Beyond Romanticism

1. The limits of tonal harmony

These programs for a scientific musicology (with their normative implications for composition) faded out in the early twentieth century with the development of modern idioms of composition. How did this come about? Basically we have learned to ignore the acoustical science regarding the purported asymmetry between major and minor harmonies, thus rendering the search for a "scientific" harmonic dualism superfluous. We no longer ask, suggests Alexander Rehding, ‘What does a given theory do, and is what it does correct?’, but: ‘Why does this theory want its users to think about tonal harmony in this way and not in any other way?’

You might be tempted to think that the musical modernism we aim to study here—roughly from the 1890s through the 1920s—might be, in large part, a product of a desire to escape these "scientific" strictures while inventing ever newer tonal systems that surpassed the carefully prescribed limits of "classical" music. That would be misleading, however, since so many nineteenth-century composers were already quite self-consciously "modern," and looked to music theory to ratify the progressive status of their music. This was not simply newness for its own sake, but something more, as Jürgen Habermas and countless others have emphasized: invoking the "new" is also a symptom of the reflexivity of modernity.

For modernist composers, music theory (aided by music history) often performed a dual role, serving as a paradigmatic obstruction to be surpassed in one’s own works, but also providing the ultimate ratification of their status as innovations. That the composers of high modernism might no longer have subscribed to notions of history as objective progress did not necessarily change this reflexive dynamic. In this fashion, writes Rehding, "music theory becomes a critical force with the power to demarcate the limits of tonal harmony and to conjecture the future of music." Throughout the period that concerns us, discontents about the principles of scientific analysis of music motivated numerous attempts to "re-enchant" music, not least through exploration of pre-modern, "primitive" sounds (Stravinsky!).

There is another related problem: the aesthetics of transgression, especially in the extreme form practiced by Wagner. Both Wagner and Franz/Ferenc Liszt greatly expanded the range of permitted harmonies and the rate of harmonic change. The epitome of the Romantic cult of musical genius, Liszt insisted that every new composition should contain at least one new chord, yet this eventually lead to the weakening of the diatonic system itself.

2. Dvorak's style

Herderian conceptions of nationalism also inspired the search for musical "languages" suited to particular times and peoples. Questions we might address in class include, Does music have one "grammar"? Or rather, if there are many musical grammars, how do we identify their genealogies? And is the diatonic scale analogous to the Indo-European language family in approaching closest to an "ideal" form? (From our Budapest vantage point, we may blaim such parochial "ideals" on nineteenth-century German philologists.) In Humboldt's conception, languages were manifestations of the mental capacity of a nation, and by extension, musicology could serve nationalist ends. Bracketing that discussion entirely, I offer here only a brief morsel by the late-nineteenth-century master of national style in classical form, Antonín Dvorák (1841-1904): Slavonic Dances, op. 72 (1887), no. 7 (kolo):

I do this mostly to give you a sense of the challenges facing Bartók and his generation. Note how neatly structured the excerpt is, stating the theme, developing it briefly, and then circling back to the original. An excerpt from Dvorák's Symphony No. 9 ('From the New World') would also be appropriate here, especially since the superb integration of folk sources involved American songs, rather than Czech ones.

3. A brief Wagner moment

The immensely complicated and controversial figure of Richard Wagner (1813-1883) loomed large for all modernist composers, and his death is often taken as marking the point at which musical modernism began to take shape. Though Wagner himself had only used the term "modern" as an epithet directed against contemporary opera's tendency to cater to popular tastes, more historically-specific usages were gradually adopted in the 1890s. Then "modern" music became associated with experimentation with form, tonality, and orchestration in a fashion associated with the more radical aspects of modern culture itself. I cannot resist including here a brief passage from the Prelude to Wagner's Tristan and Isolde, which premiered in 1860:

The opening chord that links the two musical motifs x and y (see image) has often been celebrated as the earliest instance of modernism in music, with each motif relying on chromatic harmonies, and the chord itself sounding quite dissonant in isolation. Insofar as Wagner deliberately put music in service to dramatic theater (rather than have musical forms run in parallel with dramatic forms in a fixed set of associations), he did open up extended tonal possibilities not sanctioned by standard sonata or orchestral genres.

(Image taken from The New Grove Dictionary of Music)

4. Bruckner and Brahms

This section requires further development in order to do any justice to the late Romantic tradition in music, but go listen to a symphony by Austrian composer Anton Bruckner (1824-1896) to develop a sense for the richness of the genre. Better yet, listen to all nine of his symphonies, and then you will understand why some members of the succeeding generation began to suspect that the possibilities of Romantic composition might be exhausting themselves. Eventually I'll include something orchestral of Bruckner's here, but for the moment, bask in the lush choral effect of the 1879 motet "Os justi":

(Ignore for the moment the discrepancy between this and the orchestral genre). Incidentally, this piece is composed in the Lydian mode. Note how both harmony and rhythm resolve in a satisfyingly regular conclusion.

Johannes Brahms labored long over his first symphony, a masterpiece in the Romantic tradition. 

  

In the introduction to the finale, however, he did something that later modernist composers took as inspiration. It was not tonality that he violated, but rather the conventions of symphonic form. The themes are beautiful and inspiring—and you have to wait nearly three minutes before they are articulated clearly. All those shadows before the French horn breaks in with its call in C major were not standard form. Brahms then settles down to business and works his way to the second (main) theme at around 5:40, probably a familiar melody to you. (If you go back and listen again, you'll realize that the introduction is indeed related to the theme—but variations aren't supposed to come first.)

5. Mahler

In Gustav Mahler's later works it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between evidence of the culmination of the "theme-and-variations" form, and its very dissolution. Mahler develops elaborate themes at great length, introduces new thematic ideas along the way, and cuts back and forth between them in subtle ways, never quite fulfilling the classical requirement for thematic recapitulation on route to resolution. You might say that variation has become an end in itself in Mahler's mature works, and that the lyrical mode has triumphed over large-scale form. That is the somewhat restricted sense in which Mahler can be called modernist, even though he did not experiment as much with chromaticism: an unceasing musical flux is the desired effect, and with it the loss of a sense of firm foundation. His refusal to offer musical resolution was subsequently inspiring to many modernist composers. We might also go so far as to claim that Mahler employs a "Freudian" mode of introspection, with the music offering up a systematic account of inner psychological processes for public examination. Listen to the closing passages of the Ninth Symphony, for example, where the entire movement is based on a premonition of death. 

This is indeed the outer limit of late Romanticism, but in the dissolution of tempo and the grudging return to the tonic reference, it hints at the future possibilities of modern composition.

(Another composer who ought to be featured here: Alexander Zemlinsky, Mahler's Viennese contemporary.)

6. Promethean Scriabin

As you are no doubt aware, debates about Russian music in the nineteenth century centered around the question of whether composers should strive to create a uniquely Russian music. Simply proclaiming independence from Western influences was easier said than done, since the criteria for distinguishing specific techniques or motifs were not always clear cut. One of the forms of Russian experimentation was with the use of older modal and "exotic" non-Western scales. Perhaps the culmination of these new approaches to harmony and totality based on artificial scales came in the work of Alexander Skriabin (1872-1915), who, interestingly enough, did not exhibit any philosophical or political orientation toward nationalism; in any event, he spent much of his adult life in Switzerland. In the Fifth Piano Sonata, nominally in F^# major, the larger tonal relationships of the piece remain ambiguous. As you can hear in the opening excerpt, the leading tone in the first statement of the theme is avoided, and the work both begins and ends in tonal obscurity.

In one of his few orchestral works, Prometheus, the Poem of Fire (1908-1910), Skriabin comes quite close to the atonality soon to be proclaimed by Schoenberg. 

Listen to the opening portion here, as Skriabin attempts to work out a "mystic chord" that defines a self-contained tonal system. Skriabin's mysticism is readily apparent from the cover to the score of Prometheus. It will perhaps come as no surprise that his feverish creativity has been associated with the decadent aspects of modernism.

Optional: If this is all a bit much for your taste, try this alternative approach courtesy of the pianist Nahre Sol. Watch the whole video to learn about what is distinctive in Scriabin's style. (And stay for the lapdog unperturbed by her performance.) Or if time is short, go to 16:22 for her explanation of how she arranged "Happy Birthday" in the manner of Scriabin. Or simply go straight to the lovely performance at 21:03. 

(Another composer who should be represented here: Nikolai Roslavets (1880-1944), whose Two Compositions for piano (1915) are atonal and foreshadow the subsequent invention of serialism by Arnold Schoenberg.)

See also Sabaneev's famous essay on Scriabin (in German) from Der Blaue Reiter.

7. Szymanowski

The Polish composer Karol Szymanowski (1882-1937) bore many affinities to Skriabin in his extension (but not renunciation) of tonality. His Symphony No. 3 (1916) is also interesting because it takes much of its inspiration, not from folk sources, but from thirteenth-century mystical Persian poetry. As you can hear in the first movement, it is more a cantata for tenor, chorus, and large orchestra. 

The Stabat Mater, op. 53 (1926) is also of interest as an example of national and modernist sentiment at work in the same composition, from which the second part is excerpted here.

8. Bartok

Béla Bartók's Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 1 (1926). For Bartók (1881-1945) a central challenge was how to capture the spirit of folk music in a work of modern music that no longer belonged to the same genre—he seldom suffered from the sentimental pastoralism of many nationalist composers. The sources for his compositions became more abstact than specific excerpts of folk music, and his compositions wove musical elements that were not otherwise associated, employing variational procedures and other structural ideas. The result was never pastiche. We can see how he combined "realist" motivic sources with "modernist" compositional techniques driven by individual artistic inspiration in the first concerto for piano and orchestra. The initial theme employs a kolomeika-type rhythm from the Carpathian Ukraine. (Here are two one-minute settings, one arranged for viola, another for orchestra. Can you guess which one was arranged by Bartók and which one by Janáček?) 

Both the rhythmic scheme and the corresponding melodic style form the basis for the theme of the concerto. 

Suffice it to say that Bartók has already greatly distorted basic aspects of the rhythm, yet he has done so precisely in order to invoke the excitement of these dance pieces within an otherwise sober orchestral idiom. As you listen to the complete first movement, note how the many themes that are spun out of the introduction become ever more distant from the thematic origin and from one another.

In her analysis of the First Piano Concerto, Judit Frigyesi identifies several basic ideas that recur in most of Bartók's mature musical works. Consider these as you listen.

• The choice of some basic melodic-rhythmic idea, a kind of Urmusik, which nevertheless has clear folk-music associations. A melodically and rhythmically "minimal" element is used as the cohesive force that symbolically and structurally unites the styles of classical and folk music and has the potential to connect an infinite number of themes.
• The recapturing and intensifying of the "spirit" of folk music in a complex theme, through the distortion and/or superposition of unrelated elements of folk and art music.
• The dissolution of a theme into its most minimal motivic (tonal, rhythmic) elements at formally accentuated points (such as the introduction, the recapitulation, or the corresponding section of another movement).
• Monothematism and the polarization of themes—continuous transformation of themes into variants that are structurally logical but unexpected in character (typically either a caricature or an almost sentimental nationalist symbol) and have a basic thematic continuum.
• The concept of bridge form—the design of the large-scale form around a central movement in a symmetrical fashion, with the last movement being the recomposition of the first.

(Unfairly neglected for the moment: Zoltán Kodály)