passacaille for soprano and seven instruments, op. 1by jacques-louis monod

3
Passacaille for Soprano and Seven Instruments, Op. 1 by Jacques-Louis Monod Review by: Dika Newlin Notes, Second Series, Vol. 11, No. 2 (Mar., 1954), pp. 284-285 Published by: Music Library Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/892691 . Accessed: 14/06/2014 04:50 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]. . Music Library Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Notes. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 185.2.32.141 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 04:50:12 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Upload: review-by-dika-newlin

Post on 18-Jan-2017

215 views

Category:

Documents


2 download

TRANSCRIPT

Page 1: Passacaille for Soprano and Seven Instruments, Op. 1by Jacques-Louis Monod

Passacaille for Soprano and Seven Instruments, Op. 1 by Jacques-Louis MonodReview by: Dika NewlinNotes, Second Series, Vol. 11, No. 2 (Mar., 1954), pp. 284-285Published by: Music Library AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/892691 .

Accessed: 14/06/2014 04:50

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 ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Music Library Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Notes.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 185.2.32.141 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 04:50:12 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 2: Passacaille for Soprano and Seven Instruments, Op. 1by Jacques-Louis Monod

neither of which appears to stand in need of musical elaboration to ensure loange- vity. Both texts are likely to outlive these settings. I thtink it fair to say that each composer "used" his text with- out heing inspired by it. There is no insight, no illumination. There is only tremendous co,mpetence.

Igor Strawinsky: Two Songs for Bari. tone and Orchestra. New York: Boosey & Hawkes, 1953. [Score, 7 p.; $1.50]

These are the two Verlaine songs writ. ten for blaritone and piano in 1910; pub- lshed by Jurgenson as Strawinsky's Opus 9, with French, Russian, German, and English texts; reportedly orches- trated circa 1914 but not released in that version; and finally set for strings with pais of flutes, clarinets, and hoxms in 1953. The first song, La bonne chan- son, appeared as Jurgenson's Op. 9, No. 2, entitled La lune blanche and parenthetically subtitled La bonne chan- son. The second, Sagesse, was Op. 9, No. 1, entitled Un grand sormmeil noir snd subtitled Sagesse. Now only Ver- laine's Frenoh is given; there are some adjustments of prosody; a beautiful eighth rest is substituted for a sonorous low F in the original piano part; a simple appoggiatura in the voice replaces a portamente, though aother portamento remains; metronome indications replace italian tempo terms; and a few nuances are deleted.

A comparison of the orchestration with the original piano accompaniment reveals Strawinsky's oo siness as he translates fTom the language of the keyboard to that of instrujbents blown and bowed. As one would expect, lines emerge from the blocks of piano harmony; but they ane the lines that only Strawinsky, not you or 1, would draw.

Ernst Toch: There Is a Season to Everything. Canzonetta for (mezo-) so- prano, flute, violin, clarinet, and violon- cello. Los Angeles: Affiliated Musicians, Inc., 1953. [Score, 7 p., $2.00; parts, $2.00]

Neither opus number nor date identi- fies these 91 bars in %/4. Toch might have written them almost any tinme, though theifr Gemiitlichkeit suggests the relaxed

mood and mild effort of the years just preceding his reGenit grand outburst of symphonism. By Gemiitlichkeit I refer (1) to the tempo which, in the absence of any printed indication whatsoever, I take to be approximately that of a Lindler or a little slwer, with flowing eighth notes; (2) to the tune, which also evokes rural Au-stria, or at least suburban Vienna, post-Schubert; (3) to the sequence of keys and the mnodulations that usher them in; (4) to the final hymn-tune cadence; and, not least of all, (5) to the treatment of a biblical text in a home-spun musical idiom, which recalls the folk-like treatment of religious themes in Des Knaben Wunderhorn. (The text, by the way, is identified as Ecclesiastes, Essay II; but I find it in chapter 3 of that book.)

Nkthing in the music actually deands the instruments called for, though they will sound very well indeed. I should think that the publisher would have pTinted a violin-alternative for flute, and viola for clarinet-the string quartet would be suitable. Or, going in the other direction, a clari,net alternative for violin, with hassoon pliaying the cello part. As for. the vocal, part, any (mezzo-) sop rano who sings it will need a high A; an ossia would hiave been practical. This is real Gebrauchsmusik and probably would be used still more often had more alternate parts been provided.

LAWRENCE MORTON

Jacques-Louis Monod: Passacaille foT Soprano and Seven Instxuments, Op. 1. (New Music Quarterly, Veol. 25, No. 2, Jan. 1952). New York: New Music Editioin, 1952. [Scoxe, 16 p.; $1.50]

Jtacques-Louls Monod is lready known to New York auctiences as one of the forernost younger exponents of the music of Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern. lin bhis Passacaille, Op. 1, the seasoned twelve-tone addict may notice many fea- tures reminiscent of Webern's work. Amoing these I mnight name the following: the specialized instrunmental enbsemle for which the work is <reated-flute, oboe, Clarinet, blassoon, trumpet, horn and piao; the isensitive, demanding, wide. range treatment of the soprano voioe; the-

284

This content downloaded from 185.2.32.141 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 04:50:12 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 3: Passacaille for Soprano and Seven Instruments, Op. 1by Jacques-Louis Monod

two-note motifs into which the row-forms are often broken; the use of mirror- patterns; the transparent orchestration with its many and well-spaoed rests; and the frequent tempo-changes, coupled with metric shifts, which flexibly follow the implied rhythms of the two texts (surrealistic poems by Rene Char and Paul Eluard). Nevertheless, it would be manifestly unfair to dismiss Monod as merely a Webern epigane. The work in

hand does reveal a distnct individuality which one would like to know better from other published works.

The pleasing farmat and appearance of the pages add materially to one's pleasure in studying this work and re- mind one anew of the worthy place which New Music publications hould hold in libraries desiring a truly repre- sentative coverage of conterporary music.

DIKA NEWLIN

SONG COLLECTIONS Noel Coward: The Noel Coward Song Book. Wiith an introduction & annota- tions by Noel Coward; illustrated in co1our & black & white by Gladys Cal- throp; frontispiece portrait by Clemence Dane. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1953. [312 p., illus., music; $7.50]

When discussing The Rodgers and Hart Song Book in the issue of NoTEs for June 1952 (p. 401), the sociological importance of these collections for the history of musical comedy in New York was stressed. As an Englishman, Coward might be supposed to fall outside of that main pattern, but anyone who man- aged to catch a faiT proportion of the better musical cotmedies and revues in New York during the late twenties and early thirties knows that in oine respect Coward 'had a grer impact on our light music than any other composer ex- cept Cole Porter. Thi-s is not to say that musically Coward comes even close to such native composers as Berlin, Kern, and Gershwin, but like Cole Porter he wrote his aown lyrics, and it is generally the deft .sophistioation of the words that lends distinction to the best of his songs. Moss Hart and Ira Gershwin had been working in somewhat the same direction, but Coward and Porter had the tremen- dous advantage of creating both words and music simultaneously, and as a con- sequence they seem to have been able to oap the genenal verbal revolution. Before they were through, even such old hands as Kern and Berlin changed their ways and began slicking up their lyrics.

If it is advantageous for the same in- dividual to write both the words and music of a song, it is still better when

he has sufficient talent to do the enatire show. "Someday I'II Find Youl" from Private Lives has probably been played and recorded as often as any stage song of the period, but it only achieves its maximum effect when performed in its context in the play. The episode in- cludes that often quoted line, "Strange how potent cheap music is," and as the scene is recorded on Victor 36034A, no observation could be more clearly sub- stantiaited. Gertrude Lawrence negotiates the complete song once in her own in- iimitable if somewhat precarious fashion, but it is used as background music throughout most of the disc, and it is hard to ;say whether it is the song or Coward'is brittle dialogue that contri- butes most to the total effect. One thing is absolutely certain, however, and that is th.at the combination is infinitely more "potent" than, either component taken separately. The same heightening of effect is also apparent on two other Vic- tor discs, 36191-92, with scens from "Shadow Play" and "Family Album."

In his introduction, Mr. Coward boasts of taking only a single lesson in music 'theory. On learning that Ebenezer Prout had forbiddlen parallel fifiths, he never went back for a second lesson. Even at that time, his main love was the theater and acting, with music contributing to the total effect buit usually merely as a secondary elemnent. Whet-her it comes as a cauise or re-sult, a comparison of the recordings makes it clear that Coward found his best interpreters among actors rather than among singers. Neither Lily Pons in, the complete recording of Con- versation Piece (Columbia SL-163) nor

285

This content downloaded from 185.2.32.141 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 04:50:12 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions