DQ for Watkins, 104-114 (grad students: please add 157-68 and be prepared to describe their contents to the rest of the class in terms of the music of Kandinsky, Schoenberg, and Skriabin)
Please be prepared to respond in either seminar meeting or in "Comments" on the course blog. In all venues, you must be prepared to cite specific passages (by page, paragraph, line, and quotation) in support of your responses—and specific works.
This section seeks to “separate” Ravel from Debussy and to recognize that each of the two most influential “Impressionist” composers in fact occupied their own individual compositional spaces, orbits, and spheres of influence.* It suggests that Ravel, while responding to some of the same stimuli (or, to use the terminology of the Syllabus, some of the same “problems”), took quite different and in ways much more diverse strategies than did Debussy in response. It is also important to recognize that because Debussy died in 1917 and Ravel lived until the mid-30s, it is logical to see later and more contemporary musical issues appear in Ravel’s later music.
(1) Watkins makes several references (first on p104) to “cyclic” structures in Ravel’s music. What does Watkins mean by this? In what musical parameters (e.g., which SHMRG characteristics) does he identify a “cyclic” quality: form, rhythm, scales, melodic shapes, other, all of these? What might be the motivations and the implications of this “cyclic” usage?
(2) Also on p104 Watkins cites the “Neo-classicism” (discussed in future) implicit not only in the Tombeau de Couperin but also much earlier in the Sonatine (1903-05). Specifically, he mentions issues of “formalities” and “texture”. What are the “formalities” associated with these works and/or with neo-classicism? The “textures”? Be prepared to link the textures implied and described in these pieces with other works by composers outside the French orbit, and to articulate a reason for these particular textural concerns at this particular time.
(3) On pp105 & ff, Watkins describes a series of commonalities, shared interests, or even shared texts, between French and German composers of this period. How could we summarize these shared ideas and influences, in, say 25 words or less? (E.g., “Schoenberg, Berg, and Ravel—three composers of differing compositional and national background, shared an interest in this period with the works of [X], the general fin-de-siecle interest in [Y], and the specific texts of the poems [Z, 1 and 2].”
(4) Watkins cites Bertrand (poet) and his disciples as a strong influence upon various French artists and composers. Be prepared to provide a 10-15 word summary of the “nature” or “affect” of Bertrand’s work, and relate it to at least 3 pieces, 1 cited by Watkins and at least two more not cited by Watkins. In other words: identify thhe nature of Bertrand’s artistic vision and demonstrate its influence (direct or indirect) upon at least 3 specific compositions. [Grad students: try reading the French texts aloud: if a crucial element of Symbolist poetry is its sound, you should familiarize yourself with that sound.]
(5) On the bottom of p107, Watkins cites Messiaen’s term “personnage rhythmique” to describe an 8th-note rhythm group [1+2,1+2+2]. What is/are the immediate impacts of a rhythm like this: upon phrase structure, upon accompaniment patterns, upon motivic organization? What is the relationship between “cyclic” form, personnage rhythmique, palindrome, and other quasi-symmetrical organizations? Why might composers in this period have chosen to prioritize these types of organization? What are the practical and the “affective” (interpretive/subjective) results of such organizations?
(6) p108 top: note the cited interest in bells in this period, as not only symbol (they recur throughout expressionist works) but also as sound-source: the very different composers (among others) Varese and Ives both experimented with bell-sounds or bell-imitations. Why might such sounds have provoked interest: compositionally? Sonically? Programmatically?
(7) Note (pp110 & ff) the discussion and the stylistic implications of the following strategies: new, altered, or synthetic scales; extended techniques, especially for the voice; an interest in composition organized around “shapes” (defined very broadly). Be prepared to articulate a thesis that relates these factors to issues of program and expression.
(8) p112: note the interplay between the following factors: symmetry; modality; harmonic and formal implications of both. Why are composers interested in these strategies at this time? How does they serve program? How does they relate to trends in other art forms? Cite specific passages in specific works, whether mentioned by Watkins or not.
(9) pp113-114: historically/stereotypically expressionism and exoticism have tended to be understood separately and in a not-particularly-related way. Watkins seeks to demonstrate relationships and shared influences and modes of expression between them. Summarize these, cite specific works that exemplify the relationships, and relate to specific stylistic results.
4 comments:
Watkins makes several references (first on p104) to “cyclic” structures in Ravel’s music. What does Watkins mean by this? In what musical parameters (e.g., which SHMRG characteristics) does he identify a “cyclic” quality: form, rhythm, scales, melodic shapes, other, all of these? What might be the motivations and the implications of this “cyclic” usage?
I. Cyclic Usage – Ravel uses motives and material throughout several movements of a piece
a. Ex. String Quartet (1902-1903) – Pizzicato opening of 2nd movement is used in first and last movements (form).
i. This was a French “preoccupation” as Watkins calls it, with cyclic movements.
b. Ex. Sonatine (1903-1905)
i. Written shortly after String Quartet
c. Ex. Piano Concerto for the Left Hand
i. Double-function cyclic implications
II. Motivations
a. A century-long precedent revitalized by Franck and d’Indy
i. This implies a French musical tradition: most importantly, non-Germanic.
b. Owes a debt to Wagner, who made use of Leitmotives, which are also cyclic.
c. Is a reaction against the common practice status quo, finding another method of incorporating formal structure.
1. Cyclic structure usually refers to music in which musical information from one part of the music recurs later in the composition. The musical information is often transformed in one or more parameters upon recurrence. The information can be a distinctive motive comprised of a selection of pitches or intervals or a distinctive rhythmic motive or both, but certainly all SHMRG factors can be recalled and transformed. Watkins writes that Ravel’s String Quartet of 1902-03 employs cyclic qualities in the “use of the same material in the first and last movements,” as did also Debussy in his string quartet (p. 104, lines 18-19). He also said that cyclic quality was to appear in Sonatine and Piano Concerto for Left Hand as well as in other works from time to time throughout his career (p. 104, 3nd paragraph, lines 1-3). The motivation for using cyclic structures is usually seen as a desire for unity of structure, unity admidst variety, the implication being that Ravel was interested in structure and wanted an audible structure made clear. The 1893 String Quartet by Debussy, which Watkins writes was a model for Ravel’s quartet (p. 104, line 5), made use of cyclic structure in a recurrent motto theme that undergoes many transformations; perhaps there was a motivation from Ravel’s knowledge of the earlier piece. Cyclic structure had been popular throughout the nineteenth century and was particularly linked to German music; Franck and d’Indy, who “rekindled” interest in cyclic structure (p. 104, 2nd paragraph, last sentence), were French composers interested in Wagner’s music, indeed, d’Indy was a part of the Parisian Wagnerism that engulfed that city in the latter part of the nineteenth century.
2. The Neoclassical “formalities” in Ravel’s Sonatine (1903-05), which I played as an undergraduate piano student, are the sonatina form of the first movement, the minuet form of the second movement, and the idea of a multi-movement sonatina form in general, and in the use of “nondevelopmental form and dances of the clavecinists” (p. 140, 3rd paragraph, entire paragraph, last line quoted). By texture Watkins means that the piece uses “the center of the keyboard” as opposed to the dramatic sweeps of the keyboard employed in pieces such as Jeux d’eau; from what I remember, the Sonatine had a relatively clear texture with melody and accompaniment, as opposed to thick contrapuntal writing. Pavane pour une infante defuncte (1899) uses a nondevelopmental dance form, as does Menuet antique (1895). If I remember correctly from my piano literature class, Tombeau de Couperin (1914-17) uses nondevelopmental dance form, as well. In these pieces can be seen a “historicist” viewpoint, with Ravel looking back to French music history, however, instead of German. Perhaps his choice was at least partially determined by a wish to escape Germanic influence. Perhaps it was based on a kind of French Classical rationality that one can see in French paintings by Poussin. Perhaps the use of Neoclassical textures by composers in general came from a desire to “clean” music from its supposed excessiveness and self-consciousness, as written so eloquently by Louys in a letter to Debussy, quoted by Watkins (p. 113, 1st full paragraph, lines 5 ff). According to Eric Salzman, Neoclassism outside of France included the composers Paul Hindemith (Germany; Gebrauchsmusik in general and Suite 1922 for piano), Alfredo Caselli (Italy; used traditional forms from Monteverdi-Scarlatti tradition), Prokofiev (Russia, Classical Symphony), William Walton (England; Façade), and various composers from the United States (Roger Sessions, Short Symphony, and Copland, Passacaglia). Perhaps Neoclassicism came about because composers needed a way to structure their compositions and reach an audience, in addition to the sense for a need for something new (as opposed to the late nineteenth-century German style)—they were tired of “big” and complicated. Perhaps World War I had something to do with the smaller “textures,” in that large groups were not accessible during this period or immediately thereafter. I won’t write here about Les Six and Stravinksy, because they were part of the “French orbit.”
3. Schoenberg, Berg, and Ravel shared an interest in this period with the works of the Symbolist poets and early nineteenth-century writers whose works were espoused by the Symbolists. Berg used the writings of Georg Buchner (1813-1837) in Wozzeck and Ravel used the writings of Aloysius Bertrand (1807-1841) in Gaspard de la Nuit; both were writers lionized by the Symbolists. Also, Schoenberg set music to German translations of French poems by Guiraud (Pierrot lunaire), the “clown” subject of which is similar to Ravel/Bertrand’s “Scarbo” (Gaspard de la nuit), and there are similarities between Ravel’s “Le Gibet” (Gaspard de la nuit) and the “Beheading” and “Gallows Song” of Schoenberg/Giraud’s Pierrot Lunaire. Watkins writes that “The distinction between Gallic and Prussian sensibilities is momentarily smudged” (p. 105, 4th paragraph, lines 9-10). Schoenberg and Debussy both set the Symbolist poets Mallarme’s Pelleas et Melisande; Ravel set Mallarme in Trois poemes de Stephane Mallarme, Berg set a poem by Baudelaire, a precursor of the Symbolists, in Le Vin. These composers shared an interest in the world of the Symbolist poets.
4. The nature and effect of Bertrand’s poetry seems to lie in its ability to create images through words and sound, and in his invention of the prose poem. One composition that Watkins writes about that is based on Bertrand is Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit (p. 105 ff). I don’t know what is wanted here for the two more pieces not cited by Watkins. The influence of the concept of a non-rhymed source of sonic beauty can perhaps be seen in Schoenberg’s Summermorgen an einem see and in Webern’s first movement from Six Pieces for Orchestra. If what is wanted here are works written on Symbolist or similar poetry that was influenced by Bertrand, then Debussy’s Cinq poemes de Baudelaire would be included and Faure, about whom we have not read, in setting Verlaine (“C’est l’extase, also set by Debussy), and perhaps something from Webern’s early songs, although I am not very familiar with them. Watkins mentions many songs written on Expressionist- and Symbolist-styled texts. I need to find the answer for this in class.
5. The “personage rhythmique” figure in “Le gibet” would have immediate impact on the phrase structure, which would follow the rhythmic figure and heard in relation to it; on the accompaniment patterns, with which it actually become infused in measures 6-8; and upon motivic organization in perhaps the reflection of the additive rhythmic properties with additive intervallic properties. I think that the relationship among cyclic form, personage rhythmique, palindrome, and other quasi-symmetrical organizations can be viewed as 1) a desire for unity amidst variety, 2) a way of achieving “comprehensible” structure in lack of the tonal forms/lack of tonal direction, and 3) a growing “modernist” sensibility toward the “coolness” of rational means of organization.
6. Programmatically, the interest in bells might be as a way to evoke the funereal—Ravel’s “Le Gibet,” and the far-away—either in terms of the past in European history or the exoticism of foreign places. For the European setting, one thinks of course of Debussy’s prelude La cathedral engloutie and Ravel’s La Valle des Cloches from Miroirs (1905). One could interpret gamelan music as bell music, in a way—the instruments are metal and are struck. Bells were associated with earlier Janizary music (Turkish military music), and with Cambodian dancing girls (Debussy, “The Dancing Girl with Crotales”). I do not know why bells fascinated Ives and Varese. Ives might have been interested through programmaticism (spirituality in the United States), but I would think that Ives and Varese would have been interested in the overtones etc. of the bells, translating peculiar bell qualities into nontraditional simultaneous, vertical, chordal constructions.
7. That composers were interested in new, altered, or synthetic scales and extended techniques for the voice might be seen primarily as an extended programmaticism inherited from nineteenth-century romanticism for the exotic—cross-reference Delacroix’s paintings. Nevertheless, I think that the composers wanted to extend their resources in what was to become typical of much of twentieth-century music.
8. Composers were interested in symmetry as a means for unity—comprehensibility with unity providing the comprehensibility and variety providing interest. Modality was seen as a connection to the exotic—whether from past European traditions or as a desire to evoke the exotic. Both were seen as organizational and referential straws at which to grasp with the no-longer harmonic and formal implications of traditional harmony and tonal structure. The references to the “signifiers” of the exotic in particular served programmatic intent—the listener would recognize the scale or harmony or vocal technique as “foreign,” and thus a signifier for the exotic and programmatic. I think here of Picasso’s dual-referenced work, Les Desmoiselles d’Avignon, which references both classical nudes and “primitive” art works. I also think of the Van Gogh work that shows a Japanese bridge in the rain, and of the cut-off images and flat appearances of Japanese prints evidenced by some works by Edgard Degas and May Cassatt. Listeners to Hispanic rhythms, altered scales, and “camel” rhythms would have instantly denoted “exotic” in their minds, just as viewers of Van Gogh’s work mentioned above would have said “Japanese print” and of Picasso’s work mentioned above would have said “African art.” Watkins writes of the musical “signifiers,” but Derek B. Scott treats it in detail in his essay, “Orientalism and Musical Style.” The musical factors that he relates—not tied to specific ethnic musical practices but to a general representation of music that is “the other,” can be found profusely in piano teaching music, even today.
9. I take issue with this statement, because in the late 1970s and early 1980s I was taught in both music history and art history that both expressionism and primitivism could be seen as outgrowths of romanticism, and that romanticism stressed the “exotic” and “other,” a term that was already in use because of Simone de Beauvoir’s much-earlier book, The Second Sex. The “other” was present through Stravinsky’s romanticized primitivism as found in Le Sacred du Printemps and was the subject of a famous touring art exhibit that I saw in Dallas in the first half of the 1980s, an exhibit that included such works as Picasso’s works that referenced “primitive” work next to the works that were referenced. Expressionism always looked to the fantastic, the non-ordinary, just a darker side of it than did the Romanticists. Look at Liszt’s use of “Hungarian scales” and Delacroix’s depiction of Saracen warriors. Watkins suggests a transference of exoticism with Stravinsky’s and Ravel’s “joint orchestration project for Mussorgsky’s Kovantchina, Stravinsky’s borrowing of Schoenberg’s chamber ensemble from Pierrot Lunaire for his Japanese Lyrics, and Ravel’s proposal of a concert including Marice Delage’s Four Hindu Songs. (p. 113, lines 3 ff). All of this seems to me to be completely natural. Composers and artists draw from all that surrounds them, and the world was being opened up to them through many means, for example, the Parisian international exhibition of 1889. They had inherited a lust for the exotic from the nineteenth century, (or maybe even from the eighteenth century in Janizary music—or maybe the lust for the new and strange is central to our nature, and only needed means of communication among cultures). They needed new sources of material and organization and “inspiration” now that they felt that the old harmonic structures were no longer appropriate, etc. Still, both Expressionism and Orientalism have long been recognized as an out
Lecture Question # 6
I believe that sounds like this provoked interest because they were new. These sounds resemble a church or something spiritual and I believe that the composer was trying to invoke this on the listener. Also, this was a sound that had a percussive sound, sounds like something maybe from an African heritage.
The bell tone can be performed on any instrument and this gives you many options on color, dynamic of the tone, and how the listener perceives the sound.
The sound of bell tones could be passed throughout an ensemble causing the listeners attention to be constantly moving from instrumental section to instrumental section.
Sonically, bell tones give the listener a different type of acoustical effect that really hasn’t been done before in the concert hall. “Ravel’s engagement in a recurring sonic adventure” (Pg. 108, Paragraph 1, Line 7) I feel that giving these accented notes that die away good give you so much compositionally that you didn’t have before. Watkins talks about Berg’s “Warm die Lufte” and how it sonically is progressive and if you look in measure eighteen located on page 49 in the Watkins shows you how he tries to incorporate a piano giving a kind of bell tone in the lower tessitura of the instrument. I think that Berg is trying to show a sense of dieing away with the triple fff accented notes, the decresendo, and the ritard.
The bell tone could obviously represent church (mass or a sound that is used to give an announcement (wedding or danger)) I would also think that you could use minimal amount of bell tones to represent a dieing character or something slowing down (losing momentum). “Ravel and other of his contemporaries for the bell, not only as sound but as symbol.” (Pg. 108, Paragraph 1, Line 4)
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