Sunday, 22 May 2011

Happy Birthday, Richard!

Two years to go before the bicentenary...

(Good Friday, April 2011)










Chéreau himself wished:








Théo Bélaud said...

Extremely interesting. I would be very curious if you happend someday to go deeper in the understanding of this issue of "beethovenian" and "wagnerian" relations to keys.
I'm wondering what exactly you mean about D-flat by saying "the key in which Das Rheingold so unsettlingly concludes or fails to conclude," One could say, as Das Rheingold is the Prologue of the Ring, it makes sense it's conclusion leads to the key in which the cycle ends, and besides, in which also begins the "ring in the Ring", Götterdämmerung being also built with a prologue and three proper acts, beginning in D-flat.
According to this, it could feel unconfortable to draw some kind of relation between this progression/regression from E-flat to D-flat and, for what your reference to Mahler here means to me, the one from D natural to D-flat in the 9th symphony.

I'm actually thinking (but just... thinking) there could be another way of approaching the problem without introducing a "reconciliation-friendly" relation to keys wich would define the problem of Beethoven's legacy, although from Schumann to Sibelius (and actually Mahler 3 first symphonies) it seems an obvious idea.

There's also a lot to think about in how composers after Beethoven have dealt with his legacy in the use of "half-way" keys theorically hardly related to the main one : among so many examples (countless in Schubert music), one could focus on the strange keys of Beethoven slow movements of his 1st and 3rd piano concertos, both using a 4 alterations key (A-flat and E major) in relation to a C original tonic : in both case, my opinion is these keys should be heard in relation to nothing but the furthest sound of the C scale, precisely the one which has no classical function in terms of degree : the one between the tonic and the IInd degree, E major being the relative of c-sharp and A-flat beeing the relative of it's dominant.

This only makes sense since Beethoven did not compose the slow movement of the 3rd concerto in A-flat and the one of his 1st concerto in E-major but precisely the opposite.
One could obviously say the A-flat movement of a classical work in C major should the heard in relation to the more expected F major key, what basically makes sense except it fails to connect the procedures of 1st and 3rd concertos, and more importantly fails to relate both works to how their legacy were challenged.

It is extremely fascinating Brahms came to a striking synthesis of this procedure in the very work that remains the most widely considered as a beethovenian challenge in the sense of a way from darkenss to light, and actually goes from c minor to C major : the middle movements of the 1st symphony are in A-flat and E major, and actually it always sounds wonderful (typically schubertian) when the third one follows the second without interruption. And as a perfect mirror, the finale eventually returns first to c minor immediaetly following the E major chord.
One could say the difference here is the two first movements switch more usually from c minor to A-flat (as, say, Mahler 2nd that sounds much more academic in this sense, as it makes exactly the same move than Beethoven 5th symphony, the theorical absolute model for everyone), except Brahms concludes his first movement with a quite unexpected (and actually glorious) movement to C major.
The other way round, Schubert makes his response to the 1st piano concerto in his string quintet, swtching directly from C major to E major, and then moving straight to the A-flat relative f minor, all this taking place in the two first movements.

All this basically doesn't sound so original or especially meaning full now, because we just think about it as some of the many proofs of the harmonic imaginations of those great composers. But for me it shows the common representation of a beethovian tradition in the use of keys is much more ambiguous one would think about at first sight.

Théo Bélaud said...

Now, how about the Wagner D-flat problem ? In the same logic it can be related to the original E-flat with regards for the importance of the basic keys of such importants leitmotivs as Siegfried (c minor) and Brünhilde (E-flat) and many others : ther's a lot of the Ring to be heard as a beethovenian conflict between those 3 alterations relatives. This suggests all the way that somehow the work should find his way to light (or reconciliation) by finally nothing but an outer key, because obviously the reconciliation here has nothing to do with a conflit between these particular major and minor keys (not to mention the fact Siegfried and Brünhilde aren't exactly the perfect incarnation of a dialectical conflict).

It has been stated, I think by D. Cooke, that on the the other hand Alberich's curse leitmotiv shows a striking tension between it's basic key of b minor and the one of C major : since the curse of Alberich and actually of the whole Ring world can be considered the real incarnation of the work dialectical tension, it strongly suggests Wagner's own conception of harmonic tension is at least partly made of these uneasy relations "within" the tonic and the IInd degree of any scale. In the story's logic, everything could be seen as a consequence from Alberich's curse and pursuit for power, no matter the context of it happends to first be the Rhine.
The big story, the greater curse all comes from a B minor, wich leads to greater developements mostly involving the furthest keys (C, c and it's relatives), and then there's just one step to go for the D-flat "solution", It can't be C major. It can't be E-flat. It obviously can't be b minor related D major either, although you could also think about D-flat as related to this hypothesis.
As Beethoven, Schubert and Brahms all have shown how C/c can dialectically work with various c-sharp related keys : then why not D-flat itself ?
Who can actually tell if Verdi's Traviata ends in c-sharp or D-flat - just asking, by the way, if anyone has an interesting answer to give, though I guess Mark doesn't care at all about anything that has to do with a Verdi opera ;) ?

Mark Berry said...

Théo, tempting though it may be to reprise my thoughts or prejudices concerning 'La traviata', I shall leave the field open to those better qualified or at least interested...

What you say about Das Rheingold as prelude is interesting analytically. I take it you mean that one could consider the prelude/Vorabend as akin to an introduction such as Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven sometimes employ to reach, or at least firmly to establish, the tonic. I wonder though... Much depends on how, if at all, one should relate Wagner's practice to sonata form, how much one considers it amenable to Schenkerian or quasi-Schenkerian analysis, and so on. With something of a foot in the Schoenbergian camp, I am instinctively suspicious, but more to the point, I am not sure that Wagner's motivic web is symphonic in that sense. It certainly uses symphonic, post-Beethovenian technique, but to a 'dramatic' end whose relation to the practice of Beethoven, or indeed to that of Mozart in his operas, is quite fraught.

That preliminary aside, let us assume that such a way of understanding Wagner’s tonal areas etc. is valid. The position of Schubert here is, I am sure, crucial, though how much Schubert Wagner knew, especially on the instrumental side, is open to debate. Those tertiary keys, such as one so often finds in Bruckner, in many senses sound the death knell for Classical tonality, arguably tonality as such. It is no coincidence that Schubert so often makes one think of the Second Viennese School, and vice versa. Susan McClary was roundly criticised by unimaginative souls for relating Schubert’s harmonic practice to his sexuality, but I think that such a standpoint can actually be quite revealing; at any rate, it contrasts strongly with Beethoven’s typical practice, which becomes a norm, even a ‘masculine’ norm, if one will.

Mark Berry said...

I note, though, what you say about the piano concertos. Might one, however, understand that tonal practice, similar though it might appear, to be as it is for quite another reason, derived from Haydn’s almost Newtonian traversal of the tonal universe as a system? Brahms certainly owes a great deal to both Beethoven and Schubert, which might help synthetically to explain what you say about the First Symphony. If anything, one might say that his later music, so forward-looking in a Schoenbergian sense, is less so tonally, perhaps owing to the increasing, almost overwhelming, importance of Bach and even earlier composers such as Schütz, in his thinking. (I am very much speaking off the top of my head there, though, so that might simply be nonsense!) Arguably, though, I am in danger of merely reiterating my suspicions re Schenker et al.

I think, though, one certainly ‘hears’ – or, I certainly ‘hear’ – the D-flat conclusion, if conclusion it be, as flatter than the unsullied Nature of the E-flat opening. Key relationships do seem to operate at different levels, be they analytical or hermeneutical, and I see no reason why one should dissociate those levels; one should just be careful about proposing any one single way (cf. Alfred Lorenz, now newly fashionable again, rather surprisingly) to understand Wagner’s structures. Is not the B minor-C major relationship a little problematical though? Are we not talking about a Neapolitan sixth here, which is already a chromatic alteration/enrichment? At any rate, it is different from the relationship between D-flat and E-flat major. It seems to me that the Rhine, the original state of Nature – arguably already quite advanced culturally, but let us leave that on one side for the moment – is not merely the setting. Alberich only acts as he does because of his taunting by the Rhinemaidens; an ugly dwarf is fair game to shallow hedonists. (That might help your cause, though, since it indicates Wagner’s cultural imperative to progress: he is in no way saying that a Rousseauvian golden age is, or arguably ever was, attainable.) Moreover, the bigger story, as becomes increasingly clear, might even be Wotan’s parallel act of violence against Nature, his hewing the spear of state from the World-Ash tree. The alternative ‘opening’ to the Ring is then to be found in the E-flat minor of the Norns’ Scene. Again, Alberich acts as he does partly out of Nietzschean ressentiment concerning his lowly place in the society ruled over by the gods.

Théo Bélaud said...

You've clearly got a point by introducing Nature as a key to the understanding of how E-flat relates to it's further alteration. However, as you suggest, it doesn't have to be contradictory with an analytic understanding of how the E-flat basis relates to the D-flat endings of both Rheingold and Götterdämmrung through C major and it's relatives, since the act of violence you mention (the Spear) precisely happends to rise a conflictual, at least ambiguous C major/a minor element : it almost feels as if the Alberich b natural always had been threatening directly the E-flat scale, i.e the Naepolitan sixth wouldn't be worth noticed by itself, but as a mean to and end.
Alberich violates the nature bringing a b natural but doing this he allows a whole conflictual (harmonically speaking) world to step in, which is Siegfried's one.
Besides, I guess you agree to say that Siegfried/Brûnhilde is better heard in it's direct harmonic relation (relatives in love with each other, if if dared) than in a hypothetic relation between Brünhilde and... Nature.
So what's next ? D-flat. And by the way, there's something much easier to think about, since the original debate is roughly about wheter Wagner challenges or not some "beethovian great issue" in the way from darkness to light : though one could define the Nibelungen motives as secundary, well, this is still the Ring des Nibelungen, and so it's in b-flat minor... is there's anything beethovian in this story...

Nothing of this pretends to show anything consistant, in the sense of clear deduction ; it just suggests, as it could be done by many other ways, that it still proves stimulating to look at the score as if the key relations could be understood as more than just some leitmotivs purely descriptive system with no other formal purpose than the narrative logic.

By the way, if we can learn anything from Schoenbergs many analysis of all repertoires including his own works, it's the fact almost any GOOD piece of music can amost be analysed (this doesn't mean reduced or described) as a sonata piece, eventually turning it to a very much extended meaning.

But you mentionned Beethoven Missa Solemnis, I was listening at it this afternoon actually : one could also say , if there is anything we learn from the latest Beethoven works, it is that from a sonata basis any crazy kind of tonal work can arise... Including the complete Ring.

Mark Berry said...

Yes, that’s a very good point regarding Alberich’s B natural. I wonder whether one might also understand it as related enharmonically to the C flat that hangs so weightily over the Norns’ Scene. And, I am sure you are right that one need not always be consistent: there is, to the whole thing, a tension between Wagner’s (Hegelian) attempt to systematise – not only his, of course, for one might say a similar thing of Bach and of others – and the demands of the moment. In a sense that is dramatised when the Wanderer rejects Erda (Fate): the peripeteia to the cycle as a whole. But is Fate actually vanquished? The following scene needs some element of free will, or Siegfried’s victory over Wotan would be no victory at all, yet at the same time there seems to be an element of preordination, just as Wotan had attempted with Siegmund. And so on, and so forth… All of which, I think, one might find furthered in the music and its tensions between motivic and grand tonal working. As for the Missa Solemnis, daunting is hardly the word: Furtwängler eventually came to think it too great a challenge for him. If only there were a recording… Still, at least we have Klemperer…

Mark Berry said...

P.S. May I also say what a joy it is for once to be discussing the music? It has an unfortunate tendency to be left behind - and I am sure I am as guilty as many others here - when it comes to Wagner.