IV British by choice, the influence of other traditions

10 Franz Reizenstein

 

Franz Reizenstein was born in Nuremberg on 7th June 1911. His father, a doctor, was interested in painting and other artistic matters, and provided his family with a helpful and sympathetic background. Franz’s sister was artistic, his brother was an amateur violinist, while he himself, from an early age, displayed remarkable gifts as a pianist and composer. He also possessed perfect pitch. So it seems likely that, in different circumstances, he might well have made his mark as a child prodigy. And it was not just a case of his being a composer who also played the piano. His technique was capable of the biggest works in the piano repertoire, and throughout his life the twin pursuits of piano playing and composition made up the two equal halves of his musical personality, and were inextricably bound together, each influencing the other.

In 1930 Reizenstein went to the State Academy of Music in Berlin, where he studied composition with Hindemith, piano with Leonid Kreutzer.

Hindemith required of his pupils that they should acquire at least a working knowledge of all the standard orchestral instruments. As Reizenstein said:

He arranged for his students to take up different wind and stringed instruments in turn... We played together regularly and provided most of the music by composing it ourselves. We would not let anyone listen to the ghastly noises we produced-not that anybody wanted to but we did learn how to write for the various instruments.

Hindemith thought most highly of him, and three guiding principles established during his years of study were never lost sight of later. First, a sense of tradition as being something present, active and growing. He became closely, intimately acquainted with the classical and romantic repertoire, and saw his function as a composer in terms of a continuation of that tradition. Second, a strictness and a discipline in composition, particularly as far as counterpoint was concerned. Third, a rejection of dodecaphony, atonalism, serialism, and all other avant-garde experiments. He aligned himself artistically with the established norms of tonal composition, as far as idiom and structure are concerned, and worked from that basis without reservations. His knowledge and love of the standard nineteenth century repertoire were too profound to admit of their being usurped by an allegiance to one of the more experimental schools of thought that began to be rife in Europe in the 20s and 30s, and have grown since.

An article on Hindemith’ summarises his teacher’s, and his own, aesthetic standpoint:

In all branches of the arts there exists a desire to delve into decadence and revel in the macabre, both things far removed from Hindemith’s ideals. Vociferous advocates of surrealism, who proudly proclaim that they have freed music from the shackles of tonality, tend to minimise Hindemith’s great achievements because he had the courage to expose the basic errors of their doctrine. Any music cast in traditional form or idiom is suspect in their eyes, even if it is of first-rate craftsmanship. They may continue their delicious dance around the serial golden calf indefinitely; this is of little consequence to the general public, who will decide in the long run which kind of twentieth century music it wants to hear. Some irresponsible critics, over-anxious to jump on the avant-garde bandwagon, present a false picture of Hindemith’s position in present-day music, but most musicians agree that his music will live for a long time to come. [The Listener, 20th March 1964].

As soon as Hitler came to power in Germany, Reizenstein realised the evils of Nazism, particularly for those of Jewish birth; and so in 1934, at the age of twenty-three, he left and came to England-the first contemporary composer to do so. His choice was helped by the fact that an uncle on his mother’s side lived at Kingston. He continued his studies at the Royal College of Music in London; composition with Vaughan Williams, and (later) piano with Solomon.

He never subsequently lost his respect for, nor the influence of, Hindemith, in spite of the very different influence exerted by his new teacher. He found Vaughan Williams much freer, less rigid; just as influential, but in a different way, as his was a dominating personality, both musically and spiritually. Other pupils found this to be the case, that Vaughan Williams was overwhelming as a teacher to all but the strongest; but in the case of Reizenstein it is difficult to think of anyone in England at this time who could have provided him with a more inspiring contrast to Hindemith, or who could better have introduced him to the nascent English tradition, which was from now onwards to form the background to his work.

From Solomon, who revolutionized his attitude to the piano, he learned insistence on tone-quality in piano playing, and on the greatest control of touch, in so far as touch is the chief means of varying tone quality. Control of tone, particularly at a pianissimo dynamic level, and mastery of legato-a sense of melodic continuity, in spite of the up-and-down movement of the keys and hammers-were the cornerstones of this technical approach, which Reizenstein derived from Solomon. And technique arose from the music itself.

Later (1958) Reizenstein was given a post at the Royal Academy of Music as teacher of piano; and later still (1964) at the Royal Manchester College. He was never appointed to teach composition at any of the official music colleges in this country; and he only did so on a more humble, semi-amateur basis, in evening classes at the Hendon Music Centre and, much later, in America.

The later 30s were years of difficulty for him, of struggle and privation. He was entirely involved in music, dedicated and professional. Both then and subsequently, composition and recitals were his life; but not, to start with, his livelihood. All his energy went into music-making, yet he was never saturated. It was inevitable that sooner or later he would triumph; but this was not to be before he had undergone considerable hardship. On the outbreak of war in 1939 he was interned on the Isle of Man, along with many others of non-British birth whose naturalisation papers were not quite in order. In Reizenstein’s case, a concert tour of South America in 1937/8 [With the Violinist Roman Totenberg, who later played in his Boston concerts, 1966 (see p. 148).] had interrupted the continuity of his residence in this country. However during his internment he was active in arranging concerts and performing in them.

Throughout this period Vaughan Williams helped him as much as he could; by writing on his behalf during his internment, by putting work in his way, such as piano arrangements or editing. Later in the war Reizenstein volunteered for the army, but was not accepted owing to his poor eyesight. He was given a job as a railway clerk for a while-and he even managed to write part of his Viola Sonata, Op. 20, during this period.

Just as his musicianship was made up of two equal halves-piano playing and composition - so his personality displayed two chief features, the serious and the funny; the romantic and the impish. As he took pleasure in observing, he was born under Gemini. He took great delight in jokes, whether musical or practical; and these found a natural outlet in the diversions of Gerard Hoffnung in the 50s, which were a much needed counterbalance to the overwhelming seriousness that came over British music at this time. For these extravaganzas Reizenstein contributed specifically humorous scores (a notoriously difficult task), such as ‘Lets fake an opera.’, or ‘Concerto popolare’. He also introduced a light note into more solemn surroundings; for instance into his choral work Voices of Night. Moreover, an element of fun formed an important part of his personal relationships. But he also liked peace, and the beauty of nature, which he found particularly conducive to composition.

Of his forty-eight compositions with Opus numbers, three-quarters consist of piano and chamber music. This was the medium in which his romanticism found the most apt expression. His pleasure in chamber music was the pleasure that comes from intelligent, cultured discourse between colleagues. He was fortunate in finding excellent musicians to perform his works, a fact which is itself an eloquent testimony to their worth: Max Rostal, Leslie Parnas and Maria Lidka, who was a regular member of his Trio. [Franz Reizenstein (Piano), Maria Lidka (Violin), Rohan de Saram ’Cello). (Also Derek Simpson and Christopher Bunting in earlier years)]

Reizenstein’s first published work (1936) was the Piano Suite, Op. 6; but the first piece that brought him wide acclaim was the Prologue, Variations and Finale, Op. 12, for violin and piano, written for Max Rostal (1937-8), and later re-written for violin and orchestra, Op. 12a. The first ideas for this piece came during the South American tour in 1937, between Buenos Aires and Santiago de Chile; the finale is based on South American rhythms, ‘en forme d’une Danse Fantasque’. The movements follow without a break, and are characterized by a brilliantly rhapsodic virtuosity, and an insight into instrumental technique, shown by a knowledge of fingering, free use of harmonics and so on, not often found among English composers. The form is cyclic; that is to say, four themes are heard throughout, first stated in the Prologue and developed in the Variations. The range of mood is wide, the texture highly varied.

After leaving Hindemith, he gave rein to his romanticism; which is to say that the effect of the music comes from the way its movement is controlled-at what dynamic, pitch or volume; with what degree and rapidity of harmonic consonance or dissonance-rather than from any theoretical organisation of the musical elements abstracted from, and independent of, their resulting sound.

Another outstanding piece for violin and piano is the G sharp sonata Op. 20, written for Maria Lidka. This has greater tonal freedom than the earlier piece. If the combination of major and minor modes may be traced to Vaughan Williams, and the prevalence of the interval of the fourth to Hindemith, the overall style is considerably more than the sum of these two constituent parts. The opening movement, in strict sonata form, develops great warmth in its long-sustained arch-like phrases, a marked characteristic of this composer; and this is admirably balanced by the second movement, which is a scherzo in all but name, and which contains Spanish rhythms, such as the Jota, and passages which recall the strumming of a guitar. The finale juxtaposes a slow violin cantilena, which has a misterioso piano background, suggestive of the rustling of trees in the wind, against a more vigorous, more contrapuntal section, in which the instruments discourse on equal terms. The main subject of the first movement returns, and the work concludes in a blaze of romantic glory.

This work marks the end of the first phase of his work, and there followed a two year gap (1945-47), partly devoted to film work, before he embarked on the central, most productive period of his life. This began with the Scherzo, Op. 21, and ended with the Second Piano Concerto, Op. 37; between these two works are included most of the large compositions by which he is chiefly known. First come two outstandingly successful pieces, the Cello Sonata, Op. 22, and the Piano Quintet, Op. 23. With the Cello Sonata Reizenstein emerges from his two-year silence with increased stature, and with greater command of his individual style of poly-tonality. Within the accepted limits of sonata form, implicit in a tonal idiom, he develops greater freedom of line than in works of the earlier period. Both instruments are used in virtuoso manner, and the characteristic juxtaposition of contrasted moods occurs in the second (scherzo) movement, in which a vivace theme, built in fourths, is followed by a poignant, rhapsodic, cantabile theme (lento), full of tonal ambiguity and contrast of colour-the sine qua non of romanticism. The finale is graded in excitement; an adagio introduction, which contains most of the material to follow, leads to the main A major theme (allegro amabile), which in turn develops into agitato.

The Piano Quintet, which was his favourite, is the largest of Reizenstein’s chamber music compositions, and most fully sums up his contribution to this branch of music. Refined, polished, its four movements firmly grounded in the classical sonata structure, the work can justifiably be placed beside the great chamber works of the past. In his development of the melodic-harmonic-tonal methods of the nineteenth century, and within the context of the English tradition, Reizenstein discovered his characteristic polytonal idiom. And the slow second movement of this Quintet, in which by definition the pace of harmonic change is comparatively slow, is an excellent illustration of the fresh discoveries that lay in store in 1949 for a composer who was able to pursue a path that, according to some, was played out. The chromaticism after [o] is complete, and the twelve notes are used freely; yet never once is the tonal control lost. This section of the slow movement also contains much rhythmic and contrapuntal development, yet always within the framework of a regular underlying metre, so fundamental to the chamber music style.

The scherzo movement gains in brilliance from the larger ensemble. The material, taken from what has gone before, is shared between the instruments with a sense of gay abandon which Reizenstein never surpassed. There is no contrasted mood in this long movement, but nor is there any need for it; the momentum, once established, runs its appointed course. Not till the finale do we encounter any slackening of intensity; starting andante sostenuto, the music builds up, as in the Violin Sonata, to allegro vivace, then agitato. After considerable contrapuntal work, canonic imitation and so on, the instruments come together on the final page for a brilliant conclusion.

To this middle group of works also belongs Reizenstein’s small but important output of choral compositions. The first of these, the cantata Voices of Night, Op. 27, was written in 1950/1, and first heard in June 1952. The appeal of this work immediately led to two more commissions-the radio opera Anna Kraus, Op. 30, and the oratorio Genesis, Op. 35, which was first heard at a Three Choirs Festival in 1958. The librettist for all these works was Reizenstein’s close friend, the poet Christopher Hassall, who also collaborated with Walton (Troilus and Cressida) and Bliss (Tobias and the Angel).

Both Voices of Night and Genesis suffer to some extent from the swing away from the old oratorio tradition that has already been referred to, though Voices of Night suffered less than the other work in this respect, since its subject is not specifically religious; moreover the composer’s sensitivity to the English language helped to make it a popular success. The work is a sequence of poems invoking night, starting with the onset of night, finishing with the dawn. When the poetry is romantic, contemplative, the composer achieves a most apt result. Such moments occur on No. 1 ('How lovely is the heaven of this night’) and No. 10 (‘On thy cold shore, O Death’); the music and the words develop in true partnership. But in the poems whose mood is less reflective, the function of the music can only be to add colour to the words; and in such circumstances, with banality just around the corner, Reizenstein’s characteristic idiom needed to be held severely in check to avoid inconsistency between words and music. No. 3 (‘Sweet Suffolk Owle’) and No. 4 (‘The bread is all baked’) are examples of this more objective sort of word-setting. The composer’s model for this aspect of his work was Vaughan Williams’ Five Tudor Portraits; it is no surprise to hear that Vaughan Williams approved of Reizenstein’s vocal style. But such word-painting, verging sometimes on naivete, implies a lessening of the role of music in relation to the poetry; and this was precisely one of the reasons contributing to the decline of the old English oratorio.

Reizenstein’s second choral work, the oratorio Genesis, consists of the story of the Creation, as related in (Genesis, interspersed with poems from various sources to add imagery to the original story. As well as arranging the text, Hassall contributed one poem, in which he sets forth the tendency of our age to risk the negation of God’s creative work through the misuse of man’s knowledge; other poets represented are Blake, Milton, George Herbert. The soloists are the same as in the other choral work-soprano and baritone. Curiously, however, the oratorio is in many ways more successful than the cantata; the composer himself preferred it. Though it attempts less, it is better integrated, and more developed a work, and though it fits more obviously than the cantata does into a limited tradition, rooted in the past-the much-vaunted British choral tradition-it is more consistently compelling than the other work, whose roots are shallower. Its style is more characteristic of its composer’s maturity; the use of the fourth may be traced to Hindemith, the use of moving triads to Vaughan Williams, but the polytonal counterpoint is the product of the two, and a marked feature of Reizenstein’s idiom.

Can it be that one accepts the somewhat academic convention of fugal choruses in a specifically sacred work, whose milieu is an English cathedral, with fewer reservations than one has about such a device in a work designed for concert use? For instance, the choral writing in No. 3a of Genesis (‘And Man became a living soul’) may be conventional, but it is at the same time considerably more evocative, and apt, than the fugal writing for male chorus in Voices of Night with which Reizenstein seeks to adorn the immortal words:-

He who goes to bed, and goes to bed sober,

Falls as the leaves do, and dies in October;

But he who goes to bed, and goes to bed mellow,

Lives as he ought to do, and dies an honest fellow.

Such an admirable sentiment hardly requires traditional fugal treatment, or indeed musical treatment of any sort (except perhaps satirical) for its full message, with all its undoubted depth of philosophical insight, to be conveyed.

But the fugue is an illustration of the lighter, impish side of Reizenstein’s personality. It is intended as a joke.

After Genesis two further works complete the central group of compositions: Five Sonnets of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, for tenor and piano, Op. 36, and the Second Piano Concerto, Op. 37. Then followed the second gap in his output, lasting from 1960 to 1963, which was at last broken by two pieces for wind instruments. As all Hindemith pupils were obliged to write for, and to play, all orchestral instruments, writing for the wind instruments came naturally to Reizenstein; particularly the clarinet, which he played with greater application than the others. His last composition was a Sonatina for clarinet, Op. 48, of which he had completed only two movements at the time of his death [The manuscript is dated July-September, 1968]. This piece was intended to be as approachable a work as the Oboe Sonatina, Op. 11, written over thirty years earlier.

The last years of his life were prolific, and his compositions included the three Solo Sonatas, the Concert Fantasy for viola, the Second Piano Sonata in A flat, Op. 4c, and the Concerto for String Orchestra, Op. 43.

The Concert Fantasy, Op. 42, was finished in 1966 in Boston, U.S.A. It was written for Elizabeth Holbrook, and in addition to calling for a virtuoso technique, it is a substantial recital piece, exploiting an instrument whose repertoire is somewhat limited in this respect. It is in one continuous movement, whose various sections alternate slow with fast. The tonal scheme is classical, while some material (at [G]) introduces a new display technique for the viola. It is possible that Reizenstein was influenced in this work by the Walton concerto; the two composers were on friendly terms, and Reizenstein admired Walton’s music. This was his first composition for the viola; and he followed it the next year with another major work, the Solo Sonata Op. 45, also written for Elizabeth Holbrook.

It is perhaps surprising that his natural bent for the piano, combined with his innately romantic temperament, did not result in more compositions for that instrument. But such works as exist are big pieces, and they repay the closest study. The Twelve Preludes and Fugues, Op. 32 are a brilliant exposition of that polytonal idiom, made up of the coupling together of the major and minor modes in a contrapuntal texture. The whole composition is dedicated, very appropriately, to Hindemith, since the order of the keys is that of Series I evolved by Hindemith as the foundation of his theory in The Craft of Musical Composition. The Series presents the notes in the order of their relationship to the nucleus tone C. It is also used as the main theme of the first Prelude. Unity is achieved between each pair by introducing the Fugue subject into the Prelude, though sometimes in a disguised form; in some of the pairs, there is no break between the Prelude and its accompanying Fugue [In Nos. 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11. The composer has suggested possible groupings for performance when it is not possible to play the complete set: 3, 4, 5; 6, 9, 10; 3, 7, 8; 1, 2, 3, 4; 11, 8, 12,; 11, 12]. This composition, with its combination of contrapuntal ingenuity and sheer intellectual toughness, obviously recalls Hindemith’s Ludus Tonalis.

A nine year gap separates it from the next piano piece, the Second Sonata, Op. 40; and indeed twenty years separate the two piano sonatas from each other. The first, dedicated to Walton, had been widely heralded, on its publication in 1948, as one of the most important works of the century; with the second, Reizenstein reached mature fulfilment. If romanticism can be defined, at least in part, as the outpouring of music in terms suited to a particular instrument, then this second sonata is romantic pianism par excellence. It is also intellectually and dramatically conceived. It opens with a slow motto (tranquillo), partly melodic octaves, partly B-A-C-H [The notes B flat-A-C-B natural] harmonized in triads. From this the first movement (allegro) is derived. The second movement is in memory of Christopher Hassall, who had died the previous year (1963), and uses material derived from the opening of Genesis. The Finale, largely in two parts only, is a brilliant vivace, almost a perpetuum mobile. The motto theme triumphantly concludes the work.

Reizenstein’s last large-scale composition was the Concerto for String Orchestra, Op. 43, which was not performed until January 1969, after his death. It is in no sense a virtuoso concerto; neither soloist nor solo group is set against the rest of the orchestra. It is a work of a subdued nature, though calling for strength and urgency in performance, and the four movements are of serenade dimensions, in which the instruments are used in different relationships to each other, whether homophonic or polyphonic. The tonality of the first and last movements is C, while the other two movements use the tonality a minor third lower (A) and a minor third higher (E flat) respectively. The first movement uses a miniature sonata form, with little or no development, and the second theme (poco meno mosso) grows as a countersubject over the first. The customary scherzo is highly characteristic of this composer, while the principal theme of the slow movement moves in short, cumulative phrases, and its two appearances are separated by imitative passage-work, starting in two parts. After an introduction in E flat minor, based on the third movement material, the finale starts, inevitably, with a fugue in G Fourths predominate in the working out, and after a brief interlude (un poco tranqillo) the fugue subject is recapitulated, starting on F and in a varied form.

Orchestral composition did not come easily to Reizenstein. Not only did Hindemith’s training make it more difficult for him to think, and write, orchestrally, but the linear, contrapuntal style that was so peculiarly his, was not suited to the orchestral medium. His purely orchestral works are few, and reflect his sense of fun: the concert overture Cyrano de Bergerac, for instance, is light in style. He also wrote the Ballet Suite, Op. 15, which was commissioned by the Arts Theatre. He started a symphony, but never finished it.

It was in the concertos that he achieved fulfilment as an orchestral composer. In the two piano concertos, particularly, he found in the sheer joy of a virtuoso solo part sufficient compensation for the general absence of that contrapuntal and fugal development which was so central to his style, but which is somewhat out of place in a romantic solo concerto.

In the use of a tonally-centred idiom, such as Reizenstein’s, the degree of musical intensity imparted to the listener can be measured by the frequency of change of the tonal centre. Frequent changes, close together, induce a sense of approaching climax with much greater urgency than infrequent changes, more widely spaced out. Clearly an instrumentally-conceived phrase is susceptible of greater rapidity of change than one which is vocally conceived; the human voice can only with difficulty assimilate frequent changes of tonal centre. And it is remarkable that the rate of tonal change in the first piano concerto is greater, generally speaking, than in the second concerto, which came after the choral and vocal compositions, and was influenced by them to some extent.

Reizenstein’s true style has an inner vitality, a poetry, which lies in the content of the notes rather than in the notes themselves. The concertos differ from the chamber music works in that they demand a more rhetorical, emotive, exuberant style, which is proper to the romantic concerto, but which can all too easily lead to empty excess, as sections of the violin concerto show.

But his insight into string writing make the cello and violin concertos rewarding, if difficult, to play. The early Cello Concerto is perhaps less original a work than the other, and not readily accessible to the ordinary listener, though Reizenstein himself liked the work, and Leslie Parnas, who had played it through with the composer in Boston, during rehearsals for the Sonata, performed it for the BBC in 1969 [Bryden Thomson conducted the BBC Northern Symphony Orchestra], and intends to take it into his repertoire.

The salient points of Reizenstein’s tonal idiom may be summarized under the time-honoured headings of melody, harmony and rhythm. Among his most frequent melodic characteristics are a breadth of phrase, a symmetry of design; also a fondness for a group of notes (two or more) a semitone apart, followed by a major or minor third, or triad perhaps, either upwards or downwards; by this means the composer combines chromatic and tonal elements in the melodic line. His harmonic style rests on two foundations, already mentioned; one, the combination of different tonal centres, to produce an effect of polytonality; the other, the prevalent use of the fourth, which derives from Hindemith’s teaching. As far as Reizenstein’s rhythmic structure is concerned, a regularity of metre was an intrinsic datum of his contrapuntal technique, and his sense of rhythm was an essential part of his unfailing craftsmanship. The avant-garde meant nothing to him; he was not so much an innovator as a searcher-out of existing techniques. Furthermore, as already mentioned, his ability to write a genuine vivace, scherzo movement was inherently part of his style, and singled him out from most English composers. Indeed it was a reflection of his lively personality and sense of humour, which found such witty and pungent outlet in his contributions to Gerard Hoffnung’s musical extravaganzas in the 50s.

One such work, the Concerto Popolare, or Piano Concerto to end all Piano Concertos, was heard in November 1956. The story behind it is as follows:

'Once upon a time a pianist and a conductor were engaged to play a concerto with a well-known orchestra. Unfortunately, the management omitted to specify which concerto. The pianist came prepared to play the Grieg, but the conductor decided otherwise. It was to be Tchaikovsky’s famous First-or none at all! Musicians are naturally temperamental and neither would give way. Eventually after a struggle during which fragments of Grieg, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Gershwin, Beethoven, popular songs and other oddments were heard flying through the night air, the pianist was overwhelmed by the superior forces. He gave way, not without a gallant attempt to have the last chord.’

The performance, we are told, was a resounding success in every sense of the word.

Of equal importance to him was his highly successful work as a concert pianist, from the moment when he first won recognition in the 30s, right through to the end of his life. He first made his name by his performance of Hindemith’s Ludus tonalis, as well as of his own works. His last engagement as a pianist was, perhaps appropriately, on Nuremberg Radio, in September 1968, when he played his Second Sonata and Zodiac Suite, Indeed, at the very moment of his sudden death the following month, he was preparing Hindemith’s Piano Concerto, Kammermusik No. 2, Op. 36, for a broadcast

Reizenstein was a natural pianist. As well as playing his own works, he was conversant with the broad stream of the classical repertoire. His playing had nobility, and a wide emotional range; he also possessed, in full measure, the composer’s urge not merely to analyse what he played, but to investigate for himself the lesser-known byways of music; and his catch included rarities, such as Tchaikowsky’s Concert Fantasy, Bizet’s Variations Chromatiques, and Dvorak’s incomplete Piano Concerto, which he edited, revised and arranged-as Dvorak himself had at one time intended to do.

Curiously perhaps, Reizenstein had no very high opinion of Hindemith’s piano style, which he considered awkward, unpianistic. He did however play his teacher’s piano pieces frequently, and Ludus Tonalis was the model, as we have seen, for his own investigations. He had a great admiration for Bartok’s work, particularly as shown in that composer’s understanding of the piano; though he never copied the percussive style. 1 The other contemporary composers that chiefly excited his admiration were Walton and Shostakovitch.

His appearances in concerts and radio performances were very frequent; moreover, towards the end of his life, when his name was more known internationally, his services as teacher, lecturer and panel member began also to be in demand. He spent six months in 1966 (January-June) as visiting professor of composition at Boston University in America, where he went at the invitation of Professor Jean Philips to teach composition, with particular reference to his own works. While there he appeared in two concerts specially devoted to his own compositions. This provides one more instance of the enthusiasm and the readiness with which American musicians acknowledge the proven worth of British composers, which their British colleagues are sometimes very slow to give; Gerhard and Fricker are two further instances of this unfortunate trend. In the case of Reizenstein, a number of fine compositions, particularly in the field of chamber music, and a marked individuality of idiom, place him among the important composers of the contemporary period.

 

List of compositions by Franz Reizenstein

1931

1 Solo Sonata for Cello (later rev. as Op. 44)

1932

2 Theme, Variations & Fugue for Clarinet Quintet (rev. 1960)

1933

3 Fantasy for piano

1934

4 Four Silhouettes for piano

5 Wind Quintet

1936

6 Suite for Piano

6a Three pieces for Violin & Piano (arr. from Op. 6)

7 Elegy for Cello and Piano (pub. with Op. 18)

8 Cello Concerto (rev. 1948)

He once turned the pages for Bartok at a Wigmore Hall concert.

9 Divertimento for String Quartet

1937

9a Divertimento for Brass Quartet (2 Trumpets. Horn, Tuba)

10 Three Concert Pieces for Oboe & Piano

11 Sonatina for Oboe & Piano

1938

12 Prologue, Variations & Finale for Violin & Piano

12a Op. 12, arr. For Violin & Orch.

13 Partita for Flute & Piano

13a Op. 13 for Flute & String Trio

14 Impromptu for Piano

1940

15 Ballet Suite (pub. 1964)

1941

16 Piano Concerto No. 1

17 Intermezzo for Piano

18 Cantilene for Cello & Piano (pub. with Op. 7)

1944

19 Sonata No. 1 in B for Piano

1945

20 Sonata in G sharp for Violin & Piano

1947

21 Scherzo in A for Piano

22 Sonata in A for Cello & Piano

1948

23 Quintet in D for Piano & Strings

1949

24 Legend for Piano

25 Trio in A for Flute, Oboe & Piano

1950

26 Scherzo Fantastique for Piano

 

1951

27 Voices of Night S.&B.soli,Ch.&Orch.

28 Concert Overture Cyrano de Bergerae

29 Serenade in F

29a Serenade in F (for wind instruments)

1952

30 Radio Opera Anna Kraus

1953

31 Violin Concerto

1955

32 Twelve Preludes and Fugues for Piano

1956

33 Fantasia Concertante for Violin & Piano

1957

34 Trio in one movement (ded. to Vaughan Williams)

1958

35 Genesis Oratorio, Soli Ch.Orch.

1959

36 Five Sonnets of E. B. Browning (for Tenor & Piano)

37 Piano Concerto No. 2

1963

38 Duo for Oboe & Clarinet

39 Trio for Flute, Clarinet & Bassoon

1964

40 Sonata No. 2 in A flat for Piano

41 Zodiac-Piano Suite

1965/6

42 Concert Fantasy for Viola & Piano

1966/7

43 Concerto for String Orchestra

1967

44 Solo Sonata for Cello (rev. from Op. 1)

45 Solo Sonata for Viola

1968

46 Solo Sonata for Violin

47 Arabesques for Clarinet & Piano

48 Sonatina for Clarinet & Piano (2 movements only completed)

other works without Op. No.:

Five imaginative pieces for Piano (1938)

Short educational pieces

Musical Box, for Piano (1952)

Capriccio (1938)

A Jolly Overture (1952)

 

Scores in collaboration with Gerard Hoffnung:

Concerto Popolare (Piano Concerto to end all Piano Concertos)

Let's Fake an Opera (The tales of Hoffnung) (librettist William Mann)

 

Film scores include:

Highlights of Farnborough (1951)

The House that Jack built (1953)

The Sea (1953)

Island of Steel (1955)

Jessy (1959)

The White Trap (1959)

The Mummy (1959)

Circus of Horrors (1960)

and others

 

11 Matyas Seiber

 

Matyas Seiber came to this country to take up residence in 1935, at a time when the broad pattern of the musical life of England consisted of the establishment, and the consolidation, of the standard repertoire, and when the nascent English tradition was just developing, mainly under the benevolent tutelage of Vaughan Williams. The general attitude of most musicians tended to a narrow parochialism; English music as a whole was not yet ready or stable enough to admit the influence of continental developments; few indeed were aware of, or susceptible to, the new paths that were currently being unfolded in Europe and America.

Moreover, when Matyas Seiber came here at the age of thirty, he was unknown; he had not yet achieved distinction, and he lacked those academic or official qualifications which are required of musicians before they are admitted to teach in the established English institutions. Little wonder, therefore that he was to be faced with long years of struggle before any sort of recognition came his way. There is a gap in his serious output after 1935 [Particularly in his 12-note composition, for which there was then no audience in England. The Second String Quartet, a strictly serial work, was finished in 1935; not until 1944 did he return to a serial style-and quite a free one this time-with the Fantasia Concertante for violin and orchestra, written for Max Rostal]; meanwhile, in order to earn a living, he turned his hand to anything and everything. But versatility had always been one of his chief characteristics. Broadly speaking, his musical personality may be considered under two main headings: his work as a teacher, and his work as a composer - in that order.

He was born in Budapest in 1905, and studied under Kodaly at the Royal Academy there. By 1925 he had written several highly colourful student works, including the Sonata de Camera for violin and cello; then, like his teacher before him, he set out on his travels. He was a remarkably susceptible musician, and wished to discover for himself the multifarious strands that made up the fabric of European music between the wars. These strands, some of them mutually incompatible, were chiefly folk music, early music, jazz, popular and light music, serialism.

After leaving Hungary in 1925 he travelled widely, visiting North and South America, as well as many European countries. He eventually settled in Frankfurt, where he taught jazz at the Conservatoire. He stayed there until 1933, when he had to leave Germany under Hitler. During these years his ability as an executive musician also spread in many directions. He was a pianist and conductor; he directed music in a theatre; he formed workers’ choruses; he was cellist in a string quartet [The Lenzewesky Quartet]. When once again, after 1933, he was compelled to move his residence, he eventually, in 1935, settled in England, where he lived for the rest of his life, until he was killed in a car accident in South Africa in October 1960.

If his innate curiosity was to give his compositions a variable quality, it also made him one of the most sought-after teachers in England, catholic in taste, wide-ranging in experience. He was never appointed to the staff of any of the major teaching institutions, yet- his ability to inspire pupils placed him in the same category as Hindemith or Nadia Boulanger. His pupils, who came eventually from all over the world, included Francis Chagrin, Malcolm Lipkin, Reginald Smith-Brindle, Peter Racine Fricker, Anthony Milner, Don Banks, Hugh Wood, and many others. Thus was his influence most directly and most strongly felt [Particularly in the 1950s. See p. 156].

His teaching technique was unorthodox; he was concerned with the writing of music, not academic exercises. His mind was agile, logical, penetrating; yet the personal style of each pupil was never interfered with, nor was the necessity for the individual student to discover his own solutions ever lost sight of. How each pupil went about his craft was his own affair; but he could expect the results of his labours to be scrutinized with minute and often devastating attention to detail, down to the smallest particle.

Seiber’s views on teaching were summarized in a talk he gave in 1955:

I believe in a few fundamental principles. First, that learning or teaching composition is a purely practical matter (no mystery and no theory). It’s like learning to’ make shoes. Just as a shoemaker learns step by step how to cut the right size of upper soles so as not to pinch, how to make joints which don’t creak etc., so the student must learn how to present ideas, how to lead from one to the other, how to make joins.

We all agree that we can’t teach inspiration, but we can teach the technique of how to make the most of that inspiration, if there is any. I believe that composition is a technique which can be best learned by imitation, like other crafts. I think the ideal solution would be to have a sort of ‘composing workshop’, like some of the great painters had 'painting workshops’. The composer would be given small tasks, details in the master’s works, and then be corrected by the master and shown how he would have done it. The composition student, in fact, should be a kind of apprentice.

The second point I believe in is that composition is an entirely traditional discipline. There is no short cut-you Have to go through the techniques which your predecessors developed, because these are the entire foundation of our present day techniques.

Also I believe that one of the essential things in the training of a young composer is analysis; and I mean analysis in depth, down to atoms and cells, discovering how a kind of life-process goes on, like in any living tissue.

His own compositions include every species of music, reflecting the range of his curiosity. Inevitably some of the works are experimental. His Hungarian origin is apparent in a number of pieces, particularly early ones; both specifically, as in the arrangement of Hungarian folksongs, and indirectly in such a work as the Elegy for Viola and Chamber Orchestra. His interest in light music, and the folk music of many countries, usually found an outlet in the commercial world of films, radio or television, which was his chief source of income. His fondness for jazz led to some hybrid attempts to bridge the gap between that idiom and more conventional composition; for instance the Improvisations for Jazz Band and Symphony Orchestra, which were written in collaboration with John Dankworth; or the Two Jazzolets for dance band, which date from his years at Frankfurt, and use a 12-note style in a jazz context. His study of early music led to the two Besardo Suites for orchestra, which were based on the music of the sixteenth century lutenist-composer Jean-Baptiste Besard [Particularly the Thesaurus harmonicus (1603)].

But the greatest scope for the force of his musical intellect was provided by Schoenberg’s 12-note style, and serialism, with which he overlaid these other more intuitive characteristics. Serialism, he considered, showed the way music was going; it was the international style, while the other styles were merely national, even local. It was in chamber music, and particularly in the works for violin and piano, that he developed his particular brand of serialism, the use of a permutation technique, based on a small group of notes and intervals. Chief among such chamber works are the Second and Third String Quartets, and the Permutazioni a cinque for wind quintet; his most characteristic violin and piano works are the Concert Piece (1954) and the Sonata (1960). He was particularly stimulated by the combination of two such dissimilar instruments, and the Concert Piece is an ingenious, totally chromatic work, based on the permutations of a 4-note group. [The idea that the study of aesthetics is automatically and necessarily equated with 'vagueness’ was the common view among most musicians, and is still widely held. See my Contemporary Music, p. 2]

In many ways the work recalls Schoenberg's Fantasy, Op. 47, which was written only five years previously. Its texture is varied and lucid; its originally conceived sonorities cover the full range of the instruments; both players are treated as equal partners, and the composition as a whole is conceived as a virtuoso showpiece for them.

The 12-note row, on which the piece is based, is made up of three segments, each of which contains the basic motif of four notes, in the form of two semitones a tritone apart. This motif is then transposed twice. In the course of the composition the three segments change, as well as the sequence of notes within the segments. The structure of the work as a whole is that of a free fantasy, though balanced; the contrasted sections are later repeated in varied form. The first performance of the work, which is dedicated to Tibor Varga, was given by Eli Goren and Peter Wallfisch at a fiftieth birthday concert for the composer at Morley College, on 15th May 1955.

The sonata is similarly severe, and he introduced its first performance with a characteristically detailed analysis of its construction. His concluding words sum up his attitude to composition as a whole:

This sort of analysis might sound too mathematical, too calculated, as if music was put together with the help of a slide-rule. But in my opinion, this is the only way in which a composer may profitably talk on his own work. To talk in vague, aesthetic terms doesn’t come into his province.

Such constructive principles, such mathematical regularities as I mentioned, are never preconceived ideas with me. They develop as I go along working on a piece. I still cannot do what so many of my younger colleagues seem to be able to do so successfully, namely to plan out the whole work on the basis of these mathematical or architectonic calculations. For me the act of composing is still a journey of discovery; I explore all these possibilities inherent in the material as the piece begins to grow and unfold, and then I draw the consequences from them.

It means re-composing many things, until everything begins to fall into place. I know that this is a much more painful and time-consuming procedure, yet I still cannot bring myself to do otherwise. After all, it is for every composer himself to decide his place between freedom and strictness; he has to learn how to be coherent and organised, without losing the ability to listen to the unexpected, unaccountable and involuntary promptings of his own imagination.

In deciding his own personal ‘place between freedom and strictness’, Seiber opted for freedom. He was more concerned with the development of thematic material than with following any rules. On the other hand, he had studied and knew his Schoenberg, and moreover the force of his own intellect imposed its own strictness; so if his thematic material was mathematically conceived in the first place, as it frequently was, its development could only lie along strict lines. Therefore, if his work were to achieve warmth, this would only come from some other source than serialism.

So his use of this technique was by no means consistent or dogmatic; several pieces were quite traditionally conceived, for instance the Elegy for viola and string orchestra or the Tre Pezzi for cello and orchestra; while in others an innately lyrical style was placed somewhat inconsistently in a serial context; the Third String Quartet, the Quartetto Lirico, is a case in point.

Warmth of inspiration and strictness of idiom, however, came together, with the most positive results, in the two works with which he reached his highest point of stability and fulfilment as a composer; these were the two cantata settings of words by James Joyce, Ulysses and the Three Fragments. The texts of Joyce acted as a peculiarly powerful stimulus to Seiber's imagination, and in one sense supplied that poetic, lyrical and cohesive element that is sometimes missing from his more abstract works.

Seiber’s cantata Ulysses for tenor solo, chorus and orchestra (1949), is based on passages from the novel of the same name by Joyce. It starts where the hero, Mr. Bloom, contemplates the starlit summer night, with ‘the Heaventree of stars hung with humid nightblue fruit’. This leads to a contemplation of the universe, the vastness of space, stars and galaxies of immeasurably remote eons and infinite futures. In antithesis to this, there is the minuteness of some living organisms, the incalculable infinity of molecules contained in a single pinhead. His thoughts turn to eclipses, and the sudden stillness which comes with them. His conclusion is that all this is but a Utopia, and the ‘Heaventree’ a product of his own imagination.

Never was Seiber more sure that he had to set a passage to music. Like the text, his work is in five main sections, each in question and answer form.

The first section is atmospheric, suggesting the magic of night. A 3-note motive begins the movement, in the low strings, and this becomes the central core of the whole work.

The second movement is a passacaglia, to suggest the gradual build-up of size, the vastness of the universe. The climax comes with the addition of a choral fugue, to the words ‘of our system plunging towards the constellation of Hercules’.

The third section, the only quick-moving movement, describes the minuteness of organic existence on earth. The 3-note group is extended into a 12-note fugue theme.

The fourth section, conceived as a Nocturne, recalls the hush of mystery during an eclipse. In this ‘Homage a Schoenberg’, Seiber took the two opening chords of Schoenberg’s piano piece, op. 19 No. 6, added two more of his own, and thus attempted, in 12-note terms, to express the quietness and remoteness he was seeking.

The fifth section, ‘Epilogue’, refers back to the ‘Heaventree’ ideal, and the music reverses the order of the opening section; starting with the bright colour of high strings, it moves gradually down to the low, dark sounds of the beginning, before fading into nothing.

When Ulysses was first performed in 1949 it made a considerable impact, and did more than any other of his works to establish Seiber’s reputation as a composer.

Nine years later, when the Basel section of the I.S.C.M. commissioned him to write a chamber cantata, he returned to James Joyce for the text of the Three Fragments (1958), for speaker, wordless chorus and instrumental ensemble (flute, clarinet, bass clarinet; violin, viola, cello; piano and percussion). This time he chose passages from Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. He explains his reason in these words:

A few passages of lyrical beauty, and of great dramatic power, stuck in my mind ever since I read them, and were, so to speak, ear-marked subconsciously for future use. Now it seemed the appropriate time to make use of them.

The cantata is in three movements. The first starts atmospherically, like Ulysses, with the words ‘A veiled sunlight lit up faintly the grey sheet of water’. With the words ‘He heard a confused music within him’, the four voices of the chorus sing in four different tempi, while the orchestra adds further to the general melee with a rhythmical irregularity. Then gradually the sound recedes.

In strong contrast to this, the words of the second movement are a dramatic, terrifying description of a child’s vision of the Day of Judgement. The music is wild, jagged, harsh.

The third movement reverts to the mood and material of the first before fading away to nothing.

Seiber’s importance on the contemporary English scene lies primarily in his influence over other musicians and composers, particularly his pupils, and through his connection with Morley College. English music lacked a first generation of post-Schoenberg composers; by his precept and example Seiber supplied something of what was lacking, and demonstrated one highly intelligent and reasonable approach to the problems inherent in the 12-note style. If it is improbable that his music will evoke a wide or permanent response-partly because his roots lay elsewhere, partly because his eclecticism was so pronounced-nevertheless, he has without question indicated a path and held up a standard for others to follow.

In a sense, though the character and environment of the two men could hardly have been more contrasted, Seiber fulfilled the function and represented to the serial 50s something of what Walford Davies represented to the far-off and very different 30s. Walford Davies might be described as an intermediary musician, who spelt out what was happening in an evolving situation; his subject was the recently established concert repertoire, as well as the narrowly-defined field of church music. Seiber performed much the same service in the post-Schoenberg 50s. His subject was the contemporary scene, and in particular the narrowly-defined field of serialism.

He himself was well aware of the need for traditional roots if a composer’s work is to be of more than ephemeral interest; he was also well aware of his debt to Joyce for the warmth and inspiration of his two cantatas; as he said shortly before his death:

Whether or not I shall have the opportunity of setting more of James Joyce’s words I really cannot tell now. But for these two extracts I am eternally grateful to him. They are great literature, beautiful poetry, which has inspired me to write my two favourite works. No matter how often I read these passages, I always feel the same thrill as I felt when I read them for the first time.

12 Egon Wellesz

 

When Humphrey Searle went to Vienna to study under Webern, he could hardly have foreseen that in a short time a colleague of Webern, a composer steeped in the Viennese tradition, was to make his home in this country; and had he wished to study under him, he would have needed to travel no further than Oxford, where he had himself once been an undergraduate.

Egon Wellesz was born in Vienna on 21st October 1885. He was a fellow-student at that university with Webern, who was two years his senior, and like him was also a private pupil of Schoenberg;’ but in his composition he followed a different path from Schoenberg. Composition and musical history were the central features of his student period; he was under Guido Adler for musical history, and eventually took his doctorate with a thesis on the eighteenth-century Viennese composer Giuseppe Bonno, whose importance for Wellesz was chiefly that he was a contemporary of Gluck. Already Wellesz was showing a strong inclination towards opera, which was to occupy his main attention as a composer for the next thirty years. [1904-1906, when Schoenberg was thirty].

It was impossible to live just as a composer; many, such as Mahler, were also conductors, though this involved many years of back-breaking work on the provincial circuit. So Wellesz chose another path; his work has followed the twin pursuits of musicology and composition. Though they are distinct, the one is for him complementary to the other; he brings to his composition the full range of his shrewd historical perspective. In the years up to 1938, when he came as a resident to this country, the highest points of his achievement as a composer were Alkestis (1923) and Die Bakchantinnen (1931); and it was the second of these two operas which first gave him cause to visit England.

With a truly English flair for any and every sort of anniversary, however remote, the authorities of Oxford University had noticed that 1932 happened to be the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of Haydn-who had, on one of his visits to England, been made an honorary doctor of Music of that university. Would it not be appropriate, therefore, if in 1932 another Viennese composer could be similarly honoured? The thought that this lot might have fallen upon Schoenberg himself is indeed a bizarre conception. However, the success of Wellesz’s opera the previous year had been noticed by H. C. Colles, a pillar of the Oxford Establishment; and this, coupled with his earlier success in Alkestis, as well as his work as musicologist, was the decisive factor in his favour. As luck would have it, another musician who also received an honorary doctorate at the same time was Edward Dent, the Cambridge professor whom Wellesz had invited to be president of the I.S.C.M. in 1922, after he and Rudolph Reti had formed it in Salzburg the previous year. Wellesz in 1932 had a very considerable reputation, and the words of the official peroration-'musicae hodiernae dux et signifer’-were not merely empty rhetoric.

Wellesz sprang from the Viennese tradition, at a time when it reached its flowering in literature and art as well as in music; and the composer who exercised by far the strongest influence over him to start with was Mahler. As a boy of twelve he heard Mahler conduct The Magic Flute, Lohengrin, The Flying Dutchman, for the first time at the Wiener Hofoper; and the impression was indelible. Indeed, the impression of Mahler’s performance of Der Freischutz was so strong on the young Wellesz that the very next day he himself began to compose. Again, when he first heard Mahler conduct Beethoven’s ninth symphony, of which he (Mahler) made his own highly personal reading, and even made alterations to the scoring, the sound of Mahler’s version of it was for Wellesz a ‘school of orchestration’. Many years later he returned, on 26th June 1960, to the rebuilt Wiener Staatsoper, at the invitation of the conductor Karajan, to speak about the achievement of Mahler as an opera director. This occasion marked the centenary of Mahler’s birth, and Wellesz re-lived some of the experience of his youth. The cultural ethos that prevailed at the turn of the century in the Viennese tradition-the spirit of innate conservatism coupled with a certain revolutionary radicalism; also the idealism and perfection that were epitomized by Mahler-was indeed very different from the contemporary situation prevailing today. Yet it has guided Wellesz.

Mahler’s ten years’ directorship of the Vienna Opera began on 11th May 1897, when he first conducted Lohengrin there; later that year he was appointed managing director. He exercised an extraordinary personal magnetism. Everything that he, or his designer Roller, placed on the stage had to ‘mean’ something; it was not enough for it merely to be there. But the performances in which he rose to the greatest heights were those of the operas of Mozart. Music was for him, according to Wellesz [Robert Schollum, Egon Wellesz, p. 9], ‘... a holy art’, (eine heilige Kunst), and each performance was an experience which would continue with the listener for many days. He was, according to Bruno Walter [Bruno Walter, Gustav Mahler, p.30 foll. (English edition)] who was his assistant, passionately devoted to the stage, and brought the whole house, singers, orchestra and audience alike, under his spell.

This also had the greatest formative effect on the young Wellesz, whose musical background during his early years at Vienna was thus made up of Mahler, Bruckner, Strauss and Schoenberg; beyond them, Ravel, Debussy, Bartok and to some extent Stravinsky; and, later still, Honegger, Milhaud, Poulenc and Hindemith, all of whom were his friends. His immediate colleagues, in a circle that was select and personal, were Berg and Webern; it was the latter who-in 1935-arranged a fiftieth birthday concert for him.

Wellesz heard a great deal of music, but always kept to his own path. After his period at the university, musicology and composition, coupled with the very strong Viennese operatic tradition, combined to focus his attention on opera. He studied the works of Fux, Cavalli, Monteverdi, Cesti, and the nature of seventeenth-century Venetian opera, and produced books on these topics, as well as editions of the scores; thus Wellesz anticipated by fifty years the work of some recent musicologists in this country. He explored the possibilities of the classical tradition, based on Greek antiquity, which was such an integral part of the Viennese opera.

Thus Wellesz the musicologist spurred on Wellesz the composer. When considering the whole history of opera, he considered that a great period had ended with Gluck, the eighteenth-century opera composer, who could be claimed as Viennese until he moved to Paris. After Gluck’s departure the Austrian tradition was open to foreign influence; the tradition of Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini was alien to that of Vienna, which was much more truly reflected in Beethoven’s Fidelio.

The Gluck tradition, however, lived on in France. Within a story of classical simplicity, and with just three characters, Gluck made both words and music entirely subservient to the expression of every shade of feeling experienced by the hero and heroine, and was not interested in mere vocal display, or such stereotyped devices as the da capo aria. This was the Greek ideal of dramatic art, that poetry, music and dance should unite in underwriting the drama, whose basic facts were traditional common property. The Gluck ideal was later epitomized in Berlioz’s Les Troyens.

Wellesz attempted to take up where Gluck left off; and his friend Edward Dent adds an interesting footnote [Opera, p. 51 (Pelican edition 1st ed. 1940)], clearly referring to Wellesz, when he says that although Gluck could not serve as a model to be imitated, in spite of some attempts, and although Mozart’s operas are free of that technical clumsiness which occasionally spoils Gluck’s works on the stage, nevertheless what was important in Gluck’s operas, as in Gluck’s own mind, was not the technical method but the moral outlook, and in so far as Gluck had any style of his own, that style could only be imitated by someone with the same philosophical principles.... He could only be venerated as the expression of a moral ideal; and for that he still stands even now.

Moreover in the ballets of Gluck, Wellesz saw the first application of the principles of modern dance techniques; and it was this development, rather than, for instance, the French-influenced Russian Ballet, which visited the Wiener Oper in 1914, that influenced Wellesz when he made the dance a very central, and emotional, part of his dramatic expression.

His first ballet, Das Wunder der Diana, Op. 18, was written in 1914. The libretto was by Bela Balazs, who also wrote those of Bartok’s The Wooden Prince and Bluebeard’s Castle; and the story is similar-of temples animated by the moon-goddess, and lovers transfigured; of transportation from an atmosphere of passion into one of other-worldly passionlessness; of serenity as if, by transformation of a boy and a girl, everything unstable has disappeared. This score was a preparation for Alkestis, Op. 35; but several other stage works, as well as other compositions, intervened. These included songs, four string quartets, two orchestral Pieces, the Prologue, Op. 2, and the Suite, Op. 16; and piano pieces, such as the Three Sketches, Op. 6, which are tonal experiments, like Schoenberg’s Op. 11; the stage works were the opera Die Prinzessin Girnara, Op. 27 (1919), and the Persian Ballet, Op. 30 (1920). This was written for a Russian dancer and choreographer, Ellen Tels, who had come to Vienna with her own small company. Two other intermediate works followed; the one-act ballet Achilles auf Skyros, Op. 33, with a libretto by Hofmannsthal, and a piece for coloratura soprano Aurora, the material of which was used later in Alkestis. Alkestis was the work with which Wellesz first successfully established himself as a composer. It continued the rediscovery of the classical Greek tradition of Gluck, which had been already begun in Achilles auf Skyros.

The libretto of Alkestis was by Hofmannsthal. He had written the play in 1893; now he altered the opening scene, and then suggested that Wellesz should similarly alter, and match, the ending. This change involved a final chorus. Hofmannsthal was fond of insisting that the music needed plenty of space; as Goethe said, it needed to be ‘widely meshed’. Moreover, it also needed the ballet. At the first performance of the work in Mannheim, the ballet was performed by the dancing schools of the town. [By a strange coincidence another Alkestis was produced about this time (1922); that of Rutland Boughton at Glastonbury].

It was subsequently produced in ten different opera houses in Germany, including Berlin in 1932. And though it was contemporary with Berg’s Wozzeck, Wellesz’s Alkestis could hardly have been a more total contrast.

First, it was ‘grand’ opera, in the traditional sense of the word, as opera had been for centuries. It belonged in the traditional opera house, just as a work such as Carmen, based on daily life, belonged more appropriately in the Opera Comique-where, indeed, it was first performed. But the material of Alkestis was mythical, heroic, not everyday. The use of ballet, which also earned Schoenberg’s approval, was a logical extension of this principle.

Second, Wellesz was concerned that his style should be linear. He did not so much occupy himself with the theoretical discipline of a 12-note technique, or with the serial fragmentation of the material, as with the achievement of long melodic lines. This characteristic was later to be the hallmark of his symphonic style.

No account of an opera composer working at this time in Vienna would be complete without reference sooner or later to Strauss, who exerted such a great influence over all aspects of music and over many musicians, including Schoenberg and Webern. Wellesz’s approach to opera, however, differed markedly from that of Strauss; if it resembled anyone else’s it resembled Bartok’s. Wellesz adopted a course of daring independence. He was also directly influenced by Hofmannsthal, who was much more to him than just a librettist; he provided a sense of stable literary values in an age of experiment and uncertainty; he represented the Austrian tradition, as distinct from the German tradition of Thomas Mann. Hofmannsthal became estranged from Strauss; and as Wellesz differed so much in outlook from Strauss, his operas could not be done under Strauss. So his next dance-drama, Die Opferung des Gefangenen (‘The sacrifice of the prisoner’), op. 40 (1925), was performed in Berlin when Strauss did not wish a performance in Vienna. (Many other composers found the same difficulty, including Berg.)

The story of Die Opferung, originally an old Aztec play, describes the Mexican civilization before the arrival of the Spanish; the survival, in the form of tragic drama, of the past grandeur of an old heroic world [This theme was also recently (1964) adapted by an English playwright, Peter Schaffer, into The Royal Hunt of the Sun, which dealt with the Incas of Peru].

This work was followed by a light, one-act opera, with words taken from Goethe, Scherz, List und Rache, Op. 41, which may be approximately translated ‘funning, cunning and gunning’. But then in 1929/30 came the fourth and last of the series of ‘heroic’ operas, Die Bakchantinnen, Op. 44, for which Wellesz wrote his own libretto, with Euripides once again as a starting-point.

The series of classical ‘heroic’ operas is thus as follows:

1. Achilles auf Skyros

The young Achilles, awakening to life, chooses the path of a hero.

2. Alkestis

The wife of King Admetus, who is ready to suffer death for the idea of kingship.

3. Die Opferung des Gefangenen

The young prince who consciously chooses to die, and will be worshipped as a hero after his death.

4. Die Bakchantinnen

Pentheus, the man of action, is above the law as king, and sees in the new cult of Dionysus a force that will destroy his tangible world-order. He feels that mysticism, by becoming a practical fact, through a cult, leaves that sphere to which it belongs, and destroys the existing power-structure.

 

Die Bakchentinnen was his last Viennese opera; it also marked the culminating point of his achievement in that field. It calls for mime as well as chorus-work, and for this the stage-designer Roller agreed to make use of the sixty to seventy members of the ballet company of the Viennese Opera-who sang as well as danced, when it came to the performance. For its first performance in Vienna, on 20th June 1931, the conductor Clemens Krauss required no fewer than sixty chorus rehearsals and twenty orchestral rehearsals. The work made a great impression in Vienna, but could not be repeated in Berlin for political reasons.

After this, until he came to England in 1938, Wellesz’s composition took a different turn; songs with orchestra, a piano concerto, a mass; and above all, his first full-length orchestral work (1934-36) Prosperos Beschworungen (Prospero’s Incantation [‘Prospero’s Incantation’ is the composer’s translation, as it appears on the score. H. C. Colles however insisted that ‘Prospero’s Spell’ is a more exact translation, and more ‘Shakespearian’]), Op. 53; five symphonic pieces based on Shakespeare’s Tempest. [Score published by Universal Edition]

The style of his works up to Prospero may be seen to follow a pattern. His earlier works began somewhat experimentally, but the larger forms that he later worked with required a more linear style. His thought is linear; and just as his interest veered away from Western Gregorian Chant towards the long lines of Byzantine Church Music, so is this reflected in the long, melodic lines of his own works, particularly those for one instrument. A particularly clear example of this characteristic occurs in Die Opferung des Gefangenen, at the end, just before the prisoner is killed. He has asked to dance once more with his own warriors; but this request is met with silence-that is to say, refusal. There follows a melody for a slow dance, which lasts for fifty-five bars (bars 1200-1255), during which a song of mourning is also heard from the Prince’s own people.

This is a very different approach from the pointillism that characterised Schoenberg’s style, and the fragmentation of the material, which is one of the chief characteristics of serialism; and whereas Wellesz might use an atonal idiom in smaller works, such as the solo Violin Sonata, Op. 36, in which he develops an extended tonality, something more was needed when larger forces were involved. The solution he arrived at was to write in blocks, with the crossing of one melodic line with another to produce varieties of key (polytonality) or varieties of rhythm (polyrhythm). Each line has a distinct character and vitality, while the blocks prevent the work becoming rhapsodic.

An example of this ‘emerging tonal complexity’ in Alkestis (bars 1516-1519), based on the differing tonal implications of combined linear blocks, is quoted by Reti [In Tonality Atonality Pantonality, p. 136]. His idiom is melodic, and the rhythmic continuity is usually straightforward. He eschews harmonic novelty, and favours instead the substance which comes of contrapuntal treatment of the material. He considers that nothing palls quicker than novelties, and particularly excessive harmonic colouring, of the sort that several late romantic composers indulged in. Indeed, historically speaking, harmonic novelty had reared its head in the works of the sixteenth century Gesualdo, only to be discarded by his successors when they built larger structures. So Wellesz draws a parallel today.

The style of his operas centres round his conception of operatic drama. Whereas a novelist takes his material from life, a dramatist takes his material from the great subjects of antiquity. So opera builds on a traditional foundation. But the fate of an opera, according to Wellesz, is decided on the stage, not in the orchestra pit; the contrasts of mood, which keep an opera moving, are underlined by the music. So for the death of the queen in Alkestis (bars 44-77) the characteristic Greek atmosphere is obtained by just clarinet and percussion; the expressive music, noted by Reti for its polytonal character, occurs earlier also at bar 550, for the moment when the women bring flowers after the death of Alkestis; in Die Opferung the death of the prince is musically illustrated at bar 1300. The chorus forms an integral part in all these operas. As Reti put it [In Egon Wellesz, Musician and Scholar (Musical Quarterly, Vol. 42, No. 1, January 1956)], Wellesz achieves ‘a blend of inner austerity with the splendour of festive choruses and glittering choreography’.

The first performance of Prospero took place on 19th February 1938 in Vienna, under Bruno Walter. A further performance was arranged in Amsterdam on 13th March, by the Concertgebouw Orchestra, also under Walter; and a repeat of this on 16th March in Rotterdam. These performances certainly took place; indeed, Wellesz looks back with characteristic Viennese affection on the concerts, particularly as the violin solo in the third section of Prospero (‘Ariel’s song’) was played by Arnold Rose, the brother-in-law of Mahler.

But on the very day of the Amsterdam concert, 13th March 1938, Hitler entered Vienna, and Austria was annexed to Germany. War was now inevitable in Europe. Thus ended the world that Wellesz knew, and many like him, particularly those of Jewish extraction. There was nothing for him, therefore, but to strike roots elsewhere, and begin afresh-at the age of fifty-three. Ten years later he was to return to Vienna, as a visitor, to be greeted by former students and friends; but this could hardly be foreseen in 1938.

H. C. Colles and Edward Dent arranged for him to come to England. In view of his doctorate, he was made a Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford; later (1947) a Reader in music; this position he retained until 1957, though he continued to teach after then. It was not Wellesz the composer who was given this academic post, but Wellesz the musicologist; and however distinguished his name might be among international European musicians, there were, so he was told, those at Oxford, and in the more sound-proof ivory towers of this country, to whom his name meant little or nothing. Could he not write a book in order to establish his name in those quarters where it was appropriate that it should be established?

His work as a musicologist had for many years focused on Byzantine Chant, in which he was already known by the 30s as a specialist. He discovered clues to the interpretation of neumatic notation, so that by 1917 the notation of Byzantine Church music was deciphered and transcribed; and gradually it became possible for Western musicians to explore this hitherto unknown territory. In 1931 a conference in Copenhagen brought together those chiefly interested in this work, and it was agreed to set about publishing the texts of Byzantine musical manuscripts. This complete edition, Monumenta Musicae Byzantinae, was started in 1935 by the Danish scholar Carsten Hoeg, H. J. W. Tillyard, Professor of Greek at Cardiff University, and Wellesz. So when Wellesz came to Oxford, it was arranged that his manuscripts and Byzantine photographs should be brought to this country; whereupon he set about his work. A History of Byzantine Music and Hymnography was published ten years later. Wellesz later also became one of the editors of the New Oxford History of Music, and of the History of Music in Sound.

His arrival in Oxford was followed by a gap of several years in his creative output. The last work that he wrote in Vienna had been a part-song Quant’ e bella giovinezza, Op. 59. Not till 1944 does Op. 60 appear-his Fifth String Quartet, ‘in memoriam’ of former days. Beginning maestoso, with a long and violent unison, the work uses a 12-note style. Four more string quartets were to follow. There is a large number of chamber works included in his output, and generally speaking their style is more concise and direct than the larger pieces. Four players can be more agile than forty; and Wellesz frequently precedes bigger works with smaller ones, just as Aurora had paved the way for Alkestis.

But it was in the next year (1945) that he started on the new path that he has pursued consistently since; that of a symphonist. He has been practically the only composer of the Viennese tradition to develop the symphony since Mahler, and his nine symphonies form the focal point of his output during the period of his residence in Oxford, just as the operas had formed the focal point of the earlier period of his life [He wrote an opera, Incognita, based on Congreve, which was performed on an amateur basis by the Oxford University Opera Club. It stands in line of descent from Strauss’s Rosenkavalier]. The last five symphonies in particular form a group which may be compared with the ‘heroic’ operas; in them also Wellesz sought an ideal of a new classicism.

The First Symphony came about somewhat unexpectedly. In August 1945, when he was staying at Grasmere in the Lake District, he was reminded of the Salzkammergut, the district near Salzburg that he knew so well. A theme occurred to him, which invited symphonic treatment; the next day another theme came to him. Immediately, as if in a trance, he sketched out his First Symphony in C, Op. 62, in just three weeks. It was, he says, the most exciting work of his life. The scoring was finished later that year. Its three-movement structure is still classical, for the sake of thematic cohesion, though the development is fugal-a device which he used later in the fifth symphony. The work was performed in 1947 by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under Celibidache, and later, on 22nd June 1948, in Vienna under Josef Krips, for which Wellesz returned to Vienna-for the first time since the war.

The Second Symphony, Op. 65 which followed two years later, he called his ‘most English’ symphony; not only is the character of the English landscape portrayed, but the composer’s preoccupation at this time with English poetry is also echoed. The four movements have a clearly defined tonality. The work still retains traces of romanticism, and is a blend of heroic and sombre colours. It was performed in this country under Adrian Boult and Walter Goehr; when it was played in Vienna under Karl Rankl, on 21st June 1949, Wellesz returned again for this performance. The following month also his Octet, Op. 67, was performed by the Vienna Octet at the Salzburg Festival. It was a busy summer for the composer.

The Third Symphony, Op. 68, written between 1949 and 1951, stands somewhat apart from his other symphonic work, since it contains recollections of other Viennese composers, and is the only symphony not published. Very different was the next symphony, the fourth, Symphonia Austriaca, Op. 70. A thematic motif, taken from the fourth String Quartet, gives the work a unity, like an idee fixe. But the composer has now mastered symphonic form; the structure is firm, the contents dramatic.

Thus was the stage set for the five symphonies (5-9) which form the highpoint of his orchestral compositions. The Fifth Symphony, Op. 75, was written over three years, and finished in Oxford on 2nd September 1956. Meanwhile, in these years Wellesz had travelled widely; to America in 1954, where he was invited to stay at the Byzantine Institute at Dumbarton Oaks, when he lectured at Yale, Princeton and Columbia Universities, travelled all over the country and heard his music played in several places; to Constantinople in 1955, where he addressed a congress on Byzantine music. His name was internationally known; except, strange to say, in England, where he had already been resident for over fifteen years, but where his music was scarcely heard, if at all. But at this time English musicians were just discovering Schoenberg, Berg and Webern; they had not yet alighted upon Wellesz. Not for nearly ten years was his Fifth Symphony given its first performance in this country, by Hugo Rignold and the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, on 21st October 1965. The same orchestra and conductor also performed the sixth and seventh symphonies in the following years [The Sixth Symphony was first played at Birmingham on 29th September 1966; the Seventh Symphony on 21st November 1968]. Very slowly the balance began to be restored.

In the Fifth Symphony Wellesz goes back to the tonal adventures of his youth; and this time the experiments succeed. What he had aimed at when young, his experience as a composer now enabled him to achieve; a more daring style now becomes tempered with the introversion of age. The solemn but brilliant opening is similar in mood and texture to the opening of the second of the Three Sketches for piano, Op. 6, written in 1911. He adopts a 12-note style, not as a dogma, but in order to give the structure a certain cohesion. The characteristics of his style are all here in abundance; particularly the linear counterpoint over a simple rhythm. The basic tonality of the symphony is D, and the shape of the 8-note row, first sounded in unison, also includes the tonality of E flat; this polytonal implication after its initial, harsh presentation, in bar 5, is worked out in the course of the symphony. At the point of recapitulation in the first movement. after a slower middle section, the speed quickens, and the row is stretched from 8 notes to 12, and is combined with its own retrograde to form a fugue subject [Bar 163; score published by Hans Sikorski, Hamburg].

The second movement, ‘Intermezzo’, is a short, bright scherzo, also starting in unison, with the row transposed, and with interjections of 5/8 metre into the prevailing pattern of 6/8. A little accompanimental motif, which first occurs towards the end of the vivo (at bar 88), forms the connecting link with the next movement, as it gives shape to the 12-note theme, as well as underlying colour to the harmony. The theme is given out adagio molto by a solo bass clarinet, and answered by the oboes in retrograde. The development of this movement is contrapuntal, as the theme is first inverted, then treated as a canon between the bass instruments and the brass (starting at bar 29), while the violins develop a brilliant counter-subject. This leads, typically of the composer, to a unison climax. After a more lyrical middle section, the main theme is recapitulated, once more in unison, and the movement ends firmly.

The first three notes of the original 8-note row are inverted to form the bass pattern of the finale. The maestoso character of the first movement is here brought to the fore, and the tragic grandeur of the theme takes on the form of a funeral march; muted trombones and tuba (bar 53) enhance this effect. The slower middle section reverts to the material of the first movement, after which the bass-pattern and the funeral march are recapitulated. The symphony finishes grandly, with the expected unison declamation of the main note-pattern, sounding the E flat and D tonalities round which the work is built.

Wellesz in this work makes a marked contribution to the development of the symphony as a contemporary form. How many composers, indeed, have reached a point of climax with their fifth symphony! Both in the overall conception of the whole, and in the technical execution of detail, he has developed a new form while not losing sight of the classical principles of symphonic construction. The features-rhythmic, harmonic, melodic-of his initial 12-note row are used variously to give different colour to the themes of each movement, while underlying the work as a whole is a mood of tragic, heroic solemnity, which develops towards the final grandeur of the climax at the end. In his use of the row, Wellesz is contrapuntal rather than serial. He can invert, transpose, and perform the recognized contrapuntal tricks, with considerable deftness; but always the technical procedures are subservient to the expressive needs of the music, and the character of the movement, just as in his operas.

The Sixth Symphony, Op. 95, was written nine years later, in 1965, and several important works separated it from the fifth; notably a setting of the first of Rilke’s ten Duineser Elegie, Op. 90, and also the one-movement Music for String Orchestra, Op. 91. The Sixth Symphony took only three months, including the scoring (5th April-7th July). It is in three movements, and like the fifth has a basic tonality of D, with a polytonal implication of E flat. It opens, again like a funeral march, slow and heavy in 5/4 metre, with brass and woodwind dominating, and the first movement grows all of a piece from the beginning. The strings enter ff in the seventh bar with the principal theme, a broad and very big, arch like cantabile, whose wide intervals recall Wellesz’s early works. The mood is intense, with just occasional moments of contrasting lightness. When the principal theme returns (bar I57) it is not an exact repetition, and after four bars it is suddenly cut off; the mood of The funeral march is recaptured,-and the movement ends menacingly. The second movement is light, quick, transparent, scurrying to and fro in triplets and semiquavers. A more sustained tranquillo middle section, for strings only, separates the quick outer parts of the movement.

The third movement, Adagio, opens with all the violins quietly and expressively singing their 12-note melody, very differently presented now from the theme in the first movement. Over a rhythmic ostinato in the bass a climax is built up, but in contrast to this theme follows the most delicate part work for solo instruments. The ending is one of peaceful. reconciliation.

Wellesz has said of this symphony that it is concerned with one idea, presented in three aspects. It is a contrast more of moods than of thematic presentation of the note-row, as the Fifth Symphony was.

The Seventh Symphony, Op. 102, is also in three movements, and was written between 11th October 1967 and 21st January 1968. Although it is entitled ‘contra torrentem’, because Wellesz sees the symphony as being against current trends, nevertheless he has proved himself master of that new classicism in symphonic form that he himself opened up. It continues directly from the point reached in the Sixth Symphony, though it is more concise, and covers a wider range of expression, with the greatest intensity. In accordance with his earlier practice, Wellesz derived material from a work written just before; in this case a cantata, Mirabile Mysterium, Op. 101, commissioned by the Vienna Radio for the Italia Prize, 1969.

The disposition of the movements of the Seventh Symphony is the same as the sixth, with the first and third movements broad, sustained, and acting as a frame for a more lively, joyful middle movement. But this time the violins, largely in unison, develop a feeling of ecstasy, which is theirs alone; the concluding bars consummate this mood.

The sombre character of the music, established at the opening, pervades the work; even the lighter texture of the middle movement is offset by heavy brass chords. The finale is the most extended of the three movements, and the most important, with a resolution of the mood forming the conclusion; beginning and ending with very sustained string writing (sehr breit), and quickening in the middle, at [45] -3.

The Seventh Symphony was followed by a ten minute symphonic piece, at the request of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. This Symphonischer Epilog, Op. 108, which is an intensely concentrated work, might be also described as a tragic epilogue; and once embarked on this course, Wellesz the symphonist could hardly stop. He felt that this work needed a second part; and thus arose the finale of the Eighth Symphony, which was written before the other two movements of it.

The Symphonic Epilogue was finished on 11th December, 1969; the Eighth Symphony, Op. 110, was written between February-June, 1970. That freedom in the thematic working-out of ideas, which is already apparent in the Seventh Symphony, and carried on in the Epilogue, is pursued still further in this and in the next symphony. A movement is not divided into sections, according to the classical procedure; but the development starts from the very beginning. From the sum of his symphonic experience Wellesz in his maturity took what was essential for the music, and wrote just that; the pure reality of sounds, naked colours, in a lighter surrounding texture, and without full harmonization-the opposite of Strauss, or of Schoenberg. In this sense the music is implicit rather than explicit, and its construction a comparatively free and loose working-out of ideas.

The symphony is in the now customary three movements; sustained outer movements enclose a quicker, scherzo-like section. The third movement, Molto tranquillo, which was composed first, is both substantial and complex. It opens with a phrase built round the interval of the second (B flat-A flat), which recalls the funeral music in Alkestis (bar 495 foll.). Biting scoring, with flutes and three high oboes (bar IS) leads to an increase of intensity, and the music is characterized by broad lines and wide intervals, spelt out in notes of small value.

Having completed the finale, the other two movements came quickly to Wellesz. The opening Lento has a long solo for the trumpets as a leading idea. This is later recalled-not repeated-with mutes, against the static chords of divisi strings. The material of this symphony is diverse, yet the work is homogeneous. Here Wellesz has applied the principles of Mozart, that whereas each 2-bar section of an 8-bar sentence may contain material of diverse interest, nevertheless the overall phrase is a unity. In this case, though the juxtaposed motifs are different, yet the whole musical experience is coherent. The material is firmly controlled, however loose the structure.

The central Allegretto, in triple metre, represents the scherzo movement, with just a suggestion of a very short trio for flute and oboe. The scoring in this movement is slightly pointillistic, with very short motifs, even single notes, distributed between the instruments. The style of the trio is picked up at the beginning of the finale.

Following the completion of the Eighth Symphony, Wellesz was faced with the congenial task of celebrating his 85th birthday-on; 21st October, 1970. To mark the occasion, chamber music concerts were given at the Austrian Institute in London, as well as Oxford, Vienna and elsewhere, by the (Vienna) Philharmonic String Quintet, for whom he wrote Four pieces for String Quintet, Op. 109. But already his mind was turned towards the possibility of the next symphony; and this was started in November.

The Ninth Symphony, again in three movements, is a continuation of the eighth. Like its predecessors, it was composed over a comparatively short period of uninterrupted work. The speed is remarkable. The sketch of the first movement was finished by 20th December. On Christmas Day the middle movement was sketched out in essentials-and has since remained basically unaltered. The very next day, 26th December, he started work on the final Adagio. The entire symphony was scored between 22nd January - 6th February, 1971.

By this time the chromatic tendency of the 12-note technique had become so much second nature to Wellesz that, like Schoenberg in Moses und Aaron, he no longer concerned himself with the mechanics of it-as he had in some earlier works. Here the composer in his maturity writes what he wants to write, of the sort of symphonic music that by now he had forged for himself from the style of the Second Viennese School.

The first movement, Andante Moderato, opens with characteristic vigour, and the music immediately works towards a point of intensity (bar 31). A 3-note motif; with a prominent dotted rhythm, acts as a unifying point of climax. It occurs again in bar 137, and at the end. The slight pointillism noticeable in the previous symphony is here carried to a much greater level, and the scoring differs markedly even from bar to bar. Orchestral colour is used more than in earlier symphonies; for instance the horns feature prominently, often in unison; one of the most dramatic and powerful effects, discovered by the 85 year-old composer. Leading motifs are given to certain instruments; for instance a falling figure to the harp. As before, the composer is concerned that nothing should overlay or obscure the absolute sounds of his orchestra.

The scherzo movement, Allegretto grazioso, is of very light texture. The harmonic movement is slow, and static passages alternate with evanescent, shimmering sounds. The central trio this time is just hinted at by tremolo strings.

The concluding Adagio contains the essential Wellesz. Like the finale of the Eighth Symphony, it is of complex construction, though free. It opens with a powerful unison violin melody, whose long line, and characteristically wide intervals, gradually rises, then falls. This process is immediately repeated, with rhythmic diminution, and the music grows in intensity to bar 20. The 12-note motif of the first movement comes as a contrast, as well as a unifying link in the symphony. The following section, a hocketus melody in the woodwind, and a rubato passage, leads to the strings resuming the original tempo at bar 55, with a recollection of the first movement rhythm.

A stricter, more martial pulse, beginning at bar 58, leads inevitably to a powerful section (bar 75-85), when the first movement rhythm becomes again more prominent. The strings recall the beginning of the movement (bar 103), and after bar 115 the woodwind and horns, in 3-part harmony, and equal crotchets, have a simple passage, like a chorale. The final moment of the symphony is heralded by a high note (E flat), by two desks of first violins, which gradually swells up to ff, only to fade.

To the work of the Second Viennese School Wellesz added the symphony. Schoenberg, Berg and Webern had been effectively inhibited from writing symphonies by the overwhelming influence of Mahler; Wellesz forged a new symphonic style, over a remarkably rich 25-year period (1945-1970) which also exactly coincides with the period covered by the present study.

Between the first and ninth symphonies he never once varied the make-up of the symphony orchestra. Not for him the experimentation of Tippett, or the novelty of Gerhard. This is one illustration of those forgotten ideals, that striving after perfection, that emanated from Mahler, but which now no longer activate the avant-garde; it is also entirely consistent with Wellesz’s avoidance of novelty, whether of harmony or sonority.

At his very first lesson with Schoenberg-an unforgettable experience-the latter had shown him the harmonic novelties at the opening of Strauss’s Salome. Soon however Wellesz noticed that these novelties appeared flat indeed in comparison with the more striking novelties of Schoenberg’s own work. Novelty, Wellesz concluded, was a false god; once heard, it ceases to be a novelty. Therefore he did not pursue it.

His achievement in the symphonies particularly since the fifth, has been to take the greatly increased possibilities of expression of today’s various musical idioms, and, using only what he needed of them, to fashion a new conception of symphonic form. In many ways the contemporary composer is faced with precisely the opposite situation from that which confronted the classical composers, who first forged the conception of the symphony. They worked from the basis of a fixed key, and an established diatonic scale of seven notes, to which they added the additional expressiveness of the remaining five chromatic notes in whatever proportion and to whatever extent was compatible with the overall tonal scheme. The contemporary composer, however, works from the basis of twelve notes, whose organization may or may not be serial as he sees fit; nor is this licence confined to pitch only.

From such total chromatic freedom, which is clearly inconsistent with the classical principles of symphonic form, Wellesz worked inwards and deduced a structure that was compatible with his chosen idiom. He sees the contemporary situation of the symphony as not unlike what it was prior to its formulation by Haydn, who poured out music, and from the resulting stream fashioned a symphonic structure. Now Wellesz sees the necessity to refashion the symphony; and for structural contrast, corresponding to the classical sonata form, he does not so much introduce a second theme as make use of different melody and varied movement. He has built a new edifice, without losing sight of the old.

13 Roberto Gerhard

 

Few composers in Britain today have had a richer, fuller artistic life than Roberto Gerhard. After a slow, gradual growth, his compositions increased steadily in later years in both number and range. Artistic vision and intellectual vigour made for his insatiable curiosity about music of many different periods and styles. Indeed, the assimilation of fresh ideas and influences was part and parcel of his creative personality. This particular period of time requires of the composer not just that he should be aware of the forces and influences at work around him, but that he should also interpret them; and Gerhard proved fully equal to this challenge.

The work, no less than the composer himself, can be approached on many different levels, all of which are valid, and any one of which will lead the enquirer into ever more complex and intricate side-turnings; pointers to the working of a daringly original mind.