Читать книгу Music Ho! A Study of Music in Decline - Constant Lambert - Страница 11

Table of Contents

When we consider the stuffy and faded academicism of Stravinsky's and Schönberg's first works, it is impossible not to draw the conclusion that the disruptive element in Debussy's impressionism provided the liberating force that led these composers to their own revolutionary style.

It is strange to think that Stravinsky's ballets were at one time considered to be a healthy and vigorous reaction against the impressionism of Debussy, comparable in force to the reaction of Cézanne against Monet. Novelty of colour alone can be held to explain this confusion of thought. The garish and overloaded orchestration, barbaric rhythms and savagely applied discords of Stravinsky's ballets temporarily numb the critical faculties, and prevent one from realizing that however different the texture may be Stravinsky is using sound in the same way as Debussy. Barbaric impressionism has taken the place of super-civilized impressionism—that is all.

The difficulty of estimating Debussy's influence on Stravinsky is complicated by their common derivation from the Russian nationalists. A famous instance of this derivation is to be found in the similarity between the opening of Debussy's Nuages and the opening of Stravinsky's Le Rossignol. Both passages bear an extraordinary resemblance to one of the songs in Mussorgsky's Without Sunlight cycle. It is almost impossible to decide whether Stravinsky, the last of the three, is reacting to Russian nationalism, or to that side of Debussy that reacted to Russian nationalism; and we are faced with the same difficulty when we try to decide whether the oriental arabesques that occur from time to time in Stravinsky's melodic writing are a latter-day continuation of the oriental tradition started by Glinka in Russlan and Ludmilla, or whether they are a reflection of the undoubtedly oriental quality in many of Debussy's themes.

We must remember that Russian nationalism is by no means a continuous tradition. The death of Borodin was succeeded by a period of conservatism and academic reaction, in comparison with which the works of Brahms take on an almost Offenbachian quality. It is not too much to say that the vividly picturesque tradition of the Russian nationalists emigrated to France somewhere in the early 'nineties to return home dressed in the latest Paris models, just in time to join in the Diaghileff ballet. In L'Oiseau de Feu Stravinsky applied the rejuvenating influence of Debussy's impressionism to the by now somewhat faded Russian fairytale tradition in much the way that one pours a glass of port into a Stilton, thereby hastening the already present element of decomposition. The resultant effect is rich and faisandé, but a little overripe, with a suggestion of maggots in the offing. The exhilarating and wintry gaiety of the fair in Petrushka with its buxom nurses, dancing bears, drunkards, gipsies and barrel-organs, seems at first sight far removed from the ruined temples in the moonlight, the reflections in the water, of Debussy's pictorial world, but the difference between Petrushka and the fair scenes in the early Russian operas lies precisely in the application of Debussy's pictorial methods to a cruder and more vivid tradition.

In Le Sacre du Printemps, considered at one time as the outstanding reaction against the invertebrate qualities of the Impressionist school, the influence of Debussy's technical methods is even more marked, though the self-consciously barbaric colour of the ballet may make this influence a little hard to recognize at first sight. The two finest sections in the work, the preludes to either part, are in the direct Impressionist tradition, although one may notice in passing that Stravinsky manages his orchestral texture less skilfully than Debussy; the various threads of La Nuit Païenne are less clearly presented than those of Les Parfums de la Nuit; the whole effect, in its lack of definition and its reliance on colour alone, being more impressionist than Debussy—plus royaliste que le roi, in fact.

It is true that the outstanding feature in Le Sacre is its rhythmic experiment, an element which on the whole is lacking in the French school, mainly for national reasons. The French folk song has almost as little rhythmic interest and variety as the German, and the rhythmic tradition of French music lies more in the popular music of a later day, squarecut marches, can-cans, and gallops, material that is obviously unsuited to the fin-de-siècle aestheticism of Debussy's more mannered works. The French as a race have a remarkably poor sense of rhythm as compared with the Russians, and it is only to be expected that the rhythmic element should play a greater part in Stravinsky's make-up than in Debussy's.

I shall discuss in another place the barbaric and exotic elements in Stravinsky's rhythm. All that concerns us at the moment is the fact that, unlike earlier experiments in changing and varied rhythm, such as those of Borodin or Ladmirault, Stravinsky's rhythmic experiments are concerned not with the rhythm of melody, but with rhythm alone. They are rhythms suspended in space, arbitrary patterns in time, forming a parallel to Debussy's impressionist use of harmonies detached from melodic reasoning. Stravinsky carries one stage further the process of disruption and the dissection of the different elements in music that was started by Debussy. Debussy gives us harmony for its own sake, and Stravinsky gives us rhythm for its own sake, but by divorcing these functions of the musical mind from their normal surroundings they actually restrict the development of the specific element on which they are concentrating. Debussy's Danse Sacrée et Danse Profane cannot be compared for variety of harmony with a motet by Vittoria any more than Stravinsky's ballets can be compared for genuine rhythmic interest with the pavans and galliards of John Dowland.

Stravinsky's rhythm is not rhythm in the true sense of the term, but rather 'metre' or 'measure'. In many sections of Le Sacre du Printemps the notes are merely pegs on which to hang the rhythm, and the orchestration and harmony are designed as far as possible to convert melodic instruments into the equivalent of percussion instruments. The essential effect of augures printanières—a passage in which the regular pulse of an unchanging chord is accented with irregular beats—could be obtained equally well on a single drum, and, in a more elaborate passage such as the glorification de l'élue, we feel that an upwards skirl or flam on the flute is merely a more elaborate notation for a high percussive instrument like the tambourine, that an arbitrary discord in the bass is merely a more emphatic kettledrum. The essential thought could be expressed on a large number of varied percussive instruments, though admittedly without the heightening of the nervous effect obtained by Stravinsky's pointillist scoring.

Whether rhythm or metre divorced from the other elements in music can be said to have any musical value is a problem older than the present century. It is discussed with great good sense by Roger North in his Musicall Gramarian (Circa 1728) and his passage on the subject is so much to the point—even more so in our own days than when it was written—that it is worth quoting in full:

'Therefore in order to find a criterium of Good musick wee must (as I sayd) look into nature it Self, and ye truth of things. Musick hath 2 ends, first to pleas the sence, & that is done by the pure Dulcor of Harmony, which is found chiefly in ye elder musick, of wch much hath bin sayd, & more is to come, & secondly to move ye affections or excite passion. And that is done by measures of time joyned with the former. And it must be granted that pure Impuls artificially acted, and continued, hath Great power to excite men to act, but not to think. And this distinction resolves the enigma of Vossius de viribus Rithmi; wch pretends that the efficacy of musick is derived wholly from the measure. Sounds may have effect as symptomes of passion; but wch way he can by any possibility make out, that any pure measure Inclines to thinking, and without thinking there is no passion or affection, I cannot fathom, he instances In ye beats of a Drum, and also the Cooper at work as In the rediculer with his phrigian or Lydian dubbs. Nay condiscends to make a man comb'd Into a passion by ye barbers Lyricks upon his nodle. And it is true enough that the force of such violent Impulses, may excite actions, If any may be conformable. As in ye musick of dances the time is chiefly materiall, and who doth not keep active time to a jigg? The melody is only to add to the diversion, but (as hath bin noted) is not necessary to ye porpose, for many nations dannce onely to a tambour. Therefore I must sever the vertue of time in musick, from the musick itself, as having another scope and effect. And may be sayd to stir up comformable actions but not to excite thinking or pleas the sense.'

Stravinsky certainly succeeds in stirring up comformable action on the stage—and even, as some will remember, in the audience—but the melody is only to add to the diversion and his main object is to excite passion by rhythm or 'measure'. Le Sacre du Printemps foreshadows that modern craving—essentially a product of oversophistication—for the dark and instinctive that we find in D. H. Lawrence, and whose psychological bases have been so well summed up in Wyndham Lewis' Paleface. The immense prestige that this work enjoys with a certain type of intellectual is due to the fact that it is barbaric music for the super-civilized, an aphrodisiac for the jaded and surfeited. Whether we like Stravinsky's use of rhythm in Le Sacre or not, we must realize that unlike his later rhythmic experiments it is far from being purely detached and objective. It is experiment directed towards a more intense form of expression and a greater heightening of the nervous effect.

The music of Schönberg, the other great revolutionary figure in pre-war music, does not lend itself so easily to analysis as does that of Stravinsky. In rejecting the Teutonic romantic tradition Debussy and Stravinsky were rejecting something essentially alien; the issue was a clear one and though the struggle may have been hard there was no element in it of civil war. Schönberg is that anomalous figure, an anarchist with blue blood in his veins. He is historically and racially attached to those whom he seeks to destroy, and the spiritual conflict in his works is obvious, even though he may cry 'A la lanterne' with more fervour than the most bloodthirsty of sansculottes. Like a priest of Diana he is forced to take up the role of the predecessor whom he has slain, and behind his most revolutionary passages lurks the highly respectable shade of Mendelssohn.

Schönberg's music as a whole will be discussed elsewhere in this volume, and for the moment we are concerned with him not so much as an individual figure as in relation to the Impressionist movement. There is little direct influence of Debussy in Schönberg's works, and his overthrowal of the Romantic tradition takes the form of a reversal or distortion of previously established formulae. But though there may be no direct influence there is a certain parallelism between the results they achieve by apparently opposed means.

There are two ways of destroying the significance of the House of Lords—you can either abolish it or you can make everyone a member. We have no sense of modulation in Debussy's music for the simple reason that he doesn't modulate, and we have no sense of modulation in Schönberg's music because the work itself has become one vast modulation. Debussy destroys the old diatonic scale, with its class distinctions between tones and semitones, by restricting it to whole tones and pentatonic intervals; Schönberg by extending equal importance to all twelve semitones. Debussy destroys one's sense of harmonic progression by eliminating all contrapuntal feeling; Schönberg by the sheer multiplicity and mechanical application of his contrapuntal devices. The method of approach may be different, but the disruptive effect is the same. Schönberg dissects counterpoint in the way that Debussy dissected harmony and Stravinsky dissected rhythm; and devices such as the canon cankrisans, whose somewhat shaky raison d'être rests entirely on the meticulous observance of academic harmonic rules, are introduced without restriction and for their own sake. Unlike his harmonic and melodic experiments, which are there to give expression to his peculiar vein of tortured romanticism, these contrapuntal devices foreshadow the abstract investigations of the post-war period.

The one element in Schönberg's music which relates him directly to Debussy is the elaborate pointillism of his scoring, a pointillism that obscures the theoretical formalism of his works just as an efficient camouflage destroys the outline of a boat. This pointillist orchestration gives to many of Schönberg's works an impressionist effect in performance that an inspection of the score with the eye alone would hardly lead one to expect, but after all it is the ear that is the final judge. It is no use claiming formal unity for a work on the theoretical grounds of its contrapuntal construction when this construction cannot possibly be observed by a listener who has not been primed, or supplied by the composer with a crib. The element in Schönberg's pre-war music—as for example the Five Orchestral Pieces, Erwartung, and Pierrot Lunaire—that most strikes the listener is their impressionist use of colour and their appeal to the musical nerves rather than to the musical reason. It is this that justifies our linking them with the impressionism of Debussy and Stravinsky in spite of the many technical and national differences between the three composers.

The present study being concerned with musical movements more than with individual composers and separate works, I need hardly detail the many minor writers who group themselves round the three key-figures we have been examining. Debussy, if only through sheer precedence of date is the main influence of the period, and the general trend of development is therefore more harmonic than rhythmic, while both melody and form—the two elements that might have bound the disruptive experiments of the period together—are sacrificed in the interests of orchestral colour and atmosphere. Although he had an exquisite feeling for the turn of some half-improvisatory phrase, Debussy as a melodist was shortwinded and unforceful and, in spite of the subtle and impersonal form of his best works, his worst—which, as I have pointed out, had a regrettably stronger influence—are formless to a degree.

These invertebrate qualities are to be observed in a heightened form in the innumerable works of his followers, and are indeed the outstanding weaknesses of the Impressionist school as a whole. That they are part of a general trend and not only the result of one man's influence is shown I think by the common lack of formal and melodic interests to be found in the work of two such widely differentiated writers as Stravinsky and Delius. His greatest admirer could hardly describe Delius as a master of form and even Mr. Cecil Gray, in the course of a highly laudatory essay, has admitted that many passages in Delius' music would retain the major element of their charm if all trace of melodic line were removed.

Stravinsky's ballets depend almost entirely on traditional themes or close imitations of the folk-song style for what melodic interest they possess, and they can hardly be considered as possessing any formal qualities that are not dictated by their dramatic interest. L'Oiseau de Feu is a pleasant pantomime, but its harmonic idée fixe—to which Mr. Edwin Evans has drawn attention in an interesting pamphlet—gives it no more formal continuity than we find in the Rimsky-Korsakoff operas which are similarly obsessed with a particular progression.

In Petrushka we find the composer playing—albeit with consummate brilliance—the role of effects man in music, and a concert performance of the work is intolerable to those unacquainted with every detail of stage action. A few years ago it might have been necessary to discuss the statement made by some of Stravinsky's followers that Le Sacre du Printemps was an abstract symphony in all but name; fortunately there are a few things that Time spares the critic, and we can see now that this work is merely a string of ballet movements lacking even in the formal cohesion of an opera ballet like the Polovtsian dances in Borodin's Prince Igor. We need not consider Stravinsky as a formalist or melodist until we come to the post-war period of pastiche.

Quite apart however from any technical similarity in the methods of the pre-war revolutionaries, there is a common spiritual quality that can be recognized by any listener susceptible to the literary and evocative elements in music, whether he is interested in the historical and technical side or not. I refer to the aesthetic and neurasthenic qualities of the Impressionist period in music which, spiritually speaking, is a parallel to the naughty 'nineties in literature.