UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI

Date:______

I, ______, hereby submit this work as part of the requirements for the degree of: in:

It is entitled:

This work and its defense approved by:

Chair: ______

Hugo Wolf’s Penthesilea: An Analysis Using Criteria from his own Music Criticism

A thesis submitted to the

Division of Research and Advanced Studies of the University of Cincinnati

in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

MASTER OF MUSIC

in the Division of Composition, Musicology, and Theory of the College-Conservatory of Music

2007

by

Jennifer Ann Griswold-Nickel

B.A., University of Cincinnati, 2003

Committee Chair: Dr. Mary Sue Morrow

ABSTRACT

Hugo Wolf’s music criticism in the Wiener Salonblatt (1884–1887) was published while he was

actively composing his own symphonic poem Penthesilea, based on the play by Heinrich von

Kleist. This criticism, along with comments in his letters (1887–1897) to friend Melanie

Köchert, reveals that Wolf placed a high regard on works exhibiting originality, proper

orchestration, form and compositional technique. After briefly tracing the history of music

criticism in late nineteenth-century Vienna, this thesis establishes Wolf’s compositional aesthetic

derived from his critical opinions about instrumental music. A structural analysis of Wolf’s

Penthesilea, his only complete programmatic instrumental work, concentrates on thematic material, form, and texture and orchestration and establishes the methods by which he composed his own music. A comparison of Wolf’s aesthetic criteria to his music shows that he adhered to his own compositional aesthetic in concept, but not always in execution.

Copyright © 2007, Jennifer Ann Griswold-Nickel ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would first like to thank my advisor Dr. Mary Sue Morrow whose guidance, editing and

patience was invaluable. I appreciate the helpful insights and comments from my readers Dr.

Jeongwon Joe and Professor Kenneth Griffiths, whose enthusiasm about Wolf is inspiring. I am so grateful for all the love and support from my family (especially Mom) and friends who

endured countless conversations about this project. I must also thank Haschi who has been there

for me every step of the way and given me unwavering support and love.

CONTENTS

List of Tables iv

List of Examples v

Chapter 1. Introduction 1

Chapter 2. Music Criticism in Late Nineteenth-Century Vienna 7

Chapter 3. Hugo Wolf’s Criticism and Critical Opinions 21

Chapter 4. An Analysis of Penthesilea 57

Chapter 5. Conclusion 126

Bibliography 137

iii TABLES

3.1. Published Criticism in Wiener Salonblatt 35

3.2. Letters to Melanie Köchert 43

3.3. Summary of Critical Topics 45

3.4. Occurrences of Each Compositional Element in Both Sources 46

4.1. Musical Sections compared to sections of Penthesilea 99

4.2. Programmatic interpretations of Sections III–V 100

4.3. Phrasing of each individual theme 103

4.4. Thematic Elements 108

4.5. Map of Thematic Material in the Score 109

4.6. Structural Analysis 117

4.7. Orchestration for Penthesilea 120

5.1. Adherence to Aesthetic Categories 135

iv EXAMPLES

1. Theme I and Associated Motives 70–73

2. Theme II and Associated Motives 75–76

3. Theme III and Associated Motives 78–82

4. Theme IV and Associated Motives 84–89

5. Theme V and Associated Motives 92–97

v Chapter 1

Introduction

Hugo Wolf was not only one of the most prominent composers of German Lieder of the

late Romantic period, but was also one of its most vicious music critics. He was particularly

well known for his attacks on other composers of the era, most notably Johannes Brahms. As a

critic, Wolf participated in a very animated critical discourse in a Viennese newspaper that paralleled the French feuilleton in its style and depth. It was “largely non-technical, focusing on stylistic and aesthetic questions and emphasizing pithy evaluation rather than elucidation,”1 while also incorporating social and political commentary and concerns into the criticism of musical work. Margaret Notley has described this period as one of “sociopolitical upheaval” where “musical controversy grew more heated in the late 1880s, as political issues spilled over with greater frequency into the musical life of the city.”2 The artistic world was embroiled in two prominent aesthetic controversies at the time, the first involving absolute versus program music, and the second placing followers of Wagner against those that did not adhere to the

Wagnerite principles. Because of the distinctly drawn “party lines,” a composer also writing as critic could promote particular composers, praise specific compositional genres, and propagate

political views that were prominent in this musical climate. Moreover, Wolf’s dual role means that we can examine his criticism for aesthetic criteria that we can use in evaluating his compositions.

1 Glenn Stanley, “Criticism, §II, 1(ii)(b): Germany and Austria: 19th century: Newspaper criticism and feuilletons,” Grove Music Online (accessed 3 May 2006) .

2 Margaret Notley, “Brahms as Liberal: Genre, Style, and Politics in Late Nineteenth-Century Vienna,” 19th-Century Music 17 (1993): 109.

1 The relationship between Wolf’s criticism and his lieder has been thoroughly explored by

scholars such as Eric Sams, Heather Platt, Sandra McColl, Amanda Glauert, and Susan Youens.3

Many of these scholars have observed a contradiction between what Wolf said in his criticism

and what he wrote in his compositions. Eric Sams has noted similar characteristics in both

Wolf’s and Brahms’s lieder, characteristics that Wolf himself observed and consequently

criticized. For example, in a letter to his friend Melanie Köchert, Wolf comments about the folk-

song qualities of Brahms’s Keller settings (Op. 69) “in its well-known noble popular-song style”

after referring to Brahms as “a master…of the bagpipes and concertina.”4 In Brahms’s setting of

Op. 69, no. 8 “Salome,”5 Brahms does use established techniques, such as repeating the last line

of each stanza for emphasis and using a balanced ABABA′ form. The piano accompaniment is

very unassuming and consists of light chords with a dance-like quality; the lilting melodic line

retains the light mood established by the accompaniment. Wolf’s setting of the same text in his

Alte Weisen, sechs Gedichte von Keller, “Singt mein Schatz wie ein Fink,”6 is very chromatic

and dark, with a declamatory vocal line that sounds almost angry; the accompaniment is

strangely sporadic at the onset and then evolves into persistent eighth-note chords that emphasize

semi-tone movement. It seems that Wolf was trying to recreate the sentiments of the text in the

music while Brahms was more concerned with the overall atmospheric setting. The only

obvious similarities between the two settings are the persistent chords in the accompaniment

3 Eric Sams, The Songs of Johannes Brahms (London: Yale University Press, 2000); Heather Platt, “Jenner versus Wolf: The Critical Reception of Brahms’s Songs,” The Journal of Musicology 33 (1995): 377–403; Sandra McColl, “Karl Kraus and Music Criticism: The Case of Max Kalbeck,” The Musical Quarterly 82 (1998): 279–308; Amanda Glauert, Hugo Wolf and the Wagnerian Inheritance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999); Susan Youens, Hugo Wolf: The Vocal Music (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992).

4 Sams, The Songs of Johannes Brahms, 221–222.

5 Johannes Brahms, Lieder für eine Sinstimme mit Klavierbegleitung Volume IV (Frankfurt: C. F. Peters, n.d.).

6 Hugo Wolf, Lieder nach verschiedenen Dichtern für eine Singstimme und Klavier Volume I (Frankfurt: C. F. Peters, n.d.).

2 (although completely different in sound) and the concluding music by the piano that summarily

ended the songs. Sams draws the conclusion that while Wolf was angry about the musical

similarities, his “scathing critique” demonstrates that he correctly heard what Brahms was trying

to convey.7 Wolf’s critical commentary also seems to reveal that he was angry simply because

he had composed music, apparently before he heard Brahms’s music, which bore resemblance to

that of the composer to whom he was most openly hostile. Though the songs do have a similar

overall structure, their conception and the music itself is quite different. Heather Platt has

concluded that Wolf not only admired Brahms’s compositions, but used critical commentary to

conceal his hidden respect for the composer;8 this might better explain Wolf’s hostility towards

Brahms’s songs: perhaps Wolf recognized that Brahms created a more appropriate atmosphere

for the text. In much the same vein, Sandra McColl and Amanda Glauert have looked at Wolf’s

criticism in the context of anti-Brahms sentiment propagated by the Wagnerians,9 concluding that although Wolf was a self-proclaimed Wagnerite, his criticism was not always negative towards composers outside the Wagner tradition. It does seem that at times, Wolf was not concerned with pleasing his supporters (mostly the members of the Wagner Society) but truly writing his own opinion. An in-depth reading of Wolf’s criticism not only reveals some inconsistencies in his outward opinions and allegiances, but also of compositional practices and musical taste.

Most of this scholarship has, however, dealt only with Wolf’s vocal compositions and has not addressed the relationship of his criticism to his instrumental works. Wolf did not always

adhere to his critical precepts in his Lieder composition, so it would be plausible that the same

7 Sams, The Songs of Johannes Brahms, 222.

8 Platt, 377–403.

9 McColl, “Karl Kraus and Music Criticism,” 279–308; Glauert.

3 inconsistency would also appear in his instrumental composition. As a paid critic for the Wiener

Salonblatt from 20 January 1884 to 24 April 1889, Wolf did address many issues surrounding instrumental music. While much of his writing centered on opera and Viennese patronage, he paid considerable attention to instrumental works. Of the one hundred and thirteen entries published in the journal, there are sixty-three that discuss some aspect of instrumental composition; this constitutes fifty-five percent of his criticism. There is also abundant criticism in his private correspondence: in his private letters to his dear friend Melanie Köchert, there are no less than forty-five references to instrumental music, including his own and those of other composers. From this criticism, I have gathered information that reveals Wolf’s concept of genre and his stylistic allegiances from specific instances of aesthetic criteria. From this primary source study I have established Wolf’s compositional aesthetic for instrumental works. I have compiled detailed lists of the elements of composition that he discussed and from this determined what elements he criticized or praised. This enabled me to apply his criteria to his own instrumental composition to determine whether or not Wolf adhered to his own standards and if he composed in accordance to his opinions.

Although a majority of Wolf’s compositions are accompanied songs, the composer did produce a significant amount of instrumental music in a variety of genres. The surviving completed works include four chamber music works: a string quartet, an intermezzo, and two serenades. Much of his piano music is lost, but among the existing works are four complete sonatas, two variation sets, a rondo capriccioso, a humoreske and a set of canons. Several other piano pieces including transcriptions and paraphrases of other composers survive. Eight completed works of incidental music survive, along with many sketches. Of his three symphonies, two are incomplete and one is lost. Among his other orchestral works are two well-

4 known pieces that underwent revision by both Wolf and others: the Italianische Serenade and the

symphonic poem Penthesilea. Penthesilea was completed in 1885, revised and cut by Josef

Hellmesberger in 1903, and posthumously restored to its original version (with a few revisions

made by Hugo Wolf) in 1937.10 Penthesilea is perhaps the most suitable work to use as a test

case for this thesis. It was not only completed and published, but submitted by Wolf for

performance consideration to the Vienna Philharmonic. The work has also been studied by

previous scholars and has been the subject of criticism. This work, by most indications, serves

as an accurate portrayal of Wolf’s compositional procedures and ideas in instrumental music

because it is his only surviving large-scale orchestral work. It is also programmatic in

conception; Wolf was a proponent for the cultivation of programmatic works and, in his

criticism, voiced his objections to absolute music. Finally, the attempts by Wolf to procure a

performance of this piece also indicate that he, at least initially, felt this composition was worthy

of his name and was one that accurately displayed his compositional talents.

In order to determine whether or not Wolf adhered to his stated compositional precepts in

his own instrumental composition, I have asked the following questions, based upon the opinions found in his published criticism:

1) In Hugo Wolf’s opinion, what aspects created a quality instrumental

composition?

2) How did Wolf judge other composers’ instrumental works?

3) Does applying Wolf’s compositional aesthetic to his own work reveal

contradictions between his criticism and his music?

10 Hugo Wolf, Penthesilea, ed. Robert Haas (Leipzig: Musikwissenschaftlicher Verlag, 1937); Hugo Wolf, Penthesilea, ed. by Robert Haas and Helmut Schultz (Miami, FL: Edwin F. Kalmus & Co., Inc., 1988).

5 The answers to these questions, determined by my analysis of Wolf’s criticism and symphonic poem Penthesilea, yield the answer to the main question and the purpose of this study: Did Wolf adhere to his own critical precepts in his own instrumental composition?

6 Chapter 2

Music Criticism in Late Nineteenth-Century Vienna

Social and political background

Viennese politics was changing faces: Liberalism had been prominent in the 1860s, before which Austria had been divided between the long-standing aristocratic ruling families and the wealthy upper-class, and the rest of Vienna who struggled to survive. Liberalism was the party of the elites, the intellectuals, “the educated German and Jewish-German middle and upper classes.”1 The lower classes were struggling to gain more of a voice in the system dominated by

the middle-to-upper class. Political figures representing groups other than the Liberal elite soon

rebelled against the stronghold of the Liberal party. The rise of “the three most significant new

parties, the right-wing pan-Germans and Christian Socials and left-wing Social Democrats,

developed to varying degrees under the influence of Richard Wagner’s writings.”2 Liberal

music critic Max Kalbeck noted that at this time “music got mixed up with politics, and

obscurantists from various parties had their hands in the matter.”3 The “obscurantists” to whom

Kalbeck was referring were the followers of Richard Wagner. “By the mid-nineteenth century,

the notion of a powerful and influential public was thus legitimized, and its views assumed both

cultural and social significance.”4 No longer did the aristocracy solely occupy the position to

voice opinions that were deemed worthy; the rise of the masses into intellectual legitimacy

1 Notley, “Brahms as Liberal,” 108.

2 Margaret Notley, “ ‘Volksconcerte’ in Vienna and Late Nineteenth-Century Ideology of the Symphony,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 50 (1997): 423–4.

3 Notley, “Brahms as Liberal,” 107.

4 Leon Botstein, “Listening through Reading: Musical Literacy and the Concert Audience,” 19th Century Music 16 (1992): 132.

7 created a need for change in not only Viennese institutions but in the world of music. The time was “a decade of sociopolitical strife” that answered to the city’s “calls for reform of the city’s musical life.”5

Just as the Viennese middle and lower classes were gaining strength in the political arena, they also increasingly began to take a more active part in the city’s cultural affairs, and hence the audience for music and the readership for music criticism expanded. Several factors encouraged this trend, among them the desire of the middle and lower classes to increase their social standing by learning about and cultivating art forms formerly reserved for the privileged members of society. As Leon Botstein observed, part of the reason Europe’s middle classes pursued music with such intensity in the later nineteenth century was “the heritage of social prestige connected to musical culture.”6 That association was particularly potent in Vienna, with its glittering music history. However, although the high-culture genres of the Viennese classics

(opera, the symphony, chamber music) were theoretically accessible to the public at large, in reality ticket prices still prevented most of the city’s citizens from attending performances. The prices of the Vienna Philharmonic, for example, meant that its concerts were not only inaccessible to the lower class, but to a great deal of the middle class as well.7

However, many of the people who could not afford a night out at the Philharmonic could still find some access to this socially-advantageous art form. For example, the nineteenth century also saw the emergence of the piano into private homes and the publication of many concert works in piano reductions. Even without attending performances, then, Vienna’s middle class (lower class households would have probably not been able to afford a piano) would have

5 Notley, “Volksconcerte,” 443.

6 Botstein, “Listening through Reading,” 138.

7 Notley, “Volksconcerte.” 422–3.

8 been able to listen to Beethoven’s symphonies, or play arias from Rossini’s operas. Moreover,

even the lower classes, in which literacy rates were steadily rising, would have had access to one

of Vienna’s many newspapers either at home or at one of the city’s many coffee houses. Thus,

those not financially able to attend concerts or own a piano could at least increase their cultural

knowledge by reading reviews of new works and performances reported in the newspapers. The

knowledge so gained was almost as valuable as the direct experience, because the ability to

discuss music knowledgably also could contribute to an individual’s social status.8 Leon

Botstein has described a “twin evolution,” the “role of language in mediating and shaping the

musical, in the formation of taste, in the vocabulary of judgment, and in the musical education of

the amateur and listener,” as the ability for musical language to both shape musical opinion and

impart knowledge to the musical amateur, as one that directly resulted in the growth of a musical

public.9 Music criticism thus became doubly important: not only did it serve its usual aesthetic

and critical functions, it also helped to broaden the understanding and access to a very elite art form.

Styles of music criticism

Music criticism in the 1880s was the product of a long-cultivated tradition of music

writing. The music of Beethoven perhaps sparked the earliest writings that mixed a narrative,

literary style with technical discussion. The writings of Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann in

the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung combined detailed music analysis with lengthy literary

references and aesthetic judgments that served an often political agenda. His lengthy review of

Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony in 1810 was a literary journey that recounted the symphony movement by movement with specific music examples, placing this work within a historical

8 Botstein, “Listening through Reading,” 139.

9 Ibid., 130.

9 context of the other major composers, and promoting an uncloaked agenda to elevate both

Beethoven above other composers and music above the other arts.

Robert Schumann, who founded the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik in 1834, continued the tradition set in motion by Hoffmann with his numerous musical essays. Schumann used the fictional characters of his Davidsbündler league to create narrative accounts that did discuss the inner workings of the music, but in a context of poetic discussion which paralleled the Romantic literature of the era. Schumann also used his position as a music writer and critic to introduce new talent, and helped to promote the careers of many new composers, most notably Fryderyk

Chopin and Johannes Brahms. “No matter how high the quality of criticism, it primarily remains but a tolerable fertilizer of future works.”10

Once Eduard Hanslick appeared on the scene, the art of music criticism was forever

changed:

In the course of his famous treatise on the Beautiful in Music [1854], Eduard Hanslick pointed to the perennial dilemma facing the critic of music: the fact that “it had no model in nature, it expresses no conceptual content.” To gain verbal access to a composition, the critic is forced to choose between “dry technical designations” or else “poetic fictions,” in Hanslick’s words. Despite his reputation as a formalist, Hanslick clearly does not advocate here a purely musical discourse – which he accuses of dryness – over a more poeticizing style of interpretation. His point is merely that “poetic” discourse about music must be recognized for what it is, fiction rather than fact. “What is simple description in the other arts,” he adds, “is already metaphor in music.”11

Gone was the dry discussion of the inner workings of music, the tedious tales of harmonic

progressions and melodic development; the discussion of music had moved into the arena of

literature and the common man. Now every literate member of Viennese society could read the

non-technical writings about music and form their own opinions as to what made the best music.

10 Robert Schumann, On Music and Musicians (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1946), 130.

11 Thomas Grey, “Metaphorical Modes in Nineteenth-Century Music Criticism: Image, Narrative, and Idea,” in Music and Text: Critical Inquiries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), Steven Scher, ed., 93.

10 Judgment of music now centered on aesthetic value and worth. Hanslick’s musical essays

paralleled the sentiments of Hoffmann, which utilized extraneous metaphors and flowery prose

describing music and composers. His influence as a professor at the University of Vienna

produced a new breed of musical thinkers and his prominence as a critic spawned a new age of

music criticism that was soon imitated by those critics around him. Hanslick’s significance as a

music critic cannot be understated: “The transformation of musical literacy during the

nineteenth-century triggered the subordination of the musical to the linguistic, which in turn

created the context in which the polemical dichotomy between absolute and program music

could be sustained. That dichotomy, which began with Eduard Hanslick in 1854, was itself a

species of mid-century cultural criticism directed against an emergent type of musical literacy

and its rapid spread.”12

As Hanslick was becoming well-known, so was composer and outspoken writer Richard

Wagner. Wagner’s essays appeared in the French journal Revue et gazette musicale and in many

German publications including the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik. It was not uncommon at this time to have a composer also serving as a music critic; Hector Berlioz was a well-known music writer at this time as well. But because Wagner had the opportunity to promote his brand of politics and musical thought in a positive light, he was in a position to promote his own career and those of other specifically German composers. Wagner as a composer was on the road to the cultivation of what he felt was the highest form of art: his Musikdrama. As a writer, Wagner derided the music establishment after Beethoven and outwardly propagated himself and his art.

Wagner made many enemies throughout his life, but perhaps the most outspoken anti-Wagnerite was none other than Eduard Hanslick. As the aesthetic debates over music became more hotly disputed, so too did the debates between the Wagnerites and those who disagreed with them. In

12 Botstein, “Listening through Reading,” 144.

11 the music world, it was a question of what composer was the true successor of Beethoven—those

of the Liberal music establishment of the Vienna Conservatory or those in the vein of Richard

Wagner and his search for the culmination of music and German tradition. “Sooner or later in

their critical writings, Hanslick and Wagner, like Brahms in his composition, both tried to

establish a new universal basis for absolute music which would in effect replace the lost

embodied relationships of classicism.”13 Music criticism could not only support certain types of

music, but could also promote a particular brand of composer. Described by the words of

Wagner, “It is the feuilleton that creates music.”14

The practice of feuilletonism was the predominant style of music criticism in the 1880s;

this type of writing was the product of journalistic practice first used by French journalists. The

actual feuilleton was a section at the bottom of the page of a newspaper or journal that was

devoted to some aspect of the arts. The sections are described as ones that were “largely non-

technical, focusing on stylistic and aesthetic questions and emphasizing pithy evaluation rather

than elucidation,”15 while also incorporating social and political commentary and concerns into

the criticism. “In Viennese newspapers of the late nineteenth century [the feuilleton was] a

portion of one or more pages (at the bottom) marked off by the rest of the page by a rule, and

appropriated to light literature, criticism, etc…usually at the bottom of the first page, with the

result that when the ‘feuilleton’ of the day was devoted to music, as was frequently the case, musical opinion was given a prominence which it no longer enjoys.”16 The term “feuilleton”

13 Rose Rosengard Subotnik, “The Cultural Message of Musical Semiology: Some Thoughts on Music, Language, Criticism since the Enlightenment,” Critical Inquiry 4 (1978): 761.

14 Richard Wagner, quoted in Glenn Stanley, “Criticism, Germany and Austria: Newspaper criticism and feuilletons,” Grove Music Online.

15 Stanley, “Criticism, Germany and Austria.”

12 came to represent a particular critical style utilized by writers of music criticism. These critical

sections soon became more than just musical commentary, where “the adjectives engulfed the

nouns” and have been described as writings that “fed parasitically upon the hapless musical

works and performances.”17

During the time in which Wolf was contributing to the music criticism of the day, the

feuilleton and criticism itself had become connected with social commentary.18 The music critic also had a role in what music was deemed by society as worthy of being heard, and often

“Hanslick and other professional critics wielded far more power than writers for music trade journals in shaping public opinion and influencing the establishment of permanent repertories.”19

Those who could not attend regular performances could judge music or a composer based on these critical commentaries. Because many of the journals were known to represent certain political views or were affiliated with a specific group, associations made between a composer or even an entire genre of music and a particular branch of society or thought could easily be created. People did not have to hear the music to form critical judgments; the critic served in a position of authority, one who was not questioned as often as he probably should have been.

Now that critical writing was more entertaining than that of the past, the dissemination of critical thought was far-reaching, far beyond the city of Vienna.

Viennese Journals and Critics

Music criticism in late nineteenth-century Vienna was abundant in newspapers and various daily publications, particularly after the relaxation of censorship laws in the middle of

16 Sandra McColl, Music Criticism in Vienna 1896–1897: Critically Moving Forms (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 1.

17 Ibid., 1, 2.

18 Stanley, “Criticism, Germany and Austria.”

19 Ibid.

13 the century.20 Among the music journals published at this time, the Deutsche Kunst- und

Musikzeitung and the Österreichische Musik- und Theater-Zeitung, both founded in 1873, were prominent among the publications concerned with the arts, particularly music.21 Newspapers were often politically affiliated (for example the described “liberal” papers the Illustriertes

Wiener Extrablatt and the Deutsche Zeitung22) or were sponsored by the state or served local purposes. The Neue freie Presse, a Viennese daily newspaper founded in 1864, has been described as one of the most powerful newspapers in Vienna and noted to support the Liberal side of politics.23 It employed Eduard Hanslick as music critic, which secured it a powerful position in the critical world and also published criticism by Brahms supporters Max Kalbeck and Richard Heuberger. Another publication was the Wiener Salonblatt, a weekly newspaper more likened to a magazine, one seen as “politically neutral.”24 “On the cover of each issue was a photograph of a male or female aristocrat…the pages were filled with news of the court and aristocracy—accounts of the parties, the engagements, the marriages, the hunts, the dances of the eighty families who, according to Napoleon, ruled Austria. Stock-exchange quotations were published as another alluring bait.”25 Although this publication was seen mainly as a gossip rag, it was noted for its “arts pages” written by young and energetic writers.26 The most famous of these young critics was Hugo Wolf, whose unabashed critiques are described as that which

20 Stanley, “Criticism, Germany and Austria.”

21 McColl, Music Criticism in Vienna, 12–13.

22 Ibid., 14, 21.

23 Notley, “Volksconcerte,” 424.

24 McColl, Music Criticism in Vienna, 18.

25 Max Graf, Composer and Critic: Two Hundred Years of Musical Criticism (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1946), 275.

26 McColl, Music Criticism in Vienna, 18.

14 “must have seemed, among the generally ‘frivolous confectionary’ of the rest of the paper, rather

like the irruption of a fanatical dervish into a boudoir.”27

Among the most noted music critics of the day, three figures stand out as the most

prominent of Wolf’s contemporaries and contributors to the music debate in Vienna during the

1880s. The first, Max Kalbeck, was known for his strong Liberal stance, constant attacks on

Anton Bruckner with his critical colleague Gustav Dömpke, and for his staunch support of

Johannes Brahms; Kalbeck was a biographer of Brahms after the end of his critical career. From

1883 to 1886, Kalbeck served as music critic for the Neue freie Presse and then as critic for the

Neues Wiener Tagblatt from 1886 to 1890. Another Brahms supporter was Richard Heuberger, a

student of Eduard Hanslick. Heuberger served as music critic for the Wiener Tagblatt from 1881

to 1889, and later succeeded Hanslick as critic for the Neue freie Presse in 1896. Many scholars

have noted both Kalbeck and Heuberger as two writing in the direct line of Hanslick; these

critics have even been referred to as Hanslick’s “disciples.”28 The third music critic, Theodor

Otto Helm, was noted for his admiration of Bruckner while also advocating the young talent of other composers. Throughout his critical career, Helm was embroiled in much conflict with the anti-Wagnerian conservatives. Helm was succeeded by Hugo Wolf as music critic of the Wiener

Salonblatt in 1884. From 1884 to 1901, Helm served as music critic for the liberal paper the

Deutsche Zeitung, while also contributing freelance criticisms to the Wiener Salonblatt.

Issues in Viennese music criticism

During this period in Vienna, there were two main aesthetic controversies involving music, the first involving absolute versus program music, and the second placing followers of

Wagner against those that did not adhere to Wagnerite principles. These controversies were

27 Ernest Newman, Hugo Wolf (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1966), 29.

28 McColl, Music Criticism in Vienna, 163.

15 intertwined, as Wagner’s rise to success as a programmatic composer and outspoken advocate of

his own Musikdrama genre called into question who the music of the day was being written for,

what it meant, and if this music was accessible to the general public. Botstein notes that: “The

critique of Wagner and of program music in general stemmed in part from the view that this

newer form of music was itself a concession to the public with a debased standard of musical

education, to a public that needed language and scenery to enjoy music. Therefore only music that was illustrative could reach the broader public.”29 Absolute music was viewed by the educated upper class as that which was of the highest quality and due the most respect.

Opponents of this view felt that because of the elevated status of absolute music (which refers back to the elevated status of the symphony), it excluded those that were not musically trained and therefore represented the Liberal elite. Program music, which was deemed accessible to everyone, was condemned by many as a lesser work; many felt that if the music could not stand on its own without a story or picture to explain its meaning it was not as valuable or it did not reflect the true meaning of music and served as mere entertainment pandering towards the uneducated lower classes.

The followers of Wagner also represented a specific group that called into question the

Liberal elite and the music establishment that was at this time best represented by Brahms and the supporters of the Vienna Conservatory. Liberalism had embraced the rational, educated style of thinking that was not necessarily concerned with upholding the German ideal, the driving force behind Wagner and his followers. An ever-increasing anti-Semitic sentiment also caused many to rebel against the Liberal establishment which did at that time embrace many Jewish composers and artists (for example, the enrollment of the Vienna Conservatory during the later

29 Botstein, “Listening through Reading,” 143.

16 half of the nineteenth century was over 25% Jewish).30 Many Wagner supporters were actively

involved in anti-Liberal politics,31 and the connection between their anti-establishment politics

and their musical preferences is undeniable. On the other side of this Wagner political debate

were the supporters of Brahms and the musical establishment. Fueling this debate was Eduard

Hanslick, outwardly disparaging of Wagner in his critical writings, and his “disciples” Max

Kalbeck and Richard Heuberger, active music critics in the 1880s that unabashedly supported

Brahms and the musical establishment.32 Eduard Hanslick remarked in his essay “Wagner Cult,”

published in the Neue freie Presse September 1882, that “The true Wagnerian must not only be

an unquestioning worshipper of every one of Wagner’s verses and measures, he must also be a

Schopenhauerian, a pessimist, a foe of vivisection, an anti-Semite, a vegetarian, a believing

Christian and whatever else the ‘master’ prescribes.”33 Although this blanket statement may

seem to pigeon-hole every Wagner supporter, it is reflective of the sentiments pertaining to

Wagnerian politics at the time.

The debate between the supporters of Wagner and Brahms became much larger and more

complicated as more and more followers of literary prominence entered the arena. Music

journals and newspaper feuilletons were the grounds on which this aesthetic controversy was

being fought. Music critics promoted the composers whom they supported, derided the ones

they did not support, and fought against opposing critics with the same vigor. Not only was the

value of music discussed, but the integrity of composers and critics was questioned. Music was a

30 Leon Botstein, “Vienna, §5(iii): 1806–1945: 1870–1913,” Grove Music Online (accessed 16 January 2007) .

31 Notley, “Volksconcerte,” 423–4.

32 McColl, Music Criticism in Vienna, 110.

33 Eduard Hanslick, “Wagner Cult,” Neue freie Presse 1882, quoted in Harry Haskell, ed., The Attentive Listener: Three Centuries of Music Criticism (London: Faber and Faber Limited, 1995), 171.

17 hotly debated topic in Viennese circles, not only the current compositions but also questioning the value of the music of the past. Musical politics was the game of the day in Viennese journals.

Hugo Wolf’s Contributions

Wolf’s career as a critic, though chronologically brief, was long enough to establish him in the true line of Berlioz as a writer of zest and individuality functioning through an assured musical orientation…The musical situation of Vienna at the time was one that made it almost imperative for a critic to choose sides—though one suspects that his adoration for Wagner would have had such an issue even were there no anti-party (the Brahmsians) for Wolf inevitably to oppose. In sum one is attracted less to the body of Wolf’s criticism for its justice or even temper than for the brilliance and facility of his thoughts on the occasional subjects of which he wrote with special sympathy and understanding…34

This historical view of Hugo Wolf’s criticism is certainly much different from the general opinions about the composer/critic at the time in which his writings were actually being published. Though no one called him a bad writer, his fanatical tirades were often regarded as tiresome and baseless, clearly reflecting the strongly-held views of the Wagnerians. Wolf was seen as an ardent Wagnerite, one of the “sanctimonious demagogues who found Wagner’s music useful because it suppressed the intellect and unleashes the senses.”35 Max Kalbeck, a contemporary music critic of Wolf and an ardent supporter of Brahms, was not the only one voicing his opposition against the young, outspoken critic, but Wolf did have many supporters.

He, like many composers at this time, received financial backing from wealthy patrons and influential friends. Heinrich Köchert, one of Wolf’s ardent supporters, helped Wolf earn a living by obtaining a position for him as contributing music critic for the Viennese society magazine the Wiener Salonblatt, a weekly publication; Köchert anonymously paid for Wolf’s salary.

34 Irving Kolodin, ed., The Composer as Listener (New York: Horizon Press, 1958): 14.

35 Max Kalbeck, quoted from the 1880s in Notley, “Brahms as Liberal,” 107.

18 Wolf had immense knowledge about opera, musical works and composers. He wrote

tirelessly and relentlessly about the opera performances in Vienna; Wolf knew all of the works

intimately and became acquainted with the leading singers, virtuosi, and conductors of the

popular music scene. He was very well read and often referred to literary works in his criticism

as well. Wolf participated in debates about not only composers and musical works, but also

those concerning the Viennese public and music establishments; there were often attacks on

“philistinism and conservatism.”36 Wolf made his opinions very clear and was consistent about

whose music he supported or respected, and whose music he disliked or disapproved of. During

his tenure as music critic, he regularly gave positive reviews to works of Wagner, Bruckner,

Berlioz, Beethoven, Schumann, Liszt, Chopin, Auber, Mozart, Haydn, Glinka, Smetana and

Weber; his negative reviews mainly concerned Brahms, Gounod, Thomas, Scribe, Dvořák,

Meyerbeer, Saint-Säens and Russian composers in general except for Tchaikovsky. Although

his criticism has been regarded by many as mere entertainment, as the extreme reactions of a

mentally disturbed individual, his writing is a valuable chronicle of the performances and

musical opinions abundant in Vienna from 1884 to 1887. Today his writings are considered by

many scholars as “a literate and lively mirror of the age,”37 writings that not only testify to the

strong opinions of a young composer, but of the frustrations with the Viennese musical

establishment. Wolf, in one of his critical writings, explains his position in his own words:

36 Haskell, The Attentive Listener, 180.

37 Eric Sams, “Hugo Wolf” in The New Grove Late Romantic Masters: Bruckner, Brahms, Dvořák, Wolf (London: Macmillan Press Limited, 1985), 314.

19 It is well to distinguish whether the works of a living composer are regarded by a benevolent or a hostile eye. The critic is, after all, only human, and subject to personal influences. But in the end he is still a critic, and as such he has no business expressing his friendship for the author by immoderate praise of his tortured products while inversely, and from contrary motives, smearing inspired composition with odious slander. One gets at the truth by roundabout ways, but one must get to it eventually, unless, of course, one prefers to deceive the public, as big a crime as, for example, the hoodwinking of a wise and worthy police.38

38 March 23, 1884. Henry Pleasants, trans. and ed., The Music Criticism of Hugo Wolf (New York: Holmes & Meier Publishers, Inc., 1979), 28.

20 Chapter 3

Hugo Wolf’s Criticism and Critical Opinions

In order to establish Hugo Wolf’s compositional aesthetic, this thesis will look at musical criticism and opinion expressed by Wolf during his lifetime. Two main sources have been examined and will be discussed in reference to what they have revealed about Wolf’s opinions: his published criticism and his private letters. Both of these sources coincide with the creation of two of Wolf’s significant musical compositions: the published criticism was written while Wolf was completing his symphonic poem Penthesilea and the letters were written during composition of his opera Der Corregidor. It is safe to assume that musical composition was at the forefront of Wolf’s mind and that these sources accurately reflect his artistic concerns, and often frustrations, of being a composer.

The most significant difference between the two types of sources is that of purpose. Wolf wrote his critical essays for the purpose of publication with full knowledge that others would be reading his opinions. It could be argued that the composer was promoting specific music genres and certain composers in an effort to gain support for his own endeavors and contemporaries; this does seem to be the case in quite a few of the Salonblatt entries. Regardless of this fact,

Wolf did give viable reasons for most of his critical opinions that explain why he maintained these biases. It also appears that Wolf did write some of his more outspoken comments for their shock value, especially considering the type of audience for whom he was writing (the upper- class socialites of Vienna). Wolf’s writings, for the most part, are probably an accurate portrayal of his beliefs due to the consistent views maintained throughout most of the entries. Although

Wolf later resisted an effort to publish a complete collection of his criticism, stating that he was

21 young at the time and had changed his views on many things, this criticism stands as a timely

testimonial to the mind of a composer.

Wolf’s private letters served a different purpose; the authors had no intention of publicly

exposing the views present in these letters. Many of his comments were, as stated in his own

words, to remain confidential. Not only are his views about contemporary composers and the

Viennese music establishment expressed, but also about his own composition; these letters

chronicle a period of time in which Wolf was actively composing and in the process of

publishing some of his work. His letters serve as a source of critical opinion and as a reflection

of his thoughts while he was creating music—this is an invaluable tool.

Wolf’s criticism was published in the original German by editors Richard Batka and

Heinrich Werner in 1976.1 Wolf’s criticism had been translated into English by Michael John

Shott in his DMA dissertation in 1964;2 Shott translated from the original German manuscript in an effort to provide a philosophical analysis of Wolf’s writings. Wolf’s criticisms were later translated by Henry Pleasants in a complete annotated edition published in 1978.3 Although

both translations provide basically the same material, Shott’s translation is very stilted and

literal. His dissertation was reviewed as having “errors of judgment” and for not possessing “the

critical apparatus necessary for utilizing it as a research tool,”4 but it is certainly useful in this

study for comparison. Pleasants supplies an English version that reads very smoothly and more

1 Richard Batka and Heinrich Werner, eds., Hugo Wolfs musikalische Kritiken: im Auftrage des Wiener Akademischen Wagner-Vereins (Walluf-Nendeln: Sändig, 1976).

2 John Michael Shott, “Hugo Wolf’s Music Criticisms: Translation and Analysis According to Pepper’s Four World Hypotheses,” DMA diss: Indiana University, 1964.

3 Henry Pleasants, trans. and ed., The Music Criticism of Hugo Wolf (New York: Holmes & Meier Publishers, 1978).

4 John Morgan, “Michael John Shott- Hugo Wolf’s Music Criticisms: Translation and Analysis According to Pepper’s Four World Hypotheses,” Current Musicology 15 (1973): 101–6.

22 sensibly, providing more believable idiomatic phrases and expressions of the German language;

there are also extensive references to the contemporary composers, musicians and music that

were subjects of criticism. Although both the German language version and the Shott translation

are helpful for purposes of comparison, this thesis will concentrate mainly on the Pleasants

translation due to reliability and ease of reading.

Many volumes of letters written between Hugo Wolf and close friends have been

published within the last few decades, most in the original German. Wolf’s letters to Melanie

Köchert, published in the original German in 1964, were published in an English version in

1991, translated by Louise McClelland Urban.5 The translator states that she tried to stay as

close to the original German as possible in order to retain the personality found in Wolf’s

writings. Although most of the letters from Köchert to Wolf were destroyed before her death,

much can be ascertained about Wolf’s compositional aesthetic from the letters written to his

friend.

In order to determine the aesthetic criteria underlying Wolf’s critical writings, I began by categorizing the reviews and letters that pertained to instrumental music using a system of charts.

Each one was entered into the appropriate table, one for published criticism (Table 3.1), and one

for the letters (Table 3.2). After analyzing this material, I constructed a list of overall topics that recurred throughout the writings. I used twelve main compositional elements as aesthetic subjects: originality, genre, form, compositional technique, orchestration, melody, harmony, rhythm, thematic texture, overall texture, programmatic elements, and a miscellaneous category.

Table 3.3 lists these twelve elements and provides examples of the ways in which these elements are addressed. It should be noted that many of the aesthetic areas overlap in Wolf’s discussions.

5 Franz Grasberger, ed., trans. Louise McClelland Urban, Hugo Wolf: Letters to Melanie Köchert (New York: Schirmer Books, 1991).

23 For example, one review discusses a symphony by Giovanni Sgambati that uses “instrumental

artifices” with a lack of melodic invention but with “individual effects” that are examined within

the contexts of form, compositional technique, orchestration, and melody.6 Thus, Table 3.3 is

intended as only a rough guideline to the categorization of Wolf’s thinking. Table 3.4 tracks every occurrence of the twelve compositional elements in both sources and provides a numerical tally which I used to rate the importance of each element; the level of importance is qualified by the recurrence of the element.

Published Criticism in the Wiener Salonblatt

On January 20, 1884, Wolf began his brief tenure as a paid music critic for the Wiener

Salonblatt, a position he held until April 24, 1889. Although the writings seem to reveal Wolf’s zest for criticism and publicly expressing opinions, his position as a critic served to provide him with a much needed income since the proceeds from his compositions and his teaching scarcely covered his living expenses. (In actuality, the position was a type of patronage, since one of his

ardent supporters, Heinrich Köchert, anonymously paid Wolf’s salary by overpaying for the

business advertisements he placed in the paper.7) While much of his writing centered on opera and the state of the Viennese music scene, he paid considerable attention to instrumental works.

Of the one hundred and thirteen entries published in the journal, there are sixty-two entries (or fifty-five percent) that discuss some aspect of instrumental composition.

The Wiener Salonblatt can be best described as a gossipy women’s magazine. The

weekly newspaper discussed the latest events within the circles of the aristocratic families,

including engagements and marriages, parties and dances.8 The readership, when Wolf was first

6 January 20, 1884. Pleasants, 1.

7 Pleasants, xv.

24 employed, was mostly the fashionable, upper class members of Viennese society. This

“magazine” was certainly not a serious music journal and did not cater to the intellectual members of the musical establishment. However, the publication did contain a section about the arts and hired Hugo Wolf to review the current music performances in Vienna. His criticisms mainly covered the performances of the Vienna Opera and the Philharmonic, but he also

attended and reviewed recitals and performances at smaller venues.

Because of the nature of the Salonblatt, lighter, less technical discussions about musical

performances and concerts would have been more appropriate for the audience of the magazine.

It seems that Wolf had free reign to write and criticize however and whomever he wished,

perhaps due to the fact that he was charitably employed. His often fanatical tirades were certainly out of character for the rest of the magazine. The entries themselves varied in length, more often than not covering many pages and often many different subjects. Wolf would give extensive plot summaries about new operas, engaging in an act-by-act analysis of the plot and

the musical numbers. It is evident that Wolf was extremely well-read and intimately aware of

the details of most of the performances he attended; it also seems that he had acquainted himself

with many of the works before seeing them performed.

While some of the reviews concerned performers and actual events at these

performances, many of his reviews would often stray off the topic at hand and go into vivid

discussions of the composer, the audience, or the state of music in general. For example, Wolf began one review by discussing two ladies in the audience that talked throughout an entire

performance; he then moved on to the behavior of the Viennese audience as a whole, then

lamented about the lack of musical understanding and taste of most of the audience members and

the deficiency of some opera performances, ending the rant with a plea for more educated singers

8 Graf, Composer and Critic, 275.

25 and for more conductors to stop pandering to the egos of some performers.9 Some of the entries

are very detailed with technical discussions of music, most of which were probably over the

heads of most of the magazine subscribers. Wolf’s opinions were never disguised and his

preferences were clearly displayed throughout all his writings. It is quite apparent that the critic was very frustrated when writing quite a few of these reviews, as evidenced by his less-than- professional references to performers, works, and composers. His descriptive discussions often digressed into personal attacks on other composers and critics, most notably Johannes Brahms and Eduard Hanslick:

Conspicuous is the crab-like progress of Brahms’s output. It has, to be sure, never reached beyond the level of mediocrity, but such nothingness, emptiness and hypocrisy as prevails throughout the E minor symphony has not appeared in any previous work of Brahms in so alarming a manner. The art of composing without ideas has decidedly found in Brahms its worthiest representative. Just like the good Lord, Herr Brahms is a master of making something from nothing. (This opinion is shared even by Herr Klabeck – ah, pardon! Herr Klobeck, I mean Herr Kalbeck. Anyway, why should I not be permitted a typographical slip? After all, Herr Hanslick “first” started it with his “austere frost.”10

It is very entertaining to read this criticism today, but at the time when it was written this

criticism must have seemed inappropriate for the intended audience. “Dramatic” is certainly one

of the many apt descriptions of the critical writings of Hugo Wolf.

Throughout his published criticism, Wolf articulated one overarching theme: the

importance of originality, whether in the basic conception of the musical ideas or in the choice of

a distinctive form or a less-popular genre. The lack of originality that he perceived in Brahms

never failed to set him off. In reviewing Brahms’s Variations on a Theme of Haydn, he paid him

9 June 15, 1884. Pleasants, 61–62.

10 January 24, 1886. Pleasants, 186. The last sentence refers to the consistent support shown to Brahms by Eduard Hanslick; this support was maintained by Max Kalbeck, another contemporary music critic and Brahms supporter, who was known to have many of the same critical sentiments as Hanslick.

26 a backhanded compliment by noting his gift for “ingenious contrivance,” then declaring that

“When it comes to making variations on a given theme, Brahms has no rival. Everything he has

ever done is just one mighty variation on the works of Beethoven, Mendelssohn and

Schumann.”11 Often, originality and imagination overrode other musical considerations, so that

Wolf could pronounce Berlioz’s King Lear Overture to be “vastly imaginative in its conception,”

even though he thought the development was “sometimes distorted, confused,” but concluding

that the work was nonetheless “always bold, always interesting, always gripping, exciting,

astonishing, often even irresistible.”12 Even if Wolf detected a few good qualities, nothing was

worse than a composition like Richard Heuberger’s “Night Music for String Orchestra” which

had “run-of-the-mill stuff, reciting commonplaces” which made Wolf conclude that Heuberger

used “every imaginable virtue – except originality.”13

When originality intersected with formal constraints, however, the outcome was not

always successful. Sometimes Wolf found the quality of the material itself capable of

overcoming any formal deficiencies, sometimes not. The formlessness of Joseph Joachim Raff’s

overture to Eduard Genast’s Bernhard von Weimar clearly bothered him (he called it “not an organism, just so many disjointed members”), and the fact that he judged it also to be “without color or form, utterly superficial in conception” made the disjointedness intolerable. Moreover he skewered Raff’s “appalling ingenuity” in subjecting a Lutheran chorale to “intricate contrapuntal tortures” and sarcastically observed that “The middle theme, too, with its grace

notes in the woodwinds, excites memories of the Nuremberg torture chamber – grates, pincers

11 December 7, 1884. Pleasants, 90.

12 March 30, 1884. Pleasants, 31.

13 November 14, 1886. Pleasants, 226.

27 and other similarly edifying devices.”14 He judged Bruckner to have “a certain want of intelligence” that made his symphonies hard to understand, despite their “originality, grandeur,

power, imagination and invention…There is always and everywhere the will, the colossal

strivings – but no satisfaction, no artistic resolution. Hence the formlessness of his works…”15

However, when the quality of the musical material met with his approval, he was willing to

accept some formal chaos:

Among the multifarious musical compositions inspired by Faust, Berlioz’s The Damnation of Faust…must indisputably be awarded pride of place. Granted, Berlioz failed to achieve an organic work of art, congruent in terms of form and substance…His Faust is a fragmentary mosaic, a haphazard structure replete with the most beautiful details, but without a clearly conscious aim. The Faust idea…is dissolved with Berlioz in an idle play of capricious fantasies, admittedly ingenious and admirable in themselves, but destructive of the unity of poetic intention, and inhibiting any full enjoyment of the tonality of the work… However one may feel about Berlioz’s approach to the Faust idea, one thing is certain: almost every number in this work excites our most fervent admiration.16

Wolf was very forthright in his opinions concerning the Classical genres and voiced

opposition against those composers who, after apparently ignoring the “post-Beethoven musical

revolution,” continued to write symphonies “just as in the old days.” Referring to Brahms as “a leftover of old remains,” Wolf derides the composer for his perceived intention to compose symphonies in an attempt to be the “second Beethoven.”17 The genre of the symphony as a

whole was a source of distress for Wolf, who described “our modern, celebrated symphonies” as

“wanting in character as everything else in our modern times,” and concluded that the state of

14 November 30, 1884. Pleasants, 85.

15 December 28, 1884. Pleasants, 99.

16 March 21, 1886. Pleasants, 197.

17 November 30, 1884. Pleasants, 86–87.

28 symphonic composition was an “Egyptian darkness” of “artistic and social malaise.”18 Wolf

also condemned the revival of older works that he apparently felt had no value to modern performers. His review of a Corelli cello sonata deemed the composition as “boring” and not understandable while doubting whether a bourée and sarabande by Bach were as complicated as perceived, describing attempts to “find a redeeming world-riddle behind every note from the great pen of Bach” as “absurdities.”19 Wolf was also displeased by the cultivation of other older,

established genres such as the sonata. In a review of Brahms’s Sonata for Violoncello and Piano

(in F Major, Opus 99), Wolf accused the composer of creating music that is merely the result of a

man “set on mystifying his worshipers” by playing with the “brainless veneration” of his

audience.20 These critical observations then led to the question “What is music, today, what is

harmony, what is melody, what is rhythm, what is form – if this tohuwabohu is seriously

accepted as music?”21 Wolf also seemed to abhor works that had to adhere to pre-established

rules, such as in the case of Berlioz’s Cellini overture where “the rules of quadrature” had to be

observed in writing an “academic overture” to avoid its being “denounced as absurd,

unpalatable, extravagant, and so on.”22 Although Wolf harbored a disdain for older genres, he

did give credit to older compositions when he felt it was due. In a review of Haydn’s “The

Creation,” Wolf eloquently praised both composition and composer:

What a spirit of childlike faith speaks from the heavenly tones of Haydn’s music! Sheer nature, artlessness, perception and sensitivity! It is the mark of his greatness as an artist

18 March 9, 1884. Pleasants, 21.

19 November 28, 1886. Pleasants, 234.

20 November 28, 1886. Pleasants, 234.

21 Ibid.

22 November 29, 1885. Pleasants, 170.

29 that when we hear his music we are utterly unaware of the art, and yet what a variety of musical structures encloses his charming tonal pictures!23

Throughout all of Wolf’s published criticism one finds the plea for the cultivation of newer genres and musical forms. He held the symphonic poem in high regard, especially those that were highly original yet still maintained a coherent form. Here, in support of both composer and original composition, Wolf embarked on a narrative journey that not only praised Liszt’s music and command of form, but discussed the state of current composition, the need for music outside of the absolute arena (which he felt had appropriately ended with Beethoven) and an escape from the musical establishment. The following review, typical of Wolf in both length and style, illustrates how the critic could simultaneously praise and condemn in a manner all his own:

Last came Franz Liszt’s “Tasso (Lamento e Trionfo),” a symphonic poem. How it warms my heart to see a Liszt symphonic poem staring up at me from the program in this day and age when symphonies, suites, serenades and stuff of that kind sprout like weeds from the barren soil of absolute music! Liszt and symphonic poetry! That, for the pedants and the members of the establishment is: Hannibal ante portas. Dear people, what frightens you so when you see a symphonic poem and its creator on a program? Certainly not the cymbal crashes, which have not killed anybody yet, and which, at worst, excite your laughter, while listening to the newest symphonies or violin concertos drives you from sheer boredom to working out arithmetical problems on your coat buttons, and leaves you for a week incapable of laughter. (They have, as a rule, no cymbal crashes, despite Beethoven, who even added the big drum to the snare drum already at hand – my God! and in the Ninth Symphony at that! How impure, how unclassical that is -- yes? or no?) But it cannot be the cymbal crashes that take you aback. The mere mention of the term “symphonic poem” brings the sweat to your foreheads. Even before entering the concert hall you smirk at, or tremble before, this monster, “symphonic poem.” Why? Is your scorn or your abhorrence directed at the term, “symphonic poem,” or at its creator, Franz Liszt? If the first, you must concede that the form, at least, is original and, as such, a step forward. If you want symphonies today as Beethoven wrote them, then turn the clock back a century, wake the master from the dead, but don’t place beside him our epigones, these impotent contemporary symphonists decked out in classical garb and flirting with the classical spirit. You complain that Liszt’s music is too concerned with externals…thanks to Liszt’s thoroughly descriptive music in “Mazeppa…” I have just referred to a poetically fashioned Preface. I lay special emphasis on the appendicular “poetic,” for had you understood the poetry of the Preface (to “Tasso”) you would have grasped, too, the poetry, the poetic composition of the symphony, the

23 November 15, 1885. Pleasants, 164.

30 symphonic poem. A poetic picture, a soul-stirring representation of a state of mind encased in a splendid, glowing frame of characteristic decoration, and flooded with the most efflorescent magic of a masterly instrumentation… As for Liszt’s music, it is more intelligent than deeply felt, but vividly and warmly fanciful, and always plastic. Are the themes in our celebrated new symphonies plastic? As a rule, not…What Liszt has over Berlioz is that with the utmost security he has created a new form in the sense that he wittingly gave priority to the poetic idea, then, in order to develop the idea artistically, had to depart, inevitably, from the traditional symphonic form. His inspiration, drawing upon a certain poetic theme, simply could not arbitrarily be elaborated within the confines of a stereotyped form. He had to let the musical form be determined by the substance of the poetic outline…In this sense, the “symphonic poem” is for modern music what Haydn’s symphonies were for that master’s contemporaries and successors. Beethoven, as an absolute musician, spoke the last word in the symphony, just as Liszt, as poetic musician, has spoken the first word (perhaps also the last) for the symphonic poem. How much might not be said about the choice of poetic themes in which Liszt’s entire artistic genius is revealed!24

Wolf consistently gave particular credit to composers who were attempting to branch out from the musical establishment. Although he did promote the use of a program as the basis of musical works, he did not automatically embrace every programmatic compositional technique used by his contemporaries. In a review of Haydn’s “Creation,” Wolf lamented that the “field of tone painting, much cultivated in recent times” was “now falling into disrepute.” Before concluding that, in his overture, Haydn had used the proper musical tools to depict chaos, Wolf condemned the practices of contemporary composers who used “diabolical expressive devices…dissonances and shrill instrumental effects [that] fall like hail about our ears…[with an] orchestra [that] moans and groans until one is ready to believe that chaos has become a wild beast with a toothache.”25 Wolf did feel that some of the compositional elements used by recent composers of descriptive music were inappropriate, further illustrating that the critic did not unconditionally accept everything new.

24 April 27, 1884. Pleasants, 43–45.

25 November 15, 1885. Pleasants, 164–165.

31 Wolf, always the advocate for originality, also suffered much distress at the hands of

composers who used compositional artifice, which, in his opinion, served as a poor substitute for

musical expression. A composition with “a skillful exploitation of technic, not the compulsion to express a musical thought” resulted in music that was “flat, so contrived, so labored – intellectual poverty.” In a further admonishment against modern composers, Wolf regarded “schoolroom techniques” as a sorry attempt to appear musically proficient, fooling the audience with complicated devices instead of creating music that actually expressed something:

The modern composer … He need only be a proficient contrapuntist and jumble the voices together topsy-turvy to give himself the appearance of being able to accomplish something decent. Intricate inversions, schoolmasterly transitions, and always a droll fugato – or even a fugue! The public reacts to that sort of thing with awe and respect: two, three, or even four themes – if nothing else will work – piled up, burst asunder, reassembled and again urged on. It’s a proper little skirmish, but without the thunder of cannon, without battle hymns and with little gunpowder…A lovely goulash! And fun, too. Well, it’s an escape from the creeping boredom of the adagios. And thus we find the chamber music of our contemporaries…tolerable.26

Nothing irritated him more than the use of a compositional device, such as a canon, for the sheer

purpose of academic display. In a review of Schubert’s “Tragic Symphony,” a work that Wolf

suggested should be “dedicated to the goddess of oblivion,” he lambasted the composer for use

of canon throughout the entire work. He questioned how Schubert could “commit such an

absurdity,” how the composer could “indulge in this tomfoolery [vacuous doodling] throughout

four movements…the parrot-like imitation by the second voice,” concluding that “Not even a

Herr Johannes Brahms would do that!”27 Music that seemed contrived, using too many

embellishments and hackneyed methods of creating drama, always fell victim to Wolf’s

criticism. An overture to Iphigénie en Tauride, composed by theater Kapellmeister Bernard

Scholz, was noted for its shallow “theatrical pathos” created by “a melodically lukewarm

26 February 8, 1884. Pleasants, 10–11.

27 January 23, 1887. Pleasants, 255.

32 richness of figuration,” with “sentimental and loquacious secondary themes” that all combined to create “a lot of hot air.”28

Wolf rarely disguised his disgust with the Viennese preference for specific genres and

regarded some popular music, particularly the serenade, as superficial and trite. In a review of a

serenade by Robert Fuch, Wolf’s frustrations seemed to overtake him as he engaged in a lengthy

rant about serenade composers, accusing them of “not living for themselves, but for the general

public,” unable to “do nothing with innocence and pleasure.” He called the minds of these

composers “pitiable objects” and described their compositions as ones that “groan and croak and

whine and weep and yawn like the post boxes, all expectancy for things that should come and do

not.” Wolf then lamented that these composers, “instead of uniting to attack boredom, or to

sleep it off, drink it off, loaf it off or gamble it off (a sure-fire device)… write it off in serenades.”29 In another review, Wolf referred to the Serenade for String Orchestra by Gustav

Blasser as merely trivial and gay, concluding that after the concert, “we were left with eerie and

certainly very funereal apprehensions about [his] fate.”30 It was not only the cultivation of these

popular genres that irked Wolf; he was also irritated by the choice of the Vienna Philharmonic to

perform such “novelties.” Wolf mused that the Philharmonic would do better to occasionally

play programs of more original music, such as that of Berlioz or Liszt, “instead of serving up the

same old fare over and over again.”31 In numerous reviews, he begged for more diverse musical

28 February 27, 1887. Pleasants, 263.

29 December 5, 1886. Pleasants, 236.

30 February 27, 1887. Pleasants, 264.

31 April 6, 1884. Pleasants, 36.

33 programs instead of the “unhappy choice of novelties”32 that appealed to the “sluggardly mob

that enters the concert halls as if it were a toy store.”33

Wolf maintained an avid concern for orchestration and instrumentation; instrumental

works that displayed orchestral effects and color or that maintained a proper balance of instruments received the most praise. He found Wagner’s “Siegfried Idyll” to be a model of proper instrumentation: the orchestra, “one flute, one oboe, one clarinet, one bassoon, one horn, one trumpet and the string quartet,” was seen as sufficient “without any doubling of the winds…without the other four horns and two trumpets…without the tympani.”34 Wolf

compared Wagner’s limited choice of instruments to the Serenade in Five Sections for Large

Orchestra by C. V. Stanford. The serenade’s “crippled existence” as “a symphony gone wrong,”

was an example of “the shameful misdemeanor”35 committed by many post-Wagnerian

composers: employing an orchestra that is too large. Wolf juxtaposed Wagner’s limited

orchestra with Stanford’s, which had everything but “four Wagner tubas and maybe four

bells,”36 noting that the huge orchestra was inappropriate for the genre and created a “silly

uproar” not consistent with the character of a serenade.37 The importance of balance was also a

concern in instrumental works. When reviewing Anton Rubinstein’s Violin Sonata [Opus 19],

Wolf ridiculed the composer who “goads his fantasy, without, however, expressing anything

32 April 27, 1884. Pleasants, 42.

33 April 25, 1886. Pleasants, 209.

34 March 16, 1884. Pleasants, 24.

35 Ibid.

36 March 16, 1884. Pleasants, 23.

37 March 16, 1884. Pleasants, 24.

34 more than a confused puffing and blowing in a strenuous battle between piano and violin.”38

The perceived improper use of instruments for effect also grated on his nerves. After a critique

of Gounod’s Faust, Wolf, in defense of performers, posed the question “Is art served, or can the

public find refreshment when…cellist X seeks effects on his instrument appropriate to the

piccolo, or when violinist Y tries to imitate on his high E string the rough voice of the double

bass?” In exasperation, Wolf could only note that “Things can hardly be madder in a lunatic

asylum than in a concert hall.”39 One final comment about orchestration underscores the linking

role that originality plays in Wolf’s criticism. In a review of a concert by the Meiningen

Orchestra, Wolf claimed that in an effort to “disguise the poverty of his ideas,” Brahms

“orchestrates badly on purpose,” using “cheap” devices such as trumpet fanfares or tympani rolls

in order to lend drama to an otherwise sorry motif, likened to a “convulsive worm.”40 Almost everything written by Wolf always comes back to originality, the one element of music that he believed prevailed above all others, the one thing that determined the worth of any musical composition.

Table 3.1. Published Criticism in Wiener Salonblatt

Date Pleasan ts Topics Compositional & Musical Aspect (s) Discussed 20 January p. 1–2 Sgambati symphony; Schubert lack of originality; melodic invention 1884 symphony imitation of other composers; self- quotation 27 January 3–6 Mendelssohn; Berlioz; piano inspired composition; orchestral virtuosity; 1884 music- Weber, Brüll boring composition (“hack work”) 8 February 10–11 contemporary chamber music counterpoint; technical exploitation; bad 1884 adagios = contrived, labored; modern compositions = intellectual poverty 17 February 12–14 piano sonatas interpretation

38 March 23, 1884. Pleasants, 27.

39 March 22, 1885. Pleasants, 127.

40 December 7, 1884. Pleasants, 88.

35 1884 24 February 15–17 Grisar melodies; symphony – melodic usage and development; melodic 1884 use of melody; Schumann’s invention; chordal techniques Romantic character 2 March 18–19 Schubert Op. 166; Goldmark instrumental blending; harmony; melody; 1884 Quintet; Brahms Sextet trivial music; great music 9 March 20–22 modern symphonies- Spohr; symphonic writing (modern = no 1884 great symphonies- Beethoven, character); lack of progress in genre; Mozart universal character 16 March 23–25 Stanford overture; Brahms use of form; orchestration; thematic and 1884 overture; Volkmann symphony melodic treatment 23 March 26–29 Rubinstein Violin Sonata; thematic treatment; motivic development; 1884 Brahms Quintet; Dvořák Piano harmony; instrumental balance; Trio counterpoint; use of folk tune; rhythm 30 March 29–33 Berlioz King Lear Overture; musical invention and structure; 1884 Bachrich opera- music development; modulation; orchestration; harmony 6 April 34–36 Liszt piano music orchestral music- inspired, eccentricities 1884 13 April 37–39 Schubert B minor Symphony, form; themes; structure of symphony; 1884 C major Symphony; Volkmann melody; invention; completion of symphony movements; overtures 20 April 40–41 Reuss quartet weak invention; thin texture 1884 27 April 42–46 Liszt symphonic poems thematic elasticity; orchestration; 1884 instrumentation; original form; non- traditional form; symphonic poems 4 May 1884 46–48 La Gioconda unoriginal melody- commonplace melodic treatment 19 October 66–71 Marschner- opening music; chromatic passages; tone painting; melodic 1884 accompanying music flow 1 November 73–75 Classical composers; counterpoint; free-form; harmony; 1884 hackneyed music of seriousness of older music; serenades Philharmonic; Bach 23 81–85 Gluck’s music; orchestral melodic writing, ideas; orchestration and November treatment orchestral color 1884 30 86–87 Raff overture; Weber overture; disjointed form, organic structure; November Brahms- Concerto, Symphony, originality; counterpoint; symphonies; 1884 music in general musical motifs 7 December 88–91 Berlioz overture; modern orchestration; motifs; bad melodies; 1884 compositions; Brahms fanfares; overtures; variations concerto, variations 28 98–100 Bruckner- piano music and original symphonies- form, extravagance; December symphonies fresh ideas; orchestration 1884 11 January 102–4 Glinka overture; Liszt fresh melodies; melody; themes; rhythm; 1885 Hungarian Rhapsody harmonization; instrumentation; orchestral effect

36 18 January 105–6 Grieg concerto bad music 1885 8 February 113–6 Grammann opera- instrumental instrumental effects, use of instruments 1885 music 8 March 122–3 Philharmonic concerts instrumental music; Viennese music taste 1885 15 March 124–6 Berlioz inspiration instrumentation 1885 22 March 126–8 current compositions; Brahms instrumentation; popularity of specific 1885 music 5 April 130–3 Berlioz- Symphonie form/development; orchestral effects; 1885 Fantastique- music and piano reductions- weaknesses reception 19 April 136–7 Nicolai chorale counterpoint- schoolroom technique 1885 26 April 138–9 bad score- Rubinstein rhythm; modulation; lack of creativity 1885 15 164–6 Haydn- Creation tone painting; chords; musical depictions November 1885 22 166–8 bad music- Dvořák Bohemian melodies; instrumentation November 1885 29 169–70 Berlioz overture melodic development; instrumental usage; November form- innovative 1885 6 December 171–3 bad music- Brahms; Volkmann character of pieces; schoolroom 1885 Trio techniques; lengths of musical work 13 173–5 Chopin use of tempo designations December 1885 20 175–6 Russian music; piano music- original rhythms; national elements; December etudes imagination; classicism; melody 1885 10 January 179–81 Bruckner Quintet harmony; instrumentation; thematic 1886 inversion; counterpoint; musical sentence structure; inventiveness 24 January 184–6 Brahms Symphony No. 4 keys of symphonies; traditional forms; lack 1886 of ideas, progress; melody 31 January 187–9 Scheffel opera- instrumental instrumentation; melodic invention 1886 music 7 February 189–91 bad melodies, score lack of originality; over-sentiment 1886 14 February 191–2 basics of music orchestral detail, sound 1886 21 March 197–201 Berlioz- The Damnation of melody and drunk tune; themes and 1886 Faust motivic treatment; fugues; unorganic and non-congruent forms 28 March 201–4 Bruckner symphonies significance of symphonic music 1886 11 April 204–5 Brahms Rhapsody; Liszt rhythms; tunes- using folk tunes 1886 Rhapsody

37 25 April 208–9 Liszt “Mephisto Waltz”; originality; anti-Philistinism in musical 1886 Viennese music taste taste 8 August 218–9 music of Liszt symphonic poems; beauty in musical 1886 forms; originality 31 October 221–2 Weber; Liszt originality; art as a business 1886 7 November 223–4 Mozart Symphony; Brahms chamber music orchestration; concerto- 1886 Violin Concerto cold, pretentious 14 225–7 Liszt symphonic poems; Bizet symphonic poems; orchestral suites; November suite; Heuberger suite themes; originality 1886 21 227–32 Goldmark- Merlin scoring; orchestration; themes- “Wagner- November aping”; instrumentation 1886 28 233–5 Smetana- symphonic poems; thematic treatment; form; instrumentation; November Wagner’s “Siegfried-Idyll”; ornamentation; orchestral color; 1886 chamber music; Baroque music orchestration 5 December 236–7 serenades- Brahms and Fuch; boring music, trivialities; musical 1886 Mendelssohn concerto; characteristics Grädener sinfonietta 25 244–6 Weber; composers in general melodies December 1886 1 January 247–9 Saint-Saëns septet; Herbeck brevity of music; orchestral effects 1887 tone poem 9 January 249–50 Brahms Symphony No. 4 musical characteristics 1887 16 January 250–3 Berlioz; Brahms musical details; musical propaganda 1887 23 January 253–5 Dvořák symphony; Hanslick; use of musical propaganda; canons 1887 Schubert symphony 6 February 255–7 von Bülow dissecting musical establishment/ conservatory; 1887 Beethoven’s music technique 27 February 262–4 Scholz overture- figuration/passagework; themes; non- 1887 Kappellmeisters composing; aspiring music Viennese composers 13 March 266–9 Liszt Faust Symphony thematic texture; modern music; originality 1887 27 March 271–2 Wagner “Siegfried-Idyll” tone painting 1887 3 April 273–4 contemporary compositions symphonies; melodies 1887 pandering to current trends 17 April 278–9 compositional faux pas musical effects, trivialities 1887

Letters to Melanie Köchert

38 Because of the personal nature of Wolf’s letters, the criticisms are not as abundant or as

consistently laid out as the published writings in the Salonblatt, but no fewer than forty-five letters make some reference to instrumental music. These passages range in length from passing comments to more detailed discussions, often intimately expressing observations and opinions.

Ironically, most of Wolf’s criticisms in the letters are a bit more restrained than those written for the magazine. Although some of the passages are quite specific in their musical discussion, most are less detailed, with his stated opinion neither justified nor explained. For example, in one letter Wolf simply referred to d’Albert’s music as “trash,” and then moved on to a discussion of his own work.41 He was often quite specific about the compositional devices he was using, the

way he was composing, and how he felt about the work he was creating. Also apparent in his

letters are hints of the frustration with Viennese taste and the musical establishment that had

surfaced in his published writing. Above all, the letters reflect more the opinions of a composer,

not just merely a critic. The private criticism contrasts the published criticism in two chief ways:

1) Wolf most likely was more honest in his opinions because these were private revelations

intended for his close friend, not the public, and 2) he frequently discussed his own music, often

in great detail. The elements unique to the letters enable the reader to be exposed to another

expression of his aesthetic principles, giving more insight into his personality and opinion. The

similarities and differences of Wolf’s aesthetic principles extracted from both sources will be

further discussed at the conclusion of this chapter.

In his letters, Wolf remained consistent with his published opinions about the need for

originality in composition. After relating a story about having a beer and attending a concert

with friends, Wolf described the Bischoff symphony performed as “a pathetic hackwork,

completely stereotypical” without “the least bit of originality.” He went on to say that the

41 Day of Epiphany, 1894. Grasberger, 85.

39 audience shared his opinion, answering the performance with “only a smattering of applause.”42

Wolf praised many aspects of originality, especially the rhythms and harmonies of Bizet’s Gypsy

Dance in La Jolie Fille de Perth. He described the “wildly graceful music” as having “piquant rhythms and unusual harmonies” of which one will never get bored.43 In a discussion of

Hermann Götz’s opera Francesca da Rimini, a “concoction” from a man whose “lack of talent is indescribable,” Wolf sarcastically mused after playing through the work: “I think I certainly received indulgence beginning from that moment for the next 20 years of my sinful life.”44

The composer, in a discussion of a performance of his own Christnacht, also maintained the same preoccupation for instrumentation and orchestral effect that was present in his published criticism; he voiced a concern that he had “miscalculated the tonal effect” of the higher registers of the violins which resulted in a passage that “seems over laden.” He went on to question other passages of the work, concluding that he may have himself “contributed to limiting the work’s success,” while noting that only a performance by the Vienna Philharmonic would tell him for sure (probably also hinting at the perceived inferiority of orchestras outside of

Vienna).45 Wolf also maintained a higher standard for the art of tone painting; in a discussion of

Brahms’ Keller songs, he described the musical settings as those that effectively illustrate “What

a master of the bagpipes and accordion Brahms is!”46 This comment, written in the context of

poking fun at the composer for using musical elements typical of folk-song (apparently seen as a

negative trait of music), also indicated that Brahms achieved his goal of musical portrayal. He

42 October 22, 1890. Grasberger, 31 43 February 1, 1894. Grasberger, 103.

44 April 14, 1891. Grasberger, 41.

45 April 10, 1891. Grasberger, 37.

46 August 20, 1890. Grasberger, 11.

40 also maintained the same disdain found in his public criticism for shallow effects; after a meeting

with one of his contemporaries (Felix von Weingartner), Wolf concluded that a hearing of the

“fiendishly barren and noisy” music from Weingartner’s opera Genesius revealed that the

composer had created “just theatrical fluff put together only for effect.”47

Wolf continually complained about the current musical taste and the German penchant for “revolutionary” works. Although he consistently advocated a cultivation of newer musical

genres, especially the symphonic poem, there was a limit to how much one, in this case Richard

Strauss, could stray from established compositional practices. Wolf described Strauss’ “Don

Juan” as a “dreary sterility of invention” with “affected harmonic spasms [that] defy every

description.” Wolf went on to comment that he would rather be an “untalented poltroon” than

compose in this new style.48 He was also very distressed that almost everyone he met claimed to

be a composer, and that every person in the upper social classes with whom he came into contact

(often his financial supporters) felt the need to subject Wolf to a hearing of his or her music.

After admitting that he had lied to one Richard Sternfeld (a member of the Berlin Wagner

Society) by praising his “insipid stuff,” he went on to ask, “But who doesn’t compose these

days?” He went on to lament the fact that he could not compose due to constant social

obligations; Wolf seems to have felt trapped, ruminating that the support of all these people came

with a price he had to pay.49

The importance of melodic character and orchestration (particularly orchestral effect) is

eloquently expressed in a discussion of his own composition, within the context of his own

inspiration and compositional blocks:

47 October 22, 1890. Grasberger, 27.

48 April 17, 1891. Grasberger, 43.

49 January 11, 1894. Grasberger, 93.

41 The prelude to my opera is now providing me with the greatest pleasure. Yesterday morning I was still brooding in utter desperation over the piece, which was supposed to be executed according to a plan conceived a good while ago. But this plan no longer pleased me. I no longer knew what to do with it. Then suddenly toward evening I had a glorious inspiration. A completely new melody of unspeakable depth and passion occurred to me, --and so the curse was broken. Now the conclusion has become entirely different from what I originally intended. The piece concludes now in radiant splendor, prepared by a powerful crescendo. The effect is overwhelming. I’m ecstatic. And I’ve been extraordinarily successful with the symphonic character as well. It’s a small masterpiece. I’m basking in happiness. The orchestration will be taken up yet today. I feel superhuman powers within myself and am convinced that my next dramatic work will leave Corregidor far behind.50

From this letter, Wolf’s worry about properly orchestrating the work is very apparent, mirroring his published distaste of music that was poorly orchestrated or that unimaginatively created effects. It can also be determined that Wolf was very concerned with composing an adequate and inspired conclusion; he certainly did not hesitate to criticize a work that did not culminate a suitable ending. In another letter concerning the work of Peter Cornelius, Wolf praised his poetry but did not hold his music in high regard, referring to his works as those of which

“everything is intention, but nothing realized.” Wolf also noted that Cornelius, despite his “great desire,” has “little ability” in the area of music composition.51

In these letters, there is a different side of Wolf that becomes quite apparent. These are written from the perspective of a composer, not a paid music critic. The tone of these letters is not that of a disgusted, annoyed critic but that of a composer who was trying to maintain his musical identity. The composer’s concerns about originality are ever-present, apparent in the struggle for him to compose his own way and to come up with new ideas, in the efforts to have his music publicly performed or published, and the constant battle that he felt he had to fight in order to become a successful composer. He compared his work to others’, and more often than

50 December 20, 1895. Grasberger, 186–187.

51 April 14, 1891. Grasberger, 40.

42 not based this comparison on new musical ideas and the originality that the works exhibited.

Although Wolf had enjoyed some notoriety by the time these letters were written, he was still burdened with financial hardship and worsening physical problems, which were also constant topics in his correspondence. There is some sadness in his writing, which is not so apparent in

his published criticism; in these letters, musical opinion is only one of the numerous elements

revealed about this highly origina l personality.

Table 3.2. Letters to Melanie Kö chert

Date Page Compositional Aspect (s) Discussed 20 August 1890 10–12 Brahms’ Keller Songs 27 August 1890 12–14 composition- Pantomime; Keller songs 12 October 1890 19–20 originality 21 October 1890 27–28 friend’s bad music 22 October 1890 30–31 bad symphony; good Schott composition 10 April 1891 36–38 his own opinion about his work 14 April 1891 40–41 bad music; horrible opera 17 April 1891 42–43 bad music (Strauss’ Don Juan) 22 April 1891 45–46 overture score 21 July 1891 51–53 orchestration 1894 (Day of Epiphany) 84–86 trashy music (d’Albert); Bruckner 8 January 1894 86–89 Bruckner; other people’s opinions about own music 9 January 1894 90–92 Bruckner; own concert 11 January 1894 92–93 reviews about him 1 February 1894 102–3 Bizet’s music (description) 1 June 1894 110–11 orchestration 13 June 1894 111–12 orchestrati on (his own) 3 July 1894 117–8 sacred choruses 13 July 1894 121–2 orchestration 6 September 1894 124–5 Schubert’s music (mistaken) 25 September 1894 133–4 Bruckner 8 April 1895 146–7 composing- march 10 April 1895 147 composing- intermezzo 18 April 1895 148–9 musical motive 19 April 1895 149–50 composing interlude; musical ideas 22 April 1895 150–1 own composition 3 May 1895 154 own composition (beautiful music) 25 May 1895 160–1 own composition- good music 30 May 1895 161–3 composing 12 June 1895 163–5 motives; orchestration; composition block

43 28 July 1895 167–9 orchestration 1, 2 August 1895 169–71 manuscript 8 August 1895 173–4 trouble orchestrating 18 October 1895 176–7 played own music 1 November 1895 181 orchestration; prelude 9 November 1895 182–3 counterpoint 8 December 1895 184–5 orchestration 16 December 1895 185–6 orchestration 20 December 1895 186–7 orchestration; Beethoven 24 December 1895 188– 9 ideas fo r prelude 28 March 1896 190 proud of his own music 23 April 1896 200–1 form 31 July 1897 231–2 composing 8 August 1897 232 motifs 23 August 1897 233–4 orchestration

Establishing Wolf’s Compositional Criteria

After identifying all the critical topics found in the two sources, I linked each topic with one of the twelve compositional elements listed in Table 3.3 and collated the results in Table 3.4.

This table quantifies the number of occurrences of each element in Wolf’s criticism and can be used as a guide to determining his leading concerns about instrumental composition. Each compositional element is represented by a number, and each critical entry is represented by the date; the published criticism precedes the letters. The results from Table 3.4 show that Wolf’s main concern was originality; more mentions were made about the lack of/presence of originality in a composition than of any other compositional element. He was also mainly concerned with orchestration, genre of composition, and form and least concerned with overall texture, rhythmic issues and harmonic issues. The following paragraphs will examine the compositional elements in order of importance, revealed by Table 3.4. These elements will be applied to Wolf’s symphonic poem Penthesilea in order to determine if he adhered to his own aesthetic criteria.

Because it is impossible to determine what Wolf was actually thinking when he was criticizing music, I have made every effort to establish his aesthetic criteria according to his own words.

44 There is always some subjectivity when making critical judgments due to the fact that, for

example, what Wolf deemed as original in music may not be what I think is original, therefore

causing a discrepancy in value judgments. Because criticism does have a high level of

subjectivity involved, it must be noted that I have made every effort to establish the aesthetic criteria of Wolf’s standards, not my own. The aesthetic criteria that will be applied to Wolf’s music are his own; I have made every effort to meet Wolf on his own grounds.

Table 3.3. Summary of Critical Topics

Compositional Specific Items Mentioned in Criticism Element 1. originality inspiration of composition; character of works; fresh ideas/ abundance of ideas; original forms; progress in a given genre; anti-establishment 2. genre originality of genre (particularly tone poems or symphonic poems); older music = serious (particularly fugues, canons); discussion of specific genres: sonatas, overtures, symphonies, string quartets (and quintets), fanfares, variations, concertos, orchestral suites, piano music (etudes), and Russian music as a whole 3. form use of musical elements within a given form; congruency of form, use of organic structures; development; musical invention and structure; free-forms; original/non-traditional forms; symphonic structure; musical economy 4. compositional counterpoint; “schoolroom technique;” technical exploitation technique (figuration, passagework, ornamentation, trivialities) 5. orchestration instrumental balance; scoring; orchestral color/effects; instrumental effects, use of specific instruments; score reductions 6. melody melodic treatment: usage and development; melodic invention; melodic ideas (originality); melodic flow/ virtuosity; folk tunes 7. harmony key structure; chordal usage; modulation; chromaticism

8. rhythm use of folk rhythms; fresh ideas; tempo

9. thematic motivic development/ thematic development; original themes; use of treatment motifs; thematic elasticity/ plastic themes 10. texture thickness of texture; weakness of texture; thematic texture

11. programmatic tone painting; musical depictions; programmatic basis of work elements

45 12. miscellaneous Viennese musical taste; popular music; musical establishment issues; musical purpose

Table 3.4. Occurrences of each Com positi onal Elem ent in Bot h Sou rces

Explanation of each number: 1- originality, 2- genre , 3- form, 4- comp ositional t echnique , 5- orchestration, 6- melody , 7- ha rmony , 8- rhythm, 9- themat ic treatm ent, 1 0- te xture, 11- prmogra mat ic el ements, 12- m iscella neous

Date 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 1 1 2 Salonblatt Criticism 1 20 January 1884 X X X 2 27 January 1884 X X X X 3 8 February 1884 X X X 4 17 February 1884 X 5 24 February 1884 X X 6 2 March 1884 X X X X 7 9 March 1884 X X 8 16 March 1884 X X X X X 9 23 March 1884 X X X X X X X 10 30 March 1884 X X X X X 11 6 April 1884 X X 12 13 April 1884 X X X 13 20 April 1884 X X X 14 27 April 1884 X X X X X 15 4 May 1884 X 16 19 October 1884 X X X 17 1 November 1884 X X X X X X 18 23 November 1884 X X X 19 30 November 1884 X X X X X 20 7 December 1884 X X X X 21 28 December 1884 X X X X 22 11 January 1885 X X X X X X X 23 18 January 1885 X X X X 24 8 February 1885 X 25 8 March 1885 X X 26 15 March 1885 X X 27 22 March 1885 X X X 28 5 April 1885 X X X 29 19 April 1885 X 30 26 April 1885 X X X X 31 15 November 1885 X X X

46 32 22 November 1885 X X 33 29 November 1885 X X X X 34 6 December 1885 X X X 35 13 December 1885 X 36 20 December 1885 X X X X 37 10 January 1886 X X X X X 38 24 January 1886 X X X X X 39 31 January 1886 X X 40 7 February 1886 X X X 41 14 February 1886 X X 42 21 March 1886 X X X X X 43 28 March 1886 X X 44 11 April 1886 X X X 45 25 April 1886 X X 46 8 August 1886 X X X 47 31 October 1886 X X 48 7 November 1886 X X X 49 14 November 1886 X X X X X 50 21 November 1886 X X X 51 28 November 1886 X X X X X X 52 5 December 1886 X X X X 53 25 December 1886 X X 54 1 January 1887 X X X X 55 9 January 1887 X X X 56 16 January 1887 X X X 57 23 January 1887 X X X 58 6 February 1887 X X 59 27 February 1887 X X X X X 60 13 March 1887 X X X X 61 27 March 1887 X X X X 62 3 April 1887 X X X X 63 17 April 1887 X X Letters 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1 0 1 1 1 2 64 20 August 1890 X X 65 27 August 1890 X X 66 12 October 1890 X X X 67 21 October 1890 X X 68 22 October 1890 X 69 10 April 1891 X 70 14 April 1891 X X X 71 17 April 1891 X X X 72 22 April 1891 X X 73 21 July 1891 X 74 1894 (Day of Epiphany) X X 75 8 January 1894 X X

47 76 9 January 1894 X X 77 11 January 1894 X 78 1 February 1894 X X X 79 1 June 1894 X 80 13 June 1894 X 81 3 July 1894 82 13 July 1894 83 6 September 1894 X X 84 25 September 1894 85 8 April 1895 X 86 10 April 1895 X 87 18 April 1895 X 88 19 April 1895 89 22 April 1895 90 3 May 1895 91 25 May 1895 X X X 92 10 May 1895 X X 93 12 June 1895 X X 94 28 July 1895 95 1, 2 August 1895 X 96 8 August 1895 X 97 18 October 1895 X 98 1 November 1895 X X 99 9 November 1895 X X X 100 8 December 1895 101 16 December 1895 X 102 20 December 1895 X X X 103 24 December 1895 X 104 28 March 1896 X 105 23 April 1896 X X 106 31 July 1897 X X 107 8 A ugust 1897 X 108 2 3 Augus t 1897 X

Totals

49 references to originality in composition (1) 47 references to some issue of orchestration (5) 39 references to specific genres (2) 29 references to musical form (3) 24 references to compositional technique (4) 24 references to melodic issues (6) 19 references to thematic treatment (9)

48 14 miscellaneous references to musical taste, popular music and music establishment (12) 12 references to harmonic issues (7) 9 references to programmatic elements (11) 7 references to rhythmic issues (8) 1 reference to overall texture (10)

For Wolf, originality (49 references) involved the composer’s use of newly invented

motives, unusual development within a given form, new compositional techniques that involved

less commonplace methods, and a breaking out from the established musical methods and

genres. Wolf gave the most praise to works such as Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique or Liszt’s

Tasso (symphonic poem) that showed musical elements he felt were unique to the composer.

The fact that Wolf wrote lengthy essays about the works showing the most originality was a major clue as to how he felt about the importance of these works. If he felt the music was unoriginal or lacked imagination, he usually simply stated just that and made a few comments, after which he moved on to something else that pleased him. If a work had been ground- breaking and had exhibited great strides in any genre, Wolf praised it as well. He did not usually

linger on mainstream works or on those that pandered to popular taste; if he did write much

about a particular piece that exhibited traits that he felt were unoriginal, it was obvious that he

felt the work was particularly bad. Originality was certainly the most important element that he

felt was crucial to a successful composition.

Orchestration (47 references) was also of great concern to Wolf. He often examined

works to see if they maintained the proper balance among instruments (this was of particular concern for symphonic works). He discussed the use of specific instruments, particularly whether the instruments were properly employed and utilized ranges that were suitable for each

particular instrument. Instrumental effects and orchestral color were examined for their use

within the appropriate context, whether the effects were adequate for the proper evocation of a

49 specific mood or setting of the work. Scoring was also discussed, especially if the orchestra was too large or too small; Wolf had a problem with huge orchestras, especially those that employed a force rivaling that of Wagner or Berlioz when it simply was not necessary and if it did not fit the character or purpose of the work to have a large orchestral force. There were a few references to score reductions, particularly in discussion of whether the reduction adequately reproduced the music that was in the larger score. Wolf was concerned with proper balance, appropriate effect, effective color, whether or not the composer truly knew his forces, and if the composer knew how to write music for each particular instrument.

Wolf’s discussion of genre (39 references) involved both cultivation of newer forms such as the symphonic poem or tone poem, and adherence to the conventions established by more traditional genres. The efforts of composers to create music in the newer genres were held in higher regard than the latest works in the established genres such as the symphony or concerto.

If a composition showed originality in an older genre, Wolf did give it credit, but if it used older compositional methods, it was quickly berated. He held an overall disdain for the attempts to cultivate music in older genres such as fugues and canons while maintaining that “serious music” had some compositional merits, but generally lacked value in the current day. Some genres, such as serenades and fanfares, were dismissed as merely trivial entertainment pieces that required minimal compositional talent. Wolf did, however, examine the character of some of these

“lesser works” and determined whether or not these works were properly constructed for the specific genre, whether they fit the character or whether they fell outside reasonable constraints.

Wolf also looked at entire genres, such as Russian music, with animosity, claiming that most of this music lacked any real value. The progress of the newer genres was of concern to Wolf, who always advocated originality not only in the compositional process but also in the choice of the

50 music genre. Consistently throughout his criticism, there is an intersection of originality with

genre: unique ideas developed within a distinct genre were considered by Wolf to be the best compositions.

Wolf’s discussion of form (29 references) often centered on whether the composition had an overall plan, whether the music actually went anywhere and if it made sense. It was most important that the work had a dramatic shape, i.e. an initial statement of ideas, a development of

these ideas, and a conclusion that gave a sense of dramatic close. The overall structure was not

necessarily that important; Wolf advocated a structure that was balanced and had a viable

conclusion over music in a definitive form that seemed to go nowhere or that lacked

development. It was more important that a form was congruent, if it had a definite shape and

actually went somewhere. Free-forms were examined, but these must also have some purpose — a real conclusion that actually gives the work shape. The development of the music within the

form was important; works that presented ideas that never went anywhere were seen negatively, while works that employed a freer form with reasonably developed ideas were noted as better.

Musical invention and structure was important, and the works that displayed a lack of invention

were criticized negatively, again bringing up issues of originality. Newer and more original

forms were embraced more than the traditional, such as sonata form. The most vital element of

form was that of coherence, whether the form used was able to be digested and made an actual

point to the listener. It did not matter what the form was, if the composer concocted something

comple tely out of the ordinary, as long as it had a definitive structure. Wolf wanted the music to

tell a story, and he did not care how the story was told as long as he knew where it began, what

happened in the middle, and how it ended.

51 For Wolf, compositional technique (24 references) involved specific musical elements that were used to develop a particular idea and the methods that either attested to the expertise and originality of the composer or that revealed the inadequacies of the composer. Wolf abhorred “schoolroom techniques,” particularly that of intricate counterpoint characteristic of a fugue or canon used for the sheer purpose of showing-off skills from the conservatory to the audience. Wolf regarded this perceived exploitation of these learned devices as shallow and unoriginal means of expression. Overly ornamented music using embellishments rather than the addition of fresh ideas was also seen in a negative light. If a work had frilly passagework for the sheer purpose of showing off the talents of the performer, it was noted for lacking real ideas and was dismissed as merely a showpiece for the composer or the performer. Wolf valued musical lines that displayed viable ideas rather than the perceived “doodling” of counterpoint. A composer that took an original musical idea, recreated it and gave it dramatic function, and then developed it to a suitable ending was most highly esteemed by Wolf. The music, in his eyes, had to express something, whether an emotion or a story, and in this expression use techniques that adequately supported these ideas. For example, the use of dynamics (in particular, a lengthy and gradual crescendo) was discussed for its ability to give culmination to a work through a proper build-up. The problem that arose in Wolf’s references to compositional technique is that while he was very specific about what he saw as negative, he did not usually explicitly state what was positive. The term “musical expression” is seen often in his criticism as a blanket term describ ing proper compositional technique. In my determination of the compositional techniques that Wolf valued, I have had to make some assumptions of what he was referring to, drawn from the context of each reference to technique; this was possible due to the fact that Wolf was writing about specific compositions in which these qualities can be seen.

52 Wolf valued works containing fresh melodic ideas that were developed and explored in

unique ways; there are 24 references to aspects of melody. He often discussed the composer’s

melodic treatment, particularly noting if the melody was developed adequately. If the melody

was not easily discerned from the rest of the music or did not display a true character, it was

deemed as inadequate or lacking dimension. Wolf praised melodies that were virtuosic, if they

sang. He advocated music that had proper melodic flow, if it followed an evolutionary plan of

development rather than simply repeating shallow melodic elements. It was important that the

melodic ideas evolved into something greater, that the ideas were developed according to a

dramatic plan. The use of the melodic idea was examined to see whether or not it used original invention and was developed uniquely. Original ideas were the most highly praised and the works that seemed to just rewrite other composers’ ideas were flogged immediately. The use of folk tunes, especially by composers like Glinka or Dvořák, was examined for the original treatment and development; mere quotation was not particularly esteemed.

Wolf clearly felt that the proper development of themes and motives (19 references) was central to a work’s success, and he continually berated composers who simply restated themes without reworking them. Successful development, however, required the creation of flexible thematic material, whose elasticity allowed it to be reshaped into new yet related forms. Wolf’s conception of thematic elasticity is probably best described as one in which the theme is malleable yet coherent, that the listener can perceive the original theme upon hearing the newly shaped theme. The ability to create a theme that can change and evolve, yet still be recognizable was very important to Wolf. He was also drawn to themes he felt could recreate a specific mood upon each reappearance. This preference perhaps sheds light on his concept of form, since it emphasizes the importance of the recurrence of mood and melody as structural elements.

53 Wolf discussed many items in his writing that are best described as miscellaneous (14 references), from the current Viennese musical taste to the musical establishment. He held a specific disdain for popular genres and music that he felt had no lasting value or lacked compositional progress, concluding that most popular music, such as the serenade, was a lesser art form because it did not portray real drama, it served to entertain. Wolf wanted music that made people think. The public’s distaste for most things original prompted Wolf to deem popular music, especially the “popular” works performed by the Vienna Philharmonic, as trite and trivial. He was also bothered by many of the current trends, especially in very avant garde music that defied all tradition. Although Wolf felt that the conservatory should not be the standard bearer of music, he did not want to completely abandon musical tradition and established rules.

Wolf discussed harmony (12 references) in regards to the underlying harmonic structure and the overall formal conception of the music. Coherent key structures were vital to a successful work and although Wolf did advocate original harmonies that did not merely reproduce expected scenarios, he disagreed with unexplained chromaticism or changes of key.

He accepted unconventional modulations if they appropriately served the overall dramatic plan of the music, but crazy modulations and the use of extreme harmonies for pure shock value were unacceptable. Some harmonic effects, such as the use of chromaticism to depict chaos, were viewed positively if used in moderation. Wolf did criticize some new trends in music, particularly the unexplained tonal shifts and dissonances as those seen in the music of Richard

Strauss, for their abandonment of compositional rationality. He also felt that less traditional key signatures should be explored rather than using more standard keys such as those used in

54 Brahms’ symphonies. Again, there is a connection to Wolf’s idea of structure, seen here in his harmonic references that the tonal plan must adequately serve the overall form of the work.

To Wolf, the composition of music with a programmatic basis was the only logical choice; he felt the successful cultivation of absolute music had ended with Beethoven.

Programmatic elements (9 references) include tone painting or other compositional devices that serve to create a musical story, particularly those based on literature or legend. It was important that musical depictions of specific events were effective and believable and that these depictions also evoked feelings or emotions. Wolf did not embrace all things programmatic; of many works, especially those of contemporary composers, he criticized improper techniques such as effects that generated too much drama or that were out of character for the program at hand. The musical form of the program was also an important issue, with Wolf again reiterating originality within a context of proper compositional practice. It was also important to incorporate fresh, original rhythms (7 references) appropriate to the mood and character of the music; he also voiced concern about the correct tempos that should be used in a specific musical genre or movement. He applauded unorthodox rhythmic combinations and seemed to be drawn towards more complicated rhythms. He also felt that the incorporation of folk rhythms into music was acceptable as long as they were properly used and developed within the right, yet original, context.

Wolf made one specific reference to texture, but there are many instances in his criticism where characteristics or elements pertaining to texture are discussed. He upheld the need for a texture that was properly balanced, displaying appropriate character and method while consistently maintaining the feeling and mood of the music, i.e., whether the texture had the correct thickness for each particular musical situation. He also had an issue with thematic

55 texture, particularly if the themes were properly combined and interacted with each other in an

orderly fashion.

Conclusion

This chapter has been formulated for the purpose of establishing Wolf’s compositional aesthetic. From the dissection of both his published criticism and letters, I have extracted and catalogued the discussions pertaining to each aspect of instrumental music and have used this catalogue to then determine what was most important to Wolf when he was examining a musical work or composing his own music. I rated each element for its importance by counting the number of times that I encountered each element, then attributing importance to each element by

the number of reappearances in Wolf’s writing; i.e., an element that was discussed 24 times was

rated as more important than an element that was discussed 9 times. The last table (3.4)

simultaneously examined both the published criticism and his letters; I will briefly discuss the

similarities and differences between the aesthetic principles extracted from the two sources for

further clarification. It was more difficult to ascertain with certainty exactly what Wolf meant

about some of the compositional aspects mentioned in his letters. As previously discussed, the

letters often dismissed a work with a short description (for example, that a work was just “bad”) without further explaining what Wolf felt was positive or negative about the work. If Wolf

stated that a work had something positive, such as a “wonderful melody,” he often left it at that; I

looked at comments like this in the context of what he was discussing and tried to objectively ascertain what he was praising or criticizing about a particular compositional element.

Fortunately, the published criticism was much more explicit in details which enabled me to lay

the ground work that allowed me to determine what Wolf meant in some of his less detailed

comments. In the next chapter, I will compare this compositional aesthetic to Wolf’s symphonic

56 poem Penthesilea by applying questions formulated from Wolf’s own writings to determine what, if any, discrepancies exist between his aesthetics and his music.

57 Chapter 4

An Analysis of Penthesilea

Composition and History of the Work

At an early stage in his compositional career, Hugo Wolf composed his first and only

large-scale instrumental work, the symphonic poem Penthesilea. This composition is based on

the play Penthesilea (1808) by Heinrich von Kleist (1777–1811), a prominent German writer

who produced many plays, novels and short stories. Kleist’s dramas are noted for being excessive and often violent in their examination of the “emotional instability” of the characters and the portrayal of “the contradictoriness and the inconsistencies of human conduct which he observed in himself.”1 Hugo Wolf was an avid reader and fan of literature and was noted to

have “an excessive personality fascinated with psychological workings,” one that perhaps

explained his intense, almost obsessive interest in the writings of Heinrich von Kleist.2 Wolf’s friend Hermann Bahr recalled that while living in the same quarters, Wolf would often burst into his room in the middle of the night and give dramatic readings of Kleist’s plays.3 There are many parallels drawn between the lives of both Wolf and Kleist, including a struggle to become

successful, mental illness, love problems, suicidal tendencies, and death at an early age;4 both

1 John C. Blankenagel, “Heinrich von Kleist. Prussian Poet and Patriot. 1777–1811,” The Modern Language Journal 16 (1931): 99.

2 Eric Sams and Susan Youens, “Wolf, Hugo, §6: Instrumental music and the ‘Christnacht’ cantata, Grove Music Online (accessed 22 May 2006) .

3 Ibid.

4 Raphael Metzger, “Hugo Wolf’s Symphonic Poem, Penthesilea: A History and Analysis,” (DMA diss: Peabody Institute of Music at John Hopkins University, 1979), 24–26.

57 were seen as tragic figures by the end of their lives. Penthesilea was just one of Kleist’s plays

which Wolf felt compelled to bring to life in music.5

During the late 1870s and early 1880s, Wolf had composed some instrumental works

including unfinished piano pieces, a complete string quartet, and a symphony that today exists

only in fragments. He also wrote, though never completed, incidental music to Kleist’s play

Prinz Friedrich von Homburg.6 A number of composers, e.g., Carl Goldmark,7 created musical

works based on Kleist’s tragedy Penthesilea, but most were unsuccessful in their endeavors. The

twenty-four scene play is loosely based on an eighth-century epic poem that tells the story of

Penthesilea, the queen of the Amazons, and her demise. While in Troy, Penthesilea is defeated

by Achilles in combat and knocked unconscious, even though they are in love with each other;

once she awakens, Achilles pretends to be her prisoner, but once the ruse is spoiled, Penthesilea

is relieved of her command, captured and later rescued by the Amazons. Achilles challenges

Penthesilea to mortal combat and plans to lose so she can capture and take him away, but she

goes mad and proceeds to murder him with the aid of her dogs. The drama concludes with

Penthesilea dying (by her own hand) after she realizes what she has done. The play concentrates

on the psychological aspects of the heroine and traces her development from war-mongering

queen to love-obsessed victim to insane murderer who eventually dies by her own will.8

“For Wolf, an excessive personality fascinated with psychological workings, and much preoccupied at the time with the havoc inflicted by love, this was the perfect source for a

5 Wolf also composed incidental music to Kleist’s Prinz Friedrich von Homburg; the work is incomplete.

6 Sams and Youens, “Wolf, Hugo,” Grove Music Online.

7 Wolf actually critiqued this work unfavorably: “‘Penthesilea’ by Goldmark – a splendid subject for musical development; but the composer’s talent is not commensurate with the greatness of the material. Only a Makart could have caught Penthesilea in colors, only a Liszt or a Berlioz in music. No one else could do it.” November 1, 1884. Pleasants, 74.

8 Metzger, 4–6.

58 symphonic tone poem.”9 Hugo Wolf started work on his tone poem Penthesilea in 1883 after a

meeting with Franz Liszt on April 6 of that year;10 Wolf was twenty-three years old. Wolf openly held Liszt’s symphonic poems in high regard, and this meeting could have sparked his desire to explore a new musical genre. Wolf described the time during which the tone poem was composed as his “Sturm und Drang” period.11 Raphael Metzger believes that Penthesilea was

the final work of Wolf’s youth, and that although he took great pains in its composition, the work

represented a compositional path Wolf chose not to pursue.12 Some have speculated that the

work’s lack of success caused Wolf’s compositional interests to shift away from his

“preoccupation with large-scale forms”13 or that Wolf did not exert much effort to compose

anything but songs.14 Whatever the reasons, Penthesilea remains his only complete large-scale

instrumental work. It should be noted, however, that Wolf did begin to resent the fact that he

was known as only a composer of Lieder; in a letter to his friend Oskar Grohe in 1891, Wolf

mused that “I’m beginning to think that I have reached the end of my life…I can’t go on writing

songs for another 30 years.” In another letter the same year, Wolf writes “I really and truly

shudder at the thought of my songs. The flattering recognition as ‘songwriter’ disturbs me to the

very depths of my soul. What does it signify but the reproach that songs are all I ever write, that

I am master of what is only a small-scale genre?”15

9 Sams and Youens, “Wolf, Hugo,” Grove Music Online.

10 Ibid.

11 Metzger, 35–36.

12 Ibid., 36.

13 Sams, The New Grove Late Romantic Masters, 330.

14 “Wolf’s success then as now was usually accredited to his happy choice of genre [Lieder], allowing him…to sleepwalk his way through the musical complexities surrounding him.” quoted in Glauert, 14.

15 Both letters quoted in Sams, The New Grove Late Romantic Masters, 344.

59 Wolf completed Penthesilea in the fall of 1885 and submitted it, after many repeated

attempts, to the conductor Hans Richter for a trial run. The Vienna Philharmonic played through

the work at a closed reading on October 15, 1885. Wolf had apparently bribed an usher to let

him into the auditorium unseen, thereby allowing him to hear his composition performed the first

and only time during his life. In a letter to his brother-in-law, Wolf described the trial as a

disaster, recalling that the music played was not his music, but that of a “madman, an idiot, a

jester…but my Penthesilea it was not.”16 After the orchestra finished playing, Richter uttered a

statement which Wolf clearly heard above the laughter of the orchestra members: “Gentleman, I

should not have allowed the piece to be played to the end, but I wanted to see who dares to write in such a way about Brahms, the master.”17 This statement purportedly ignited a long-standing

rift between Wolf and Richter.

During this period, Wolf’s criticism for the Wiener Salonblatt began to reflect his

changed attitude toward Richter. Two reviews lambasting Richter appeared in the Salonblatt

making it quite apparent that Wolf was not going to let Richter’s comment go unanswered:

December 19, 1886:

We assume that Herr Richter first learned this piece [Liszt’s Les Préludes] at the dress rehearsal, in other words, at the last critical moment…We had, thus, a highly inaccurate and dispirited performance of this eminently poetic composition, which suffered more under the ruthless hand of the conductor than from the brutality of the orchestra. Herr Richter would do well to memorize thoroughly the Preface to Liszt’s symphonic poems … He might then note that such things are spoken of as “recurring utterance,” the “prominence of special accents the rounding off of melodic and rhythmic nuances” and similar relevant matters, of all of which, in his performance of “Ideale,” there was precious little to be discerned, not to mention the wrong tempi.18

16 Metzger, 54.

17 Ibid.

18 December 19, 1886. Pleasants, 243–244.

60 March 27, 1887: At the last Philharmonic concert we heard among other things Richard Wagner’s “Siegfried Idyll.” It is to be hoped, in the interest of this composition, that the Philharmonic will not make it a part of their repertoire, at least as long as Herr Richter remains the conductor. Is it, indeed, necessary that our worthy Kapellmeister demonstrate his friendly disposition toward anything related to Wagner’s concepts by laying his hands on Wagner’s works and mutilating them when even our revered Herr Hanslick is content with the sacrifices laid out on the altar of the goddess of impotence in honor of her chosen favorite, Johannes Brahms? Why all this useless eagerness, all this importunate fawning? We are thoroughly convinced of the sincerity of his laudable conduct. Herr Richter is a clever practitioner, and practical people are held, as a rule, to be ultimately decent folk. They achieve respect and renown easily, and soon have “hay in their boots.” There may well be times with people of this kind when their principles collide, and they find themselves compelled to a sort of double-entry bookkeeping, the honest entry for moral reasons, in order to despise themselves, the fraudulent for ordinary money-making, for their honorable position in society, a kind of self- rehabilitation. This happens from time to time, as I have just said, but our worthy Kapellmeister is free of such pressures, and for the simple reason that he is not concerned with such childish matters as principles, views, confessions of faith, etc. That kind of trivia is not for him, and whenever he senses the stirring of something like scruple or doubt, he takes his baton and smashes the offender to bits and pieces. Unfortunately, this impenitent time-beater remains untouched by scruple even when confronted with a musical work for which mere time-beating is not enough, such a work, for example, as the Faust Symphony, whose second movement Herr Richter simply chopped into mincemeat, or the “Siegfried Idyll,” which, under Richter’s “winged” baton took on the form of a gallopade. Whoever in the audience was hearing this heavenly work for the first time could not possibly have had any proper impression of the lovely magical mood that pervades this fragrant tone painting like May sunshine. Under such circumstances it would be better to play nothing but Brahms symphonies. In them, at least, there is nothing to be spoiled.19

Throughout his later life, Wolf was occasionally approached for permission to perform

Penthesilea, but he refused on the grounds that the work had many problems and it needed to be revised. Sadly, Wolf did not set about revising the work until after he was committed to an asylum on September 21, 1897, “a date which marks the end of Wolf’s career as a composer.”20

19 March 27, 1887. Pleasants, 271–272.

20 Metzger, 74.

61 He did make several changes to the score, including an addition of English horn and percussion; the changes were facilitated by a copyist with whom Wolf had regular contact. He supposedly wrote new music for his symphonic poem, an Interlude that he either ripped to shreds or burned after playing it for a friend. Beyond this however, Wolf made no further changes. His wish to create an opera from this music is seen in letters that he wrote while in the asylum, but the severity of his mental illness was credited for his operatic delusions.21 Wolf never heard his

Penthesilea performed publicly before he died in 1903.

Through the efforts of the Vienna Hugo Wolf-Verein, formed by Wolf’s friends in 1897 with the goal of “spreading recognition of Wolf’s music,”22 Penthesilea was published in 1903.

The editing of the score is generally credited to Josef Hellmesberger,23 who has been criticized for careless omissions of random measures and a huge cut of 168 bars that seriously compromises the entire structure of the work. When Robert Haas published his edition in 1937, he criticized the 1903 score for making “the characteristic and considered form of the

21 In a letter to his friend Heinrich Potpeschnigg dated December 6, 1897, Wolf writes: “After my liberation (supposedly on the 15th) I shall move at once to Lucerne, where I shall establish my permanent quarters. From there I shall look around and assemble an opera company, complete with orchestra, that under my colours shall visit every state (Austria excepted) for the purpose of gaining operatic performances and concerts in which, naturally, only my works—the operas Corregidor, Venegas, and Penthesilea, Fest auf Solhaug, Prinz von Homburg, etc.—shall be performed.” Quoted in Frank Walker, Hugo Wolf: A Biography (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1968): 429. In a letter following on December 9, 1897, Wolf writes of his desire to move to Weimar where “I will myself rehearse and conduct my three operas, Corregidor, Venegas, and Penthesilea, there.” Quoted in Ibid., 430. The only complete opera is Der Corregidor; Manuel Venegas and Prinz von Homburg were fragments of works, while the “opera” Penthesilea does not exist and the music for the stage-play Fest auf Solhaug consists of incidental songs.

22 It is noted that “The Verein gave twenty-six concerts of Wolf’s works. It looked after the stricken composer during his illness, and attended to the business side of the publication of his music. It was dissolved early in 1906, its work having been accomplished.” Quoted in Newman, Hugo Wolf, 137.

23 This edition, published by Lauterbach & Kuhn (Leipzig), is noted by Raphael Metzger to in fact be a collaboration of Joseph Hellmesberger, Ferdinand Löwe, and Willibald Kähler, three conductors. Metzger referred to the “cannibalistic procedures” that this score represented, of the practice of recomposing works at this time without indicating this in the score. See Metzger, 95–99. Hellmesberger is generally credited/admonished for this revision.

62 work…unrecognizable,” while equating the cuts to “violence.”24 Haas restored the music to its

original state while incorporating changes made by Wolf while he was in the asylum in 1897.25

This edition (reprinted in 1988) is considered the most authentic of existing scores and will be the one used in this thesis. In 1971, a third edition was published as part of Wolf’s collected works prepared by the Internationale Hugo Wolf-Gesellschaft; Raphael Metzger notes that this work is merely a copy of the second edition with a new preface by the editor Hans Jancik.26

After Wolf’s death in 1903, the popularity of the work increased throughout the next few years and each performance met with some very positive reviews. In an ironic twist, Wolf’s symphonic poem was programmed with Brahms’s Third Symphony in a 1904 performance by the Boston Symphony; a reviewer even commented on this pairing of works: “Was it sarcasm that induced the conductor to place Hugo Wolf’s symphonic poem almost in juxtaposition with this shapely symphony [Brahms’ Third]?”27 It seems that Wolf’s criticism of Brahms was never

to be forgotten; unfortunately, the same could not be said for his symphonic poem.

Performances of Penthesilea throughout Europe and the United States were quite regular until

World War I. After that, it was rarely programmed in either Europe or the United States. It did

enjoy some popularity for a few years, but as with many compositions, has now fallen into the

abyss of forgotten musical works.

Hugo Wolf’s Penthesilea is a product of much effort and contemplation that has some

wonderful musical moments. Unfortunately, the work displays some of the same shortcomings

seen in his other instrumental compositions, causing this symphonic poem to be another one of

24 Robert Haas, preface to Hugo Wolf’s Penthesilea: Symphonische Dichtung für großes Orcester (Miami: Edwin F. Kalmus & Co., Inc., 1988).

25 Metzger, 94.

26 Ibid.

27 Ibid., 110.

63 his “instrumental compositions [that] are brilliant conceptions rather than finished works of art.”28 Although the work was deemed unsuccessful during Wolf’s life, this symphonic poem is a valuable piece of music that is certainly worthy of study. This chapter will provide an analysis of the work concentrating on three areas: 1) thematic material (structure of themes, development of themes and the relationship between them), 2) form (harmony and tonal centers and discussion of both programmatic and specific musical elements), and 3) texture and orchestration. All three of these areas have been identified and extracted from Wolf’s criticism and discussed in Chapter 3; this analysis will look at Wolf’s composition in order to determine how and what he composed in his own music.

Background of the Symphonic Poem

The term “symphonische Dichtung” (symphonic poem), coined by Franz Liszt in 1853, is defined as:

an orchestral piece whose music is accompanied by a program…Usually the term is reserved for a composition in one movement, as opposed to the multimovement program symphony; though many symphonic poems do contain several contrasting sections, these sections tend to flow into one another (through transitional passages) and are usually unified by tonal or motivic relationships.29

The symphonic poem was the result of the nineteenth-century cultivation of program music by composers such as Beethoven, Hector Berlioz, Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann, with the support of new music proponents like Richard Wagner. Although programmatic instrumental pieces can be found throughout the eighteenth century and earlier, most had centered on depictions of specific events or physical phenomenon, an approach that began to change with

Liszt. Liszt had very specific ideas about the symphonic poem, especially the adherence to a

28 Sams, The New Grove Late Romantic Masters, 334.

29 Don Michael Randel, ed., The Harvard Concise Dictionary of Music and Musicians (Cambridge, MA and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1999), 649.

64 one-movement structure maintaining a traditional symphonic development, credited to

developments seen in his own music (particularly the Années de pèlerinage and Après une

lecture du Dante on a poem by Victor Hugo).30 His interests in programmatic composition

continued after the compositional period of symphonic poems as evidenced by his programmatic

Faust and Dante symphonies, both of which were reviewed favorably by Hugo Wolf. His ideas

are embodied in the twelve symphonic poems he composed between 1848 and 1858.31 Each of

these symphonic poems was published with a preface describing the source of the program (or

extra-musical association).32 Many of his symphonic poems are named after literary sources including two poems by Victor Hugo (Mazeppa, Ce qu’on entend sur la montagne), a poem by

Friedrich Schiller (Die Ideale), a poem by Lord Byron (Tasso), a poem by Alphonse de

Lamartine (Les préludes) and the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare. Orpheus was inspired

by an Etruscan vase and Hunnenschlacht was inspired by Wilhelm von Kaulbach’s painting

(about a battle between Christians and Huns). Liszt constructed his symphonic poems not to

depict precise actions or to give a detailed account of a specific event, but to give an overall impression of the subject or heroic character (such as that in his own Prometheus). Liszt’s vision is described as one “more poetic than visual,” one that “refrained on the whole from narrative and literal description.”33 Each of his symphonic poems utilizes a “loose episodic form in which

sections follow another without overriding musical logic” in which he “used motifs and their

30 Hugh MacDonald, “Symphonic poem, §3: Liszt,” Grove Music Online (accessed 4 August 2007) .

31 Ibid.

32 Alan Walker (text, bibliography), Maria Eckhardt, Rena Charnin Mueller (work-list): “Liszt, Franz, §15: Symphonic poems,” Grove Music Online (accessed 4 August 2007) .

33 MacDonald, “Symphonic poem, §3: Liszt,” Grove Music Online.

65 transformations in a manner akin to Wagner.”34 Liszt felt that the new music composed during

this time should also use a new form, one with “shifts in structural emphasis,” a form with

“recapitulations [that] are foreshortened while codas assume developmental proportions and

themes are reshuffled into new and unexpected chronologies, with contrasted subjects integrated

by means of thematic metamorphosis.”35 Franz Liszt established the genre of the symphonic

poem and created works that were admired by many Romantic composers including Hugo Wolf.

The composition of the symphonic poem enjoyed a short life, becoming basically obsolete after

the post-Romantic period and composers Richard Strauss and Jean Sibelius, but did change the

concept of form: the symphonic poem could utilize established developmental methods within a

new, one-movement structure with an effective dramatic end. The use of thematic

transformation was, however, vital to the desired result: psychological portrayal of the subject.

The music was concerned with the internal more than the external, the character rather than the

situation.

In keeping with Liszt’s conception of the symphonic poem, Wolf constructed his

Penthesilea in a form that “does not follow one of the classical forms… [one that is] through-

composed in a single, extended movement, as is proper for a symphonic poem in the Lisztian

tradition.”36 Wolf utilized a one movement structure with three parts designated by the

following subtitles: “Aufbruch der Amazonen nach Troya” (March of the Amazons on Troy),

“Der Traum Penthesileas vom Rosenfest” (Penthesilea’s Dream of the Rose-Festival), and

“Kämpfe, Leidenschaften, Wahnsinn, Vernichtung” (Strife, Fury, Frenzy, Destruction).

Although the subtitles indicate that the work has distinct sections, Wolf did not break the flow of

34 MacDonald, “Symphonic poem, §3: Liszt,” Grove Music Online.

35 Walker, “Liszt, Franz, §15: Symphonic poems,” Grove Music Online.

36 Metzger, 121.

66 the music in his one-movement structure: there is a fermata rest for all instruments at the end of

the first section (followed by a meter change) which indicates a change in mood and situation,

but there is no rest or break of any kind at the conclusion of the second section (although there is

a meter change). These subtitles reinforce the programmatic implications of the music and help to navigate through the music.37 Wolf’s composition uses a form that “present[s] the elements of

the drama both collectively as mood-painting and consecutively as narrative,” a product of his

feelings that “unity in this new genre was to be attained by deriving form as well as content from

the poetic source.”38 The conception of Penthesilea seems to be one that follows the action of

the drama through portrayal of the psychological aspects of the main character. The themes

created by Wolf represent elements of the program that serve as psychological implications of

the story.

In order to better discuss musical elements and specific instances throughout the score, it

is helpful to give a brief description of the work’s form. An extended discussion of the form

appears later in this chapter, but I have briefly described it here to avoid confusion about sections

and parts in the music. The score of Penthesilea can be divided into five sections based on its

thematic and tonal development. The final three sections are subdivisions of Wolf’s Part 3

(Kämpfe, Leidenschaften, Wahnsinn, Vernichtung):39

37 “Wolf’s symphonic poem is divided into three sections…They are not to be regarded as three separate movements,” quoted in Frank Walker, Hugo Wolf: A Biography, 188; “The author believes that the subtitles serve neither a formal nor thematic function, but rather indicate the three principal parts of the drama,” quoted in Metzger, 120.

38 Sams, Late Romantic Masters, 336.

39 Metzger charted out the score and divided it into five sections linked to the scenic structure of Kleist’s play (pp. 122–125). I will use this analysis for sectional division, although in my programmatic analysis (see below, pp. 39–40) I have subdivided Section IV into two parts.

67 Aufbruch der Amazonen nach Troya Section 1 mm. 1–202 Der Traum Penthesileas vom Rosenfest Section 2 mm. 203–275 Kämpfe, Leidenschaften, Wahnsinn, Vernichtung Section 3 mm. 276–519 Section 4 mm. 520–737 Section 5 mm. 738–946

Themes and Motives

In his dissertation, Raphael Metzger analyzed the themes and the relationships between them using three main themes and theme groups.40 He named the themes according to what they

represented in the program, and then grouped their transformations and related music according

to the sections in which they occurred. He also pointed out relationships between the main

themes, particularly between the semi-tone descent of Theme I (he calls it the “Amazon” theme)

and Theme IV (dubbed the “Love” theme). The relationship between these two themes and his

third main theme, Theme V (called the “Destruction” theme) is also discussed in regards to the

descending chromatic scale that is seen in Theme V and the inclusion of three secondary themes

that describe Penthesilea’s destruction entitled “Passion,” “Grief,” and “Anguish.” Metzger’s

discussion of the themes provided an excellent foundation for my own analysis, but I have taken

a slightly different approach that provides an alternative reading of both the themes and their

programmatic meaning. In my analysis of the thematic material in Wolf’s Penthesilea, I find

five main themes rather than three, each of which undergoes extensive alteration and

development. Though I recognize and discuss the programmatic implications of each, I have

chosen to simply designate them by numbers, so as to emphasize their structural role. For the

musical material accompanying the themes, I have used the term “associated motives,”

designated by lower case letters (for example, Theme III has four associated motives (IIIa, IIIb,

IIIc, IIId). Though the associated motives are not generally related to the main theme, Va retains

40 Metzger discusses the themes in his Chapter 12, “Melody,” pp. 141–153.

68 the chromatic falling line of Theme V with a new rhythm and a smaller range, and Vd also

appears to be a reconceived Vc. Because the themes play such a prominent role in the music my

analysis must be concerned, and therefore begin, with a discussion of the themes and their role in

Wolf’s composition. The original statements of the themes and their associated motives are given in Examples 1–5.

69

70

71

72

73 Explanation of Example 1:

Theme I original statement of theme at mm. 1–8 (Flutes and Violin I)

Motive Ia original statement of motive at mm. 288–294 (Piccolo)

Throughout the score, instances of thematic and motivic development occur at the following points:

mm. 43–49 rhythmic variants of Theme I (Flutes)

mm. 246–248 rhythmic variants of Theme I (Cello)

mm. 256–260 rhythmic variants of Theme I (Cello)

mm. 275–283 Motive Ia (Violin II) has rhythmic variants of Theme I: the music

recalls the notes in the cello part

mm. 328–336 Motive Ia (Violin I) reinforces the half-step motion of Theme I in

sixteenth-notes

74

75

76 Example 2 explanation:

Theme II original statement of theme mm. 18–22 (Trumpet in C) continuing to mm. 22–26

(Trumpet in E)

The following examples are instances of rhythmic variants of Theme II that occur throughout the

work; these instances alter the rhythms and recall parts of the original statement of the theme

(perhaps serving as a type of thematic recollection):

mm. 38–44 retention of the original rhythmic structure (Trombones)

mm. 480–483 Theme II rhythms (Horns)

mm. 609–629 Theme II rhythms (Horns) developed and passed to bassoons and

basses until m. 656

mm. 609–622 rhythmic figures of Theme II (Timpani); add trombones m. 617

mm. 744–747 Theme II rhythms (Violin II)

mm. 755–763 Theme II rhythms (Piccolo and Trombones)

mm. 775–780 Theme II rhythms (Trombones)

mm. 790–795 Theme II rhythms (Trumpets)

77

78

79

80

81

82 Explanation of Example 3:

Theme III original statement (Horn in F) mm. 63–69

Motive IIIa original statement (Violin I) mm. 63–66

Motive IIIb original statement (Violin II) mm. 63–66

Motive IIIc original statement (Flutes) mm. 71–74

Motive IIId original statement (Violin I) mm. 95–98

In the initial appearance of the above music examples in the score, all the components occur together with at least one statement of the original theme; then single elements appear at other points in the music (listed below) to recall Theme III.

mm. 71–74 Theme III with added ornaments (Clarinet in B)

mm. 75–78 legato variant of Theme III (Viola)

mm. 79–82 variant of Theme III (Violin I): rhythms altered and ornaments

added

mm. 87–94 variant of Theme III (Bassoon)

mm. 99–102 rhythmic variant of Motive IIId (Clarinet in B)

mm. 109–112 variant of Motive IIId with dotted rhythms of Theme III and

Motive IIIa (Violin I)

83

84

85

86

87

88

89 Explanation of Example 4:

Theme IV original statement (Flutes) mm. 203–206

Motive IVa original statement (Violin II and Viola) m. 228: there is much rhythmic

elaboration of Theme IV with an introduction of a reverse contour of the melodic

line (Viola)

Motive IVb original statement (Oboe) mm. 340–344: this motive is reminiscent of the semi-

tone movement of Theme IV in a different melodic contour (less lyrical but

compact with an emphasis on the chromatic line)

Motive IVc original statement (Violin I) mm. 680–683: this motive occurs with statements of

Theme IV. It has a reverse contour of Theme IV, but retains the same legato

character and half-step motion of the beginning of the theme.

Motive IVd original statement (Cello and Bass) mm. 926–934: this motive accompanies

Theme IV and emphasizes the semi-tone motion of the theme with a reverse

contour while retaining the same tempo and some of the same rhythmic elements.

Throughout the score, there are several points where Theme IV and the associated motives are altered or developed or the material returns as originally stated:

mm. 211–219 Theme IV in octaves (Violin I and II)

mm. 222–227 Theme IV (Violas) with some rhythmic elongation

mm. 228–231 rhythmic variant of Theme IV (Clarinet in B)

mm. 244–247; 260–263 rhythmic variant of core cell of Theme IV (Flute)

mm. 520–523 rhythmic variant of Theme IV (Violin I): much quicker

tempo with diminished note values

90 mm. 657–660 Theme IV (Violin I): this recalls the statement in mm. 520–

523 (Violin I) at a half-step above the previous statement

mm. 681–684 inverted statement of Theme IV (Violin I)

mm. 904–908 rhythmic variant of Theme IV (Violin I)

mm. 942–944 final statement of Theme IV

mm. 433–435; 463–466 statements of Motive IVb (Oboe)

mm. 432–435; 439–444 accompaniment to Motive IVb that retains the basic

structure of the motive itself mm. 574–576 Motive IVb (Flutes)

91

92

93

94

95

96

97 Explanation of Example 5:

Theme V first full statement (Trombones) mm. 476–481

Motive Va original statement (Clarinet in B♭) mm. 260–272: this motive uses elements of

Theme V (step-wise motion) with rhythmic variants

Motive Vb original statement (Bassoon and Bass) mm. 336–340: this motive retains the tonal

language of Theme V with differing rhythms and melodic contour

Motive Vc original statement (Cello) mm. 336–340: this motive retains the tonal language

and motion of Theme V, but with a completely different character and contour.

This music occurs with elements of Theme V in other instruments.

Motive Vd original statement (Cello and Bass) mm. 601–613: this motive serves as

transitional music that indicates a mood change. Subsequent appearances of the

motive are shortened and precede statements of Motive Vb

The following places in the score show alteration and development of Theme V and its associated motive or indicate prominent statements of the material:

mm. 376–380 partial statement of Theme V (Trombones) with elongated rhythm

mm. 484–489 complete statement of Theme V (Trombones)

mm. 581–583 Theme V (Oboe and Flute) with varied rhythms

mm. 637–640 partial statement of Theme V (Piccolo) with elongated rhythm

mm. 638–641 inverted Theme V (Cello)

mm. 790–798 partial statements of Theme V (Horn in F)

mm. 622–626 statement of Motive Vb (Violin II)

98 mm. 737–740 variants of Theme V and Motive Vb combined (particularly the

rhythms)

mm. 376–384 rhythmic variant of Motive Vc (Violin I and II)

mm. 617–621 statement of Motive Vd (Cello)

mm. 629–636 altered Motive Vd (Violin I and Viola): the music is now staccato

with accented notes with the same character as Theme V

Both themes and tonal choices clearly relate to the work’s program. Metzger has compared the musical sections of Wolf’s symphonic poem to the scene structure of Kleist’s play and suggested a five-section musical structure that follows the twenty-four scenes of the drama.41 Although he notes that Wolf’s composition “portrays, above all, the psychological states of the heroine,”42 he

goes on to explain how Wolf does actually follow the structure of the play quite closely. I agree

that Wolf was very conscious of retaining the dramatic relation of the story and think that it is

worth an examination of Metzger’s analysis to illustrate how Wolf carried out this musical

correspondence:

Table 4.1. Musical Sections compared to sections of Penthesilea play

Wolf’s musical sections Kleist’s dramatic scenes 1. “Departure of the Amazons for Troy” scenes 1–13 mm. 1–202 2. “Penthesilea’s Dream of the Feast of Roses” scenes 14–18 mm. 203-75 3. “Battles, Passions, Madness, Destruction” scene 19 mm. 276-519 4. no subtitle scene 20 mm. 520-737 5. no subtitle scenes 21–24 mm. 738-946

41 Metzger, 122–124.

42 Ibid., 122.

99 Although Metzger explains how the form of the work successfully depicts the action of the story and the nature of Penthesilea herself, other scholars have raised doubts: “It is not immediately clear how this end [unity attained by deriving form as well as content from the poetic source] is best subserved by Wolf’s chosen structure.”43 Why, then, could Wolf—who was famous for his

ability to reproduce every psychological nuance of the chosen poetry into the music of his

songs—not create a cohesive work in a form that wholly grasped the psychology of the story in a

successful musical composition?

It seems that Wolf was very conscious of providing not only a story but a psychological

portrait of a woman torn between her duty and her love, who struggles with the quest for power

and the jealousy that arises from loss of power, and who destroys herself in a most gruesome

fashion. The story of Penthesilea is harsh, ugly and not very often beautiful; the music reflects

the violence of the story, depicts the sounds of war, achieves the chaos that surrounds the

situations of this story and penetrates to the core of the main character. The following will

discuss how Wolf has provided a truly colorful and successful portrait of Kleist’s Penthesilea,

particularly in Sections 3, 4, and 5, which—according to the subtitles—portrays Kämpfe (strife

or battles), Leidenschaften (passion or fury), Wahnsinn (frenzy or madness) and Vernichtung

(destruction or annihilation).

Table 4.2. Programmatic interpretation of Sections 3–5.

Subtitle Section Measure numbers Kämpfe 3 276–519 Leidenschaften 4a 520–608 Wahnsinn 4b 609–737 Vernichtung 5 738–946

43 Sams, The New Grove Late Romantic Masters, 336.

100 Section 3 (mm. 276–519, Kämpfe) contains music that recalls the first section of the work

in the original key, F minor. It has the same soaring, dramatic lines in the flutes that shout above

the entire orchestra. The scene is dramatic and recalls the battle cries of the first section.

Section 4a (mm. 520–608, Leidenschaften) brings back the lyrical melodic lines from the

second section of the work. The music recalls the idyllic passages from Penthesilea’s dream of

love and physical fulfillment. As the love music continues, constant interruptions of dissonant

chords hint of the impending murder and destruction of Penthesilea’s love and mind. At m. 602,

a striking change in mood occurs with the eerie vii◦7 chord in the lower registers of the winds, horns and strings. This striking moment certainly destroys the love fantasy and provides a segue into the next part that reflects the insanity that takes over Penthesilea.

Section 4b (mm. 609–737, Wahnsinn) recalls the idyllic music of Theme IV but contains so many interruptions and rhythmic changes that the music is transformed into a conglomeration of thematic statements from Section 2 and harsh chords that certainly reflect the changing mental state of Penthesilea. This music culminates at m. 723 to a huge climax of accented quarter note chords played by all strings, brass, percussion and winds. The music builds and becomes increasingly confusing until it stops in m. 733, after which a lone crash of the tam-tam seems to signify that the mental transformation is complete and insanity has completely taken over. The crash is followed by a chromatic run of the strings that leads seamlessly into the fourth part of the section.

Section 5 (mm. 738–946, Vernichtung) is musical chaos. Theme IV returns in fragments amidst crashing chords and the fanfare rhythms of the trumpets that recall the battle scene of the first section. The music here is increasingly dramatic, building up to the violent end of life and

mind. This part is a thematic culmination of all the motifs presented throughout the symphonic

101 7 poem. All the chaos comes to an end in m. 888 with a prominent diminished A♭ chord that

seems to bring death not only to the music, but an end to the destruction that has ensued. A key

change from F minor to G♭ major occurs at m. 904 after a long ritardando, and the music slowly

dies away, showing some signs of renewal with various forte chords. The key changes back to

the initial F minor of the first section, but seems to suggest F major with the A♮ in the violins.

The last moment, an F minor chord, is played by all and leaves the gravity of the situation

apparent with the sudden shift to minor.

The breakdown of the third section into four parts perhaps shows that Wolf embraced the

psychological aspect of this play and penetrated to the very core of the main character. Wolf’s

Penthesilea is a study in human psychology and mental destruction, one that reflected the

sentiments of Kleist. Although the thematic, tonal, and programmatic elements appear to work

together, the formal structure used by Wolf is more apparent when studying the score than in

listening.

Thematic structure

All of the themes share a similar phrase structure: they are all balanced, mainly

comprising four-measure blocks. When the themes are developed or altered, they are either

shortened to two-measure extracts (the first two measures of the original statement) or lengthened to six- or eight-measure phrases. The only themes or motives that are not strictly divisible by two are Motive IVa, which has a one-measure phrase (divisible by the three beats), and Motive IVb which has versions with both three- and four-measure phrases. Most of the phrase alterations involve a repetition of two-measure phrases extracted from either the first two or last two measures of each theme. Some of the phrase restatements often begin in the second

102 half of the measure (in duple meter) or the third beat of the measure (in triple meter); this causes some shifts in the metric regularity of the work and displaces some of the rhythm but does not disguise the identity of each thematic statement. Metzger has noted an antecedent/consequent phrase structure in Themes I, III, and IV (his “Amazon Theme,” “Night March Theme,” and

“Penthesilea’s Love Theme”) that is particularly apparent when the themes are extended to eight- measure statements (the antecedent phrase equals the first four measures of the thematic statement while the consequent phrase occurs in the last four measures).44 This antecedent/consequent structure can also be seen in the original statement of Theme II, where a four-measure phrase in the trumpets is answered by a four-measure phrase in the horns. This shared regularity of phrasing shows that the relationship among the themes goes beyond mere motivic resemblance.

Table 4.3. Phrasing of each individual theme

Theme / Motive Phrase Structure Theme I 4+4+10 and 8+8 Motive Ia 7 measure phrase, then 4+4 Theme II 4 measure phrases (both melodic and rhythmic), some 6 measure phrases Theme III & motives all have a 4 measure phrase construction Theme IV both 2 and 4 measure phrases Motive IVa 1 measure phrase Motive IVb both 3 and 4 measure phrases Motive IVc 4 measure phrase Motive IVd 2+6 construction Theme V originally 4, then 4+2, then 6+6+8 Motives Va & Vb 4 measure, then 6 measure phrases Motive Vc originally 8+8, then 4+4 Motive Vd 4 measure phrases

In addition, some of the themes share similar characteristics of rhythm, dynamics, and orchestration while maintaining their own distinctive character. For example, Themes I and V

44 Metzger discusses this phrasing in his Chapter 12, pp. 141–148.

103 have dominant, aggressive characters portrayed by very prominent fortissimo lines. Both themes

are articulated as either staccato or portato, with Theme V utilizing accents on every note (except

for the final statement of the theme, which is frail and pitiful in contrast to the previous

statements). Theme I has more melody, as it does not merely tout a chromatic step-wise

descending line as does Theme V, but both themes are chromatic in conception and very

prominently announced in their subsequent appearances in the music. The location of the themes

in the music also points toward their meaning and reveals another aspect of their relationship.

Theme I appears at moments of war and destruction; Theme V has fragmentary appearances until

the first full statement in Section 3 (Kämpfe in the subtitle). Its fragmentary appearances

function as a foreshadowing of the upcoming action represented by the full statement of the

theme which does not return until Section 5 (Vernichtung). Both of the themes occur at

moments of the music (and in the program) that involve aggression or violence, so it would seem

reasonable to conclude that both themes are destructive in nature and therefore reflect the violence and destruction that occurs in the story. Theme II, with its fanfare percussive quality stereotypical of battle music, shares its powerful character with Themes I and V. Because the main theme is scored mostly for brass or horns (the most audible and recognizable appearances of the theme occur in these sections), it reinforces the fanfare quality; Theme V occurs almost exclusively in the brass, horn, cello and bass. Although Theme II, like Theme V, has a powerful

character and orchestration, its phrasing is not retained as clearly as it is with Theme V. By way

of contrast, the character of Theme III is playful with an airy feeling, a result of the light,

staccato and spiccato lines especially in the strings that are clearly articulated at a pianissimo

(often muted) dynamic level. Theme III is linked by its scoring to Themes I and IV. All three

themes are scored for woodwinds and strings, with some instances of brass instruments in

104 Themes I and IV. The similar orchestration of the themes illustrates how different articulations and linear constructions can be utilized in the same instrumental setting to produce very different results: the color and characteristics of these themes are strikingly different.

Throughout its constant reiteration in the music, Theme IV retains its romantic character, emphasized by the constant dynamic waves of crescendos and decrescendos and the connected legato lines. This theme is chromatic in conception and when combined with the chromatic arpeggios in the harp and the chromatic figuration in the violas (at the beginning of Section 2), creates a highly dream-like, somewhat eerie atmosphere. Although the characters of Themes I and IV are completely different (Theme I = aggressive, Theme IV = passive), they share an opening three-note semi-tone pattern and both are usually scored for the upper register instruments (violins and upper winds) in their prominent statements. The melodic line of Theme

I is very compact, with its semi-tone and step-wise motion confined to a fifth, with a constant emphasis on the tonic (F minor). The meandering, step-wise melodic line of Theme IV is larger, encompassing a seventh with larger leaps from note to note at the end of the phrase; the phrasing of the notes seems to emphasize an A♭ triad. Because of where the themes occur in the music, it seems reasonable to conclude they represent something quite different: Theme I appears as the

Amazons march into Troy (hence the subtitle) and in a recapitulatory section involving destruction (Vernichtung in the sub-title) while Theme IV appears as Penthesilea is dreaming of the Rose Festival (basically an orgy with captured soldiers) and again at Section 4a

(Leidenschaften). It would seem by the locations of the themes that the two themes are meant to portray two entirely different sentiments, two emotions of one character: Penthesilea, as Metzger

105 argues.45 Thus, Theme I portrays the aggressive warrior side of Penthesilea while Theme IV

reveals her passionate loving side.

Theme III has a tune-like melodic line that, like Themes I and IV, is compact and does

not extend beyond an octave. Any leaps between the notes are filled in by the step-wise motion

of the following notes. The actual character of the theme and its motives, however, is quite

unlike any of the other themes, particularly due to its appearance in only one section of the work and the manner in which this music is developed. Theme III has motives that often reinforce the different musical aspects of this original theme. Motive IIIa utilizes triplet figures with dotted notes that reinforce the dotted rhythms of the main theme while the melodic contour follows that of the main theme as well. Both Motives IIIb and IIIc have a decorative function, with Motive

IIIc also reinforcing the shape of the phrases and linear contour of Theme III while also having interplay with Motive IIIa. Motive IIId, whose melodic contour resembles that of Theme III, introduces a legato texture that invades the main theme and motives (which were originally staccato or spiccato) until they reappear in their original articulation in m. 133. Beginning in m.

174, a canonic episode combines partial statements of Theme III which gradually fades away, signifying the start of Section 2. The thematic treatment of Theme III and its motives is that in which the theme is used as the subject of contrapuntal development in the first section of the work (beginning at m. 63). This contrapuntal episode, however, not only chops the original phrase into snippets, but also contains interplay of the main theme with the music of the associated motives. This instance of contrapuntal development occurs only in Section 1 of the work, after which the music is absorbed into the changing texture of the music. The element that perhaps best sets this music apart from the other themes is the fact that from the very outset

45 Metzger, 141–142.

106 of its appearance, Theme III’s associated motives interact contrapuntally with both the main theme and with each of the other Theme III motives.

The rhythms of each theme are often distinctive from one another (see Table 4.4), particularly those seen in the elongated note values and simple structure of Themes V and IV as opposed to the more complicated triplet and dotted figures of Themes II and III. The distinctive rhythmic elements yield to the individual characters of each theme while the occasional shared characteristics of the rhythms help to unify the structure. Unfortunately, when some of these different rhythmic elements are combined (for example, from m. 476 to m. 500 the combination of Theme V with Theme II rhythms effectively heightens drama but muddles the overall structure) it causes confusion in structural perception.

All five themes in Penthesilea share many qualities that tie them together in relationships, both for the structural aspect of the music and the propagation of the program. In an effort to visually illustrate these relationships (those discussed above), I have constructed a chart (Table

4.4) that succinctly describes each thematic element against each theme for purpose of comparison. This chart also serves as a condensed summary of the text from “Elements of the

Themes and Relationships between them.” Table 4.5 maps out each appearance of the five main themes and associated motives throughout each page of the score. This chart has been constructed in order to illustrate the appearance of the thematic material throughout the music which, more than any other musical element, contributes to the overall structure of the symphonic poem.

107 Table 4.4. Thematic Elements

Theme I Theme II Theme III Theme IV Theme V character aggressive, fanfare, airy, playful passive, dramatic, dominant percussive, romantic percussive, powerful dominant dynamic fortissimo forte pianissimo pianissimo fortissimo (muted) (with crescendos) melodic staccato staccato light, staccato, legato accented articulation (detached, spiccato (smooth, portato separated), (clearly connected) (somewhat more articulated), detached) sostenuto some slightly (sustained) legato melodic line compact, percussive, tune-like, meandering, downward step-wise, reiterates compact, leaps step-wise, step-wise semi-tone notes, does not filled in semi-tone motion emphasis really move emphasis (movement around much (melodic line within a moves within a 5th) 7th) rhythmic stresses off- dotted and dotted notes, constantly simple, long structure beat due to triplet notes, triplets, 2nd changing- note values, tied notes 8th & 16th beat stress much reinforces the across notes elongation and down beat of measures diminution of each measure note values orchestration winds, brass, horns, winds, strings winds, strings brass, horns, strings, some winds, cello, bass some brass percussion score sehr etwas mit sehr gehalten, sehr markings lebhaft, langsamer springbogen ausdrucksvoll, ausdrucksvoll (German) wuchtig mäßig bewegt, belebter, etwas ruhiger score very lively, rather with pouncing very sustained, very markings heavy (somewhat) bow with great expressive (English) slower feeling, animated moderato, briskly, rather calmer tonal somewhat very somewhat very somewhat implication chromatic, consonant consonant chromatic, chromatic tonic triadic

108 emphasis emphasis tonality of f, some C C unstable, B, f, (A♭) A♭, D♭, thematic C, f appearances unstable, E♭, G♭, f development/ not highly phrases phrases remains altered in usage developed, chopped up chopped up recognizable length, but not and and throughout retains extensively restructured, restructured, lengthening recognizable altered used used and shortening melodic contrapuntally contrapuntally of restatements structure

Table 4.5. Map of Thematic Material in the Score

Page46 Measures Thematic Instrument(s) Material 5 1–4 Theme I flutes, oboes, violin I, trombones 6 5–9 Theme I flutes, oboes, clarinets, horns, trombones, violins 7 10–14 Theme I flutes, oboes, clarinets, trombones, tuba, violins, viola 8 15–21 Theme I flutes, oboes, clarinets, trombones, tuba, violins, viola Theme II trumpets 9 22–29 Theme II horns, trumpets 10 30–34 Theme II flutes, clarinets, horns, trumpets 11 35–39 Theme II flutes, clarinets, horns, trumpets, trombones, tuba, harp 12 40–44 Theme II trombones, tuba, timpani Theme I flutes, trumpets 13 45–50 Theme I flutes, trumpets Theme II strings, timpani 14 51–56 Theme II orchestra 15 57–64 Theme III horns Motive IIIa violin I Motive IIIb violin II 16 65–69 Theme III bassoons, horns Motive IIIa violin I & II Motive IIIb violin I & II 17 70–74 Motive IIIc flutes, oboes Theme III clarinets, horns Motive IIIa violin I, cellos, bass Motive IIIb violin II

46 The page number is that on the printed score: Hugo Wolf, Penthesilea: Symphonische Dichtung für großes Orchester (Miami: Edwin F. Kalmus & Co., Inc., 1988).

109 18 75–79 Motive IIIc flutes, oboes Theme III bassoons, violas Motive IIIa cello, bass 19 80–85 Theme III violin I & II, viola, harp 20 86–90 Theme III bassoon, horn Motive IIIa violin I & II Motive IIIb violin I & II 21 91–96 Theme III bassoon, horn, trombones, viola Motive IIIa cello, bass Motive IIId violin I 22 97–103 Motive IIId clarinet (oboes, bassoons), violin I 23 104–109 Motive IIId violin I & II 24 110–115 Motive IIId s trings 25 116–120 26 121–125 Theme III horns 27 126–131 Theme III fragments in winds, brass, strings 28 132–136 Theme III horns, winds Motive IIIa violin I Motive IIIb violin II 29 137–141 Motive IIIc flutes, oboes, clarinet Theme III bassoons, horns Motive IIIa violin I Motive IIIb violin II 30 142–146 Motive IIIc flutes, oboes, clarinets Theme III horns, bassoons, viola Motive IIIa cello, bass 31 147–151 Motive IIIc flutes, oboes, clarinets Theme III clarinet, viola, violin I Motive IIIa cello, bass 32 152–156 Theme III violin I, harp 33 157–161 Motive IIIc flutes, oboe, clarinet Theme III clarinet, bassoon, horn, violin I & II Motive IIIa violin I & II Motive IIIb violin I & II 34 162–166 Theme III violin I & II, viola, horn Motive IIIa cello 35 167–172 Theme III horn, bassoon, cello, bass 36 173–179 Theme III English horn, clarinets, bassoons, horns, viola, cello 37 180–186 Theme III strings 38 187–194 Theme III bass 39 195–202 40 203–204 Theme IV flute, oboe, clarinet, violin I 41 205–206 Theme IV flute, oboe, clarinet, violin I 42 207–208 Theme IV f lute, oboe 43 209–210

110 44 211–213 Theme IV flute, bassoon, horn, violin I & II 45 214–216 Theme IV horn, violin I & II 46 217–220 Theme IV oboe, violin I & II, viola, bassoon 47 221–227 Theme IV English horn, bassoon, strings 48 228–229 Theme IV clarinet Motive IVa violin II, viola 49 230–231 Theme IV clarinet Motive IVa violin II, viola 50 232–233 Theme IV oboe, viola, cello Motive IVa violin II, viola 51 234–235 Theme IV flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, cello Motive IVa violin II, viola 52 236–237 Theme IV flute, oboe, clarinet, violin I 53 238–239 Theme IV flute, oboe, violin I 54 240–241 Theme IV violin I 55 242–243 Theme IV violin I, cello 56 244–255 Theme IV flute, oboe, horn Theme I cello, bass 57 256–262 Theme IV flute, violin I & II Motive Va clarinet, bassoon Theme I cello, bass 58 263–269 Theme IV flute Motive Va oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn 59 270–275 Theme IV flute, oboe Motive Va clarinet 60 276–283 Theme I violin I & II 61 284–292 Theme I violin I & II Motive Ia winds 62 293–303 Motive Ia winds 63 304–313 Motive Ia piccolo, flute 64 314–321 Motive Ia piccolo, flute, horn 65 322–328 Motive Ia piccolo, flute, oboe, clarinet, horn Theme I violin I & II 66 329–335 Theme I flute, violin I & II 67 336–345 Motive Vc cello Motive Vb bassoon Motive IVb oboe 68 346–354 Motive Vb bassoon Motive Vc cello, violin II 69 355–364 Motive Vb bassoon Motive Vc violin II, cello, viola 70 365–373 Motive Vb bassoon Motive Vc violin II, viola, violin I 71 374–382 Motive Vc violin I & II Theme V trombone, tuba

111 72 383–389 Theme V horn Motive Vb cello, bass, viola, violin II 73 390–396 Motive Vb cello, strings, bassoons, clarinet Theme V horn 74 397–404 Motive Vb orchestra 75 405–414 Motive Vb trombones, tuba, strings 76 415–421 Motive Vb strings, winds, horns 77 422–428 Motive Vb rhythms in orchestra 78 429–436 Motive IVb clarinet, oboe, viola 79 437–444 Motive IVb oboe, clarinet, viola, violin I 80 445–453 Motive IVb b assoon, cello, bass 81 454–461 82 462–470 Motive IVb winds, strings 83 471–479 Motive IV b clarinet, strings Theme V trombones 84 480–487 Theme II rhythms- winds, brass, strings Theme V trombones 85 488–495 Theme II rhythms in winds, strings, brass Theme V trombones 86 496–503 Theme II rhythms- winds, horns, trumpets Theme V horns, tuba 87 504–511 Theme V h orn, cello, bass 88 512–519 89 520–529 Theme IV clarinet, violin I & II, viola 90 530–537 Theme IV violin I & II, flute, English horn, clarinet, bassoon, cello 91 538–546 Theme IV bassoon, violin I & II 92 547–552 Theme IV v iolin I & II 93 553–560 94 561–565 Motive IVb clarinet, oboe 95 566–573 Motive IVb oboe, violin I 96 574–582 Motive IV b flute, clarinet, violin I & II Theme V flute, oboe, clarinet 97 583–591 Theme IV flute, oboe, clarinet, viola 98 592–599 Theme IV piccolo, flute, horn, violin I & II, viola 99 600–608 Motive Vd cello, bass 100 609–616 Theme II horn, timpani Motive Vd cello Motive Vb violin II 101 617–624 Theme II horn, trumpet Motive Vd cello Motive Vb violin II 102 625–633 Theme II horn, bassoon, cello Motive Vd violin I, viola Motive Vb violin I & II

112 103 634–642 Theme II bassoon, horn, viola Motive Vd violin I, viola Motive Vb winds, cello, bass 104 643–650 Theme II horns Motive Vb winds, cello, bass 105 651–660 Motive Vb bassoon, cello, bass Theme II horns Theme IV violin I 106 661–669 Theme IV oboe, violin I & II, viola 107 670–678 Theme IV violin I & II, cello, some bassoon 108 679–686 Theme IV flute, oboe, clarinet Motive IVc violin I 109 687–693 Theme IV flute, oboe, clarinet Motive IVc violin I 110 694–700 111 701–707 Theme IV flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, viola 112 708–714 Theme IV f lute, oboe, clarinet, horn, viola, violin I 113 715–721 114 722–729 Motive IIIb winds, viola, cello, bass 115 730–736 Theme I flute, clarinet, trumpet Motive Vb violin I & II, viola 116 737–741 Theme I flute, oboe, clarinet, trumpet Motive Vb violin I & II, viola Theme II rhythms- violin I & II, viola 117 742–746 Theme I winds, horns, trumpets 118 747–750 Theme I piccolo, flute, oboe, clarinet 119 751–754 Theme I piccolo, flute, oboe, clarinet 120 755–758 Theme II trumpets rhythms- winds, strings 121 759–762 Theme II horns, trumpets

122 763–765 Theme II trumpets rhythms- winds, strings 123 767–770 Theme II horns, trumpets, triangle rhythms- winds, strings 124 771–774 Theme II horns, trumpets, triangle rhythms- winds, strings 125 774–779 Theme II trombones, tuba variants- winds; rhythms- strings 126 780–784 Theme II trombones, tuba variants- winds; rhythms- strings 127 785–789 Theme II variants- brass; rhythms- strings 128 790–797 Theme II trumpets; rhythms- winds, strings Theme V horns 129 798–806 Theme V horns

113 Theme II trumpets; rhythms- winds, strings 130 807–813 Motive III b winds Theme II trumpets; rhythms- strings Theme V horns 131 814–820 Theme V horns Theme II brass Motive IIIb bassoon, strings 132 821–827 Motive III b bassoon, strings Theme II brass, percussion 133 828–834 Motive III b winds Theme V bassoon, trombones, tuba, cello, bass Theme II brass, percussion 134 835–847 Theme V bassoons, trombones, tuba, cello, bass 135 848–860 Theme V bassoons, trombones, tuba, cello, bass 136 861–869 Theme V bassoon, trombones, tuba, cello, bass 137 870–879 Theme V flute, horn, trombone, violin I & II, viola 138 880–893 Theme V bassoon Motive IIIb winds 139 894–907 Theme IV violin I 140 908–916 Theme IV flute, violin I & II 141 917–925 Theme IV winds, strings 142 926–933 Theme IV winds, violin I Motive IVd cello, bass 143 934–946 Theme V trombones, tuba, cello, bass Theme IV violin I

Overall Structure

Penthesilea’s themes serve as structural pillars and as guideposts in the program (see

Table 4.6). The themes that best contribute to the structure are Themes I, IV and V. Theme I is

prominently used at three places in the music: 1) at the beginning of the work, 2) at m. 276, the

beginning of Section 3 (Kämpfe), and 3) at m. 738, the beginning of Section 5 (Vernichtung).

This final statement has a recapitulatory function that recalls the beginning of the work (in

instrumentation, other music in the orchestra, and the extended statement of the theme). Each appearance of the theme is in F minor (or at least ends up in F minor). The theme is not highly

114 developed and is not extensively altered; when it is changed it is very discernable and maintains basically the same shape throughout the work that retains the same character in each appearance.

Theme IV is very highly developed and prominent throughout the score. It is first stated

(m. 203) and immediately developed in Section 2. Initially Theme IV does not occur with the music of other themes (except for Motive IVa and the chromatic figuration of the harp and the viola), but after a pairing with Theme I at m. 244, Theme IV is constantly placed and developed with the music of other themes. Motive IVb appears in Section 3, but after a renewed statement in Section 4, it reappears prominently throughout the music until the end of the work.

Throughout the development of Theme IV, it nonetheless remains recognizable because of the emphasized semi-tone movement between the first three notes. Theme IV is the last melodic statement of the entire piece.

Theme V is very prominent due to its brass instrumentation. Partial statements of the theme that occur before the entire statement serve as a foreshadowing of the upcoming action and are effective in hinting at disaster ahead (in the program). These partial statements appear prominently throughout the music until the first full statement of the theme that does not occur until m. 476, one hundred measures after the first partial statement of Theme V at m. 376 and statements of Motives Va at m. 260 and Vb at m. 336. A relationship between Theme V and the associated motives is not established until m. 384 (this relationship is more clearly seen in the score). Only after the complete statement of Theme V is the significance of this melodic line solidified.

The developmental episodes of Themes II and III are similar in conception and also contribute to the overall structure of the music, but in a very different way than the other themes serve the structure. Theme II has an initial appearance in Section 1, m. 18, that is very prominent

115 and unobstructed by other music. The theme is immediately developed throughout the first section, a subject of contrapuntal development that fades away into a new statement of the third theme. Theme II comes back at the end of Section 3 for a brief time, and then makes a triumphant reappearance at m. 609, the start of the Wahnsinn section. The music again fades away until its reappearance as the original statement paired with Theme I in Section 5

(Vernichtung). At this point, the theme (with Theme I) has a recapitulatory function recalling the beginning of the work (in instrumentation and contrapuntal development).

The music in Theme III differs from the others in its structural function because both the theme and the associated motives appear solely in Section 1 (except for reappearances of the rhythms of IIIb in Section 5). However, like Theme II, Theme III is prominently stated and immediately developed in a highly-concentrated developmental section (mm. 63–191), after which the music fades into the musical fabric. Although it almost sounds as if Wolf is simply displaying his skill at the contrapuntal development of the theme, the section (which Metzger describes as “the journey of the Amazons”)47 does function as a transition from the first to the second section: it changes the mood from sentiments of war to romantic reverie. Thus it demonstrates Wolf’s effort to illustrate Kleist’s dramatic action. I did initially have an expectation to hear a return of Theme III or its motives at a later point in the music, but after studying the program and the form of the symphonic poem, it became evident why this Theme

III development took place at only one point in the work.

47 Metzger, 127.

116 Table 4.6. Structural Analysis

Section Measures Key Thematic Miscellaneous Material 1 1–17 f Theme I main theme presented m. 1–8, then expanded 18–62 C Theme II m. 18– Theme I m. 43–50 in flutes, trumpets 30; partial m. (partial) 30–44 63–94 f Theme III Theme III- main theme, IIIa, IIIb, IIIc 95–132 fragments of restructured triplet figures of Theme IIId (A♭) Theme III 133–174 f Theme III Theme III- main theme, IIIa, IIIb, IIId 175–202 f fragments of main Theme III- elongated, fragments Theme III

2 203–218 Theme IV main Theme IV m. 203–206, m. 211–219 A♭ 219–226 Theme IV Theme IV m. 222–227 (A♭) 227–243 fragments of m. 228-IVa accompaniment (A♭) → Theme IV 244–259 Theme IV restructured Theme I m. 246–248, m. 256– D♭ 260 260–275 → fragments of new material Va Theme IV

3 276–311 f → Theme I m. 288-thematic material Ia (C) 312–335 C fragments of Theme I 336–351 unstable Theme IVb and new material: Motive Vc Theme Vb 352–367 unstable Motive Vc Va and Vc material

368–383 unstable Motive Vc, m. 376- Theme V with Vc Theme Vb and V material 384–404 unstable V + Vb material fragments of both V and Vb 405–430 Vb statements restatements in strings (D♭) → 431–444 unstable IVb statements IVb with accompaniment music 445–463 unstable IVb statements variants of IVb 464–475 unstable IVa statements variants of IVb 476–499 unstable Theme V Theme V- 1st full appearance; Theme II rhythms 500–519 → (f) Theme V m. 508–518 accompaniment

117

4 520–529 Theme IV Theme IV variants A♭ 530–543 Theme IV A♭ 544–560 fragments of Theme IV fragments- strings A♭ Theme IV 561–584 B Theme V- m. IVb material- m. 561; harp line recalls start 581 of Section II- elongated rhythm m. 561–569 585–600 B Theme IV 601–628 unstable Vb material, m. m. 609- C M; m. 617- A♭ m; m. 609–656; 614; Vd material Theme II rhythms; Motive Vd m. 602–613, m. 617–621, m. 629–635 in cello & bass recalls music in cello m. 336–344 629–656 inverted Theme → (e♭) m. 638- A♭M; Motive Vd m. 629–635; II m. 638–656; Theme Vb in violins Motive Vd 657–680 Theme IV m. 670–675 music?; Theme IVc m. 681–691 → A♭ 681–703 Theme IV A♭ → 704–723 Theme IV E♭ → 724–737 → Theme IIIb variants of Theme V

5 738–754 f Theme I Theme Vb; Theme II rhythms 755–774 C Theme II rhythmic variants of Theme II 775–791 C Theme II rhythmic variants of Theme II 792–831 C → Theme V Theme II rhythms; trill figures from IIIb 832–871 f → Theme V Theme II rhythms; trill figures from IIIb 872–887 f → Theme V Theme V inverted m. 880–888; Theme IIIb figures 888–903 → triplet grace-note figures of Theme III 904–917 Theme IV fragmented statements of Theme IV G♭→ F 918–933 F Theme IV Theme IVd 934–946 f Theme V, Theme IV Key: → indicates modulatory material ( ) indicates sections where one key predominates but is not strongly established

Although the music of Penthesilea is highly chromatic overall, Wolf anchors it with sections of relatively clear tonality with traditional key areas (F minor, C major and A♭ major) generally associated with the presentation of one of the five main themes. Sections of instability are often created by sequences. For example, at m. 336, the tonality of E is presented by motive

118 Vc in the cellos, reinforced by Motive IVb in the oboes. At m. 344, the cellos repeat Motive Vc

in G; the second violins and then the cellos restate the motive in B♭ at m. 352 followed by the

motive in fragments throughout the strings with each repetition rising a third. There are some

very striking dissonances, often with programmatic implications, as in the highly chromatic

second section (Der Traum Penthesileas vom Rosenfest). Despite the A♭ pedal in the cellos and

basses, the 2nd beat of every other measure (in 3/2 meter) contains an obvious dissonance that upsets any tonal security. For example: in m. 203, the first beat firmly establishes A♭ major

6/4 6 with a I chord, but moves to a ♭VI chord on beat two, before moving back to a I . In m. 204,

6/5 the ii on beat one moves to a ♭III (F♭) on the second beat; this flattened third completely

changes the quality of the sound and is unapologetically emphasized by the scoring of oboe, violin and cello. Because the dissonance occurs on the second beat and is otherwise unobstructed by other musical lines, it is quite prominent. This similar motion appears two measures later (m. 206) with a move from B♭ to B♮ in the violins and trombones (this time raising the fifth of the V7 chord). The dissonant chord later moves to the third beat in mm. 208,

209, 211 and 217, then to the first in mm. 228, 230, 232 and 236 and back to beat three in mm.

239 and 241. Though passing dissonances, and thus not extraordinary, they help to produce the

eerie dream-like setting of this section.

The story of Penthesilea is complicated, and these structural elements, combined with

Wolf’s desire to paint a psychological portrait, reflect this complication. In addition, there are a

number of problematic areas—particularly with regard to orchestration, texture and thematic

identity—that make aural understanding difficult. Orchestration is probably the most often cited

119 problem with this work. Even Wolf himself said on several occasions that the work needed to be re-orchestrated, but he never completed the re-orchestration he undertook after being committed to an asylum. Wolf score Penthesilea for a huge orchestra (see Table 4.7): “Perhaps in an attempt to outdo his revered model Liszt…he scored his tone poem for a giant and highly colouristic orchestra with, for example, antiphonal trumpets on either side to enclose the listener in sounds of war.”48 The sheer size of the orchestra means that many of the soloistic passages and thematic statements cannot be heard. Although the size of the orchestra might not have been an issue for a more experienced orchestrator who would know how to use instruments with more economy, it is a major weakness in this work.

Table 4.7. Orchestra for Penthesilea

Piccolo 2 Flutes 2 Oboes English horn 2 Clarinets 3 Bassoon 4 French horns 4 Trumpets 3 Trombones Tuba Triangle Small drum Large drum Kettledrum/Timpani Cymbals Tam tam Harp 1st Violins 2nd Violins Violas Cellos Bass

48 Sams and Youens, “Wolf, Hugo,” Grove Music Online.

120 There are two notes on the first page of the score- 1) for the trumpets: “Je zwei Trompeten sind

an die beiden äußersten Enden des Orchesters zu postieren” (Trumpets—two on each side—

should be positioned at the outer edges of the orchestra), and 2) for the strings: “Die

Saiteninstrumente sind nur dann geteilt zu spielen, wenn dies ausdrücklich in der Partitur

vorgemerkt ist” (The stringed instruments are only to play divided (divisi) when this is explicitly

designated in the score).

In such a huge orchestra, individual lines can simply get lost if the conductor does not

pay a great deal of attention to balance, as is illustrated by a performance by the Staatskapelle

Berlin under the direction of Otmar Suitner.49 Easily covered instruments like the viola and harp are perhaps the most affected. The harp, used throughout this work as mostly atmospheric figuration, is very apparent in the score but hard to hear unless the harpist ignores the pianissimo

dynamic. In the second section, the harp is written under the lyrical lines of the upper winds and

above the chromatic figuration of the violas, with the seeming purpose of unsettling the tonality

of the section. Starting on the first beat of m. 203, the harp plays a pianissimo A♭ major

arpeggio in triplet sixteenth notes; after the initial consonant chord, the tonality is questioned

with a subsequent F♭ major arpeggio that still maintains the A♭ as the bass note (the

arpeggiated figure also ends on an A♭); the third beat goes back to the original sonority of the

measure. Each following measure uses the same method of creating harmonic instability under

the pedal tone of the basic A♭ harmony. It is a great effect that causes harmonic instability, but

the instrument must compete with the violas, woodwinds, and brass. The sound of the harp can

be better utilized with just a minor dynamic change, but as the music is written, the harp is hardly

49 Hugo Wolf, Penthesilea, Staatskapelle Berlin, Otmar Suitner, conductor, (Berlin Classics, 0090262BC), compact disc.

121 discernable and the listener could miss out on this wonderful sound that further propels the

programmatic, dreamlike atmosphere of the section. Wolf has also been criticized for writing for

instruments beyond their appropriate ranges, which also sometimes makes lines inaudible.

Metzger mentions in his dissertation instances where this occurs: the oboe lines are written too

high (mm. 1–5), the flutes are too high (mm. 71–74) and the piccolos too low (mm. 289–323).50

In my study of the music, I have also noted that a very important melodic line (Motive Vc) in the cellos was written in such a drastically changing range that causes it to be virtually inaudible at

mm. 340–343 and again at mm. 349–351. While it may seem silly to point out a few measures in

a work that spans 946 measures in order to show ineffective orchestration, it perhaps illustrates

the fact that Wolf was inexperienced in his orchestration, and that some of the melodies that

might have been audible are buried in the texture, which is often excessively thick. For example,

starting at m. 103, the music starts to dramatically build in intensity, with rising and falling

crescendos, accents and sforzandos in all the sections with quite different music (Motive IIId

played sporadically among many different lines from the rest of the orchestra) and constantly

changing rhythmic figures. At m. 111 (rehearsal letter G), Wolf doubles some of the musical

lines: the cellos and basses with the horns (which really do not need to be doubled), the second

violins and violas with the oboes and flutes, and the triplet figures of the rest of the winds, while

the first violins soar above everyone else at an excruciatingly high range. The music becomes

thicker and thicker so that it is extremely difficult to hear anything because the melodic lines

cannot break out of the busy background of booming strings and brass. There are other instances

where soloistic lines in the woodwinds cannot be heard above the strings, who could have been

divisi at many points in the music. For example, at mm. 219–226 the winds are practically

inaudible due to the tremolo in the upper strings that covers up the thematic statements in the

50 Metzger, 166–167.

122 upper winds and cellos. Although Wolf was trying to produce the effect of a dream and the

haziness of sleeping (this music is in Section 2–“Penthesilea’s Dream of the Rose Festival”), the

thick texture of the instruments producing the “effect” covers up the important melodies and

themes that are the most important element of the music at that time. It must also be argued that

Wolf was quite possibly trying to reproduce a particular sonority with his doublings and thick texture; while this may be true, it does remain that the score has issues that, if ignored by the conductor, could result in an inaccurate rendering of Wolf’s music. In the battle scenes and at more dramatic parts of the music, the thick and complicated texture is very effective in producing the drama and confusion of war, but in passages that portray love and dreaming, the texture overpowers the specific musical lines. In his criticism, Wolf was very outspoken about the need for proper orchestration and did not hesitate to condemn a work for improper use of instruments; it would seem that he was acutely aware of orchestral sounds when listening to a work, but at the point at which he composed Penthesilea lacked the ability to write for other

instruments at the piano with a thorough knowledge of proper range and utility. Although it is

essentially the conductor’s responsibility for how a score is played, Wolf’s orchestration proves

very challenging and poses difficulty to both conductors and orchestras.

Though there is a certain amount of metric variety (see the discussion of the themes

above), “the monotonous squareness of his rhythmic periods” mars works like Penthesilea.51

Here it contributes to the listener’s difficulty in perceiving the form. The constant, regular meter

felt throughout most of the music does give a sense of forward motion and effective propulsion

of the action, but because it is so pervasive, changes in the mood and situation are often not

foreshadowed. Section 1 is the most unvaried rhythmically, retaining a strong sense of the ¾

meter with mostly all the phrases retaining the same basic four measure structure. Although the

51 Deryck Cooke, “Hugo Wolf,” The Musical Times 101 (1960): 154.

123 tempo does shift abruptly to an almost painful slowness at the beginning of Section II, the meter is still regular. The combination of this metric squareness with the regular phrase structure and the similarity of the themes discussed above makes the aural perception of the form even more difficult.

Conclusions

It should be remembered that Penthesilea was a youthful work, and its many positive aspects reveal his compositional talent and shed light on his potential. He did present themes, develop them, and resolve some of them, giving the listener some sense of finality. The development and recapitulation of Theme IV is particularly successful in achieving the musical development that is vital to a successful work. The interplay of Themes IV and V, particularly on the last page of the score, gives the work an adequate closure to the constant development of the two themes. The melodic ideas present in the work are very interesting and successfully portray the psychological implications of the character. The structure of the work is balanced and the overall form is adequate to the propagation of the program, but the many complications of the work cause the form to be inaudible and not immediately comprehensible.

The major weakness of the work is that Wolf had too many ideas and too little space, i.e. he had enough music for a large-scale symphony. The use of five main themes is too much for a work on this scale. Wolf developed some ideas successfully, but some of the development is often too brief or seemingly unexplained (such as the development of Theme III and its lack of recapitulation). The combination of the themes with other complicated music (the associated motives) keeps the listener from comprehending the themes and their development. Throughout the music, there is so much activity that there is no rest or time to recollect what has happened musically and where it will lead. The huge orchestra is overpowering and the pervasive forte

124 dynamic level is never ending, becoming quite tiresome. Because the music is quite complicated, and the sound is so loud, the listener can get confused and lost, which is perhaps why the music has been unsuccessful with modern audiences.

Chapter 3 analyzed Wolf’s criticism in an effort to determine his compositional aesthetic: what he felt made a composition successful and what musical elements he felt were the most important to a musical work. This chapter has analyzed Wolf’s own composition in an effort to determine what instrumental music he composed and how he carried out his own ideas about music. The following chapter will examine whether or not Wolf adhered to his own compositional precepts.

125 Chapter 5

Conclusion

In the previous chapters, I have analyzed both Wolf’s criticism and his symphonic poem

Penthesilea. From this analysis, it is now possible to look at Wolf’s music from his own aesthetic perspective. The compositional criteria derived from his criticism and established in

Chapter 3 will now be applied to aspects of his music to determine whether or not Wolf adhered to his own aesthetic. This chapter is organized by the aesthetic criteria described in Chapter 3.

The results of this application of criteria to music will serve to answer the questions posed at the

beginning of this thesis.

Originality

In his criticism, Wolf was concerned with newly-invented musical motives that were

developed within a given form through more imaginative methods. He praised music that broke

away from established genres and that did not pander to the popular taste or serve as trivial

entertainment.

Wolf’s Penthesilea was inspired by Kleist’s play, a choice that was original in itself

because it was more common at the time to choose a work, for example, by Shakespeare or

Goethe. Liszt did use some more original programmatic inspirations such as a painting or a

historical event, and Wolf followed his lead in this respect. Penthesilea portrays the

psychological aspects of the heroine within the context of a dramatic story; this also was an

element present in Liszt’s symphonic poems. It is important to note that Wolf praised the work

of Liszt as original and progressive, and it seems that Wolf’s conception of his symphonic poem

sought to uphold the standards already put in place by Liszt. The original ideas present in Wolf’s

126 music are abundant and some are fully realized in musical development; although Wolf did

criticize works that had fanfares and blatantly obvious battle music like the character and melodic line of his own Theme II, this inconsistency in opinion and practice does not negate the originality that is exemplified in many other aspects of the work. The form is one that is not easily comprehensible to the listener but does exemplify the creativity of the composer; the form does have aspects of sonata-form development as seen in the key structure and some of the thematic recapitulation, but it is certainly not a typical sonata form in conception. This work is one that falls out of the mainstream of nineteenth-century absolute music and adheres to Wolf’s ideas about creating works that are more cerebral and stand for more than mere entertainment.

Wolf did adhere to his compositional aesthetic about originality.

Orchestration

Wolf stated the need for proper balance among instruments, and felt it was important for

individual instruments to be properly employed and for the music to be written in suitable range.

Instrumental effects and orchestral color appropriate for the mood of the work were also

important. If the score was too large or if the orchestra was not balanced, Wolf immediately

viewed the music in a bad light.

Penthesilea’s score is appropriate for the character of the piece (depiction of large-scale

battles, etc.). Wolf’s conception of the orchestra showed much originality of thought

(particularly the antiphonal trumpets), but there are instances where the orchestra was incorrectly

employed throughout parts of the work. There are many instances where Wolf wrote music for

some instruments outside of their proper ranges. It seems that Wolf was often unaware of what

the best instrumental ranges were and how to write for an instrument to produce the best sound.

The large forces and frequent doublings can make the sound muddy, and though he may have

127 been trying to create a specific, heavy sonority, some of the score’s interesting moments can be lost if the conductor is not paying attention to balance. It seems that Wolf did not often enough explore the individual intricacies of each instrument and missed a few opportunities to exploit the unique colors of some of the instruments due to heavy orchestration. Wolf’s symphonic poem does have some poignant moments where instrumental effect and evocation of mood due to the coloristic passages of particular instruments is quite effective.

Overall, Wolf did not adhere to his critical criteria and seemed to lack the experience to put his ideas about orchestration into practice.

Genre

Wolf advocated the cultivation of newer forms with adherence to convention and felt that the progress of the newer genres was very important. Original ideas that were developed within a distinct genre made the best compositions.

Wolf believed that the genre of the symphonic poem was itself original such that to tell the story of Penthesilea in a symphonic poem genre did comply with his opinion that this was a genre worthy of being explored by composers. It does seem that Wolf did his best to create a work within the formal constraints of the genre already established by Liszt, particularly in his adherence to a one-movement structure and his efforts to psychologically portray the heroine.

Wolf did adhere to his compositional aesthetic concerning genre.

Form

To Wolf, it was important to see that a composer had an overall plan, that the music went somewhere and that it made sense. The dramatic shape of the music was important; this shape consisted of an initial statement of ideas, a development of these ideas, and a conclusion with a sense of dramatic close. It was most important to have a balanced structure with a viable

128 conclusion, a congruent form that utilized musical invention within an original form. Above all the work should have coherence.

Penthesilea does have a congruent, balanced form that develops the music through

established practice (within this formal constraint), however the form is not easily discernable to

the listener due to deficiencies in other areas of the composition. The music does follow the

scenic structure of the play on which the music is based. The use of a one-movement structure is

consistent with the cultivation of symphonic poem and is appropriate to the dramatic elements of

the story. Wolf used a method of presenting melodic ideas, developing them, and concluding

most of them to give a sense of cohesion to his musical structure. Themes and motives were

placed as structural pillars in the music that serve as guideposts throughout the extra-musical

program. This definitive structure results in an organic work, one that stands on its own through

the use of inner elements that create the form. As a whole, the work is properly developed.

It does seem in most respects that Wolf did adhere to his compositional aesthetic

concerning musical form.

Compositional Techniques

Wolf felt that the exploitation of learned devices and the use of superfluous

ornamentation instead of the addition of fresh ideas resulted in poor, ineffective music. He

criticized the use of extensive counterpoint, which he viewed as a replacement for proper

musical development, and thought that effective dynamics could create drama.

Wolf used methods of thematic development that effectively developed the music and

propelled the drama of both the music and the action of the story. Wolf reworked and adequately

resolved his ideas to a dramatic culmination in Penthesilea. The development of the themes and

motives, along with the use of orchestral effects and other compositional methods, also helped to

129 develop the work dramatically: however, the persistent use of loud dynamics often detracted

from changes in scene or musical situation. Wolf, for the most part, did not require many techniques of the performers beyond what would be standard in a symphonic composition.

There is one instance of contrapuntal development that seems to be an episode of compositional display--an instance of musical interlude that shows how Theme III and its motives can be

combined and how they can play with one another--that might be interpreted as a display of

Wolf’s contrapuntal abilities, but for the most part the music does not contain moments of such pure academic procedure. It does seem that Wolf has made every effort to develop melodic ideas and moments with techniques that perpetuate the drama and character of the work.

Overall, Wolf does adhere to his compositional aesthetic concerning compositional

techniques.

Melody

In his criticism, Wolf praised the use of fresh melodic ideas and the development of these

ideas that did not merely follow convention. He wanted to hear discernable melodies with a

proper musical flow that effectively contributed to the overall character and mood of the work.

He also wanted to see an evolutionary development of these melodies that corresponded to an

overall plan.

Wolf did create melodic lines that fit the character of the situations in the program. The

musical lines flow together well and often create moments of dramatic intensity according to his

preconceived melodic plan. Wolf’s melodic conception was original and unique to this

composition.

It does seem that Wolf did adhere to his compositional aesthetic concerning melodic

conception and development.

130 Themes and Motives

Wolf felt that themes should be developed and reworked rather than being merely

restated throughout the musical work. It was important to have flexible thematic material,

themes that were plastic (malleable) and able to be reshaped and reworked while still retaining a

recognizable form. Wolf also wanted themes with a distinctive character that could recreate a

mood with a simple restatement but could also evolve to a suitable dramatic ending, and he

wanted all the motives associated with them to be integrated into the musical fabric and serve the

composition as a whole.

Wolf’s themes all have distinctive characters, and three of them are related musically and programmatically (Themes I, IV, and V). The development of these themes, particularly of

Themes IV and V, does follow a logical pattern that effectively creates the drama of both the music and the story. The associated motives either share musical characteristics of the main theme (motives of Theme I, IV, and some Theme V motives) or have musical lines intertwined with appearances of the main theme (motives of Theme III and some Theme V motives). The reappearance of some of the themes (particularly Themes I and IV) evokes a distinctive mood and feeling. The problem with Wolf’s symphonic poem is that there are too many thematic ideas; although the themes were obviously conceived to represent key elements of the program, there are too many complicated lines that hinder thematic recollection and recognizability. The use of so many associated motives also creates confusion and results in music that is very complicated and not easily comprehensible. To add to the aural confusion of the numerous themes and motives is the unvarying phrasing of the themes; everything is much too balanced and regular which causes problems in detecting dramatic change. The music is complicated and

131 the themes and motives are equally as complicated which creates an interplay of musical lines

that often has too many layers to aurally distinguish or comprehend.

Wolf did follow his compositional aesthetic concerning thematic conception and retention, but did not adhere to his aesthetic concerning the overall development and perception of the individual musical lines.

Musical Taste and the Purpose of the Music

Wolf advocated music that made people think and that did not serve merely as entertainment. This composition is very cerebral and serves the purpose of dramatic portrayal and psychological insight into the character of Penthesilea; the work is not easily digested and requires repeated hearings and perhaps a study of the score to understand the true nature of the music. Wolf created a work that is not easy to listen to—it is often harsh and loud and strives to portray the story rather than to please the listener’s ear.

Wolf did follow his opinion that music should serve a purpose other than to just entertain.

Harmony

A successful work, in Wolf’s opinion, must have a coherent key structure without unexplained dissonances or key changes. He deemed chromaticism for purposes of situation or dramatic depiction to be appropriate, but felt it should be used in moderation. The use of less traditional key signatures was also advocated by Wolf.

Wolf had an overall tonal plan as seen by his emphasis of three major key areas (f, A♭ and C). There are moments of tonal instability and chromaticism, but there is an underlying harmony that provides a sense of harmonic stability to the work as a whole. The use of dissonances is not extreme and although there are moments of extreme chromaticism that are unprepared with traditional harmonic procedures, they serve as programmatic depictions that do

132 not detract from the overall sense of tonality. Wolf effectively uses dissonances and modulations to express the psychological changes of the main character, therefore giving the dissonances a real purpose rather than serving merely to shock the listener.

Wolf did adhere to his ideas about tonality and harmony.

Program music

To Wolf, it was important that the musical depiction of specific events was effective and believable and that the music told a story. He also felt that the form of the program was important to the overall effectiveness of the piece.

The story of Penthesilea is accurately portrayed by Wolf’s composition: the form of the music outlines the form of Kleist’s play while simultaneously penetrating the psychological development and mental demise of the main character. The music effectively portrays a two- fold battle: war (exemplified by the battle music of Theme II and the overall dominant character of the music) and love (represented by Theme IV). The plan of the music serves the plan of the written drama which can be seen when comparing the actual parts of the music to the actual scenes of the play. Without knowing the program however, it is not as obvious what the music is telling the listener, though that is a common problem of program music.

Wolf did adhere to his aesthetic about program music and the creation of music that told a story effectively.

Rhythm

In Wolf’s criticism, he advocated the use of fresh, original rhythms and music that used appropriate tempos. He favored the use of complicated rhythmic figures over simple phrases.

Wolf did employ some complicated rhythmic figures that, when combined with other figures and musical lines, created a displacement of the regular meter and served as somewhat of

133 a dramatic heightening. There are many instances throughout the work where Wolf stressed the

off-beat of the measure and created some rhythmic displacement. However, Wolf uses an

incessantly regular rhythmic-phrase structure that does not allow for changes needed for purposes of drama. The overall tempo is very quick, which does propel the action of the music, but often detracts from the changes occurring in the drama. The regularity of phrase almost becomes a weakness in the overall dramatic portrayal.

Looking at the overall rhythmic structure reveals that Wolf did not, for the most part, adhere to his ideas about rhythm because the unchanging phrases do not yield to the drama of the music.

Texture

Wolf criticized works that were improperly balanced and that did not use a texture appropriate for the musical situation or that had a thematic texture that was too thick. Wolf thought the texture should be adjusted to fit the character of the work and the current dramatic situation of the music.

Wolf’s symphonic poem has a texture that is excessively thick and over-laden with too much simultaneous activity. Many of the important musical lines are covered up by the background music. There are instances where the texture is effective in portraying lighter moments (such as the beginning of Section 2), but too often too many things are going on in the

“background.” The problem with the music as a whole is that Wolf has too many musical lines playing simultaneously, giving the music a chaotic feeling and covering up some very effective melodies. The pervasive thickness of the musical texture is a much cited weakness of the work.

Wolf did not adhere to his compositional aesthetic concerning texture.

134 Table 5.1. Adherence to Aesthetic Categories

Compositional Element Degree of Adherence Originality completely adheres Orchestration blatant contradictions to aesthetic Genre adheres overall Form overall adherence, but there are some inconsistencies Compositional Techniques adheres overall Melody adheres Themes and Motives both adherence and contradiction to aesthetic Musical Taste/Purpose of Music adheres Harmony adheres Program Music adheres Rhythm does not adhere Texture blatant contradictions to aesthetic

As Table 5.1 indicates, in the areas of originality, genre, melody, musical taste and purpose of music, harmony and program music, Wolf succeeded in writing music that adhered to his aesthetic standards. In the areas of form and compositional techniques, Wolf’s music does uphold his standards for the most part, but there are a few instances of discrepancy. The most blatant contradictions seen between Wolf’s aesthetic ideas and his music are seen in the areas of orchestration and texture: both could have been better if Wolf was more experienced in orchestrating and economizing. Overall, Wolf adhered to his own compositional aesthetic in concept, but not in execution. The music and ideas present in Penthesilea reflect Wolf’s compositional standards because they uphold most of his stated opinions, however because he was so young and inexperienced as a composer, he lacked many of the tools necessary to fully comply with his aesthetic. Had Wolf composed this later in his life or had reworked the composition before he entered the asylum, the music might have more accurately reflected his aesthetic and Penthesilea might have become a compositional success alongside his renowned

Lieder. Nevertheless, it is evident that Wolf had talent in instrumental composition and that his

135 musical standards were justifiable; unfortunately we will never know how great this work could have been.

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144