Читать книгу The New Music - Theodor W. Adorno - Страница 9

[…] without me too, you do not need me for that; rather, I simply mean to show you a few things that I assume will not be entirely familiar to all of you, and aspects in which especially the connection between this early Schoenberg and the later becomes apparent, and in which you can learn something – and that is the intention of all my attempts here – something about the origins of the sense, the formal sense, the formal function, about several things that appear in a concretized form only in the mature works. Here you can trace the impulses, as it were, that are later present in an objectified form in the mature works. Because one needs to have these impulses before one can objectify them, I think it is very important for you to gain an understanding of precisely these impulses here.

Now, I would like to begin by reminding you of something of which more or less all of you will be aware, namely Schoenberg’s famous metric irregularity, the fact that the eight-bar period was truly, finally and radically dethroned for the first time by Schoenberg, whereas deviations from the eight-bar schema in traditional music such as Schubert or Mendelssohn, to name only two, always had the character of an exception rather than anything decisive. You now find this metric abundance – that is, a constant change between even- and odd-numbered periods and between short and long models – you already find that very clearly in Verklärte Nacht. And this is once again connected to a thematic character, namely the fact that Schoenberg often lays out the themes by developing them from elements that keep appearing and growing more explicit, so that the themes almost come about of their own accord. So you can find this theme at the start of the allegro, for example [plays Verklärte Nacht, op. 4]. And then it is taken up again, the real main theme of the piece [plays]. So you see how this theme is fashioned bit by bit. First like this [plays]. Here you have two one-bar units that are repeated. Then you have a three-bar period that elaborates on it [plays], and only after that does it reach its form as a four-bar period [plays]. Then this is repeated as a three-bar unit and shortened [plays]. And then the cadence [plays]. You can see in this section, incidentally, how Schoenberg’s ability to shape a theme is already developed. These are precisely the things that are really so neglected today, and of which I cannot remind you – especially the composers among you – emphatically enough. Have a look at these few bars: how three motivic attempts finally lead to a full theme, where the theme is the fulfilment or the result of these thematic attempts, and then compare that to a mature dodecaphonic work such as the exceptionally fine main theme of the Violin Concerto, which in a sense came about through a similar principle, and then you will see how this inner vitality of the theme, or this inner shaping of a theme, has musical sense, and how the theme finally leads very logically into this cadence that I played for you, which now brings the result and should really be followed by a symphonic continuation, but he did not yet allow himself to take that step. So you see here [plays]. Incidentally, as you no doubt all noticed, this theme is already a nascent form of the one from the D minor quartet, except that in the D minor quartet it is presented directly as the result, you might say, but in the intervals, and most of all in its whole character, it is part of exactly the same layer. And it is this layer that is then brought out again in Schoenberg’s Fourth Quartet. That, I would say, is really the symphonic type of theme that keeps returning in Schoenberg. And here you essentially have this specifically Schoenbergian theme in its pure form for the first time, and with all the beauty that is possible in this way only when it is the first time. Take a look at this again [plays], the one-bar unit [plays]. Now it initially stays there, then goes higher, then he sequences it [plays]. You can tell that, once this attempt has exhausted itself and things continue beyond that point, it is not in the way a poor composer would do it, having it go on here and again here [plays], but instead, after reaching that point, it continues quite differently [plays]. And only now, once it has run its course, does he return to the form attempted at the start, and here it is already very cadential [plays].

So this way of developing a theme while also being aware that the repetition of a motif is justified only if it has this sense of gradually building up, that one cannot first construct a theme and let it develop, then suddenly repeat one motif in the middle, for the relationship between repetition and novelty in such a theme must be balanced extremely carefully – that is really what I wanted to show you here, and also that you already have the form here: a one-bar phrase, a one-bar phrase, then a three-bar phrase, then a four-bar phrase that constitutes the symphonic middle, as it were, the symphonic centre of the whole thing; and then a sort of dissolution field where the opening elements are brought back, again just three bars, and then a shortened model leading into the cadence, so that there is a meaningful relationship between the lengths of the individual sections. So when the theme is given all the space it needs, the units are the longest – a whole four bars – which you must hear in one go, as it were; and once the strength of the theme is exhausted and it collapses, in a sense, then the music returns to three-bar units, such that the theme is no longer given the same space. So you see how – and I would like to draw your attention to this too – such things, which seemingly have no connection in the usual terms of compositional forms, how their metric shape on the one hand, and their thematic development on the other, how these aspects are interdependent in a meaningful functional manner here, just as the short and long syllables in poetic metre are a function of the formal sense in the respective parts of the form. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I would say that being capable of these things, and capable of shaping these things – that is really what composition is. And I would say that only this can be called composition. And if everything I am waffling on about to you here is to have any use, it can only be to give you some small awareness that this, and only this, is composition.

Now, a second idea follows on from this. The second idea creates a duet. If you know the poem,¹ you know that it deals with two people, a man and a woman, and this thought was a very impulse for Schoenberg in his overall approach. So you have this tremolo on the F [plays]. Let me point out a formal aspect. This duet idea runs through the entire piece and appears at many different points, and it is applied to a wide range of thematic components. So one keeps finding sections that take this duet approach, but use quite different material. You can tell from this that the means of musical cohesion are extremely varied, that musical cohesion cannot be brought about simply by what one usually calls ‘thematic work’, of which God knows there is plenty in this piece, but also through different approaches to texture. So if in a sextet – that is, a relatively expansive, sonically expansive piece – if at various points in this piece there are two instruments, say the cello and viola, playing duets and answering each other, then you will simply identify a certain equivalence, a certain unity of formal development in this duet idea. An element of unity will be established, even if the purely thematic components in these passages are organized very differently. Now, Schoenberg’s sense of form is already so advanced here, in this very early phase, that he does not present this second idea – which one could see as a hinted second subject from the exposition of Verklärte Nacht – in as elaborated a form as the symphonic first subject but instead builds it from this short model [plays]. However, I would say that this way of first repeating the one-bar phrase twice and then forming a three-bar unit, this is precisely analogous to the approach I showed you with the first theme, even down to the number of bars: two one-bar phrases followed by a three-bar group. He continues with one-bar units, however. Now that is something the mature Schoenberg would no longer have done in the same way, as he would also have varied the metric-thematic aspects. But that, I should add, obviously makes it harder for the listener to perceive, because here the fact that the character of this second subject-like idea is formally similar to that of the first naturally makes it much easier to follow; but the mature Schoenberg would no longer have contented himself with this and would have given the principle of variation its due. Then a quintuplet motif that will play a very important part appears, it is introduced here [plays], and so on. And then it is combined with this second subject-like motif. This is followed by – at the marking Etwas belebter [Slightly more lively] on page 10 a new motif appears, an entirely new one, but it is related to the first main theme I showed you, with this one [plays]. Or perhaps you can see it better here [plays]. And now you have it here [plays]. So here you have the interval of a second, then a diminished fifth and then a minor second. First you have the minor second, then the diminished fifth and then the third, which also appears in this other motif. So we have the same group of intervals, but following the principle I have taken the liberty of calling ‘axial rotation’: the order of the intervals has been jumbled so that there is already extensive variation here. How far one chooses to call such modifications ‘variations’ and how far they express something similar to the ‘fundamental line’ [Urlinie], a kind of identity, an identity of the fundamental material in note-row terms, that is a matter for debate. I place no value on the nomenclature; I only think that what is interesting here is that this theme, though it appears very strikingly as something new – it is the first use of triple time, of a 3/4 metre, in the work – that the basic components of this new motif actually come from the main theme.

But there is another interesting thing here. I already told you in the first session about Schoenberg’s extreme sensitivity to the principle of sequences. On the other hand, of course, he cannot entirely avoid developing ideas via sequences in such a piece and with such material. It is rather fascinating to observe how he helps himself in this situation. What he does, evidently because direct sequencing was already unbearable to him by that time, is to separate two themes by interpolation in such a way that there is an insertion between the two parts of the sequence, a different thematic element, that is also repeated once. So, this is the theme [plays], and now it continues as an insertion [plays], and now the second subject again [plays] and now the first returns [plays], and now the same insertion [plays], and now the second theme again [plays]. And only now, after these interruptions, is the new theme actually sequenced [plays], and suddenly shortened, so here he remains within convention for a moment [plays], and from the second theme [plays]. Now there is an anticipation of a theme that becomes central later on [plays]. So here, this theme that I just touched on, this plays a key role in the second part. But you must distinguish very carefully between the formal sense of themes from the first part that are quoted in the second and themes from the second part that are quoted in the first. Here, this is clearly an anticipation of a later theme that flashes up only briefly now, as it were.

Now something very interesting happens: there is a short section introduced by a relatively new motif. And this is something that I consider very important to an understanding of the form, if we consider the fate of the large forms. When it comes to matters of actual formal construction in Schoenberg’s music, as you know, he was influenced far more by Brahms than by Wagner. Now in Brahms, especially the mature works, one finds a certain aversion to the adagio. There are only very few adagio movements in late Brahms that are truly elaborated in the fullest sense, such as the slow movement, the andante movement of the Fourth Symphony. In general, the adagios in late Brahms are extremely brief and approach the quality of songs. And Schoenberg also had some of this great sensitivity to the adagio. I would not go so far as to claim that one cannot really write adagio movements any more, because I have become too well acquainted with Bruckner – through Anton von Webern – to stand by such an assertion. But certainly the matter of the adagio as such is a form of threshold for composers. There is a kind of shame about the adagio, and you will find that the great adagio movements in late Schoenberg, which do actually exist, are rarely symphonic adagios in the manner of Bruckner or Beethoven – think of the prototype of the adagio on a grand scale, namely the slow movement of the Hammerklavier Sonata or the slow movement of the first op. 59 quartet. One hardly finds such movements, because even the great slow movements in Schoenberg’s mature works, such as the middle movement of the Violin Concerto or the slow movement from the Third String Quartet, are sets of variations rather than symphonically through-composed adagios, and the slow movement of the Fourth String Quartet is a double pairing of recitative and song – I am simply telling you this as a curiosity, though it does not really relate to the subject of this lecture. The form of the slow movement of the Fourth String Quartet is an almost exact replica, or reinterpretation, of the last movement from the F sharp minor quartet, which consists of such a recitative-like part followed by a more densely crafted Abgesang, and the two parts are then repeated once more, which is likewise the case in the Fourth String Quartet. I am only telling you this to show you that Schoenberg had a peculiar reluctance towards the adagio. This reluctance is evident in the great chamber works of the earlier period in the fact that the main theme of the adagio, the relatively elaborated adagio in the First String Quartet, is drawn entirely into the finale, or rather the reprise, which is at once the finale, turning it into the exposition of a final theme, if you will, and despite its length is not really an independent adagio. And of course the Chamber Symphony, Chamber Symphony No. 1, is the clearest example of this, firstly because the adagio is very brief, and then its second theme is already treated as a transition to the reprise, where it now returns almost imperceptibly from this transition. Now, this idea of a shortened and hinted adagio, which is evidently very deeply connected to Schoenberg’s formal impulse, you find that here too. Because after the passage I just touched on, this anticipatory passage, you now have a short section that introduces a new theme, but very briefly [plays]. Incidentally, both the key and the writing are very reminiscent of the adagio section from the First String Quartet. Now, this theme that appears here [plays], which could be heard as a consolatory, comforting theme, is never really treated; it is exterritorial. That is, it is something that suddenly appears as an episode without being thrown into the leitmotif machine and processed. And I would say that precisely something like this, where such an idea is placed there and stands by itself, without everything needing to have some consequences – therein lies Schoenberg’s genius. Once, in better times, Brecht said that, just because someone says ‘A’, they will not necessarily say ‘B’.² There is something of that also in Schoenberg, who always held on to this freedom despite his consistent rigour towards himself. But – and note, once again, the incredibly refined sense of form that expresses itself in such cases – he would not have included a long, elaborated movement here without any connections to the elements preceding and following it; instead, the thematic shape enters with this exceptional intervening character and is immediately connected to other themes. This theme, for example [plays], which is the ending of the theme I played you [plays]. And then he comes back to the quintuplet motif [plays]; this is the same one where I showed you that it appears as an alternative to the sequence, so that the sequence, when it does ultimately appear, does not become too boring. So it is hinted at, one might say, through this aspect of consolation, of not getting out of the thematic machine, but then he immediately restores this organic relationship to the whole. And the entire episode is very short. Actually, I believe there is a model for this in Wagner, who clearly grew tired of the world of leitmotifs at times, and who came up with this wonderful melody at the end of Act 3, scene 1, which is the beginning of the quintet but also – and it is much the same if you look at the quintet from Act 3 … [interjection from the auditorium] Pardon me? What did I say? No, Die Meistersinger, of course. I am sorry, please excuse me. If you look at the continuation, it is very similar to this interpolated adagio section in the Schoenberg, as the continuation immediately falls back on the song of praise, and this very new idea flashes up only for an instant [plays], and then things immediately go somewhere else. Now, this section is followed by the long development, or at least what I would consider the development section. I will not analyse this development in detail for you, but I will show you something else that might just interest you a little, because here too one can find something very close to a note row.

Before I address that, let me just point out one small matter, namely the relationship between row and exposition. Some of you are presumably in Leibowitz’s³ course, and he was developing the thought, I believe it was the day before yesterday, that – I said ‘between row and exposition’, that was nonsense, I meant development and exposition – some of you will perhaps have heard him explaining that the development is, in a certain sense, a second exposition. Now, that also applies to the development section here, in so far as it uses key thematic elements from the first exposition, but in a different order – partly in a different order, at least, in reverse order. This is the first theme in the development [plays op. 4]. And this theme belongs to the complex of the originally duet-form second subject I showed you before, which first appears in the exposition on page 7 – that’s this complex [plays]. So then this complex returns in the first development section [plays] and is then sequenced like this, and this is followed by a sort of development of the triplet motif [Adorno corrects himself], the quintuplet motif [plays], and only in a later phase does this previously anticipated motif from the second part appear, which, if you wanted, you might consider a sonata-like codetta. That appears here [plays], and only at the very end of this development does the actual main theme return [plays]. And now we have the cadence again [plays]. So here, in the development, we find the order of thematic components from the exposition more or less exactly reversed, but those components themselves all return. So one might say that the development has already become a sort of reversed reprise. In a very free and variational sense, of course, for it goes without saying that the thematic elements become far more compressed in such a development-like section, and that there is above all a far more combinatorial approach than was possible at the beginning.

But I actually wanted to show you something else. So, after opening with a brief, urgent passage – the whole of the development consists of relatively short little sections [plays] – after this, there is a […] musical-dramatic [plays]. And then this passage [plays]. So you have a sonic moment that seems to be resolved in a very impressionist manner, with things like this [plays]. And the order of the notes found here, which do not emerge as themes at all, is truly identical to the main theme, as with a note row [plays]. So this is the main theme in its authentic, its final form [plays]. And here amid the variety, the sonic confusion [plays], without being recognizable, and the pitches are exactly the same as before, as in a note row. Now, I am only pointing this out because Schoenberg himself, in ‘Style and Idea’, I think, wrote in some detail about a very complicated combinatorial passage in which the quintuplet motif is combined with this theme [plays] and is extremely contrapuntal, because here, as he writes, he had great problems bringing the themes together.⁴ And then there is a first reprise of the introduction in all its main elements, which also acts as the major formal caesura, and then the second part begins.

Perhaps, just this once, I can say something about the matter of performance. In the symphonic poems of the period, and this applies especially to Richard Strauss, there is a great danger that, when the schema happens to be ‘death and transfiguration’⁵ and we get to the transfiguration – which happens rather often – when that point is reached, one has the feeling that everything is essentially over, and therefore – this is incredibly strong in Strauss – has the impression of one coda after another; and what is unbearable about this kind of music is that, with these very strong cadences, one thinks that surely one has arrived at the goal and the boat has reached the harbour, and then it starts again and again and again. The same applies to many of Strauss’s operas; these are formal questions that are by no means limited to the shaping of symphonic works but, rather, apply to musical shaping in general. Now, it is of the utmost importance, and essential for understanding Schoenberg in general, to know that a work such as Verklärte Nacht has nothing to do with this scenario where the boat not only reaches the harbour and does so again, and is now very secure there, and is now in the innermost pool [laughter in the auditorium]. Schoenberg is truly free of this, which means that the second part is a genuinely and thoroughly composed second part, not a drawn-out coda or suchlike. And this is clear from the fact that it is just as rich in thematic work as the other themes. It would, incidentally, be worth comparing the musical quality, the quality of individual ideas, and comparing something like this theme here, which opens the second part, this D major theme, with the transfiguration theme from Strauss’s Tod und Verklärung, where you can already compare this incredible warmth Schoenberg has, which is devoid of anything decorative, with the boastful, self-regarding character of a theme like this [plays Tod und Verklärung] in the Strauss. I would say that the difference between such a theme and Schoenberg’s theme, this one [plays Schoenberg, op. 4], this difference is essentially the difference between bloated, decorative neo-Romanticism and New Music, even though Schoenberg is still using neo-Romantic material.

But I wanted to say something about performance. I think it is very important that, with a theme like this one, which bears the marking ‘Very broadly and slowly’, one should still be clear that the theme is intended in minims, that it is an alla breve theme and should not be played in crotchets, for heaven’s sake, that one should not make it excessively definitive, but that one truly conveys through the presentation that this is not one of those wretched codas but genuinely the second part of the whole form. So I would say that the performance of such works should precisely reflect the formal relations within them, and naturally people generally forget that entirely.

Now I will show you in detail how the themes, the new themes from the second part, alternate with the preceding themes, and how the form is actually created in this second part. So first you have this new theme on page 26 [plays] that I just played you. And the cadence to F sharp major [plays] is followed directly by the one-bar phrase from the beginning, which leads into the main theme. So, here is the theme [plays]. And then comes this [plays]. Now Schoenberg appends this motif, which comes from the beautiful E major theme I played you, as a consequent [plays], so this theme has actually been added and becomes a consequent [plays]. This is followed by a sort of coda idea, and now there is another new theme at letter N on page 28 [plays]. Now, clearly this theme is not an entirely new theme but is probably connected to this theme from an earlier episode [plays], at least in the sense that the characteristic intervals are shared, but here it certainly has the quality of a fresh theme. So you see how he alternates: first he has the new theme [plays], then he introduces this first theme from the first movement and then this consequent [plays], and now he has another new theme. Then he brings back a familiar element by returning to the duet idea [plays], and so forth, meaning that he alternates once again between what was already there and what is entirely new, and then he also draws the introductory theme [plays] into the whole mixture. The duet idea then continues, and now the real second subject of the second part, which is also conceived with two themes, this is very fresh and is one of the most beautiful themes in all of early Schoenberg, I would say [plays]. And this is an entirely new theme but is followed by a familiar element from the first part [plays], and so forth. So, as you will have noticed, this is obviously the main theme but now in the major, this one [plays], and so on. This is elaborated for some time until finally this theme, well, the quintuplet theme, is brought back and then combined with the second subject theme, this one [plays], and when that is over, Schoenberg falls back on this cadential theme I mentioned to you [plays], but now he absorbs it into the symphonic fabric, in D flat major [plays]. And this is repeated and continues in the same vein. And then he brings back this motif, this shortened motif from the theme [plays]. I would prefer to spare you the detail of a thematic analysis, because you can all work that out for yourselves easily enough. So, what you find here is an alternation between a new theme, or a returning new theme from the second part, and a theme from the first part, as I have already shown you. The climax is reached with the cadential theme on page 42, where the cadential Abgesang theme is finally combined with the sealing theme, and this cadential turn reappears one last time at the very end before the coda. Though here, and this is very interesting, he uses the Abgesang theme in triple fortissimo at the climax [plays] but combines it not with the cadential theme but, rather, the main theme of the second part. Only at the very end, before the final coda, does he go so far as to use it in this form – no, excuse me [plays], instead of this [plays], because that is over; instead, it is bracketed together with the whole form once and for all by this [plays].

Incidentally, I would like to draw your attention to something else. In Wagner, the approach to leitmotifs is generally characterized by a certain ruthlessness and violence. That is, the variations often impose things on the themes that the themes cannot really carry. So if you look at Götterdämmerung and see everything that happens to Siegfried’s horn call there, one has the feeling that the whole leitmotif apparatus puts too great a strain on the individual character of the themes. After all, a theme is always two things at once: it is both ‘for itself’ and ‘for another’, something that exists for itself as something independent but is also an element from which other things are formed. And I would say that this is one of the most important tasks of composition […]

[…] and that is the song ‘Warnung’ [Warning].⁶ I would like to show it to you for two reasons: firstly, because I have set myself the task of showing you in statu nascendi, as it were, certain basic Schoenbergian characters that then run through the later oeuvre, and, secondly, to point out a certain phenomenon in Schoenberg that it is very difficult to formulate precisely, but which I consider rather important for understanding the specific nature of his music as such. So, let us first of all consider the character in question. It is a certain kind of abrupt, startled scherzo character. I think that Schoenberg’s reshaping of the great traditional formal types has generally been given too little serious analysis. It is fair to say that the spirit of the sonata certainly predominates in Schoenberg, and in a very strict sense. But one might also say that precisely the traditional type of the scherzo greatly inspired him, on the one hand, but that he decisively altered it, on the other. It inspired him in the sense that the scherzo in traditional music was essentially restricted – if you will forgive my using the word just this once for the sake of clarity, I would only ever say it, not write it – to the element one refers to in music as the ‘demonic’. In so far as Schoenberg’s music is very substantially defined by the element of the demonic, driven by the forces of expressionism – extending from the uncanny to a certain kind of quirky humour, Schoenberg undoubtedly absorbed a great deal of this spirit of the scherzo. On the other hand, he himself remodelled the form very significantly. To a certain extent, since Haydn replaced the traditional minuet with the fast scherzo, the scherzo has rather lacked a history. There have been all manner of changes, of course, such as a certain shift towards more generic, intermezzo-like types of the kind one finds in Brahms; I do not wish to discuss these music-historical matters now. But the inner constitution of this type has, to a certain extent, remained constant. And if Schoenberg did indeed exert such a great influence on the totality of musical forms, then one thing this means is that he was the first to overcome this element of stasis in the crafting of the scherzo, that he pulled the scherzo fully into music history, as it were. And that happened in keeping with characters like the one I will at least play for you now. There were a large number of steps on this journey; one of the most important is the orchestral piece entitled ‘Peripetie’ [Peripeteia] from the op. 16 set.⁷ But there are numerous other representatives of scherzo types. There are essentially two basic scherzo types in Schoenberg. The one, which works with one-bar models in clear 3/4 time, is found at an important point in Gurrelieder, or in the First Chamber Symphony; the other has a more driving quality and is very characteristic of Schoenberg. And this is the type I would like at least to outline to you in the song ‘Warnung’, which is again a setting of a poem by Dehmel [plays ‘Warnung’, Six Songs, op. 3, no. 3), and so forth. You can still hear a degree of Brahmsian influence, especially in the piano writing. However, it is also the model of a type that returns in op. 6 in this form [plays ‘Lockung’ [Enticement], Eight Songs, op. 6, no. 7]. And this is the same type that continues, for example, in the op. 19 piano pieces; it appears in this piece [plays no. 4 of Six Little Piano Pieces, op. 19]. And, finally, you will also find it in the second piece from op. 23. Now, I am doing this not to give you an idea of that development but for a different reason. And there I would like to content myself with simply pointing out a phenomenon that suggests itself to me very strongly without my being able to explain it in genuinely precise musical terms – a phenomenon, however, that I think is key to an understanding of Schoenberg as a whole. So you must excuse me if I speak a little more vaguely than I usually like to do. For what I mean is a certain directness of musical formulation, of musical utterance. With Schoenberg one never has the feeling that he is taking a circuitous path, that the musical phenomenon is being slowly introduced; rather, it seems to be fully present at every moment. Of course there are also introductions and transitions and such things in Schoenberg, but even these formal elements are very overtly realized in terms of their formal purpose, that is, as introductions or transitions. And I think that the kind of intensity that Schoenberg’s music exudes comes substantially from this firmness, this lack of hesitance, this – the best way to describe it is really hitting the nail on the head. It is a phenomenon that is very difficult to grasp. I can already feel it very clearly in this theme [plays op. 3, no. 3]. And I feel it even more strongly in the later works. I suppose it is connected to an exceptional vividness of invention, that in the invention, the crutch of progressions in seconds, a common way for themes to drag themselves along, somehow gives way to more characteristic intervals from the start. But it is also very closely connected to the sharpness of rhythm that one already has in this theme [plays]. So, you see, there are barely any steps of a second here, and the characteristic interval is the augmented fourth, or in this case the diminished fifth. And it lends that particular character from the start. But I think that our musical concepts are still far too primitive, for although we are able to give an approximate description of what happens in such a motif in technical terms, we do not truly have the means to express the inner tensions contained in such themes. And I would say that anyone who analyses these things, if they are truly to learn anything from them as a composer, that they should concentrate primarily on these inner tensions that lie within such motifs. I cannot go into that any further now. I really mean only to raise a problem and encourage you to rack your brains about the matter yourselves. Though I do also have my evil pedagogical ulterior motive, which is that I believe that one of the central things one must strive for as a composer today is really this overt way of forming themes – in the broadest sense of the word – that is, this self-evidence of the musical event as the representative of its musical sense, that one must actually control that particularly closely. I think Schoenberg’s superiority lies not least in the fact that each one of his thematic statements is so incredibly precise; that there is never one motif too many; that there is never a moment of vagueness, of something supplementary or mediated, but that things are reduced from the outset to what is essential for the representation of the musical sense. And I would say that, from this position, you will perhaps gain very deep insights into Schoenberg’s use of the twelve-note technique. Because the technique essentially means that no note is coincidental, as every note is determined by the thematic context. Indeed, I would say that this impulse of reduction to necessities in relation to anything else that could dilute it from the outside, that this was actually no less present in Schoenberg’s music at a time when he had not yet conceived of dodecaphony at all. And I think – and this is directed especially against the use of twelve-tone composition out of convenience – that the twelve-note technique is only justified where it serves this precision of the musical idea, and that it becomes an idle mechanism when it no longer serves this purpose of formal construction.

But now let me keep my promise and say a few things to you about Verklärte Nacht. Verklärte Nacht is a string sextet that was later arranged very beautifully and effectively for string orchestra.⁸ It is a one-movement piece in the same way as the Straussian symphonic poems that were common at the time. First of all, it is rather interesting that Schoenberg here applies this idea of the symphonic poem to chamber music, which clearly demonstrates a need to place the work on a more solid footing than a merely colouristic or decorative one, which was initially the purpose of the symphonic poem as conceived by Liszt, and to give it a more robust polyphonic foundation. For it is generally the case in the history of the nineteenth century, and in the history of recent music, that internal articulation, thematic work in a finer, polyphonically variegated sense, was largely the province of chamber music, whereas symphonic music was comparatively primitive, relying more on its power and less ambiguous internal constitution. One can already show this very precisely in Beethoven’s music, where the symphonies are really much more simply crafted than the quartets and the other great chamber music works; that is generally the case, at least. So here you have a symphonic poem that simultaneously tries to be fully compositionally elaborated in the sense of a chamber-music fabric, and this already sets up the polarity of elements that would remain so central for the mature Schoenberg. Now, this symphonic poem is based on a poem by Dehmel, and the composition follows this poem quite faithfully and is very similar to the poem, which depicts a sequence of emotional states: it describes a moonlit night, then a woman lamenting to her lover, carrying the child of another man, an unloved man, then her consolation by the man, who accepts the child as his own out of love for the woman, and then the transfiguration invoked by the title. Now, these individual elements appear in a relatively concrete form in the music, and, just as they appear in short sections in the poem, the music also consists of relatively short sections. Let me just say that this division into short sections is a very peculiar affair. For one can see very clearly – and there is something very touching about this, I think – that the impetus of the themes Schoenberg uses really pushes beyond these short sections, that the themes are, from the start, more symphonic than the framework that he wishes to follow, out of the respect for the poem, here allows. But he managed to find a solution, for the themes in the different sections are not simply quoted, they do not simply return as quotations and are subjected to psychological variation, as is typical in symphonic poems, but, rather, are developed in an actual symphonic spirit – or, as I would prefer to put it, in a sonata-like spirit, a chamber-music spirit. I will then try to show you this in detail. But, aside from that, the absolute musician in Schoenberg not only developed the impetus of the individual themes in Verklärte Nacht further than the sections allow; he was also following a very strong architectural need. The whole symphonic poem, as one might call it, the whole of Verklärte Nacht, is a two-part piece. And the caesura lies before the appearance of D major, in the study score – I assume some of you will have the score here – that is on page 26. So, it should be exactly, almost exactly, in the middle of the piece that the second part begins. As for the more detailed subdivisions, the first part has a long introduction and then an animated symphonic movement with certain symphonic traits, especially a rather clearly structured development section and then a hint of a reprise, whereas the second part is freer in its form, though it too essentially comprises two main thematic components. Now, what is interesting here, and actually surprised me when I discovered it during my preparations for this course, is the way in which Schoenberg solves the problem of such a bipartite form. So today I will speak to you primarily about formal problems – not in the superficial sense of how forms are organized and how the different parts follow one another, but in the sense of what Schoenberg himself called a ‘feeling for form,⁹ meaning that one understands the inner forms and the inner problems of such a form. Now, a two-part work such as this entails extraordinary problems – the bipartite structure. You must not forget that there are two parts but not two movements; that is, there are two parts within one movement that must form a whole. Now, if you simply keep the two movements completely separate from each other, and place them alongside each other purely as contrasts, it is obvious that the whole genuinely consists of two movements, that there is actually no overarching organization. But if, on the other hand, you organize the second movement or the second part only in the sense of reworking the thematic components that are already given, then it is naturally extremely difficult – especially if the first part does not return at the end to round things off – to keep up the idea of contrast without compromising. Perhaps I can say here that, when people speak of thematic work and the relationship between form and thematic work, they are almost always thinking of how the composer has worked with the material that is already given. It is at least as important for the true formal instinct, however, the true sense of form, that a composer detects at which point something new must appear, at which point something needs to enter that is not derived from what is already given, as it is for the composer’s organizing faculty to use this derivation in order to shape the existing elements. So we should not, in my view, make things too easy for ourselves by thinking that our souls are saved if we can trace everything we write to something that already appeared somewhere else. Especially when analysing, one very easily falls prey to the danger of this cult of derivation, and that, I would say, is a somewhat pre-artistic position, whereas the true sense of form lies in the balance between a sensitivity to the underivable, to the character of the Abgesang, one might almost say, and what came before it and is thus derived. And Schoenberg in particular was incredibly finely attuned to these subtle questions of formal shaping. So now, to come to the question of how Schoenberg fundamentally solved the matter of this bipartite form, we find something highly ingenious. For, in the second part, he used and introduced a large number of genuinely fresh thematic elements and also – how shall I put it? – certain thematic seals, certain thematic frames. But he made these alternate – with a certain regularity, which indicates a compositional intention – with parts, with verses or sections, that were taken from the first part. So there is always, crudely speaking, an alternation in the second part of this work between new themes and themes already present in the first part, and the latter are of course placed in relation to one another and interwoven, and the introductory section should be understood as the introduction not only to the first part but to the whole piece, and the coda consequently corresponds to the introduction. So here you can already see hints in Schoenberg of a phenomenon that later became very important for Berg in particular, and to which I will return later in the context of Gurrelieder. What we find is different principles of organization being superimposed, as it were; the form is organized at different levels because the traditional, conventional formal types are no longer really there, and consequently the form has to be constructed far more tightly than would otherwise be possible. In a sense, Verklärte Nacht – and what I am saying applies equally to Gurrelieder – is a neo-German work in its use of leitmotifs. Several of the main themes have the significance of leitmotifs, as well as this characterizing function of leitmotifs; I will show you a number of these themes in a moment. At the same time, the whole work is symphonically organized, in so far as the first movement genuinely has certain sonata-like elements with a development section, while the second has this very productive division into new thematic elements and the alternation with earlier material, born out of this necessity of balance between the new and the familiar, so that the form is secured both by the leitmotifs at the micro-level, in the details, and by an extremely original and unconventional architecture at the macro-level.

But before I come to the details of this work, I would draw your attention to another matter. You are all familiar with the quartal harmony from the First Chamber Symphony, whose introductory theme is the motto for the Kranichstein course.¹⁰ Those of you who know the First Chamber Symphony well also know that these fourths are not, as people like to say, the theme of the Chamber Symphony but act only as architectural fastenings, whereas the main theme is this [plays] and not the fourths. Now, it is very interesting to observe that Schoenberg already has something very similar to the quartal harmonies of the Chamber Symphony in Verklärte Nacht. You recall these resolutions [plays] or this [plays] and all the others that appear in constant variation in the Chamber Symphony. Now, there is a characteristic central chord, a kind of seal, at the most characteristic turning points in Verklärte Nacht. And this is the famous chord that does not really exist, namely the inverted ninth chord where the suspended note is sustained beneath the resolved note, which, as you know, is forbidden in traditional harmony. This first appears on page 6 [plays Verklärte Nacht], and so forth. The same chord returns later, really at the climax of the development, before a kind of intermediate reprise, one might say, of the slow introduction. So this is the main theme [plays], and then this returns [plays], then you have the chord again [plays]. […] And then you have it appearing importantly for a third time in a later passage – one second – I can’t find the passage just now. I am sure I can point it out to you later when I analyse it. Ah yes, on page 48, directly before the coda, this passage [plays], and there you have the chord again [plays], and so on. Now, this chord is not only interesting because it does not actually exist, but also for another reason, namely its quartal composition [plays]. It takes only a small alteration and you already have this fourth chord [plays]. Why did Schoenberg choose those chords at those turning points here and in the First Chamber Symphony, where it is very well known? Evidently because the function of holding the form together called for something that was remote from the chromatic material. The fastening cannot be made from the same material as the thing it is meant to fasten together; rather, in order to fulfil its function, it must have a certain transcendence, a certain character of otherness in relation to the immanent development of the music. Now, this material you have here is very much based on chromatic leading-note harmony in the manner of Wagner. In order to give these passages a real articulation, however, something has to be introduced as a kind of seal that is as different as possible from this chromatic leading-note material, namely chords: they have none of this urging, dominant-like character, no suggestion of leading notes, and in a sense they are inorganic. With the greatest skill, inorganic elements are sprinkled into the material for the purpose of articulation because this pan-organic material, this thoroughly chromatic material, could hardly be organized and crafted convincingly without this element of contradiction, without this inorganic component. In other words, the articulation of this expressive music occurs, to an extent, through the fact that expressionless elements are introduced at decisive moments to set the expression in relief. And that is where we must seek the root of an entire shaping approach in Schoenberg, or the origin of an entire layer of Schoenberg that, if one formulated a phenomenology of Schoenberg, would have to be described very closely. And that is the layer of coldness, the layer of which the conductor Kunwald once said, referring to the big resolution passage in fourths at the end of the Chamber Symphony’s development section, that it was a kind of glacial landscape.¹¹ And this layer of coldness, which in a sense opposes expression in order to balance out the forces of expression, this layer is the one you first find in this famous chord [plays], and which you then find in the quartal chords and time after time.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, what I have told you here has, I think, extremely far-reaching implications for an understanding of one of the most characteristic phenomena of Schoenberg’s music, namely an understanding of Schoenbergian dissonance. We all tend at first, if we are coming from the Wagnerian perspective, to understand dissonance in the sense of an expressive principle and to say that it really emerged from the increasing need for expression. And I have, to this day, essentially adhered to this belief that dissonance should be explained only and essentially in terms of expression. But I think that, at the same time, it has an entirely different root. In Schoenberg it comes from both these inorganic elements, which – like silver ribs or pieces of metal put into a soft mass, have the function of articulating and holding together. So I would say that when, later on, Schoenberg’s complex sonorities are sometimes expressive, but sometimes the exact opposite of expressive, and have this peculiar – perhaps one can call it objectivity, an objective constructive power – that this already lies inside them, that these articulating, inorganic leading chords appear in this way in the early works. Let me now just note in advance that Schoenberg’s incredible sense of form is also evident, for example, in the fact that he does not simply take this main theme from the first part of Verklärte Nacht to articulate the second part too but, rather, introduces a second theme; he invents a kind of cadential theme that has the same function in the second part as this chord progression in the first [plays], and that is precisely the last theme I just played you, the one that appears before the coda, but also in many other places. I mean this theme [plays]. And only at the end [plays] does he bring these two sealing themes together, these two brackets, and thus brings about the unity of their function – whereas, in all the analogous passages in the second part, where before there was this strange ninth chord, this inverted ninth chord, he instead has exactly this cadential theme. That too, incidentally, is an element, a formal element, that you will find used in a far more conscious way in the First Chamber Symphony, which, as well as the fourths, has its own cadential theme that enters whenever there are perfect cadences, namely this theme [plays]. And this theme I just mentioned has exactly the same function here, in a slightly more primitive way. So you see that the genuinely revolutionary innovations undertaken by Schoenberg in the great chamber works from op. 7 to op. 10 were, both in their idea and in the technical approach, already present to a considerable extent in Verklärte Nacht.

Now I would like to consider a few details in Verklärte Nacht. But I will not analyse everything for you. I will not provide a complete analysis, least of all a purely thematic analysis, which is very simple in parts, and you can […]

[…] distinguish incredibly precisely between variable motifs and themes, that is, between themes that turn into something and themes that appear with a kind of claim to being, and which consequently have this form of exterritoriality I was describing to you earlier when I spoke about that inorganic quartal element, which is really one of the roots of the later dissonance. So he will not, for example, subject a theme like this [plays] to variation, because it is precisely the fact that this theme in its formal purpose always has a conclusive, a final character, if you will – if you were to develop variations on that, it would lose its whole sense. What he does, what he then does in the Chamber Symphony with incredible artifice, is to transform the endings of such themes in such a way that they always lead into new harmonic regions, that they always take on a different function. In their own substance, however, these themes are preserved. I would like to correct myself in a small matter, incidentally. You must not assume from what I have said that there are no adagio movements in the traditional sense in Schoenberg. The first movement of the Second Chamber Symphony, for example, is an adagio of the grandest kind, though somewhat exceptional in that respect – and indeed the Second Chamber Symphony as a whole, to which I would like to devote an entire lecture course one day, is one of the most exceptional of all works by Schoenberg.

Well, that is really everything I wanted to say to you about Verklärte Nacht, but I would like to give you an opportunity, if you have any questions about these things I have touched on, an opportunity to have those questions answered. Can I assume, after everything I have said, that you are sufficiently familiar with the work to reconstruct approximately what I have said? Because obviously I was unable to carry out a typical thematic analysis here, which would also be entirely beside the point of such a lecture. So, do you have any questions about it? – Yes? Didn’t someone say something?

Question from the auditorium: Just something that may be more peripheral. Should one view the arrangement for string orchestra as authentic, are they equally valid, the chamber work and the one for string orchestra?

Adorno: I think Professor Kolisch can answer that question better than I can. Rudi, what do you think?

Rudolf Kolisch: Yes, Schoenberg approved of both performances, though he preferred the original version.

Adorno: He preferred the original version?

Kolisch: Yes.

Adorno: Yes.

Kolisch: The string orchestra was […]. He made the arrangement himself.

Adorno: The arrangement is his own, yes.

Kolisch: Yes. […]

Adorno: Well, then I can move on to Gurrelieder. So Gurrelieder has no opus number. That is a strange business; I do not know the exact reason. It probably has something to do with the fact that after finishing work on Gurrelieder – I think it was as early as 1900 – Schoenberg interrupted the orchestration at a certain point, either at the melodrama or the interlude before the melodrama in the third part, and completed it only in 1910, around the time of Die glückliche Hand. In its substance, however, this work is obviously an early Schoenbergian work through and through and should not be placed alongside those that were later changed. Although it is very typical of Schoenberg that all manner of works accompanied him over a very long period, and so his ambition to complete everything and present finished results, this ambition was not terribly great on his part, as indeed the idea of the result and the chef d’oeuvre and completing things are not really decisive with the greatest artists. Just think of Michelangelo: almost all of his major works somehow remained fragments. And this tendency towards the fragmentary is very strong in Schoenberg, and one can perhaps discover something of this kind in Gurrelieder, where the orchestration of the later parts indeed differs greatly from the rest. So, Gurrelieder is a kind of – well, one really has to call it a kind of Liederspiel, a song cycle, in which the very short second part is really just one great song that is contrasted with the other songs purely because of its very emphatic character, and in the third part this is combined with choral elements, namely the male choruses sung by King Waldemar’s troops, then with the long orchestral interlude and the melodrama ‘The Wild Hunt of the Summer Wind’ and the big final chorus. The approach in Gurrelieder as a whole is a two-pronged one, if you will, as I touched on with reference to Verklärte Nacht. On the one hand, it is a work that uses leitmotifs, much like Wagner’s music dramas, and those of you who still own the old version, the long version of Berg’s analysis¹² – I lost mine in the confusion of emigration – can find very detailed analyses of these leitmotif relationships there. At the same time, the piece is written in such a way that the characters of the individual songs are set off against one another, set apart from one another very sharply. Berg, who is largely – I think this has not been sufficiently emphasized until now – Berg’s specific technique consists largely in further developing the technical achievements of the early Schoenberg. While Schoenberg himself then continued in a completely different direction after op. 10, one might say that Berg transferred all the technical advances of the early Schoenberg to a freer material, and there are two works in particular by Schoenberg that were decisive for Berg’s entire development. The first is Gurrelieder and the second is the First Chamber Symphony, which you will more or less find with all its structural elements if you look at the Piano Sonata by Berg, so that Berg’s development must be understood largely in relation to these things and not so much to the later Schoenberg. That applies to Gurrelieder in a very special sense, in a twofold sense. As a teacher, Berg said with a certain – how shall I put it? – rigidity, though there was no doubt something very correct and profound about it – and I assume that this is a distinction he adopted from Schoenberg – that there are really two fundamentally different approaches to shaping music. On the one hand, there is the symphonic or sonata-like way, which I would describe as one where the element of mediation, of dynamic mediation and expansion, is decisive; and then there is a compositional method based on contrasting individual characters, each of them as self-contained as possible. If you look at Schoenberg’s output from this perspective, you will really find that there are a number of works of both types; there are actually quite pure examples of both these types. So, it is hardly worthy of comment that the major instrumental works generally belong to the symphonic type. On the other hand, works like the op. 15 George songs or Pierrot lunaire are extreme examples of a characterization of individual elements that are effective chiefly because of the contrasts, and because each piece does not lead smoothly into the next but is always set off very clearly against it. To say something about the interpretation of these works by Schoenberg, it is therefore one of the most important tasks to set off the George songs or the individual pieces in Pierrot against one another as sharply as possible through the characterization, the vocal tone, the instrumental tone and whatever else there is, to avoid at all costs any semblance of continuity; that is not what these works aim for; they aim for the opposite.

Now, a work such as Gurrelieder – if you proceed from this typology, which remained quite fundamental for the whole school and has not really been examined sufficiently – if one views Gurrelieder in these terms for a moment, it is really in the middle between the two types. So, on the one hand, Gurrelieder is a very sharply characterized work in the sense of contrasting, very clearly separated individual songlike numbers. On the other hand, it consistently seeks to mediate between the parts, not to set them off against one another. And this happens in the form of the orchestral interludes, which are of varying lengths, but in two cases there are very long orchestral interludes, namely before ‘Lied der Waldtaube’ [Song of the wood pigeon], which brings the news of Tove’s death, and then before the last part, ‘The Wild Hunt of the Summer Wind’, which marks the real shift from the mythological element of the work to that of natural symbolism. And these big orchestral interludes are really development sections in an exact sense, developments of the themes that appear in the songs and the vocal sections of the work. Here one finds exactly the same principle that one finds in Berg’s Wozzeck in the large orchestral interludes, where the motifs first introduced in a relatively simple way to reinforce the vividness of the scenes are then developed and take on lives of their own by various means, especially through a very rich use of imitation. In Wozzeck, much as in Gurrelieder, you also have this very pointed contrasting characterization of each individual scene – each individual scene in Wozzeck has its very specific colour, indeed many scenes even have their own orchestra: the scene, that short adagio scene in the slow movement, is mostly written for chamber orchestra, or the final scene is scored for a very reduced orchestra, and subsequently in Lulu, as you know, all this was taken much further. So you have this urge to characterize individual parts combined with an urge towards a symphonic unification of the elements, and one might say that, in Berg especially, one of the main impulses was to let these two elements, the symphonic and the characterizing – if one wanted to use a very stupid term, then the genre piece, which always represents a very specific genre – become interwoven, and the central model for that is Gurrelieder, where the big orchestral interludes have that character. Now, it is extremely gratifying to follow, especially in Gurrelieder, by what subtle means this characterization is achieved. In its lyricism, its truly lyrical melodies, the first part of Gurrelieder is among the greatest jewels in all of music. One now sees that the nature poetry often used here prefers a certain quality of muted colour, and this muted colour, this dulling of colours, had a great effect on Schoenberg’s later orchestra, which dispenses almost entirely with the sumptuous, flowering string tone; and, if we have now become so suspicious towards any kind of rich, rounded tutti tone, then this is an impulse that stems from this taste for equivocal, muted colours. One of the basic experiences embodied by all of Schoenberg’s music is that all that glitters is actually dirt. And I think this aversion to shimmer, to things that shimmer on the outside, despite the incredible wealth of colours, this is something you can already find very prominently in Gurrelieder, where you will find that, in proceeding from the augmented triads in the first song, which are similar to those used by Wagner, that this process of dimming and muting results in whole-tone chords. I will play you a few bars from the first song [plays Gurrelieder, Part 1]. Now, let me show you how such a melody is truly free from the sequencing principle, and how the connection here is brought about through this gliding [plays] of whole-tone chords and augmented triads into one another. You can also observe here that, unlike Wagner, Schoenberg almost never uses chromatic bass lines, or has only partly chromatic ones; there are always stronger diatonic progressions alternating with the chromatic ones [plays]. Now things turn chromatic [plays], then the strong progression again [plays], now chromatic again [plays]. Now, the melody goes like this [plays]. But now it continues quite differently [plays]. The relationship between the two parts is that of antecedent and consequent, or that of variation. Nonetheless, the second part does not repeat the first but is a kind of answer to it, like this [plays]. This is the first [plays]. So he arrives at the tonic again, but is already working with completely different melodic material. And now we have this chromatic transition [plays], now a different component [plays], and now a kind of consequent in the major, which I do not need to play for you. So then a second verse begins; it is a variation [plays] on the first, a high degree of variation. You see, at the start we had this [plays]. Now you also have these fifths, these fourths [plays], fifth [plays]. The harmonies themselves, as you all know, obviously come from the sleep harmonies in the Ring,¹³ but, whereas Wagner constantly sequences them, they are used here as independent chords that even act as degrees, with a complete avoidance of sequences. Now, Schoenberg’s sense of form also reveals itself in something else. He does not content himself with contrasting the minor part and the major part but instead, once the major part is finished, the second time, he has the feeling that the whole calls for a rounding-off of sorts and introduces something completely independent, namely an Abgesang [plays]. Note the harmony that arises here [plays]. This is taken from the prelude [plays], and so on.

Now, the song of Tove that follows this introduces a very strong contrast because, even though it uses the same kinds of muted colours, it is now highly polyphonic, working with a very high degree of imitation. So, without any reduction in its dynamics or its strength, it remains in the same territory. And then there is a rather long, scherzo-like part, but I have no more time to go into that. Next time I would like to continue, and especially show you a few examples of the treatment of tonality in Gurrelieder, as well as the choral writing, and then we will focus on the op. 6 songs and I will try, proceeding from the op. 6 songs, to say a few things about op. 7 and about the Chamber Symphony, op. 9. You will have noticed today that I was already analysing these works teleologically – that is, with reference to the development towards those other works. – Thank you.