chenneviere and martens - the two trends of modern music in stravinsky's works

8/13/2019 Chenneviere and Martens - the Two Trends of Modern Music in Stravinsky's Works

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The Two Trends of Modern Music in Stravinsky's WorksAuthor(s): Rudhyar D. Chennevire and Frederick H. MartensSource: The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 5, No. 2 (Apr., 1919), pp. 169-174Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/738074.

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THE TWO TRENDS OF MODERN MUSICIN STRAVINSKY'S WORKSBy RUDHYAR D. CHENNEVIJRE

PERPETUAL recreation of itself is an attribute of genius.^ Once a height attained, the eternal ascensiontowardsum-mits yet unscaled again begins. Hence nothing is moredisconcerting to the crowd than genius. Those who after mucheffort have gained an understanding of the work of a certain year,find themselves replunged the year following, into lack of com-prehension by its new work. An instance in point was when afterthe tardy triumph of the Sacre du Printemps, his le Rossignolbaffled Stravinsky's most ardent partisans.And, in truth, the abyss stretching between these two works isa profound one: the pieces for string quartet which succeededeven accentuated the new path which Stravinsky was following.One feels that for him the Sacre represents a point of arrival, theperfect expression of one kind of music. Yet this music does notsatisfy him: he seeks to go beyond it, to penetrate into domainsunknown. And of these researches his latest works have beenborn, works no doubt as yet incomplete; yet which surely will endin some typical score such as the Sacre du Printemps was of itskind.The Sacre, in fact, is a formidable, a magnificent work. Oneknows what an impression of intoxicating stupor (this is the correctterm) it produced in Paris, when given by Pierre Monteux at hisconcerts, separated from its plastic presentation, which the publicdid not understand and which, nevertheless, was so fine in itsritual animalism.Here music, carrying along beyond the borders of romantic-ism the tragic thought of Beethoven, is essentially "elementary"or "cosmic." In the mad hammering out of themes of primordialsimplicity, born of the people, in some sort out of man's purelyanimal spontaneity; in the prodigious orchestral inflations whosenotes burgeon forth like seed beneath the germinating urge of

Spring; in the violent super-position of a hundred incongruousvoices, cosmic voices of the winds, the forests, the birds, of allthese living forces exalted by the nuptial hour; in the delirium ofthe final dance of terror, in which the woman, hunted like a beast,169

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The Musical Quarterlydances the spasmodic dance of agonizing flesh; everywhere thereleaps forth a primordial vitality, cynical, tragic; life not anti-human, but an-human.And as in Petrouchka the great passion drama of humanityhad already been cynically staged as a tragic farce where marion-ettes hysterically disport themselves manipulated by the fingerof ironic fate, in the Sacre man is no more than some sort of animal,tossed about and crushed by indifferent cosmic forces.These two works, incidentally, are strictly limited. P6trou-chka is the music of the human crowd: the Sacre is the elementalmusic of the crowds of a universe. In both cases it is "mass"music, denying the individual, music extraordinarily "vital,"music of instinct. In a word, in the broad sense of the phrase, itis physical music.Of course Stravinsky could have continued to follow thispath. He might have doubled his orchestra, already large;invented new instruments using, for instance, the formidablemusic of steam, visioned by A. Sax, which the steamer siren hasmade vocal; let loose an outburst of sonority, or, if one prefers,ten times more noise; superimposing, instead of two or threetonalities double the number. He could have done this. Yethe did not, and without doubt will not do so; since it must havebecome clear to him that, once a certain balance is overpast, thegreater augmentation as regards quantity the less the factor ofquality makes itself felt.Hence it is that abandoning a tremendous instrumentalfracas, he has turned to the miniature orchestra, to the "stringquartet," in order to reveal to the world the secrets of a musicmore earnest and profound; no longer glorying in the cosmicwhirlwind; but concentrating in order to succeed in expressingthe human soul in its essential tragedy and serenity.And thus it is that after having, if not created, at leastbrought to its highest pitch of realization and actual power thiscosmic or elemental music, Stravinsky has entered upon the occultand unknown pathway of psychic music.Here Stravinsky found he had an immediate predecessor inDebussy-I will not speak of Beethoven, the initiator of all modernmusic, who in his last quartets recreates the genuine soul-musicwhich died with Palestrina. It has already been said that Schoen-berg and those who follow him more or less closely tend towardwhat is known as "pure sonal music." This is very true; yet,possibly, the whole value and meaning of the term "pure sonalmusic" has not been grasped altogether.

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The Musical Quarterlydeny the artistic value of such ritual ceremonies wherein are ex-pressed a complete synthesis of life. The magic incantation, thewell-spring of sacred music-the only music which is really en-during-vibrates with so intense a vitality because the priest inhis will for empire over the soul of things, insists on identifyinghimself with the life of earth; not only does he penetrate to themusical soul of living beings; but he commands them to liveaccording to his law, he binds them with their own lives whosesecret he has surprised. He creates life by making himself at onewith life: and that is the supreme goal of all art.True, the religion of the primitive magician is largely ex-ternal, largely formal, and the means of expression employed by himare uncouth. Yet his art is comprehensive and complete in itsessence. And the magic chant, the carmen, is yet, though on aninferior plane, a perfect creation.Man, who has a horror of continuity in which his dearlycherished individuality is dissolved, found in the stylization ofanimal cries points projected from the great current of continuousmusic, flowing from high to low pitch like some magnificentstream. These cries, approximately reproduced by the aid of in-struments, became fixed points of departure for their subsequentunion, which formed a kind of primitive scale. Thus the Chinesescale came into being: the "Annals" inform us that it was basedupon reeds of varying length, forming a sort of archaic flute. Inthe case of the other races it may have been the bow which was theorigin of instrumental music. And at once "discontinued" musicpresents itself and sound acquires an independent and individualvalue. And from this source there comes that "pure sonal music"which is born of the juxtaposition of individual sonorities moreor less complex.Nevertheless, for centuries and even, in the Orient, at thepresent day, the fixed sounds established, which in their entiretymake up the scale, were no more than guiding-points among whichthe melody moved freely and continuously without fixed intervals.Hence we have all these vocal glissandos, all these infinite melodicpalpitations of Hindoo music. which represent what remains of"continuous" music, which are the direct melodic expressionof life itself, in its infinite variety, its subtle and many-huedspontaneity, and not, as they are so ridiculously termed "musicalornaments."Without any doubt at all, a struggle between "continuous"and "broken" music, the constant progress of individualism, in-telligence and scientific reasoning, all inter-related factors, little

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Two Trends of Modern Music in Stravinsky's Works 173by little destroyed "continuous" music or, rather, this type ofmusic subsisted as an appanage of priest and temple; while thepeople in their individual gladness created the primitive folk-song,using for it no more than a few very simple sounds, the expressionof a no less simple mentality. A similar development took placeduring the Middle Ages, when the artless folk and popular songdistorted and killed the plain chant, that marvellous Byzantinecreation, amalgamate of all the sacred song of the Orient and ofPalestine, and whose anatomical outline alone has come down tous, deprived of the inner musical continuity which was its livingflesh.

"Broken" or "discontinued" music triumphs in counterpointand scientific classic music until Beethoven who is the first, in his"infinite melod _s," to aspire to genuine continuity. Wagnerseeks continuity in dramatic action (the linking together of leadingmotives); Debussy in his evocation of harmonic atmospheres;Stravinsky, finally, in the Sacre du Printemps piles up, one uponthe other, the most contradictory tonalities to break them downby ceaseless friction, creating the illusion of a perpetual and un-broken generation of sound. And hence it is that this work ofhis is the apex of a great musical effort of the XIX century, aneffort toward the realization of a cosmic music, that of elementalvoices.

Schoenberg opposes this trend. It is the "pure sonal music,"discontinued music, which he exalts. Yet this opposition is un-questionably no more than a desperate quest for a means of out-flanking an insurmountable obstacle, the obstacle which our scale(that is to say the entire musical system actually in use, main-tained by the very conformation of the majority of instruments,especially the keyboard instruments) opposes to "continued"music. Schoenberg, in fact, ignores rather than struggles againsttonality. He has his being in an atmosphere of absolut iro-maticism, tending to enharmonism (insisted upon by ' ._-anmu-sical futurists), and he forges sounds unknown, myst.Pzious "cries."He makes the impression of stuttering in a language which hehimself hardly knows, one whose resources he is continually busydiscovering. He ignores all lines of sonority. He is preoccupied,one might say, with musical soundings. He casts out his plummetinto the depths of the soul and draws up with it strange shapes,fantastic gleams. Yet these shapes have no vitality. He isunable to grasp the secret of their existence. Not that this dis-turbs him: he worships them because of their inexplicable radi-ance. And he depicts them; for before all else, Schoenberg is an



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174 The Musical Quarterlyanalysist. Beforehim thereexisted a conceptof the musicalline,of melody. He feels that this conception ends in a blind alley(this blind alley beingthe polytonalityof the SacreduPrintemps).Then, daringly,he abandonsall, and goes on at randomrangingthe whole domain of known music. Scapel in hand, he dissectsthe soulof man. And he discoversprodigiouspsychicoutcries,ex-clamationswhich he notes with fidelity; yet almost without con-nection,for their vital bondof unionescapeshim. It is thus thathe records these unknown sounds, whence come no one knows.One might term them onomatopoeiaof the soul. And, no doubt,as at the dawn of humanity, the Word leaped forth in these in-articulatecries, in which are expressed he reflexemotions of manconfronted with life, a music will be born of all these strange,scattered tones, to form the incomparable melody whose song willbe that of the all-embracing life of the soul.It is toward this goal that Stravinsky's purpose is directed.For the Sacre du Printemps is the perfect expression of elementalmusic, of instinctive psychic music. Yet it is not the greatsacred music of humanity's mysteries which the future insistsupon in order to sing the cult of Conscience and of Man Divine.In lieu of physical continuity, there must be born psychic contin-uity, the continuity of the soul. And in place of the fragmentary,analytical notation of Schoenberg, there must rise up a vitalsynthesis of the soul.This is the task reserved for the music of the future. And inanticipating it we should invoke the name of that great musicianwho has vanished, Scriabine. In the dawning of this animasticsynthesis which music will express, he stands forth as the greatmystic, visioning the tremendous emprise. Dying, perhaps, be-cause of its actual impossibility of realization, he towers in extaticserenity on the threshold of the music of to-morrow. More thenany other, with his far-flung gaze which penetrated the soul of theuniverse, he could foresee that which was to be. His last Preludesare incomparable tentatives, surpassing in perfection all thatSchoenberg has written, the beginnings of a new day, in whichMan, weary of the battles of materialism, turning to introspection,will meditate on the Infinite, won over to that vast, illimatableWisdom so long forgotten by him

Yet who is he who will arise to accomplish the great workwhich Scriabine did not realize?(Translated by Frederick H. Martens.)

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