A lecture given at the Los Angeles campus of the University of California on August 1, 1944 by Ernst Krenek

Adress given at the University of Carlifornia in Los Angeles, August 1, 1944, by Ernst Krenek

Contemporary music seemingly offers so contra¬ dictory and confusing a picture that many people are wont to give up listening to it, excusing their attitude by saying that they are not well enough trained to understand the complicated processes of such music, and that for the rest they are not prepared to expend the required intellectual effort to penetrate a phenomenon that, accor- ding to normal viewpoints, is meant to be enjoyed spontaneously rather than studied laboriously. The musician who wishes to remedy the situation and help his potential listeners finds himself in a difficult situation. Although he is con- fident that a technical analysis of the various contemporary creations will re- veal basic similarities and differences, he also knows that by doing so he will make the picture only more complex, apart from the fact that this approach entails precisely the kind of effort that the unitiated layman is least ready to make.

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Interpretations of the dominant trends in contemporary music getting along without technical details and simple enough to give a convincing over- all picture are very rare. One of the few which I have encountered recently was put forward by Igor Stravinsky in the second of his the lectures he gave in 1939 and 40 at Harvard University, published under the title "Poétique Musicale". The clue to Stra- winsky's distinctions is the relation of music and time. Referring to the ideas of Mr Souvtchinsky, a Russian philosopher auch friend of his, Strawinsky says the following:

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Chacun sait que le temps s’écoule de façon variable selon les dispositions intimes du sujet et les évènements qui viennent affecter sa conscience. L'attente, l’ennui, l’angoisse, le plaisir et la douleur, la contemplation appairaissent ainsi comme des catégories différentes, au milieu desquelles notre vie s'écoule et qui commandent chacune un processus psychologique spécial, un temps particulier. Les variations du temps psychologique ne sont perceptibles que par rapport à la sensation primaire, consciente ou non, du temps réel, du temps ontologique.

Ce qui marque la caractère spéci- figue de la notion musicale de temps, c'est que cette notion nait et se déve- loppe soit en dehors des catégories du temps psychologique, soit simultanément avec elles.....

M. Souvtchinsky fait apparaître... deux expaces de musique: l'une évolue parallèlement au processus du temps ontologique, l'épouse et le penètre, faisant naître dans l'ésprit de

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l’auditeur un sentiment d’euphorie et pour ainsi dire de "calme dynamique". L’autre devance ou contrarie ce processus. Elle n'adhère pas à l'instant souvre Elle déplace les centre sd'attraction et de gravité et s'établit dans l'instable, ce qui la rend propre à traduire les impulsions émotives de son auteur. Toute musique où domine la volonté d'expression appartient à ce second type.

La musique licé au temps onto- logique est généralement dominée par le principe de similitude. Elle qui épouse le temps psychologique procède volontiers par contraste.

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Everybody says that time elapses in various fashions, according to the intimate disposition of the observer and to the events that are effecting his consciousness. Thus expectation, boredom, anxiety, pleasure and pain, contemplation appear as so many different categories in the midst of which our life passes by, each of them commanding a special psychological process, a time quality of its own. The varieties of psychological time are can not be perceived but by referring to consciously or unconsciously to the basic experience of real time, that is, ontological time.

The specific character of the musical con- ception of time consists in that this conception's being is generated and developed either outside of the category of psychological time, or simultaneously with it.

Mr. Souvtchinsky points out two species of music: one of them evolves parallel to the process of ontological time, it embraces and penetrates the latter, thus creating in the listener a feeling of eu- phory and so-to-speak of "dynamic calm" The other progresses in contrast to that process. It does not abide by the

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instantanous fact of sound. It dis- locates the centres of attraction and gravity and establishes itself unfolds in the realm of instability, which makes it a proper instrument for conveying the emotional impulses of its author. All music in which is dominated by the will of expression belongs to this second type.

Music related to ontological time is generally governed by the principle of similarity. Music that associates with prochological time progresses preferably by way of contrast.

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In slightly more technical terms the last paragraph could be expressed by modified interpreted as meaning that the music related to ontological time proceeds by repetition, while the other one progresses by development.

Stravinsky does not conceal his preference for the ontological type of music and implicitly wants us to understand that his own music largely follows the ontological pattern. Very important is his statement that the psychological type of music transmits emotional impulses and is dominated by the will to express such impulses, for this in turn implies that the opposite type is free from such intentions.

Assuming that these two types actually exist and by and large cover the field of contemporary creation, we have to note a very interesting paradox. It is undoubtedly true that the contemporary music falling into line with the stylistic characteristics of set up by Strawinsky is far more popular and successful than the opposite type, represented vaguely by Schönberg and other composers who have written in the so called atonal style, even if they have not adopted some of Schönberg's more

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special techniques. It is likewise obvious that an infinitely greater number of composers belong to the first group than to the second. The objection which we may hear brought forward most frequently against the Schönberg type of music is that it is perhaps admirably thought out and constructed, but for this very reason, one-sidedly intellectual and devoid of emotional expressiveness.

On the other hand, we have Strawinsky's own word to the effect that his music, associated as it is to ontological time, is free from those psychological and emotional factors that would disturb that association. The "dynamic calm" which this music is supposed to create in the listener results from the fact that the music acts much in the way of a very elaborate and fanciful clock-work, through its rhythmic incisiveness and insistence marking divisions of the continuum of time, and nothing else. It would seem logical that music lovers craving for emotional expressiveness would be rather disappointed by such a type of music. However, it seems that

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the blissful sensation of "euphory" that Strawinsky claims as being caused by that music prevails over the lack of emotional intensity. At any rate it is clear that this music is intellectually much easier to grasp than the other type, for it is as a rule of a very simple construction. A certain rhythmic pattern, usually pounded out in bold relief, is repeated several times almost without change, in order to be re- placed by another such pattern that is treated in the same manner. Not only is rhythm, that is characteristic distribution of time values, the most im- mediately graspable basic element of music, but also repetition is the most safest device to make the organization of a langer span ummistaka- bly clear even to a primitive or distracted mind. Thus the relative popularity of that type of music may be explained by as- summing that its intellectual modesty suggests to the listener a total absence of intellectual factors, and that agreeable impressions, in turn, makes causes him to forget to look further for those emo-

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tional factors in which he had pro- fessed so strong an interest.

As I pointed out before, the essen- tial technical device of the other opposite type of music is known as development, meaning the evolution of one musical idea out of the other, in a subtle process of variation, in which certain elements of an idea are retained, certain others gra- dually so modified that a new idea of with a characteristic shape of its own eventually emerges, though still strongly related to the original one. This procedure has been characteri- stic of nearly all outstanding works created in Western music ever since the time of the Gregorian chant, and it has culminated. in the musical structures erected by Beethoven, and more recently, Schönberg. The dominating factor in the technique of development is not repetition, but variation, and in order to appreciate variation, one has to apply sustained attention to the unfolding musical process, making constantly mental reference to what went before. Development can be fol- lowed only by accumulating and actively living

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through progressing musical experience as one goes along. For it is quite true, as Stravinsky says, that this music does not abide by the instantaneous fact of sound. It does not in the first place rely on the momentary sensation caused by the sound at any given instant, but its meaning depends on the relationships of any of its sounding elements to all other such elements, in other words, it derives its aesthetic sense from the con- text. I don't think that people who now- adays through radio and movie are conditioned to considering music a more or less pleasant background noise from which isolated and irrelevant patches occasionally and casually emerge in short when chat and clatter of stop for a brief moment, I don't think that such people are to be blamed for not liking, a music that requires concen- tration and application. But I also think that they ought to be fair enough so as not to blame the music for being intellectual and unemotional, for it

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is precisely the of emotional intensity of that music that requires the dense and accurate construction which so unnecessarily frightens the half-educated amateur rather than the totally unprepared layman.

It is incidentally interesting to notice that one of the most articulate preachers promoters of the streamlined and emotionless type of music, that brilliant will-o'-the-wisp of french literature, Jean Cocteau, had an inkling of the nature of development, when back in 1918 he wrote in his lucid though frequently shocking flippant and superficial collection of aphorisms, Le coq et l'arlequin, the following :

"Beethoven est fastidieux larsqu’il dé¬ veloppe, Bach pas, parceque Beethoven fait du développement de forme, et Bach du développement d'idée. La pluspart des gens croient le contraire.

Beethoven dit: «Ce porte-plume a une plume neuve - il y a une plume neuve à ce porte-plume-neuve est la plume de cette porte-plume»... »

Bach dit: « Ce porte-plume a une plume neuve pour que je la trempe dans l’encre et que j’écrive etc.» ...

Voilà toute la difference."

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"Beethoven is tiresome when in his manner of development, Bach is not, for Beethoven's developments concern the form, while Bach's concern the idea. Most people think the opposite is true.

Beethoven says: « This penholder has a new pen - there is a new pen on this penholder - new is the pen of this penholder - ... »

Bach says: «This penholder has a new pen so that I may dip it into the ink and write, etc... »

There you have the whole difference."

This is quite nicely put and brilliant enough for a non-musician, but nevertheless it is not true. In the first place, it is very unfair to Beethoven, as Cocteau'sCocteau's for as everybody can see, his technique of development is far more subtle than the repetitious babble about the new pen indicates. In fact it is much more similar to Bach's procedure than Cocteau thinks. If Cocteau's funny description of "development of form" applies to anything musical at all, it may have a certain superficial

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similarity with the erude and rudimentary efforts of some of the early Mannheim composers. In fact it does not really symbolize any development at all, and in this respect the Cocteau's shuffling around the words in the penholder phrase without getting anywhere reminds one is rather of some of the processes taking place in the music associated with ontological time, and this is another little paradox, for Cocteau's theories have greatly served the promotion of to promote that type of music, although in Le coq et l’arlequin he obviously seems to prefer the other one.

As to my own music, it will not be hard for you to guess that I would classify it associated with psychological time. According to my intention, it very definitely carries emotional expression and it is has a very carefully organized construction in terms of classical development technique. During the past ten years, commencing with the opera "Charles V", I have in many of my works applied the principles of the twelve-tone technique with which some of you probably are acquainted. More

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recently I have devoted much time to a study of mediaeval music and of the principles governing the so-called modal idiom. A large choral work "Lamentatio Jeremiae Prophetae" written four years ago is shows the first attempts toward integrating the basic ideas of the twelve-tone technique with those mediaeval principles of musical organization. I approached this integration in various ways in other compositions, such as the orchestral Variations on the American folk-tune "I Wonder as I Wander", in my Cantata for Wartime on words by Herman Melville, and in my Seventh Quartet, to be played next season by the Budapest String Quartet. I do not think that this interest in mediaeval music is a vain intellectual pastime, for I believe that great music of all periods shows embodies the same basic artistic ideas, regardless of the idiom in which they are expressed.

The Piano Sonata which I am going to play now was written during the winter of 1943 in St. Paul, Minnesota. It is in four movements. The first movement follows a type of sonata form which appears is indicated in several of Beethoven's late quartets and sonatas. The thematic material, established in the traditional

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three characters - first, second and con- cluding theme - and brought to completion by a characteristic diatonic codetta - is run through four times, which corresponds to the cassical scheme of exposition, de- velopment, recapitulation and coda. However, those four sections are not so much different from each other in regard to their structural functions, they are rather like four aspects of the same things, like four stanzas of a ballad. Students of Beethoven will know that he applied a similar procedure in his A minor Quartet opus 132.

The second movement is called, Theme, Variations and Canons. and Each of the four varations The thema is followed is introduced by a brief canon, all canons be- ginning with a very characteristic trill motif. The last variation, leading back into the theme, incorporates the trill element previously re- served for the canons.

The third movement is a brief and rugged scherzo, with slightly lyrical middle section.

The last movement is a broad Adagio, which in regard to form does not offer any particular problems. It is meant to be the emotional climax of the whole composition.