butor - music as realistic art.pdf

8/22/2019 Butor - Music as Realistic Art.pdf

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Music as a Realistic ArtAuthor(s): Michel Butor and Donald SchierReviewed work(s):Source: Perspectives of New Music, Vol. 20, No. 1/2 (Autumn, 1981 - Summer, 1982), pp. 448-463Published by: Perspectives of New MusicStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/942423 .

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Music as a RealisticArtMichel Butor

Translatedby DonaldSchier

1. Entrance"Surelyyou'renot going to try to defendprogrammusicto us!"someonecried.It is a fact that there exists today, even amongsensitivepersons, a terriblydeep-rootedprejudice,which however con-cernsnot only musicbut alsothe plasticartsandliterature youknow it: art for art's sake and all the critical balderdashthatgoes with it), and which is perhaps particularlyannoying inconnectionwith music becausesomepeoplehavethe impressionthat there, at least, they will not be bothered by political,philosophical or ethical implications etc., whereas in otherdomainsit is firmlyestablished,except for a few who are blindor hypocritical,that there is no meaninglesspaintingor poetry,or art without a precisehistoricalsituation.This failureto recognizethe representational apabilitiesof music, to which French musicalcriticismowes much of itsconfusion, its obscurity, and the capricious flimsiness of itsjudgmentswhich mustconstantlybe correctedfromone yeartothe next, almostfromone monthto the next (recall,forexample,what was said just recently about the last works of IgorStravinsky,remember he stupidcondemnationsof BelaBart6k)-this failure s closely relatedto a certainconceptionof realitywhose insufficiencyhas been constantlypointed out by modernthought in all its formsfor more than a century, and it is alsorelated to that falsely scientific and materialisticpetrificationwhich has been shown by Marxistcriticismto correspond o aparticularmomentin the triumphof the bourgeoisie.This conceptionwhich makesmusicliterally nexplicable,and thereforethe last bastion for the believers in art for art'ssake, is based upon the absolute identificationof the realwiththe visible, as if we had no other senses.


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Since sound is in its origin a warning, a sign, anyconceptionof realitywhich includesit necessarilyabolishestheabsolute distinction between nature and languageand hencebetween matter andthought;thus everythingis susceptibleandcapableof interpretation,nothing is shelteredfromdaylight orfrom the intelligence.That is why I declare music is a realisticart, and assertthat it teaches us, even in its highest and apparently mostdetachedforms,somethingabout the world; that is why I claimmusicalgrammars a grammar f reality,that melodiestransformlife. First let us clearaway some underbrush.Igor Stravinsky, n a momentof distraction,venturedtodeclare that "music,by its nature,was incapableof expressinganything,"a remark hat the whole bodyof hisworkscontradictscompletely,but which is perfectlyexplicable fwe know how tosituate it in his musicaldevelopment.It is not too much to saythat peoplehavejumpedon that remark!How they haveprofitedfrom it! Particularlyis that true of those who professedthegreatestscornfor,and showed the deepest incomprehension f,this composer'sworks. What a weapon he provided againsthimself;how thoroughly people felt themselves authorizedbythat statement to makeno furthereffortto understand!In the case of musical compositions remote from us intime and especiallyfromwidely differingcivilizationsit is oftenhardto determinewhether they arehappyor sad;yet they moveus anyway.All musicincludesa considerablepartof convention,and consequently the inexperiencedlistener, faced with someexotic melody,Gregorianperhaps, f he is not familiarwith it, orJapanese,understandsonly a fractionof it; it is as though hewere looking at a black-and-whitereproductionof a painting.The fact that he admires t does not meanthat the colors arenotessential to the original;the fact that he is incapableof recog-nizing the light-heartednessof a Japanesemelody in no waydenies the expressivenessof that melody for those who areaccustomedto its musical language. Even a man who knowsnothing about classicalArabic can be enchantedby a sampleofits calligraphy,but he is like the visitorto a museumwho is ableto contemplateonly the shadowsof the statues.


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2. QuotationIn Gambara,Balzacestablishes this parallel:In most composers,wild and loosely-plannedorchestralpartsareinterwovenonly to producea momentary ffect;they do not always contribute to the compositionas awhole by the regularityof their develoment.In the caseof Beethoven, the effects are, as it were, allocated inadvance. Like differentregiments which contribute byregular maneuvers to the winning of the battle, thedifferent sections of the orchestra in Beethoven's sym-phonies follow the orders given in the general interestand are subordinated o admirably onceivedplans.Thereis a parity in this respect with genius in another art. Inthe magnificenthistoricalcompositionsof WalterScott,the characterfurthest from the action turns out to beattached to the denouementby threads woven into thevery fabricof the plot.In Massimila Doni he minutely analyzedRossini'sMosewhich ought to be revivedifonly so that the commentary an bejudged in detail.1In that opera a French physician plays the role of thestupid fop, well-bred but insensitive, terrifiedat the idea thatmusic might lead him to jump his intellectual tracks,and who

prefers to avoid any interpretationof it, even a private one,consideringmusical art a simple and pointless game, a hodge-podgeof sonoritiesticklingthe ear asa ragoutpleasesthe tonguebut which is not spokenof afterwards;his is a kind ofvoluntaryblindnesswhich Balzacconnectswith a reducedandsuperficialinterpretationof the great philosophicalexpressionsof the riseof the bourgeoisie, the Encyclopedie n France and Britishempiricism:"Madame,"aidhe, "inexplaining he masterpiecewhich,thanks to you, I shall returnto hearagaintomorrow,ininterpretingboth its meansandits effects,you haveoftenspokenof the color of the music and of what it painted;but as a manof science and a materialist,I confessthat Iam always disgusted by the claim of certainenthusiaststhat musicpaints with sound. Would it not be the same


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thing if the admirersof Raphaelclaimed that he sangwith his colors?"We areonly too used to a kindof artistic criticismwhich,instead of studying its subjects,is content with lyricalexclama-tions andvaguelymusicalmetaphors."Inthe languageof music," he duchessreplied,"paintingmeans to awaken certain memories in our hearts bymeansof sound or to callup certainimagesto ourminds,andthese memories, hese images,havetheircolors,theyare sad or happy. Youarequibblingabout words, that'sall. Accordingto Capraja2(a theoreticianand defender of the "roulade,"of puretone)each instrument has its purpose and speaks to certainideas,as eachcolorcorresponds n us to a certainfeeling.When you look at golden arabesqueson a blue back-ground, do you have the same thoughts as would besuggested to you by red arabesqueson a black or greenbackground? n neithercase aretherefaces,norare thereanyfeelingsexpressed(facesheremeanshumanfaces and"feelingsexpressed"means those which are "painted"on the face or con-veyed by poses),it is done throughpureart

(i.e., through the simple relationships of forms andcolors, all immediaterepresentationbeing excluded;implication: hat the artist succeedsin touchingus, ininformingus about a certainareaof reality),and yet no soul will remainunmoved upon looking atthem. Hasnot the oboe the power to awaken n allmindscountrifiedimages,as do most of the wind instruments?Have not the brasses a mysteriouswarlike quality, dothey not call up in us lively and even furioussensations?The strings, whose substance is taken from living cre-ation, do they not affect the most delicate fibersof ourbeing? Do they not go straight to the depths of theheart?When I spoketo you of the sombercolors, of thecoldness of the notes used in the introduction to Mose,was I not at least as right as criticswho talk to us about


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the coloring of such and such a writer? Do you notrecognize the nervous style, the pale style, the livelystyle, the colorful style? Art paints with words, withsounds, with colors, with lines, with forms;though themeans are various the effects are the same. An Italianarchitectwill give you the samesensationas that excitedin us by the introductionto Moseby takingus alongdarkpaths, their walls high, overgrownand humid,andthenmakingus comesuddenlyuponavalleyfilled with water,flowers,buildings,andfloodedwith sunlight."In speakingof the correspondence f music with architec-ture, need I recall the basilica of San Marco; and to moveoutdoors,I remember nce when I was traveling n Holland,thewonder I felt on a Sunday morning, in the little town ofZutphen, famousfor its ancient bells: each bell-tower had itsown qualityandamelodic ormulawhich was endlesslyrepeated;

yet all were in tune, all mergedsomewhat and still were dis-tinguishable romeachother;theirdynamic elationships hangedandwere inverteddependingupon where I was, in such a waythat a stroll in the streets createdinventionsand variationsandthe whole town was turned into a prodigiousinstrumentuponwhich the walkerimprovisedas he movedalong.MassimilaDoni continues:"Since in its utterance any instrument makes use ofduration, breath, or the human hand, it is superior inexpressivenessto color, which is fixed, and to words,which have limits. Musical language is indefinite, itcontainseverything,it canexpresseverything."

3. GrammarIt is, I think, obvious to everybody that music is alanguage,but one of the principalreasonsforthe obscurityandimpotenceof currentmusicalcriticism,the root of the prejudicewhich tends to makeofmusic anabsolutely solatedandthereforeuninterpretablelanguage, results from the fact that music isconsideredas being on the same plane as articulatespeech, asthough there were English, German,French, Music, etc. The


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mere statement of this thesis in its crudest formis enough todemonstrate ts absurdity.The text of a Germanor Englishsongmay be translated into French,and it can be sung to the samenotes, even though they suit the new text less well; thesevarious languagesform a group which have a certain kind oftranslatablerelationship,quite aside frommusic.But the idea of the absolute isolation of the musicallanguageis opposed by an even more obvious objection:whichis the possibilities it has for literal imitation, for transcription,possibilities ar richerthan the onomatopoeiao which articulatespeech is limited.Such transcriptions,of which we havemanyexamples-that of voice productionin Monteverdi (or of the echo)-haveacquiredanenormousrangewith the greater lexibilityof recentmusical discourse (machine noises in Varese, bird songs inMessiaen).

Transcription s used in a veryclassicway to "illustrate"certainwords in a sung text, the musical ormthen appearingasan indubitable ranslationof the words (the curveaccompanyingthe word Regenbogenrainbow)in the PassionAccording o St.JohnofJohannSebastianBach,or the noisescommentingon thepassage"the veil of the temple was rent in twain, fromthe topto the bottom, the earthdid quakeand the rocksrent",or againthe twelve strokesof the bell suggestedby the word Mitternacht(midnight)in the secondcantataof Weber).Certainlythis word forword translationwhich occasion-allyoccurs is only a specialcase in a much moregeneral igurativerelationship:t canbe donephrase orphrase,episodeforepisode,text for text, with all the amplificationsor reductionsdesired,but as long as we limit ourselves to this conception of twoparallel ormsof discourse,resembling he interlinearranslationswhich we needed so badlywhen we were parsingourLatin,weshallmiss the realoriginalityof musical anguage,andhence weshalloften findourselvesup againstawall;we shallbe unabletounderstand the necessary relationship which exists betweenthese specialcases of word forword translationand the deeperconnectionbetween musicandwords.Balzacgives a very valuable hint when he suggests thatthis connection may be likenedto that between containerand


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thing contained. It is obvious that we can appreciatea song, acantata, an opera, sung in a languagewhich we do not know,even though the text, which is unknown to us, is the veritableoriginof the music,and that historically t is with the text thatthe composerbegan, for his inspirationwas basedupon it; andthat whateverknowledgewe mayget of it will clarifythe musicfor us and,far from eadingus awayfrom t, will add a greatdealto the music.If I listen to a Schubertsong without knowingGermanImay find the music marvelous,yet as a generalrule I shall beentirely unable to give even an approximatesummaryof thepoem upon which it is based; but when I have grasped themeaningof the poemI shall understand he music muchbetter, Ishall be able to see how it fits the words, and how thatcongruence is inherent in the structure of the song, which Ishall then realizeI had "heard" nly in part.Importantfor our discussionis the well known fact thatthe words, whose exact understanding is so useful for ourappreciationof the music, may turn out to be, in themselves,very mediocrein literaryquality. It is certainlybetter that thetext shouldbe remarkablen itself,but if it is not, it canbecomeso through the musical treatment. The "ordinary"words takeon a new meaningas a result of their situationin the total soundlanguage.Old Boileau himself... of a well-placed word could teach the force.3That "word,"so sublimein Racine or Baudelaire, s thesame one we use every day, but in their writings it takes onsplendor owing to the "spot" n which it is placed.It is easyto see how the grammaticalelationshipswhichlink such a word to a precedingone, or to a following one, orwhich connect one clause with another, can be "included" nthe relationshipsof musical discourse.The fixedpoetic formsofourolderprosodyprovidean obviousintermediary:he grammarof a sonnet is understoodby us only against a backgroundofrhythmicrelationships; he words summoneach otherup or arebound together by their sonorities, thanks to that structuralprinciplewhich was rhyme,and which in music is moregener-alizedas repetition,variationanddevelopment.


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Thus in a melody, whether accompaniedor not, thegrammatical elationships n the strict senseof the termareonlyone aspect, a particularcase, a definition on a given plane, ofmuch richersyntacticalrelationships.We cometo see what theinstrumentsplay,how the notes which they producechangethefunctions of those which are sung, how they alter the space inwhich the word is pronouncedand so changeits properties.Phenomenologically,musicis anterior o spoken anguage,was a vehicle formeaningbeforespeechand still is, a factwhichmakesspeech possible, even if we have a tendency to forget itsorigin.There can be no pronunciationof a word unless there isfirst awarenessand masteryof a pitch, of a certainrhythm,andthe establishmentand control of both continuityand distinctnessof tone quality. Thus from the very beginningspokenlanguageappearsas a specialcase of musical structure. Music digs out abed for the text; it preparesand forms that space in which thetext itself can be presentedand moreandmorepreciselydefined.The structural patterns which instruments, togetherwith melodic and rhythmicfigures, must imposeon the time-spanof the piecealsopermitthe voice to be heard,andallow thevarious tone-colors, melismasand neumes to take on a precisemeaning,which, in musical illustration, i.e., onomatopoeia, sdirectly imposed, whereas in ordinary language this occursthroughthe intermediary f aneducational radition,andthere-foreoperatesacross an enormoushistoricaltime-spanwhich is,forthe most part, obscureto us.The fact that even the most prosaic spoken languageisalways founded upon a musical structure, and one which isalways much less simple than it first appears (French, forexample,which might seemto an inattentive listenerto have asits melodic pattern only an oscillation around a certain pitchwhich is peculiar to each speaker, in fact possesses a wholesystemof intonationswhich organizethe words into sentences,the acquisitionof which is one of the principaldifficultieswhichour languagehasfor a foreigner)permitsit to intervene ust as itis at certainmomentsin even highly elaboratedmusicalworks,TheMagic Flute, for example,and also permitsthe elaborationof a whole series of intermediaries between itself and thestructuresusually uttered by instruments,the Sprachgesangf


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Schonbergand all the examplesof recitative whether in Mozart,Monteverdi,or Debussy.Since the voice can be treated like an instrument,wordsand sentences materialize n the course of that treatment. Wethus witness the birth of articulatespeech,we graspthe processof its symbiosiswith music. The QuartetwithSopranoof Schon-berg and the GesangderJunglingeof Stockhausengive us thisveryvaluable nstance:without anybreakunderstandablewordsflow fromthe instrumentaldiscourse(in the one caseelectronic,in the other, strings) and seem to the listener like its necessaryembodiment.The structural pattern of musical space in which thewords are to be embeddedmaytake a muchlongertime than inspeech itself; a given melody may requirea long prelude;buteven so this well-preparedground may not "reveal" he textwhich it was supposedto enrich. If I hold that singing tells usmoreabout the nature of music than instrumentalperformance,it is not that I consider the latter chronologicallyposteriororinferior; amonly sayingthat it is easier to understandmusicifwe do not forgetthat it might be a setting for a text, that suchindeed is its aim, that instrumentalmusic awaits the still non-existent word which it makespossible.Sincemusicis its "precondition,"s it not inevitablethatcertaincomplexstructurescan appear n spoken languageonlyaftermusical anguagehas to a certainextent madethemfamiliar?If the novel is the laboratoryof narrative, s not musicthe cavernin which maybe forgedthe weapons and instrumentsof a newliterature, the plowing of the ground where that harvest canmature?The exampleof operarendersobvious the fact that it ismusic which permits words to be heard, and hence to beintelligible. BecauseMozart'smusicaltechnique allows him tosuperimposeupon each other, without confusion,two or threevoicesor more,thesevoicescansimultaneously ronouncewordswe distinctlyhear;otherwisewe would perceiveonly a confusedmurmur n which all the words would cancel each other out.Wherethe earis concerned,verbalpolyphonynecessarilypresup-poses musicalpolyphony.


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4. ColorsBetween these two extremesof musicalmeaningfulness,i.e., the relationshipbetween words andmusic,on the one hand"illustration"or onomatopoeia,that is to say the reproductionand integration of natural (or artificial) sound, of a soundimmediatelyrecognizable,so that the musicalformula s itself aword or more than a word, a "natural"word (the sound of

thunder, bird song, the barrelorganin Petrouchka) nd on theother hand,the framing, he syntacticalsituation, the establish-ment of an area of sound having certain properties in whichwordswill have theirplaceandhencea specialmeaning;betweenthese extremes there exists a whole series of intermediaries nthe discussionof which historicalconsiderationcannot failto beincreasingly mportant.The prepared space cannot remain indifferent to themeaningof the words which will appearin it; in certaincasesone of its regionsmayexceedthe word itself in evocativepower;but most often the music will adaptto the words by meansof acertain "color," to return to Balzac's term, which has theadvantage of being habitually used in the severest musicaltechniques.If spoken language is a very specializedcase of certainregions of the musical domain, how did it happen that thedomainas a whole did not undergoa similarevolution? Ifwordsgradually take on a whole superstructureof meanings, whyshould the samething not be true, to a lesser degree, of othersounds?a) PsychologicalColorsIt is well known that different sounds have differenteffectson the organism: he middlerangeof audiblefrequenciesis immediately agreeable;the top and bottom of the rangeproduce painful sensations until one has learned to connectthem to other sounds in a formwhose intensity allows us toreplace that pain by a higher pleasure; that certain regularrhythms uplift and stimulate, that an irregular rhythm de-presses...


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It may be supposed for the sake of argumentthat thepsychological effect of sounds is the same for all men, andconsequently that certain kinds of music are suited to certaintexts andnot to others.b) FunctionalColors

But at once we must recognizethat different men hearthe same musicalsounds with differentears, that these soundstake on different colors for them, that they producea differenteffect. In the various societiesmusical nstrumentshaveusuallyhad a very specialized use, some being reserved for religiousceremonies,others for war, others for the dance. Their tone-colors are thus associatedwith different circumstancesor areasof life, which are not necessarily the same for two differentsocieties.Rhythmsalso, melodicformulas,etc., all the elementsofmusicaldiscourse are necessarilycolored by the uses made ofthem; only by learning these habitual uses can we come toperceive the way an exotic music fits the words, or hear it asthey do forwhom it was composed.

c) Modal ColorsThat specialization is very considerably developed insophisticated compositions. The differentmodes undoubtedlyhaveslightlydifferentphysiologicalproperties,but they acquirean extremely varied coloration accordingto the use which ismadeof themin this or that circumstance,anddependingon thewell-known, the familiartunes, which are based upon them.Here again true appreciationof works produced in a givencontext canexist only in so far as we arecapableof appreciating

these subtleties. We all know how highly the theory of modalcolorswas developedin ancientmusic, in Gregorianchant, andin certainorientalmusicaltheories.Passage from one mode to another sets up a contrastbetween their colors;this is traditionallycalledchromaticism.


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d) TonalColorsIn order to understandwhat classicalwriters call tonalcolors, it is indispensable o go back to the originof the ideaoftonality, that is to say,beforewhat is calledequal temperament.There is no greatdifferencebetween a piece playedon the pianoin C majorand its transposition nto C-sharpmajor.Foranyonenot havingabsolutepitch or whose ear is not speciallytrained,both will produceexactly the same effect. For the performer, nthe other hand, the two pieces will have an entirely differentcolor, because the tonality of C majoris the basis of all theothers, the first one learned on the piano, whereas C-sharpmajoris filled with sharps, with black keys, is a difficult anddistant key, and especiallybecause it is the equivalent for thepiano of another key, D-flat major, which, however, for theviolin or for the voice is entirely distinct, the differencebeingperfectlyaudibleon eachnote, etc.To the classical notions of the distances between pitch,tone-color, duration, etc. must be added the idea of tonaldistance, i.e., the greateror lesserdegreeof facilitytheremaybein passing from one tonality to another, in modulating,in thenumber of sharps or flats which define these tonalities, thegreateror lesserinfluence of equal temperament.e) GeographicalColors

Since the evolution of musicallanguagedid not occur inthe same way in different civilizations or even in differentcountries-in a given country such and such a scale becamefixed, such and such a system of modes, such and such avocabularyof rhythmicaland melodicalformulas,accents, etc.,all differingfrom our own-it is possible to imitate the musicalcolor of a people, to playwith it, at firstby the simpletechniqueof contrast(Polishcoloringin the First BrandenburgConcerto,or Russiancoloringin Beethoven'sSeventh Quartet) then laterby settling into it and exploringit (Polish coloringin Chopin,Hungarianin Liszt, Spanish in Chabrier,Debussy, Ravel, DeFalla,etc.).This use of geographicalcoloring requiresfirst the in-tegrationinto the tonal systemsof formulaswhich areforeignto


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it, but little by little the coherence natural to these othersystems resists this integration, with the result that tonalityloses its dominance and this leads to works of increasinglycomplexstructurein which tonal relationshipsareoccasionallysuspended in favorof purely modalorganizingprinciples,har-monymeanwhilesystematicallydevelopingat a certaindistancefromwhere it would be in a classicaltonality.Bart6k,for example,deliberatelyswathing his music inHungarian(or Rumanian)coloringdid his best not to let it beabsorbedby Westernmusic,but to take it to a point of system-atizationand elaborationsuch that it could be put on the samelevel, instituting in that "color" a veritable harmony, thusachievingwithin classical onalityworks of acomparable ichnessandharmonic omplexity,andshowingthe West that its classicalsystem of musichad to be taken simplyas a specialcase amongmanyother organizingprinciplescapableof being used for thesame ends.f) HistoricalColorsThe counter-shock of this utilization of geographicalcoloringsby which it was revealedthat classicalWesternmusicwas simply one musical domain among others had for IgorStravinskyconsequenceswhose importancewe arestill farfromhaving realized.At the beginning of his careerhe appeared nthe West as a marvelousspecialist in "Russiancolor,"whichbecameRussianfolkcolor with Petrouchka, nd primitiveRus-sian with TheRiteof Spring.During his stay in Switzerland he tried his hand atWestern folk coloring, that of the Canton of Vaud, whosecharacteristicshe succeededin using admirably.Criticalmisunderstandingbeganwith Mavra,a work inwhich he treated the comicoperaof the last century exactly ashe had treatedRussianfolklore n TheFire-Bird, ndat the timethis was felt to be a deep insult.Fromthen on he triedsystematically o adaptforhis ownpurposes the colors of certain composers, to write Bach orTschaikowskyas Debussywrote Spanishor Italianor English.Just as a given classical sonata is in C major,or a givenrondoof Haydnin "Hungarian,"o a givenwork of Stravinsky s


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"Beethovenian."But also, as in classical sonatas the tonalitychanges, so it is possible to modulate from one exotic color toanother,or fromone historical color to another.When Beethoven wrote the third movement of the Fif-teenth Quartet,"Holy Song of Thanksgivingof a Convalescentto the Deity in the Lydian Mode," he adopted a specificallyreligious and archaic coloration which changes, returns, fadesaway, to the point that we are afloat on a history of music.Similarly Mozart deliberately made use of reminiscences ofHandel or quoted himselfin Don Giovanni.So in Stravinskypastiche and quotation play a funda-mental part; in his work a "Beethovenian"phrase suddenlyrevealspossibilitiesof transpositionto the style of Debussy. Bythe systematic use of historicalcoloring he has endowed con-temporarymusic with a new representationaldimension. Hismost characteristicwork in this respect is The Rake'sProgresswhere, within a generalizedMozartiancoloring,ironicmodula-tions bringup suggestionsof Verdi, Gluck, Gounod,etc.But in The Rake's Progressthe controlling form, thegeneralsystemwithin which these modulationscomeinto play,was situatedin the past, and could not absorb,except ironically,more modern musicalcolorings. Stravinskythus found himselffaced with the absolute necessity of inventing a higherkind oforganizationwithin which he mightmakeuse of all the historicaland geographical olorshe had so patiently learned to manipu-late. Stravinsky'sadoptionof the twelve-tone system afterTheRake'sProgresss thus entirelyunderstandable;he foundthere,at least in outline, that "generalization" f musical ideas whichwas indispensable o him. It is also understandable hat he wasable to absorbthe teachingof Schonbergonly after he had madea successful demonstrationof the use of historical and localcoloringsand also when he was able to hear twelve-tone workswhose individual clarity was equivalent to that of classicalworks, the Quartetop. 22 of Webernin particular,or Webern'scantatas.

Sch6nberg'sconsiderableoutput is alwaysorganizednotindependentlyof tonality,but by a constant refusalof it; tonalitycontinually solicits him and returns to haunt him, and it is tothis that his workowes a greatpartof its patheticquality,for all


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his phrasesconstantly suggest others of which they are merelyshadows and from which they turn aside at the last moment.They are sketcheswhich arecontinuallyreworked.This use of the tone row to avoidtonality did not permitthe methodicalestablishmentof its tonal formulas mongexistingones. So the twelve-tone system seemed to Stravinsky merelyanotherhistoricalcolor amongmanyand not a means of recon-ciling them. It is Webern's interpretationof the twelve-tonesystem as a generalizationof the concept of tonality, whichimpliesthe inevitableconsequencethat the twelve-tone row isitself only one of the types of possiblerows, that it is only the Cmajorof serial coloring, which led the composerof Agon toadopt it.

5. EnvoiThus contemporarymusic has ready to hand devicespossessinganunheard-ofpower to conveymeaning; lowly theirpossibilitiesarebeing explored;up to this moment,contrarytowhat is usuallysaid, contemporary omposershave been rathertimorous about it, and that certainly not through excess oftheory, but through a certain lack of boldness in theory whichfor sometimepreventedthe verybest minds fromunderstandinggreat contemporarycomposers.That day is past; it can be said

that todaynew musicis burstingout, forcingopen the doors,toabsorbthe formsof popularmusic. I see by the programof the"Domainemusical"that jazz musicianstook part in a concert.Nobody candenythe immediateappealof Threniorof Gruppen.I catch myselfsilently hummingStockhausenandothers;soon Ishallhearthe hummingtoo.Poetry is not a luxury, painting is not a luxury. No,musicis certainlynot the pastimeof the idle,of"amateurs,"-getthat out of your head. Music is indispensableto our life, toeverybody's ife, and we haveneverneeded it so badly.


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1. Gambaraand MassimilaDoni are relatively short fictional works inBalzac'sLa Comediehumaine.Paolo Gambara is a talented theorist ofmusic who lacks creative discipline. Reduced to singing for penniesin the street, he is befriended by the Prince de Varese and his wife,the former Massimila Doni.2. Capraja, also a character in La Comedie humaine, (Massimila Doni) is afanatical music lover.3. Butor here cites a tag from Boileau's Artpoe'tiqueof 1674(Chant I,line 133).I have quoted the Soame-Dryden translation.

butor - music as realistic art.pdf

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