"Maximum Clarity" and Other Writings on Music

Letter from Urbana

letter from urbana 1963 The 1963 Festival of Contemporary Arts at the University of Illinois included twelve musical events as well as two lectures and a roundtable discussion which posed questions illuminated by the concert programs. Edward T. Cone’s lecture, “The Irrelevance of Tonality,” developed the thesis that there are musical works in the pitch organization of which the perception of a central point of reference is crucial to the heard structure of the composition , while there are others, more frequently encountered in contemporary music but not absent from the music of earlier periods,in which the structure does not so depend, though the music may in some sense employ tonality. Boulez’s lecture, “Poetry—Center and Absence—Music,” a reflection of his recent preoccupation with texts of Stéphane Mallarmé, reexamined various historical approaches to the problem of relating music and poetry and culminated in an expression of his own views: an affirmation of the “abstract” manner of handling texts, but with an insistence upon the idea of a symbolic common ground of meaning originating in the poem and motivating the music. The roundtable, “Approaches to Improvisation,” whose participants were the composers Robert Erickson and Barney Childs and the performers Bertram Turetzky, Dwight Peltzer, and Eric Dolphy, discussed problems of improvisation and aleatoric techniques in music, questioning basic aspects of the composer–performer relationship. From the point of view of Cone’s lecture,the works performed on the first weekend, in concerts given by the Walden Quartet and the Illinois Opera group directed by Ludwig Zirner, offer interesting contrasts. The comparison between the pre-twelve-tone serial technique of Webern’s op. 5 and the segmented twelve-tone organization of his op. 28; the juxtaposition of both these against Schoenberg’s hexachordally organized op. 45; and the contrast of all with Mayuzumi’s deliberately static pieces obviously demonstrated markedly different orientations to the question of tonality. Thus the serial “free association” of Webern’s op. 5 constantly approaches total chromati- 212 on other composers cism but sometimes permits emphasis on certain tones, whereas the symmetrical set formation of op. 28 practically guarantees that this cannot happen . On the other hand, Schoenberg’s String Trio creates a wealth of tonal ambiguity. It seems constantly to be providing “roots” and “tonics,” but closer listening reveals alternative possibilities in almost every case.The situation is like that of looking at certain Abstract Expressionist paintings: they can be perceived as somehow representational, but the degree of ambiguity involved is such that one must finally conclude that the essential composition of the painting does not depend upon any such reading. Although Mayuzumi’s pieces connect obliquely with Webern’s op. 5 in their intense preoccupation with timbre and minute detail, the resemblance stops there; to be sure, many of the pitch structures are symmetrical, but prolonged and reiterated tones and patterns establish artificial points of reference. This procedure is also basic to Boris Blacher’s Abstrakte Oper No. 1, different though its style may be. Here the triadic structures provide roots, but the symmetry of polychordal root groups and of root progressions provides several alternative tonics most of the time. When Blacher breaks this symmetry to establish a prejudice for one or another tonic, it is almost always for satiric effect. The promise of tonality is also, if rather chimerically, present in Gianni Ramous’s Orfeo Anno Domini MCMXLVII. Ramous’s elusive pitch continuity , not so triadic as Blacher’s, depends (to my ear) more upon microformal interval relations than upon larger-dimensioned relationships.There is,however ,a striking moment at the end,when a triadic cadence seems to have been established, only to be shattered by a dissonant-percussive final codetta. The second weekend provided a shocking contrast to the first,particularly for those listeners who prefer or even require music to engage them intellectually . The weekend began with a piano recital by Dwight Peltzer (not actually part of the festival proper) which included Salvatore Martirano’s Cocktail Music for piano,Webern’s PianoVariations op.27,Robert Erickson’s Ramus-Toccata, Ramon Sender’s Thrones, and Boulez’s Piano Sonata no. 1. Martirano, Erickson, and Boulez’s works, in very different ways, all move beyond the limitations of serial microform into a larger-scaled, freer idiom, characterized by expressionistic extremes of violence and delicacy.Erickson’s toccata included improvised passages,and Sender’s piece was entirely improvised on an amplified piano against tape sounds, in total darkness punctuated by flashes of colored...