A Manifesto for the ‘Analysis for Composers’ Master
Class
From Jacques Barzun, Berlioz Vol 2, P.73,74
Feeling as he did
about systems and pedantry and knowing history, Berlioz naturally
refused to limit the scope of either music or modern music.
“As for my
own confession of faith, is it not in my works? In what I
have done and what I have not done? What music is today, you
know as well as I do; what it will be, neither you nor I can
tell.... Music is ... like the antique Andromeda, divinely
naked and beautiful, whose burning glances break into many
colored rays by shining through her tears. Chained to a rock
on the edge of a boundless sea, she awaits the conquering
Perseus who will break her chains and destroy the Chimera
named Routine.... I believe that by now the monster is getting
old: his motions are not so energetic as of yore, his heavy
paws slip on the edge of Andromeda’s Rock. And when the
devoted lover of the sublime captive has restored her to Greece,
at the risk of seeing his passion repaid with cold indifference,
it will be vain for neighboring satyrs to laugh at his ardor
and cry: ‘Leave her in chains! How do you know that once
freed she will be yours? In bondage she is easier to possess....’
The loving lover wants not to wrest but to receive. He will
save Andromeda chastely, and would even give her wings to
augment her liberty.”
Berlioz declined
to bind himself by a program and assume the role of leader of
a school. His faith was clear from his deeds and parables and
strong without the buttressing of a cosmic philosophy. Berlioz’
decision to stand on his accomplishments rather than on a platform
appears as sound judgement now that the theorizing of the Wagnerian
Futurists and all their avant-garde descendants appears with
all its suicidal inconsistencies.... How could he, arguing for
freedom, be a party to boxing up his art within a creed?
Human Beings: their
hopes, purposes and emotions are not told about by music; music
transfixes those hopes, purposes, etc. elaborates them, gives
them enduring form and self-renewing vigor. Music is the equivalent
of ... not an imitation of ... the lived experience.
Music: Transfixing,
elaborating, giving enduring form and self-renewing vigor to
... movements of the human spirit. Jacques Barzun, 1971 (Critical
Questions)
The “Music
of the Future” cult set Wagner atop a pyramid of musical
dinosaurs whom it declared extinct like ... Gluck, Mozart, Beethoven,
Weber and ... Berlioz! To Princess Carolyne (Liszt’s companion
[and no friend to Wagner!])
Berlioz replies,
“You propound
in regard to music a paradoxical theory of ‘ancestors’
and ‘descendants’ which, if you will allow me to
say so, is at once palpably absurd and a libel against me.
It is as if you accused me with philosophical calm of being
a liar and a thief. This made me indignant. I admire with
passion many works by the descendants and I heartily detest
many illustrious ancestors given over to what is false and
ugly.... Times, periods, and nationalities are all one to
me, and nothing would be easier for me than to prove it ...
let us drop these arbitrary systems designed to forward a
special cause....”
You see, Berlioz
was free, and as Barzun tells us, we may be sure that Berlioz
grasped the relation between his thirty years of singlehanded
innovation to this recent burst of self-deceived futurists.
Debussy: Inventor
of the transformable musical content.... He is to Wagner what
the StarTrek’s Halodeck is to Expressionist painting.
I learned about
“renewable and transformable musical space” [re-inventable,
multi-dimensional space] from Bill Karlins and Howard Rovics.
Later I encountered it directly from Stefan Wolpe. The Debussy-revolution
opened up the way for this development.
Debussy’s ‘method’ is, in fact, ‘serial’
i.e., one new idea following another in sequence.
This is a logical
development of the “free musical discourse” described
and discussed by Berlioz. Even Schoenberg’s and Wolpe’s
methods were refinements and extensions of Debussy’s way.
Sound (capital S!) in Debussy’s work comes forward as a
structural consideration partly in response to the absence of
the institutionalized cliches of tonal-form-building concepts.
And this too comes from Berlioz.
The formalism Debussy
opposed was the prevailing institutional academic view that
“Tonal Common Practice” was inviolable. This Pedant’s
Textbook Scheme of Tonality was a theoretical fiction. Debussy
unmasked and attacked this logically indefensible position.
“Music Theory” as a compartmentalized subject is an
offspring of Newton’s “mechanical universal law”
fallacy later overturned by Einstein. It blinded even Schoenberg
forcing him to embrace “system” where it was not needed.
What in the world was wrong with Pierrot Lunaire anyway, Arnold?
Return
to Essays Page | Return
to Teaching Page
|
