Conversations with the Past: Hans Pfitzner's" Palestrina" As a Neo

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Conversations with the Past: Hans Pfitzner’s Palestrina as a Neo-Renaissance Opera

A thesis submitted to the

Graduate School

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

Alexander Kroger

B.M.E. Indiana University

June 2016

Committee Chair: Stephen C. Meyer, PhD

Abstract

This thesis examines Act I of Hans Pfitzner’s (1869-1949) seminal opera Palestrina

(1916) and the ways in which the composer references and revives Renaissance style in this work. This project outlines the concept of a “neo-Renaissance” style by placing Pfitzner’s opera in the context of early twentieth-century Germany. Pfitzner’s musical training, particularly at the

Hoch Conservatory, underscores the development of his anti-modernist polemics that continually appeared throughout his music. Contextualizing Pfitzner and Palestrina within the Weimar

Republic and the Third Reich affords a better understanding of how his personal politics and anti-Semitic tendencies factored into his compositional style. Finally, this thesis examines reception of Palestrina, both during and after Pfitzner’s lifetime. Comparing reviews of the opera at two points in the twentieth century—the 1920s and 1990s—will help to demonstrate when Pfitzner enjoyed his greatest levels of popularity, and why this remained limited even at its height.

iii

Acknowledgements

This thesis would not exist in its current form without the help of several people. First, I owe many thanks to my advisor, Dr. Stephen C. Meyer, who helped guide my critical thinking and research throughout this process. I am additionally grateful to the other members of my thesis committee, Dr. Jonathan Kregor and Dr. Stephanie P. Schlagel, who provided valuable and necessary perspectives and helped advance my ideas to a higher level. Finally, I cannot show enough appreciation to my friends, my family, and my wife for continually supporting me at every juncture.

Table of Contents

List of Figures vi

Introduction 1

Chapter 1: Hans Pfitzner and Antecedents to Palestrina 4

Hans Pfitzner at the Hoch Conservatory 4

Bruckner and the Cecilian Movement 6

Palestrina in the Romantic Era 9

Neo-Renaissance 10

Palestrina, the Opera 14

Analyzing Palestrina and Pfitzner 15

Chapter 2: Neo-Renaissance Music in Pfitzner’s Palestrina 21

Chapter 3: The Legacies of Hans Pfitzner and Palestrina 44

Pfitzner’s Palestrina in the 1990s 49

The Future of Pfitzner and Palestrina 52

Bibliography 55

List of Figures

Figure 1: Soprano I, mm. 1–5 of the Pope Marcellus Mass: Kyrie Eleison 18

Figure 2: Bass II, mm. 1–5 of the Pope Marcellus Mass: Kyrie Eleison 18

Figure 3: Solo Violin I, Palestrina, Prelude to Act I, mm. 1–14 19

Figure 4: Violin I, mm. 46–48 22

Figure 5: Silla, five measures before rehearsal 8 23

Figure 6: Oboe, clarinet, and trumpet three measures before rehearsal 12 24

Figure 7: Palestrina’s melody one measure after rehearsal 119 26

Figure 8: Palestrina’s melody five measures after rehearsal 122 27

Figure 9: Contrabassoon and strings three measures after rehearsal 122 28

Figure 10: Solo viola at rehearsal 122 and solo violin and flute in the Act I prelude 29

Figure 11: Excerpt sung by the masters one measure after rehearsal 125 30

Figure 12: Palestrina’s melody three measures before rehearsal 127 31

Figure 13: Masters and double bass at rehearsal 133 32

Figure 14: Palestrina’s melody with orchestral reduction at rehearsal 139 34

Figure 15: Masters excerpt at rehearsal 146 35

Figure 16: Masters excerpt at rehearsal 147 36

Figure 17: Palestrina and strings at rehearsal 161 39

Figure 18a: Angel and Palestrina four measures before rehearsal 162 40

Figure 18b: Superius voice at the beginning of the Pope Marcellus Mass 40

Figure 19: Comparison of “Christe eleison” in Palestrina and the Pope Marcellus Mass 41

vi Introduction

A near contemporary of both Richard Strauss (1864–1949) and Arnold Schoenberg

(1874–1951), Hans Pfitzner (1869–1949) composed Palestrina in 1916 during a time where late

Romantic and early modernist compositional styles overlapped. Although there is not one agreed-upon delineation of where “Romantic music” ends and “post-tonal” or “modern” music begins, Pfitzner’s seminal opera Palestrina occupies this border. The opera can be considered an autobiographical allegory of Pfitzner’s life, paralleling that of the Renaissance composer

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (c. 1525–1594). Central to the synopsis of the opera is the so- called “Palestrina legend” (perhaps better termed the “Pope Marcellus Mass legend”), which describes how Palestrina rescued polyphonic music from the brink of banishment at the Council of Trent in the mid-1500s.1 Scholars tend to suggest that Pfitzner saw himself as a modern-day

Palestrina, whose mission was to preserve a German-Romantic musical idiom amidst the development of more modern, atonal, and even “Jewish” music.2 Much of the current scholarship regarding autobiographical elements in Pfitzner’s Palestrina, however, accepts the central act— colloquially referred to at times as the “Council of Trent scene,” since the entire act takes place at a meeting of the Council of Trent—as the most significant part of Pfitzner’s opera, deeming it the primary lens through which we as the audience witness Palestrina’s success unfold.

However, the first act of Palestrina contains numerous salient moments wherein Pfitzner reveals

1 K. G. Fellerer and Moses Hadas, “Church Music and the Council of Trent,” The Musical Quarterly 39, no. 4 (1953): 587. 2 Michael H. Kater, Composers of the Nazi Era: Eight Portraits (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 148.

his personal struggles through the character of Palestrina, especially regarding his identity and significance as a composer.

In order to explore the historical and autobiographical significance of Palestrina, this thesis is divided into three chapters. The first chapter focuses primarily on the compositional precedents to Palestrina, including the affinity among late Romantic-era composers for

Renaissance music, including, for example, Anton Bruckner and the Cecilian Movement. It will examine Palestrina as an archetypal figurehead of Renaissance music among nineteenth- and twentieth-century composers, as well as his compositional style. Finally, this chapter will explore the meanings behind the term “neo-Renaissance” to understand precisely what compositional techniques Pfitzner uses in Palestrina. This will lay the groundwork for musical analysis in the next chapter.

The second chapter is a detailed musical analysis of the end of Act I of the opera, the section of the work that refers most directly to Renaissance musical styles. There is lack of research over several significant components at this juncture in Palestrina, which includes musical elements composed in a neo-Renaissance musical style. The first act of Palestrina is ripe for musical analysis, and evinces Pfitzner’s use of the neo-Renaissance composing style, one which appeared throughout Europe in the early twentieth century. This chapter will reference

Acts II and III for contextualization purposes. Although the analysis will examine Act I in its totality, the focus will be on the portion of Act I in which the character Palestrina becomes inspired by the ghosts of earlier Renaissance composers and writes the Pope Marcellus Mass.

Palestrina—and by extension, Pfitzner—enjoyed only a relatively brief popularity in the several years following his opera, but was then largely forgotten and relegated to small circles of fans within Germany until a modest Pfitzner revival in the 1990s. The final chapter of this thesis

will analyze this reception, placing it in the context of the neo-Renaissance style in order to understand the anti-modernist polemics of Hans Pfitzner and the limited success of his opera

Palestrina.

3 Chapter 1: Hans Pfitzner and Antecedents to Palestrina

Hans Pfitzner at the Hoch Conservatory

Hans Pfitzner (1869–1949) was born in Moscow but moved to Germany, his family’s native land, during his early childhood years. His father was one of his earliest musical influences, serving as the director of Frankfurt’s Stadttheater orchestra. Pfitzner’s most formative musical training occurred at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt, where he learned piano and composition from James Kwast and Iwan Knorr.1

The Hoch Conservatory was a relatively young institution when Pfitzner arrived. Dr.

Joseph Hoch founded the school of music in Frankfurt in 1878, where the developing Hans

Pfitzner studied a short while later, from 1886–1890.2 This quickly became a conservatory of acclaim, where Clara Schumann and Engelbert Humperdinck taught, in addition to serving star musicians such as Paul Hindemith, Hans von Bülow, Theodor Adorno, and Otto Klemperer.3

The Hoch Conservatory was notoriously part of the “conservative Romantic” movement that rejected the New German School. The director of the Hoch Conservatory during Pfitzner’s years there was Bernhard Scholz, who was a strong opponent of the New German School, and favored composers like Brahms, who embodied a more conservative compositional style in the second half of the nineteenth century. Pfitzner occasionally came into conflict with these ideals. As a student, he wrote a cello concerto that angered Scholz, who criticized the concerto for having

1 Peter Franklin, “Hans Pfitzner,” Grove Music Online, accessed June 30, 2018, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com.proxy.libraries.uc.edu/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/97815 61592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000021537. 2 Ibid. 3 Ingo Negwer, “Zukunftsweisende Investition in musikalische Ausbildung sichert Bestand eines traditionsreichen Frankfurter Instituts,” Online Musik Magazin (6 February 2002), accessed October 16, 2018, http://www.omm.de/feuilleton/hochs-konservatorium.html#TOP.

Wagnerian tendencies such as “harmonic irregularities” and scoring for three trombones.4 As evidenced by this example, Pfitzner did not simply position himself as a strictly conservative,

Brahmsian composer. Instead, he often found himself at odds with conservative and progressive compositional philosophies and did not fit the mold of one school of thought.

Palestrina is a prime example of an opera in which Pfitzner’s pluralistic styles are on display. Throughout the opera, Pfitzner employs many different compositional techniques. While he embodies modernist, Wagnerian tendencies, especially concerning harmony and orchestration, his training at the Hoch Conservatory was clearly influential in his desire to reference the older style of the Renaissance, as if to reminisce on a past “pinnacle” of musical expression. Pfitzner composed Palestrina in 1916, a point at which most Brahmsian-like compositions had fallen out of favor and Wagnerian-like compositions were giving way to neoclassical and twelve-tone music. As a historical figure, Palestrina occupied the late sixteenth century, the twilight of the Renaissance, much in the same way that Pfitzner, while writing

Palestrina, occupied the twilight of the Romantic era.

Pfitzner’s musical training at the Hoch Conservatory instilled much of his anti-modernist proclivities on display in Palestrina. While the Romantic and Modern eras of music share plenty of overlap, Pfitzner in 1916 was distant from the early, more conservative era of Romantic music. Palestrina is therefore situated in the 1910s as being a somewhat retrospective composition, presenting a convincingly Romantic idiom and seeming much more hesitant to broach contemporary compositional styles.

4 Franklin, “Hans Pfitzner,” Grove Music Online.

Bruckner and the Cecilian Movement

One leading figure in the practice of mixing compositional techniques was Anton

Bruckner, whose motets help to shape the idea of “neo-Renaissance,” that is, a style in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that at once emulated styles of certain Renaissance composers, especially Palestrina, while also departing from the strict conventions advocated by the Cecilian movement.

Though his contact with Pfitzner was limited at best, Bruckner serves as a good basis for comparison of a late-nineteenth century composer who, like Pfitzner, occupied a space between older and newer styles of composition. His small sacred works, particularly his motets, highlight the fraught relationship he had with the ideals of the Cecilian movement, the late nineteenth- century impulse to advocate for the reform of Catholic church music.5 Bruckner did not universally conform to the ideals set forth by this movement, which rejected solo singing with orchestral accompaniment, and instead sought to prioritize Gregorian chant, a cappella polyphony, and the use of the organ, a significant exception to the de-emphasis of instrumental accompaniment.6 The tenets of the Cecilian movement, eventually centered in the German city

Regensburg, revived the ideals of the Council of Trent of the mid-sixteenth century, during which the Catholic church similarly pushed back against the “liberalization” of music. Many composers and musicians in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, including proponents of the Cecilian movement, viewed Palestrina, whose works were published in a

5 Siegfried Gmeinwieser, “Cecilian Movement,” Grove Music Online, accessed March 5, 2018, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com.proxy.libraries.uc.edu/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/97815 61592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000005245?rskey=KPF3sc&result=1. 6 Ibid.

complete edition under Franz Haberl between 1862 and 1903, as the “leading figure in church music.”7

Bruckner published many of his Cecilian-era motets while he was in Vienna (1869–

1892). Although he is a composer closely associated with the Cecilian movement, he did not always embody its ideals, and preferred instead “a balanced mixture of the best aspects of the old and the new.”8 His motets Christus factus est (WAB 10), Os justi (WAB 30), and Virga Jesse floruit (WAB 52) are all emblematic of the ways in which Bruckner bridged old and new compositional techniques, and demonstrate how he used counterpoint.

Christus factus est, completed in 1873, was Bruckner’s first small sacred work composed while in Vienna. The motet opens with sopranos and altos singing in unison set against a contrapuntal violin I and II accompaniment. This style of writing at the beginning aligns with the late nineteenth and early twentieth century views on Palestrina, which revere the directionality of melodic lines and their prioritization over vertical chords. This composition espouses a mix of old and new styles: the old style of linear-thinking counterpoint à la Palestrina, set against the

“new” repudiation of polyphony. In measure 13, Bruckner again references the older

Renaissance practice of fugato, at the line “propter quod et Deus.”9 Finally, Christus factus est plays on modality: beginning at measure 32, the text “quod est super omne nomen” (“which is a name [Christ] above all names”) ascends over a pedal A-flat up an E-flat major scale, finally reaching a C major cadence, an unexpected resolution in the flat-heavy key area.10

7 Ibid. 8 A. Crawford Howie, “Bruckner and the Motet,” in The Cambridge Companion to Bruckner, ed. John Williamson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 58. 9 Ibid., 59. 10 Ibid., 59.

In contrast Bruckner’s Os justi, composed in 1879 for the feast of St. Augustine at the invitation of Ignaz Traumihler, director of the St. Florian abbey choir and someone whom

Bruckner revered, most strongly aligns with the Cecilian philosophy. Bruckner stressed the

“deliberately archaic style of the piece, underlining the avoidance of sharps, flats, seventh chords, and other ‘modern’ features.”11 Bruckner suggests the Lydian mode at times by repeatedly presenting B-natural instead of B-flat.12 After the first phrase (measure 9) the piece transitions into a fugal section which has motion toward a cadence on G at measure 42.

Bruckner wrote his well-known motet Virga Jesse floruit (WAB 52) in September of

1885 after a visit to St. Florian.13 He demonstrates his desire to blend elements of old and new in this piece by integrating homophonic and polyphonic textures throughout the four-part choir.

Bruckner reads the word “floruit” (“has blossomed”) madrigalistically, as the plainchant-like opening section “literally blossoms . . . in the two opening phrases.”14 In measures 49–51 the music reaches its first climax, a simple yet effective C minor cadence.15 Immediately following this cadence, Bruckner makes use of much longer, expanded phrases on “Alleluia,” demonstrating not only the “blossoming” of the piece but also the departure from the stricter, condensed polyphony at the beginning of the movement.

Bruckner’s compositional style points to a larger trend in both reimagining Renaissance music and in identifying Palestrina as the pivotal figure of that era toward whom many Romantic composers looked and emulated. Bruckner espoused the “popular contemporary perception of

11 Ibid., 60. 12 In the Edition Peters manuscript, the piece is subtitled “Lydisch,” again confirming Bruckner’s focus on strict modality. 13 Howie, “Bruckner and the Motet,” 61. 14 Ibid., 61. 15 Ibid., 62.

Palestrina as official historical representative (at least in the contrapuntal realm) of Roman

Catholic church music.”16 While Pfitzner was not by any means a protégé of Bruckner, he followed Bruckner’s practice of reviving the Renaissance and deeming Palestrina its figurehead.

Palestrina in the Romantic Era

As evidenced by Bruckner, nineteenth- and twentieth-century composers, historians, and audiences held Renaissance music, especially Palestrina, in extremely high regard. Palestrina’s music became an archetype of sixteenth-century polyphony, and was elevated to nearly the same level of admiration as Bach. Modern scholars have commented on the sound of sacred sixteenth- century music as it was heard by audiences in the Romantic era, noting that “the polyphony of

Palestrina . . . was simple, natural, unaffected, unadorned.”17 In many accounts, Palestrina’s music is the epitome of what sacred, polyphonic music of the sixteenth century should sound like. With few exceptions, his music is “described . . . in terms of glowing if vague admiration.”18

Pfitzner codified his musical style in his 1920 essay Die neue Aesthetik der musikalischen

Impotenz: Ein Verwesungssympton? (The New Aesthetic of Musical Impotence: A Symptom of

Decay?). On the elements of music, Pfitzner writes,

Melody is already a composition (tone and rhythm), as well as harmony (sound and tone), and the real elements are therefore due to two indivisible ones: sound (the number of oscillations) . . . and time (rhythm). These two elements correspond to two essences of being that music is capable of as art: expression of

16 Paul Hawkshaw, “Bruckner’s large sacred compositions,” in The Cambridge Companion to Bruckner, ed. John Williamson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 50. 17 James Haar, “Music of the Renaissance as Viewed by the Romantics,” in Music in Context: Essays for John M. Ward, ed. Anne Dhu Shapiro (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985), 129. 18 Haar, “Music of the Renaissance,” 368.

empathy, as the ability to create images in the soul, images in the imagination, and architectonics, as the ability to extract . . . a form from time.19

By saying that “melody is already a composition,” Pfitzner reinforces Palestrina’s approach of composing music in a linear fashion, focusing on the melodic trajectory of the line and not simply progressing from one vertical chord to the next. This does not imply that both composers devalued the importance of harmony, but rather that clear and precise harmony could not exist without a properly constructed melody. Pfitzner also describes harmony as “sound and tone,” suggesting that harmony is not merely a byproduct of polyphony, but rather a way to further emphasize the melodic goal of a composition. Perhaps the most important reference in this excerpt is to “architectonics,” or simply the science of architecture, possibly referring to the long-range tonal planning found in many Renaissance compositions and a technique revered by late Romantic composers. This long-range tonal planning is present in Palestrina, with the overarching key of D minor that reappears throughout the entire opera, including at the beginning and end. This lays the foundation for how nineteenth- and twentieth-century composers emulated and deviated from traditional Renaissance writing, becoming writers in a

“neo-Renaissance” idiom.

Neo-Renaissance

Before analyzing neo-Renaissance musical elements of Palestrina, it is important to understand the concept “neo-Renaissance,” one that is not formally defined in sources such as

The Oxford Dictionary of Music. For the purposes of analyzing Pfitzner and Palestrina, “neo-

Renaissance” will be an overarching term used to describe the ways in which Pfitzner both

19 Hans Pfitzner, Die neue Aesthetik der musikalischen Impotenz: ein Verwesungssympton? (Munich: Verlag der Süddeutschen Monatshefte, 1920), 37.

adheres to and deviates from the style of the Renaissance. This comprises identifying the musical and textual elements in Palestrina that are evocative and referential to Renaissance composing, and elements that characterize the piece as an early-twentieth century composition. As mentioned earlier, Pfitzner’s musical training at the Hoch Conservatory led him to compose in an older Romantic style. However, Pfitzner truly composes within the space of two styles:

Renaissance and Modern. By having this distinction in place, analysis of Palestrina can then identify the ways in which Pfitzner both expresses reverence for the Renaissance style and creates his own compositional identity.

In his book Palestrina and the German Romantic Imagination: Interpreting Historicism in Nineteenth-Century Music (2002), James Garratt discusses how and when Palestrina became emblematic of the late-Renaissance style and later venerated by nineteenth- and twentieth- century composers. One of the earliest figures Garratt attributes as influential in elevating

Palestrina is the German writer E. T. A. Hoffmann, who raises awareness of Palestrina and creates a “historical conception” of church music.20 Hoffmann, according to Garratt, takes the

“Council of Trent legend” to heart, focusing greatly on the historical importance of the Pope

Marcellus Mass and crediting it as the catalyst to a “golden age of . . . Italian church music.”21

Hoffmann writes,

With Palestrina began what is indisputably the most glorious period in church music (and therefore music in general); in ever-increasing richness it maintained its pious dignity and strength for almost two hundred years, although it cannot be denied that even in the first century after Palestrina that lofty inimitable simplicity and dignity sank into a sort of elegance for which composers strove.22

20 James Garratt, Palestrina and the German Romantic Imagination: Interpreting Historicism in Nineteenth-Century Music (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 40. 21 Ibid., 40. 22 Ibid., 40.

Hoffmann clearly idealizes Palestrina’s compositional style, praising his balance of richness and simplicity that has been admired by others. He suggests that this mastery is why Palestrina became a lasting idiom well into the nineteenth century.

Beyond music, Garratt also suggests that the historicity of Palestrina is equally, if not more responsible for his acclaim, writing, “Palestrina’s stature, vouchsafed by the supposed role of the Missa Papae Marcelli in the deliberations of the Council of Trent, thus enabled him to be elevated as a universal ideal.”23 Garratt suggests that Palestrina’s compositional style embodied in the legend of the Pope Marcellus Mass is precisely what inspired later generations of composers to write about and in the style of Palestrina.

A key figure in securing Palestrina’s legacy was the theorist Johann Joseph Fux, who codified Palestrina’s style, part of what was later known as the stile antico, in his 1725 treatise

Gradus ad Parnassum. This treatise was especially significant in the early nineteenth century because of the limited access to Palestrina’s music at that time. As Hoffmann and others did not have full collections available to reference Palestrina’s music, Fux’s codification of the

Palestrina style served as a cornerstone representation of his style.

Several nineteenth-century writers describe what Palestrina did well musically to elevate his music above other contemporary Renaissance composers. Hoffmann and jurist Anton

Friedrich Justus Thibaut both emphasize Palestrina’s use of “successions of consonant triads.”24

Franz Xaver Witt, a nineteenth-century priest, composer, and essayist, who was a strong supporter of the Cecilian Movement, argued that Palestrina excelled especially in the Gloria and

Credo movements of his masses, “where the length of text compelled him to set it succinctly.”25

23 Ibid., 42. 24 Ibid., 42. 25 Ibid., 148.

Witt also praised moments where Palestrina included homophony in large works as “the perfect fusion of aesthetic quality and liturgical suitability.”26 A. W. Ambros “focused on the numerous devices deployed in order to animate [the Pope Marcellus Mass’] predominantly homophonic, and thus textually intelligible, texture.”27 Homophony quickly emerges, in Garratt’s opinion, as one of the most celebrated elements of Palestrina’s compositional style, and becomes another dimension of the “neo-Renaissance” present in Hans Pfitzner’s opera.

Witt highlighted three works that stand out as the “summit of Renaissance church music,” including Palestrina’s Stabat mater dolorosa and Pope Marcellus Mass, and Orlande de Lassus’ motet Justorum animae.28 He regards the Christe of the Pope Marcellus Mass as “one of the greatest musical masterpieces” and the Crucifixus as “the finest setting of this text by a

Renaissance composer.”29 The Kyrie of the Pope Marcellus Mass alternates rhythmic polyphony with homophonic fauxbourdon-like passages, and this is, according to Witt, what makes

Palestrina’s church music so profound.30

There is a somewhat reciprocal relationship between the historical legend of Palestrina’s

Pope Marcellus Mass and the concrete compositional changes Palestrina made during and after the Council of Trent. Thus, a logical alternation of homophony and clear, measured polyphony seem to be elements of a neo-Renaissance style. But in addition to concrete musical elements, there is also a historical neo-Renaissance. The Pope Marcellus Mass legend—on which

Pfitzner’s entire opera Palestrina is based—has everything to do with Palestrina’s standing

26 Ibid., 148. 27 Ibid., 115. 28 Ibid., 148. 29 Ibid., 148. 30 Ibid., 149.

among Romantic composers as does his music. Indeed, the narrative of this legend appears pervasively throughout Pfitzner’s opera.

Palestrina, the Opera

Palestrina, in three acts, is often cited as an “artist-opera,” in which the plot is centered around the life of one artist.31 The opera traces the personal struggles, isolation, and eventual triumphs of Palestrina as he composes the Pope Marcellus Mass.

Act I in particular highlights many of the older compositional styles with which Pfitzner identified and demonstrates his clear affinity for the Palestrina style. Near the end of the act,

Palestrina is at a personal low point, struggling to write his Pope Marcellus Mass, which, according to legend, would be the piece brought forth to the Council of Trent to save polyphony from being banished from the liturgy. In a scene full of fantastical elements, angels descend from

Heaven and sing in chorus to Palestrina a reimagined version of the Pope Marcellus Mass. It contains noticeably intact melodic lines but simultaneously embodies musical forms and techniques more characteristic of the turn of the twentieth century. Following the encounter with the angels, a group of ghosts of past Renaissance composers come to the fore, speaking directly to Palestrina. There is a wealth of material to analyze in this scene, referred to in this thesis as the

“inspiration scene,” including Pfitzner’s use of the Pope Marcellus Mass recast in a modern compositional style.

31 Claire Taylor-Jay, The Artist-Operas of Pfitzner, Krenek and Hindemith: Politics and the Ideology of the Artist (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2004), 7.

Analyzing Palestrina and Pfitzner

Knud Jeppesen’s 1939 book Counterpoint: The Polyphonic Vocal Style of the Sixteenth

Century sheds light on the reverence with which Palestrina continued to be held in the early twentieth century as a leading figure of the Renaissance. This book, a work contemporary with

Pfitzner’s active years, gives some insight into why composers like Pfitzner held Palestrina in such high regard, and why Palestrina was a fitting subject for an artist-opera. Of acclaim, according to Jeppesen, is Palestrina’s contrapuntal style. He writes in his preface that “from the style of Palestrina we can learn best what has always been the highest goal of the study of counterpoint.”32 Jeppesen notes how Palestrina (and Bach, the other composer he reveres) preserved the melodic independence of polyphonic voices.33

Jeppesen references Ernst Kurth’s contemporaneous essay Grundlagen des linearen

Kontrapunkts (Basics of Linear Counterpoint) in which Kurth provides his definition of counterpoint: “The essence of the theory of counterpoint is how two or more lines can unfold simultaneously in the most unrestrained melodic development, not by means of the chords but in spite of them.”34 This reinforces what Jeppesen understands as the core of good contrapuntal writing, which is the independence of musical lines. He mentions how Palestrina was especially talented at composing music in a linear rather than vertical fashion. In other words, rather than thinking of two or more lines as a series of chords progressing, Palestrina prioritized the trajectory of each line, while still making the vertical chords function according to the “rules” of

32 Knud Jeppesen and Glen Haydon, Counterpoint: The Polyphonic Vocal Style of the Sixteenth Century (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1939), ix. 33 Ibid., x. 34 Ernst Kurth, Grundlagen des Linearen Kontrapunkts (Berlin: Max Hesses Verlag, 1922), 143.

the sixteenth century. Jeppesen also praises Palestrina’s “economy of style,” noting how in his music, Palestrina creates a “fundamental contrast between consonance and dissonance.”35

Jeppesen published his book twenty-three years after Pfitzner wrote Palestrina, and it is an undoubtedly dated source in twenty-first century terms. But Jeppesen nevertheless captures sentiments of the early twentieth century. He writes, “Today [1939], the large complete edition of Palestrina’s work is available. . . . It is perfectly natural that we should have far more accurate knowledge concerning Palestrina’s style than was the be gleaned in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.”36

Jeppesen also outlines the core practices of Palestrina’s melodic and harmonic style in his book. He attempts to codify the rules to which Palestrina adhered, thereby demonstrating the model for late-Renaissance style emulated in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

This suggests that operas like Pfitzner’s Palestrina were not isolated retrospectives of the

Renaissance, but rather part of a larger trend in music. His book also tangentially addresses the ways in which twentieth-century compositions departed from earlier conventions popular in late

Romantic music.

Jeppesen is clear in his book about the prioritization of melody over harmony in

Palestrina’s compositional style. In Palestrina’s style, harmony functions almost as a by-product of melody, a device used to clarify melodic intentions, rather than to function for its own sake.

Palestrina uses major and minor seconds and thirds, along with perfect fourths, fifths, and octaves (and ascending minor sixths) as his primary melodic intervals, while avoiding augmented and diminished intervals.37 Palestrina, in his concept of overall sound, avoids a

35 Jeppesen, Counterpoint, xiii. 36 Ibid., xv. 37 Ibid., 83.

certain amount of rigidity, preferring “free, prose-like rhythms.”38 This does not mean, however, that Palestrina’s compositions avoided any sense of balance, as this was key in his works, and

“no one element could be emphasized at the expense of another; everything must work together smoothly and harmoniously.”39 This is also suggestive of the order and stability evident in

Palestrina’s music and prized by composers like Pfitzner in the unstable early twentieth century.

Jeppesen writes, “the melodic form of Palestrina is . . . entirely in accordance with the constant striving toward balance and harmonic rest characteristic of this style.”40

One of the most characteristic elements of Palestrina’s compositional style is his economy of writing. A typical contour of a Palestrina melodic line leaps in one direction followed by stepwise motion in the opposing direction. For instance, this melodic trope is immediately present in the beginning of the Pope Marcellus Mass. In measure 1, Soprano I sings its first iteration of “Kyrie eleison,” starting on D, leaping upwards of a fourth to a G, and then descending in a stepwise motion to fill in the gap created by the initial leap (Figure 1). This motion is present in each part, as in the Bass II (Figure 2), which begins its first “Kyrie” on a G, ascends to a C, and then descends by step.

38 Ibid., 83. 39 Ibid., 83. 40 Ibid., 85.

Figure 1: Soprano I, mm. 1–5 of the Pope Marcellus Mass: Kyrie Eleison.

Figure 2: Bass II, mm. 1–5 of the Pope Marcellus Mass: Kyrie Eleison.

This contour of leaping, then filling in gaps is immediately present in Pfitzner’s Prelude to Act I of Palestrina. In mm. 1–15 (Figure 3), violin I and flute I, in unison, present a succession of four ascending leaps consisting of a fifth, a seventh, and two leaps of an octave, all spanning D4 to D6. The moment the flute and violin reach the high D, they proceed to gradually descend stepwise roughly to their initial point of departure.41 Thus, Pfitzner directly implies

Palestrina’s style from the beginning of his opera.

41 The first note played by flute I and violin I is D4, then at the end of the phrase, they come to rest on G4. This does not technically “close the gap completely,” but the initial D4 serves as a pickup to an A4. Thus, if A4 is considered as the true “first note” of the phrase, then the flute and violin have filled in all the initial ascending gaps.

Figure 3: Solo violin I, Palestrina, Prelude to Act I, mm. 1–14. The flute I excerpt during these measures is nearly identical.

This example also illustrates the ways in which Pfitzner deviates from Palestrina’s style, reinforcing the idea of neo-Renaissance writing. He begins this phrase with four leaps of either a fifth, a seventh, or an octave. This is a reinterpretation of the Palestrina style, which typically would only begin with one leap and then descend stepwise. Pfitzner’s choice of intervals is also notable: while the ascents of fifths and octaves would not resonate with Renaissance aesthetics, his leap from an E up to a D, a seventh above (mm. 1–2), stands in much sharper relief to the

Palestrina style. Similarly, the phrase mm. 9.3–14, beginning with the G5, descends by step down a G natural minor scale. Thus, it appears that Pfitzner’s musical material from the beginning up to the start of this phrase is a long expansion of a Palestrina leap, and that not until measure 9 does the more characteristic stepwise “filling in the notes” descent begin.

Jeppesen concludes his chapter on Palestrina’s style with a small editorial which, in the context of the late 1930s (when he first published Counterpoint), reflects a trend in the early twentieth century against overt grandiose writing, an ideal which Pfitzner espoused:

Melodies which continually try to be impressive by the use of excessive movement and the like, are no more able to express genuine emotion than an orchestra can give the impression of real power by constantly playing fortissimo.

As in other fields, so here too: he alone will attain really genuine and deep expression who understands the art of restraint.42

The essence of Jeppesen’s argument here and throughout his book is that Palestrina was a master in his economy of writing. Though his compositions were in no sense minimalistic, every melodic line was so thoughtfully planned that nothing was superfluous, and every note had meaning behind it. This argument, whether intentional or not, seems retaliatory against late

Romanticism, which anecdotally embodied excess and lushness. Now in the early twentieth century, Palestrina has become the archetype of a balanced, orderly style of composing, which

Pfitzner emulates while writing Palestrina.

Pfitzner’s compositional techniques in Act I of Palestrina are the subject of the next chapter. Using the concept of “neo-Renaissance,” it will compare Pfitzner’s vocal and instrumental writing with Palestrina’s style in the Pope Marcellus Mass, considering melody, harmony, rhythm, and text. Settings of selected passages in Pfitzner’s libretto will be considered both as individual lines and as whole harmonic units. The primary purpose of this analysis is to note the ways in which Pfitzner directly emulates Palestrina’s style and the Pope Marcellus

Mass, and the ways in which Pfitzner composes in a distinctly neo-Renaissance style. Beyond this comparison, the next chapter will also use the juxtaposition of “Palestrina elements” and

“Pfitzner elements” of compositional style to highlight the ways in which Pfitzner appears to be caught in between composing in the “old” and “new” styles he found himself conflicted with while at the Hoch Conservatory. In this way, we may use neo-Renaissance analysis of Palestrina to draw new autobiographical connections between Palestrina and Pfitzner.

42 Jeppesen, Counterpoint, 97.

20 Chapter 2: Neo-Renaissance Music in Pfitzner’s Palestrina

Act I of Palestrina is rife with Renaissance allusions, both musically and textually.

Pfitzner’s compositional style demonstrates a reverence for Palestrina, as discussed in chapter one. This chapter will examine numerous musical excerpts in Act I that demonstrate Pfitzner’s neo-Renaissance idiom by highlighting compositional characteristics that resemble those of

Palestrina, allude to Renaissance writing, or make overt references to the Renaissance. While various moments in Act I are overviewed, this chapter focuses on Act I, Scenes 5 and 6. Scene 5 comprises the “ghosts scene,” referring to the moments when the ghosts of the past Renaissance masters visit Palestrina. Scene 6 is the “inspiration scene,” the point at which a group of angels descend on Palestrina and inspire him to write the Pope Marcellus Mass. These two scenes, which fall in the latter third of Act I, contain a wealth of neo-Renaissance writing, as Pfitzner copiously references the Renaissance through both his music and libretto.

Although one should take into careful consideration the notion that Palestrina reads as an autobiographical metaphor for Pfitzner (he never explicitly affirmed this about the opera), there is still a wealth of storytelling by Pfitzner reflective of his own experiences. Scenes 5 and 6 in the first act lend valuable insights into Pfitzner’s life and demonstrate how he was torn between older and newer schools of thought while at the Hoch Conservatory. Furthermore, these scenes embody Pfitzner as a composer during the turbulent era of World War I, at the end of the departing Romantic era.

The prelude to Act I of Palestrina begins with open harmonies that suggest a Renaissance setting. Four solo violins and four solo flutes begin playing the primary theme, which consists of ascending fourths, fifths, and octaves, an immediate reference of ancient music, perhaps in its purest, Pythagorean form. The prelude remains solidly in D minor, a key that evokes a somber

and almost hopeless affect. Pfitzner is extremely conservative with leading tones, some of the strongest reinforcements of a key, lending a Dorian quality to the music here. The only places where the C-sharp leading tone is on display are at the ends of major phrases, such as in measure

47, where a run of four sixteenth-notes reinforces a cadential D (C-sharp–D–E–F, then falling back to D, see Figure 4).

Figure 4: Violin I, mm. 46–48.

The prelude ends with a sustained C in the clarinet layered with interjections of open arpeggios in the strings. The music here suggests a shift of tonality and reflects a more optimistic change in character.

During the first scene, Silla, Palestrina’s student, sings about how he will soon be leaving his “venerable master” to travel to Trent. He alludes to his upcoming journey twice (“The very thought of Florence and its gaiety sets my being free from the yoke of mediocrity” // “There lies my Rome!”). When Silla sings “Da liegt mein Rom!,” he lands in the new key of G-flat major, a far distance from the C major key area that opened the first scene. Here, the music becomes lush and embellished, the first moment when the entire orchestra plays all at once. Until this point, much of the orchestral material has been very fragmented. By uniting the orchestra on the word

“Rome,” Pfitzner strongly suggests the notion of Rome (i.e., the Vatican) as a unifying force for

Catholicism. Silla further reinforces Rome as the anchor of Christianity by following “Rome!” with “Venerable spot, so old yourself, well may you guard the old! Defend, with fire and sword,

like your religion, the old traditions of your art as well.” Pfitzner is transparent here in his admiration for the preservation of the “old,” symbolized by Rome, and by association,

Catholicism and Renaissance music.

Silla’s next line is also the first utterance of Palestrina’s name in the opera. He sings, “Let aged Palestrina guard them [the traditions] . . .” At the end of the phrase, “. . . die alte Tradition.

Die laß vom alten Palestrina hüten,” the orchestra lands on a hefty C major chord. The basses play a low C, and the pulsating quarter notes of the orchestra’s thick texture seem to emulate the sound of an organ, another reference to music of the church. Pfitzner’s instruction here is

“Immer Tendenz zur Breite” (“Always with a tendency to breadth”), indicating that these pulsating chords should have very broad strokes. After “Tradition,” Silla speaks Palestrina’s name, outlining an A minor chord. The descending fifth motion here is indicative of the openness of Renaissance harmony (Figure 5).

Figure 5: Five measures before rehearsal 8, Silla sings the first occurrence of Palestrina's name.

In Act I, Scene 2, Silla and Ighino, Palestrina’s fictional son, are in dialogue, a section that stands out because of how Pfitzner foreshadows the concept of polyphony so central to the story of Palestrina:

Ighino, when we sing in the choir, I the alto part, you the treble, sweating over the awkward things high learning has devised, aren’t we like donkeys harnessed to the same yoke?1

This section contains continuous pizzicato sixteenth notes in the strings and harps, which play a line in thirds that rises and falls. A small “choir” of oboe, clarinet, and trumpet, a trio that would not exist in the Renaissance, plays while this is happening (Figure 6). When Silla sings “Altus ich” (“I the alto”), he shares the same notes (C–B–D) as the oboe. Then, when he sings “du den

Diskant” (“you the treble”), the notes C–A (on “Diskant”) directly align with the trumpet. In this way, Pfitzner is painting this choir of oboes, clarinets, and trumpets to pair with the dialogue

Silla and Ighino are having, but it is largely obscured by this string section which, though not all playing the same note, is largely in unison in its rhythms and contours. This appears symbolic of the struggle between monophony (the group of strings) and polyphony (the wind choir).

Figure 6: The choir of oboe, clarinet, and trumpet three measures before rehearsal number 12.

Ighino responds to Silla, “daß junges Leben alter Zeiten uns wie durch Zauber nahe rückt” (“the youthful life of times long past seems magically to be born again”). The word

“Leben” (“life”) occurs on the highest note of this passage, sung on a high G. There is of course

1 Hans Pfitzner, Palestrina: Full Score (Mainz: B. Schott’s Söhne, 1951), 34–5.

some literality in this line, with the inclusion of “born again” as a definition of the word

“Renaissance.” Pfitzner frames the Renaissance here in a positive light, suggesting how it is the

“youthful life” for which Palestrina is searching. This is reinforced further in much of the dialogue between Silla and Ighino: the idea that Palestrina, while achieving fame, has only brought jealousy and resentment upon himself from others, and he has not escaped poverty and unhappiness. Ighino sings, “And what is it his fame has brought him but his colleagues’ envy and their open treachery?” When Ighino later sings “meinem Vater” (“my father”), the word “Vater” once again spans a descending fifth, just like the very first mention of “Palestrina” that spanned an E to an A (here, “Vater” spans an E-flat to an A-flat). Throughout this entire scene, Pfitzner foregrounds Palestrina’s pain, suffering, and search for purpose through Silla and Ighino’s dialogue.

Pfitzner references Palestrina’s compositional techniques throughout Act I, intensifying the use of neo-Renaissance elements as the act progresses. The “ghost scene,” marked by the appearance of the ghosts of past Renaissance composers, occurs during Act I, Scene 5. Just prior to the arrival of these masters (Die Meister, as they are identified in the score), Palestrina is in his deepest point of despair. In one of the most poignant passages of the act, he laments the death of his wife:

Lucrezia, when you were still alive I was secure. Yes, then the source was still alive, and while it lived, my life still had its worth. Why was my love not strong enough to keep you ever near to me? How sad and weak love is.2

At this dark moment for Palestrina, we observe numerous exchanges between Pfitzner’s neo-

Renaissance references and a more modern, post-Romantic style. When he sings “Lucrezia, when you were still alive I was secure,” Palestrina and the orchestra comfortably and confidently

2 Ibid., 168–9.

linger on a very dolce A major triad for several measures. Pfitzner’s use of solidly triadic harmonies invokes this sense of security about which Palestrina sings. Pfitzner further emulates

Palestrina’s quintessential gesture of leaping upward, followed by filling in the space with descending motion, a trope that repeatedly occurs throughout the opera. Pfitzner demonstrates this technique even more strongly beginning at m. 6, in the setting of the next line of text, “Ja, da sprang der Quell, und weil er sprang, war mir das Leben wert” (“Yes, then the source was still alive, and while it lived, my life still had its worth”) See figure 7.

Figure 7: Palestrina’s melody one measure after rehearsal 119 (note that while Pfitzner does not indicate a key in the score, the music here moves from A to B major).

Pfitzner maintains the archetypical shape of leaping upward followed by contrary stepwise motion. But whereas in the measures prior Pfitzner keeps the ensemble solidly in A major, the line beginning with “Ja” starts on the pitch E, falling to an A-sharp, then leaping up to D-sharp and back to B, then finally from B up to G-sharp, descending stepwise down to B, and resolving on a D-sharp which serves as the third of a B major triad. Although A and B major are not the most distantly-related keys, Pfitzner uses a much more modern technique of pivoting on the seventh scale degree of B major (what would be the first scale degree in the key of A, raised by half a step). Between these two lines of text, Pfitzner makes a sudden pivot from the triadic

stability—ostensibly, stability that was once in Pfitzner’s life in the form of his wife, Lucrezia— to a much more nuanced and unexpected venture into B major territory, accompanied by the more uncertain text suggesting that his life used to have worth, but that it does not anymore.

Near the end of his lament on lost love and hopelessness, Palestrina sings through a period of confrontation with the notion of composing a mass; it is the first time Pfitzner foreshadows the Pope Marcellus Mass. After a pause, Palestrina begins, “So I should write again—a Mass, a great work, an ‘eternal,’ as one says.” As if to mirror the early ideas of a composer just beginning to write, Palestrina sings short fragments of melody not exceeding one measure in length. The first and second ones, “soll wieder Noten schreiben” and “eine Messe” are sung exclusively on the notes G-sharp and C-sharp, oscillating across a perfect fourth (see

Figure 8).

Figure 8: Palestrina's melody five measures after rehearsal 122.

The orchestral accompaniment at this point consists of two main textures: the contrabassoon and full string section playing long, connected whole notes (representing an older style), and the solo violas, which play fragmented eighth-note couplets (representing a newer style).

The melody of the first texture (Figure 9) juxtaposes references to the “old” and “new” through its intervallic content. The contrabassoon and first bass share the pattern C–G–F-sharp–

C-sharp–B-flat, then continue with different motives. Pfitzner writes two prominent upward

ascents of perfect fifths, but offsets them by a tritone, seeming to demonstrate the presence of the old (perfect fifth) and the new (tritone) as both co-existing and conflicting with one another.

Figure 9: Three measures after rehearsal 122.

The fragmented viola line (shown in Figure 10) presents two-note motives that reference the prelude of the opera. In order, the viola plays the couplets 1) C-sharp to G-sharp ascending,

2) D-sharp to C-sharp ascending, 3) C-sharp to G-sharp ascending, and 4) C-sharp to C-sharp ascending. This is nearly identical to the motives presented in the opening measures of the opera, where the solo violins and flutes play 1) D to A ascending, 2) E to D ascending, 3) A to A ascending, and 4) D to D ascending (also shown in Figure 10). Thus, in this scene where

Palestrina begins to think about writing a mass, the violas present the ascending intervals of a fifth, a seventh, and an octave, as though the moment in the prelude served to parallel Pfitzner

“beginning the idea” of his opera.

Figure 10: Top: Solo Viola, one measure after rehearsal 122. Bottom: Solo Flute and Violin at the beginning of the Act I prelude.

As quickly as Palestrina realizes he can write a mass, he becomes overwhelmed and unable to see the value in such a pursuit. At this moment, the ensemble of ghosts of past

Renaissance composers slowly appear on stage, while Palestrina sings the following:

The priest has threatened to destroy my works. Whether they’re consumed quickly by the flame, or slowly by time, it’s all the same, all meaningless, all, all! What point is there in work or joy, in grief or life? Would I be able? No, oh no, what for, what point in anything—what for—what for?3

In chorus the six masters reply, “For him,” ostensibly referring to Pope Marcellus and by extension, God—naturally sung in two syllables spanning an ascending fifth, E-flat to B-flat.

This intervallic leap rings especially significant as a Palestrina trademark, signaling that he must be the composer to write this mass.

Following this is a scene in which Palestrina communicates with the ghosts of the past

Renaissance masters, who deliver the message that he is the “chosen one” to become the last great Renaissance composer. There is much music to dissect in this scene, and the text is equally, if not more, significant.

3 Ibid., 172–5.

The first several exchanges between Palestrina and the past masters (one is shown in

Figure 11) are in a minor mode and have somber melody and harmony. The music here has little sense of forward motion, uncharacteristic of Palestrina’s compositional style, which is frequently constructed with the horizontal melodic line in mind, only then to be filled in with harmony.

Here, the music moves in half and whole notes at a slow tempo, and lingers on long, drawn-out harmonies, contrasting with the style in which Palestrina begins his next phrase, which has a more spirited nature. Palestrina sings, “It seems – I am alive – and yet you do not vanish . . . were you not dead?”4 Upon this entrance, Palestrina’s melody is very lively, sounding primarily in eighth notes and making frequent jumps, albeit primarily on intervals of fourths, fifths and octaves (Figure 12). Pfitzner seems to be writing an almost madrigal-like reflection of Palestrina being “alive,” as the protagonist so claims, by including a more spirited passage. By extension,

Pfitzner is also proclaiming that Palestrina’s music is alive, both in its place in the Renaissance and in the minds of Romantic-era composers who revered him.

Figure 11: Top: a segment sung by the masters one measure after rehearsal 125.

4 Ibid., 178.

Figure 12: Palestrina’s line three measures before rehearsal 127.

Moments later Palestrina jubilantly recognizes and acknowledges the ghost of Josquin, as the music suddenly shifts into a bright, excited A major, signifying Palestrina’s (and therefore,

Pfitzner’s) reverence for legendary past composers. While Palestrina exclaims, “I know you – glorious Josquin . . .” the ghost of Josquin replies, “Greetings, Pierluigi,” much more slowly and measured. To this point in the “ghosts” scene, Pfitzner juxtaposes “old” and “new” in several ways. The first is the literal juxtaposition of the old Renaissance composers (the ghosts) against the new (Palestrina). This sets up a musical dialogue wherein the ghosts sing in a more measured, chant-like style, evoking early Renaissance and even medieval musical styles, while

Palestrina sings in a newer style containing greater rhythmic and melodic freedom. Pfitzner pits old against new in the “ghosts” scene as Palestrina struggles to accept that he is a worthy successor of the Renaissance lineage of composers, just as Pfitzner found himself caught between two worlds of his training at the Hoch Conservatory and his career afterward, no doubt pondering his own worthiness.

A significant musical moment comes five measures before rehearsal number 134 (shown in Figure 13), where the masters sing to Palestrina, “We are living, Pierluigi, we are living.”

Here, the masters have become somewhat freer with their rhythms, but ultimately still retain an older, chant-like declamation. However, at the end of this line of text (“Wir sind!”), the masters close with a modern-style perfect authentic cadence on an F major triad (above a C in the double bass which functions more as a pedal than as the bass of a second inversion chord). This is a subtle way in which Pfitzner juxtaposes styles: in the Renaissance style a significant cadence

would follow the convention of expanding from a sixth to an octave; instead, the masters’ cadence has modern tonality (i.e., dominant to tonic), moving in parts from 5 to 1, 2 to 3, and 2 to 5. Although this is not the only place in the opera where Pfitzner cadences this way, it nevertheless serves as an example of mixing compositional styles.

Figure 13: The masters and double basses at rehearsal 133.

There are numerous occasions during which Pfitzner’s libretto acts as a dual representation of his own lamentations along with those of Palestrina. One such moment in this scene occurs immediately after the masters have officially told Palestrina that he is the “chosen one” to “complete their circle” (i.e., to round out their great lineage as Renaissance composers).

In response to this, Palestrina exclaims many of his doubts, singing:

Not I – not I; I’m weak and full of failings, and as for progress, nothing’s left for me. I am an old man, weary unto death, part of an age that’s coming to an end. Before me I see nothing else but sorrow and can wring nothing more out of my soul.5

5 Ibid., 191–4.

Pfitzner was not being historically accurate in the reference to Palestrina being close to death (he died almost forty years after composing the Pope Marcellus Mass). Nevertheless, his text lamenting “an age that’s coming to an end” resonates with Pfitzner’s position at the end of the

Romantic era.

In this scene, Palestrina doubts that he can become the final link in a chain of famed

Renaissance composers. The great awe with which he regards the masters serves to fuel his defeatist attitude that he could not possibly match their abilities and achievements. Figure 14 shows Palestrina’s melody upon which he sings, “I am an old man, weary unto death, part of an age that’s coming to an end.” This passage is quite simple, remaining diatonically in A minor, using only the first five scale degrees (plus one pickup on the dominant below the tonic).

Meanwhile, the orchestral music surrounding this line is unrelentingly chromatic, with virtually every part resisting confident tonality and demonstrating chromatic saturation. Here again,

Pfitzner has juxtaposed the old and new, but this time with Palestrina representing the old, reflected in his text and melody, and the orchestra as the new, with intense chromaticism strongly evoking a Wagnerian sound. This undoubtedly represents Pfitzner’s disposition during

World War I that he was truly living at the end of the Romantic era, and that there was nothing more he could add to match the output of his own past masters like Beethoven, Brahms, and

Wagner.

Figure 14: Palestrina's diatonic A minor line with orchestral reduction at rehearsal 139.

The Renaissance masters push back against Palestrina, saying that “he does not know that he must,” “[he] thinks he knows better . . .” and warning that “to kick against [us] . . . is presumption.” This suggests that Palestrina’s destiny is not simply their opinion, but God’s.

After Palestrina emits another outburst of self-doubt, the composers resonate as a group once more with a slightly more encouraging tone, this time saying, “he knows not that he can.”

Following this, however, the composers join in unison with a graver warning (Figure 15):

“Earth-bound man, your earthly task is not yet done.” The masters sing this slow, somber, and chromatic line plodding downward as if into the earth. Pfitzner’s performance directions here are etwas zurückhaltend (“somewhat held back”). The masters continue, “Your earthly task is not yet done.” Pfitzner’s writing at this moment is directed downward toward the “earth” or

“earthly” (i.e., Palestrina). In this excerpt, the slow, cascading chromaticism draws special attention to its destination (“man”) as if to highlight the separation between the dead, angelic masters, and the live composer, Palestrina.

Figure 15: Vocal line of the masters at rehearsal 146.

After yet another, more emphatic rebuttal by Palestrina, the masters reassure him that

“they’re growing pains . . . the creative process . . . like sloughing off a skin . . . a transformation” (Figure 16). The composers sing this in a disjointed manner, as if to imitate the compositional process of conceiving a melody in short fragments before it is strung together into a longer piece.

Figure 16: The masters' fragmented lines at rehearsal number 147.

Palestrina asks the masters, “who commands [me to compose]?” They respond in chorus that it is “the age-old Master of the world” (i.e., God) who commands Palestrina. Yet an unexpected response arises from the masters when Palestrina asks, “when shall I at last know my fulfillment?” The masters sing:

In you, Pierluigi, there’s the brightest light; which never shone before. One last sound still is missing from the harmonious chord; and that you will supply. The crown of the whole structure be ready to submit; to give meaning to this age. And when your whole being is made known, and you are figured out complete, just as you came to glowing life at your first moment of conception, then will you shine, your notes ring pure, Pierluigi, you, the final link in that most wondrous chain.6

The passage in this scene takes on a new tone by the masters. They have conveyed to Palestrina that his duty is to compose a mass and be the last link in a chain of great Renaissance composers, but now they tell Palestrina of the personal fulfillment this task will bring. This is the first sentiment of inspiration that is to grow for Palestrina later in the act. Here the masters sound as if they are reassuring not only Palestrina of his purpose but also Pfitzner that his compositional work will bring personal fulfillment. Especially salient are the phrases, “. . . give meaning to this age,” and “. . . you are figured out complete . . .” The first phrase suggests that without Palestrina and Pfitzner, the Renaissance and the Romantic eras would not be whole, and that the composers were not only significant parts of these periods, but essential. The latter phrase is more inwardly- directed, particularly for Pfitzner, who appears to be validating himself through this opera.

The scene closes with the masters leaving Palestrina, having delivered their message to him. Palestrina, who according to Pfitzner’s directions is frightened (erschrocken), begs the masters not to leave him “alone in this perplexing void.” As Palestrina sings this, the orchestra ominously sustains tremolo notes, suggesting Palestrina’s immense feelings of isolation and

6 Ibid., 218–23.

vulnerability, undoubtedly a projection of Pfitzner. As the masters finally recede off stage, they faintly repeat, “Your earthly mission, Palestrina – your task on earth . . .”

Pfitzner’s autobiographical intent becomes clear when considering the role of the Masters in his own life. Perhaps Pfitzner envisioned this scene as a way in which he would communicate with his own “past masters,” such as Brahms, Liszt, Wagner, and Bruckner. If so, it stands to reason that Pfitzner sought validation not just from the public who consumed his works, but from the Romantic era stalwarts whom he so admired.

The departure of the past masters signals the beginning of Scene 6, the “inspiration scene,” which lasts about eight minutes. Throughout the scene, Pfitzner frequently quotes from the Pope Marcellus Mass, and he does so within the confines of his own dramatic action.

Pfitzner more often draws his quotations from individual lines of the Pope Marcellus Mass, as opposed to mimicking entire harmonic (vertical) voicings, which places an appropriate emphasis on the linear, melodic focus of Palestrina’s compositional style, precisely what late Romantic composers revered about him. The angels sing fragments of the mass throughout the scene during dialogue between Palestrina and the ghost of his deceased wife, Lucrezia. The scene closes with Palestrina furiously writing his mass in solitude, and finally falling asleep at his desk, exhausted from his work.

Figure 17 shows the beginning of the inspiration scene, with low strings sustaining long tones as Palestrina sings, “Alone in the deepest darkness, wretched and terrified, I raise my voice to heaven.” This moment signals Palestrina’s lowest point, from which he now begins to rise from his despair.

Figure 17: Palestrina and string section at rehearsal 161, immediately prior to the entrance of the angels.

Immediately following this moment the first angel begins to descend, singing the first

“Kyrie eleison” from Palestrina’s Pope Marcellus Mass (Figure 18a). While Pfitzner writes this passage in A major, he has chosen to have the first “Kyrie” begin on the fifth scale degree, E.

This aligns the music more closely with the opening melody in the Pope Marcellus Mass (Figure

18b), which begins a whole step below on D. In addition to preserving the intervallic content of the Pope Marcellus Mass, Pfitzner’s rhythm is also notable, as he keeps the melody in a near- exact diminution of the original mass.

Figure 18a: An angel (upper voice) and Palestrina (lower voice) sing the first "Kyrie" four measures before rehearsal 162.

Figure 18b: The first line of melody in the superius voice at the beginning of Palestrina’s Pope Marcellus Mass (Novello’s Original Octavo Edition (1881), edited by Otto Goldschmidt).

Pfitzner interleaves Palestrina’s lamentations between iterations of “Kyrie eleison” and

“Christe eleison.” He sings, “Is there a fount of love? When here on earth it no longer flows into the heart . . . Who brings one peace?”7 The angels respond with their exclamation of “Christe eleison,” which once again closely follows the melodic contouring of Palestrina’s mass. On the occurrences of “Kyrie eleison” and “Christe eleison” (Figure 19), the angels always sing first, and Palestrina follows them, typically one to three measures afterward, as if to symbolize the transfer of inspiration from the angels down to Palestrina.

7 Ibid., 230–32.

Figure 19: Top: An angel's "Christe eleison" at rehearsal number 164 (imitated by Palestrina). Bottom: The "Christe eleison" melody in the superius of Palestrina's Pope Marcellus Mass (Novello’s Original Octavo Edition (1881), edited by Otto Goldschmidt).

The angels continue by singing the opening lines of the Credo (“Credo in unum Deum,

Patrem omnipotentem”) in a manner less resembling the Pope Marcellus Mass. During this

Palestrina declares, “How the almighty joy of creation courses within me now,” the first moment during which he appears to write his mass from his own creativity and inspiration. This line of text bears a double-meaning, as it references both God’s creation of the heavens and earth and

Palestrina’s creation of a mass, signifying Pfitzner’s self-reflection as one who transmits a message from a higher deity. On the heels of this momentous breakthrough of confidence for

Palestrina, the ghost of his wife Lucrezia enters. She sings to him, “Through life’s distress I stood by you, in the radiant peace I stand by you,” then continuing with, “Peace too on earth to men of good will.”8 Above this the angels sing, “In terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis” on a melody very closely resembling that of the first Kyrie. While Lucrezia and the angels share the same text from the Gloria, Lucrezia sings in German, and the angels in Latin. This juxtaposition

8 Ibid., 238–41.

suggests the closeness of Lucrezia to Palestrina, as her text remains in the same language as

Palestrina’s during the opera.

As the scene continues, Lucrezia begins to recede once more into the background, and the angels take over the stage, physically and sonically.9 Pfitzner includes a note in the score, “One sees a whole glory of angels and heavens filling the whole stage, so that only Palestrina and his table and chair remain dark.”10 As Palestrina finally begins to write his mass, his dialogue aligns with the liturgical text that the angels sing (see chart).

Palestrina Angels “Exuberant happiness lifts me on high!” “Gloria in excelsis Deo” (“Glory to God in the highest) “Worldly success has been left far behind. “Gratias tibi!” (Giving thanks) With joyful gratitude I give thanks above . . .” “. . . inwardly praising love’s power” “Laudamus te! Glorificamus te!” (“We praise you! We glorify you!”) “. . . which has brought peace to me” “Dona nobis pacem” (“Grant us peace”)

Pfitzner takes a multi-layered approach to the text in this part of the scene, as the angels seem to revere Palestrina, again solidifying Pfitzner’s view of Palestrina as a deified being in the world of

Renaissance music, and perhaps also creating an idealized image of himself.

After these several outbursts, Palestrina focuses all his attention on writing his mass, and the angels begin to recede, just as the Renaissance masters did earlier. Pfitzner includes the stage direction, “The room is dark again as . . . a dawning morning . . . From a distance, one hears with increasing strength the bells of the awakening Rome.” During this moment, Pfitzner’s

9 In the Bavarian State Opera 2010 production of Palestrina, Lucrezia is projected as a portrait on the rear wall of the stage during Act I. When her ghost sings to Palestrina during the inspiration scene, Lucrezia emerges from the rear of the stage, then quite literally recedes once more into the portrait at this point. 10 Pfitzner, Palestrina, 242.

orchestration is thick, with virtually every instrument playing in near-unison. Unlike the sections in which Palestrina has dialogue with other characters, the orchestra here plays with a very static motion: note values are predominantly half and quarter note lengths, and most players simply alternate between two notes. This writing style has no linear focus other than gradual crescendos and diminuendos. Pfitzner also avoids a clear key area, so besides a lack of melodic focus, there is also a lack of harmonic focus. In a sense, the orchestra creates a sonic blanket over Palestrina as he writes, with loud church bells ringing in the foreground.

Pfitzner wrote Palestrina amid an early twentieth-century Renaissance revival that placed special attention on Palestrina.11 World War I was a period of turmoil in Europe and many people (including Pfitzner) expressed a longing for a time of order and stability, and thus many looked to the Renaissance. Nevertheless, Pfitzner’s Palestrina is not a widely known opera, even among musicians. It has received little scholarly attention and live or recorded performances are rare. Although Palestrina was rarely performed in the mid- and late-twentieth century, chapter three will examine the opera’s reception in the late 1910s after its premiere in Munich. It will also focus on Pfitzner’s popularity (or lack thereof) throughout the twentieth century, and how

Pfitzner was revived in the 1990s. Finally, chapter three will consider Pfitzner as an anti- modernist composer.

11 The early twentieth-century was not solely defined by Renaissance revivals. There were, of course, other composers who placed attention on reviving Baroque and Classical music, such as Ravel and Stravinsky.

43 Chapter 3: The Legacies of Hans Pfitzner and Palestrina

If Palestrina was supposed to propel Pfitzner to the ranks of Brahms and Wagner, it did so only briefly. The opera helped Pfitzner achieve moderate recognition within Europe from the time of its premiere and into the 1920s, but as Pfitzner isolated himself from people through his political views and the music he wrote later in his career, Palestrina followed suit and was effectively absent from German operatic repertory. Throughout the remainder of the twentieth century Pfitzner was a little-known composer, until a renewed interest in Palestrina came to fruition in the 1990s. This chapter focuses on factors that led to Pfitzner’s obscurity for much of the twentieth century, and speculates on why there was a Palestrina revival nearly fifty years after Pfitzner’s death.

It becomes clear studying Pfitzner that he desired to be the last great bastion of the

Romantic era, a title that was never truly bestowed upon him. Palestrina, which premiered on

June 12, 1917 in Munich under the direction of Bruno Walter, was his most fruitful attempt at attaining this status.1 This was also at the height of World War I, a time that, according to John

Williamson, was transitional for Pfitzner. In 1918, due to the war, Pfitzner was forced to leave

Strasbourg and settled in Munich.2 By the 1920s, the start of a turbulent twenty-year period for the composer, Pfitzner began to avoid writing operas and music-dramas, and turned more toward composing solo and chamber instrumental works, some of which he performed. A diary entry by

Josef Hofmiller—a prominent writer and critic for the German magazine Süddeutsche

1 John Williamson, The Music of Hans Pfitzner (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 254. 2 Ibid., 254.

Monatshefte, an authoritative voice on art and politics in Munich—displays Pfitzner’s struggles in the 1920s:

Pfitzner said that he played because he wanted to appear in public again, to accompany his songs and also to play his Piano Trio. I had the impression that he needed the purely technical claims of piano-playing to stifle a monstrous grief: the grief for lost Strasbourg. For that reason he wants to play in public. Each time he appears still more sorrowful. Moreover I am convinced that even he and his family are starving.3

Two factors predominate Pfitzner’s change in character beginning in the 1920s: a multitude of personal tragedies, and a closer alignment with the rising Nazi party.4 He became more withdrawn from the public eye in the later stages of his career, undoubtedly contributing to greater obscurity. Pfitzner’s alignment with extreme right-wing politics only contributed to his sense of estrangement from the avant-garde.

Palestrina serves as a bellwether of Pfitzner’s isolation later in life, demonstrating how

Pfitzner already found himself somewhat out of place in the 1910s, caught between Romanticism and Modernism. Michael Kater writes that “along with the . . . more universally recognized

Strauss . . . [Pfitzner is] the last serious representative of the bygone nineteenth-century style.”5

The origins of Pfitzner’s aesthetic dilemma can be traced back to his training at the Hoch

Conservatory, where he was occasionally at odds trying to compose more modern, Wagnerian- style music in an old-fashioned Brahmsian environment. These conflicting forces stayed with

Pfitzner, perhaps even intensifying in the years after Palestrina. According to Williamson,

The music of the 1920s shows quite clearly that Pfitzner kept abreast with the more radical vein of twentieth-century music in harmony and counterpoint, if not in rhythm; at a time when the music of the Schoenberg school had yet to be taken seriously outside a fairly narrow circle, Pfitzner’s music could not simply be

3 Ibid., 254–5. 4 While Pfitzner espoused many Nazi ideals, it should be noted that he was never an official member of the Nazi party. 5 Michael H. Kater, Composers of the Nazi Era: Eight Portraits (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 212.

written off as an epilogue to a great tradition which had in the meantime spawned a far more radical modernist branch.6

One interpretation here is that Pfitzner was conveying in Palestrina that he was the “last great composer” of the Romantic era, like Palestrina during the Renaissance. But Pfitzner ultimately had to face the reality that he was trying to thrive in the Modernist era, one that was quickly becoming occupied by the likes of Schoenberg and Hindemith. Later in life he could not sustain the idealized self-image he created in Palestrina, the opera that brought him modest acclaim in the late 1910s and early 1920s.

Pfitzner was well-aware of his struggles in the mid-twentieth century. In his

Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen (Reflections of a Nonpolitical Man, 1918) Thomas Mann claimed that Palestrina was “the ‘capstone’ of the structure of Romantic opera, of the wistful end of a national artistic movement,” a statement with which Pfitzner agreed.7 Michael and Linda

Hutcheon reference an excerpt from Mann’s Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen in which the author states, “In Palestrina everything tends toward the past, it is dominated by sympathy with death,” and that Pfitzner “anachronistically gave to his sixteenth-century character his own

Schopenhauerian pessimism.”8 Pfitzner had an inflated self-image and “saw himself as the culmination and end of an even longer German line that went back to Bach.”9 This goes beyond the idea that Pfitzner just saw himself as the last in a line of Romantic composers, but it nevertheless illuminates Pfitzner’s struggle throughout his life to solidify his identity as an artist.

6 Williamson, The Music of Hans Pfitzner, 259. 7 Michael Hutcheon and Linda Hutcheon, “Portraits of the Artist as an Older Man: Hans Pfitzner's ‘Palestrina’ and Paul Hindemith’s ‘Mathis Der Maler,’” in Masculinity in Opera: Gender, History and the New Musicology, ed. Philip Purvis (New York: Routledge, 2013), 216. 8 Ibid., 217. 9 Ibid., 217.

Although Pfitzner was more indebted to modernism than he himself acknowledged, he nevertheless continued to write in a neo-Romantic style through the 1930s and 1940s, “[fighting] all his life against the radical atonal music of modernism and thematized this opposition in his opera.”10 This rejection of newer musical styles might have helped Pfitzner become a musical symbol for the Nazi party, as they strongly opposed atonality and modernism, especially that espoused by the Second Viennese School. This adds another meaning to Palestrina. While many interpretations of Palestrina identify the parallels between Pfitzner and the titular character, the opera is seldom discussed as an overt rejection of the future of music. In other words, while

Palestrina embodies the end of the Renaissance (and for Pfitzner, the Romantic era), the opera is not “anti-Baroque.” Rather, the focal point is religiously-centered, cautioning against the elimination of polyphony from Catholic church music.

At times, Pfitzner’s practices seem to contradict his ideals. While he was outspoken against modernism, he still engaged in what some might call modernist compositional techniques, especially in his later works after Palestrina. This, once again, may have stemmed from his continuing sense of being caught between two styles or eras. A string of personal tragedies in the 1920s led Pfitzner to experiment with various types of compositions, ultimately changing the type of composer he became later in his career.11 In 1925 Mimi Kwast, Pfitzner’s first wife, died.12 Upon her death, Pfitzner declared that he was retiring from composition, although this did not last.13

10 Hutcheon and Hutcheon, Portraits of the Artist, 217. 11 Williamson, The Music of Hans Pfitzner, 259. 12 Peter Franklin, “Hans Pfitzner,” Grove Music Online, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com.proxy.libraries.uc.edu/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/97815 61592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000021537. 13 Williamson, The Music of Hans Pfitzner, 300–01.

By the mid-1930s, Pfitzner was again actively composing, but with a different focus. He now turned his attention to instrumental works, writing five for orchestra and two for cello. It was not until much later that Pfitzner composed several choral works.14 While hardships in

Pfitzner’s personal life might have catalyzed his decision to shift his focus towards instrumental works, it should also be noted that the 1930s were a time of limited resources across the West.

Although Pfitzner wrote several larger orchestral works, he largely shifted away from composing opera, which required vast resources (e.g., lead singers, costumes, sets, etc.). More personal tragedy befell Pfitzner in the 1930s. His son Paul died in 1936, a time around which Pfitzner became estranged from his two other children, Peter and Agnes.15 Then in 1939, Agnes committed suicide; the same year Pfitzner married his student Mali Stoll.16 This remarkable list of life events that Pfitzner endured in the span of five years surely contributed to his increasing isolation and irascibility.

In addition to Pfitzner facing a multitude of personal hardships, the 1920s and 1930s were a time during which he began to align himself with growing nationalist sentiment in the

Weimar Republic. This would lead to Pfitzner garnering a reputation as a Nazi sympathizer.17

Many of Pfitzner’s supporters saw a Nazi association as his path to recognition and success, and

Pfitzner embraced this idea, particularly because of his admiration for nationalistic ideals.18 His last opera, Das Herz (1931), was his first work in a “new, reclusive and pro-Nazi style.”19 But

Pfitzner had a more complicated relationship with the Nazi party. Although he was never

14 Ibid., 333. 15 Franklin, “Hans Pfitzner,” Grove Music Online. 16 Ibid. 17 Williamson, The Music of Hans Pfitzner, 301. 18 Ibid., 322. 19 Ibid., 301.

officially affiliated, he was deeply conservative and even briefly gained the support of Adolf

Hitler.20 But because of Pfitzner’s Jewish friends, some of whom he had known since his time at the Hoch Conservatory, Hitler saw Pfitzner as an ally to the Jewish community and ended their friendship.21 This hurt Pfitzner and his career deeply, as he now felt estranged from all political sides and faced an all-out struggle for publicity.

Although Pfitzner underwent transformations in his life and in his composing in the

1930s and 1940s, certain aspects of his style in Palestrina ultimately stayed with him. Two of

Pfitzner’s later works, Das Herz (1931) and Kleine Sinfonie (1939), still use “melodic construction [that is] really an assertion of the arch-like ideal that underlies the historical

Palestrina style in general, and as such [is] a statement of belief in traditional musical values.”22

Even after undergoing profound changes, Pfitzner was ultimately rooted in the traditions he carried with him ever since his time at the Hoch Conservatory. He spent much of his later life trying to elevate the appeal of his music to a broader base but never reached this goal in the post-

Palestrina years. Pfitzner’s ardency for preserving a uniquely Romantic, German musical idiom in the mid-twentieth century could not catapult him to the ranks of Brahms and Wagner.

Pfitzner’s Palestrina in the 1990s

Hans Pfitzner died in 1949, only a few years after the end of World War II, and in the same year as Richard Strauss. Unlike Strauss, however, Pfitzner did not experience a resurgence

20 Michael H. Kater, Composers of the Nazi Era: Eight Portraits (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 211. 21 Williamson, The Music of Hans Pfitzner, 326. 22 Ibid., 339.

as a composer during his lifetime and was little-known at the time of his death.23 Pfitzner’s legacy included a lingering reputation for being sympathetic toward the Nazi party, thus contributing to diminished interest in his music for the majority of the second half of the twentieth century. Not until the 1990s did Pfitzner’s music enjoy a small revival. The primary question about Pfitzner in the modern era is therefore not, “why did his music lie dormant for most of the second half of the twentieth century,” but rather, “why was there a renewed interest in Pfitzner beginning in the 1990s?”

One answer to this question concerns the fall of the Berlin Wall and the unification of

East and West Germany, an event in the 1990s that sparked a desire to put the “German responsibility for the Holocaust . . . once and for all into the dustbin of history.”24 Musicians and audiences similarly saw a need to reckon with controversial composers like Pfitzner.

Even though at present the wounds from the Holocaust have not been fully healed, the

1990s, a half-century after World War II, were perhaps the first time that the public could accept the idea of consuming the music of a Nazi sympathizer, even if on a purely artistic and not ideological level. While many potential opera-goers had personal connections in some way to the

Holocaust, the 1990s saw the rise of a generation that was removed from the war and could embrace the idea of performing the work of a composer such as Pfitzner. The 1990s was also a fitting decade to revive Pfitzner because “audiences [were] enamored by and accustomed to the post-World War II early-music revival. They [were] enthusiastic about the operatic language of new works by John Adams [and others].”25

23 Leon Botstein, “Pfitzner and Musical Politics,” The Musical Quarterly 85, no. 1 (Spring, 2001): 65. 24 Ibid., 73. 25 Ibid., 66.

The two most prominent Palestrina revivals in the 1990s took place at the Lincoln Center

Festival ’97 and at the Vienna State Opera in 1999. The choice to perform Pfitzner at all was significant because there was already a vast catalogue of nineteenth- and twentieth-century

German-language opera. The temporal distance of the 1990s from World War II could explain

Pfitzner’s revival, because there was an entire generation of people born after the war and the

Nazi regime, and indeed many performers of artists who collaborated with the Third Reich were often non-German and born after World War II.26 Pfitzner’s Palestrina was a particularly appropriate work to resurface in the late 1990s because there was an increased interest from audiences in stylistically conservative composers from the early 1900s.27 Nevertheless, Pfitzner always worked in the shadow of Richard Strauss and again, never truly had the opportunity to disassociate himself from the Nazi party after World War II.28

The actual function of Palestrina as it related to Pfitzner’s audiences could explain why this particular work enjoyed a revival in the late twentieth-century. By the 1990s, concertgoers were interested in Palestrina for its historical and biographical value as much as its music. While the core of the opera’s plot is about Palestrina’s inspiration to compose a mass and save polyphony, Palestrina expresses Pfitzner’s philosophy that music is derived from inspiration, and is not a pure intellectual creation.29 Pfitzner believed that the approach of the twelve-tone methods of Schoenberg could not produce anything of quality according to Romantic-era standards. Pfitzner’s compositional style in Palestrina demonstrates a disdain for music composed by serial methods that became associated with twelve-tone music. Thus, Palestrina

26 Ibid., 64. 27 Ibid., 65. 28 Ibid., 65. 29 Ibid., 67.

goes beyond a simple autobiographical reflection and actually illuminates Pfitzner’s core philosophy on composing music.

Beyond a reverence for Palestrina and other composers of the Renaissance, Pfitzner held certain Romantic-era composers in high regard, one of whom was Max Bruch, someone who he thought to be a “quintessentially ideal German cultural figure.”30 It is worth comparing Bruch’s

1872 choral-orchestral work Odysseus to Palestrina. In its time Odysseus was understood to some degree as a response to Wagner and the New German School, seeking to promote and preserve more traditional music. This is precisely what Palestrina does on two levels. On a narrative level, the opera seeks to promote the Renaissance as a superior musical era. On a musical level, Pfitzner seeks to promote what was in 1916 the “traditional” Romantic era of music, a referendum against the developing modernist style of music that began to emerge during that time. Finally, Pfitzner ardently despised twentieth-century appropriation of Baroque and Classical styles, yet Palestrina is a blatant appropriation of Renaissance music. But while neoclassical music thrived especially beginning in the 1920s, a practice Pfitzner purported to be against, he engaged in the very same practice just two decades earlier, applied to Renaissance music.

The Future of Pfitzner and Palestrina

Despite the Pfitzner (and Palestrina) revival of the 1990s, the composer is still not very well-known today. Though he enjoys a small circle of devotees in Germany, Pfitzner is not a composer who has ever—or perhaps, will ever—achieve the level of acclaim enjoyed by similar composers like Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss. Nevertheless, Palestrina is the only work

30 Ibid., 72.

of his that has retained even a modest place in the operatic canon. What seems most peculiar at first glance is that Pfitzner’s musical style never reached a point at which it would be considered radical, just as Pfitzner the composer did not necessarily display any characteristics to make him an extreme outsider or otherwise far removed from other composers of similar styles and beliefs.

On the surface, his biggest limitation was that he was a fiercely anti-modernist composer writing in the 1930s and 1940s, a time when the tides of compositional styles were greatly shifting.

During the late twentieth-century Pfitzner revival, when his works were performed at

Lincoln Center Festival ’97, Paul Griffiths wrote a telling review in the New York Times, titled

“Gifted but Obtuse: Pfitzner’s Odd Lot.” This review provides a great deal of perspective from the side of the classical-music consumer as to why the Pfitzner revival was at best modest and brief. The only aspect of Pfitzner that makes him stand out is all his close Nazi connections. If not for his notable closeness to the Third Reich, Pfitzner might not stand out at all from other late

Romantic composers.31 Pfitzner’s music here is even described as “bleak or weirdly, sometimes frighteningly, humorous,” suggesting that his music did not have the same Romantic acclaim as

Richard Strauss’.32 The review also mentions, as others have, that Strauss ultimately had a second surge of celebrity after World War II, whereas Pfitzner never got that opportunity and died in relative obscurity, with close ties to the Third Reich.

Pfitzner was not always doomed to fall short of widespread celebrity. His balance of

“old” and “new” espoused in Palestrina showed a remarkable potential to innovate and find

“new tonal pathways by reaching back into what was then musical prehistory.”33 But Pfitzner’s

31 Paul Griffiths, “Gifted but Obtuse: Pfitzner’s Odd Lot,” The New York Times, 25 July 1997, https://www.nytimes.com/1997/07/25/arts/gifted-but-obtuse-pfitzner-s-odd-lot.html. 32 Ibid. 33 Ibid.

nationalistic tendencies ultimately pigeonholed him. While the very sixteenth-century composers

Pfitzner pays homage to in Palestrina came from many non-German backgrounds, Pfitzner insisted his music be distinctly German, ultimately casting himself and his music into the shadow of more well-known German Romantic composers.34 Pfitzner was also a composer who tried to balance juxtaposing musical eras. He was someone who might have been better-suited to live a generation earlier. Pfitzner demonstrated through his music a desire to be Wagner’s contemporary and to carry on Beethoven’s legacy, though this was ultimately a failed venture.

Furthermore, Pfitzner doomed his reputation because he isolated himself from many Europeans, including those associated with the Third Reich. While he was too sympathetic toward Jewish people in Hitler’s opinion, Pfitzner still retained a strong image of being a Nazi sympathizer.

Finally, he was a fierce anti-modernist who retaliated against the “intellectual” and

“dispassionate” approach to composing music that was so heavily associated with twelve-tone and neoclassical styles in the early-to-mid twentieth century. This is all personified in the titular character of Palestrina, in whom we see not merely a fictionalized autobiography of Pfitzner, but a total reflection of a struggling composer entering a period of great tumult and uncertainty.

34 Ibid.

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