Hasty - Webern (2)

8/2/2019 Hasty - Webern (2)

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CHRISTOPHER F. HASTY

COMPOSITION AND CONTEXT IN TWELVE-NOTEMUSIC OF ANTON WEBERN

In attempting an analysis of any of Web ern 's twelve-note compositions, it wouldseem appropriate to proceed by identifying the various row forms andconsidering the relationships that arise from their combination. The vastmajority of published analyses have employed this strategy, and withconsiderable justification. The series is strictly followed, and the display of rowforms often results in striking temporal and registral symmetries. Webern, inwriting on the structure of his music, clearly attaches fundamental importanceto the series, the operations that relate serial forms, and the canonic proceduresfrequently used in the deployment of row forms. IOn purely methodologicalgrounds, there is also considerable advantage to be gained from basing ananalysis of this music on serial organization, for we can thereby accountsystematically for every pitch class of the composition. Without an appeal to theseries we would be confronted, as we are in Webern's pre-serial, 'free' atonalmusic, with the more complex and less secure task of interpreting pitchesaccording to contexts that are contingent upon a wealth of compositional detail,By regarding the row as the autonomous basis of musical structure, we are freedto a large extent from problems of segmentation and the vagaries of contextualanalysis. And yet this simplification may be seen as an over-simplification whichcalls into question conventional analytic method and the structural autonomy ofthe row.Although many crucial assumptions of prevailing analytic method have beenaccepted without criticism by theorists concerned with the expansion andrefinement of systematic procedures for the analysis of pitch relations, the moregeneral question concerning the function of the row and the relation ofcomposition and pre-composition has long been a subject of controversy. Thisquestion may be stated as follows: In what sense is the row or the arrangement ofrow forms employed in the composition to be understood as a basis for thecomposition? In order to define the problem more sharply, it may be useful topropose a range of interpretations. In the weakest sense, a composition might besaid tobe based on the row were the row understood to provide an uninterpretedfund of pitch classes fashioned by the composer according to criteria that are notMUSIC ANALYSIS 7:3, 1988 281


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COMPOSITION AND CONTEXT IN WEBERN'S TWELVE-NOTE MUSIC

acoustical effect seems to me to derive in the last analysis not from themanipulation of the seriesas such, but from the relationships between notes,as the composer has by these means set them up (:63).

Although it would be rewarding to review in detail the arguments of thisdebate, I shall here simply point out, as does Stadlen in his rebuttal, that hiscritics appear unwilling to address the central question of the row's precisestructural significance, preferring, rather, to dismiss the question as irrelevantto the proper concerns of both composer and listener. For Gerhard and Sessionsserial procedure is exclusively the business of the composer, who is in no waybound by the narrow perspective of the theorist:To me, as a composer, the question of 'serial significance' is meaningless,Serial technique is a composer's technique, It appears that composers, fromSchoenberg to Stravinsky, have found serial technique positively useful inthe process by which a piece ofmusic ismade. Ifyouare not a composer yourenquiry into the 'significance' or 'audibility of serial manipulation' - fromwhich so many pseudo-problems arise - is more than pointless, ... In theartist's work, reason and poetic imagination may by chance have been madeto fuse, at some high temperature; why should you wish to undo thecompound? (Gerhard 1958:51)

There is an assumption running through all these essays that theory andanalysis will necessarily be limited to the plane of twelve-tone technique, Thedispute centres on an assignment of blame for the disparity, felt by all parties,between the musical result and what is taken to be the technique. FromStadlen's point of view , the position of the critic, compositional theory producesself-mystification on the part of the composer, who, 'insofar as he is engaged inmanipulating the series, is not producing what he thinks he is' (1958a:26),Taking a more positive view of the composer's knowledge and intuition,Gerhard and Sessions insist that analytic theory, being restricted to therationalization of technique and the datum of the series, can never hope toapproach the creative freedom of the composer. It is not permitted to musictheory that it may aspire toa determination of what the composer actually makesof the series:

[Stadlen] is reduced to weighing such 'evidence' as he has been able to gainfrom analysis of twelve-note music against the 'letter' of the rules, as hereads and understands them. In other words, his approach is bound to beone-sidedly theoretical and speculative. Ishould like to assure him thatbetween theory and practice there is here an interval which mere analyzing-even if it were better informed and more accurate than his - cannot possiblyhope to bridge. Analytical mind and creative imagination evidently work ondifferent wavelengths. The vital information about the potentialities of theserial technique is not available except on the wave-length of creative

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experience. (Gerhard 1958: 54)Musical theory, which is by nature abstract, and music, by nature concrete,are incommensurable, and neither can be validated, or the reverse, by theother. (Sessions 1958: 58)

Attempting to draw some conclusion from what seemed a rather fruitlessexchange, George Perle (1959) raised an issue crucial tosuch controversies in anessay appropriately entitled 'Theory and Practice in Twelve-Tone Music'. Perleperceived that the opportunity for a productive debate had been missed becauseof a failure to ground the dispute in a close and unbiased analysis of musicalworks. He concluded that the question of 'the relation between the set and theeffective (audible) features of the music "based" upon it' is a question thatcannot simply be dismissed, and that an adequate answer must proceed from ananalysis of the music more sophisticated than the customary tracing of rows:

If there is a meaningful connexion between the assumed serial basis of thework and the apparently non-serial elements that one does 'detect and followin audition,' then this implies the existence of certain assumptions that arenot stated among the given postulates of set-structure. In this ... case it isthe responsibility of the analyst to attempt to describe these unstatedassumptions and their relation to the given postulates. Anything less thanthis is an irrelevant activity on his own part (:60).

In the three decades that separate us from the Stadlen debate, analytictechniques have certainly become more sophisticated, but little light has beenshed on the problematic relation of the series to the composition 'based' upon it.Indeed, among theorists the problem has been largely ignored. Since analyticmethod has followed compositional theory in concentrating attention on thestructural properties of sets, it is not surprising that analysts have found twelve-note theory sufficient for the description of musical structure.! And yetnumerous statements from composers of twelve-note music, like those quotedabove, point to a realm of musical creation that cannot be rationalized by theabstractions of current twelve-note theory. Certainly analysis can never exhaustthe immeasurable richness of its object. But even if 'analytic mind' and 'creativeimagination' occupy separate planes, our attempts at mediation demand anopenness to musical features 'that one does "detect and follow in audition" -whether or not these features conform to our present understanding of serialprocedures. In the hope of facilitating such a mediation, I shall present anapproach to Web ern's music that avoids the a p rio ri of structural determinationby the series. I seek an analytic method that begins from a position of neutralityregarding the structural function of the series, a point outside twelve-notetheory that could allow us to test assumptions of conventional analysis and todiscover the extent to which Webern's pre-compositional ordering of pitchclasses determines musical structure. This undertaking will necessarily involve

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a reassessment of the interpretation of pitch relations afforded by twelve-notetheory.Under serial interpretation the relation of pitches or pitch classes is detachedor abstracted from other domains such as duration, accent, pulse, contour andtimbre. This abstraction leads us to ask how these other features of the music areorganized and how they might be related to the pitch-class structure. If ananalysis of row forms has revealed the pitch structure of the work, we mightthen turn our attention to other domains, analysing each individually. Such ananalytic approach corresponds in many respects to the position taken manyyears ago by proponents of total serialisation. The difficulty with this approachis that musical domains are not structurally independent; a change in onedomain will not leave the structure of the others untouched. If the variousfeatures of the musical object are so inextricably related, how can we go aboutanalysing the whole? Is there some Archimedian point fromwhich wecan orderthe whole of musical structure? In conventional analytic theory, pitch or pitchclass has served as this privileged domain. And yet pitch-class relations per seoffer us little insight into the totality of musical organization. Meticulouslycrafted details of duration, accent, contour and instrumentation can rarely berationalized by the serial structure, and when they are treated by analysts, theyare generally relegated to the 'musical surface' - a surface curiously detachedfrom the serial 'background'. 3 In view of the frequent lack of connection inWebern's music between the deployment of row forms and the articulationscreated by the interaction of all domains, such a surface would seem to functionto conceal the true structure of the work.Arguing for a differen t poin t of view, I shall presen t what I hope may prove tobe a more productive approach to this music. Rather than regarding any domainas privileged, we may instead focus our attention on the resul t of the interactionof all domains, that is, on the more general issue of musical articulation orrhythm in the broadest sense of the term. From this perspective, the relations ofpitches or dura tions can be interpreted according to the functions these relationsperform in the creation ofmusical gesture and form. As will become apparent aswe proceed, the description of form and structural function is problematic. Inexchanging the simplicity of serial structure for an analysis of contextualstructural formations, we are confronted with far greater complexity andambiguity. In return we may hope to gain a better understanding of Webern'sprofound lyricism, a quality too often ignored in analysis.I wish to make it clear from the outset that the questions I raise concerning theusefulness of twelve-note theory for the analysis ofmusic have no bearing on thevalue of twelve-note theory as compositional theory. A central thesis of thisessay is that our understanding of the twelve-note literature has been hinderedby a confusion of compositional and analytic theory. I shall address thesequestions through a detailed examination of portions of twoworks: the openingphrase of the Quartet , Op. 22 (1930), and the first section of the Op. 30 Variat ionsfo r O rch estra (1940). The Quarte t will provide the basis for a discussion ofgeneral methodological issues. With Op.30, I shall propose a larger-scaleMUSIC ANALYSIS 7:3, 1988 285


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analysis, incorporating the results of that discussion.The opening of Op. 22, shown as Ex. 1, is composed of two row forms. In theexample, uncircled numerals indicate the pitches of the row labelled Pi;encircled numerals indicate the pitches of I". I" is a precise registral inversionof PI, and both row forms are segmented trichordally. Each pair of inver siona llyrelated trichords is presented in imitation; yet, because of rhythmic differences,the two row forms do not form a canon. Figure 1tabulates for each row form theopposition of qualities: upper versus lower voice and dux versus comes . WithinEx. 1

c D J ~36 '0 II 12P:, 2

Fig. 1Trichordal imitation:

Iu upper-Comes lower-Dux upper-Dux~ lower-Comes

upper-ComesL lower-Dux lower-Comes

each row form, trichords exhaust the four combinations of these qualitativedistinctions. This pattern greatly obscures the two row forms as perceptibleconstituents. If we wish to identify two voices in this passage, Ex. 2 presents amore compelling segmentation. Upper and lower voices mix trichords fromboth row forms and together suggest a bipartite division of the phrase. Thepoint of division is marked by a repetition of instrumental groupings and areversal of dux and comes . Each of the four units constitutes a different set class,only one of which (set class 5-1) is equivalent to an unordered set found as alinear segment of the row. 4 . Since these four units are the most obviousconstituents of the phrase - certainly more clearly audible than the two lines thatare broken by the variable rhythm and changes of timbre - [ shall begin byconsidering the rhythmic factors that connect or segregate these units. Thegroupings shown in Ex. 3 contradict the simple bipartite division and make thepassage more fluid than the rather static symmetry of Ex. 2 might suggest. AsEx. 3 indicates, the first unit establishes a crotchet pulse. Unit 2 annihilates thispulse: beginning on a perceptually strong beat and establishing a quaver pulse,it enters five serniq uavers after the last constituent of unit 1, the pitch E~ . No

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Ex. 2

(1IluI1Jl '1=r-CGmesVI. Poe.

S~~Prto.( I L 1 ) l . M . I o ! : , .- D u : . .

Unit 1 Unit2 Unil3 Unu e (Unit5)

fl.-Z= 160

P -== :=O-PP

. . . ,I~ I > - . t - . . . . . . . . _ _ ;-:--; :5 :

+ I!... 5 , + II,a.s L 8 J ' I

i i t iit

a - sPulse (~ ) r. .t. (J))

~ accel. n J:-r:J)p r r=r-Cb. "Ibn. BCI.(2) @ @

these possibilities. Below the repeated pitches Band 0, one can hear a linemoving in successive semiquavers: Bk , E~, Q., q. The most prominentinterval exposed here is interval class 5- B~ -E k and Gb .q.Interval class 5 doesnot appear among any of the pitches of units 1or 3. However, the contour of thisline - up-up-down - is the contour of unit 3. The high points of these lines - Q.in unit 2 and G in unit 3 - form a strong connection by semitone, The C# endingurn t 2 may also be linked to unit 3, if we can hear a repeti tion in the line C# -F-Eof a registral segmentation of unit 1, A-D~ -c. This possibility is illustratedbeneath the example. What I wish to show by these observations is that unit 2 isnot connected to unit 1but is connected to uni t 3. Unit 1 is, of course, similar tounit 3: both are representatives of set class 4-3, and each is related to the other bythe operation of retrograde inversion. But, although such transformationaloperations can for some purposes be useful abstractions, they often have a

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dubious status in perceptual matters when complicated by contour, rhythm andcontext. Thus it is difficult to say in what perceptual sense the low Bb of unit Icorresponds to the high G in unit 3. May we not hear, rather, a corresfondenceI " 1in rhythm and contour between the last three notes of unit 1, Bb -Ds -C, and ther=r-lfirst three of unit 3, F -E-G? Or again, having heard the ascending minor thirdbetween the first and last pitches of unit 1, A-C, will we then hear the connectionin unit 3, F-Ab ,as a retrograde inversion or as another rising minor third?The complexities of intervallic relations aside, unit 3, although obviously avariation of unit 1, is by comparison intensified: it is a fifth higher, forte rather

than piano, twice as fast as unit 1, and played by trombone rather than thecomparatively diffuse contrabass. This intensification is a fining response to thehighly energetic unit 2. In fact unit 2 seems to provide an impetus for thedevelopment of the phrase by introducing a breach, which is progressivelyhealed. In contrast to the changes of pulse and the fermati separating uni t 1fromunit 2 and unit 2 from unit 3, units 3, 4 and 5 are united by a continuous quaverpulse. Unit 3 is connected to unit 4 by the whole tone G-A, continuing the linebegun on Gb in uni t 2. T etrachord F I is a transposed retrograde of CI. F Iand E L,while representatives of different set classes, have the same contour. Units 4 and5 are most obviously joined by the rhythmic elision of ELand its retrograde E2.In fact, there would be no reason to identify E2 as a separate unit were it not forits special functional relationships to units I and 3. Ez mediates opposingqualities ALand C, to close the phrase. Though ofa different set class, Eysoundsvery similar toC" having the same contour, register and duration pattern. Themost striking differences between Al and CLwere dynamics (A piano; C forte),speed (C moves twice as fast as A) and timbre (trombone opposed tocontrabass). E, returns to a dynamic of piano; it creates a ritard by introducing atriple grouping of quavers into the prevailing duple grouping; and, played bybass clarinet, E2 excellently mediates the timbral opposition of contrabass andtrombone. Also, El returns to the middle C, sustained by fermata in AI, and atthe end of the phrase the descending minor third B -C answers the ascendingthird A-C in unit 1.Unit 4, with which E2 is elided, is in many respects a simplification of unit 2,functioning to incorporate this gesture into the phrase. Unit 4 contains twoimitative components differentiated by register and having the same contourand rhythmic pattern, Imitation might have been heard in unit 2 had thecomponents not been so tangled. The two figures BI and DI have the samerhythmic pattern, delayed by a serniquaver, and are related in contour byretrograde inversion.Phrase 2, given as Ex. 13, begins with tetrachord D. This is the firstregistrally canonical appearance of D (D, in phrase I was aberrant in register).Except for register, D, is strongly analogous to At. which opened phrase 1 incontrabass. Although the three elided units of phrase 2 resemble the first threeunits of phrase 1 in gesture (inverting the total contour), the two phrases are in

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Ex. 13

___,_... ( Unit 3))1~LI"

,-------, r-.

_ , .open" "

iff-==@~-

Hp, P =0=-

--"- (!.I - - - ,. _-I" t ' ''-.....-', 1 rtt t" 1 t 1 II I 1 "

~~ I- '- @ l".many respects highly dissimilar. By comparison phrase 2 is quite chaotic. Pulseis lost and constituents are not dearly articulated; other than D2, tetrachordsbreak down through fragmentation and elision. The point of disintegrationironically takes place at the midpoint of pre-compositional symmetry. I shalloffer a few comments about this particular disorder. In a new texture, D 2 isaccompanied by F2, which is registrally anomalous and split between two quitedissimilar instruments - harp and contrabass. Like uni t 2 in phrase 1, D 2 and F 2strongly project intervals foreign to the ruling tetrachord sonorities, hereinterval classes 5 and 6. F 3 initia tes a new irregularity: not only is register furtherdistorted, but a new contour is introduced - up-down-up. This pattern iscontinued into B2 Because of this pattern, the rhythm and the repeated pitches,it is possible to hear a tetrachord beginning on F in the bass: F repeated-Farepeated asG -:a -D(up-down- up). These pitches form an instance of set class4-3 but, as it were, an accidental or false version of the set, otherwiserepresented as one of the collections A, D, C or F. The function of thisconnection is to detach from tetrachord B 2 the fmal pitch, B. Web ern's phrasingsupports this hearing; notice the dot over D and the s forzando marking on B.The new form of 4-3, marked Z below the example, is used only once in thisvariation. The simultaneity E3 is also an anomaly. Since the high Bcontinues itscrescendo past this chord, its failure topunctua te the ending of the phrase leavesthis music quite urgently open. There is one tetrachord of the six missing fromthis section: tetrachord A.Phrase 3, shown in Ex. 14a, begins with a return of tetrachord A, now in tuba.As in phrase 2, the motto or theme is accompanied, in this case by a version oftetrachord D split between harp and viola. D3 revives the new contour of the

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Ex. 14

I ::: {e +c oI '" . .-.I " ;> ~I i:~L__ ,

'"'a~

I i~, !)

Wlll- I I~ 'IIIT, ~ t

< I i> 'I

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Hasty - Webern (2)