Today’s post is brought to you by our guest author Caroline Bennett, who adds some music expertise to our more standard short story, poetry, and literary fare on Thousand Mile Walk. Enjoy.
Impressionism, symbolism, serialism, minimalism—the list of music movements in the 20th century goes on and on. Because there are so many strands of modern music, musicologists have difficulty creating a cohesive narrative. According to author Christopher Chowrimootoo, musicologists have traditionally separated 20th century composers by a “great divide.” The composers whose work is esoteric and specialized are seen as the serious “modernist” composers, while anyone else who wrote music in that time period are put into a remote “populist” category. Chowrimootoo suggests that 20th century music was much more nuanced. He promotes looking at music from a middle perspective: much of the music written was esoteric but still appealing to common people.[1] This approach is more balanced, but in order to better recognize this joining of styles and ideas musicians should be well acquainted with the “great divide” between the specialized music and that which was accessible to ordinary people.
The parameters of modern music feature examples of extremely esoteric as well as distinctly mass-market compositions. In 1912 Arnold Schoenberg introduced a song cycle entitled Pierrot lunaire, Op. 21. The eighth piece of this cycle, “Nacht,” has text describing giant black moths overshadowing the world. The piece is hard to appreciate by a general audience member because of its atonal vocal line, which has a terrifying lilt. When analyzed, however, one can appreciate the piece more. Schoenberg musically represents the overlapping of the wings of the moths by using a basic motive throughout (a rising minor third followed by a descending major third) that is transformed using retrograde and inversion and sometimes layers on itself. As Burkholder puts it, “even the motive’s shape, in original form or inverted, suggests the wings of the moths.”[2] Very few people, including musicians, would be able to hear this basic motive and its transformations, however, which makes this piece appeal only to a select audience familiar with the function of atonality. On the other end of the modernism spectrum is a piece like George Gershwin’s “I Got Rhythm,” a song from the Broadway show Girl Crazy. Unlike Schoenberg, Gershwin was seeking to appeal to his audience with the song and thus wrote it in the popular song form, AABA´, also known as Tin Pan Alley form. “I Got Rhythm” feels comfortable to average listeners because it is in a familiar key—G minor—and modulates to its relative major, B-flat major, moves to D major, and eventually travels through the circle of fifths to return to B-flat major. The song has a memorable melody and proved to be quite popular at the time of its premiere.
After listening to pieces like Schoenberg’s Pierrot lunaire or Gershwin’s “I Got Rhythm,” many compositions from the 20th century seem less extreme or clear cut. These pieces are where Chowrimootoo’s proposition of applying a middlebrow analysis proves helpful. Chowrimootoo suggests that the boundaries of the middlebrow perspective are not rigid but allow for the music to incorporate the esoteric nature of modernism with more palatable harmonies or forms. The end goal is for audiences to be engaged by the work but still intellectually challenged.[3] This perspective helps explain the music of composers such as Richard Strauss, Benjamin Britten, or Paul Hindemith, who each created their own unique style of modern music. The latter’s Symphony: Mathis der Maler is an excellent example of a piece best analyzed using the middlebrow perspective. Written in 1933-1934, this symphony by Hindemith was intended to serve as an instrumental interlude between movements of an opera of the same name. At the time of its composition, Hindemith was seeking to appease the Nazi government in his native Germany.[4] This resulted in his use of more tonal German melodies and harmonies. For example, in the first movement, “Engelkonzert” (Concert of the Angels), Hindemith weaves in the folk song “Es sungen drei Engel ein süsser Gesang” (Three Angels Sang a Sweet Song).[5] At the same time, however, Hindemith’s signature “waves of tonality” are readily apparent throughout this symphony, making it difficult to merely label this work “populist.” The opening of the second movement, entitled “Grablegung” (Entombment), is considered neotonal because it features open fifths and octaves, triads, chords built on fourths, and dissonances of a second or seventh.[6] Furthermore, throughout the symphony Hindemith introduces themes or builds tension (or doesn’t, when it’s expected) without ever resolving either. This lack of closure and the unique harmonies are often considered part of “high art” music. Nevertheless, due to the combination of the familiar colors and accessible melodies in Symphony: Mathis der Maler, but the lack of distinct keys or traditional harmonies, this piece makes most sense if viewed from a middlebrow perspective.
Twentieth-century composer Arnold Schoenberg once said that “the middle road is the only one that does not lead to Rome.”[7] Certainly, viewing the history of 20th century music as a “great divide” has its uses. This divide highlights the groundbreaking work that the Second Viennese School and composers of a similar strand were doing, and gives perspective to why other composers wrote more appealing, accessible works. To only view 20th century music as either “specialized” or “accessible,” however, hinders people’s knowledge of many composers and their works. Britten, Sibelius, and Copland wrote pieces that were well received by the general public, yet the harmonies and forms they used were oftentimes unexpected and unique. Even Schoenberg had a devoted following during his lifetime. Thus, to only say these composers are esoteric ignores their appeal; to say they are mere populists ignores their progressivism. When studying music history, then, musicians should acknowledge the boundaries of modernism but recognize how composers wrote music that was not only an emotional, but also intellectual, experience.
Works Cited
Burkholder, J. Peter, and Claude V. Palisca. Norton Anthology of Western Music. Seventh edition. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2014.
Chowrimootoo, Christopher. ‘Reviving the Middlebrow, or: Deconstructing Modernism from the Inside,’ from “Round Table: Modernism and Its Others.” Journal of the Royal Musical Association, 139, no. 1 (2014): 187-193.
Hall, Sharri K. “The Personal Tragedy in Paul Hindemith’s Mathis der Maler.” Musical Offerings 9, no. 1 (2018): 1-14.
Arnold Schoenberg, “Foreword to Three Satires for Mixed Chorus, op. 28” (1925-6), A Schoenberg Reader, ed. Joseph Auner (New Haven, CT, 2003), 186-187.
Footnotes
[1]. Christopher Chowrimootoo, “Reviving the Middlebrow, or: Deconstructing Modernism from the Inside,” from “Round Table: Modernism and Its Others,” Journal of the Royal Musical Association 139, no. 1 (2014): 188.
[2]. J. Peter Burkholder and Claude V. Palisca, Norton Anthology of Western Music, Seventh edition (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2014), 101.
[3]. Chowrimootoo, “Reviving the Middlebrow,” 191.
[4]. Burkholder, Norton Anthology, 375.
[5]. Sharri K. Hall, “The Personal Tragedy in Paul Hindemith’s Mathis der Maler,” Musical Offerings 9, no. 1 (2018), 5.
[6]. Burkholder, Norton Anthology, 376.
[7]. Arnold Schoenberg, “Foreword to Three Satires for Mixed Chorus, op. 28” (1925-6), A Schoenberg Reader, ed. Joseph Auner (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2003), 186.
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