Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Arnold Whittall
Music Analysis, Vol. 6, No. 3. (Oct., 1987), pp. 333-353.
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Fri Nov 23 18:17:36 2007
ARNOLD WHITTALL
A R N 0 L . D WHITTALI.
In the wake of Boulez's sixtieth birthday in 1985, and the publications that
rather tardily attended it (Boulez 1986, Glock 1986), it has become possible to
evaluate the success, so far, of his various radical enterprises - and not just as a
composer. As a conductor, it is generally agreed, Boulez has been notably
successful in communicating the refinement and reticence of Webern's art; and
he has often referred to Webern in his published writings. Yet I suspect that, for
many composers and theorists today, there is little in Boulez's essays more
representative of what they would see as outdated avant-garde attitudes than his
complaint about Webern's willingness to allow triads and fourth-chords to
occur in his later twelve-note canons. With such puritanism, it might be
thought, no wonder Boulez has found it so difficult to compose. After all, few
composers today have any qualms about giving traditional-sounding chords a
positive role to play in what certainly cannot be described as tonal music by
traditional standards. Boulez's teacher Messiaen is perhaps the weightiest
example.
It is in his Darmstadt lectures of the late 1950s that Boulez quotes bs 7,8 and
9 of the second movement of Webern's String Quartet, Op.28, with arrows
indicating that in the space of seven crotchet beats we have two 2 chords.
Ex. 1
The example illustrates a discussion of intervals and chords that, as Boulez puts
it, 'create a weakening, or hole, in the succession of sound relationships' (Boulez
1971: 48). And in another essay, from the early 1960s, he comments that such a
traditional chord as the 'will falsify a structure . . . because its traditional
reference will certainly be stronger than its immediate reference to the structure
in question'. Such chords will, he declares, 'degrade the work in which they
appear by their often peremptory insistence on autonomy' (Boulez 1986: 60). In
other words, Boulez perceives a conflict between old and new in such music,
and he is so acutely aware of this because he believes that 'serial structure',
properly understood, 'tends to destroy the horizontal-vertical dualism, for
"composing" amounts to arranging sound phenomena along two co-ordinates,
duration and pitch. We are thus freed from all melody, all harmony and all
W E B E R N A N D MLJLTIPLE M E A N I N G
counterpoint, since serial structure has caused all these (essentially modal and
tonal) notions to disappear' (Boulez 1986: 141). So, even though Boulez has
praised Webern for the relative sophistication of his understanding of serial
principles, he finds the compositional deployment of those principles sadly
inconsistent, even in that supposed summa of Webernian dodecaphony, the
second Cantata, Op.31. Here, as in the string quartet, Boulez identifies what he
sees as a lack of consistent control over harmonic relationships. He refers to the
cantata's last two movements:
The pure counterpoint he writes in the sixth movement of this work is quite
admirable from the intervallic point of view as far as each individual voice is
concerned, but the vertical combinations produce completely uncontrolled
chords: statistically, this produces for most of the time chromatic chords,
but also once or twice there are common triads and fourth chords. To use a
term borrowed from science, the 'class' of the melodic line has absolutely
nothing to do with the 'class' of the harmony: the two are quite
incompatible. In the fifth movement, on the other hand, the four melodic
lines meet at the same point to form a specific harmony; they then break out
of phase and form a counterpoint whilst still retaining the same harmonic
relationship since they are derived from one and the same chord. Here the
counterpoint becomes entirely convincing because the vertical, the
horizontal and the diagonal aspects are controlled by the same laws. (Boulez
1976: 90)
MUSIC A N A L Y S I S
6 ~ 3 1987
,
internal, linear invariance possessed by his row structures and their resultant
motives? Could it be that the pre-compositional determination of what Perle
terms 'set-association based on invariance of segmental content' (Perle 1977:
loo), not to mention axes of symmetry and magic squares, challenged Webern
to move beyond such all-embracing integration in his actual compositions - to
seek for conflicts beyond the contrasts? Did he find in composing without the
safety net of hexachordal complementation a powerful demonstration of the
truth that atonality (especially when traditional forms and textures are
preserved) can only function properly in making diversities precariously
cohere, rather than in aping tonality and diversifying unities? Is it thoughts like
these that lie behind those brave assertions of March 1932?
We want to say 'in a quite new way' what has been said before. But now I can
invent more freely: everything has a deeper unity. Only now is it possible to
compose in free fantasy, adhering to nothing except the row. To put it quite
paradoxically, only through these unprecedented fetters has complete
freedom become possible. (Webern 1963: 55-6)
That Webern was perfectly capable of explicitly integrating the vertical and
the horizontal in his twelve-note works is demonstrated in music not discussed
by Boulez: the second movement of the Concerto, Op.24. As Christopher
Wintle has put it, 'the various dimensions of the structure are all highly
integrated, and . . . there are no discontinuities' (Wintle 1982: 98). And what
better way to ensure such a result than to compose with a succession of single
sets, and with a consistently motivic texture, in which horizontal and vertical
planes shade in and out of each other in delightfully diverse, eminently audible
fashion? The successive trichords of the basic set of Op.24 generate four
instances of set-class 3-3 (0, l,4), four instances of 3-4 ( 0 , l , 5), two instances of
3-1 (0, 1, 2) and two of 3-6 (0,2,4). Vertical trichords occur on sixty-five of the
movement's seventy-eight crotchet beats, and these yield thirty-five instances of
set-class 3-3, twenty-six of 3-4, four of 3-1 and none of 3-6. (3-1, like 3-6, is a
cross-hexachord phenomenon, hence perhaps Webern's sparing use of it.) This
movement, one of Webern's least tense, is therefore a paradigm of contrast
without conflict. Invariance rules, yet variation is constant. The very simplicity
is satisfying. Yet I wonder if it is too far-fetched to suggest that, in a sense, much
of Webern's later work represents a search for a greater degree of linear and
vertical tension than is found in Op.24; that the deft, effortless transformation
of old into new achieved here was simply not enough? Perhaps it seemed just too
easy an obliteration of tonal music's power, especially in its late-Romantic
phase, to create tension through multiple meaning.
Another kind of verticalhorizontal relation that failed to satisfy Webern is
what we might term 'combinatoriality by default', the superimposition of a set
on its own retrograde. Of course he uses this in places: as an opening gambit, for
example, in the Symphony's second movement, and therefore as a closing
gambit too. But the bulk of that movement, using quartets of sets, is more
diverse and complex. As for the combination of two sets in a noncomplementary relation, there is nothing more spectacular than the first song of
Op.25, where we can observe the fractured heterophony of a set superimposed
on itself. For the main part of this essay, however, I will concentrate on the first
of the canons cited by Boulez: the second movement of the string quartet. Here,
the conjunction of consistent linear order with a degree of vertical disorder
could be an exemplary strategy for keeping the unity of musical space at arm's
length; and this is achieved by reinforcing an overall multiplicity, and by using
invariance as a tension-creating as well as integrative force. In Schoenbergian
combinatoriality, the juxtaposition and, especially, the superimposition of two
complementary hexachords made possible that extraordinary balancing act in
which the musical fabric, often neo-classical in texture and form, was at once
stratified and integrated, selective and comprehensive. But the essence, and the
atonality, lay in the presence of primarily complementary strata, rather than of
interpenetrating levels. And Schoenberg's famed fusion of horizontal and
vertical planes or dimensions can often appear the result of a desire to disguise or
transform - rather than preserve and exploit - this dualism of basic content.
With Webern, by contrast, dualism and - by extension - multiplicity enter his
most characteristic twelve-note conceptions in the most challenging fashion.
Fig. 2
Attacks
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
i.csof
CANON I
(VlnIICello)
6 [ 3 ] 2
3 [ 6 ] 4
i.csof
CANON I1
(VlnIINla)
4 [ 6 ] 3
2 [ 3 ] 6 4 2 - -
Ex. 2
the same three tetrachords or their retrogrades. But since only three tetrachords
of mutually exclusive pitch-class content are available, the close proximity of a
prime to its retrograde when four forms are superimposed is inescapable (Fig.
3). For what it's worth, it seems that Webern's choice for his fourth set is the one
that postpones the inevitable moment of simultaneous arrival on the same pitchclass for as long as possible: that is, for six beats of the actual music, rather than
four or five. But it seems undeniable, if we reject as explanation sheer ineptitude
on Webern's part, that he saw an opportunity in the avoidance of purely
complementary set combinations for a particular kind of compositional result,
and a particular kind of musical expression.
Fig. 3 Tetrachord Cycles
Violin I
Violin I1
Viola
Cello
a'
a
b
I;
b'
ar
a
b
b
a
c zr
ARNOLD WHITTALL
Ex. 3
Dux I
Arrack
Ser Class
3
3-1 1
4
4-6
3-6
23
4.10
Auack
Set C l a n
I8
4-13
17
3-1 1
16
3-10
15
3-9
Attack
Set Class
29
3-10
30
3-9
31
3-11
32
1-6
6
3-8
8
3-6
9
3-6
10
3-10
11
3-8
22
21
3-7
20
3-2
27
26
4-134-%IS
12
3-6
13
4-6
25
3-6
24
3-9
ARNOLD WHITTALL
Ex.4
Vln I
Vln 11
Vla
Cello
Attacks.
10
11
I2
13
14
15
16
17
Set-Class
Palindromes
Actual
Symmetries
l0,2,41
[0,2,41
[0,2.71
Same-ocrave
Repetitions
Different-octave
Repetitions
Repetitions
Deferred by I beat
MUSIC ANALYSIS
6 ~ 3 1, 987
Ex.4 cont
DOCO
W ~ e d e ra emachl~ch
rit
h i Fk
FU 1 FU
Eb
Eb
Fti 1 FU
ARNOLD WHITTALL
I suspect that few if any composers would like it to be thought that each and
every element or event in any work of theirs has only a single, indivisible and
unambiguous role to play, or function to perform. And even when a composer
believes that something utterly decisive in its singularity and lack of ambiguity
has been achieved, an analyst may well come along and attempt to demonstrate
that it is not so singular, so unambiguous, after all. However valid or invalid
such features may be, the term 'ambiguity' usually suffices to classify them.
Strictly speaking, therefore, multiple meaning should refer only to an element
or event that goes beyond mere double meaning into an even greater number of
possibilities. To say that something has multiple meaning should be to indicate
that the most appropriate of several distinct possibilities can only be determined
when the consequences of the event itself can be explained.
Schoenberg used the concept of multiple meaning to express his
understanding of the history of harmony JS evolutionary. There is therefore
much more to that concept than the simple proposition that such sonorities as
the augmented triad and the diminished seventh can, at the moment of their
occurrence, have the possibility of belonging simultaneously to six, or eight,
different tonalities or regions respectively (Schoenberg 1969: 44). Central to
Schoenberg's concept of harmony is a distinction between successions of chords
which establish and express tonalities and those which do not. The latter he calls
roving, or vagrant, harmony. For example, he claims that 'no succession of
three chords' in Ex. 5a and b 'can unmistakably express a region or tonality'
(Schoenberg 1969: 3):
Ex. 5
Ex. 6
B e e t h o r e n : L e o n o r a Overture No.3: lntroductron
7-r Tf
a@v IVV
7.
I
-L
I
1
tf
/ " I
diversity, may be found. And Schoenberg was surely just as skilled at playing off
the ordered against the unordered as he was in welding the two together to
secure the ultimate goal of superintegrated twelve-note harmony. Even if, for
Schoenberg, a 'harmony' was no longer 'merely a vertical event' (Hyde 1985:
113) the vertical events were still there to be composed, and this remained true
even after Schoenberg's establishment of his preferred combinatorial relation.
Maybe Webern too would have been perfectly happy to compose after this
model had he not already, by 1928, found such satisfaction in the more diverse
possibilities of multiple, ordered superimpositions. But I doubt it.
Schoenberg's demonstrations of mutual exclusiveness being absorbed into
harmonious completeness could just have seemed too easy to his most
perspicacious pupil. Combinatoriality gave Schoenberg the freedom to inflect
the interplay of motives and harmonies independently of strict ordering within
the hexachord. But Webern preferred to exploit the tension that results when
strict ordering is preserved between superimposed sets, some of whose
equivalent segments have certain pitches in common. Once his twelve-note
mastery was fully established in the Symphony, Op.21, he could never be
wholly satisfied with a single succession of sets, or even with sets in pairs. By
writing polyphonically with up to four set-forms at once he virtually ensured
that it was impossible for verticals and horizontals to interact after the
combinatorial model, and it therefore seems possible that he was more
concerned to express that crucial element of harmonic contradiction, stemming
from the concepts of roving harmony and suspended tonality, than he was to
conquer it.
The predominant linear invariants in Webern certainly can combine to form
referential sonorities. But these harmonic invariants are often challenged (not
prolonged) by the imperatives of the superimposed lines. What George
Rochberg once termed 'Webern's search for harmonic identity' (Rochberg
1962) was not simply a search for maximum possible unity, but for ways of
controlling the results when multiple linear invariants interact in the vertical
plane. And this was not a matter of the naive pursuit of an exact atonal
equivalent for the diverse functional potential inherent in a single vagrant
chord, in what is ultimately a tonal composition. Atonal chords cannot embody
such diverse potential, but they can interrupt a logical, invariant sequence, or
positively prevent such a sequence from being established in the first place.
Webern's superimposition of ordered twelve-note sets was the closest he came
to a translation of this aspect of multiple meaning into atonal practice, since it
enabled the composer to retreat from the kind of single meaning that obtains, as
in the second movement of Op.24, when vertical and horizontal 'classes' do
consistently coincide.
In the first four bars of the quartet movement there are three examples of
pitch-repetition in different octaves deferred by one beat: Ab (attacks 3 and 5),
G (attacks 4 and 6) and Bb (attacks 5 and 7). Also, the Ab /G succession in violin
I, echoing two beats later and an octave higher that in violin 11, is surplus to the
requirements of the movement's first twelve-note collection which, as stated
ARNOLD WHITTALL
previously, is not complete until the cello A of b. 4. And while it may not be
excessively disruptive for one such collection to overlap with its successor to this
extent, the nature and degree of such overlaps do increase as the canon
proceeds. It therefore seems to me that the types of pitch-repetition shown in
the lower part of Ex. 4 are not subordinate to the gradual unfolding of twelvenote collections, still less to the controlled succession of combinatorial
aggregates: they are not the obedient consequence of underlying principles of
invariance. These repetitions, coupled with the diversities of chordal formation
as beat-by-beat successions, present a vision of musical space not as a wellbalanced, neatly regulated affair, but as provocatively poised between order and
disorder. Even if we take the view that Webern was simply making the best of a
bad job, attempting to remove as many twelve-note solecisms as possible, and
even if we argue that Webern is simply underlining the transfer of that unifying
power formerly inherent in harmony to the linear, motivic domain, the fact
remains that the musical space that results is far from straightforwardly
integrated. Contradictory elements are prominent, although these are not, as
Boulez implies, a simple matter of the opposition between traditional and nontraditional chords.
MUSIC ANALYSIS
6 ~ 3 1, 987
A R N O L D WHI'I-TALL
MLJSICANALYSIS
6:3, 1987
W E R E R N A N D MLJLTIPLE M E A N I N G
Hyde, Martha M., 1985: 'Musical Form and the Development of Schoenberg's Twelve-
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References
Twelve-Tone Invariants as Compositional Determinants
Milton Babbitt
The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 46, No. 2, Special Issue: Problems of Modern Music. The Princeton
Seminar in Advanced Musical Studies. (Apr., 1960), pp. 246-259.
Stable URL:
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The Row as Structural Background and Audible Foreground: The First Movement of
Webern's First Cantata
Jonathan Kramer
Journal of Music Theory, Vol. 15, No. 1/2. (Spring - Winter, 1971), pp. 158-181.
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LINKED CITATIONS
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Tonality in Webern's Cantata I. Winner of the Elisabeth Lutyens Essay Prize, 1984
Graham H. Phipps
Music Analysis, Vol. 3, No. 2. (Jul., 1984), pp. 124-158.
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