DQ for Watkins 287-306 (grad students: please also read p308-20 and be prepared to summarize this material’s key insights for the balance of the class).
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.
Summary: This section explores a network of musical influences, drawn largely from outside the realm of German art music, which began to shape other national and stylistic schools in the ‘Teens and ‘20s. Many of these factors are analogous to those that drove Impressionism in
General question for consideration: In light of Messing’s history and critique of the term “Neo-classicism”, to what goals and impulses can we attribute these “New Simplicities”? And how and to what extent did these New Simplicities operate across national boundaries?
(1) Chap 14 opens with a discussion (pp286-88) of Schoenberg’s activities in the realm of cabaret and popular musics. Though these musics are not typically thought of as Schoenberg influences, and though he himself repudiated them, Watkins suggests that his direct experience in these musics connects Schoenberg’s experience in the ‘Teens and ‘20s to that of other composers. Based on this and prior readings, what other composers, both within and outside
(2) In the section subheaded “American Currents” (pp288-89), Watkins cites multiple examples of European interest in American popular culture, both within and outside music. What priorities, characteristics, or themes do European composers seem to be finding in these American topics, and how do these play out in their works? (Hint: consider our prior discussion of Parade). Also, in this same section, what connections can be drawn between popular influences, primitivism, and futurism?
(3) The discussion beginning p289 explores a particularly complex and fluid combination of sources and influences in German music in the 1920s, with specific focus on (one aspect of) Hindemith, Orff, Weill, and Krenek. Here are a few questions to help you formulate a thesis which explains how these factors interacted:
- What was the 1920s German perspective on jazz, what it meant, and what resources it might present for concert music?
- Looking at the illustration on p291, what “Isms” could be legitimately be attached to this image (some are more obvious associations, some less)?
- Also on p291, Watkins discusses Hindemith’s 1921 Kammermusik and its scoring. What is the significance of the scoring, and of the texture, of this piece?
- What is the interaction between Expressionism and Futurism? Could these things be matters of compositional (or audience) perspective?
- Be prepared to define the term Zeitoper and to articulate the “Isms” that this idiom might have addressed?
- On p292, last para, Watkins discusses the role that German folk music played in works of Mahler, Berg, and Schoenberg. How does he distinguish these composers’ perspectives on their own folk music from the perspectives of composers in other nations?
(4) On p294-95, be prepared to articulate the relationship between Orff’s background, principle works, and eventual efforts in music education and cognition.
(5) On pp295-399, there is an extensive discussion of Krenek’s Jonny Spielt Auf. This work is not at all well-known (and not easy to find in score or recordings), but in its topic, musical idioms, and general affect it foreshadows at least three later, better-known works (specifically, by Weill, Gershwin, and Blitzstein). How does Jonny grow out of Zeitoper, how does it reflect the “American Currents” cited previously, and how does Jonny anticipate future developments?
(6) Be prepared to articulate the ways in which “New Simplicity”, 1920s progressivism, and “American Currents” play out in Weill’s Threepenny Opera.
(7) Be prepared to articulate both the biographical and the artistic connections between Berg and Gershwin in this period, and to use these connections to contrast Berg’s perspectives on non-German music from those of Schoenberg and Webern.
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DQ for Watkins 287-306 by Lisa Lee.
What was most fascinating about this chapter for me was relating the use of popular and jazz materials by these composers to various isms. The use of African-American materials can be seen within Primitivism (although I do not think that the materials are primitivistic) and Exoticism. The Americanism in general can be seen within Futurism. The use of popular materials in general can be seen within Simplicity, Modernism, and Avant-Gardism (throwing off the complexities of developing German music and the Romanticism/Expressionism of the past). The use of contemporary themes in Zeitoper, as rooted in the time as they were, can be seen as a modern version of French Naturalism and Realism and German Expressionism/Freudian psychology while still timely in terms of Modernism and shocking in terms of Avant-Gardism. All of it, at least in Germany, can be seen in terms of the political situation—both in terms of nihilism (Futurism and Dadaism) and in terms of positivism (Neue Sachlichkeit and Gebrauchmusik). I also wondered why there were no DQs on Chapter 13, but I found out that Chapter 13 was included in the first question here. These considerations were occurring across national boundaries.
1. Based on the opening discussion of this chapter and the readings from the previous chapter: Other composers who shared Schoenberg’s experiences with cabaret and popular musics in this period include the following: France: Satie in the song Je te veux (1900), a “valse chantee” (p. 257, bottom of page); in Trois morceaux en forme de poir (1890-1903), written in the café-concert idiom (p. 259, lines 1-2); Parade (1916-17) , written in the swiftly changing mood of music hall entertainment (p. 259, lines 4-6); Sports et Divertissements (1914), in its tango (p. 266, 4th line from bottom of page). Debussy in popular dances such as the cakewalk in “General Lavine—eccentric” from the second book of Preludes and “Golliwog’s Cakewalk” from Children’s Corner Suite, and the habanera in “La puerta del vino” from the second book of Preludes 9p. 259, lines 7-10). Stravinsky in Histoire du soldat (1918), written with a “jazz band” and including a tango; Ragtime for Eleven Instruments (1918) and Piano Rag Music (1919), written with ragtime influences; and The Five Fingers (1920-21), which includes a tango (bottom of p. 266). George Auric, Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc, Germaine Tailleferre, and Arthur Honegger in Cocteau’s Les maries de la Tour Eifel (1921), in its changing mood of music hall entertainment (p. 269, middle of page, and p. 271, paragraph 2, lines 1-4). Poulenc in the three chansons Cocardes (1919), in its use of the bal musette café orchestration (p. 274, 1st full paragraph, lines 2-5); his ballet Les Biches (1924), in “the spirit of the music hall” (p. 274, 2nd full paragraph, lines 8-10), as well as the opera Les mamelles de Tiresias and Organ Concerto (p. 275, lines 1-2); and later songs written in the 1940s (p. 275, lines 2-4). Milhaud and South American dance music in Le boeuf sur let toit, Saudades do Brazil (1920-21), and American jazz in La creation du monde (1923). Honegger with jazz in Concertino for piano and orchestra (1925) and blues in Prelude et blues for harp quartet (1925) (p. 279, under his name, lines 6-7). Ravel in the fox trot, rag, and sounds of tin-pan alley in L’enfant et les sortileges (1920-25) and the blues in Violin Sonata (1923-27) (p. 280, paragraphs 2 and 3). Germany: Richard Strauss in his burlesque opera Feuersnot (1901) on a libretto of the Uberbrettl founder Wolzogen (p. 286, paragraph 2, lines 9-10). Hindemith, Krenek, Weill, and Berg (to be discussed later in the chapter) (p. 288, end of paragraph 1).
2. European composers were interested in what might be considered African-American in particular, which they experienced in ragtime, dixieland jazz, other jazz, dance bands, blues, according to the preceding chapter as well as to this section. They heard this music during and after WWI when American bands came to play in Europe. They were also interested in Gershwin’s rendering of jazz. Also, Europeans in general were interested in the urban American scene with its tall buildings, elevators, airplanes, Brooklyn Bridge, films, newness, vitality, and energy (cross-reference Parade, pp. 263-64). Popular influences can be linked to primitivism in the Black jazz tradition, which might have been linked in the minds of the Europeans to an elemental type of music with its roots in Africa (for example, the “uninhibitedness” of the black dancer Josephine Baker, p. 289, first full paragraph), and in the newness of America in general. Futurism can be seen in the European interest in the dynamism of American cities, factories, buildings, elevators, airplanes, films, etc. (see above).
3. I will postulate on answers to the parts of this question before I give a thesis. A. The 1920s German perspective on jazz seems to be addressed in a statement on p. 288, 11th line from the bottom of the page: it seemed to portray a [musical and philosophical] dynamism that was unfettered by outworn traditions, one that was eager to explore new horizons—Germany was fettered not only by musical traditions but political and social traditions from which WWI had grown. Incorporation of jazz, its dance rhythms, and its simplified instrumentation was a way to throw off the past, to be seen as avant-garde, and provided an alternative to the heavy, thick textures of the language of Romanticism and Expressionism. It provided a way to oppose the traditional concert performance practices and by way of that, traditional political and social stances. It provided new “simplified” and popular resources for concert music, in opposition to the continued development of the complicated and perhaps-not-so-popular trend of German music. B. Futurism with its interest in the urban environment, the machine, and anarchism is obvious in this picture. Dadaism with its nihilism and pessimism might be seen in the chaotic appearance. Modernism can be seen in the large 1922—it is now, not then. I don’t really see nationalism or progressivism in the picture because the scene seems so chaotic, not positivistic. A rush toward destruction might be seen in retrospect—toward WWII. C. The scoring of Hindemith’s 1921 Kammermusik shows his attempt at avant-gardism, to an alternative of the thick and heavy scoring of his German past in Romanticism and especially the Expressionism of his operas. D. I believe that Expressionism and Futurism shared the audience perspective of being shocking. Both showed how destructive the present could be in shocking terms—remember, Futurism foretold a new future only through destruction, first. E. Zeitoper is opera of the time—it show-cased social problems of the current times with the help of popular musical idioms. It still dealt with the seamy side of life (Naturalism and Realism of France in the 19th century) and shocking sex and psychology (Expressionism), and added the media (Futurism). F. The German composers used folk music as an alternative to their developing complex language, as opposed to the composers from other nations, who used folk music as a source material for a new language (p. 292, last paragraph). Thesis: I am still not sure of a thesis. I believe that the influences of American dances, jazz borrowings, chamber-music scorings, the trend toward simplification, the use of Zeitoper themes, and the cynicism of Dadism, are not only a direct reaction to Expressionism, not only a way of embracing the avant-garde, not only a way of shocking the public, but also at least partially a politically-motivated reaction to WWI and its immediate aftermath, in the service of a politically motivated socialist realism (p. 292, paragraph 2, line 7). In other words, it was part of the social politics that was going on in Germany at the time. The social realism/political attitude would come out in the supposedly positive terms of “New Objectivity” and would work its way outward in Hindemith’s Gebrauchsmusik. Music was not without its political and social concerns now, which outweighed “Modernist” concerns of art for art’s sake, appreciable by the elite few. (This is contrary to Schoenberg and even Stravinsky.)
4. I believe that Orff formulated his own ideas on what it is in music that “naturally” appealed to children and, by extension, to all people. [I have to teach Kodaly, Orff, and Dalcroze.] I believe that this was part of the general movement of finding what was natural to people through the study of folk music, and toward the educational movements involved in teaching children through their natural inclinations—so, both Nationalism and Primitivism are evoked. He took these ideas and created compositions based on them. Watkins also postulates upon the influence of Monteverdi, Stravinsky, and the chanting of Nazi mass rallies (p. 294, last paragraph). [One certainly hears Orff in many film scores today.]
5. Jonny (1927) grows out of Zeitoper in its subject matter, which includes a contemporary rendering of Expressionist angst on the part of the inhibited Central European intellectual and the “uninhibitedness” primitivism of the African-American jazz fiddler and in its use of jazz, blues, and tango, in the service of social-political commentary. It reflects the American Currents in its view of America as the land of dreams (p. 296, lines 8-9). It anticipates the move to America by Krenek, Weill, Hindemith, and Schoenberg. Its localized use (as opposed to infiltration) of popular and jazz elements as a social commentator, a characteristic of Zeitoper, is also seen in Weill in Royal Palace (1926), The Tsar Has His Photograph Taken (1927); The Threepenny Opera (1928) adopts popular music language more directly. Its foreshadows Gershwin’s use of a Zeitoper-type topic and use of music social commentary in Porgy and Bess (1935).
6. The New Simplicity’s interest was at least partially derived from Cocteau’s calls for expression drawn from the music hall, circus, and jazz led to light-hearted entertainment without pretension (p. 300, last paragraph). Weill adopted this idea of simplicity, which led him to 1920s progressivism as seen in Neue Sachlichkeit, Gebrauchmusik, and the popular proletarianism of the time (p. 300, last paragraph). This can be seen in his use of the popular idiom directly (as opposed to occasionally) in The Threepenny Opera and Mahoggony (p. 300, 2nd full paragraph, lines 6-8). He wrote that the rhythm of jazz is the manifestation of the “Americasination of all our physical life” (p. 300, last two lines).
7. Gershwin and Berg met during Gershwin’s trip to Vienna. Gershwin played for Berg, who was captivated, and Berg supplied Gershwin with an autographed copy of his Lyric Suite and an autographed photograph of himself. (p. 305, lines 1-8). Apparently Gershwin’s music was not much influenced by Berg (p. 305, paragraph 2, lines 3-4). Berg might have been influenced by Gershwin’s Preludes (1926) in Der Wein (or perhaps the influence was Krenek’s Jonny). More probably, Gershwin’s ascending clarinet glissando in Rhapsody in Blue inspired Berg’s use of the same in the second song of Der Wein (p. 305, paragraph 2, last 5 lines). Schoenberg’s response to jazz was parodistic and satirical (Von Heute auf Morgen, 1928-29, instrumentation and comic approach to popular materials and the modishness of Zeitoper, a response to Weill’s Threepenny Opera). (p. 302, paragraphs 2 and 3). Webern’s response was superficial and negative (instrumentation of a small jazz ensemble in Quartet Op. 22, 1930). (p. 302, paragraphs 2 and 3). Berg’s response to jazz was positive and natural (Der Wein and Lulu). (p. 302, paragraph 3).
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