19th- and 20thCentury Music, for music majors). Malone received the M.M. in music from The University of Texas at Austin in 2003, and received the Texas Exes Teaching Award in February 2004. He has taught MUS 302L (History of Western Music) as the instructor of record several times to critical acclaim, and was the first graduate student invited by the Center for Teaching Effectiveness at UT Austin to present a seminar (“Establishing Authority in the Classroom”) to incoming graduate student instructors. Malone has been the keynote speaker at the UC Davis Chancellor’s Club prior to a performance of The Beggar’s Opera, and has presented a paper on the William E. Valente Memorial Lecture Series at UC Davis. He has also given papers at the Gamma-UT conference at UT Austin, and at the Kalamazoo International Congress of Medieval Studies. His compositions include music for brass quintet, string quartet, piano and voice, chorus, and orchestra, and he has arranged over 40 pieces for marching band, trombone choir, and brass quintet. He currently sings with the Columbus Symphony Chorus. Permanent Address: 52 W Dodridge St Columbus, OH 43202 www.michaeljmalone.com T h is dis sertat ion wa s t y ped by t h e au t hor . Text typeset by the author with Adobe InDesign Music examples typeset by the author with Sibelius Adobe Minion Pro 12/21.6 Opus Text 295