Portrait of Debussy 3, Debussy and Schoenberg

Embed Size (px)

Citation preview

  • 8/18/2019 Portrait of Debussy 3, Debussy and Schoenberg

    1/6

    Portrait of Debussy. 3: Debussy and Schoenberg

    Robert Henderson

    The Musical Times, Vol. 108, No. 1489. (Mar., 1967), pp. 222-226.

    Stable URL:

    http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0027-4666%28196703%29108%3A1489%3C222%3APOD3DA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-T

    The Musical Times is currently published by Musical Times Publications Ltd..

    Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available athttp://www.jstor.org/about/terms.html. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtainedprior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content inthe JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

    Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained athttp://www.jstor.org/journals/mtpl.html.

    Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printedpage of such transmission.

    The JSTOR Archive is a trusted digital repository providing for long-term preservation and access to leading academic journals and scholarly literature from around the world. The Archive is supported by libraries, scholarly societies, publishers,and foundations. It is an initiative of JSTOR, a not-for-profit organization with a mission to help the scholarly community takeadvantage of advances in technology. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

    http://www.jstor.orgThu Aug 16 18:26:17 2007

    http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0027-4666%28196703%29108%3A1489%3C222%3APOD3DA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Thttp://www.jstor.org/about/terms.htmlhttp://www.jstor.org/journals/mtpl.htmlhttp://www.jstor.org/journals/mtpl.htmlhttp://www.jstor.org/about/terms.htmlhttp://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0027-4666%28196703%29108%3A1489%3C222%3APOD3DA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-T

  • 8/18/2019 Portrait of Debussy 3, Debussy and Schoenberg

    2/6

    Portrait

    of

    Debussy 3

    by

    Robert Henderson

    DEBUSSY

    A N D SCHOENBERG

    In this series of articles we attempt to build a com-

    posite portrait of Debussy the musician through

    examination of the very diffe rent impressions he left

    on the music of other composers: in general, and also

    in particular b y documentation of what wo rks they

    heard, and when, their statements, and the reflections

    found in their own compositions.

    T o try to bring abou t some permanent reconciliation

    between Debussy and Schoenberg has become an

    increasingly tempting proposition. Developments in

    musical technique in recent years have made it

    abundantly clear that both composers, starting out

    from their own very individual responses to the

    music of Wagner, or more specifically to the highly

    contag ious fever of Tristanism,' were moving

    roughly in the same direction, even if along quite

    different routes. An d then too it would seem that

    the human mind feels an instinctive urge to draw

    regular patterns of interlocking relationships, to

    trace clean lines of descent an d well-ordered spheres

    of influence, to discover intimate connections where

    perhap s none actually exists.

    As yet, however, the direct confrontation of

    Debussy and Schoenberg has almost invariably

    resulted simply in a number of vague statements

    abou t the emancipat ion of the dissonance, abou t the

    suspen sion o r 'liquidation' of tonality, in fact state-

    ments which could apply equally well to Sk ryabin or

    Reger or m any other com posers working during the

    crucial years which immediately preceded the first

    world war. Rath er than seek ou t wh at could well be

    merely hypothetical links between the two, it would

    seem the n t o be much more realistic t o begin by just

    accepting the opinion expressed by Edward Lock-

    speiser to th e 1962 conference on Debussy's role in

    the evolution of 20th-century music that 'the gulf

    between Debussy and Schoenberg is indeed

    terrifying'.'

    In general Debussy appears to have regarded

    Schoenberg with a certain amount of suspicion,

    while Schoenberg's view of Debussy was one of

    respect, tinged with a growing personal antagon ism.

    Just how far these opinions were based on actual

    know ledge of each o ther's music is difficult to decide,

    for there is relatively little factual documentation,

    and w hat there is is at times contradicto ry. Did

    Debussy, fo r example, have any really direct experi-

    ence of Schoenberg's work?

    It was apparently the young Edgar Varese who

    introduced Debussy to the music of Schoenberg,

    and to Debussy it was as shocking as the experi-

    m e nt s o f t he It al ia n F u t ~ r i s t s . ~ arese remembers

    having show n him to th the Three Piano Pieces op 11

    'see Elliott Zuckerman: The Firs t Hundred Years of W agner 's

    'Trisran' (New York, 1964)

    2Debussq. et i'd~.olu rion e la ntusique au X Xe si2r'le (Paris, 1965)

    and the Five Orchestral Pieces op 16. Debussy's

    friend Ro bert G odet ad ds to this that Debussy was

    certainly familiar with the first two quartets, the

    Gurrelieder, the Orchestral Pieces and, if he is not

    mistaken, Pierrot lunaire. On another occasion

    Go de t gives a slightly less precise list-the f i ~ s t

    quartet, several songs, the Orchestral Pieces and

    perhaps also Pierrot lunaire. Debussy's biographer

    Leon Vallas, on the other hand, insists that accord-

    ing to a statement made by Debussy himself in

    December 1913, at that time he still 'knew nothing

    of Schoenberg and intended only to read through

    one of the qua r te ts o f t ha t co m po ~e r ' . ~ ne further

    piece of information, and one which has been

    quoted on many occasions, completes all that we

    know a t present abo ut Debussy's attitude towards

    Schoenberg. In his

    Expositions and Developments

    Stravinsky recalls that when he told Debussy of his

    enthusiasm for

    Pierrot,

    which he had heard in Berlin

    in 1912, Debussy merely stared at him and said

    nothing, and Debussy may well have had this

    particular occasion in mind when he wrote to Ro ber t

    God et in October 1914:

    Just now we may wonder into whose arms music

    may fall. Th e youn g Russian school offers us

    hers. But in my op inion they have become as un-

    Ru ssian as possible. Stravinsky himself is

    dangerously leaning in the direction of Schoen-

    berg.

    From this it is clear that Debussy profoundly dis-

    trusted all that Schoenberg represented, and it has

    been suggested that his distrust was produced more

    by his own nationalistic fervo ur than by any careful

    exam ination of Schoenberg's music.6 Certainly his

    feelings towards Schoenberg contrast sharply with

    those expressed by Ravel at abo ut the sam e time:

    I am l it tle concerned abou t the fact the M onsieur

    Schoenberg is an Austrian. H e remains a highly

    significant composer whose interesting dis-

    coveries have had a beneficial influence on

    certain composers from the allied countries and

    am on g us as well. '

    Curiously enough Schoenberg's own rather chauvin-

    istic frame of mind has also been brought forward,

    by H . H . Stuckenschmidt, as a part ial explanation of

    his lack of sympathy with Debussy's creative

    p o s i t i o ~ l . ~

    Schoenberg men tions Debussy for the first time in

    the closing two ch apters of his Harmonielehre (pub-

    lished in 1911) which deal respectively with the

    whole-tone scale and chords built out of fourths

    3Lockspeiser: De buss j~: is life arid niind, Vol 2 (London, 1965)

    p.196

    'Leon Vallas: Claude Debussy el son temps (Paris, 1932) p.351

    5Lockspeiser Vol 11 p.185

    Vean Barraque:

    Debussy

    (Paris, 1962) p.175

    'Lockspeiser Voi

    11

    p.216

    8 D e b u s a , et I'dvolulion p.331

    .150

  • 8/18/2019 Portrait of Debussy 3, Debussy and Schoenberg

    3/6

    Schoenberg b y Egon Schiele

    (Quarten-Akkorde). And what he has to say there

    makes quite explicit the essential nature of the

    virtually unbridgeable gulf between their two modes

    of thought. Fundamentally the division between

    them was one of tradition, of the closed, self-

    generating, severely dialectical German tradition as

    opposed to the open, much more eclectic tradition

    of the French, who were willing to absorb new ideas

    from many different sources, from the Russians, for

    example, or the far east.

    His discussion of his own use of the whole-tone

    scale, which he believes was simply in the air at the

    time, the natural outcome of all previous musical

    events, is strictly formal, approached always from

    the point of view of logical developments in har-

    mony and counterpoint. And he says quite cate-

    gorically: 'I have never known any exotic m~ s i c . ~

    Where the wholetone scale and the whole-tone

    chord occur in his symphonic poem Pelleas und

    Melisande, which was written in 1902, the same year

    as Debussy s opera was first performed but at least

    three or four years before I had heard any of his

    music ,1° they develop in a purely harmonic/

    melodic way, out of the form, as a means of transi-

    tion from one chord to another or as a natural

    influence on the contour of the melody.ll

    Debussy, however, uses his chords and scale, like

    Strauss in Salome, more as an impressionistic

    means of expression, as a timbre .12 The whole-tone

    scale, he adds, has predominantly a colouristic

    effect, and Debussy is undoubtedly right to use it

    in this way, for in his work i t is always effective and

    bea~tiful . ~ But a t the same time he is astonished

    that Debussy should hope to discover nature

    behind art, that he did not realize that to regain

    nature one must go forward and not back. And

    then wmes a comment very characteristic of Ger-

    man idealism,

    'I

    believe that there is something much

    higher than nature. *

    In the chapter devoted to the Quarten-Akkorde

    he again returns to the subject of Debussy, whose

    imagination seems to him to be particularly sensitive

    to the mysterious, very fine and tender nuances

    suggested by this novel chord. What is striking in

    Debussy is the extraordinary power with which he

    expresses his impressionism through these chords.

    Indeed they seem to be inseparable from his new

    way of thought, so much so in fact that one can

    consider them to be his intellectual property

    it really sounds as if nature itself would speak .16

    Although these scattered sentences from the

    Harmonielehre suggest that by 1910 Schoenberg had

    reached a clear understanding of the main features

    of Debussy s creative character and of the main

    differences between them as composers, he in fact

    refers specifically to only one Debussy work, the

    Schoenberg:

    Harmonielehre,

    3rd ed (Vienna, 1922)

    p.467

    leibid

    p.470

    b i d

    p.471

    ibid

    p.471

    laibid

    9.475

    %bid

    p 474

    lSibid

    p.482-3

    opera Pellkas et Mklisande.

    And this inevitably

    raises the question of just how much of Debussy s

    music Schoenberg actually knew, what other works

    had he seen or heard. This problem has already

    attracted the attention of the American scholar

    William Austin who has carefully collected and

    collated all the available information.16 In the

    Harmonielehre Schoenberg insists that he first came

    across Debussy s music in about the year

    1906.

    And

    he returns to this point in his obituary notice of

    Alban Berg written in

    1936:

    in the early years of the

    century while he was his pupil, Berg, he says, had

    occupied himself extraordinarily intensively with

    contemporary music, with Mahler, Strauss, and

    perhaps even Debussy whose work I did not know .17

    Although it is not known for certain, Schoenberg

    could well have been at the concert which Debussy

    himself conducted in Vienna in 1910 (it included

    L'aprPs-midi d'u n faune, Zbkria and the Petite Suite).

    Mrs Helene Berg, however, recalls quite clearly that

    she did not see Schoenberg at the first Vienna per-

    formance of Debussy s Pellkas in 191 1 she did see

    Webern there. (It is perhaps of some interest too

    that Melisande was sung in this performance by

    Marie Gutheil-Schoder who was also the soloist in

    the first performance of Schoenberg s second string

    quartet of 1907-8.

    After examining all the relevant facts (which are

    lucidly diagnosed in his article) Austin reaches the

    unconfirmed but nevertheless persuasive conclusion

    that Schoenberg wuld well have derived his notions

    about Debussyisme not so much from direct con-

    tact with Debussy s music as through his experience

    of Puccini

    (La Bolrdme and Butterfly had been pre-

    sented by Mahler at the Vienna Opera

    in

    1903

    and

    I6His ull report appears in

    Debussy et I'Pvolurion

    p.317.

    Willi Reich:

    Albm Berg

    (London, 1965) p.29

  • 8/18/2019 Portrait of Debussy 3, Debussy and Schoenberg

    4/6

    1907) and above al l through Dukas's Ariane

    t

    Barbe-bleue

    which his brother-in-law Alexander

    Zemlinsky had condu cted in Vienna in 1908. Austin

    also points out the strange and extremely intriguing

    fact tha t after his initial contacts with Debussy, w hich

    We

    are pleased to

    announce

    that Study

    Scores are now

    OLIVIER MESSIAEN

    Piano Solo part

    27 6

    Piano Solo part

    22 6

    UNITED

    MUSI

    PUBLISHERS LTD

    were roughly contemporary with his second quartet,

    Schoenberg quickly abandoned any use in his own

    music of the whole-tone scale.

    In th e years following the first world w ar a decisive

    event in Viennese musical life was the formation by

    Berg, Webern, Eduard Steuermann (a devoted

    Schoenberg pupil who was also a notable Debussy

    pianist) and Erwin Ratz (another young pupil who

    in 1916 had bought a score of Debussy's Pellias on

    Schoenberg's recommendation) of the famous

    Society for Private Musical Perform ance. Within

    two years the Society had already given 21 of

    Debussy's works, including the violin son ata, which

    was rehearsed by Webern, and a two-piano version

    of the Nocturires part of which Schoenberg quoted

    some years later in his Structura/ Fui?ctions of

    Harmony as an example of the 'combination of two

    melody lines without the addition of complete

    harmonies'.ls

    Many of these pieces were performed in specially

    prepared arrangements suitable for the Society's

    limited resources, at least one of which was made by

    Schoenberg himself (no on e seems to remember

    which work it actually was). Bu t now , however.

    with the formulation of the 12-note method, he had

    moved even further beyond any possible identifica-

    tion with Debussy's world of ideas. H e still ackno w-

    ledges Debussy's importan ce as a pioneer, but sh ows

    a growing lack of sympathy, a growing bitterness

    an d even misunderstanding.

    H e mentions, fo r instance, 'the great development

    in orchestration which took place through the

    achievements of M ahler, Strauss, Debussy and their

    successors',19 and in a note of the early twenties for

    a projected manual of orchestration he includes

    Debussy among a l ist of composers from whose

    works examples would have to be chosen .? In dis-

    cussing post-Wagnerian harmony in his lecture on

    12-note composition (1946) published in the

    volume Style nd Idea he again refers in a general

    way to Debussy's harmonic practice:

    On e no longer expected preparations of W agner's

    dissonances or resolutions of Strauss's chords;

    one was not disturbed by Debussy's non-

    functional narmony.

    But he is severely critical of that modification of

    Wagnerian harmony which he describes as 'impres-

    sionistic', and of which he says Debussy was the

    most notable exponent , harmonies which, without

    having in themselves any structural significance, are

    used principally to enrich the colour and to express

    sensations a nd images, these images and sensations,

    although basically extra-musical, becoming the

    main constructive

    element^.^'

    H e is too, in another

    lBSchoenberg:Slrucfurai Functions of Har n~ony L o n d o n , 1954)

    p 102

    'ORufer:

    he Wor ks o f Arnold Schoenberg

    (London, 1962)

    p . 72

    Oibidp. 138

    E'Schoenberg: Sr.v/e and Iden (New York , 1950) p .103-4

    224

  • 8/18/2019 Portrait of Debussy 3, Debussy and Schoenberg

    5/6

    essay in Style and Idea strongly opposed to a

    certain kind of harmonic repetition which he con-

    trasts unfavourably with the technique of contin-

    uously developing variation. And he places Debussy

    together with composers like Mendelssohn, Schu-

    mann and Gounod, who, al though their original i ty

    was rich and dist inct ive enough, had n o ambit ion to

    b e r e v o l u t i o n a r i e ~ . ~ ~

    Here on e encou nters a basic misunderstanding of

    Debussy s position which is given even m ore force-

    ful, if still respectful expression in his bitter assess-

    ment of his own achievement compared to that of

    the French composer in an important fragment on

    nationalism in music:

    While Debussy did succeed in rousing the

    Romance and Slavic peoples to oppose Wagner,

    he was u nable t o free himself fro m Wagner s

    influence; his most interesting discoveries can be

    used only within the framework of Wagnerian

    form and organization . Also, it shou ld not be

    overlooked that much of the harmony used by him

    was also discovered independently in Germany.

    No wonder; for it was a logical sequence of

    Wagnerian harmony, a further step along the

    road pointed out by W agn er. no one has yet

    noticed that, in my music, which originated on

    German soil uninfluenced by foreign elements,

    there is to be foun d a n art which, as it most

    effectively oppo ses the fight for hegemony waged

    by the Rom anc e and Slavic nations, has stemmed

    completely from the tradi t ions of German

    i h~d 191

    P 3 R ~ t b r

    . 2 4

    Schoenberg, then sees himself as standing in direct

    opposi t ion to Debussy, as the upholder of the

    authentic German tradit ion against that of the

    French or Russians.

    And a personal confrontation

    of the two would seem to su pp ort and even intensify

    this point of view, disclosing few positive links but

    rathe r revealing with a startling clarity their terri-

    fying separateness. In either case it is impossible to

    speak of any reciprocal influence. Obviously in the

    crucial years before the first world war both com-

    posers played imp orta nt roles in the general revolu-

    tionary process whose character has not yet been

    fully explained, but th rough which the main features

    of the modern movement were finally established.

    For even when working with similar material, in

    their two composit ions on the

    Pelleas theme, in

    Schoenberg s first chamber symphony and the third

    of his Five O rchestral Pieces and Debussy s Voiles

    the results are totally different. On ly in the imagi-

    nation of a later generation has any reconciliation

    become possible, and it is in the music of a com-

    poser l ike Dallap~ colla r (through Webern) Boulez

    that the traditions represented by Debussy and

    Schoenberg have eventually dissolved into one

    another.

    In order to fi ll out this somewh at sketchy portrai t

    of Debussy seen through the eyes of Schoenberg it

    would perhaps be ap prop riate to look briefly at the

    reactions of Berg and Webern.

    In their letters and writings both were rather

    reticent o n the subject of Debussy (no doub t ou t of

    loyalty to Schoenb erg) but both, it seems, possessed

    a n l a k e

    If you are tired of the usual run of piano courses, and want something for beginners

    which is musically stimulating as well as technically instructive, this new progre ssive series will

    probab ly answer your needs. It is for the youngsters of today, and presents music as we see

    it now : based o n classical traditions which lead to th e contem porary scene.

    Ian Lake is distinguished both as a performer and teacher, noted for his classical and

    mo de m interpretations and for a fine technique. Th e first book assumes that the student is

    sitting at the keyboard for the first time, and M r Lake is concerned with musical development

    and feeling as much as with facility. He encourages the imagination with com position exercises,

    and abov e all feels that mu sic is to be enjoyed.

    Denis Matthews has contributed a foreword.

    Books 1 3 price 51-

    each

    Write for a brochure or inspection copies to:

    C H A P P E L L CO L T P

    5

    New Bond Street , London, W1

  • 8/18/2019 Portrait of Debussy 3, Debussy and Schoenberg

    6/6

    a much more searching knowledge of his music than

    did Schoenberg himself. To uncover traces of

    Debussy s influence in the music of Webern would

    require a completely new and extremely detailed

    investigation of the sources. But we do know from

    the researches of William Austin (the evidence can

    be found in his indispensable article to which

    I

    have

    already referred) that Webern listened to Debussy

    with real pleasure, that he had made a careful

    analysis of L apres-midi and the violin sonata, and

    tha t during the early 30 s he had hoped to conduct a

    performance of Le martyre de Saint-Sibast ien.

    With Berg we are on much more sure ground. He

    became interested in Debussy very early in his life,

    and we hardly need outside evidence of this interest

    -the music itself is sufficient. His use of the whole-

    tone scale, of parallel, unresolved dissonances in the

    song Nacht from the Seven Early Songs, written in

    1908 when he was 23, and the fluid impressionistic

    writing of the Three Orchestral Pieces (1914) stem

    quite clearly from Debussy. He acknowledged too

    that

    W o z z eck

    was a direct descendant of Debussy s

    Pell ias . This is perhaps most noticeable in the self-

    contained structure of the individual scenes and the

    connecting orchestral interludes; but it is just as

    obvious in the more general atmospheric character

    of the writing, both here and in the slightly later

    cantata to poems of Baudelaire, Der Wein.

    Particularly remarkable is the recent discovery

    of identical passages, of the same chord progression

    at the same pitch, stretching over two bars, in the

    movement Pour la danseuse aux crotales from

    Debussy s

    Epigraphes antiques

    and the last of Berg s

    songs Op

    4

    Berg s song was written in 1908 and

    published for the first time in 1910 in the

    Blaue

    Reiter volume together with music by Schoenberg

    and Webern. Debussy s

    Epigraphes antiques

    date

    from 1914, but were based on material which he had

    used in 1900 to accompany a recitation of the

    Chansons de Bilitis. The passage in question, how-

    ever, does not occur in this earlier version; but seems

    to have been a much later addition.

    Is the similarity of these two bars in Debussy and

    Berg simply coincidence, part of the general cultural

    climate of the era? Or did Debussy know Berg s

    song (with his interest in modern art, he could well

    have seen the Blaue Reiter publication)? Was it a

    matter of unconscious or even conscious memory?

    These questions are for the moment insoluble. As

    time passes many comparable inter-connections will

    undoubtedly be brought to light, but for the present

    so surprising a discovery as this serves to remind us

    just how little we as yet know of a decade which

    still retains its secret.

    H .

    H. Stuckenschmidt: Debussy or Berg? The Mystery of a

    Chord Progression ,

    The

    Musical uarterly Vol

    51,

    July 1962,

    p.453

    The next article will appear in May; previous ones are:

    Debussy and Stravinsky by Jeremy Noble (Jan 1966)

    Debussy and Bartok by Anthony Cross (Feb 1966)

    'ATHALIA'

    COMES

    TO

    LONDON

    by

    Winton Dean

    Handel s Athalia will be given at the Elizabeth Hall

    on March

    8

    a t

    7.45.

    Anthony Lewis conducts the

    Ambrosian Singers, Jennifer Vyvy an is Athalia , as in

    the performance at Oxf ord on

    2

    July

    1964

    during the

    English Bach Festival.

    The fate of Athalia is sadly symptomatic of the mis-

    apprehension that dogged Handel for generations.

    The third of his English oratorios, and the only one

    apart from

    Messiah

    not written for London, it was

    composed in 1733 and performed in the Sheldonian

    Theatre during Handel s visit to Oxford in July of

    that year. Although it enjoyed a number of per-

    formances during the later 18th century, it has

    seldom been heard since. The Novello vocal score,

    published in 1878, took more than 50 years to clear

    a meagre thousand copies, and has never been re-

    printed. There appears to have been no perform-

    ance in London during the present century, or

    perhaps for many years before that. This is a singu-

    lar record for a country that used to pride itself on

    its choral societies and its Handelian tradition.

    The explanation would seem to be that Handel s

    tremendous dramatic design failed to satisfy

    a

    public eager for the processed meat of edification.

    For

    Athalia

    is a major masterpiece, and the first

    oratorio in which Handel threw off his fetters and

    demonstrated the range and grandeur of the new

    form. Like Esther it is based on a late play by Racine,

    who found his inspiration in Greek tragedy with its

    double role of the chorus as actor and commentator.

    In this and other respects it established the pattern

    for the later dramatic oratorios. The English text of

    Samuel Humphreys is verbally maladroit, but it

    preserves the main lines of the play.

    The subject is the liberation of Judah from the

    tyranny of Queen Athalia, daughter of Ahab and

    Jezebel, who has usurped the throne, installed a

    priest of Baal in her palace and sought to liquidate

    the royal line. The High Priest Joad (Jehoiada) and

    his wife Josabeth, supported by a patriotic group,

    remain true to Jehovah; they have concealed the boy

    Joas, the rightful heir, and brought him up secretly

    without informing him of his identity. When

    Athalia, suspicious and tortured by dreams of dis-

    aster, discovers Joas and plans to abduct him, they

    frustrate her by proclaiming him King and winning

    the army and people to their side. The action takes