Musical Romanticism and the Twentieth Century

Two Centuries in One
Musical Romanticism and the Twentieth Century
Von der Hochschule für Musik und Theater Rostock/ From the Rostock University of Music and Theatre
zur Erlangung des Grades eines/ in fulfillment of the degree of
Doktors der Philosophie/Doctor of Philosophy -- Dr. phil./Ph. D –
genehmigte Dissertation/approved dissertation von/by
Erstgutachter/Main Reader:.......................Prof. Dr. Hartmut Möller
Zweitgutachter/External Reader:............................Dr. Robin Elliott (University of Toronto)
Tag der Einreichung/Date Submitted......24.01.2013
magna cum laude
Printed by McNally Robinson
Historicism and evolutionary progress, twentieth-century style The academic decline of the “dissonance” paradigm Popularity and status: Two separate canons? Compromising composers and interfering dictators: Bumps in the road to emancipation Progress and the permanent revolution
Chapter 2: Persistent Romanticism and the Romantic Revival 93
Regressive romanticism after the dissonant revolution Twentieth-century romanticism in an academic context
The Romantic Revival in the late twentieth century Independent record companies and the Romantic Revival Two major-label projects Record critics and the Romantic Revival
Chapter 3: Some Problems of Definition 181
Late romantic composers as modernists Walter Simmons’ framework for defining twentieth- century romanticism Nineteenth-century romanticism and the problem of Unterhaltungsmusik Kravitt's conundrum: Popular romantic composers versus the idea of romantic alienation Romanticism as a moving target: Problems in the classification of Debussy, Prokofiev and Busoni
Neoromanticism and the revolt against romantic notions of innovation and originality
Chapter 4: The Contemporaneousness of the Non- Contemporaneous (Die Gleichzeitigkeit des Ungleichzeitigkeiten) 256
The death of romanticism and the passage from the old to the new Morgan’s time line Dahlhaus's “no-man's land”: The generation gap between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries The third way: The Schoenberg-Stravinsky polarity and the Immer-noch-Romantiker
Chapter 5: Romantic Emotion and Melody in the Modern Era 302
Emotional classicism versus dry Stravinskian neoclassicism: A loss of context Cracks in the anti-emotional facade New defenders of old emotion: “Brazen” romanticism in the twentieth century and the long tradition of “The Last Romantic” Melody as a reminder of old Romanticism
Chapter 6: Twentieth-Century Musical Vocabulary and the linguistic analogy 361
“Dead tonality” in the twenty-first century New languages or new turns of speech? The rate of change in musical language versus spoken language Common language, innovation, and intellectual status Sergei’s shadow: Slow may be okay after all
Chapter 7: Conclusion 423
Bibliography 438
Abstract
n outstanding feature of twentieth-century music has been the divergence of European “art” music into two general areas which do not overlap to the same extent
that they do in previous centuries. That is, the performing repertoire is at odds, sometimes dramatically so, with a competing canon of works considered to be of greater importance from an evolutionary historical point of view. The practical result has been what one commentator recently called “two centuries in one.”
A
Few composers were considered more untimely than those who persisted in using the “old” tonal and romantic-sounding idioms. However, the best of them contributed many core works to the daily repertoire, and we have now arrived at the point where minor twentieth-century romantics are also proving to be of strong interest, particularly for discerning connoisseurs. Of comparable significance, the once-common progress narrative of musical evolution, which hindered the academic reception of twentieth- century romantic music for so long, has been almost completely abandoned today. We have also reached the point where some of the major romantic figures have been recast as modern or even modernist.
With the rise in academic respectability of areas like film and pop music, the use of “out-dated” tonal traditions in twentieth- century music can now be seen in a more positive light. If it is now safe to say that film music and other popular genres were, to use a linguistic analogy, “conversing” in the musical language of their time, one can also reasonably conclude that, at the most basic
ix
level, the musical language of leading modern romantic composers of concert music also belonged to its time.
The term “romantic” has been controversial for over two centuries, and for twentieth-century music its application becomes problematic in the extreme. However, since the word was used so extensively in the modern era, both positively and negatively, I have chosen to embrace it and examine what it has meant to the classical music world after 1900. I have also offered a few thoughts on what romanticism’s unusually strong presence in the modern era may signify for future historians, not least in how they define the crucially important idea of modernism itself.
x
Acknowledgements
t is not possible to complete a doctoral dissertation without the help of others, not least the many colleagues and friends with whom I have enjoyed stimulating discussions relating to
the different themes found in the book that follows. But above all, I would like to take this opportunity to thank my Doktorvater, Prof. Dr. Hartmut Möller for his unfailing encouragement and guidance over the last few years. I also wish to thank Robin Elliott, who was the first to oversee my ambition to tackle some of the difficult and often highly contentious issues of twentieth-century historiography during my Masters Degree, and at various points thereafter continued to encourage me to go further.
I
Going back earlier in life, my two main piano teachers have also proved to be a vital impetus in the long journey that culminated in this study of twentieth-century romanticism. First, I must remember Helen McMurphy, a small-town piano teacher in Northern Saskatchewan. Little did she realize what profound effect Harold C. Schonberg's The Great Pianists would have on her over- eager ten-year-old Pathetique-attempting pupil when he spied it on her shelf, begged to take it home, and proceeded to read it many times over. That book did much to fire my imagination, and it is not an exaggeration to say that it permanently shaped my musical outlook. It also has the distinction of being the earliest read book in my bibliography.
Within four years, Mrs. McMurphy was packing me off to to the nearest University professor 200 km away. And so, for the next nine years it was the British pianist Robin Harrison who continued to shape my musical outlook. Besides helping me master
xi
the complete Chopin Etudes and other standard literature, his love of the great early twentieth-century pianists, violinists, conductors and singers also resonated deeply with me. Especially impressive was his vast record collection, which I spent many hours examining. His musical knowledge in a wide variety of genres was truly formidable, and much of it came from his library, as he readily admitted. I remember him with much fondness, and sadness, as he was never able to see this book. Several years ago, I commented to him that I was trying to solve the problem of how to defend twentieth-century romanticism. He answered in a weary voice, Yes, somebody should do that, dear boy. I like to think that he would have approved of the final result.
Also to be mentioned here are Maureen DuWors and Walter Kreyszig, both of whom gave me crucial help at a critical time near the end of my undergrad years. I also want to thank my old Grade 8 industrial arts teacher, Mr. Sontheim, who kept in touch over the years and recently offered some practical support as this dissertation was nearing completion.
Last but not least, I would like to give a sincere and heartfelt thank you to my family, and above all my beloved wife, Elation, whose longsuffering and forebearance helped me through some difficult times. Without such a bedrock of support, this dissertation would never have been completed, let alone started.
Acknowledgements
xii
Introduction
n 1995, historian Glenn Watkins took a moment to reflect on the nature of scholarly priorities in the field of twentieth- century music history writing. “In retrospect,” he observed,I
it is inevitable that a limited number of works tend to stand out as emblematic of the more general crisis that seemed to suggest the final overthrow of the Romantic Age. No such event ever took place, of course, but the degree to which the Romantic Agony lingered on is seldom dwelt on in the writing of the history of twentieth-century music.1
What follows, then, is an exploration of what Watkins called “lingering” romanticism. However (and leaving aside the “agony” caricature), we will revise his adjective slightly: We will begin with the observation that romanticism did not merely linger but actually continued to flourish in many quarters, often at the expense of radical new ways of composing which allegedly displaced it. Watkins calls his lingering stream “romantic,” and so will we. For some recent scholars who tend to see major early twentieth-century composers such as Richard Strauss and Jean Sibelius as “modern” rather than “romantic,” Watkins’ way of applying the term has now become somewhat old-fashioned and even problematic. But this too should be nothing new, for romanticism over the centuries has always been a much-contested and imprecise concept. Despite all of that, pondering the idea (in 1 Glenn Watkins, Soundings: Music in the Twentieth Century (New York:
Schirmer Books, 1995), 170.
1
the sense that Watkins conceives it) can still be useful as a springboard for discussing a kind of modern-era music that advanced thinkers over the decades have tended to see as embarrassingly outmoded, and which has long been problematic for historians who have preferred to evaluate twentieth-century music according to what is still occasionally referred to as the “progressive” viewpoint.
For our purposes, the term “romanticism” will be used to represent the general sound world of an international stream of composition that was extraordinarily resilient and diverse – too diverse, perhaps, to be seen as a single stream. The immediate reaction from some readers will no doubt be: How can you call this or that twentieth-century composer romantic? Well, I can only reply that this is not the ultimate point of our argument. After all, how can we call Brahms a romantic today when he had actually represented the “classic” stream in the late nineteenth century?2 Or better yet, how can we now call Mozart and Haydn “classics” when their contemporaries considered them to be romantics? More to the point, behind the seemingly perverse selection of vague basic terminology lies a larger problem that has not entirely gone away. Call them what you will, but there is no denying that “romantic” twentieth-century composers were long considered by many commentators to be the most stylistically out of place as far as the dominant currents of their era were concerned. That is a judgement we will directly challenge. As Watkins observed, romantic music was still being written in plentiful amounts in every decade of the twentieth century, and writers like him certainly seemed to know who the most romantic-sounding composers were.3 However, such figures tended to be absent from general historical accounts, as Watkins also confirmed.
2 The fifth edition of Grove still follows the pattern where Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Brahms are designated as classical, while Berlioz, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt and Wagner are romantic. See Nicholas Colmyn Gatty, “Romantic,” in Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 5th ed. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1954), 7:215.
3 This will be discussed further in chapters one and two.
Introduction
2
Arved Ashby began the preface to his 2004 book The Pleasure of Modernist Music with the frank admission that modernist music still had “popularity problems.”4 In a sense, one could say that the music of romantic composers in the modern era also experienced popularity problems as well. But the critical difference between the two factions (and “factions” is not too strong a word) was that the very public popularity of the romantics was a large part of the problem: Indeed, and to a degree unprecedented in music history, public popularity and commercial success after 1900 had now become major stumbling blocks that prevented many composers from being taken seriously in a deeper historical sense. Moreover, if lesser late-romantic composers could not match the immense popularity of major figures like Puccini, Rachmaninoff, and Strauss, that too could be cited as proof that they were out of touch with the spirit of their time. The romantics quite simply could not win. They were truly history’s losers.
My basic purpose, then, will be to directly tackle the general issue of twentieth-century romanticism in music, despite the enduring confusion in defining what romanticism really means. The arguments and illustrations that emerge in the following pages will be used to insist in the strongest possible terms that post-1900 romantic composers, and the stylistic features that still permeated their music, should be allowed to help define the era in which they actually flourished, even if this inevitably gives the twentieth century a much more romantic tinge than has hitherto been deemed acceptable in music historiography. We will go even further and state outright that anything less can only result in a historical caricature of the modern period in music history.
The following chapters are emphatically not intended to prove that radical modernism was of little import in the greater scheme of things: Film music, certainly, has proven otherwise, and has done much to give the most radical streams of composition a much-needed sense of social legitimacy (for which some present-
4 Arved Ashby, ed. The Pleasure of Modernist Music, (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2004), 1.
Introduction
3
day defenders of high modernism are increasingly grateful). Rather, what follows is a way of arguing that we need not be held hostage by what the great historian Richard Taruskin described as “the law of stylistic succession,” a concept that was entrenched in historical overviews throughout the twentieth century and more or less ensured that certain major composers, especially if writers thought they sounded too romantic, would be largely written out of historical accounts. My insistence on using the term romantic, then, is deliberately chosen as a way of highlighting a peculiarly twentieth-century problem. Hopefully, it will make a useful contribution toward seeing the post-1900 period in a manner that is able to properly acknowledge much music that is central to the repertoire but did not progress in the manner that some thinkers assumed was necessary. My goal, of course, can be seen as part of a much larger general project that scholars are now vigorously engaged in as they seek to move beyond the narrower parameters set by conventional historiography, which was traditionally built around the extreme dissonance of the atonal revolution – and to a certain extent around the dry and more moderately dissonant neoclassicism as well.
The strict application of the “law of stylistic succession” to music history has come under a great deal of scrutiny from musicologists in recent years. As Taruskin recalled in his new and epochal 4300-page Oxford History of Western Music, the formidable German philosopher Theodor Adorno had been an influential proponent of this law, and had helped to give it credibility in the battle over what was allowed to be deemed “modern.” In Adorno’s capacity as one of the most articulate defenders of dissonant modernism, he had played a powerful role in the intellectual movement that tried to force contemporary tonal- romantic styles, with their dependence on “old” harmonic and melodic features, into the historical margins. Some of Adorno’s greatest scorn was heaped on the hugely popular Sergei Rachmaninoff, who, along with Gershwin and Tchaikovsky, had (Adorno maintained) created “prototypes of the kind of hit
Introduction
4
melodies that simultaneously had the effect of making intransigent music lovers feel as though they were nonetheless on a higher cultural level.”5 Adorno had mercilessly lampooned Rachmaninoff via an admittedly slight early work, the famous Prelude in C sharp minor of 1892, written when the composer was a nineteen-year-old student. In what can only be described as a major case of critical overkill, Adorno even drew on the recent Freudian term “Nerokomplex” in order to describe Rachmaninoff’s much loved but ultimately modest little piece.6 The Prelude, said Adorno, was like a parody of the passacaglia form, and its handling of old technical conventions such as the familiar VI-V-I cadential formula were tired and worn out: “In this work, Rachmaninoff has completely emptied the late romantic idiom of all its content, and has thrown the resulting product onto the commercial market.”7
One of Adorno’s most fundamental convictions was that “worn-out” romantic-sounding idioms such as Rachmaninoff’s had sold out to the market place. However, that view has now dated considerably, as Taruskin makes clear in his 2005 Oxford History critique of Adorno’s basic position. Taruskin describes how Adorno had promulgated the idea that the course of romantic music had
turned from avenues of possibly sincere and spontaneous human expression to mercantile fetishes that manipulate listeners, rob them of emotional authenticity, and reduce them to automatons. Romantic styles, [Adorno] argued, once co-opted by the movies, could only produce the effects of movie music, drugging and paralyzing listeners with sensuous pleasure. Such a style was
5 Theodore Adorno, “Orpheus in der Unterwelt,” in Gesammelte Schriften, Vol. 19, Musikalische Schriften VI: Zur praxis des Musiklebens (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1970-c1986), 552. (Prototypen von Schlager-melodien, bei denen man unentwegt sich gleichwohl als Standesperson fühlen soll.)
6 Theodore Adorno, “Musickalische Warenanalysen,” in Gesammelte Schriften, Vol. 16, Musikalische Schriften I-III: Improvisationen (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1970-c1986), 285.
7 Ibid., 286. (So hat Rachmaninoff in nachromantischem Verschleiß sie vollends von allem Inhalt...emanzipiert und als Ware auf den Markt geworfen.)
Introduction
5
obsolete as art, available only as entertainment, which for Adorno was socially regressive by definition. This was the strongest invective ever mustered on behalf of the ‘law of stylistic succession.’ But the joke turned out to be on Adorno since...the modernist styles he regarded as the most artistically viable – that is, those least amenable to commercial exploitation because least sensuously appealing to passive consumers – have long since been annexed by the movies as emotional illustrators, albeit for the opposite sorts of emotions.8
Taruskin’s comments were written in the context of his defense of Korngold, Rachmaninoff and Medtner, all of whom represented twentieth-century composition at its most romantically regressive. They had rarely been treated with respect in general historical accounts of twentieth-century music before Taruskin’s ground- breaking Oxford History.9
Much to Adorno’s consternation, lush sonorities, tunes and tonal harmonies such as were to be found in the music of composers like Korngold and Rachmaninoff had found new life in contemporary film scores. What was even more insulting, such openly romantic-sounding elements were freely mixed and matched with snippets of dissonant modernism as the dramatic need arose, devaluing the latter in the process. From film, it was but a hop and a skip to broadway, light music and various other popular idioms, all of which freely made continued use of older romantic styles – except that for these genres romanticism was not merely the past, but was clearly still part of a living present. Certainly, the many artists operating in the most widely-circulating genres were up-to-date as far as the broader public was concerned, and were in no way seen as fossilized relics of the past. Should not the same be true of romantic twentieth-century composers in the “art” music tradition? Film music and other popular genres used to be snubbed by scholars, but are now routinely studied and 8 Richard Taruskin, The Oxford History of Western Music, Vol. 3, The Early
Twentieth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 559. 9 Ibid., 549-561.
Introduction
6
analysed. In short, those areas are treated with proper respect by musicologists in general. So too should the concert music of composers like Rachmaninoff and Korngold. Paradoxically, the literature on twentieth-century romanticism is both vast and non-existent. It is vast in the sense that romantic composers are routinely discussed and reviewed in more journalistic…