alan lessem - schönberg and the crisis of expressionism

8/10/2019 Alan Lessem - Schnberg and the Crisis of Expressionism

1/9

Schnberg and the Crisis of ExpressionismAuthor(s): Alan LessemSource: Music & Letters, Vol. 55, No. 4 (Oct., 1974), pp. 429-436Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/734095.

Accessed: 27/02/2014 07:25

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at.http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of

content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms

of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Oxford University Pressis collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access toMusic

&Letters.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 128.6.218.72 on Thu, 27 Feb 2014 07:25:59 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ouphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/734095?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/734095?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=oup


2/9

SCHONBERG

AND

THE

CRISIS

OF

EXPRESSIONISM

BY ALAN

LESSEM

IN Arnold

Sch6nberg's published

writings,

as well

as

those

of

Webern

and

Berg,

there s no lack

of

reference

o the decisiveness

f

the

year I908,

in which he took

the first

teps

in what has

sub-

sequentlybeen described as 'free atonal'

composition.

Since

then,

too,

there

has

been

much

wrangling

over the

implications

of aton-

ality',

abstractly

onsidered,

but less

willingness

o

explore

some

of

the

broader issues of the crisis

nto which

Schonberg

and his

pupils

were

plunged-a

crisis which has

its

place

in

the social

and intel-

lectual

history

f our

century.

In pre-War Vienna the

perilous

closeness of

political

and moral

collapse

(and

an inevitable

general

hardening

to the

pursuit

of new

enterprise)broughtwith it a heightenedawareness,on the part of

thinking

men,

of the

phenomenon

of

social

stagnation

and dis-

integration.

Hugo

von

Hoffmansthal

described this

phenomenon

as "das Gleitende"

(the

"slipping

away"

of

the

world); its most

pervasive

symptoms

were an

abnormal

cultivation of the

self,

a

pre-occupation

with the

expressions

of

psychic

disturbance

and

a

guilt-ridden

sexuality.

Superficially

this

aspect of

the

Zeitgeist

s

reflected

n

the

texts

of

Sch6nberg's

Erwartung' and

'Die

gliickliche

Hand', but it

is

necessary

o

distinguish hose

who,

struggling

with a

sense of impotence, responded to their age with a melancholy or

ironic

scepticism (Hermann

Bahr,

Arthur

Schnitzler,

Robert

Musil)

from hose

who,

on the other

hand,

sought

to

confrontt

with

an

ethical

opposition,

animated

not

by

parochial

reaction but by

the

traditional

precepts

of

European humanism.

Among

the

most

intransigent

n

the

struggle

gainst

decadence

was

the

satirist and

polemicist

Karl

Kraus. In

his own

journal

Die

Fackel

(founded I899)

he

exposed and

condemned abuses

of

language so evident

in

the

inflated

stylishness

nd

superfluous

phraseologyoftheViennesefeuilletonistes.n affinityftemperament

between

Kraus

and

Schonberg drew

them,

from time

to

time,

together.

n

the

dedication

which

the

composer sent

to Kraus

with

a

copy

of

his

Harmonielehre'

(i

91

I

) he

wrote: "I

have

learntmore

perhaps

from

you than one

can

learn if one

is to

remain

indepen-

dent".,

At

the

very

outset

of his book

he had

attacked

the mental

indolence

that, n his

time,

canonized its

prejudices n art

under

the

1

Quoted

in

Frank

Field,

The Last

Days of

Mankind:

Karl

Kraus

and

his

Vienna'

(New

York,

I967),

p.

25.

429

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


3/9

name

of

Schknheitsgesetze

laws

of beauty)

and

refused

to

recognize,

for fear

of disturbing

a

false equilibrium,

the relativity

of

such

'laws'

to history.

Another

name

that appears

in

the

Harmonielehre'

is that

of the architect

Adolph

Loos,

with whom Schonberg

was

personally associated for many years.2 Round the turn of the

century

Loos

campaigned

as

a

journalist

against

the

pseudo-

historicism

prevalent

in

the

architecture

of

Vienna,

directing

his

attack

primarily

t

the

decorative

art ofJugendstil

hich,

since

the

Secession

of i

897,

was widely

considered

as

setting

the

tone

of

fashionably

modern

taste.

In

his essay 'Ornament

and

Crime'

(I908)

he

presented

his

views

concisely:

"As ornament

s

no

longer

a

natural

product

of our civilization,

it

accordingly

represents

backwardness

or

degeneration...

Lack

of ornament

is

a sign

of

spiritualstrength".'

Loos

was

a

pioneer

in the

new

trend

towards

functionalism

in

architecture

and

handicrafts.

Similarly,

Schonberg

made

it

clear

to

the

readers

of his

Harmonielehre'

that

his concern

was

not

with aesthetics'

ut

with skills

omparable

to those

of

a

good

cabinet

maker:

Spareness

f

material

hat

s,

n

truth,

rtistic

conomy;

o

use

only

the

means

that are indispensably

ecessary

o theproduction

f

a

particular esult.All else is purposelessnd henceclumsy.Nothing

can

be beautiful

f

t is

not

organic.4

To

Schonberg

and

like-minded

thinkers

he

general

Viennese

taste

for

Schmuckornament)

was

a

form

f

ntellectual

dishonesty,

n

that

a

pretentious

arade

of

effects

as

allowed

to

conceal

a

real

poverty

of

substance.

It

was

a

means,

merely,

f

affecting

n

equivocal

pose

and

impeded

what

Sch6nberg

took

to

be a

proper

communication

of

ideas.

With

regard

to

this

problem

he wrote:

"Great

art

must

proceed to precisionand brevity . . This is what musical prose

should

be-a

direct

and

straightforward

resentation

of

ideas,

without

mere

padding

and

empty

repetitions"."

Paradoxically,

however,

the

desire

for

a

"direct presentation

of

ideas"

would

pose

a

very

real threat

to the forms

which

had

con-

ventionally

mediated

them.

For

in the philosophy

and practice

of

art

it

had

been

commonly

understood

that immediately

perceived

reality

s,

as such,

not

an

aesthetic

henomenon,

and

to become

so

must

be

mediated through

some

form

of

representation

Hegel's

Schein).The challenge, forSch6nberg and his contemporaries,was

to

discover

how

expression

and

form

could

be

properly

conciliated

2

Evidence

for

he

association

can

be

found

n

thepublished

Sch6nberg

orrespon-

dence.

See

Erwin

Stein,

ed., 'Arnold

Schoenberg

Letters',

trans.

Eithne

Wilkins

and

Ernst

Kaiser

(New

York,

i965),

pp.

144-50.

3

Ludwig

Munz

&

Gustav

Kunstler,

Adolph

Loos'

(London,

1966),

pp.

228-9.

4

Arnold

Schdnberg,

Harmonielehre',

rev.

and

enlarged

ed.

(Vienna,

1922),

p.

325.

5

Arnold

Schonberg,

Brahnis

the

Progressive',

n

'Style

and

Idea',

trans.

Dika

Newlin (New

York, 1950),

p.

72.

430



4/9

without

resorting

to the

gratuitous

solution

provided

by

mere

compromise. As

Sch6nberg put

it: "I believe it won't do:

to

toy

with freedom while one is still bound

to the

unfree".6 For

those

who

met

only

indifference

o the

urgency

of

this

issue,

it

became

necessary,forthe sake of 'truthfulness',o contemplate the risk of

going

beyond

entrenched

normsof asthetic mediation. Art had

to

become

'Expressionistic'.

The music of

Schonberg's

crucial

period,

which extended

from

I908

to the compositionof the first welve-note

works,

was

shaped,

as he noted some

years

later, by

powerful

and

pervasive

subjective

impulses: "In

my firstworks

of the new

style

was

guided,

in

the

shaping

of

forms,

by

exceptionally

strong

forces of

expression

(Ausdrucksgewalten),

oth

with

regard

to

particulars

and

to the

whole".7 Further,he allowed himself o believe that the intensity

of the

subjective

demand

would,

of

necessity, enerate

artistic

orms

that were

appropriate

to it.

Intuition,

fired

by

necessity

nd

rarely

disturbed

by

conscious

reflection,

ould be trusted to do

its own

work.,

In

close

accord,

the

painter

Wassily

Kandinsky

described

"inner

necessity" s

a

fundamental

hapingforce;

ndeed,

the

affirm-

ation of

its intuitive

rightnesswas

as

widespread

in

the

early

years of this

century

as it

had

been

over

a

hundred

years

earlier.

Then,

the

rebellious attitudes

of

J.-J. Rousseau,

evident

too

in

German

Empfizdsamkeit,

ame

as

a

reaction to

eighteenth-century

intellectualism.

Similarly,

the

rationalistic

and

mechanistic

modes

of

thinking

which,

as

methodological

procedure,

dominated the

latter

part

of

the nineteenth

entury,

eemed

to those

who

became

heir to it to

exclude a

wholenessof

spirit

nd to

deny

the

significance

of

temporal

flux

and its

necessarily

non-conceptual

expression.

Joining

n

the

protest, fter

Nietzsche, were

proponentsofa

Lebens-

philosophie-prominently

Wilhelm

Dilthey

and Henri

Bergson;

further orroboration or rrationalmodes ofcognitionwas given in

the

phenomenology

of

Edmund

Husserl. "Vital

experience"

came

to

be

interpreted,

n

Bergson's

sense, as the

unique and

the

irrever-

sible.

It

was

to be valued

as

a

means of

bridging

the

gap

between

the

metaphysical

and

the

physical, between

universals

and par-

ticulars.

In

Germany a

freshburst of

activity n the

arts,

iteratureand

drama

carried with

it

a

new

set of

attitudeswhich,

achieving some

degree

of

coherence

between

about

i910

and

I925,

has

retrospect-

ivelybeen referred o as Expressionism.The Expressionists elieved

themselves

to

be

caught

in

a

malaise

of degenerate

cultural and

"

'Harmonielehre',

.

472.

7

Arnold

Sch6nberg,

Gesinnung

der

Erkenntniss

', 25

J_ahre

eue

Musik:

J_ahrbuch

1926

der

Universal-Edition,

d.

Hans

Heinsheimer&

Paul

Stefan

Vienna,

I926), p.

27.

8

"In

composing

decide

only

through

feeling,

hrough

he

feeling

or

orm.

his

tellsme

what

must

write, ll

else s

excluded.

Every

chord

that

put

down

answers

o a

compulsion:

compulsion

f

my

need for

xpression,

ut

perhaps, oo,

the

compulsion f

an

unsolicited

nd

unconscious

ogic

in

the

harmonic

construction"

'Harmonielehre',

P.

502).

431



5/9

intellectual life,and hence

the importance

attached

by them to

a

new

content,

one

that would signify

rebirth

f moral and

spiritual

values.

Expressionism

was never

a

conscious

groupingor

movement

that

could

be

definedby

any

kindof common

programme,

but poets,

dramatists nd paintersweredrawn togethern theirrejectionofthe

methodsof

Naturalism,

and

also

set themselves

part

from

mpres-

sion

and Symbolism

by

refusing

he refuge

offered

y the temple

of

art. A

commitment

to intuition,

they believed,

would lead

them

back

to an

essential

humanity

whichboth materialism

nd

astheticism

had

by-passed.

Refusing

all compromise,

they

pledged

themselves

to

a

constantly

elf-renewing ensibility

while

acknowledging,

too,

that anxiety

was the

price

to

be paid for

continuing

exploration

with unforeseeable

esults.

There

were differences

mong them,

but

all seemed to have agreed on Kandinsky'swarning' against an over-

evaluation

of formal

convention

made

without

reference

to

that

which

animates it: namely,

inner content.

Believing

himself

o be

peculiarly

sensitive to

what

he described

as

the "Abstract

Spirit"

of

his

time,

Kandinsky

hailed the

approach

of

a

new

era in

which

the

sensuous properties

of

art

would

find

their

proper

place

as

an

expression

ofspiritual

values.

There is, too,

an echo of the

theories

of early

Romanticism

in

the

primary

place

Kandinsky gave

to

music as 'pure' expression;his desire was to achieve,

for

painting,

the emancipation

from

ordinary signification

lready attained

by

music.

Schonberg

and

Kandinsky

first

met at

a

holiday

resort-a

meeting

recollected

by

Kandinsky

in

a

letter

to the

composer

of

I July

1936.10 No

date

is mentioned

forthe

meeting,

which probably

took place

round

i

909

or

i

9IO.

The

men

may

have met

by chance,

but

Willi

Reich,

in his recent

biography,

suggests1L

hat

they

were

brought together

by

Kandinsky's

reading

of an

excerpt

from

the

'Harmonielehre',12fromwhich he then quoted in his 'tYber das

Geistige

in der Kunst'

of

191 2.

The

published

correspondence

between

the

two

testifies o

the close

mutual

interestn one

another's

work

during

I

1i-I213

-an

interest enewed

by

Schonberg

n

1922L4

but suspended

a

year

later

as

a

result

of

Kandinsky's

alleged

anti-

Semitism. Sch6nberg's

essay

'Das

Verhaltnis

zum Text'

was

pub-

lished

in

Kandinsky's

almanach

Der

Blaue

Reiter

1912).

1

In it

he

praised

Kandinsky's

book

'On

the

Spiritual

in Art' and

expressed

enthusiasm

over

the

promised

emancipation

of the

"painting

of

the

' See, in particular,WassilyKandinsky,Ober die Formfrage', erBlaucReiter,d.

Wassily

Kandinsky

& Franz

Marc

(Munich,

1912),

p.

78.

10

See Joseph

Rufer,

The

Works

ofArnold

Schoenberg:

A

Catalogue

of his

Compo-

sitions,

Writings

nd

Paintings',

rans.

Dika

Newlin

London,

I962),

p.

I86.

11

ee

Willi

Reich,

'Schoenberg:

A Critical

Biography',

rans.

Leo

Black

(London,

1971),

p.

41.

1

In

Die Musik,

x (1 9I 0),

pp.

I

o4-8.

12

See

etters

f

Kandinskyo

Schonberg

f

6

November

9I

I

and

13

January

9 12,

in Rufer,

Works',

pp.

I85-6.

14

See letter

f

20

July

922

to

Kandinsky,

n

Stein,

Letters',

pp.

70-72.

15

Together

with

manuscript

acsimile

fhis

song

Herzgewachse',

Op.

20.

432



6/9

future"

fromthe

externals

of

ordinary

ubject-matter."

In

his

own

book

Kandinsky

equated

Sch6nberg's

renunciation

of

tonality

with

the

aims

of the new movement:

namely,

the liberation

of art

from

conventional aids to

perception

and

cognition:

"His music

leads

us

to where musical experienceis a matter not of the ear, but of the

soul-and

from

his

point

begins

the

music of the

future'

7

The

goal

of

contemporary

rtists,

ranz

Marc

insisted,

was

"to create

symbols

for their

age,

symbols

for the altars of

a

new

spiritual

religion.

The

artist as technician will

simply

vanish

behind such

works"."8

The

parallel with

Schbnberg

s

important.For it is the

voice

of

this

new

generation

that

speaks, in

particular,

in

the

third

scene of 'Die

gliickliche

Hand', where

the

efforts f

worker-technicians

and

even

of

the

protagonist

himself)

to

create

a

merely decorative art

(Schmuck)re scornedand rejected.

An

affinity

etween

Schonberg's

objectives and

those

of the

Expressionists

as

been

suggested n

much

of

the

critical

iterature.',

Certainly,

the

desire

of the time

for

Ausdruckswahrheit

as

one

that

he

shared.

All

that

was not

essential

to

it,

including,

and in

par-

ticular,

what

Kandinsky

described as

"conventional

beauty", had

to be

sacrificed.

Art

historians

have,

of

course,

recognized

the

roots

of this

desire for

naked'

expression

n

early

Romanticism, and

have

queried the

independence

of

Expressionismas a

categoryof

style.

One need

only

cite,

n

support

of

this

historical

ink,

Arnold

Hauser's

description of

the

essence of

Romanticism

and

compare it

with an

'Expressionist'

programme

attached

to

Schonberg's

music by a

contemporaneous

critic:

Romantic art

is the

first

o consist

n

the

human

document', he

screaming

onfession,he

open

wound aid

bare.2?

Sch6nberg,

ndomitable,

ffers

imself

o the

whole

world

with all

his

private

daemons.

ndeed,

in a

virtual

frenzy

f

confession, e

tearsopen his breast to showthe stigmata . . The blood of his

wounds

becomes ound.21

Expressionism, to

be

sure,

did

tend

towards

Sturm

undDrang

histrionicism;how

one

prefers

o

respond to

that

aspect

of it is a

matter

of

taste

(and

it does

seem

that

our

contemporary aste

has

16

"When

...

Wassily

Kandinsky

nd Oskar

Kokoschka

paint

pictures,

he

objective

theme of

which

s

hardly

more than

an

excuse to

improvise

n colors

nd

forms

nd to

express

hemselves s

onlythe

musician

expressed

himself

ntil

now,

these

re

symptoms

of a

gradually

xpanding

knowledge f

the

true

nature ofart.And withgreat oy I readKandinsky'sbookOnthe piritualnArt,nwhichtheroadfor ainting s pointedoutand

the

hope is

aroused

that

those

who

ask

about

the

text,

bout

the

subject-matter,

ill

soon

ask no

more"

('Style

and

Idea',

p.

4).

17

Wassily

Kandinsky, On

the

Spiritual n

Art',ed. Hilla

Rebay (New

York,

1946),

P.

36.

18 Franz

Marc,

"Die

'Wilden'

Deutschlands",

Der

Blaue

Reiter,

.

31.

19

Of

particular

interest s

Arnold

Schering's

early

study,

Die

expressionistische

Bewegung

in der

Musik',

'Einfiihrung

n die

Kunst

der

Gegenwart'

(Leipzig,

19x9),

PP.

139-61.

20

Arnold

Hauser, The

Social

History f Art'

(London,

I962), iii,p.

187.

21

Ernst

Decsey,

Zur

Schonberg-Kritik', ie

Musik,

xii

(I9I2), p.

184.

433



7/9

decreed

against

works

ike

Die

gliickliche

Hand').

But

it would

not

be

fair

to

brand

the Expressionists

as

self-indulgent,

or

it

was

precisely

the

self-indulgence

f the

etiolated

aestheticism

n

which

late

Romanticism

had

foundered

thatthey

rejected.

The

stand

that

Sch6nberg took,with Kandinsky, against an 'empty' beauty (one

devoid

of content)

was one

that alienated

him fromeven

the

once

well-disposed

among

his

critics.

In

igi

i Richard

Specht

claimed

that

he had

now

only

contempt'

for

the praiseworthy

ophistication

ofmelodic

and harmonic

resources

chieved

in works

prior

to I

908.2

t

Adolph

Weissmann

described

his

'Expressionism'

as a capitulation

to

immediate and

local

excitation,

by-passing

ny

corporeal

frame

of reference

and

sacrificing

rt

to spirituality.23

rnold

Schering

believed

that

such

impulses

would

lead

to

a kind

of

Ubermusik

r

even Anti-Musik.24 aul Bekker, though more sympathetic than

others,

nevertheless

rew similar

conclusions:

The music

of the

nineteenth

entury,

s it developed

from

he

classi-

cal

art,

was

shapedby

the

urge

towards

epresentation,

corporeali-

zation

of the

process

offeeling

.

But here

lies the chasm.

Schon-

berg's

music

does

not

illustrate,

t does

not

represent.

t

lives

n

a

strange,

nknown

imension

f feeling,

n which the

corporeal,

he

firm utline

fthe rtistic

bject,

no longer

xists."

To suggest, as Bekker does, a 'chasm' separating Schbnberg

from

the

nineteenth

century s,

surely,

to overstate

the historical

argument,

or lready

in

that

century

he

problem

of

representation'

within

a

classical

frame

of referencebecame

a central

one.

The

historical

development

would

rather

seem

to be

one

in which

the

rebellion

of

Romantic

transcendentalism

against

the

aesthetic

immanence

of

classicism

culminated

ultimately

n,

as it

were,

a

total

mobilization:

art

against

art. The

resulting

crisis

has

been

discussed

by

T.

Wiesengrund-Adorno,

who

argues

that feeling

'truly' expressedcan no longer recognize the autonomyof art. In

Expressionism

rt survives

only

in

threatening

o cancel

itself

ut:

The essential,

isrupting

moment

s

for

Schonberg]

he function

f

musical

expression.

assions

re

no

longer

imulated;

ather oes

his

music

record,

untransposed,

he

impulses

of the

unconscious,

ts

shocks

and

traumas.

The

seismographic

egistration

f

traumatic

shocks

ecomes,

t the

same

time,

he

aw of

theform fthe

music.2

To

identify

orm

nd

expression

bsolutely,

as Adorno seems

to

do, would be to postulatean extremenominalism nd also to suggest

an

absence

of

workingprocedure

in the music. Recent

attempts

to

22

Richard

Specht,

Arnold

Sch6nberg:

eine

Vorbemerkung',

er

Merker,

i

(I

9

I

),

p.697.

23

Adolph

Weissmann,

Malerische

Musik',

Musikblatter

esAnbruch,

i

(i92o),

p.

566.

24

Schering,

p.

cit.,p.

143.

26

Paul

Bekker,

Arnold

Schonberg',

Kritische

eitbilder

Berlin, 921),

p.

170.

26

Theodor

Wiesengrund-Adomo,

Philosophie

der neuen

Musik'

(Tubingen,

949),

p. 42.

434



8/9

seek

out and define

the

characteristics f

Expressionism

n

music27

have stumbled

against

this

problem,

and have

not

passed

beyond

merely

descriptive

determinationswhich

rely

heavily

on

reference

by

negation.

Most

problematic

is the

negation

implicit

in

Karl

W6rner's Momentform,ignifyings it does the absence of any kind

of

repetition

r

systematically

onceived

relationship

between

formal

parts.28

Worner's term

s,

of

course,

self-contradictory,

s form

has

to do with

relationships.

Furthermore,

Schonberg,

who

always

subjected

any

consideration

f

solated

particularities

o the

criterion

expressed

by

the word

Zusammenhang

formal

connectedness),

would

surely

have

rejected

the

implications

of

Momentform

s

irrele-

vant to his

concerns.While

granting,

with

Bekker

and

Adorno,

that

it

was characteristic f

Expressionism

o

insiston

the

precedence

of

'spirit' over 'art', one would neverthelessexpect the absence of

means of formal

organization

to

be

apparent

rather than

real.

The

source

of

these

means

derived,

as

Schonberg

frequently

sserted,

from

an

almost

somnambulistic

ntuition;

thus

the formal

relation-

ships

created

by

them,

rather

than

sounding

on

the

surface of

the

music,

will

be

found to

exist

buried

in

its

deeper

tissues.

They

are

the subconscious

controlling

forces

from

which

stems the

logic

of

all

dreams and

visions.

Yet for much of the music of thiscenturythe metaphorof the

dream and

its

wider

implications

needs to

be

thoroughly

xplored.

Psychologists

have

attributed the

extraordinary,

hallucinatory

vividnessof dream

images to

the

deeply

buried

syntax'that

creates

them.

Schonberg

stressed,

often

enough,

the

hidden,

compulsive

logic

that

underlay

the

operation

of

his

musical

fantasy.

n

common

with

some

of

his

contemporaries,

he

believed

that a

return

to the

deeper recesses of the

psyche

would

not

only tap

afresh he

sources

of artistic

inspiration but

would

also

lead

away

from

the

senses

towardswhat he described, n a letterto Nicholas Slonimsky, s a

"higher

and

better

order".29

t

may be

suggested,

then, that

his

surrender

to an

untrammelled

fantasy during

the

'free

atonal'

period

represented

n

evolutionary

retreat

from

what he

saw as

a

blind

alley

of

over-refinement,he

retreat

being

made in

the hope

of an

advance in

a

new

direction.Arthur

Koestler has

described

such

action as

reculer

our

mieux

auter-"a

favourite

gambit

in

the

grand

strategy

f

the

evolutionary

process".30

He

believes

that t has

27

See,

in

particular,

Karl

H.

Worner,

Walter

Mannzen & Will

Hoffman,

rticle

'Expressionismus', n 'Die

Musik

in

Geschichteund Gegenwart'. See furtherH. H.Stuckenschmidt,Was istmusikalischerxpressionismus', Melosxxxvi

1

969),

pp.

I-5.

28

See

Karl

H.

Worner,

Schonberg's

"Erwartung" und

das

Ariadne-Thema', n

'Die

Musik

n der

Geistesgeschichte'

Bonn,

1970),

pp.

9

I-I

i

8.

29

Letter of

3

June

1937, in

Nicholas

Slonimsky,

Music

Since

I

900', 3rd

ed.

(New

York,

949),

p.

574.

80

Arthur

Koestler,

The

Ghost

n the

Machine'

(London,

i967), p.

i67.

Koestler

adds: "It

seems

that the

task

of

breaking

p

rigid

cognitive

tructures

nd

re-assembling

them

into

a

new

synthesis

annot, as

a

rule,

be

performed

n

the

full

daylight

f

the

conscious,

ational

mind.

t

can

only

be

done

by

reverting

o

those

more

fluid,

ess

com-

mitted

nd

specialized

forms

f

thinking

which

normally

perate

n the

twilight

ones

of

awareness"

ibid.,

.

197).

435



9/9

played

as

important

part

in

thehistory

f

human

endeavour

as

it

has

in biology.While

the parallel

with biology

must

remain

hypo-

thetical,

t may

become

a

usefulone

in

elucidating

the

phenomenon

of

so-called 'primitivism'

n early

twentieth-century

usic,

art

and

drama. It seems no accident that, contemporaneouslywith Schon-

berg,

composers

uch

as

Stravinsky,

artok

and

Ives

found

nspiration

in

elements

that

precede

or underlie

the civilized

superstructure

f

culture.

Musical

fantasy

was

once described

by

Sch6nberg

as "a dream

of

future

fulfilment"',

promising

a

liberation

fromthe

limitations

of

ordinary sense-experience.

The

monodrama 'Erwartung'

can

be

viewed as

an

allegory

of such

an

'expectation',

perhaps

by necessity

nocturnal

and

experienced

only

in a

state

of hallucination.

In

'Die Jakobsleiter', One Wrestling', having abandoned old laws,

awaits

the

intuition

of new

laws,

and

the archangel

Gabriel

speaks

of

a

necessary

blindness.

n 'Pierrot unaire'

the

blindness

s

that

of

a

pathetic

(and

again

nocturnal)

clown who

is the

alter go

of

the

Romantic

hero;

here

the artistic

conventions

of the

past,

rejected

by

Expressionism

as

being

no

longer

authentic,

are

momentarily

restored

and

vindicated

through

the

spirit

of

irony. Through

the

War

years,

the crisisof

form,

o whichwas

linked

a crisis

of

personal

belief,

remained

unresolved.

The Rilke

poems

chosen

by

Schonberg

for

his

orchestral

songs

of

Op.

22

give

voice

to his own anxious

expectations;

the

poem

entitled

'Alle

welche

dich suchen',

for

example,

ends

with the plea,

"Gib

deinen

Gesetzen

recht,

die

von

Geschlecht

zu Geschlecht

sichtbarer

ind".

In

'Die

Jakobsleiter'

he

Biblical

ladder

becomes

a

symbol

of

evolving

life in its

struggle

to

overcome

mere

existence.

Gabriel

makes

the

'dissolution'

of

life

and its

illusions

a condition

for

entry

into the

spiritual

domain

where

the 'laws'

are

to be

found;

the

music,

with its

high

degree

of textual integration, ts clarityof line and thematicwork, points

to

the

imminence

of such

laws.

Most

significantly,

n

emerging

principle

of

organization,

described

some

years

ago by

Winfried

Zillig,32

ields

strict

ormal

recurrences

nd

pitch

symmetries

which

should

be

associated,

n the

text,

with

the

concept

of

a

transcendent

order.

Schonberg's

secrecy

with

regard

to the

development

and

consolidation

of his twelve-note

method

was

surely

motivated,

not

by

narrow

pride,

but

by

a natural reluctance

to allow

the

method

to

be

evaluated

in

abstracto,

hat

is,

without

relation

to the

human

and spiritualexperienceout of whichit evolved.

31

"Fantasy,

in contradistinction

o logic,

which

everyone

hould

be

able to

follow,

favors

lack

of

restraint

nd

a

freedom

n

the

manner

of

expression,

ermissible

n

our

day

onlyperhaps

n

dreams,

n dreams

of

future

ulfilment":

ch6nberg,

Tonality

and

Form',

n

Merle

Armitage,

d.,

Schoenberg'

New

York,1937),

p.

260.

32 Winfried

illig,

Notes

on

Arnold

choenberg's

Unfinished

ratorio

"Die

Jakobs-

leiter"

,

The

Score

xv,

I

959),

pp.

7-x6.

436

alan lessem - schönberg and the crisis of expressionism

Documents