Essays on Literature and Music (1985–2013) by Walter Bernhart Word and Music Studies

Series Editors

Walter Bernhart Michael Halliwell Lawrence Kramer Steven Paul Scher† Werner Wolf

VOLUME 14

The book series WORD AND MUSIC STUDIES (WMS) is the central organ of the International Association for Word and Music Studies (WMA), an association founded in 1997 to promote transdisciplinary scholarly inquiry devoted to the relations between literature/verbal texts/language and music. WMA aims to provide an international forum for musicologists and literary scholars with an interest in intermediality studies and in crossing cultural as well as disciplinary boundaries.

WORD AND MUSIC STUDIES publishes, generally on an annual basis, theme-oriented volumes, documenting and critically assessing the scope, theory, methodology, and the disciplinary and institutional dimensions and prospects of the field on an international scale: conference proceedings, collections of scholarly essays, and, occasionally, monographs on pertinent individual topics.

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/wms Essays on Literature and Music (1985–2013) by Walter Bernhart

Edited by

Werner Wolf

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This book is printed on acid-free paper. Contents

Preface (Werner Wolf)...... ix Theorie und Praxis der Vertonung in den elisabethanischen Airs [1985]...... 1 The Iconic Quality of Poetic Rhythm [1986]...... 19 Examples of Byron’s Impact on 19th-Century German and Austrian Music [1987]...... 35 Setting a Poem: The Composer’s Choice For or Against Interpretation [1988]...... 53 Zweimal ‘Johnny’: Der treulose Herzensbrecher bei Brecht/Weill und Auden/Britten [1991]...... 75 Prekäre angewandte Opernästhetik: Auden’s ‘sekundäre Welt’ und Hans Werner Henzes Elegie für junge Liebende [1994]...... 99 An Exegetic Composer: Benjamin Britten’s Journey of the Magi [1995]...... 115 ‘Kalogenetic’ Functions of Prosody: An Exercise in Comparative Poetics [1995]...... 129 How Final Can a Theory of Verse Be? Toward a Pragmatics of Metrics [1996]...... 137 ‘Proportion’ in Elizabethan Poetry and Music [1996]...... 155 Cardillac, the Criminal Artist: A Challenge to Opera as a Musico-Literary Form [1997]...... 171 Iconicity and Beyond in “Lullaby for Jumbo”: Semiotic Functions of Poetic Rhythm [1999]...... 181 Some Reflections on Literary Genres and Music [1999]...... 195 Die Ambivalenz der Unschuld: Benjamin Britten auf der Suche nach dem kindlichen Sein [1999]...... 205 A Profile in Retrospect: Calvin S. Brown as a Musico-Literary Scholar [2000]...... 211 Typologische Überlegungen zum Melodrama [2000]...... 225

Three Types of Song Cycles: The Variety of Britten’s ‘Charms’ [2001]...... 235 Parsifal for Our Times: Young Artists Show the Way from Interpretation to Cyberstaging [2001]...... 251 The Turn of the Screw: Ein Glanzstück der Literaturoper [2002]...... 259 The ‘Destructiveness of Music’: Functional Intermedia Disharmony in Popular Songs [2002]...... 265 Peter Grimes: Auf George Crabbes Spuren zwischen Realismus und Romantik [2003]...... 275 Masterminding Word and Music Studies: A Tribute to Steven P. Scher [2002]...... 281 The Rake’s Progress: Klassizistische Oper zwischen Moralität, Märchen, Mythos und Groteske [2004]...... 291 Der ‘postmoderne’ Rosenkavalier [2005]...... 299 ‘Die lustigen Weiber’ proben den Aufstand: Transzendiertes Biedermeier in Otto Nicolais Oper [2005]...... 307 Narrative Framing in Schumann’s Piano Pieces [2006]...... 315 ‘Musikalische Verse’: “Ich weiß nicht, was soll es bedeuten” [2006]...... 339 Myth-making Opera: David Malouf’s and Michael Berkeley’s Jane Eyre [2007]...... 355 Words and Music as Partners in Song: ‘Perfect Marriage’ – ‘Uneasy Flirtation’ – ‘Coercive Tension’ – ‘Shared Indifference’ – ‘Total Destruction’ [2007]...... 369 “Liebling der ganzen Welt”: Sir Walter Scott als Inspiration für die romantische Oper und Donizettis Lucia di Lammermoor [2008] ...... 381 From Novel to Song via Myth: Wuthering Heights as a Case of Popular Intermedial Adaptation [2008]...... 391 What Can Music Do to a Poem? New Intermedial Perspectives of Literary Studies [2008]...... 405 vii

“... pour out forgiveness like a wine”: Can Music “say an existence is wrong”? [2009]...... 413 Christophorus, oder “Die Vision einer Oper”: Franz Schreker’s Opera as a Metareferential Work [2010]...... 431 Metareference in Operatic Performance: The Case of Katharina Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg [2011]...... 447 Rhythmical Ambivalence of Poetry Performance: The Case of Elizabethan Verse [2011]...... 459 Aesthetic Illusion in Instrumental Music? [2013]...... 475 Sources...... 491 Index...... 495

Preface

It has become something like a tradition within the book series Word and Music Studies (WMS) to render accessible musico-literary research by eminent scholars to readers who may find it interesting and helpful both to have at their disposal the most relevant texts, if not the entirety, of the respective oeuvre of pioneers in the field in one volume and to be able to follow the development of their individual thoughts without having to consult a wide and often no longer easily re- trievable variety of publications. The tradition was initiated by a volume dedicated to the doyen of musico-literary studies, Calvin S. Brown (WMS 2: Musico-Poetics in Perspective: Calvin S. Brown in Memoriam, eds. Jean-Louis Cupers and Ulrich Weisstein, Rodopi, 2000) and continued with collections of essays by the late Steven Paul Scher (WMS 5: Essays on Literature and Music (1967–2004), eds. Walter Bernhart and Werner Wolf, Rodopi, 2004) and by Ulrich Weisstein (WMS 8: Selected Essays on Opera, ed. Walter Bernhart, Rodopi, 2006).

The present volume (number 14 in the series) adds to this tradition by col- lecting and presenting most of the publications related to word and music studies by Walter Bernhart. This scholar not only founded the International Association for Word and Music Studies as well as the present book series but also personally co-edited numerous volumes in the series. If one adds to this scenario that he was also the pioneering chair of a research unit ‘Literature and Other Media’ at Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz until his retirement in 2008, became director of the equally Graz-based Centre for Intermediality Studies in Graz (CIMIG) and, in this capacity, initiated yet another book series, namely Studies in Intermedial- ity (SIM), his importance in the field of both intermediality studies and word and music studies becomes incontestable. Last but not least, this importance, even pre-eminence, in the area of musico-literary intermediality is perhaps best highlighted by the fact that he, over almost three decades, has published more than three dozen texts, ranging from contributions to opera programmes to scholarly essays, book editions and monographs all dedicated to word and music studies. All of this renders Walter Bernhart a worthy figure in the small group of outstanding scholars to whom the very existence of modern word and music studies x Preface

is due and who have substantially contributed to it over the past few decades.

With the exception of some minor, negligible texts and his monumental monograph, dedicated to the aesthetic theory and practice of Elizabethan poetry, which interestingly also included discussions of contemporary lute songs (‘True Versifying’: Studien zur elisabethanischen Verspraxis und Kunstideologie. Unter Einbeziehung der zeitgenössischen Lautenlieder [Niemeyer, 1993]), the present volume offers the sum total of all of Walter Bernhart’s texts published to date (2015) which have a connection to word and music studies. The first publication dates from 1985 and appeared in the proceedings of a conference held at Passau in the previous year (the Anglistentag, i.e., the annual meeting of German-speaking scholars of English studies). Incidentally, this happened to be the first conference in my academic career which I attended, and where I chaired a section on John Fowles. Walter and myself may have met there (although we perhaps both have no recollection of it), but neither of us could anticipate on this occasion to what extent this coincidental co-presence at a conference would be followed by an increasingly close and fruitful cooperation in the field of word and music studies as well as the larger area of intermediality studies, a collaboration which is still thriving. So, after no less than seven volumes which I co-edited with Walter Bernhart (WMS 1, 3, 5, and 11; SIM 1, 2, and 6), I am happy to be able to edit his collected musico-literary works as a homage to his outstanding scholarly activities in the field.

The range of texts collected here is truly impressive. Like the aforemen- tioned monograph, Walter Bernhart’s first – and incidentally also one of his most recent publications – deals with the musical qualities of Elizabethan poetry, obviously a subject of special interest to him. Within this framework, the reader will find contributions dealing with a stunning variety of subjects: there are discussions of the musical aspects of Romantic and modernist poetry, of opera, of individual composers (among whom Benjamin Britten looms large), there is also a number of essays inquiring into theoretical aspects of word and music relations. Within this particularly intriguing section we find reflections on the possibilities of setting poetry to music (e.g., his widely accepted distinction between ‘interpretive’ and ‘non-interpretive’ song), contributions to musico-literary ‘comparative poetics’ with reference to metrics and rhythm, discussion of the concept of ‘genre’ in music and literature, and studies on iconicity in both media as well as on their narrative, metareferential, and illusionist capaci- Preface xi

ties. In all of these respects Walter Bernhart is remarkable in going beyond the beaten path, for instance when he explores the question whether instrumental music can truly trigger something analogous to the kind of immersion fiction, drama or film can elicit – a question which so far no one has really addressed (see “Aesthetic Illusion in Instrumental Music?” 2013).

As in the other volumes in the present series which were dedicated to the oeuvre of individual scholars, the structure of the present volume follows a chronological criterion. In order to show both the breadth and the depth of Bernhart’s oeuvre, I have decided not to restrict the volume to scholarly texts but also to add more ‘popular’ discussions in the field of the type found in opera programmes, which will also appeal to a larger, non-scholarly readership. All of the texts have been reset, but – besides small corrections and changes and an adaptation of all bibliographies and references to the style sheet of the WMS series – the original form of the individual texts has been retained. This respect for the original also applies to the languages in which the various texts collected here have first appeared (most of them in English but some in German). For the sources of the reprinted texts the reader may want to consult the list at the end of the volume. An index has been added to facilitate the finding of individual authors or composers mentioned or discussed in the book.

Thanks are due to Walter Bernhart himself for providing the relevant texts and his invaluable help in their re-edition. In addition, I would like to thank Ingeborg Zechner for her expert technical and organisational support, and in particular Cecilia Servatius for creating the final proof; without them, the present volume would not have appeared. It is to be hoped that it is not only a well-deserved tribute to the musico-literary oeuvre of a remarkable scholar but yields highly profitable and at times entertaining reading material for anyone interested in the field.

Graz, July 2015 Werner Wolf

Theorie und Praxis der Vertonung in den elisabethanischen Airs [1985]

1. Einleitung und Rahmenüberlegungen

Das gewählte Thema ist zwar ein historisches, doch soll es in einen etwas allgemeineren Rahmen gestellt werden, indem zunächst kurz die Problematik von Textvertonungen als einer interdisziplinären Fragestellung angerissen wird. Es ist eine erst relativ junge Entwicklung, daß der Themenbereich des Wechsel- verhältnisses von Literatur und Musik als Zweig der Komparatistik Fuß fas- sen konnte und im übergeordneten Zusammenhang dessen behandelt wird, was man im angelsächsischen Sprachraum als ‘Comparative Arts’ bezeichnet und wofür eine zeitgemäße deutsche Entsprechung noch fehlt, weil der Begriff ‘Wechselseitige Erhellung der Künste’ nun doch schon etwas an Glanz einge- büßt hat. Der Einbezug der Fragestellung Literatur – Musik in die vergleichende Literaturbetrachtung setzt allerdings voraus, daß man – im Unterschied zu früheren Arbeiten über Vertonungen, bei denen der musikalische Blickwinkel vorherrschte – auf deutlichere Weise die Perspektive der Literatur einnimmt und somit der vertonte Text im Vordergrund steht und die Vertonung selbst im Hinblick auf diesen untersucht wird. Die musikalische Vertonung wird so in erhöhtem Maße als eine Interpretation des Textes gesehen, und man betrachtet den ‘Komponisten als Interpreten’, wie der Titel einer entsprechenden Arbeit lautet (s. Smeed 1981f.). Diese Entwicklung wird gefördert durch die Öffnung des Interpretationsspielraums in der heutigen Literaturauffassung, wenn sich sogar schon in den Schulen das Bewußtsein von der Irrigkeit der ‘Proper Me- aning Superstition’ – um I. A. Richards’ Ausdruck aufzugreifen – verbreitet. Mag diese Haltung auch ihre Gefährdungen haben und, wie man wohl beobachten kann, durchaus zu einer gewissen Interpretationsverdrossenheit führen, so schafft sie doch die Möglichkeit, bisher wenig verfolgte Interpretationstätig- keit, wie zum Beispiel die der Komponisten, in Überlegungen miteinzubezie- 2 Theorie und Praxis der Vertonung in den elisabethanischen Airs

hen. So scheint es etwa eine reizvolle Aufgabe, eigene Geschichten der musikalischen Rezeption von lyrischen Texten zu skizzieren, ähnlich den Geschichten der Aufführungspraxis, wie sie in die neuesten musikalischen Editionen Ein- gang finden. Dies wäre sicher ein Beispiel bei den Romantikern lohnend, bei Byron etwa, oder einigen Elisabethanern (Shakespeare-Sonette, Donnes Holy Sonnets u. a.).

Mit diesem eher literarisch ausgerichteten neueren Interesse an Vertonungen läßt sich auch das verstärkte Interesse an der Theorie der Vertonung in Zusam- menhang sehen, das man neuerdings beobachten kann. Dabei ist besonders erfreulich festzustellen, daß aus dem Bereich der Musikwissenschaft mit erhöh- ter literarischer Wachsamkeit und Sensibilität an die Frage herangegangen wir, wobei ich vor allem Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht und Carl Dahlhaus erwähnen möchte1. Dahlhaus etwa setzt sich dafür ein, daß Kategorien der Literaturthe- orie – wie zum Beispiel im Zusammenhang mit der hier angeschnittenen In- terpretationsproblematik die Kategorien Ambiguität und Paradoxie – in die Musiktheorie Eingang finden (vgl. Dahlhaus 1983: 87). Und auch die Kom- ponisten selbst sind in ihrer Tätigkeit von der fortschreitenden Literarisierung der Musik seit dem 19. Jahrhundert geprägt.

Stellt sich also die Frage nach Textvertonungen heute verschärft und unter ungünstigen Voraussetzungen im Rahmen der vergleichenden Literatur- betrachtung, so sind wir als Anglisten vielleicht besonders auf den Plan gerufen, weil wir uns in unserem Fachgebiet glücklicherweise mit einer lebendigen Liedtradition befassen können, der in manchen Epochen in anderen Ländern nichts Gleichwertiges entspricht. Dies gilt vor allem für das moderne Lied mit Benjamin Britten und für die elisabethanischen Airs, denen der vorliegende Beitrag gewidmet ist. Dabei ist es ein Zeichen der Vitalität dieser Schaffenspe- riode, daß sie neben den Werken selber auch ihre theoretischen Überlegungen dazu hervorgebracht hat. Dies ist bei der relativen Theorieanmut der elisabethanischen Epoche durchaus bemerkenswert.

Während sich allerdings heutige Theorien der Vertonung notwendi- gerweise an der jahrhundertelangen Praxis der Liedvertonungen bewähren müssen, auf die wir zurückblicken können, und daher im wesentlichen eine

1 Vgl. etwa deren Beiträge in Schnitzler, ed. (1979). Der neueste Sammelband zum Thema ist Scher, ed. (1984) mit einer umfassenden Bibliographie. Theorie und Praxis der Vertonung in den elisabethanischen Airs 3

Kongruenz von Theorie und Praxis angesetzt werden kann, ist dies für die elisabethanischen Airs nicht von vornherein zu erwarten, weil hier eine Tradition des Kunstlieds ja erst entstand und der Theoretiker auf keine etablierte Pra- xis zurückgreifen konnte. Konsequenterweise sind es auch die Komponisten selbst, die die Theorie liefern. Zwangsläufig wurden – ja auch dem Geist der Zeit entsprechend – eher präskriptive als deskriptive Vorstellungen entwickelt, von denen eher zu erwarten ist, daß sie in der Praxis nicht vollinhaltlich ein- gelöst werden. Dazu kommt, daß im humanistisch ausgerichteten Zweig der allgemeinen Ästhetik der Musik und Dichtung sehr nahe beisammenlagen, ja sogar ihre Identität beansprucht wurde, sodaß – kunstideologisch motiviert – die Musiktheorie der Dichtung teils aufgepreßt wurde, was zu Reibungen in der Praxis führen konnte. Es ist also nicht von vornherein zu erwarten, daß Theorie und Praxis bei der Vertonung in den elisabethanischen Airs in allen Punkten übereinstimmen. Umso interessanter ist, daß sie es – wie sich zeigen wird – doch weitgehend tun.

2. Morley

Die wichtigsten theoretischen Äußerungen stammen von Thomas Morley, John Dowland und Thomas Campion, die gleichzeitig auch als die bedeu- tendsten Komponisten von Airs angesehen werden müssen, zu denen man noch John Danyel und Philip Rosseter zählen könnte. Diese theoretischen Äußerungen wurden alle um ungefähr 1600 formuliert. Am Ausführlichsten setzte sich Morley in seiner Plaine and Easie Introdvction to Practicall Mvsicke von 1597 mit dem Wort-Ton-Verhältnis auseinander, und er fixierte dort eine ganze Reihe von “Rules to be obserued dittying” (s. 1597/1969: 177f.), wie man damals das Vertonen von Liedern nannte. Im Sinne der Intention des ganzen Werks spricht hier Morley als Praktiker und gibt konkrete Anweisungen der Textbehandlung im Lied. Er beginnt mit der allgemeinen Forderung, “according to the nature of the words” (ibid.: 177) zu vertonen und folgt damit dem von Plato abgeleiteten humanistischen Dogma, das die Musik dem Text unterordnet. Vor allem müsse nach Morley der Grundcharakter der Musik dem Grundcharakter des Texts entsprechen, also ein heiteres Gedicht heiter vertont werden, ein ernstes ernst usw. Man formuliert das heute so, daß der ‘Ton’ oder der ‘Grundaffekt’ des Texts in der Musik erhalten bleiben soll. Weiters fordert Morley, daß der Gefühlsgehalt der einzelnen Wörter musikalisch zum Aus- druck kommen soll, also Wörter, die von Schmerz, Tränen, Seufzern usw. oder 4 Theorie und Praxis der Vertonung in den elisabethanischen Airs

von Grausamkeit, Härte Bitterkeit und Ähnlichem handeln, mit entsprechen- der Expressivität vertont werden. Zum ‘Grundaffekt’ kommt somit was wir heute ‘Wortausdruck’ nennen hinzu, ein Aspekt, der ebenfalls der humanistischen Ästhetik verpflichtet ist. Verwandt, wenngleich nicht identisch damit ist Morleys nächste Regel, daß die Musik einen anschaulichen Wortinhalt wo- möglich drastisch nachzeichnen soll:

Moreouer, you must haue a care that when your matter signifieth ascending, high heaven, and such like, you make your musicke ascend: and by the contrarie where your dit- tie speaketh of descending lowenes, depth, hell, and others such, you must make your musicke descend […]. (Ibid.: 178)

Diese Forderung nach, wie wir heute sagen, ‘Wortillustration’ oder ‘Wortma- lerei’ ist für Morley, der vor allem ja auch Madrigalist war, ein besonderes An- liegen; die Madrigale haben mit ihrer Mehrstimmigkeit von diesem Einsatz der Musik besonders wirkungsvollen Gebrauch gemacht. Dies ist in gewisser Weise ja auch naheliegend, weil die Musik aufgrund ihrer Wesensbestimmung und ihrer materiellen Voraussetzungen für die Darstellung von Bewegungs- verläufen besonders geeignet ist. Semiotisch gesprochen, können musikalische Tonhöhen- und Tempoveränderungen sehr gut als ikonische Zeichen eingesetzt werden, weil die Musik tun kann, was der Text sagt. In der Tat war im trivialen und spielerischen Verständnis der Zeit eine – wie man meinte – ‘Ver- schmelzung’ von Musik und Text vor allem dann realisiert, wenn man solche Wortillustrationen oder -malerei hören konnte.

Die bisher genannten Regeln Morleys beziehen sich alle auf Inhaltsaspekte des Textes, die in der Vertonung Berücksichtigung finden sollten. Es handelt sich um das, was man ‘Textausdeutung’ nennen kann, und es wird dabei im Grunde genommen eine ‘Verdoppelung’ des Texts vorgenommen, indem das, was im Text ohnehin schon vorhanden ist, in der Musik – wenngleich mit anderen Mitteln und Wirkungen – noch einmal gesagt wird. Diese ‘Verdoppe- lung’ betrifft entweder den ganzen Text in seinem ‘Grundaffekt’ oder erfolgt – wie man sich heute ausdrückt – ‘am Gedicht entlang’, indem die Musik, wie sie im Lied fortschreitet, die ausdeutbaren Cues des Texts aufgreift. Theorie und Praxis der Vertonung in den elisabethanischen Airs 5

Morley bespricht im weiteren einen Aspekt der Sprachdeklamation, wenn er fordert, daß die Silbendauern in der Vertonung denen des Texts entsprechen sollen. Er bezeichnet die Nichterfüllung dieser Forderung als “barbarisme”, eine Formulierung, die in England bis auf Roger Ascham zurückgeht und All- gemeingut war. Trotzdem stellt Morley fest, daß in diesem Punkt die “practi- tioners” die größten Fehler begehen. Dabei meint Morley, wie aus seinen ange- führten Beispielen hervorgeht, tatsächlich die Silbendauern und nicht etwa, wie es sich sicherlich zumindest seit Gascoigne häufig geschah, in Wirklichkeit die Akzentverhältnisse. Über diese sagt Morley – wie übrigens auch die anderen Theoretiker – nichts aus.

In einem abschließenden Teil seiner Regeln befaßt er sich dann mit der Pausensetzung und fordert dabei Berücksichtigung der logisch-syntaktischen Voraussetzungen des zu vertonenden Texts. Die Länge der Pausen soll der Ge- wichtung des Einschnitts entsprechen, also längere Pausen am Satzende als beim Komma usw. Die einzige Ausnahme sei bei den Seufzern gestattet, wo kurze Pausen auch mitten im Satz erlaubt sind, um das Seufzen quasi gestisch zu imitieren. Nur dürfen die Pausen nicht zu lang sein, denn dann wirken sie wie ein Atemholen.

Die zuletzt genannten Regeln zur Berücksichtigung von Sprachdeklama- tion und Zäsursetzung dienen im Gegensatz zu den vorigen nicht zur inhaltlichen Textausdeutung, sondern zur Textverdeutlichung und entsprechen somit einer weiteren wichtigen Forderung der humanistischen Poetik, daß die Text- verständlichkeit in der musikalischen Vertonung erhalten bleiben soll, weil die Musik ja als ‘ancilla’ des Worts angesehen wurde. Morley selbst faßt seine Re- geln im Sinne dieser doppelten Aufgabe der Textausdeutung und Textverdeut- lichung durch Musik sehr schön zusammen:

[…] so that keeping these rules you shall haue a perfect agreement, and as it were a harmonicall concent betwixt the matter and the musicke, and likewise you shall bee perfectly vnderstoode of the auditor what you sing, which is one of the highest degrees of praise which a musicion in dittying can attaine vnto or wish for. (Ibid.: 178) 6 Theorie und Praxis der Vertonung in den elisabethanischen Airs

3. Campion

Wenden wir uns nun den Äußerungen Thomas Campions zu, so müssen diese ein besonderes Interesse erwecken, da Campion ja sowohl als Dichter als auch als Musiker sprach. Er hat sich in zwei Vorworten zu seinen Song-books mit Prinzipien der Vertonung befaßt und dabei durchaus eigenständige Gedanken entwickelt.

Im Vorwort zu Rosseters Book of Ayres (1601; s. Davis, ed. 1969: 15f.) spricht Campion zunächst über das Air als eine dem Epigramm in der Dich- tung entsprechende musikalische Form und verlangt, daß es folglich “short and well seasoned” (ibid.: 15) sei. Die lyrischen Dichter der Griechen und Rö- mer seien deshalb auch die ersten Erfinder des Airs gewesen, “tying themselves strictly to the number and value of their syllables”. Er erwähnt hier also dieselbe Vorstellung wie Morley, daß eine Überstimmung der Silbendauern und – über Morley hinausgehend – auch der Silbenzahl bestehen müsse. Er sagt weiter, eine Folge der erforderlichen Kürze des Liedes müsse es sein, daß kom- plizierte polyphone Entwicklungen unterbleiben, womit er sich gegen die Pra- xis der Madrigale stellt. Dieselbe Zielrichtung haben Campions Äußerungen zum einzigen Punkt des Wort-Ton-Verhältnisses, auf den er in diesem Vorwort genauer eingeht, nämlich zur Wortmalerei. Auch diese lehnt er interessanterweise in sehr scharfen Worten ab. Wie es schlechte Komödienpraxis sei, auf den Hinterkopf zu zeigen, wenn von der Erinnerung die Rede ist, oder auf die Augen, wenn das Wort ‘schauen’ fällt, so sei auch im Air “such childish observing of words” “altogether ridiculous” (ibid.). Vielmehr sei eine männliche Haltung erforderlich (“manly cariage”), derzufolge nur solche Wörter ausge- schmückt werden – Campion spricht vom “gracing” der Wörter –, die wichtig und hervorstechend sind, und auch diese Hervorhebung dient weniger zur Textausdeutung oder -illustration als zur Verdeutlichung und Erhöhung der Textverständlichkeit.

In seinem Vorwort zu den Two Books of Ayres (1613; s. ibid.: 55f.) greift Campion den Vergleich der Airs mit Epigrammen wieder auf. Sie seien dann wie “quicke and good Epigrammes in Poesie”, wenn sie “skillfully framed, and naturally exprest” (ibid.: 55) seien. Hier findet sich die einzige Stelle bei Cam- pion, wo nicht ausgeschlossen ist, daß er meint, die Lieder sollten ausdrucks- mäßig gestaltet werden. Wahrscheinlicher ist aber, daß die Phrase “naturally Theorie und Praxis der Vertonung in den elisabethanischen Airs 7

exprest” bloß bedeutet, der Text solle nicht – wie oft im Madrigal – kunstvoll musikalisch verfremdet, sondern im natürlichen Tonfall vertont werden. Was Campion im Weiteren sagt, zählt zu den am häufigsten zitierten Stellen, wenn es um die Airs geht, und fand seinen Eingang in Definitionen des Air2, obwohl – wie gleich zu zeigen sein wird – die Deutungen der Stelle meist auf einem Mißverständnis beruhen. Der Satz lautet:

In these English Ayres, I have chiefly aymed to couple my Words and Notes lovingly together, which will be much for him to doe that hath not power over both. (Ibid.)

Diese Formulierung hat manchen Kritiker dazu veranlaßt, sie als mit der au- toritativen Stimme des Dichter-Komponisten geäußerte Verkündigung einer allgemeinen Verschmelzung von Dichtung und Musik zu deuten, wobei der Aspekt der ‘Verdoppelung’ des Inhaltsmoments des Texts in der Musik im Vor- dergrund stand. In der Tat ist Campions Anspruch bescheidener und spielt sich auf einer viel praktischeren Ebene ab. Er sagt nämlich im unmittelbaren Anschluß daran:

The light of this will best appeare to him who hath pays’d our Monasyllables and Syllab- les combined, both which are so loaded with Consonants, as that they will hardly keepe company with swift Notes, or give the Vowell convenient liberty. (Ibid.: 55f.)

Dies besagt, daß nur dann die Verbindung von Text und Musik geglückt ist, wenn die einsilbigen und mehrsilbigen Wörter auf rechte Weise ‘gewogen’ (“pays’d”) werden, was im Englischen wegen seines Konsonantenreichtums keine leichte Sache sei; es läßt sich schlecht auf rasche Notenfolgen singen und gibt wenig Spielraum, die Vokale auszusingen. Campion bezieht sich hier zweifellos auf die eigenen Erfahrungen mit dem ‘Wägen’ von Silben, wie sie in seinen Observations in the Art of English Poesie (1602; s. ibid.: 287–317) dokumentiert sind. Dort hält er ja fest, daß im Vers weniger die Silbenzahl als “their waite and due proportion” (ibid.: 293) wichtig seien und in dieser Hinsicht die Dichtung der Musik entspreche. Dies ist der Zusammenhang, in dem Cam- pions Zielvorstellung, “to couple my Words and Notes lovingly together”, steht,

2 Vgl. etwa “AIR a song for solo voice in which the stanza form of the words is repeated to go with repetition of the melody, so that words and notes are ‘coupled lovingly together’ (Cam- pion)” (Ing 1968: 66). 8 Theorie und Praxis der Vertonung in den elisabethanischen Airs

und die Forderung nach Äquivalenz von Silben- und Notendauern, die sich ja auch bei Morley findet, muß als dasjenige erkannt werden, was Campion tatsächlich mit der ‘liebevollen Paarung’ von Wort und Ton meint. Hier sind zweifellos manche Kritiker dem Charme der Formulierung erlegen und haben gerne ihre eigenen Vorstellungen von einer geglückten Verbindung von Dich- tung und Musik in sie hineinprojiziert. Campion spricht aber nur von Noten- und Silbendauern und keinen anderen Aspekten des Wort-Ton-Verhältnisses.

Vergleicht man die Äußerungen Campions über die Textvertonung mit jenen Morleys, so ist zunächst festzustellen, daß die Frage der Textausdeutung – vom ‘Grundaffekt’ und ‘am Gedicht entlang’ –, die bei Morley den größten Raum einnimmt, bei Campion unbehandelt bleibt, außer man will die Bemer- kung “naturally exprest” unbedingt in diesem Sinne deuten. Auch sagt Campi- on nichts über strukturelle Momente des Syntax-Pausen-Zusammenhangs aus. Dagegen sind seine Urteile zur Wortmalerei relativ ausführlich, aber im Ge- gensatz zu Morley rundweg ablehnend. Die kurze Bemerkung, die Campion über das ‘gracing of words’, ihre schmückende Hervorhebung macht, läßt eine gewisses Interesse an der Textverdeutlichung erkennen, das bei Morley allerdings viel größer ist. Jedoch das stärkste Interesse, ja der einzige Punkt, den Campion positiv als wichtig für die Vertonung behandelt, liegt in der Frage des Verhältnisses von Silben- und Notendauern. Diese Frage wird auch von Morley besprochen, bei ihm aber nicht so besonders hervorgehoben.

4. Dowland

John Dowlands einzige Stellungnahme zum Wort-Ton-Verhältnis findet sich in seinem Vorwort zum ersten Song-book von 1597 (s. 1597/1965: iv), übri- gens dem ersten, das überhaupt in England erschienen ist. Dowland beginnt damit, daß er Instrumental- und Vokalmusik miteinander vergleicht und dabei feststellt, daß die Instrumentalmusik zwar auch das Gemüt bewegen und Ver- gnügen und Bewunderung im Hörer wecken könne, daß aber die Vokalmusik die Instrumentalmusik übertreffe, und zwar wegen der “liuely voice of man, expressing some worthy sentence or excellent Poeme” (ibid.: iv). Wiederum erhebt sich, wie bei Campion zuvor, die Frage, ob diese Formulierung “expressing” darauf deuten läßt, daß Dowland einen ‘lebhaften Ausdruck’ der Aussa- ge des Texts fordert, also Textausdeutung im Auge hat. Diese Interpretation würde durch die Kenntnis des hochexpressiven Stils der Dowlandschen Musik Theorie und Praxis der Vertonung in den elisabethanischen Airs 9

nahegelegt werden. Vorsichtig macht allerdings die Phrase “worthy sentence”, die eher darauf hinweist, daß Dowland eine moralisierende Aussage im Sinn hat, die der Gefühlsausdeutung weniger zugänglich ist, und nicht einen emotional bewegenden Text. Ähnliches gilt wohl auch für die Formulierung “excellent Poeme” – er sagt ja, “expressing some worthy sentence or excellent Poeme” –, weil – abgesehen von der leichten Ironie, die hier mitschwingt, wenn man bedenkt, wie viele recht schwache Gedichte Dowland tatsächlich vertont hat – “excellent Poeme” auch nicht den Aspekt einer besonders gefühlsintensiven Darstellungsweise des Gedichts hervorkehrt. ‘Excellent’ war im Verständnis der Zeit vor allem ein besonders kunstvoll gearbeitetes Gedicht. Schließlich ist “liuely voice of man” wohl weniger im Sinn von ‘lebhaft bewegt’ zu verstehen, sondern im Gegensatz zur Instrumentalmusik zu sehen, die ja ebenfalls durchaus ‘lebhaft bewegt’ sein kann. Die Wirkung der Vokalmusik ist deshalb größer, weil in ihr ein Mensch – oder mehrere – als körperlich Singender quasi ‘lebendig’, ‘leibhaftig’ aktiv ist und ein ernstes Thema oder ein kunstvolles Gedicht behandelt wird. Ich neige also dazu, auch im hier bestehenden Zu- sammenhang das Wort “expressing” nicht im emphatischeren Sinn der Ge- fühlsausdeutung zu verstehen, so sehr Dowlands Musik das nahelegt, sondern in der einfachen Bedeutung von ‘äußern’ oder ‘verständlich wiedergeben’.

Dowlands Höherbewertung der Vokalmusik ist wiederum im Rahmen der humanistischen Ästhetik zu sehen, und er beruft sich auch im Anschluß auf die ‘höhere Autorität’ der antiken Überlieferung, derzufolge die vorbildhaf- ten mythischen Sänger Linus oder Orpheus Dichtung und Musik miteinander verbanden, indem sie den Rhythmus der Musik “according to the number and time of their Poemes” gestalteten. Wir sehen, daß Dowland hier genau dieselbe Argumentation führt wie Campion, wenngleich er sich etwas allgemeiner ausdrückt. In beiden Auffassungen liegt das tatsächlich Gemeinsame von Musik und Dichtung in der Rhythmik. Dabei ist interessant zu beobachten, daß Dowland zweimal, wenn er von der Rhythmik spricht, “number and time” beziehungsweise “numbers and times” sagt und somit eine Differenzie- rung vornimmt. Zur traditionellen Kategorie ‘number’ als der rhythmischen Verteilung der Silben kommt die Kategorie ‘time’, die als eine übergeordnete regelmäßige Zeitgliederung anzusehen ist, wie sie in den verschiedenen musikalischen Mensuren und Takttypen ihren Niederschlag findet. Für Dowland ist es selbstverständlich, daß sich eine solche Zeitgliederung auch in der Dich- tung findet, ja in dieser sogar ursprünglicher als in der Musik. Diese Äußerung 10 Theorie und Praxis der Vertonung in den elisabethanischen Airs

wirft ein Licht auf einen Aspekt des Versverständnisses der Zeit, der sich auch sonst nachweisen läßt, der aber in unseren heutigen Überlegungen zu diesem Thema nur zu oft keine Berücksichtigung findet.

Es ist im Übrigen zu erwähnen, daß die Berufung auf die mythischen Au- toritäten, wie sie Dowland vornimmt, zu dieser Zeit nicht mehr selbstverständ- lich war und teilweise bereits der realistischen Kritik ausgesetzt wurde. Dies belegt in der Diskussion um die Airs eine Bemerkung Francis Pilkingtons, eines der weniger bedeutsamen Madrigalisten und Airs-Komponisten, der im Vorwort zu seinem ersten Song-book von 1605 zwar zunächst die noble Auf- fassung des Aristoxenos von der Rolle der Musik im persönlichen und gesellschaftlichen Leben bespricht, dann aber sagt: “who regardeth the melodius [sic] charmes of Orpheus, or enchanting melodie of Arion?” (1605/1970: 221)

Dowland ist hier, wie im Allgemeinen, traditionsgebundener in seinem Denken und setzt auch die Überlegungen in seinem Vorwort mit einer Referenz auf Plato fort, deren Wortlaut besonderes Interesse erwecken muß. Er sagt:

[…] Plato defines melody to consist of harmony, number and words; harmony naked of it selfe: wordes the ornament of harmony, number the common friend and uniter of them both. (1597/1965: iv)

Die Quelle für diese Stelle ist Platos Staat, 398 d. Dort heißt es – und ich zitiere des Vergleichs wegen eine englische Übersetzung –: “[…] the melody is composed of three things, the words, the harmony, and the rhythm” (Strunk, ed. 1952: 4). ‘Melodie’ bedeutet hier so viel wie ‘Gesang’ und ‘Harmonie’ steht für das, was wir als ‘Melodie’ oder ‘Tonart’ bezeichnen. Auffällig ist, daß Dowland die ‘Worte’, die bei Plato als erste genannt werden, an den Schluß der Aufzählung stellt. Dies könnte Zufall sein, hieße es nicht bei Plato im Anschluß: “[…] the harmony and the rhythm must follow the words”. Diese Äußerung Platos wurde ja zum Dogma der Humanisten und stellte die Hauptautorität dar für die geforderte Unterordnung der Musik unter die Dichtung. Dowland sagt aber im Gegenteil, “words the ornament of harmony”. Hier wird eindeutig der Me- lodie gegenüber dem Text der Vorrang eingeräumt, wie schon die vorangehende Reihung der Bestimmungsgrößen von ‘Gesang’ suggerierte: Die Worte dienen nur zur Ausschmückung der Melodie, die auch für sich selbst bestehen kann; er spricht von “harmony naked of it selfe”. Dowlands Äußerung ist zweifellos Theorie und Praxis der Vertonung in den elisabethanischen Airs 11

zu entnehmen, daß – so wie es hier formuliert ist – nicht die Textausdeutung oder -verdeutlichung sein oberstes Anliegen bei der Vertonung von Gedichten ist. Vielmehr macht das schon früher Gesagte und die abschließende Bemer- kung, “number the common friend and uniter of them both”, deutlich, daß das Erzielen einer rhythmischen Kongruenz zwischen Musik und Dichtung sein erklärtes Ziel ist, demgegenüber jeder andere Aspekt des Wort-Ton-Verhältnis- ses nachgeordnet ist. Hervorgehoben wird aber die Wichtigkeit der Melodie, die nur insofern in ihrer Entfaltung eingeschränkt ist, als sie in ihrem rhythmischen Verlauf mit den Worten übereinstimmen muß.

Vergleicht man die Äußerungen Dowlands mit jenen Campions, so kann resümierend festgestellt werden, daß sich beide – wenn überhaupt – nur ganz am Rande mit der Frage befassen, inwieweit die musikalische Vertonung eines Textes seinen Inhalt ausdrucksmäßig nachgestalten soll. Beiden Autoren ist an einzelnen Stellen abzulesen, daß sie an Textverständlichkeit interessiert sind. Das zentrale Anliegen in den theoretischen Stellungnahmen beider ist jedoch die rhythmische Übereinstimmung von Text und Musik. Daneben hebt Dowland die Wichtigkeit der Melodie hervor, der sich das Wort, bis auf dessen Rhythmus, anzupassen hat.

5. Die Vertonungspraxis

Wenn wir uns bisher mit einiger Gründlichkeit mit den wichtigsten zeitge- nössischen theoretischen Überlegungen über die Vertonung von Texten befaßt haben, so soll nun ein Blick auf die Vertonungspraxis in den Airs geworfen werden, wobei jene Komponisten im Mittelpunkt stehen sollen, von denen auch die theoretischen Äußerungen stammen.

Ich möchte mit jenem Aspekt beginnen, der einerseits der einfachste ist, andererseits der explizit in der Theorie kontroverseste, nämlich der Wortillus- tration oder Wortmalerei. Diese wird von Morley lebhaft gefordert, und wir finden in seinen – leider nur allzu wenigen – Liedern ausreichend Belege dafür, daß er sich an seine Forderungen hält. Das bekannteste Beispiel ist der Schluß von “Thirsis und Milla”3, der das Abfangspiel der beiden lebendig illustriert,

3 S. Morley (1600/1965), Nr. 3. Die im folgenden besprochenen musikalischen Beispiele sind generell am leichtesten in den Notenausgaben der Reihe The English Lute Songs (Edmund H. Fello- wes, ed., rev. ed. Thurston Dart. London/New York, NY: Stainer & Bell, 1965ff.) zugänglich. 12 Theorie und Praxis der Vertonung in den elisabethanischen Airs

indem zunächst die Singstimme und im Anschluß daran die begleitende Lau- te zu ‘laufen’ beginnt. Oder, im sehr ernsten, getragenen Lied “I saw my lady weeping” (s. Morley 1600/1965: Nr. 5) – dessen Text auch Dowland vertont hat – erfolgt auf dem Wort “mirth” ein rascher Lauf der Laute über eine ganze Oktave, der aus dem stimmungsmäßigen Rahmen fällt und Fröhlichkeit suggerieren soll.

Interessant ist natürlich zu verfolgen, ob Campion, der sich ja entschieden gegen wortmalerische Gestaltungen ausgesprochen hat, solche selbst vornimmt. In der Tat finden sich einige bei ihm. Ein besonders markanter Fall zeigt sich im Lied “Mistress, since you so much desire” (s. Campian [sic] 1601/1968: Nr. 16). Hier wird im Text ausgesagt, der Sitz von “Cupid’s fire” liege nicht in der Brust, auch nicht im Mund oder in den Lippen, “but a little higher”, also wohl in den Augen. Diese Phrase wird viermal sequenzartig steigend musikalisch illustriert. Campion fand offensichtlich Gefallen an dieser Darstellung, denn er griff sie wörtlich wieder auf in einer frivolen Variante des Gedichts, wo gesagt wird, der Sitz von “Cupid’s fire” sei doch nicht in den Zehen zu suchen, “but a little higher” (s. Campian c. 1617/1926: Nr. 22, “Beauty, since you so much desire”). Es finden sich noch mehrere ähnlich illustrierende Stellen bei Cam- pion, und es zeigt sich, daß er durchaus nicht davon Abstand nahm, wortmalerische Momente in seinen Airs einzusetzen, wenn sie ihre Wirkung erzielen konnten. Wogegen er sich offensichtlich auf den Plan gerufen sah, war ihr viel- fach exzessiver Einsatz in den Madrigalen, gegen deren Form er prinzipielle Einwände hatte, weil er ja das Epigrammatische im Lied zu einem Hauptanlie- gen machte. Wo dieses durch die musikalische Gestaltung nicht gefährdet war, sah er keine Veranlassung, wirkungsvolle Stilmittel zu ignorieren.

Dowland hat sich zum Thema Wortmalerei nicht geäußert. Gleichwohl macht er ausführlich Gebrauch davon. In seiner Fassung des schon genannten Gedichts “I saw my lady weep” (s. Dowland 1600/1968: Nr. 1) etwa illustriert er auch das Wort “mirth”, auf – wie mir scheint – wohl einprägsamere Wei- se als Morley, indem er aus dem strömenden, elegischen Tonfall durch einen Taktwechsel plötzlich in Tanzrhythmen fällt.

Ein besonders eindrucksvolles und musikalisch schönes Beispiel der Wor- tillustration findet sich am Schluß von Dowland “Sorrow, stay” (ibid.: Nr. 3). Der Text lautet dort: “But down, down, down I fall, / And arise I never shall”. Theorie und Praxis der Vertonung in den elisabethanischen Airs 13

Hier sinkt die Stimme ganz konventionell auf “down” in mehreren Stufen ab, hebt sich aber wieder auf “arise” in einer freien Phrase, obwohl der Text die Möglichkeit, sich wieder zu erheben, ja negiert (“And arise I never shall”). Auch diese Vertonungspraxis, die die Negation ignoriert, entspricht an sich einer Konvention, die ihren Grund im Wesen der Musik hat, wie Auden einmal sehr einsichtig bemerkt hat. Auden sagt, die Musik kann nicht transitiv sein, sondern nur intransitiv (vgl. 1968: 27); sie kann nur sagen “ich liebe”, nicht aber “ich liebe dich”. Genauso wenig kann sie sagen “ich erhebe mich nicht”, sondern nur “ich erhebe mich” (oder gegebenenfalls “ich falle nieder”). Was durch diese Gestaltung bei Dowland aber erreicht wird, ist, daß der einschichtige Text, der nur von Verzweiflung spricht, komplexer gedeutet wird, indem ein Konflikt, ein innerer Kampf im Sprecher sichtbar wird, ein Schwanken zwischen einem Sich-Hingeben an die Verzweiflung und dem Versuch, sich dagegen aufzubäu- men. Diese stärkere Differenzierung und Psychologisierung, welche die Musik Dowlands in diesem Lied an den Text heranträgt und ihm eine weitere Dimen- sion verleiht, ist ein kleines Beispiel für die eingangs besprochene Möglichkeit, musikalische Vertonungen als Interpretationsleistungen gegenüber dem Text anzusehen, die aus der literarischen Perspektive von Belang sein können.

Wenden wir uns nun der ausdrucksmäßigen ‘Verdoppelung’ des Texts durch die Musik zu und somit der Frage, inwieweit die Musik den Text expressiv ausdeutet, so können wir allgemein feststellen, daß die Airs dies im Prinzip der Forderung Morleys folgend tun. Dies gilt vor allem für die Um- setzung des ‘Grundaffekts’ eines Texts in der musikalischen Sphäre. So lassen sich meist eindeutig heitere von ernst gestimmten Liedern unterscheiden, wobei die Skala der Affekte – ganz wie in Morleys Regeln – relativ begrenzt ist. Selten, wie etwa in Dowlands “My thoughts are wing’d with hopes” (s. Dow- land 1597/1965: Nr. 3) – einem sehr reizvollen Lied, das sich im Detail sehr genau mit dem Text auseinandersetzt –, wird man feststellen können, daß der ‘Ton’ der Musik vielleicht etwas anders gelagert ist als der des Texts. In diesem Fall würde ich meinen, der Charakter der Musik ist zu elegisch und getragen für die letztlich optimistische Haltung, die der Sprecher – vor allem in der ersten Strophe – einnimmt. Hier wird man sagen können, Dowland neige eben zur schmerzhaften Geste, die seinem Temperament am ehesten entsprach – er hat sich selbst als ‘Doland semper dolens’ bezeichnet –, und auch, daß er selbst ja in seinen Überlegungen zum Air keine Forderung nach Übereinstimmung im Ton stellte. 14 Theorie und Praxis der Vertonung in den elisabethanischen Airs

Interessant sind in diesem Zusammenhang jene Lieder, die keinen einheitlichen Grundaffekt besitzen, weil ihre Texte einen eher betrachtenden Charak- ter haben. Besonders bei Campion finden sich solche Lieder in größerer Zahl, aber auch bei Corkine, Jones, Pilkington usw., und in ihnen besteht tatsächlich eine größere Distanz zwischen Textaussage und Musik. ‘Verdoppelung’ tritt nur begrenzt auf, und die musikalische Gestaltung ist vorwiegend geprägt von einer eingängigen, ‘schönen’ Melodie. Diesem Typ von Lied, der seine volks- tümlichen Quellen nicht verleugnet, wenngleich er vor allem aus Italien inspiriert ist, verdankt die Gattung auch ihren Namen, ‘Air’, was ja ‘Melodie’ heißt.

Stellt man sich die Frage, ob in diesen leichten, vorwiegend melodisch ausgerichteten Airs die Verbindung von Text und Musik nun weniger intensiv sei als in den ‘verdoppelnden’ und somit die häufig beanspruchte ‘perfect marriage of poetry and music’ in ihnen nicht realisiert sei, so gibt R. W. Ingram auf diese Frage eine nicht uninteressante Antwort (s. 1960). Er stellt nämlich fest, daß die Idee der ‘vollkommenen Ehe’ eine Gleichwertigkeit der Partner impli- ziere und daß eine solche gerade in den leichten, melodischen Airs garantiert sei, weil die Musik unaufdringlich sei und “the deftness and wit of the words” (ibid.: 137) nicht im Wege stehe, man also den Subtilitäten des Texts dabei besser folgen könne. Wenn sich im Gegensatz dazu die Musik jedoch auf den Text ganz genau einläßt, dann büßt dieser seine Eigenständigkeit ein und verliert gegenüber der sinnlich stärker wirkenden Musik an Gewicht. Diese Gefahr hat übrigens schon Robert Southwell gesehen, wenn er in seiner Vorrede zu St. Pe- ter’s Complaint (1595) sagt: “I send you these few ditties. Add you the tunes, and let the Meane [meaning], I pray you, be still be part in all your Musick” (Gebert, ed. 1966: 114). Die gelungene Verdoppelung des Texts durch die Musik saugt diesen gleichsam auf, während eine quasi ‘eheliche’ Partnerschaft der beiden eine gewisse Distanz und Unabhängigkeit voneinander erfordert.

Kehren wir nun zu Campions und Dowlands Vertonungspraxis zurück und beobachten ihr Vorgehen bezüglich einer Textausdeutung ‘am Gedicht entlang’, so können wir eine doch sehr unterschiedliche Behandlung feststellen. Campion verschließt sich zwar keineswegs völlig der ausdrucksmäßigen Nachzeichnung von Gefühlsmomenten, wenn er etwa Chromatik einsetzt, um “bitter grief” darzustellen, oder verschwommene Harmonik, um Nebel und Dunkelheit zu suggerieren; Campion setzt die Ausdrucksmöglichkeiten der Zeit durchaus zielstrebig ein, legt dabei aber nie jene Zurückhaltung ab, die Theorie und Praxis der Vertonung in den elisabethanischen Airs 15

ihm seine Ästhetik empfahl. Im überwiegenden Teil vor allem seiner späteren Lieder nimmt er jedoch Abstand von Verdoppelungspraktiken. Hier ist er nur konsequent, weil er auch in seinen theoretischen Überlegungen nicht davon spricht.

Anders bei Dowland. Er ist der Meister des expressiven Stils, der in un- endlicher Vielfalt alle Schattierungen des Schmerzes nachzeichnet, Seufzer, Tränen, Ängste und Qualen veranschaulicht, aber auch wirkungsvoll Mond- und Schlafstimmungen, ausgelassene Freude und höllisches Getöse evoziert. Ich kann hier keine Beispiele im Einzelnen anführen, sie sind reizvoll in den Liedern zu verfolgen. Beobachtet man diese Praxis bei Dowland, so drängt sich auf, sie damit im Widerspruch zu sehen, was er selbst über die Textvertonung sagt. Er macht ja in seiner eigenwilligen Umdeutung von Platos Definition des Gesangs deutlich, daß für ihn die Worte gegenüber der Musik von nachran- giger Bedeutung sind, die Worte nur ‘Ornament der Melodie’. Und doch läßt er seine Musik so sehr vom Wort her bestimmen. Vielleicht läßt sich dieser Widerspruch bei Dowland dadurch auflösen, daß man im Sinne Ingrams erkennt, wie eine den Textinhalt besonders intensiv nachzeichnende Musik den Text letztlich aufsaugt und somit der Hörer einer quasi autonomen Musik ge- genübersteht, die sich den Text bloß zum Anlaß nahm. Von der Wirkung der Dowlandschen Lieder her sind die Worte tatsächlich nur Ornament der Mu- sik, sosehr sie von diesen ihren Ausgang nahm.

Nur kurz sei auf das Thema der Textverständlichkeit eingegangen, das Morley genauer behandelt und das von Campion und Dowland gestreift wird. Dieser Grundforderung unterwerfen sich die Komponisten durchwegs, indem sie die wichtigsten Wörter auf hohe und lange Noten setzen sowie in der Pau- sensetzung den syntaktischen Einschnitten folgen. Hier gibt es jedoch oft in den weiteren Strophen der ja meist nicht durchkomponierten Lieder Schwie- rigkeiten, außer wenn die Strophen streng parallel gebaut sind, was allerdings recht häufig der Fall ist. Auch werden satzlogische Hervorhebungen, selbst wenn sie gegen das Metrum gehen, musikalisch mitvollzogen, etwa Dowlands “Weep you no more, sad fountains, / What need you flow so fast?” (s. Dowland 1603/1969: Nr. 15), wo “so” ein logisch bedingtes Höhen- und Längengleich- gewicht erhält. Interessant ist die Frage, ob Campion seiner Forderung, nur wichtige, hervorstechende Wörter mit Verzierungen zu versehen, entspricht. Tatsächlich finden sich mehrfach Stellen, wo ganz unwichtige Silben, wie etwa 16 Theorie und Praxis der Vertonung in den elisabethanischen Airs

die Vorsilbe von “obey” mit einem Melisma versehen werden. In solchen Fällen läuft dem Methodiker Campion die Musik gegenüber dem klassizistisch ausgerichteten Dichter Campion davon.

Will man das bisher über das Verhältnis von Theorie und Praxis in den elisabethanischen Airs Gesagte in aller Kürze zusammenfassen, so kann man sagen, daß zunächst einmal die von Morley aus einer praktischen Perspektive aufgestellten Regeln der Vertonung durchwegs ihre Berücksichtigung finden, auch bei den anderen Komponisten, die sie nicht selbst in ihre Überlegungen aufnehmen. Einschränkend ist zu sagen, daß Campion und die ihm verwand- ten Komponisten dem Aspekt der expressiven Ausdeutung des Textes nicht jene Bedeutung beimessen, die er bei Morley besitzt. Bei Campion besteht in einigen Punkten eine Diskrepanz zwischen dem, was er fordert, und dem, was er tatsächlich tut. Dies betrifft vor allem die Wortmalerei und die schmücken- de Hervorhebung. Er bleibt aber stets seiner Grundforderung nach einer knap- pen, einprägsamen Vertonung der Texte treu, womit er für seine Zeit Neuland beschritt. Dowland ist im historischen Rahmen der unkonventionellste der drei untersuchten Theoretiker, indem er die Hierarchie der Gattungen um- kehrt und diesem Anspruch in der Praxis, zumindest von der Wirkung her, auch tatsächlich entspricht. Daß er trotzdem im traditionellen Rahmen der Textausdeutung steht, ist ein genialer Zug an ihm.

6. Die Frage der rhythmischen Kongruenz

Dieses Resümé ist insofern auf grobe Weise unvollständig, als daß jener As- pekt, der bei Campion und Dowland in ihren theoretischen Äußerungen den größten Raum einnimmt und der auch bei Morley gebührende Behandlung findet, noch keine Erwähnung fand. Ich meine die rhythmische Frage. Für Dowland ist der Rhythmus das Dichtung und Musik grundlegend Verbinden- de; Campion sah die ‘liebevolle Paarung’ der beiden Medien ebenfalls nur im Rhythmus; und Morley fordert eine Übereinstimmung von Silben- und No- tendauern. Dieser Problemkreis hat die allgemeine Diskussion um die Ästhe- tik der Zeit bereits gründlich beschäftigt, weil in ihm gewisse Tendenzen des Humanismus ihren Kristallisationspunkt finden. Er umfaßt grundlegende Fragestellungen um die Metrik der Zeit und ist nicht trennbar von den sich wandelnden rhetorischen Anliegen der Epoche. Es ist insofern nicht verwunderlich, daß sich auch – und gerade – die Theoretiker der Airs mit der Kon- Theorie und Praxis der Vertonung in den elisabethanischen Airs 17

gruenz der Rhythmik befassen, wenngleich sich die Forschung über die Airs bisher noch kaum der Frage zugewandt hat. Ich habe mich in einer größeren Studie mit diesem Problemkreis auseinandergesetzt4 und mir – im Zusam- menhang der hier verfolgten Problemstellung – auch die Frage vorgelegt, ob die Komponisten diese Forderung nach einer rhythmischen Kongruenz von Musik und Dichtung tatsächlich auf der praktischen, akustischen Ebene ernst nehmen, oder ob sie bloß ein quasi kunstideologisches Dogma der Zeit formulierten und es dabei bewenden ließen. Man neigt heute eher dazu, Letzteres anzunehmen, wobei vor allem Derek Attridges einflußreiche Studie über die quantitierende Bewegung in England meinungsprägend ist (s. 1979). Attridge vertritt, vergröbernd gesprochen, die Auffassung, daß die ganze Diskussion um Silbendauern ein Produkt der Gelehrsamkeit der Zeit war; Silbendauern waren keine akustischen Größen, sondern es gab sie nur in den gelehrten Köpfen der Elisabethaner. Es schien mir sinnvoll, dieser Frage konkret nachzugehen, und ich sah in den Airs ein sich förmlich anbietendes Textkorpus, da diese ja auf die tatsächliche Kongruenz von Silben- und Notendauern hin untersuchbar sind und die Komponisten ebenfalls diese Kongruenzforderung sehr zentral stellen. Es kann hier der methodisch etwas aufwendigere Gang der Studie nicht aufgezeigt werden, ich kann aber festhalten, daß die statistische Erhebung tat- sächlich eine Übereinstimmung von Noten- und Silbendauern bei an die 70 Prozent der untersuchten Silben ergibt. Damit ist zunächst – im Rahmen der hier verfolgten Fragestellung – belegt, daß die Komponisten der Airs ihrer theoretisch erhobenen Forderung in der Praxis vorwiegend entsprechen; darüber hinaus wird aber folglich auch nahegelegt, die Gesamtbeurteilung der quanti- tierenden Bewegung in England und damit im Zusammenhang die Beurtei- lung eines wesentlichen Anliegens der humanistischen Poetik zu überdenken.

Wenn ich zum Abschluss auf die Überlegungen am Beginn meiner Aus- führungen zurückkomme, so hat das Gesagte, wie ich hoffe, aufzeigen können, daß Untersuchungen im Grenzbereich der vergleichenden Literaturbetrach- tung, in den ‘Comparative Arts’, durchaus auch für die Literaturwissenschaft im engeren Sinn von Belang sein können.

4 [Inzwischen erschienen, s. Bernhart (1993)]. 18 Theorie und Praxis der Vertonung in den elisabethanischen Airs

References

Attridge, Derek (1979). Well-Weighed Syllables: Elizabethan Verse in Classical Metres. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. Auden, W. H. (1968). Worte und Noten. Eröffnungsrede der Salzburger Festspiele 1968. Salzburg: Salzburger Festspiele. Bernhart, Walter (1993). ‘True Versifying’: Studien zur elisabethanischen Verspraxis und Kunstideologie unter Einbeziehung der zeitgenössischen Lautenlieder. Studien zur englischen Philologie 29. Tü- bingen: Niemeyer. Campian [sic], Thomas (1601/1968). The Songs from Rosseter’s Book of Airs. The English Lute-Songs, Series I, 4 & 13. Edmund H. Fellowes, ed., rev. ed. Thurston Dart. London/New York, NY: Stainer & Bell. — (c. 1617/1926). Fourth Booke of Ayres. The English School of Lutenist Song Writers, Second Series. Edmund H. Fellowes, ed. London: Stainer & Bell. Dahlhaus, Carl (1983). “Im Namen Schenkers”. Die Musikforschung 2: 82–87. Davis, Walter R., ed. (1969). The Works of Thomas Campion: Complete Songs, Masques, and Treatises with a Selection of the Latin Verse. London, New York, NY: W. W. Norton. Dowland, John (1597/1965). The First Book of Ayres. The English Lute-Songs, Series I, 1 & 2. Edmund H. Fellowes, ed., rev. ed. Thurston Dart. London/New York, NY: Stainer & Bell. — (1600/1968). Second Book of Songs. The English Lute-Songs, Series I, 5 & 6. Edmund H. Fellowes, ed., rev. ed. Thurston Dart. London/New York, NY: Stainer & Bell. — (1603/1969). The Third Booke of Songs. The English Lute-Songs, Series I, 10 & 11. Edmund H. Fel- lowes, ed., rev. ed. Thurston Dart, David Scott. London/New York, NY: Stainer & Bell. Fellowes, Edmund H. (1965). The English Lute Songs. London: Stainer & Bell. Gebert, Clara, ed. (1966). An Anthology of Elizabethan Dedications and Prefaces. New York, NY: Rus- sell & Russell. Ing, Catherine (1968). Elizabethan Lyrics: A Study in the Development of English Metres and Their Re- lation to Poetic Effect. London: Chatto & Windus. Ingram, Reginald W. (1960). “Words and Music”. J. R. Brown, Bernard Harris, eds. Elizabethan Poe- try. Stratford-upon-Avon Studies 2. London: Edward Arnold. 130–149. Morley, Thomas (1597/1969). Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Mvsicke. The English Experi- ence 207. Amsterdam, New York, NY. — (1600/1965). The First Booke of Ayres. The English Lute-Songs, Series I, 16. Edmund H. Fellowes, ed., rev. ed. Thurston Dart. London/New York, NY: Stainer & Bell. Pilkington, Francis (1605/1970). “The First Booke of Songs or Ayres”. Edward Doughtie, ed. Lyrics from English Airs: 1596–1622. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP. Scher, Steven Paul, ed. (1984). Literatur und Musik: Ein Handbuch zur Theorie und Praxis eines komparatistischen Grenzgebiets. Berlin: Erich Schmidt. Schnitzler, Günter, ed. (1979). Dichtung und Musik: Kaleidoskop ihrer Beziehungen. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta. Smeed, J. W. (1981f.). “The Composer as Interpreter”. German Life & Letters 35: 221–228. Strunk, Oliver, ed. (1952). Source Readings in Music History: From Classical Antiquity to the Romantic Era. London: Faber. The Iconic Quality of Poetic Rhythm [1986]

One of the most familiar statements in English literature about the iconicity of literary discourse is Pope’s couplet from his Essay on Criticism:

’Tis not enough no Harshness gives Offence, The Sound must seem an Eccho to the Sense. (ll. 364f.)

Pope’s famous phrase, which expresses a critical commonplace of his age, makes it clear that the dimension of a literary work of art that was foremost in a critic’s mind when he concerned himself with mimetic representation in literature was the element of ‘sound’. It was his ear which he most immediately relied upon when he wanted to judge the imitative quality of a text, and not so much his eye; it is the primary orality of poetry that made him less aware of the fact that poetry, as a sensual phenomenon, might have a visual dimension, as well, besides the more obvious acoustical one. Aural iconicity is historically and genet- ically prior to visual iconicity in literature.

When Pope talks about ‘sound’ – and this is made patent by the lines he gives to illustrate his maxim – he means two different things at the same time: on the one hand, what he has in mind is the ‘sound’ of his words in the stricter sense, that is, the acoustical formation of his vowels and consonants; the other dimension is ‘sound’ in a wider sense and implies the rhythmical structure of his lines. When, in his illustration, “loud surges lash the sounding Shore” (l. 368) it is the aural shape of some of the consonants of the words that can be seen to acquire an iconic quality; when “Ajax strives, some Rock’s vast Weight to throw” (l. 370) it is rather the distribution of accents in combination with the articulatory dimension of the consonants that accounts for the mimetic 20 The Iconic Quality of Poetic Rhythm

suggestiveness of the line1. In a poem like Poe’s “The Bells”, the ‘sound’ iconically invested is the acoustic aspect of language, imitative of four different kinds of bells; all four respective stanzas, however, use the same (complicated) stanza metre and, therefore, show a considerable rhythmical conformity: ‘sound’ as rhythm is only marginally iconic in this poem. In contrast, in a poem like Browning’s “How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix”, the ‘sound’ echoing meaning is the metre, suggestive of galloping horses:

Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest, And into the midnight we galloped abreast. (ll. 5f.)

The ‘sound’ as aural perception is barely foregrounded in this poem (unless one is inclined to give significance to the predominance of plosives in the passage quoted)2.

In what follows, we shall concentrate on the rhythmical dimension of ‘sound’ and discuss what has conveniently been labelled “representative versification” (Hollander 1985: 21, 29), that is, the iconic quality of poetic rhythm. We shall further, in an attempt to assess the various possible forms of rhythmical iconicity in poetry, begin with Pope’s famous maxim quoted at the beginning and from the ways in which it was interpreted by his critics.

The central concept of Pope’s phrase, relevant to a discussion of poetic iconicity, is the word echo. The fact that Pope asks for an ‘echo’ of ‘sense’ in ‘sound’ implies a basically mimetic conception of the function of literature in that literature is meant to somehow mirror reality. In this way Pope can be seen as a representative of one of the two great traditions of how to define literature, which Todorov subsumes under the headings of ‘imitation’ and ‘play’ (1975: 99). Pope belongs to the line from Dionysius of Halicarnassus to Charles Mor- ris, who – to generalize and simplify – hold that “literature is a language whose signs are motivated (or ‘natural’), unlike the rest of language, in which signs are

1 This description implies a conception of verbal rhythm that involves a perceptible segmentation of time effected by a variable energy distribution over the utterance, that is, by the articulatory process. 2 The German language is clearer in the differentiation of aspects of ‘sound’ than the English. Ein Laut, that is, a ‘sound’ as a vowel, semi-vowel, or consonant, compriscs Klang (‘sound’) as the acoustical dimension, and Artikulation, as the energy dimension. The Iconic Quality of Poetic Rhythm 21

unmotivated (or ‘arbitrary’)” (ibid.: 97). He does not belong to the tradition from Quintilian through Kant and the Symbolists to the Russian Formalists, for whom “poetic language is a perceptible language, which draws attention to itself, in contrast to the transparency and instrumentality of everyday speech” (ibid.: 98). The question of iconicity of literature will be raised only by someone who is prepared to see some form of analogy between literature and what is outside it.

Todorov is aware of the fact that both the purely mimetic and purely self-referential positions are unsatisfactory as both aspects are part of any literary discourse. He acknowledges that through the two definitions of the ‘artistic sign’ he gives “we arrive at a history of the idea of literature, not at a theory (or science) of literature” (ibid.: 99). It is only such a “history of the idea of literature” that will enable us to realize in what different forms over the ages poetic rhythm has been seen to acquire an iconic quality.

A more comprehensive model of the various functions of literature and a more comprehensive “history of the idea of literature” than Todorov’s are Abrams’s well-known four categories of literary theories, based on the communication model:

UNIVERSE

ARTIST AUDIENCE 22 The Iconic Quality of Poetic Rhythm

He distinguishes mimetic (universe), pragmatic (audience), expressive (artist), and objective (work) theories3. In relation to the question of iconicity all those theories are relevant, of course, which are ‘mimetic’ and thus establish some correspondence between the work of art and the universe. But also the ‘expressive’ theories, which concentrate on the relationship between the author and the work of art, are concerned with problems of iconicity in that they postulate a correspondence between the author’s expressive intentions and the shape and structure of the work of art. While, according to ‘mimetic’ theories, a work of art mirrors ‘external’ reality, according to ‘expressive’ theories, it mirrors ‘internal’ reality. ‘Pragmatic’ theories, on the other hand, which focus on the rhetorical effects of a work of art on an audience, disregard iconic qualities of the text, as do ‘objective’ theories, which correspond with Todorov’s self-referential tradition described earlier4.

Against this framework of critical theories of literature, which reflect a ‘history of the idea of literature’, it will be possible to put into perspective some of the critical comments on Pope’s maxim, and thereby to arrive at a more or less systematical conception of what forms of iconic representation poetic rhythm, at different historical periods, was held to be able to perform.

The profoundest discussion of Pope’s maxim is Dean Tolle Mace’s essay on “The Doctrine of Sound and Sense in Augustan Poetic Theory” (1951). Mace summarizes – and questions – the general earlier critical view of Pope’s doctrine when he says that it was considered “a flight from one excess of eighteenth-century poetry to another, from the dreary monotony of faultless numbers […] to a kind of vulgar onomatopoeia in which the sound is employed in a ‘musical’ way to give a commonplace and mechanical ring to the sense” (ibid.: 130f.). Mace cannot accept that what Pope propagated was a crude mimesis of

3 See Abrams (1953: 3–29), summarized in Preminger, ed. (1965, s. v. “Poetry, Theories of”: 639– 649). A more recent model, using very similar categories, though apparently unaware of Abrams’s, is presented by Erika Fischer-Lichte (see 1983: 195–215). Fischer-Lichte attempts a reformulation of the critical concepts in the light of semiotic research. 4 An attempt to ‘rescue’ some form of mimesis for autonomous, self-referential works of art as well is made by A. P. Frank, who supports the view that, even though – with an ‘objective’ attitude to literature – there can be no correlation between the work of art and ‘external’ or ‘internal’ reality, there is a ‘mimetic’ relationship between the poem and the language that constitutes it. This position reflects more radical forms of present-day epistemology (cf. Frank 1977: 192f.). The Iconic Quality of Poetic Rhythm 23

external reality, for which view he takes Mark Van Doren as being representative (cf. 1920/1960: 80). He agrees, however, that Pope turned away from that form of poetic practice which was prevalent at his time and favoured ‘harmony’ and regular ‘numbers’. This idea of ‘smooth numbers’ was one of the main tenets of the classicist doctrine, and Mace traces its tradition from antiquity. For our discussion of poetic iconicity it is important to recall that from early on rhythm had been considered an essential element of poetic mimesis. “The Po- etics of Aristotle and the Pythagorean, Platonic, and Boethian traditions were the main sources of the doctrine that only harmony and rhythm belonged to musical imitation.” (Mace 1951: 133) In the view of these traditions, poetic numbers – as a branch of musical science – were an allegory of the harmony of spheres, of musica mundana, and thus mimetic of the ‘true harmony’ of the universe. This form of mimesis was linked, in the Platonic tradition, with a ‘pragmatic’ aspect (in Abrams’s terminology) in that poetic rhythm, as a mirror of universal harmony, was held to have a moral effect on the audience.

This older view of poetic rhythm declined during the Baroque era, a process which is described in John Hollander’s The Untuning of the Sky (see 1961). It was gradually replaced by a view based on mechanistic Cartesian psychology, reducing the transcendent and moral dimensions of the older view to more earthly, rational and sensual dimensions. ‘Harmony’ and ‘number’ were still ultimate poetic aims but they were no longer believed to be a mirror of universal harmony and to have a moral effect. They were reduced to mathematical proportions and had to please the senses. In this enlightened view the main function of poetry was ‘pragmatic’, since the pleasurable effect of a work of art on the audience was of uppermost importance.

The ‘mimetic’ aspect became less obvious although it remained part of the discussion and, in fact, entered into a period of decisive transition. Mace quotes John Mason’s Essay on the Power and Harmony of Prosaic Numbers (1749) where the basic poetic feet are linked with different general affective qualities: spondees are thought to be “grave and majestick”; anapaests “rapid and vehement; excellently adopted to martial musick and martial songs”; iambs “very strong and sonorous, very proper […] to excite and express the Passion of Anger” (qtd. Mace 1951: 135). This last phrase, “very proper […] to excite and express the Passion of Anger”, illustrates quite vividly the new aesthetic principles: the ‘pragmatic’ function of poetry predominates (‘excite the passions’), 24 The Iconic Quality of Poetic Rhythm

but at the same time the various poetic feet are also seen to be able to ‘express passions’. It is obvious that some sort of ‘expressive’ function of poetry is also considered, and we can observe that the emphasis of a mimetic function of poetic rhythm had shifted from ‘external’ reality to ‘internal’ reality; ‘anger’, ‘martiality’, ‘gravity’ are general affects that are thought to be iconically presentable by various metres.

To return to Mace’s discussion of Pope’s maxim, we recall that Mace agrees with earlier critics that Pope turned away from the classicist doctrine of ‘harmony’ and ‘number’ as being the essential principle of versification. Mace points out that Pope criticized the mechanical view of poetic metre just described, that is, that certain regularly recurring feet should be able to express certain affects. (Mace does not make clear, however, that Pope did not question the ‘pragmatic’ aspect of ‘smooth numbers’, that is, their pleasurable effect on the senses. The line quoted at the beginning of this essay, “’Tis not enough no Harshness gives Offence”, implies Pope’s desire to give no such offence, and his whole body of poetry gives evidence of his conviction.) It is also obvious that Pope did not turn against the old doctrine of poetic rhythm with its view of cosmic mimesis and moral effects; it was dead by his time.

So the discussion so far has shown that Pope, by demanding that ‘sound must seem an echo to the sense’, did not mean direct representation of ‘external’ reality (onomatopoeia), nor cosmic mimesis in the Pythagorean-Platon- ic-Boethian sense, nor mechanical expression of general affects. What did he mean then?

Mace maintains that Pope’s maxim should be placed in the tradition of imitative expression that originated in the early Baroque Florentine Academy, in the form of what is known as Italian monody. This style developed “a Sys- tem of musical figures, or loci topici, which, in connexion with a text or title, were believed to give accurate representation to the affections” (Mace 1951: 136f.). What is decisive in this style, in contrast to the mechanical expressiveness attributed to certain poetic feet by the Augustan doctrine, is the fact that, here, specific affections are illustrated as they appear and are talked about in the text, and not a general affect that characterizes a whole text. One could say that in the one case the sound tries to illustrate the sense ‘along the poem’, as it were, changing with the various changes of meaning while the poem unfolds, The Iconic Quality of Poetic Rhythm 25

whereas in the other case the ‘sound’ attempts to represent the basic expressive attitude of the poem by the choice of a particular metre. In other words, while ‘representative versification’, in the one case, works on the level of the rhythm of the individual line or phrase, in the other, it works on the level of the chosen overall metre.

A glance at the lines Pope wrote to illustrate his maxim can easily demonstrate his intention to use rhythmical variations to ‘echo’ changing ‘affections’ while using the same basic poetic metre: he in turn illustrates ‘softness’, ‘roughness’, ‘laboriousness’ and ‘swiftness’ within the frame of his heroic couplets. (Only in illustrating “swift Camilla” does he insert an extended alexandrine.)5

Mace’s argument about Pope’s real intention behind his maxim is convincing, particularly as he puts it in the proper historical perspective. It is illuminating to compare it to another critical assessment of Pope’s view, which, in contrast, lacks that perspective. This assessment, however, will enable us to extend our list of iconic possibilities of poetic rhythm.

Lotspeich summarizes his analysis of Pope’s lines as follows:

When Pope then speaks of the sound, he means primarily the rhythmical flow of the sounds of the line, and this rhythmical flow is in its ultimate analysis merely the manner of our inner activity, the movement of our own mind, the set of our own nerve and mus- cle systems, as we read the line; in short, it is our feeling, our mood. (1927: 471)

And further:

Pope’s dictum then regarding the sound and the sense means primarily that the poet must vary the rhythmical movement of his lines in accordance with the varying moods which accompany the different thoughts and images that he presents; and this is, of course, the instinctive practice of every real poet. (Ibid.: 474)

5 John Hollander discusses Pope’s versification in similar terms when he points out that Pope uses the same metre of the iambic alexandrine for very different expressive purposes in two different lines of his Essay on Criticism. In both cases it is the particular rhythmical structure of the respective line that achieves the expressive effect: “A needless Alexandrine ends the Song, / That like a wounded Snake, drags its slow length along.’ (ll. 356f.); “Not so when swift Camilla scours the Plain, / Flies o’er th’unbending Com, and skims along the Main.” (ll. 372f.) (cf. Hollander 1985: 21). 26 The Iconic Quality of Poetic Rhythm

These statements ask for three different sets of comment:

1. Lotspeich realizes that – to take up an issue discussed earlier in this essay – ‘sound’ comprises not only the acoustical aspect of language but also includes rhythm, that ‘sound’ involves “the point of view of energy, or force” (ibid.). However, he undervalues the aural element of sound quality in Pope’s lines (see our earlier discussion) and, furthermore, adheres to a rather vague conception of rhythm which becomes a matter of purely subjective sensibility.

2. The two roughly identical statements quoted above had to be given in order to show that Lotspeich is also vague in respect of the functionality of poetry which he has in mind. While in the first quotation he talks about ‘us’ as readers of poetry and our ‘inner activity’ when experiencing the lines, which implies a ‘pragmatic’ approach to poetry (in Abrams’s terms), in the second he talks about ‘the poet’ who adapts ‘sound’ to ‘sense’, thus implying an ‘expressive’ approach. At the same time, the later statement also suggests a certain independence of the poem itself, as Lotspeich talks about “different thoughts and images that he [the poet] presents” (not ‘expresses’; my emphasis). This vagueness of literary functionality is characteristic of a romantic attitude to poetry which ideally expects an identity of poet, poem, and reader on an emotional basis. ‘Poetry’ is seen as an act of expressing and experiencing extreme subjectivity; “every real poet” must be able to produce innermost ‘internal’ reality.

3. It is a consequence of this position that ‘echoing’ ‘sense’ in ‘sound’ can only mean iconic representation in poetry of that innermost ‘internal’ reality; in Lotspeich’s words, the “rhythmical flow is in its ultimate analysis merely the manner of our inner activity”.

It is obvious that this is not what Pope had in mind when he wrote his maxim. In that respect Lotspeich anachronistically applies his idea of poetry, which he universalizes, to a poet who had quite a different conception of it. Pope’s ‘specific affections’, which he wanted rhythmically represented in his verse, are not identical with Lotspeich’s “inner activity”. They are on different levels of ‘internal’ reality; the ‘affections’ Pope illustrates (‘softness’, ‘roughness’, etc.) are not the Romantics’ individualized emotions, The Iconic Quality of Poetic Rhythm 27

which embody more radical ‘internality’.

What can be deduced from Lotspeich’s anachronism, however, is an awareness of the fact that, historically, since ‘the untuning of the sky’, the iconic use of poetic rhythm has conquered ever more ground of ‘internal’ reality. A final position of that development is reflected in Umberto Eco’s statement that “many are tempted [today] to say that there exist uncoded systems of signification, where semiotic analysis must give way before the inexpressible or the ineffable” (1975: 16).

Before trying to summarize what has been said about the iconic quality of poetic rhythm I shall address myself briefly to the question of the nature of the relationship between ‘sound’ and ‘sense’ as is implied in Pope’s dictum. Pope says that “The Sound must seem [my emphasis] an Eccho to the Sense” and thereby shows an awareness of the arbitrariness which characterizes that relationship. In this respect Mace is not as acute a reader of Pope as he proves to be elsewhere. When he talks about “unity of sound and sense” in Pope and about sound becoming “an integral part of word-meaning itself”, “sound and sense were one” (1951: 138f.), he is too quick to label the poet as a clear ‘naturalist’, as is Ull- mann, who groups Pope with Herder and Humboldt as “defenders” of “the naturalist theory” (1975: 104f.). Pope obviously did not believe in a pre-established correspondence of ‘sound’ and ‘sense’, but rather took the conventional- ist attitude, which meant that he trusted in the chance of activating latent signifying possibilities of language, through setting up appropriate expectations; ‘sound’ should be used in such a way that it seems to ‘echo sense’.

In his discussion of the significative properties of rhythm in poetry, La- ferrière proposes that rhythm should “be understood as a psychological genus” (1980: 413) and introduces the term ‘psychological set’ to describe that attitude which enables a subject to perceive significance in a signal. The ‘psychological set’ is defined as “a temporary orientation, expectation, or state of readiness to respond in a particular way to a particular stimulus situation” (Encyclopedia of Psychology 3/206; qtd. ibid.: 415). It is the neglect of this psychological mechanism which leads critics to an extreme position on the arbitrariness of linguistic signs, as it is held, for example, by Todorov, who says “language, whether in 28 The Iconic Quality of Poetic Rhythm

literature or not, never imitates the world and cannot do so. […] Natural language has not existed since Babel” (1975: 99). Although, in fact, there is little obvious inherent iconicity in language, it is a characteristic of literary language that it tends to operate with ‘psychological sets’ towards some form of iconici- ty6. Jakobson was more careful than others when he said, “[a]ny attempt to treat verbal signs as solely conventional, ‘arbitrary symbols’ proves to be a misleading oversimplification” (1971: 701; qtd. Nänny 1985: 111). The subject is able, and expected, to establish individually, or by recourse to literary traditions, iconic meanings of literature; this is much of the satisfaction that the experience of literary works of art entails.

What applies to literature at large necessarily applies to poetic rhythm in particular. The discussion of Pope’s maxim has shown that, in different historical periods, adherents of theoretical positions have interpreted an iconic quality of poetic rhythm in different ways, or otherwise ignored it, or denied it. These theoretical positions and poetic practices are ‘psychological sets’ in the sense given, and a modern critic should be aware, therefore, that all of them are valid within their own frames of reference but that, at the same time, none of them can maintain that it represents the one and only ‘truth’ about rhythmical iconicity.

By way of summary, the discussion of this essay can be said to have generated a list of five different possibilities of iconic representation of reality in poetic rhythm. Those possibilities – apart from the first, which is of a different category – reflect the development of literary theory since the Renaissance and, therefore, show some sort of logical coherence.

1. Direct Iconic Representation of External Reality

This category comprises the obvious cases where the rhythmical movement of verse mirrors actual activities, among which, naturally, motions prevail, as rhythm can most easily represent movement (i. e., energy segmenting time). The earliest forms of poetry, such as nursery rhymes, are full of this kind of iconicity:

6 For a more detailed discussion of this position see Bernhart (1977). The Iconic Quality of Poetic Rhythm 29

Riding: Ride a cock-horse to Banbury Cross To see a fine lady upon a white horse. Spinning: Oh yes, kind sir, I’m sitting to spin, Tweedle, Tweedle, Twino. Lulling: Sweet and low, sweet and low, Wind of the western sea.

But also more developed forms use direct iconic representation of movement, such as the marching of Kipling’s soldiers:

We’re foot-slog-slog-slog-sloggin’ over Africa! Foot-foot-foot-foot-sloggin’ over Africa – (Boots-boots-boots-boots, movin’ up an’ down again!) There’s no discharge in the war! Rudyard Kipling, “Boots”

It is true that even in more subtle forms of rhythmic iconicity often an element of direct representation of movement is still latent:

The old dog barks backward without getting up. I can remember when he was a pup. Robert Frost, “The Span of Life”

Although the intention of this poem – expressed in its title – is to characterize old age and youth, which is echoed in the two contrasting slow and lively lines of the poem, yet what is latently perceived in the rhythm of the verse is the contrast between the ways in which an old dog and a young dog move7. Similarly in Tennyson’s lines:

The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep Moans round with many voices. […] Alfred Lord Tennyson, “Ulysses” the rhythm suggests the tranquility of the evening described, and, more figuratively, maybe even Ulysses’s declining strength and sense of imminent death; but at the same time it more directly mirrors the ‘slow climbing’ of the moon.

7 For a discussion of this poem and further examples of direct rhythmic iconicity see Perrine (1956: 167–182). 30 The Iconic Quality of Poetic Rhythm

There is no doubt, therefore, that direct representation of external reality is the basic, and most universal, form of rhythmic iconicity in poetry, the use of which cannot be linked with one particular historical view of poetry. As the examples show, this iconic practice need not necessarily be trivial, particularly when it is combined with the representations of more subtle internal reality8.

2. Cosmic Iconic Representation

It was discussed above that the oldest and most venerable view of rhythmic iconicity in poetry was the ancient conception – stemming from Pythagoras, Plato and, later, Boethius and St Augustine – that poetic rhythm, just as the rhythm of music, was a mirror of the divine order of the cosmos. This view, which was still one of the main tenets of Renaissance aesthetics, was held far into the seventeenth century before it was superseded by rationalist and empir- icist conceptions9.

3. Iconic Representation of General Affects

On the basis of Cartesian psychology, Augustan theorists believed in a link between the common poetic metres and certain general affects. This belief signalled the beginning of a new tradition of rhythmic iconicity as, applying the new psychology, it propagated, for the first time, some form of iconic representation of internal reality by versification. It is essential that, in this view, it is the metre of a poem, and not the rhythm of individual passages, that is said to ‘echo sense’.

A modern judgment of this view is expressed by Perrine:

There are no ‘happy’ meters and no ‘melencholy’ ones. The poet’s choice of meter is probably less important than how he handles it after he has chosen it. However, some meters, are swifter than others, some slower; some are more lilting than others, some more dignified. [...]

8 Another interesting example of a rhythmical structure that echoes both an external and an internal element of reality at the same time is a line from Tennyson’s “Lancelot and Elaine” describing Elaine, who is reluctant to give in to her desire to speak to Lancelot: First as in fear, step after step, she stole Down the long tower-stairs, hesitating: [1974] (II. 9-11) The last word quoted, “hesitating”, upsets the metre of the line, holds the rhythm back for a moment, which neatly mirrors Elain’s emotional state; but at the same time, of course, she is holding back her steps on the stairs as well. For a discussion of this line, see Bernhart (1974: 123). 9 See Hollander (1961); Finney (1962); Koenigsberger (1979); Seidel (1976). The Iconic Quality of Poetic Rhythm 31

[There is no] mystical correspondence between certain meters and certain emotions. (1965: 155)

That there is still a – growing – interest among scholars in investigating iconicity of metre is documented by a number of articles quoted by Laferrière, who observes, “[g]enerally speaking, research into the semantic effects of metrical types […] is just beginning” (1980: 431).

4. Iconic Representation of Specific Affections

It is Pope’s view, illustrated by his examples, that poetic rhythm can be used to represent specific affections (along with phenomena of speed and movement). The difference to the position discussed under 3. above lies in the fact that, in this view, it is not the overall metre of a poem that is said to acquire an iconic quality, but the rhythmical movement of a particular line or phrase. As a consequence, the range of ‘internal reality’ thought to be rhythmically presentable in poetry is wider than in the earlier position; it goes beyond the range of such basic emotional states as ‘happy’, ‘sad’, or ‘martial’, and includes more specific conditions, such as anger, exuberance, laziness, etc.

This form of rhythmic iconicity in poetry is the most widely accepted, apart from direct representation of external reality. A stimulating discussion of it can be found in Harding’s monograph (see 1976, especially ch. 7: “Expressive Effects of Rhythm in Verse”, 85–97). Laferrière gives a few telling examples of what he calls ‘metrical icons’, that is, semantically relevant deviations from metre, from Aleksandr Blok (cf. 1980: 431–433).

5. Iconic Representation of Individualized Emotions and States of Mind

With the advent of romantic notions of poetry and the accompanying discov- ery of individual subjectivity all elements of poetry began to be put to use for expressing that subjectivity. This resulted in the dogma of the ‘identity’ of form and meaning in poetry, with the consequence that rhythm, too, was considered an essential factor of ‘suggesting’ the poet’s (as well as the reader’s, and the poem’s) ‘inner activity’; this position is witnessed by Lotspeich’s statements quoted earlier.

The examples from Tennyson given above have demonstrated that with a certain willingness, that is, with an adequate ‘psychological set’, one can be led 32 The Iconic Quality of Poetic Rhythm

to see correspondences between mental and emotional conditions expressed in the poem and its rhythmical structure. Similarly, to take another example, one might be prepared to see an equivalence between J. Alfred Prufrock’s condition of indecision and ennui, his ‘tediousness’ and ‘etherization’, on the one hand, and the sluggishness and long-windedness of Eliot’s free verse paragraphs, on the other. Such an interpretation cannot be said to be irrelevant, or even ‘wrong’, in fact it might point to an essential aspect of the poem’s intention; but not every reader will happily subscribe to it, and a good many readers without an appropriate ‘psychological set’ may well ask about the objective basis of such an interpretation. However, as the quotation from Eco has shown, we have to accept that there “exist uncoded systems of signification, where semiotic analysis must give way before the inexpressible or the ineffable” (Eco 1975: 16).

To round off this discussion of rhythmic iconicity in poetry: what has been said in this essay may well justify the remark that, in spite of the fundamental arbitrariness of the linguistic sign, it does make ‘sound sense’ to talk about ‘sense’ echoed in verbal ‘sound’. The Iconic Quality of Poetic Rhythm 33

References

Abrams, M. H. (1953). The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition. New York, NY: Oxford UP. 3–29. Bernhart, Walter (1974). “Complexity and Metricality”. Poetics 12: 113–141. — (1977). “Heuristisches Modell eines funktionalen Literaturbegriffs”. Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik 3: 85–93. Eco, Umberto (1975). “Looking for a Logic of Culture”. Sebeok, ed. 9–17. Finney, Gretchen L. (1962). Musical Backgrounds for English Literature 1580–1650. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP. Fischer-Lichte, Erika (1983). “Kunst und Wirklichkeit: Zur semiotischen Rekonstruktion historischer Kunstbegriffe”. Zeitschrift für Semiotik 5: 195–215. Frank, Armin Paul ( 1977). Literaturwissenschaft zwischen Extremen: Aufsätze und Ansätze zu aktuellen Fragen einer unsicher gemachten Disziplin. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Harding, D. W. (1976). Words into Rhythm: English Speech Rhythm in Verse and Prose. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. Hollander, John (1961). The Untuning of the Sky: Ideas of Music in English Poetry 1500–1700. Prince- ton, NJ: Princeton UP. — (1985). “The Footing of his Feet: On a Line of Milton’s”. Waswo, ed. 11–30. Jakobson, Roman (1971). “Language in Relation to Other Communication Systems”. Roman Jakob- son. Selected Writings 2: Word and Language. The Hague: Mouton. 697–708. Koenigsberger, Dorothy (1979). Renaissance Man and Creative Thinking: A History of Concepts of Har- mony 1400–1700. Hassocks, Sussex: Harvester Press. Laferrière, Daniel (1980). “The Teleology of Rhythm in Poetry: With Examples Primarily from the Russian Syllabotonic Meters”. PTL: A Journal for Descriptive Poetics and Theory of Literature 4: 411–450. Lotspeich, C. M. (1927). “The Metrical Technique of Pope’s Illustrative Couplets”. Journal of English and Germanic Philology 26: 471–474. Mace, Dean Tolle (1951). “The Doctrine of Sound and Sense in Augustan Poetic Theory”. Review of English Studies 2: 129–139. Mason, John (1749). Essay on the Power and Harmony of Prosaic Numbers. London. Nänny, Max (1985). “Iconic Dimensions in Poetry”. Waswo, ed. 111–135. Perrine, Laurence (1956). Sound and Sense: An Introduction to Poetry. New York, NY: Harcourt, Bra- ce & World. Preminger, Alex, ed. (1965). Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP. Sebeok, Thomas A., ed. (1975). The Tell-Tale Sign: A Survey of Semiotics. Lisse: Peter de Ridder Press. Seidel, Wilhelm (1976). Rhythmus: Eine Begriffsbestimmung. Erträge der Forschung 46. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Todorov, Tzvetan (1975). “Literature and Semiotics”. Sebeok, ed. 97–102. Ullmann, Stephen (1975). “Natural and Conventional Signs”. Sebeok, ed. 103–110. Van Doren, Mark (1920/1960). The Poetry of John Dryden. New York, NY (subsequently published as: John Dryden: A Study of His Poetry. Bloomington, IN: Indiana UP). Waswo, Richard, ed. (1985). On Poetry and Poetics. Swiss Papers in English Language and Literature 2. Tübingen: Gunter Narr.

Examples of Byron’s Impact on 19th-Century German and Austrian Music [1987]*

My subject is the reflection of some of Byron’s works in 19th-century German and Austrian music, and 1 will concentrate on settings of Hebrew Melodies, as it is from that collection of lyrics that German composers most frequently chose their texts. We can observe that Byron’s impact on musicians has attracted relatively little attention from critics and literary historians despite the wealth of studies that have devoted themselves to the phenomenon of Euro- pean Byronism, most notably Hoffmeister’s recent Darmstadt publication (see 19831), and all the Weddigens (1884), Flaischlens (1890), Ackermanns (1901) and Ochsenbeins (1905) of earlier days. These studies are always primarily concerned with Byron’s literary influence and only marginally include music in their considerations2. I see two main reasons for this situation, one being well-justified reluctance to write about music if one is a literary critic and not a musicologist; the other – maybe even more crucially – the uncertainty about the relevance of such studies. As to the first I am no musicologist myself, although I have had academic musical training, but I strongly believe in comparative studies. As to the second, I would like to leave the answer to the end of this paper.

I will try to subdivide what I have to say into three sections. In the first I

* This is a slightly enlarged version of a lecture presented (with musical illustrations) to the Twelfth International Byron Seminar held at Haifa, Israel, in August 1985.

1 Unfortunately this otherwise important study is limited and not completely accurate on Byron’s reflections in music, see 157f. Cf. also Huber (1985). 2 Of the earlier studies only Noel’s includes a section on “Songs, etc., set to music” (see 1890. Appendix: Bibliog- raphy compiled by John P. Anderson, pp. xxv–xxix). 36 Examples of Byron’s Impact on 19th-Century German and Austrian Music

will look at seven different settings of one individual poem from Hebrew Melo- dies; this will also include a short report on a seminar session held at Graz Uni- versity, which was devoted to this comparative criticism. The poem is “Sun of the Sleepless”, which in the 19th century was the most popular with German and Austrian composers – in contrast with English composers (cf. Noel 1890: xxv–xxix and Gooch/Thatcher, eds. 1982: 569f.) –, and I shall concentrate on the question of how the poem is interpreted – or misinterpreted – by the various composers.

The second section will be devoted to Carl Loewe’s settings of Hebrew Melodies and will try to demonstrate how Loewe emphasizes a Biblical, rather than a more general, reading of the poems and is aware of the ballad quality of Byron’s poetry. It will also try to show how Byron was able to prompt fairly un- conventional music from Loewe.

The final section will discuss a few points in connection with Friedrich Nietzsche’s “Manfred Meditation”, that highly controversial composition which marks the virtual end of his rather ambiguous career as a composer.

The Hebrew Melodies were extremely popular in Germany. There were not only the five German translations which Coleridge mentions (cf. Coleridge, ed. 1904: 244f.)3; Flaischlen, in 1890, already listed as many as fifteen4. The most important ones were Franz Theremin’s first translation of 1820; Julius Körner’s, which appeared as volume one, called Israelitische Gesänge, in the first complete German edition of Byron’s works, published in 1821 by Robert Schu- mann’s father and uncle; Adolf Boettger’s of 1839, which was used by Schu- mann and Nietzsche for their settings; and Otto Gildemeister’s of 1864 – generally considered the best, it forms the basis of Hugo Wolf’s setting.

“Sun of the Sleepless” may not be the most characteristic of the Hebrew Melodies – it is also one of the poems which Byron had already written when Nathan won him over to the idea of the collection; but it certainly excited the imagination of German composers more readily than any of the others (with

3 Slater (cf. 1952: 85) follows Coleridge. 4 Flaischlen (see 1890) omits one which Coleridge cites (cf. ed., 1904: 244f.). Examples of Byron’s Impact on 19th-Century German and Austrian Music 37

“Oh, Weep for Those” coming next). Ackermann, in 1901, called it ‘the famous lyric’ “Sun of the Sleepless” (cf. 1901: 67), and Emanuel Geibel chose it as the only Byron lyric among his many translations for a rendering in German: “Lied (Nach Byron)” (see 1893: 24)5. No written account has survived as to why this particular poem should have been so popular, but the fact that it is a moon poem was no doubt important. (Or at least it was taken to be a poem about the moon – Schumann calls his setting “An den Mond” – in spite of Nathan’s doubts as to the identity of the star addressed. The poem itself does not make it clear, but the first draft expressly talks about “A Moonbeam”; cf. Ashton 1972: 136.) Ever since Tieck’s ‘mondbeglänzter Zaubernacht’, his famous ‘moonlit magic night’, the German romantic mind had been fascinated by the suggestive magic of the image, and a glance at Schubert’s songs, for instance, shows that at least a dozen of them celebrate the moon. She certainly lends herself to musical illustration. In addition, “Sun of the Sleepless” is simply a very good poem, which even Byron himself is said to have called “his very best” (ibid.: 22).

The special flavour of Byron’s poem, of course, lies in its melancholy tone, which also must have struck a chord in the freedom-seeking souls of Austri- ans and Germans suffering under post-Napoleonic reaction. This tone is again something that music can fairly easily try to recapture. The most interesting point about the poem, however, is the way in which it uses the moon as an image for memory and the past. It says:

How like art thou [ i.e. the moon ] to joy remembered well! So gleams the past, the light of other days. Which shines, but warms not with its powerless rays; Distinct, but distant – clear but, oh how cold! (Ibid.: 136)

This idea that memory has little pleasant or rewarding about it, as we know, was one of Byron’s major concerns, and it is touched upon in several of the Melodies (e.g. in “They Say that Hope is Happiness” or “All is vanity, saith the preacher”). It calls to mind Samuel Coleridge’s phrase of “The barb in memory’s dart”6. But it is only in “Sun of the Sleepless” that the idea finds expression in a compelling image of nocturnal discomfort.

5 This is a close translation of the poem, and not an independent poem, as Hoffmeister suggests (cf. 1983: 124). 6 From “Homeless“ (“Oh! Christmas Day, Oh! happy day”; 1826). 38 Examples of Byron’s Impact on 19th-Century German and Austrian Music

This sinister and dreary interpretation of the familiar moon image, which conforms so little to the cliché of the ‘moonlit magic night’, turned out to be the stumbling block for the composers. Only a few of them show an awareness of the specific meaning of Byron’s text.

To take them in chronological order, I will have to start with Nathan’s setting, although it is strictly speaking not part of my subject. It is modelled on the two-part baroque aria, and in the Grave part starts quite promisingly with an apt illustration of the melancholy and gloomy mood of the poem. However, it then falls head over heels into a sprightly Allegro on the words “So gleams the past” and ends in a bravura finale on a repetition of “warms not with its powerless rays”. As far as faithfulness to the text is concerned this is unpardonable, although it is quite an impressive and good aria7.

The first German setting is Carl Loewe’s, written in 1825 as part of his cycle of Hebrew Melodies8. At the beginning, in the short interlude, and at the end of the song Loewe is obviously trying to suggest the paleness of the moon and a sense of tragic emptiness by the use of repeated F sharps and a few well- placed sforzati. Particularly the ending illustrates quite successfully, I think, the coldness of the nightly cosmos, by the repeated single tone and the long final note, which leaves the tonal centre open. Between these instrumental sections, however, for the main body of the song, we have very sweet and gentle music, which clearly succumbs to the cliché of the magic moon. To do justice to Loewe, one has to notice that Theremin’s translation, which he uses, is partly to blame as it contains too many positive connotations that are not in Byron.

Felix Mendelssohn set two poems by Byron9. His version of “Sun of the Sleepless” has a number of similarities with Loewe’s: similar beginning, interlude and ending on repeated notes, similar ‘tragic’ sforzati and a general pallid-

7 This analysis is based on the later version of Nathan’s setting (1827–1829), which takes more liberties with the text than the earlier. 8 “Die Sonne der Schlaflosen”, op. 13, nr. 6 (see Loewe 1902/1970). Three of the Hebrew Melodies (“Belsazar’s Gesicht”, “Saul und Samuel“, “Elipha’s Gesicht”) are in vol. 8 of Runze’s original, and vol. 4 of the republished edition. The only complete edition of Loewe’s whole cycle is Runze’s earlier one of 1882 (see Loewe 1882). 9 “Schlafloser Augen Leuchte” (“Sun of the Sleepless”) and “Keine von der Erde Schönen” (“There be none of Beauty’s daughters”). “Sun of the Sleepless” was written in 1834, and both songs were published jointly in 1836 – in Breitkopf & Härtel’s Album musical – under the title “Zwei Romanzen von Lord Byron” (see Mendels- sohn-Bartholdy 1968: vol. 1, 51). Examples of Byron’s Impact on 19th-Century German and Austrian Music 39

ity of mood owing something to the semiquaver figuration over the bass. The body of the song, however, is more serious than in Loewe’s setting and, therefore, better corresponds with the poem – although it is also more dramatic, which the poem is not.

Mendelssohn who had made his own translation as he was dissatisfied with Theremin’s10, was reluctant to set the poem because he knew his sisters were so fond of Loewe’s setting (cf. Mendelssohn- Bartholdy 1863: 69)11. (He himself is said to have always kept a copy of Loewe’s cycle on his piano12.) He also felt that the poem was “very sentimental” – which I do not think it really is – and should be set with “no end of sharps” (ibid.). As it turns out, it was fortunate that he continued to ponder over the poem, as the setting he finally produced is not so very sentimental and has one sharp only.

With Schumann, who set four Byron poems, all of which are from Hebrew Melodies13, we enter another world. He was more sensitive to his texts than any of his predecessors, and for him literary quality was a necessary prerequisite of any settable poem. He hated what he called Gesangslügen (‘singing lies’) of the type we found in Nathan’s setting. However, he rarely composed ‘along the poem’, as it were, i.e. illustrated the words and ideas of the poem as it unfolds, but always had the general mood in mind and tried to capture in music what could be called the ‘aura’ of the poem, its basic attitudes and central concerns. This he achieves well in his setting of “Sun of the Sleepless”, “An den Mond”, by the continual use of broken chords in the piano accompaniment – for which Schumann very aptly considers a harp alternative –, by augmented intervals, a chromatic melody, and constant wavering between major and minor keys. It is

10 He was also dissatisfied with his own translation and suggested that his publisher should commission a new one (cf. Mendelssohn-Bartholdy 1968: vol. 1, 51). Mendelssohn actually set the original English poem, which, therefore, should be sung in performances. 11 An English translation of the letters by Lady Wallace appeared in the same year (see Mendelssohn-Bartholdy 1863: 63f.). 12 Cf. Runze’s introduction to his complete edition of Loewe’s Hebrew Melodies (Loewe 1882). 13 Drei Gesänge aus Lord Byron’s Hebräischen Gesängen für eine Singstimme mit Begleitung der Harfe oder des Pianoforte, op. 95, 1849 (“Die Tochter Jephta’s“,“An den Mond”, “Dem Helden”) and no. 15 from Myrthen, op. 25, 1840: “Aus den hebräischen Gesängen” (“Mein Herz ist schwer”). The text of “Räthsel” (“Es flüstert’s der Himmel”), no. 16 of Myrthen, although attributed to Byron by Schumann himself, is actually by Catherine Maria Fanshawe, translated into German by Karl Kannegiesser (cf. Gooch/Thatcher, eds. 1982: 598). See also “Die Weinende” (1827). 40 Examples of Byron’s Impact on 19th-Century German and Austrian Music

a thoroughly sad and resigned piece of music, which, in my view, closely represents the ‘aura’ of Byron’s poem.

It is a little-known fact that Friedrich Nietzsche was also a composer. In his earlier life his musical efforts occupied much of his time, and among his various compositions, fragments, and sketches there are two settings of Byron poems, both from Hebrew Melodies and fragments only14, and two works based on By- ron plays, the “Manfred-Meditation” (1872; see Nietzsche 1977: 108–126), which I will discuss later, and a sketch, probably an illustration of The Two Fos- cari (? 1861; see ibid.: 298f.), his interest in which is demonstrated by his more detailed discussion of it in his early Byron lecture (see 1861/1922).

Nietzsche’s attitudes towards Byron had something to do with his attitudes towards Schumann and Schumann’s view of Byron, and it is obvious that the chromatic beginning of the vocal line of Nietzsche’s setting of “Sun of the Sleepless” echoes the way in which Schumann begins his song. Nietzsche’s music was, however, freer and in many ways radically new, for his time and age, which is partly responsible for the utter rejection it had to face. His music is a precursor of impressionistic techniques, his harmonies change unexpectedly and do not follow the laws of functional harmony, his rhythms are often indistinct and conform to no discernible pattern. This free musical syntax of Nietzsche’s music is only partly a consequence of his technical ineptitude; it also serves, however unconventionally, his expressive needs15.

This certainly applies to the opening of his setting of “Sun of the Sleep- less”. It is a pianissimo beginning in the low register of the accompaniment, it starts off with a quintuplet, and the first bar line is overridden by the musical phrase; the harmonies change arbitrarily and lead nowhere. This musical structure can be taken as an apt means of illustrating the poem’s mood, and it is carried over into the body of the song. What is surprising, however, is the fact that Nietzsche suddenly changes his structure and mood completely when he gets down to the line “How like art thou to joy remembered well”. In

14 “Sun of the Sleepless” (“Sonne des Schlaflosen“) for solo voice and (piano?) accompaniment, and “Oh! Weep for Those” (“O weint um sie”) for chorus and accompaniment, both most likely written in December 1865 (cf. Nietzsche 1977: 76/77f./335 notes). 15 The closest analysis of Nietzsche’s harmony can be found in Vogel (1965). Examples of Byron’s Impact on 19th-Century German and Austrian Music 41

one of his ‘clumsy fortissimi’, as he himself called them16, he bursts forth with a grandiose dramatic gesture which is quite inappropriate as far as the text is concerned. One could say that this gesture signifies a Promethean pose, a role which Nietzsche preferred in Byron to his melancholy pose. So, in some ways, Nietzsche, in this setting, can be seen to be projecting his favourite image of Byron onto one of Byron’s poems that happens to show no single trace of it.

The last two settings of “Sun of the Sleepless” to be mentioned here are late romantic pieces of very different quality. One is by Heinrich Rietsch (1860– 1927), an Austrian musicologist, who was the founder of the music department of Prague University. What is fatal about his setting of “Schlafloser Augen Leuchte”17 is its idyllic general mood, particularly noticeable at the beginning and end, where Rietsch completely falls victim to the moon cliché. Its merits, however, lie in its successful attempts to illustrate the words ‘along the poem’ as it unfolds.

Rietsch, as a musicologist, was a great admirer of the progressiveness of the lieder of another Austrian, Hugo Wolf (cf. Wiora 1971: 157), but apparently was not able to profit from his knowledge of Wolf for his own compositions. Wolf’s setting of “Sun of the Sleepless”, “Sonne der Schlummerlosen”, written on New Year’s Eve of 1896, shortly before his final mental breakdown18, is a rare achievement, indubitably the most impressive of all the settings, and the one most faithful to the text19. Only this setting is able to evoke fully the existential emptiness of the cold cosmos which is at the core of the poem, is able to enact the feelings of anguish and despair which follow from that sense of void. But at the same time it conveys a faint impression of reconciliation, particularly at the end of the song, where the monotonous repetition of notes leads to the chord of C sharp major – which has certainly enough sharps, if we think of Mendelssohn’s remark; this chord, in its particular context, no doubt suggests some form of pacification. The left hand on the piano, however, continues to repeat open fifths, so that the song ends on a note which juxtaposes the sense of

16 “mit meinen täppischen fortissimi’s” in Nietzsche’s letter to Gustav Krug of July 24, 1872 (1978: 29). 17 It is no. 2 of Rietsch’s op. 1, Neun Lieder, published by Breitkopf & Härtel (= no. 292 of Deutscher Liederver- lag) in 1887. 18 Like Mendelssohn, Wolf set only two Byron poems, and they are the same poems. (“Keine gleicht von allen Schönen” was finished a week before “Sonne der Schlummerlosen”, on Christmas Day 1896.) 19 Wolf insisted on reciting the words of a song without the music before singing the song. 42 Examples of Byron’s Impact on 19th-Century German and Austrian Music

emptiness with that of (would-be?) reconciliation, and maybe combines ethical rigour with aesthetic pleasure.

I mentioned earlier that these different settings of Byron’s “Sun of the Sleepless” were heard and discussed in a seminar session at Graz University. What was interesting as a result of the discussion was the fact that though the group essentially agreed on the judgment of the different versions here expressed, there were some who could not wholeheartedly accept the negative verdict given on the more sentimental and ear-pleasing settings. It was argued that the poem itself could be seen as having a sentimental and pleasant quality, and that some of the composers have simply emphasized this aspect of the poem over its more gloomy ones. We found Keats’s view of Byron’s “sweetly sad” melody, his “tale of pleasing woe”20, illuminatingly corroborated by some composers. On a more theoretical level, musical settings of poems can be taken as individual interpretations of the poems in that they – just as any interpretation – bring out certain aspects of the poem, certain levels of meaning, at the expense of other aspects which are not thus ‘foregrounded’. As Eliot has said, different interpretations are always justified as “partial formulations of one thing” (1942/1984: 147). The seminar agreed that, by examining some By- ron settings, they had indubitably enriched their understanding of the poet.

To move on to my second topic, 1 will now discuss a few aspects of Carl Loewe’s cycle of Hebrew Melodies21. He wrote his 23 settings of the Byron poems in four instalments (op. 4, 5, 13, 14) between 1823 and 1826, and the motivation to do so was twofold. He says in his autobiography that the loss of his young wife, who was of partly Jewish descent, after only one year of marriage left him with frequent bursts of an ‘inconsolable feeling of loneliness’, which he tried to fight by reverting to extensive composing. In this ‘grave and cheerless time’ (“trübe, ernste Zeit”; 1870/1976: 95f.) he read “Herod’s Lament for Mariamne”, which perfectly mirrored his own mood, and he eventually set about composing the whole collection. The second motivation was provided by those interests that had led him to read theology at the University of Halle22. He had a strong lean-

20 From the sonnet “To Lord Byron” (December 1814). 21 For editions see Loewe (1902/1970). 22 Cf. Runze’s introduction, Loewe (1882). Examples of Byron’s Impact on 19th-Century German and Austrian Music 43

ing towards the Old Testament, a fact which is testified by a number of his works, such as his oratorios on Job of 1848, on the Canticles of 1859, but also his earlier one of 1829, op. 30, on the destruction of Jerusalem, which was particularly popular in 19th- century Germany. A moving example is the song cycle in ballad form, Esther, op. 52 (1835), based on the story of Casimir of Po- land’s Jewish mistress, who bravely supported the cause of her people23.

In his Hebrew Melodies Loewe’s concern with, and knowledge of, the Old Testament is demonstrated by the fact that he gives exact references – in two cases even double references – to chapter and verse of the Bible for a number of his songs to point out the source of the story illustrated. A telling example of Loewe’s preoccupation with the world of the Old Testament is the title he gave to his setting of “Thy Days are Done”, that martial monument to a fallen hero. Loewe simply called it “Saul” and thus interpreted the poem within the framework of Biblical Jewish history and the main body of the Hebrew Mel- odies. Nathan, however, implies in his note that Napoleon was the subject of the poem, and Ashton thinks that “these lines may well be a second elegy for Byron’s naval hero cousin, Sir Peter Parker” (1972: 142). Incidentally, Schu- mann gave his setting of the poem the title “Dem Helden” (‘To the Hero’)24 and thus is far less specific than Loewe is. Loewe’s choice of titles – where he does not literally translate the original – is always considered and succinctly summarizes the content of the poem: “Tränen und Lächeln” (‘Tears and Smiles’) for “I Saw Thee Weep”; “Todtenklage” (‘Death Lament’) for “Oh! Snatched Away”; “Wohin, O Seele?” (‘Whither, Oh Soul?’) for “When Coldness Wraps”; “Elipha’s Gesicht” (‘Eliphaz’s Vision’) for “From Job”; “David’s Harfe” (‘Da- vid’s Harp’) for “The Harp the Monarch Minstrel Swept”; and ”Saul und Sam- uel” for ”Saul”.

So we have in Loewe a composer approaching the Hebrew Melodies who is a conscientious reader of the poems and deeply versed in the Old Testament. The title he gave to his collection is Hebräische Gesänge, Gesichte und Balladen (‘Hebrew Chants, Visions, and Ballads’). Of these the ‘chants’ are of the more conventional type, like “Die Sonne der Schlaflosen”. Interestingly they also include two versions for unaccompanied vocal quartet or, alternatively, for piano

23 In vol. 7 of Runze’s original, and vol. 2 of the republished edition (see Loewe 1902/1970). 24 See above, note 13. 44 Examples of Byron’s Impact on 19th-Century German and Austrian Music

solo. By far the most arresting pieces, which are responsible for the fact that almost everyone writing about Loewe’s cycle considers it undeservedly neglected and underrated,25 are the ‘visions’ and ‘ballads’. These are not strictly separable as most of the ‘ballads’ are ‘visions’ as well, i.e. they are examples of Loewe’s famous type of the ‘Geisterballade’.

To demonstrate Loewe’s achievement I will briefly discuss two of the ghost ballads. The first is “Saul”, which Loewe calls “Saul und Samuel”, and I would also like to use this example to show how genuinely ballad-like Byron’s poetry can be. The poem has found many admirers who emphasized its profound Old Testament power (cf. Richter 1929: 227) or its “stark visualisation” that “surpasses most things in Byron’s earlier writing” (Blackstone 1975: 136). The story is that of Saul’s visit before his decisive battle against the Philistines to the witch of Endor, when she conjures up Samuel, who foretells Saul’s defeat. Byron once remarked that this scene “beats all the ghost scenes” he ever read (qtd. Ashton 1972: 174). His poem is printed in two parts but it is arguably in three, the 14-line ‘false Sonnet’ being divided into a quatrain and five couplets. It begins with the king addressing the woman and bidding her to raise the prophet’s spirit. Then the woman’s address to Samuel and her subsequent address to the king follows immediately:

Thou whose spell can raise the dead, Bid the prophet’s form appear. ‘Samuel, raise thy buried head! King, behold the phantom seer!’ (Ibid.: 172)

This is a remarkably tense, and terse, presentation, in which all the action is merely implied and the reader gets only the bare facts of the words uttered. The way this poem begins reminds me of an observation which Carl Loewe makes in his autobiography where he relates his one and only – very successful – encounter with Goethe. Loewe showed Goethe his setting of “Erlkönig” with the remark that he had to set it as it is the best German ballad. The reason he gives: because all the characters are introduced speaking. Goethe agreed (cf. Loewe 1870/1976: 77). For Loewe, therefore, the beginning of Byron’s poem must have represented the true and best form of ballad writing, and he certain-

25 Cf., e.g., Runze’s preface, Loewe (1902/1970: xvii), and Brown (1969: 358). Examples of Byron’s Impact on 19th-Century German and Austrian Music 45

ly did his best to match his music with the poem. One should not forget that Goethe considered the ballad form the ‘Urei’, the primeval egg, of the three literary genres, because it contains epic, dramatic, and lyric elements, and that Goethe regretted that Byron had not lived to dramatize the Old Testament (cf. Ashton 1972: 102). Those critics who, like Shilstone, claim Hebrew Melodies to be “a true lyric” collection (1979: 51), underestimate the poems’ dramatic and epic qualities, as they are brought out by Loewe’s settings. The rather detached and impersonal character of the Hebrew Melodies, which Marchand observes (1965: 117, 133), gives them a measure of objectivity that is nearer to the spirit of the epic than the lyric; and the “quintessential compression” of the narrative material, which, according to Ashton, marks the poems (1972: 104), increases their dramatic quality. So Loewe, with his genius for the ballad, found excellent stimulation for his talents in Byron’s poetry.

The second ‘part’ of “Saul” describes the dreadful and awe-inspiring appearance of the prophet’s spirit, and Loewe sets it in uncanny una corda runs on the piano, gradually building up tension with a constantly rising vocal line, until the music reaches a climax when Saul falls down, in the poem’s own words:

... as falls the oak, At once, and blasted by the thunder stroke. (Ibid.: 172)

The final section is Samuel’s address to the king, calling to mind Don Giovan- ni facing the Commendatore; here Loewe’s music not only suggests the inevitability of doom but also the sadness of Saul’s trespasses. The unity of the setting is achieved by the use of musical material from the first in the third part and by recurring echoes in the final section of the uncanny runs of the second part.

My other example from Loewe’s settings is his version of “My Soul is Dark”. This poem, which is a monologue attributable to the dejected Saul after the ‘bad news’ he had from Samuel, is a desolate cry from a tormented soul asking for relief through the power of music from its pains. It is implied in the text that the speaker is on the verge of a mental collapse. Nathan’s note makes it clear that Byron wrote the poem with the intention of writing a madman’s poem – obviously not necessarily having Saul in his mind. As Beutler observes, there are few cases where Byron posed as unashamedly as when he wrote that poem (1912: 100). Byron gave it to Nathan with the remark: “[...] if I am mad 46 Examples of Byron’s Impact on 19th-Century German and Austrian Music

who write, be certain that you are so who compose!” (Qtd. Ashton 1972: 156)

It is debatable whether Nathan’s setting of the poem actually attempts to compose ‘mad music’; it is a fact, however, that Loewe, according to his direction, wanted his setting to be sung “smanioso”, i.e. ‘mad’. No doubt, there is an obsessive quality in this setting, an intentional monotony of rhythmical phrasing in the voice, an undecided unfolding of the melodic line, and above all, the uneasy restlessness of the instrumental accompaniment, which is, for the most part, restricted to the lower register and is rhythmically indistinct. Loewe is reported to have disliked this setting of his and to have said about it: “Das ist ein murkelig Ding, ghört [sic] freilich zur Sache.” (1902/1970: xix) (‘This is a murky thing, yet it belongs there [i.e., with the Hebrew Melodies].’) Max Run- ze, Loewe’s later editor, characterized the composer as a man of simple virtues, with a naive and child-like heart, deep religious feelings and a cheerful temper (cf. 1884: 11–13); he had nothing morbid, no “Weltschmerzelei” about him (cf. ibid.: 32); and for a man of these qualities it must have meant a real effort to write a piece of music like “Mein Geist ist trüb”. But one can say that in his earnest desire to do justice to Byron’s wayward ‘mad poem’ his creative imagination was prompted to produce music which has a distinctly forward-looking, almost a modern air about it, and which is bleak and unemotional, unobliging and essentially static. A comparison with Schumann’s setting of the same poem shows that, though Schumann’s is a beautiful song, he has in no way been able to recapture the atmosphere of the poem; in this case, Schumann seems to have missed the poem’s ‘aura’. The setting sentimentalizes the situation. However, the translation can be held partly responsible. For while Loewe’s translation of “My Soul is Dark” is Theremin’s “Mein Geist ist trüb” (‘My mind is clouded’) – which fairly clearly suggests insanity – the translation Schumann used is Boettger’s “Mein Herz ist schwer” (‘My heart is heavy’), which suggests a far more mundane sort of complaint. It is worth noticing that composers are preeminently at the mercy of inaccurate translations, as what they can mainly bring out in their music are only the verbal connotations of their texts, and these never come across in loose translations.

This observation may lead us on to my final topic, Nietzsche’s “Manfred-Med- itation” of 1872 (see 1977: 108–126). This thirteen-minute piece of piano Examples of Byron’s Impact on 19th-Century German and Austrian Music 47

music (for four hands) forms the culmination of Nietzsche’s life-long concern with Byron’s play and its protagonist, who was not only the first character to be labelled by him ‘Übermensch’ but who also served him as a model for his Zarathustra (cf. Hoffmeister 1983: 149). However, Nietzsche’s Manfred music cannot be taken simply as an illustration of Byron’s play: it is not programme music in the obvious sense. Nietzsche was too much aware of the nature of music to attempt such a thing. In a fragmentary discussion of “Music and Words”, which he wrote only a year earlier, in 1871, he says about musical settings of poems what applies even more strongly to instrumental music based on literary texts: “When [...] the musician writes a setting to a lyric poem he is moved as musician neither through the images nor through the emotional language in the text; but a musical inspiration coming from quite a different sphere chooses for itself that song-text as allegorical expression. There cannot therefore be any question as to a necessary relation between poem and music; [...] the song- text is just a symbol [...].” (1871/1911) So we should be thoroughly misguided to think that Nietzsche in his music tried to illustrate the Swiss Alps, or As- tarte rising from the dead, or Manfred’s farewell to the sun. There is also external evidence to back this view, since Nietzsche is using musical material in his “Manfred-Meditation” which he had used before in “Sylvesternacht” and “Nachklang einer Sylvesternacht”. As he says: ‘a musical inspiration chooses a literary subject, and not the other way round’. So Manfred is present in the music only insofar as he has shaped and determined that musical inspiration as a mere set of “Gemüthszustände”, in Nietzsche’s expression26, as a mere frame of mind, and in no other way.

On the basis of this caveat we can take a look at the composition itself and try to analyse a representative section of it from a literary point of view. It includes the climax of the composition with the subsequent return to the mood of the beginning. This beginning is ‘slow and brooding’, as the direction says, and there is a constant return to the opening motif suggesting a certain obsessive circularity of experience. At one point there is a literal quotation from Wag- ner’s Tristan, the famous chord, apparently in the original key though placed an octave lower (bar 85). Then a new idea comes up (bar 124), a more lively ep-

26 “Die Musik hat keinen Klang für die Entzückungen des Geistes; will sie den Zustand von Faust und Ham- let und Manfred wiedergeben, so lässt sie den Geist weg und malt Gemüthszustände [...].” (Nietzsche 1880– 1881/1901; ‘Music has no sound for the ecstasies of the intellect; when it wants to convey the condition of Faust and Hamlet and Manfred it leaves out the intellect and paints emotional states’.) 48 Examples of Byron’s Impact on 19th-Century German and Austrian Music

isode, which is dance-like and ecstatic, in Nietzsche’s own words, “schmerzlich ausgelassen” (‘painfully exuberant’)27. It may be interpreted as representing the sad happiness of madness. The following gradual building up of anguished tension towards the climax is actually quite static in character in that the music keeps coming back to the C chord, both major and minor freely alternating, without forming a real development in a stricter sense. Tension is induced by the constant repetition of trombone- and trumpet-like triplets (from bar 174). The climax of anguish is reached in a “feroce” Presto (bar 203), which is immediately followed by a section marked “Sehr feierlich und langsam” (bar 212; ‘very solemn and slow’) suggesting – maybe – the dreadful grandeur and irre- versibility of damnation. It is very well done how from there, within a few bars, the music leads up to a magnificent chorale of simple tonality, which stands out in the heavily chromatic context. The two forces, the chorale and the ‘damnation’ motif, begin to fight each other with the latter winning, of course, although it also eventually loses strength and gives way to a gesture of yearning, which is reminiscent of a phrase in Götterdämmerung (bars 233–235). This yearning motif is in turn overrun by a descending motif of a defiant character (bar 236), which will dominate the concluding part of the composition. There is a sudden return to the opening ‘brooding’ motif (bar 239), which until the end of the section stays in opposition to the ‘defiant’ descending one.

This sketchy description of the music – and such descriptions are always a hazard and indefensible from a musicological point of view – has interpreted it, as might have been noticeable, roughly in terms of Manfred’s ‘frame of mind’. I have felt free to read the musical ‘symbol’ (in Nietzsche’s sense) with Byronic eyes without ever suggesting, however, that the music ‘meant’ anything of that sort or was an illustration of the play.

I would like to address myself to one specific question connected with this music that seems to be of considerable importance as far as Nietzsche’s attitude towards Byron is concerned. Curt Paul Janz, to whom we owe the edition of Nietzsche’s music (see 1977) and a biography of the philosopher (see Janz 1978), considers the “Meditation”, which he calls an ‘unfortunate’ piece of music (ibid.: 1/477), a turning point in Nietzsche’s relationship to Byron. He takes it as a document of Nietzsche’s attempt to dispel his earlier Byron

27 Nietzsche’s letter to Krug of November 13, 1871 (1977: 336). Nietzsche talks about a parallel passage in “Nachklang einer Sylvesternacht”. Examples of Byron’s Impact on 19th-Century German and Austrian Music 49

mania (cf. Nietzsche 1977: 337); with it, Nietzsche is said to have ‘outgrown’ Byron (Janz 1978: 2/469). Janz bases his conviction on the evidence of the letter which Nietzsche wrote to Hans von Bülow in answer to the famous conductor’s devastating criticism of the “Manfred-Meditation”28. There, Nietzsche wrote: “[...] I cannot see in Byron’s Manfred, which I almost venerated as my favourite poem when I was a boy, anything but a madly formless, dreary absurdity.”29 Janz takes this statement seriously in spite of the suddenness and unexpectedness of Nietzsche’s assumed change of mind, and in spite of the fact that none of Nietzsche’s several later statements about Byron is squarely negative. Quite the contrary. While he had been critical of Byron’s romantic excesses from the very beginning, i.e. from his early, 1861, lecture on Byron onward, he remained faithful to him until the very end as one is faithful to “a kindred spirit” (Thatcher 1974: 150)30. Janz’s view is shared by Ralph Fraser (cf. 1976: 193) and, unfortunately, has also been adopted by Hoffmeister (cf. 1983: 149f.). However, in my view, David Thatcher has conclusively settled the question. Basing his argument on a letter which Cosima Wagner wrote to Nietzsche shortly before he wrote his to Bülow and which openly condemns Byron and especially his Manfred, Thatcher makes it clear that Nietzsche’s disparaging remark about Byron in his letter to Bülow was motivated by his desire to please the Wagner entourage. And another letter, which Thatcher cites, demonstrates that Nietzsche wrote his Manfred music clearly as an act of homage to Wagner and not as a counterblast to Schumann and Byron (Thatcher 1974: 139f.). (It is very strange that Janz denies any influence of Wagner on Nietzsche’s music31;

28 Cf. Bülow’s letter to Nietzsche of July 24, 1872 (1978: II, 4/51–54). To quote a few highlights from Bülow‘s attack: “Ihre Manfred-Meditation ist das Extremste von phantastischer Extravaganz, das Unerquicklichste und Antimusikalischeste was mir seit lange [...] zu Gesicht gekommen ist” (ibid.: 52); “hat Ihre Meditation [...] den Werth eines Verbrechens in der moralischen Welt” (ibid.); “musikfeindliche Tonexperimente”, “Klavierkrämp- fe”, “Euterpe zu nothzüchtigen” (ibid.: 53). (‘Your Manfred-Meditation is the extremest product of phantastic extravagance, the most unpleasant and anti-musical stuff I have set eyes upon for a long time’; ‘your meditation has the value of a crime in the moral world’; ‘sound experiments inimical to music’, ‘piano convulsions’, ‘to violate Euterpe’ [my trans.]). 29 Nietzsche’s letter to Bülow of October 29, 1872 (1978: II, 3/78–80, here 79); partly translated into English by Ralph S. Fraser (cf. 1976: 192). 30 The most important, completely favourable, later statement by Nietzsche about Byron is contained in his autobiography, Ecce Homo, of 1888: “I must be profoundly related to Byron’s Manfred: of all the dark abysses in this work I found the counter parts in my own soul – at the age of thirteen I was ripe for this book. Words fail me, I have only a look for those who dare to utter the name of Faust in the presence of Manfred.” (1888/1911: 40) 31 “Auffällig ist das völlige Fehlen Wagnerscher Einwirkung.“ (Janz 1972: 184) 50 Examples of Byron’s Impact on 19th-Century German and Austrian Music

even Bülow admitted it32.)

It is possible to add further evidence to Thatcher’s presentation of facts from the music itself. Thatcher was able to expose an obvious case of well-in- tentioned insincerity in Nietzsche’s letter to Bülow, and I think I can point out another. In the same letter, Nietzsche talks about the ‘devilish irony’ of his “Manfred-Meditation”, about its ‘grim’ and ‘mocking’ sentiments (cf. 1978: II, 4/79), and – even more drastically, in a draft for the letter, which he never sent – about it being a ‘caricature’ (cf. ibid.: II, 3/76–78; here 77). I find it impossible to trace any element of irony, mocking or caricature in this music (unless one is inclined to take it as a parody of Wagnerian music, which would naturally be quite unintentional at the hand of the new Wagner disciple). One must be prepared to interpret this strange judgment which Nietzsche passed on his own music as an act of self- preservation in the face of his awareness of the eccentricity, as it were, of his music33.

In my view, therefore, it is a misinterpretation to read the “Manfred-Med- itation” as a sort of ironical caricature on Byron, in spite of Nietzsche himself saying so. He was, at that stage, rather trying both to please Wagner’s circle by attacking Byron and writing Wagnerian music, and to protect his own unsure artistic self by posing as being critical of the quality and seriousness of his music and thus anticipating adverse criticism by others.

This brings me back to my initial question of whether looking at music inspired by Byron does in any significant way enrich our understanding of Byron. Perhaps studies of this sort are necessarily marginal to Byron studies. Howev- er, as soon as one interests oneself in what Byron has done to the world, they do become immediately relevant, and maybe the most important insight to be gained from what I have said – apart from the realization that musical settings of poems can be of great help in teaching them – lies in recognizing the fact that Byron stimulated several important, though diverse, minds, such as Loewe, Wolf, or Nietzsche, to produce music which was far ahead of their own time. This music might not always be of the first quality, but it is often characterized by stylistic features that are essentially modern.

32 “Erinnerungsschwelgerei an Wagnersche Klänge” (letter to Nietzsche; Nietzsche 1978: II, 4/52). 33 Cf. Nietzsche’s letter to Krug (1977: 336). Examples of Byron’s Impact on 19th-Century German and Austrian Music 51

References

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It is traditional to trace the beginning of modern European art song to the Renaissance. The development of the art song is linked to a decisive change in the function and understanding of music from a quadrivial to a trivial one. The association of music – within the liberal arts – with arithmetic, geometry and astronomy shifted to a linkage with rhetoric, poetry and grammar. On the basis of this change from a Pythagorean-numerical and Platonic-ethical to a rhetorical-affective conception of music1, it is no surprise that the relationship of music to words in vocal composition was also affected. What was new in the Renaissance was the composer’s willingness to interpret the text he wanted to set in terms of expressive mimesis2. If we look, e.g., into Thomas Morley’s Plain and Easy Introduction to Practical Music of 1597 – and it is ‘practical music’, not ‘speculative music’ in the quadrivial sense – we find his rules for setting poems. There, he wants to make sure that the composer matches the expressive nature of his music to the expressive content of the poem and its words, and that the song illustrates as much as possible what the poem is saying. This is in fact what Morley does in his own songs. A simple narrative poem, “Thyrsis and

1 See Zenck (1959); Zimmermann (1976); Dahlhaus (1957). 2 Here and in the following the term ‘mimesis’ is used in the more general and historically prevailing sense of “reproduction of what is real”, and not in the more sophisticated, and ancient original, sense of “production of reality”. (For a clear demonstration of this distinction cf. Zuckerkandl 1958: 239.) The term ‘expressive’ is also used in the sense in which it most frequently appears in aesthetic discussions, that of “manifesting inner reality” (Shorter Oxford English Dictionary II/3: “To reveal by external tokens [...]. Now chiefly with reference to feelings of personal qualities.”), and not in the more general sense of “giving utterance to”. As has been demonstrated by Palézieux, ‘imitation’ (mimesis) and ‘expression’ are not opposite categories in traditional aesthetic reflections, but rather are hierarchically related: ‘expression’ is the reproduction of a specific area of reality, i e., of the world of feelings, etc. (see Palézieux 1981). 54 Setting a Poem: The Composer’ s Choice For or Against Interpretation

Milla”, from his first and only book of ‘ayres’, published in 1600, may serve as an example:

Thyrsis and Milla, arm in arm together, In merry May to the green garden walked, Where all the way they wanton riddles talked. The youthful boy, kissing her cheeks all rosy, Beseeched her there to gather him a posy.

She straight her light green silken coats up-tucked, And may for Mill and thyme for Thyrsis plucked, Which when she brought he clasped her by the middle, And kissed her sweet, but could not read her riddle. Ah fool! With that the nymph set up a laughter, And blushed and ran away, and he ran after. Morley (1600/1969: 5–9)

In the musical setting of this poem Morley very studiously illustrates words like “merry”, “wanton”, “laughter”, “kissed her sweet”, and “blushed”, and, of course, most obviously the running away at the end (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: Thomas Morley, “Thyrsis and Milla”. Setting a Poem: The Composer’ s Choice For or Against Interpretation 55

But Morley also gives us a psychological sketch of the two young people, the fairly inexperienced and sentimental young man and the more straightforward and slightly coquettish girl. Thus Morley’s music is expressive and imitative in the senses described. This intentional interpretation of the literal and emotional meaning of the poem by the composer has proved to be most successful in the tradition of art song. Most of what we admire in the art song shares this interpretive attitude toward the text. Steven Scher calls it “composed reading” (1986: 156). Later developments, particularly in the German lied tradition, have enormously refined interpretive techniques and opened up levels of meaning that are far beyond Morley’s practice. But the basic approach is the same and can be understood within the framework of modern expressive-mimetic aesthetics, which implies that art has to do with the emotions and should in one way or another be a reflection of external or internal reality.

Thomas Campion, another Elizabethan, who was both a poet and a composer, had a distinctly different conception of the art song. He wanted his ayres to be like epigrams, i.e., “short and well seasoned”, and objected vehemently to what he called “such childish observing of words” “where the nature of euerie word is precisely exprest in the Note”. He expected what he called “a naked Ayre without guide, or prop, or colour but his owne” (Campian 1601/1968: 1; “To the Reader”). And this is, in fact, what we find in most of his songs, which are all strophic and dominated by a simple melodic invention. An example is “Shall I come sweet love to thee”, which is also a love poem, though one of a more reflective character, where the lover contemplates the dangers of being left out in the cold and not being admitted to the bedchamber of his beloved.

Shall I come, sweet love, to thee When the evening beams are set? Shall I not excluded be? Will you find no feigned let? Let me not, for pity, more Tell the long hours at your door.

Who can tell what thief or foe In the covert of the night For his prey will work my woe, Or through wicked foul despite? So may I die unredressed, Ere my long love be possessed. 56 Setting a Poem: The Composer’ s Choice For or Against Interpretation

But to let such dangers pass, Which a lover’s thoughts disdain, ’Tis enough in such a place To attend love’s joys in vain. Do not mock me in thy bed, While these cold nights freeze me dead. Campian (c. 1617/1968: 32f.)

The way in which Campion sets his poem is very different from Morley’s in that he declines to mirror the content of his text in his music and instead presents an ingratiating, well-structured tune, a “naked Ayre”. The choice of this musical style is suggested by the ‘logogeneous’ character of the poem, in contrast to the ‘pathogeneous’ character of the Morley example. Campion’s poem is primarily concerned with conceptual meaning, in contrast to emotive meaning in “Thyrsis and Milla” (apart from the riddle in that poem). A ‘logogeneous’ poem does not lend itself so easily to musical illustration, and Campion was only consistent when he chose not to interpret his own poem in mimetic-expressive terms. (He did so only when he composed the phrase “long hours” on long notes, and repeated the word “long”.) But what then is the link between Campion’s poem and his music? After all, his most often quoted sentence is: “In these English ayres I have chiefly aimed to couple my words and notes lovingly together” (Campion c. 1613/1979). This has often been misunderstood as a proclamation of mimetic intentions, whereas in fact – as is demonstrated by the context in which the sentence occurs – what the statement refers to is a rhythmical correspondence between his poems and his ayres (cf. Bernhart 1985: 249f.). As is amply illustrated by his treatise called “Observations in the Art of English Poesie” (see 1602/1937), Campion was an adherent of the ancient theory of number and, in fact, we have to realize that his concept of music is akin to the quadrivial sense, i.e., that of music reflecting cosmic harmony. The sky has not been untuned yet, to allude to the title of John Hollander’s book (see 1961). We have an interesting documenta- tion of this fact in Campion’s song “Come let us sound”, which is an example of vers mesuré, where the music strictly follows the quantitative verse pattern, in this case that of the sapphic stanza form (see Figure 2). Campion was clearly influenced by the ideas of Baïf’s French Academy, and he seems to have believed – in the Platonic sense – in the ethical power of music, through rhythm, to function as a mirror of cosmic harmony. This is in fact what the poem “Come let us sound” is about. Setting a Poem: The Composer’ s Choice For or Against Interpretation 57

Come let us sound with melody the praises – . . – – . . – . – – Of the king’s King, th’omnipotent Creator, Author of number that hath all the world in Harmony framed. – . . – – (Campian 1601/1968: 40f.)

Figure 2: Thomas Campion, “Come let us sound”.

He has chosen not to interpret the text of his poem in any obvious sense but is nevertheless concerned about a close link between the two arts, which he finds on the prosodic level of language itself, i.e., on the level of the materiality of language. Besides, in accordance with Humanist ideas, this form of setting also guarantees – through the very lack of musical illustration – a perfect intelligibility of the denotation of his text. In this way, his music does not override the poem (a danger with elaborate compositions) – it leaves the text as it is and only enhances its impact by writing large its formal and prosodic dimension. 58 Setting a Poem: The Composer’ s Choice For or Against Interpretation

Moving forward about two hundred years to the age of Goethe, one can find some striking parallels between the views just discussed and the aesthetic ideas of the so-called Berlin school (or schools) of song, which formed a new beginning after what we are used to calling the Baroque era. Johann Abraham Peter Schulz, who has been labeled “the first theoretician of the new lied” (Müller-Blattau 1952: 30), was an advocate of a new simplicity of style and, in his songs (Lieder im Volkston), asked for “eine Melodie, deren Fortschreitung sich nie über den Gang des Textes erhebt, noch unter ihn sinkt, wie ein Kleid dem Körper, sich der Deklamation und dem Metro der Wörter anschmiegt”3. A similar view is expressed by Goethe, who, of course, was closely associated with the Berlin school. In Edward Cone’s words, “Goethe […] liked to think of the composer as merely uncovering the melody already concealed in his own rhythms” (1957: 6). Or, to quote a passage from Johann Friedrich Reichardt, who was Goethe’s favorite composer until they fell out because of the French Revolution: “Meine Melodien entstehen jederzeit aus wiederholtem Lesen des Gedichts von selbst, ohne daß ich danach suche”4. These authors also believed, like Campion, in a fundamental link between the poem and its setting on the prosodic level, on the level of the declamation of the word, of the inherent ‘Weise’ of the poem (to use Herder’s term); and, according to this view, it is the composer’s task, when writing a song, to simply bring out that inherent quality, which, in Goethe’s view, was not within reach of human rationality (cf. Jaskola 1966: 73).

So far we again find the composers choosing not to interpret the meaning of the text when they set a poem, and we know that Goethe did not believe in the expressive nature of music (cf. Georgiades 1967: 33f.). However, as this was the age of sensibility, authors concerned themselves with what they called the mood of a poem. When Goethe objected to ‘through-composition’ (Durch- komponieren) in song-setting, he did so mainly because, in his view, such a tech-

3 Qtd. Jaskola 1966: 67; ‘a melody which never goes beyond nor below the text, which fits the declamation and the metre of the words as a dress fits the body’; my trans. Besides Gotthold Frotscher’s earlier study (see 1923/1924), Jaskola’s is the most helpful on the aesthetic ideas of the Berlin schools. 4 Qtd. Jaskola 1966: 72; ‘my melodies always shape themselves without my assistance when I read and re-read the poem’; my trans. Setting a Poem: The Composer’ s Choice For or Against Interpretation 59

nique puts too much emphasis on detail and destroys the lyrical unity of mood, which is a unity of tone. He wanted the tone of the poem preserved in the setting, and saw this guaranteed when what he thought of as the inherent melody of the poem was brought out in the composition. This fact implies that there is an element of interpretation in Goethe’s approach, if you like, insofar as one, very general, level of meaning –the basic mood – is reflected in the song, not by the elaborate use of musical means, but rather by going back to some fairly mysterious quality of the words themselves.

Karl Friedrich Zelter’s 1814 setting of “Wanderers Nachtlied” (“Über allen Gipfeln ist Ruh”) is as good an example of the practice of the Berlin school as any; it is worth selecting for a comparison with later, Romantic, settings. Both Franz Schubert and Robert Schumann wrote excellent songs based on the same poem, which are very different, both from Zelter’s and from one another.

Über allen Gipfeln O’er all the hill-tops Ist Ruh, Is quiet now, In allen Wipfeln In all the tree-tops Spürest du Hearest thou Kaum einen Hauch; Hardly a breath; Die Vögelein schweigen im Walde. The birds are asleep in the trees: Warte nur, balde Wait; soon like these Ruhest du auch. Thou too shalt rest.

(Trans. H. W. Longfellow; see 1975)

Zelter’s version is a simple song in E major, based on a flowing arpeggio phrase in the piano accompaniment, which is the dominant musical idea of the composition, suggestive of nightly rest (the caption reads “Still und nächtlich”). After a four-bar introduction, the voice sets in with a quiet legato melody, which unfolds quite predictably, coming to a halt only briefly on a playful melisma to be sung on the indefinite article “einen” (“Spürest du kaum einen Hauch” [my emphasis]; see Figure 3). Edward Cone would probably consider this song typical of Zelter’s “tuneful trifles” (1957: 4); Goethe, however, called it “herrlich” and admired the way it perfectly matched the mood of the poem (qtd. Georgiades 1967: 33f.). 60 Setting a Poem: The Composer’ s Choice For or Against Interpretation

Figure 3: Carl Friedrich Zelter, “Ruhe”.

Schubert’s version of 1823 and Schumann’s of 1850 take a decidedly different approach to the task. The assessment and critical appreciation of their settings have stimulated a very interesting and rewarding scholarly discussion. It was conducted between the late Thrasybulos Georgiades, who devoted the introductory chapter of his book on Schubert to these settings, and Dieter Conrad, Setting a Poem: The Composer’ s Choice For or Against Interpretation 61

who replied – belatedly – to Georgiades in defense of Schumann in a long article in 1982. To summarize briefly: for Georgiades, Schubert forms the culmination of song-writing because he not only reacts with extraordinary sensibility to the emotional implications of the poem as it unfolds, but is also aware of, and transforms into music, what Georgiades calls ‘the reality of the language’5. As the author of a profound study of ancient Greek rhythm (see 1958), Georgia- des finds, in Schubert, a quasi-bodily presence of the word, which he considers characteristic of ancient poetry, and which manifests itself in the way Schubert is able to establish a sequence of rhythmical cola that function like building blocks spacing out time. In contrast, Schumann, according to Georgiades, has none of this awareness of the material language basis of poetry and is said to be merely interested in mood, very much like the pre-romantic composers.

Conrad, while apparently accepting Georgiades’s rhythmical interpretation of Schubert and his disqualification of Schumann as insensitive to poetic rhythm, is very critical, on the other hand, of Schumann’s disqualification as a mere mood composer and shows, quite convincingly in my view, that Schu- mann’s reading of the Goethe poem is far more sophisticated than Schubert’s. For instance, he points out that the way in which Schumann sets “Ruhest du auch” on a chromatic progression, with a heavy dissonance on the repeat of “Ru- hest” and a strange seventh step upwards, instead of the expected second down, on “du auch”, implies some struggle to accept the fact that we will soon be resting too (see Figure 4).

It is a further implication, of course, that “rest” most likely means ‘death’ in this reading, while in Schubert’s setting there seems to be a quiet complacen- cy, almost a happy acceptance of the fact of rest, which could mean death also, but maybe only a warm bed in a wayside inn to refresh the weary wanderer. So also, for Conrad, Schubert’s setting of the line “Die Vögelein schweigen im Walde” is almost paradoxical because what we hear in the music is a beautiful folk-like tune: in fact the birds seem to be singing rather than being silent! This seems to harmonize neatly with Schubert’s reading of the end of the poem just discussed (see Figure 5). In contrast, Schumann’s birds really stop singing on an unexpected and sustained G minor chord, the effect of which is that there is something unnatural, even uncanny, about the fact. This again agrees with

5 “Es wird musikalische Struktur dadurch geschaffen, dass die Sprache als Reales erfaßt, dass sie ‘beim Wort’ genommen wird” (Georgiades 1967: 24). 62 Setting a Poem: The Composer’ s Choice For or Against Interpretation

Figure 4: Robert Schumann, “Nachtlied”.

Schumann’s reading of the end of the poem.

Georgiades is critical of Schumann’s structurally unmotivated quarter tri- plet chords in the piano accompaniment, which interrupt the vocal line, and labels them as merely impressionistic. Conrad argues that these chords form a complex reflection in the persona of the song, where they revive the memory of the now silent birds. This line of interpretation conforms to a major tenet of Schumann criticism which holds that the decisive advance of Schumann over his predecessors in the art of song writing was his use of the piano accompaniment, no longer as a mere underpinning for the vocal line or illustration of Setting a Poem: The Composer’ s Choice For or Against Interpretation 63

Figure 5: Franz Schubert, “Wanderers Nachtlied”. what the poem is saying but as an independent agent of reflection. It also represents a personal experience with the text, or an experience triggered by the text – something that goes beyond its immediate meaning. Schumann criticism also accepts that, as a consequence, his songs are far less concerned with 64 Setting a Poem: The Composer’ s Choice For or Against Interpretation

the verbal side of poetry and are, fundamentally, not rooted in the language of the poem (cf. Gerstmeier 1982: 34).

What are the consequences of the comparison of these Goethe songs for our general argument? Schubert’s and Schumann’s settings can both be seen as expressive readings of the poem, where the composers chose to interpret their texts very closely, and we have seen that these settings vary considerably in their approaches. You might agree with one interpretation and discard the other, just as you might prefer one literary critic’s reading of a work to another’s. As for Zelter’s setting, this sort of problem does not arise, as the music evidences no intention of interpreting the text but leaves it very much as it is. There is nothing in the music, for example, that would indicate any implications of the birds being silent in the forest. This song consists simply of the words sung to a melody that is supposed to reflect the inherent melody of the words and, thereby, with the help of the accompaniment, also to reflect the general mood of the poem. What is interesting about Schubert, though, is the fact that, if we accept Georgiades’s argument, he seems to do two things at the same time while other composers generally seem to do one or the other; he offers an expressive reading of the poem but, at the same time, his melodies are language-based and follow an inherent rhythmical quality of the words themselves.

Moving on again for about a hundred years, we discover a further very significant case of a composer who chose not to interpret his texts in any obvious sense. Josef Matthias Hauer was born in Lower Austria and developed twelve- tone music, as has now been established, prior to Arnold Schoenberg. There is little else that Schoenberg and Hauer have in common. While Schoenberg’s song style, as David Hertz has only recently shown (see 1987), is highly subjective and shows a rarely surpassed awareness of every shade of meaning of the underlying poem (and this, in fact, in spite of what he himself said about his songs; see, e.g., 1912/1965: “Das Verhältnis zum Text”), Hauer’s music is extremely objective and characterized by a fundamental asceticism. While in Schoenberg’s songs there is a very artificial declamation which, to the nasty Bertolt Brecht, sounded like the whinnying of dying war horses6, Hauer envisaged a meditative and unsensual style, and took a clearly anti-expressionist at-

6 Qtd. Zobel 1971: 43; “dass die Musiker wie sterbende Schlachtpferde wiehern”. Setting a Poem: The Composer’ s Choice For or Against Interpretation 65

titude by turning away from late romantic passion and colorful effects. He was once asked why he wrote no dissonances, why his music was so boring – despite the fact that his music is atonal and twelve-tone (cf. Reich 1933: 66).

Songs play an important role in Hauer’s oeuvre, and all of them are based on Friedrich Hölderlin poems. Why Hölderlin? To take up a distinction mentioned earlier, Hölderlin’s poems are certainly logogeneous texts, and they were rarely set during the nineteenth century because they do not lend themselves easily to expressive illustration and interpretation. For the very same reason Hauer – and about two hundred other twentieth-century composers (see Schu- macher 1967) – have chosen Hölderlin’s poetry, with its formal rigor, its inherent sound quality, its high style, and its obscurity. The poem to be discussed here is “Hälfte des Lebens” (“The Middle of Life”), a poem of two clearly contrasting stanzas, of which the first contemplates the summer quality of mature life (with an implication that this richness of life is the source of poetic creativity), while the second expresses the fear of winter to come with an accompanying Wordsworthian anxiety about a decline of poetic powers (see Schmidt 1985).

Mit gelben Birnen* hänget With yellow pears Und voll mit wilden Rosen And full of wild roses, Das Land in den See, The land hangs down into the lake, Ihr holden Schwäne, You lovely swans, Und trunken von Küssen And drunk with kisses Tunkt ihr das Haupt You dip your heads Ins heilignüchterne Wasser. Into the hallowed, the sober water.

Weh mir, wo nehm’ ich, wenn But oh, where shall I find Es Winter ist, die Blumen, und wo When winter comes the flowers, Den Sonnenschein, And where the sunshine Und Schatten der Erde? And shade of the earth? Die Mauern stehn The walls loom Sprachlos und kalt, im Winde Speechless and cold, in the wind Klirren die Fahnen. Weathercocks clatter. * “Blumen” (‘flowers’) in Hauer’s song (Trans. Michael Hamburger; see Hölderlin 1961/1966) 66 Setting a Poem: The Composer’ s Choice For or Against Interpretation

Hauer’s setting (written in 1922) of this poem, unlike, for example, Benjamin Britten’s, does not reflect the oppositional structure of the text. His music unfolds quite unconcerned about the poem’s ideas; it consists of an unpretentious atonal melodic line which follows a quiet declamation of the words, sparsely assisted by the piano accompaniment, which does not introduce any additional musical material. Only “Weh mir” is set on the interval of a falling second in the higher register of the baritone voice, which can be heard within the framework of traditional expressive musical formulae (see Figure 6).

What did Hauer have in mind when he wrote a song like this? As he knew himself to be an innovator who reacted vehemently against the prevailing musical practice of his day, he wrote a few treatises in defense of his ideas, to which – eccentric as he was – he gave opus numbers. So we have his op. 13, an essay called Deutung des Melos (see 1923). As it is a polemical book, we cannot expect it to be historically objective; it attacks most of the European tradition, which, from the Greeks onward, is represented as characterized by ‘idealism’, ‘noise’ and ‘instinct’, in contrast to what he labels ‘oriental’ qualities: ‘intuition’, ‘melody’ and “Deutung”, a difficult concept which he leaves undefined. Within the framework of Hauer’s highly spiritualized philosophy, “Deutung” (‘interpretation’, ‘explication’) seems to mean something like the bringing to life, or ‘explaining’ in terms of our world of experience, of a transcendent quality which he calls “Melos”. What is ‘melos’? It is “das Befreiende von allem Zufälligen, Sinnlichen, Affektiösen, Pathologischen”7; “Hören, Vernehmen (Vernunft) ist der geistige Akt des Menschen, Hören des Unabänderlichen, Unantastbaren, Unbegreiflichen, Unveränderlichen, Ewigen – des Melos”8. This is clearly Pla- tonic, and we are not surprised to read that melos has to do with ethos, while the music we are used to hearing has to do with pathos (cf. ibid.: 37); and we should also be prepared to read that the experience of melos conveys a feeling of being at one with the cosmos (cf. ibid.: 23).

So, in some ways, we have come full-circle and are faced with re-definitions of what we have called a quadrivial understanding of the function of music. By using an atonal melody – and it has to be atonal, for tonality implies ‘nature’ and sensuality – and by applying a numerical system, i.e., constellations of the

7 Hauer 1923: 37; ‘it frees us from what is accidental, sensual, affective, pathological’; my trans. 8 Ibid.: 15; ‘it is beyond instinct, experience, the physiological; in it one can hear what is unchange- able, untouchable, unintelligible, eternal’; my trans. Setting a Poem: The Composer’ s Choice For or Against Interpretation 67

Figure 6: Josef Matthias Hauer, “Hälfte des Lebens”. undifferentiated twelve-tone scale, Hauer believes himself to be opening up the possibility of experiencing pure music as a pure mental act. In the language of Hölderlin’s poems, in their very metres and rhythms, he finds the closest approximations to melos, and his intentionally primitive music is, again, only a 68 Setting a Poem: The Composer’ s Choice For or Against Interpretation

writing-large of what is inherent in the form and prosody of the poem. For Hauer, the meaning of a word does not lie in its conceptual content or in its emotional connotations, but in its ‘melos’, its melody with vowels and consonants. (“Der Sinn eines Wortes, einer ‘Melodie’ mit Vokalen und Konsonant- en, liegt in seinem Melos.” Ibid.: 16.)

There has been a kind of Hauer renaissance in Austria during the last ten years or so, and we can almost talk about a school of composers and artists gathered around Gerhard Zeller, professor of song interpretation at the Musik- hochschule of Graz. The work of these composers and artists is clearly marked by their experience of Hauer’s music and ideas, although they have all developed individual styles. Two of them, Hans Florey and Hermann Markus Pressl, have also set Hölderlin’s “Hälfte des Lebens” to music. Florey, who is a painter and composer, and an adherent of what he calls ‘a unified world picture’, thinks of his works as ‘symbols of immediate happiness’, where happiness is that state ‘in which the world as appearance dissolves’, while to him the music we usually hear ‘is concerned but with the anticipation of happiness which we forget when faced with happiness itself’ (Florey 1977; my trans.). His version of “Hälfte des Lebens” (1986) is based on a complicated twelve-tone construction that is derived from a geometrical model over which the complete color cycle is distributed. This construction, however, leaves the voice sufficient freedom to adapt its melodic flow to the rhythm of Hölderlin’s language. Apart from this, the song, which has a piano accompaniment of a single melodic line, does not concern itself with the text in any overt sense. It does so, however, in a more abstract way, in that the setting of the second stanza of the poem is based on only half of the twelve-tone scale, and thus reflects the fact that, in Florey’s view, the poet, by fearing winter, declines to accept a unified world picture and is still subjected to earthly limitations which, as the image of the swans suggests, can be transcended. So the song does not interpret the text in terms of expressive mimesis, but its overall structure is planned as a mirror of a basic disposition of the poem.

Pressl, recent winner of the prestigious Joseph Marx Prize (though it is likely that Joseph Marx would not have appreciated his efforts), is more radical in his approach and bases his views of music on his experience of ritual- istic musical events in Afghanistan. For him, music is a communal meditative act in which the opposition of performer and audience breaks down, and the Setting a Poem: The Composer’ s Choice For or Against Interpretation 69

poem functions only as a quarry from which to extract the articulatory material necessary for singing. So his version of “Hälfte des Lebens” (1986), which is also a twelve-tone composition with two melodic lines in the piano accompaniment, reduces the text to its vowels only, these being sung on those notes of the scale that match the letters (in the German nomenclature, e.g., H, (E)S, etc.) of the sequence of words which forms the poem. In this ‘setting’ each crotchet or crotchet rest corresponds to a letter of the poem, which is thus ‘translated’ into music (see Figure 7). This is the only relationship there is between poem and song. It is an extreme case of graphematic reduction of a text, and radically denies interpretation.

The radicalism of this refusal to interpret the poem used for composition is matched by Roland Barthes’s views which he expressed in his essay on “The Grain of the Voice”. There Barthes takes a decisive stance against what he calls “the tyranny of meaning” (1977: 185), and vehemently argues against expressive readings of texts in songs. In a song he wants to hear something which lies “beyond (or before) the meaning of words” (ibid.: 181); he wants to experience a voice which “bears along directly the symbolic, over the intelligible, the expressive” (ibid.: 182). He objects seriously to those “attempts at expressive reduction operated by a whole culture against the poem and its melody” (ibid.: 184). Adopting Julia Kristeva’s terms, as explicated in her Revolution in Poetic Lan- guage (see 1984/1986), he argues that our culture is too much concerned with “pheno-song” at the expense of “geno-song”, too much involved with what “is in the service of communication, representation, expression, everything which it is customary to talk about [...], which takes its bearing directly on the ideological alibis of a period (‘subjectivity’, ‘expressivity’, ‘dramaticism’, ‘personality’) of the artist” (Barthes 1977: 182). “Geno-song”, in contrast, germinates “from within language and in its very materiality” (ibid.). Barthes mentions the experience of “geno-song” in some French ‘melodies’ which are rooted in the diction of the language. Boris’s death in Mussorgsky’s opera is “expressive, or if preferred, hysterical; […] Melisande, on the contrary, only dies prosodical- ly” (ibid.: 186f.). So much, in a nutshell, for Barthes as an outspoken advocate of non-interpretive song.

70 Setting a Poem: The Composer’ s Choice For or Against Interpretation

Figure 7: Hermann Markus Pressl, “Hälfte des Lebens”. The text of Hölderlin’s poem, which is not sung in its original shape, has been added to Pressl’s composition.

To draw some conclusions from this brief historical sketch, there seems to be in the history of the art song, too, something that I would like to characterize as an undercurrent of aesthetic reflection and practice that questions the exclusive validity of the dominant expressive-mimetic conception of art. At different points in our cultural history, poets, composers, and critics have been dissatisfied with a view of song based on poetry that emphasizes conceptual and emotive meaning and considers art mainly as a means of signification. But if one asks what it actually was that they wanted instead in art song, that is difficult to say. What did the Humanists, what did Baïf or Campion really want; what did Goethe really want, or Hölderlin, or Hauer, or Barthes? Certainly it is not the same with all of them, and we have seen that their writings offer widely diverg- ing attempts at defining a quality of songs that seems to be hard to establish in rational terms and goes beyond, or below, the level of ordinary discourse and Setting a Poem: The Composer’ s Choice For or Against Interpretation 71

experience. What their views have in common, though, is that they find the essential quality of a poem and its setting in its prosody and in its form, rather than in its meaning. In semiotic terms, they find it in the ‘signifier’, not in any ‘signified’. This, of course, is a major tenet of modern, and postmodern, poetics. Indeed, we are familiar with MacLeish’s dictum, from “Ars Poetica”, that “A poem should not mean / But be”, and must acknowledge that the being of a poem lies in its material existence as sound and rhythm. So, in this view, it is the task of a musical setting simply to reinforce the being of the poem and nothing more. This means that such a setting is a form of self-assertion of the poem, which might account for the fact that so many poets are happy with simple, prosodic settings, be they Campion, or Milton admiring Henry Lawes’s incon- spicuous songs, or Goethe preferring Zelter to Schubert. Taking this view, it would be unfair to these poets to criticize their preference for simple songs because, as the critics claim, the poets believe that their texts can be better understood in simple settings. Quite the contrary! ‘True’ poets realize that poetry is more than intelligible meaning, it is rather an act of existential experience that can be intensified by an appropriate musical setting.

Does this imply disqualification of composers who have decided for, and not against, interpretation and are concerned with what the poem means, and means to them? Not in the least. After all, man is a signifying animal whose search for meaning is a survival instinct in this world. So we have a true choice, depending on our existential understanding, between wanting to comprehend, and therefore interpret, this world, and regarding it as incomprehensible, consequently aligning ourselves with another – say a platonic world of ideas, or being satisfied with mere being.

To finish on a more practical note: which kind of song is more fun to sing? The challenges are quite different. Interpretive song demands of the singer a willingness and capability to follow the interpretive intention of the composer, who has done most of the job; here the singer is in the role of a servant to the composer. In non-interpretive song the performer is far more independent, being confronted only with the text itself, which is at his or her mercy. We are lucky that both forms of song exist. 72 Setting a Poem: The Composer’ s Choice For or Against Interpretation

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Keller, Hans (1984). “Goethe and the Lied”. Elizabeth Mary Wilkinson, ed. Goethe Revisited. London: Calder/New York, NY: Riverrun. 73–84. Kristeva, Julia (1974). La Revolution du langage poetique. Paris: Seuil. — (1984/1986). Revolution in Poetic Language. Margaret Walker, trans. New York, NY: Columbia UP. (Reprint of Chapter 1: Toril Moi, ed. The Kristeva Reader. New York, NY: Columbia UP. 120–123.) Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth (1975). “O’er all the hill-tops”. Trans. of Goethe’s “Wanderers Nacht- lied. Ein gleiches”. The Poetical Works of Longfellow. Ed. George Mouteire. Cambridge Edition. Boston: Houghton. 617. Morley, Thomas (1600/1969). The First Booke of Ayres. The English Lute-Songs, Series I, 16. Edmund H. Fellowes, ed., rev. ed. Thurston Dart. London: Stainer & Bell/New York, NY: Galaxy Music Corporation. Müller-Blattau, Joseph (1952). Das Verhältnis von Wort und Ton in der Geschichte der Musik. Stutt- gart: Metzler. Palézieux, Nikolaus de (1981). Die Lehre vom Ausdruck in der englischen Musikästhetik des 18. Jahrhun- derts. Hamburg: Verlag der Musikalienhandlung Wagner. Pressl, Hermann Markus (1986). “Hälfte des Lebens”. 2 November. Unpublished. Reich, Hans (1933). “Josef Mathias [sic] Hauer im Rahmen der Liedasthetik”. Der Auftakt 13: 61–67. Scher, Steven Paul (1986). “Comparing Poetry and Music: Beethoven’s Goethe Lieder”. Janos Riesz, Peter Boemer, Bernhard Scholz, eds. Sensus Communis: Contemporary Trends in Comparative Li- terature. Festschrift for Henry Remak. Tübingen: Narr. 155–165. Schmidt, Jochen (1985). “Hälfte des Lebens”. Gottfried Honnefelder, ed. Warum Klassiker? Ein Al- manach zur Eröffnungsedition der Bibliothek deutscher Klassiker. Frankfurt am Main: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag. 102–106. Schoenberg, Arnold (1912/1965). “Das Verhältnis zum Text”. Wassily Kandinsky, Franz Marc, eds. Der blaue Reiter. New documentary edition by Klaus Lankheit. Munich: Piper. 60–75. Schumacher, Gerhard (1967). Geschichte und Möglichkeiten der Vertonung von Dichtungen Friedrich Hölderlins. Regensburg: Bosse. Zenck, Hermann (1959). Numerus und Affektus: Studien zur Musikgeschichte. Ed. Walter Gerstenberg. Musikwissenschaftliche Arbeiten 16. Kassel: Bärenreiter. Zimmermann, Jörg (1976). “Wandlungen des philosophischen Musikbegriffs: Über den Gegen- satz von mathematisch-harmonikaler und semantisch-ästhetischer Betrachtungsweise”. Günter Schnitzler, ed. Musik und Zahl: Interdisziplinäre Beitrage zum Grenzbereich zwischen Musik und Mathematik. Bonn: Verlag für Systematische Musikwissenschaft. 81–135. Zobel, Wilhelm (1971). “Josef Mathias [sic] Hauer: Materialien zur Theorie und Praxis der Zwölfton- musik”. Materialien zur Musiksoziologie. Vienna: Edition Literaturproduzenten. 40–55. Zuckerkandl, Viktor (1958). “Mimesis”. Merkur 12: 225–240.

Zweimal ‘Johnny’ : Der treulose Herzensbrecher bei Brecht/Weill und Auden/Britten [1991]

Wie so manches für seine Dichtung Wesentliche fand Bertolt Brecht auch die Thematik eines seiner beliebtesten Songs, des “Surabaya-Johnny”, bei Rudyard Kipling vorgeprägt.

Das an sich alte Balladenthema der von einem gleichgültigen Mann verlassenen Frau erscheint in Kiplings Barrack-Room Ballad “Mary, pity Women!” allerdings durch die triste soziale Lage der beiden Betroffenen und durch die verächtliche Herzlosigkeit des Mannes in kritisch verschärfter Form, was Brecht anziehen mußte. Vor allem zeigt die Psychologie der betrogenen Frau bei Kipling jenes paradoxe Nebeneinander von Liebe und Haß (“I ’ate you, grin- nin’ there ... /Ah, Gawd, I love you so!”; 1974: 105), das im “Surabaya-Johnny” so nachhaltig beeindruckt und Anteilnahme auslöst. Auch die Brechts Songs auszeichnende Vorliebe für exotische Namen wie Burma, Surabaya, Mandelay, Bilbao usf. sowie die von Brecht mehrfach aufgegriffene Bezeichnung ‘Johnny’ für den Typus des britischen Soldaten gehen auf Kipling zurück1.

Brecht scheint seinen 1926 geschriebenen “Surabaya-Johnny” sehr geschätzt zu haben, was dessen Verwendung in verschiedenen, dem jeweiligen Werk, in dem er erscheint, angepaßten Fassungen dokumentiert (vgl. Lyon 1976: 70–75; Hennenberg, Hrsg. 1985: 404–407). Von Bedeutung ist dabei, daß der Song jeweils – ob in Lion Feuchtwangers Kalkutta, 4. Mai, in Happy End oder auch in Brechts später Volpone-Bearbeitung als “Lied der Magd” – zitiert erscheint, also in keinem Fall die Sprecherin des Gedichts eine handeln- de Person des Stücks ist. Hennenberg erwähnt frühe Vertonungen des “Sura- baya-Johnny” durch Franz S. Bruinier und Hanns Eisler (vgl. ibid.: 407), doch populär wurde der Song durch Kurt Weills Musik, die erstmals 1929 in der

1 Vgl. Lyon (1976: 55, 24). Siehe auch S. 64–79 zu Brechts Übersetzung von Kiplings “Mary, pity Women!” in Zusammenarbeit mit Elisabeth Hauptmann. 76 Zweimal ‘Johnny’: Der treulose Herzensbrecher bei Brecht/Weill und Auden/Britten

Berliner Uraufführung von Happy End erklang. W. H. Auden, den Frederick Buell als das englische Gegenstück zum Brecht der Dreigroschenoper und von Mahagonny bezeichnet (vgl. 1973: 90) war von Oktober 1928 bis Juli 1929 als 21-Jähriger in Berlin. Er selbst sah diesen Aufenthalt als entscheidenden Ein- fluß für die Entwicklung seines eigenständigen Werkes an, wobei für ihn vor allem die Begegnung mit sozialkritischen Fragen in Film und Kabarett von Bedeutung war. Zwar soll ein unmittelbarer Einfluß Brechts aufgrund von Au- dens damals noch begrenzten Deutschkenntnissen nicht überschätzt werden (vgl. Mitchell 1966: 165), doch sah er eine frühe Aufführung der Dreigroschen- oper (als Happy End am 2. September 1929 uraufgeführt wurde, war er bereits wieder in England) und las 1927 die Hauspostille. Daß Brechts Songs Vorbild für Audens eigene erfolgreiche Songs und Balladen der Dreißiger-Jahre waren, steht außer Zweifel (vgl. dazu Spears 1963: 92, 107).

Es wurde aber bisher noch nicht darauf hingewiesen, daß Audens Gedicht “Johnny”, das im April 1937 entstand und 1940 in Another Time als erster der “Four Cabaret Songs for Miss Hedli Anderson” erschien, in unmittelbarer Nähe zu Brecht steht und den “Surabaya-Johnny” als Modell hinter sich hat.

Hedli Anderson, spätere Gattin von Louis MacNeice, hatte im Februar 1937 von Audens und Christopher Isherwoods experimenteller Tragödie The Ascent of F6, zu der Benjamin Britten die Bühnenmusik schrieb, als Sängerin eines Blues Aufsehen erregt. Bald schrieben Auden und Britten, die seit 1935 zusammenarbeiteten und jetzt gemeinsam den Liederzyklus On This Island schufen, für die Sängerin eine Reihe von Cabaret Songs, von denen nur vier erhalten sind, obwohl noch weitere entstanden sein dürften. Auch die Noten dieser vier tauchten erst viel später auf und wurden erstmals 1980 veröffent- licht2. “Johnny” wurde als erster der Songs am 5. Mai 1937 komponiert (übri- gens am selben Tag wie “Nocturne” aus On This Island). Die Lieder waren im Freundeskreis um das Group Theatre, das Audens Stücke aufführte, beliebt und erklangen auch am Abschiedsabend vor der Abreise Audens und Isher- woods nach China im Januar 1938 (vgl. Osborne 1980: 148f.).

Was veranlaßt uns, “Johnny” und “Surabaya-Johnny” zusammenzustellen? Auden dürfte den Namen für seinen ‘Helden’ wohl in bewußter Anlehnung an Brecht gewählt haben, weil hier wie dort ein kühler Herzensbrecher eine

2 S. Britten/Auden 1980. Zur Entstehungsgeschichte vgl. das Vorwort von Donald Mitchell. Zweimal ‘Johnny’: Der treulose Herzensbrecher bei Brecht/Weill und Auden/Britten 77

ihn liebende Frau verächtlich verläßt. Beides sind Rollengedichte aus der Sicht der Frau und direkt an den untreuen Mann gerichtet. Neben dieser offensicht- lichen Übereinstimmung in Titel, Thema und Sprechsituation findet sich ein schlagender Brechtscher Anklang in der Schlußstrophe bei Auden: “The sea it was blue”3 greift den bekannten Refrain des “Matrosen-Songs” aus Happy End auf, dessen ursprünglicher Titel “‘Das Meer ist blau’-Song” lautete (vgl. Hen- nenberg, Hrsg. 1985: 403). Auch thematisch liegt dieser Song, in dem ober- flächlich-rücksichtslose Matrosen, ihrer Mädchen überdrüssig, erneut in See stechen, nahe. Es ist darüber hinaus nicht von der Hand zu weisen, daß die Idee zur Ballszene in der zweiten Strophe von Audens “Johnny” durch Bills Ball- haus im “Bilbao-Song”, ebenfalls aus Happy End, angeregt sein könnte, dies umso mehr, als sie auch dort mit der Vorstellung der ‘seligen’ Erinnerung an ‘bessere’ Zeiten verknüpft ist und sich musikalisch bei Weill wie bei Britten eine Geste des Belcanto nicht verkennen läßt.

Matrosenwelt – Bürgerwelt

Scheint es aufgrund dieser Gemeinsamkeiten somit durchaus sinnvoll, ja nö- tig, die beiden Songs zusammenzustellen, so unterscheiden sie sich doch sehr wesentlich voneinander, was eine genauere vergleichende Auseinandersetzung mit ihnen rechtfertigt und reizvoll macht.

Auffällig ist zunächst das unterschiedliche soziale Milieu, in dem die Songs angesiedelt sind. Spielt der “Surabaya-Johnny” in der vertrauten Brechtschen Matrosenwelt der sozial Unterprivilegierten, so befinden wir uns bei Auden im Bereich gutsituierter Bürgerlichkeit. Wir durchlaufen einzelne Stationen einer Werbung in der verfeinerten englischen Gesellschaft, zwischen Sommerspa- ziergang, Wohltätigkeitsball und Besuch der Oper.

Hand in Hand mit dieser einschneidenden sozialen Transposition geht eine substantielle Umzeichnung der sprechenden Frauen. Zwar sind sie in beiden Fällen als von großer Liebe erfüllt dargestellt, doch bei Brecht äußert sich diese Liebe da-

3 Audens Text wird nach der Notenausgabe (s. Britten/Auden 1980) zitiert. In den Auden-Ausga- ben erscheint ein leicht revidierter Text mit stärkerer metrischer Vereinheitlichung und einigen lexikalischen Veränderungen (vgl. u. a. Mendelson, Hrsg. 1977: 213). 78 Zweimal ‘Johnny’: Der treulose Herzensbrecher bei Brecht/Weill und Auden/Britten

rin, daß sich die Frau mit ihrem Partner auseinandersetzt und wir somit weit mehr über ihn und seine zweifelhafte Lebensweise als über sie erfahren. Bei Auden hingegen steht die junge Frau mit ihrer sozialen Umwelt ganz im Mittelpunkt, und der ungetreue Mann bleibt völlig konturlos. Ein Motiv für sein abweisendes Verhalten wird nicht genannt. Damit wird es aber schwierig, dieses Verhalten rundweg zu verurteilen, und es ist nur konsequent, daß bei Auden gegenüber Brecht der Ausdruck von Haßgefühlen der Frau, die sich mit ihrer Liebe auf paradoxe Weise verknüpfen, fehlt. Somit verlagert sich der Schwerpunkt der Textaussage von der komplexen Empfindungslage eines deutlicher individualisierten, gleichwohl stark sozial deter- minierten Charakters bei Brecht zur Darstellung einer bestimmten sozialen Welt bei Auden, die die Sprecherin bloß als typische Vertreterin repräsentiert, ohne daß sie als merklich differenzierte Person in Erscheinung tritt.

Hat man diese Schwerpunktverlagerung in den beiden Gedichten zur Kenntnis genommen, so knüpft sich daran folgerichtig die Frage der Sympa- thieverteilung. Bei Brecht besteht trotz des stets ironischen Tons seiner Songs kein Zweifel daran, daß der Leser für die ausgebeutete Frau Partei ergreift. Wir erfahren genug über den treulosen Johnny und die leicht nachvollziehbaren Lebensnöte einer tiefempfindenden Frau. Bei Auden ist die Sympathievertei- lung hingegen nicht so eindeutig. Zwar besteht auch hier die prinzipielle Iden- tifikationsbereitschaft gegenüber der verschmähten liebenden Frau, die ja als Ich-Sprecherin im Gedicht auftritt. Jedoch die Konturlosigkeit des Mannes und die soziale Anpassung der jungen Frau erschweren eine uneingeschränk- te Identifikation mit ihr. Erst recht problematisch wird diese, wenn man die klischierte Sprache und die unbedarfte Erlebniswelt der Frau bedenkt. Das Sentimental-operettenhafte dieser Person, das sich darin äußert, mag ihr jede Sympathie entziehen. Man kann die Frau dann als aufdringlich-überspannte gesellschaftliche Marionette sehen, was in der Folge das abweisende Verhalten des enttäuschten Mannes sogar verständlich machen würde4.

Der Text von Audens “Johnny” zeigt also ausreichend Merkmale, die iden- tifikationshemmend wirken können, was einer Handhabung der lyrischen Sprechsituation entspricht, die sich bei Auden häufig findet. In Fortführung von Formen des dramatischen Monologs aus der viktorianischen Lyrik, besonders bei Robert Browning, ‘enthüllt’ sich in solchen Gedichten der jeweilige

4 Eine solche Lesung wird unterstützt durch Edward Mendelsons autobiographische Deutung des Texts. Auden habe in den “Cabaret Songs” über seine eigenen Wunden gescherzt und seine Isola- tion in Liebesbelangen ironisch dargestellt (vgl. Mendelson 1981: 235). Zweimal ‘Johnny’: Der treulose Herzensbrecher bei Brecht/Weill und Auden/Britten 79

Sprecher als problematischer Charakter, womit seine Eigenbeurteilung und die des impliziten Autors auseinanderklaffen und sich seine Aussage für den Leser relativiert5. Der Text ist dann als Parodie auf bestimmte konventionalisierte Formen von schwärmerischer Jungmädchenliebe zu lesen und scheint die Fra- ge ‘Was ist Liebe?’ zu thematisieren, die Audens gleichzeitig mit “Johnny” ent- standener Cabaret Song “Tell Me the Truth About Love” zentral behandelt. Die Variante, die das von Brecht nach Kipling aufgegriffene Thema des treulosen Herzensbrechers bei Auden findet, besteht dann darin, daß die Frau im Gegensatz zur vom Surabaya-Johnny Verlassenen gar keine ‘echte’ Liebe emp- findet, was sich ja darin äußert, daß sie keine Haßgefühle zeigt.

Durchschaut bei dieser parodistischen Lesung der zwar nicht namen-, aber merkmallose ‘Liebhaber’ die Oberflächlichkeit der Empfindungswelt der Frau, was sein Verhalten letztlich moralisch rechtfertigt, so kann man bei anderer Einstellung der Frau mehr Verständnis entgegenbringen, wie dies etwa Dennis Davison tut (vgl. 1970: 86f.). Er argumentiert, daß vergleichsweise die einfache Sprache der alten Balladen, die von Liebesleid sprechen, auch die Sympathie nicht unterbindet, warum sollte das dann bei ihrem modernen Gegenstück, der herabgekommenen Sprache der kommerzialisierten Cabaret Songs, der Fall sein? Warum sollen wir über das Mädchen lachen, das zwar schrecklich sentimental ist, aber – als Opfer sozialer Prägung – trotzdem ehrlich leidet, genauso wie sein Gegenstück aus den alten Balladen? Davison stützt sich bei seiner Deutung vor allem auf die stark verdüsterte letzte Strophe von “Johnny”, in der die Sprecherin recht glaubwürdig in existentiellen Nöten erscheint und ihren teils bedrückenden Traum (“Ten thousand miles deep in a pit there I lay”) in direkter Anrede ihrem Johnny schildert. Hier nähert sich die Gefühlslage der Sprecherin streckenweise jener der vom “Surabaya-Johnny” Betrogenen an. Davison liest Audens “Johnny” also nicht als Parodie, sondern als zeitgemäße Imitation populärer Songs, womit die Ehrlichkeit der zum Ausdruck gebrach- ten Empfindungen und die Bereitschaft des Lesers, sich mit der Sprecherin zu identifizieren, nicht in Frage gestellt werden6.

5 Verständnis für die Verwendung dieser Sprechsituation bei Auden ist vor allem Günther Jarfe zu danken (s. 1985). 6 Eine gewisse Unsicherheit über den parodistischen Charakter von Audens Text geht auch aus der Formulierung von Spears hervor, der sagt, “Johnny” “seems to be a parody [m. H.]” (1963: 108). Allerdings streicht Spears die ironischen Züge des Gedichts heraus. 80 Zweimal ‘Johnny’: Der treulose Herzensbrecher bei Brecht/Weill und Auden/Britten

Man kann sehen, Audens Text ist zweifellos mehrdeutig und erlaubt verschiedene Sichtweisen, die jeweils völlig andere Behandlungen des zugrundeliegen- den Themas vom treulosen Liebhaber implizieren.

In diesem Stadium der Auseinandersetzung mit den Song-Texten ist es der logisch nächste Schritt zu berücksichtigen, daß sie zur musikalischen Darbie- tung geschrieben wurden. Da jede Vertonung eines literarischen Texts eine bestimmte Perspektivierung des Texts vornimmt, die die Möglichkeit ein- schließt, die jeweilige Textaussage mit musikalischen Mitteln interpretatorisch zu fixieren, kann ihre Untersuchung den exegetischen Prozeß wesentlich för- dern. Gerade bei Weills und Brittens Songs, die als musiko-literarische Misch- formen konzipiert sind, kann erst die Betrachtung der musikalischen Fassung des Texts eine authentische Leseart erzielen.

Bei der vergleichenden Untersuchung der Songs von Weill und Britten im Hinblick auf ihr Verhältnis zu den Texten und ihren Beitrag zur Differenzie- rung der behandelten Thematik können zunächst einige Gemeinsamkeiten des grundlegenden Ansatzes und des Stils festgehalten werden. Beide Komponisten haben ganz allgemein einen starken Publikumsbezug ihrer Kompositionsweise formuliert7, was sich darin äußert, daß ihre Werke oft an der Grenze zwischen ‘ernst’ und ‘leicht’ angesiedelt sind. Die gewünschte Publikumsnähe führte bei beiden in der Zwischenkriegszeit unter anderem auch zur Wahl populärer Mu- sikformen, deren Naivität eine unmittelbare Zugänglichkeit garantierte. Bei beiden ist diese Naivität in ihren Songs allerdings gebrochen, eine bloße Schein-Na- ivität, eine kalkulierte Banalität, in der sich eine grundlegende Ambivalenz von Gefühlsseligkeit und gleichzeitiger ironischer Distanz dieser gegenüber kundtut. Fragt man jedoch nach der Motivation für diese ironische Brechung trivialer Er- fahrung, so liegt die Antwort auf diese Frage nicht von vornherein auf der Hand und muß bei Weill und Britten – unweigerlich verknüpft mit den jeweiligen Mo- tivationen von Brecht und Auden – gesondert gefunden werden. Wieweit auch hier Gemeinsamkeiten bestehen, kann nur eine genauere Analyse ergeben, die anhand der beiden ‘Johnnys’ versucht werden soll.

7 “[...] ich habe gelernt, meine Musik direkt zum Publikum sprechen zu lassen, den unmittelbarsten, geradlinigsten Weg zu finden, um das zu sagen, was ich sagen möchte, und um es so einfach wie möglich zu sagen.” (Weill 1949: 52) “I want my music to be of use to people, to please them”; “it is the composer’s duty, as a member of Society, to speak to or for his fellow human beings” (Britten 1964/1978: 21f., 12). Zweimal ‘Johnny’: Der treulose Herzensbrecher bei Brecht/Weill und Auden/Britten 81

Zur Musikauffassung Brechts

Brecht hat seine bekannte Einstellung zur decouvrierenden Funktion der Weill- schen Musik klar formuliert: “Die Musik arbeitete so, gerade indem sie sich rein gefühlsmäßig gebärdete und auf keinen der üblichen narkotischen Reize verzichtete, an der Enthüllung der bürgerlichen Ideologien mit. Sie wurde so- zusagen zur Schmutzaufwirblerin, Provokatorin und Denunziantin.” (Unseld, Hrsg. 1960: 122f.) Ähnlich schrieb er in der Hauspostille über die Mahagon- nygesänge, sie könnten “ruhig mit der Höchstleistung an Stimme und Gefühl, jedoch ohne Mimik”8 angestimmt werden. Die Distanzierung vom Gefühl- sausdruck durch die fehlende begleitende Mimik schafft den Verweischarak- ter der geäußerten Empfindungen und erfüllt damit die Funktion der sozialkritischen Absicht. Soll hier also bei Brecht die Art der Darbietung der Songs ihre kritische Distanz signalisieren, so geschieht dies in seinen Theaterstücken, in denen die Songs aufscheinen, darüber hinaus schon dadurch, daß sie nicht in propria persona gesungen, sondern handlungsfördernd zitiert werden. “In Happy End sucht Halleluja-Lilian den Gangsterboß Bill Cracker von einem Verbrechen zurückzuhalten, und es gelingt ihr: Gegen seinen energischen Pro- test singt sie das ‘Lied vom Surabaya-Johnny’, was ihn so mitnimmt, daß ihm die Tränen kommen und er den Überfall verpaßt” (Hennenberg, Hrsg. 1985: 407). Hier wird – in Hennenbergs treffender Formulierung – “Sentimentalität als Lasso” (ebda.) eingesetzt9, was der Zuseher natürlich aus seiner kritischen Distanz durchschaut.

Sieht Brecht also performatorische und kontextuelle Faktoren vor, um die seiner sozialkritischen Intention entsprechende Distanzierung von den sentimentalen Songs zu garantieren, so stellt sich die Frage, ob die Songs selbst darü- ber hinaus auch inhärente Merkmale tragen, die diese Funktion erfüllen. Dies war Adornos Problem, aus dessen materialästhetischer Sicht Weills konformis- tische Musik zunächst rückschrittlich erscheinen mußte. Gleichwohl spricht Adorno dieser Musik, “die nicht aus dem aktuellen Stande des musikalischen Materials die Konsequenzen zieht”, doch ihre Wirksamkeit zu, da sie die “Ver- wandlung des alten geschrumpften Materials” (1928/1975: 37) suche; es sind

8 Vgl. die einleitende “Anleitung zum Gebrauch der einzelnen Lektionen” (Brecht 1960: 7–9, hier 8). 9 Verwandt ist die Situation beim “Matrosen-Song”, den der Gangsterboß als “Schmachtfetzen” bezeichnet, wodurch sich Halleluja-Lilians Bekehrungsversuch als erfolglos erweist (vgl. Hennen- berg, Hrsg. 1985: 403f.). 82 Zweimal ‘Johnny’: Der treulose Herzensbrecher bei Brecht/Weill und Auden/Britten

“wohl [...] zwischen den Akkorden die funktionellen Drähte durchschnitten” (1929/1975: 40). Ähnliches mag auch Brecht im Auge gehabt haben, als er feststellte, daß seine eigene Musik zu den Songs durch Weill einen “Kunstcharak- ter” erlange (Unseld, Hrsg. 1960: 122)10.

Weills Harmonik

Adornos Beobachtungen weisen in eine Richtung, die sich bei der Untersu- chung von Weills Musik als fruchtbar erweist, da sie die harmonische Frage anschneiden. Zwar bewegt sich Weills Harmonik im Rahmen einer regelmä- ßigen Phrasenstruktur und einer übergeordneten kadenzbedingten Stabilität, doch zeigt sie in ihrem Mikroverlauf zwei Tendenzen, die ihr einen instabi- len Charakter verleihen. Das eine ist, was Ian Kemp die “Zwitterhaftigkeit” (1973/1975: 160) des Tongeschlechts bezeichnet. “Obwohl Weills Musik dazu tendiert, die Molltonarten zu bevorzugen (vermutlich wegen ihrer größeren Veränderlichkeit und geringeren Stabilität), scheint es trotzdem oft, daß sie im Begriff sind, in Dur überzugleiten. Wenn aber wirklich Dur vorliegt, hat es oft eine Moll-Einfärbung. Von seinen sehr bewußten Ironien ist dies eine der charakteristischsten.” (Ebda.) Die zweite Tendenz ist “das einem Ausrutschen ähnliche Fortschreiten in Halbtonschritten” (ebda.: 156), wodurch entfernte tonale Bereiche berührt werden.

Diese harmonischen Eigentümlichkeiten der Weillschen Tonsprache sind im “Surabaya-Johnny” besonders unmittelbar greifbar: Der Refraineinstieg ist ein Paradebeispiel der Dur-Moll-Ambivalenz, und die Grundtonart des Songs schwankt zwischen f-moll und Es-Dur. Auch die Halbtonfortschreitungen mit ihren harmonisch ausweichenden, verschleierten Konsequenzen finden sich mehrfach (T. 22f., 35–39 und analoge Stellen). “Surabaya-Johnny” zeichnet eine harmonische Komplexität aus, die dem Song einen deutlich zwiespältigen, zum Tragischen neigenden Zug verleiht und seine vom Grundsatz her sentimentale Anlage zweifellos in Frage stellt.

10 Für viele von Brechts Songs, so auch für “Surabaya-Johnny” (s. Hennenberg, Hrsg. 1985: 406), lagen Weill eigene Melodien von Brecht vor, die den “Grundgestus” des Gedichts, “zunächst in einer rhythmischen Fixierung des Textes”, festhielten. Sie bildeten die “Grundlage” für Weills ,kunstgerechte‘ Komposition (Weill 1929: 43, 42). Zweimal ‘Johnny’: Der treulose Herzensbrecher bei Brecht/Weill und Auden/Britten 83

Unterminieren auf diese Weise neben kontextuellen und performatorischen auch inhärente Faktoren den trivialen Charakter des Songs, so schließt sich die Frage an, wie sich diese kompositorische Ausrichtung textinterpreta- torisch auswirkt. Die oben vorgenommene Ausdeutung des Brecht’schen Ge- dichts ließ keinen Zweifel darüber aufkommen, daß die Lesersympathie bei der betrogenen Frau liegt, deren zwiespältige Lage zwischen Liebes- und Haßemp- findungen als Lebenskrise zur Identifikation veranlaßt. Man ist nicht geneigt, sie als Gefühlsduselei abzutun. Dieser Einstellung leistet nun die Weillsche Musik durch ihre eigene Zwiespältigkeit und ihre Suggestion des Tragischen Vorschub. Weill fand also den geeigneten musikalischen Grundton, der die af- fektive Grundposition des Texts ins andere Medium transportiert und somit eine Kongruenz der Gesamtdisposition garantiert. Darüber hinaus läßt sich Weill jedoch kaum auf den Text ein, was schon daraus ersichtlich ist, daß er ihn als Strophenlied vertont. Textausdeutung im engeren Sinn als illustrierendes Nachvollziehen der Aussage mit musikalischen Mitteln fehlt weitgehend. Al- lerdings greift er die Möglichkeit zur gestisch-emphatischen Verstärkung des Texts etwa auf die Worte “ich hasse dich so” (T. 22f.) durch Akzentuierungen in der Begleitung auf. Es mag mehr als ein Zufall sein, daß die analoge Phrase in der dritten Strophe auf die Worte “Ich liebe dich doch” (T. 62f.) zu stehen kommt, wodurch auf sehr sinnvolle Weise die Gefühlsambivalenz der Frau, die Untrennbarkeit und Identität ihrer Liebes- und Haßempfindungen, mit musikalischen Mitteln veranschaulicht wird.

Die dynamisch-gestischen Veränderungen des ansonsten identischen musikalischen Materials in der dritten Strophe spiegeln ebenfalls die erhöhte Ein- dringlichkeit des Appells der jungen Frau an ihren Johnny wider, jedoch ohne den Text damit im konkreteren Sinn auszudeuten. Eine solche inhaltliche Ausdeutung scheint nur in der musikalischen Gestaltung von “warum bin ich nicht froh?” (T. 36f. 76f.) vorzuliegen, wo eine charakteristisch Weillsche harmonische Eindunkelung nach ces-moll erfolgt.

Weill läßt sich in seinen Vertonungen somit nur am Rande auf die verbale Ebene des Texts ein, wie Herbert Fleischer es ausdrückt: “Es fehlt Weill an Oberfläche” (1932/1975: 104). Damit ist gemeint, daß er eine beschreiben- de oder tonmalende, die Begrifflichkeit eines Texts musikalisch reflektierende Schreibweise in seinen Vertonungen meidet und quasi die ‘Tiefe’ des Texts um- setzt und verdeutlicht. 84 Zweimal ‘Johnny’: Der treulose Herzensbrecher bei Brecht/Weill und Auden/Britten

Weill selbst hat diese seine Grundeinstellung in Zusammenhang mit der Frage nach künstlerischer Qualität formuliert und, nachdem er deren rein ästhetische Bestimmung ausgeschlossen hat, gesagt: “Das, was hinter einem Kunstwerk steht, bestimmt seine Qualitäten; denn die Gestaltung eines Kunstwerks erhält dadurch ihren Wert, daß die Ausdrucksmittel sich ständig an der Größe, an der Reinheit und Kraft der Idee kontrollieren.” (Weill 1930: 192)

Die Idee, die Weill in der Zusammenarbeit mit Brecht beflügelte, war das soziale Engagement, und dieses schlug sich im unverwechselbaren Ton der Weillschen Musik nieder, der somit zum Spiegel einer ethischen Haltung wird. Demgegenüber tritt der partikuläre Text des einzelnen Songs als Gestaltungs- anreiz in den Hintergrund und liefert bloß die Grundlage für die gestische Anlage des Songs. So wird die Weillsche Musik zum “Surabaya-Johnny” zum direkten Medium der Kundgabe einer existentiellen Notlage, in der sich die sozial deprivierte, vom herzlosen Johnny verlassene junge Frau befindet, ohne daß ihr Einzelschicksal in ihrer konkreten Lebenswelt nachgezeichnet würde.

“Johnny” von Auden/Britten

Wendet man sich im hier angestrengten Vergleich nun Benjamin Britten und seiner Vertonungspraxis zu, so läßt sich eine von Weill in wichtigen Punkten abweichende Einstellung beobachten. Britten besaß eine hoch entwickelte literarische Sensibilität, die ihn über seinen gesamten Schaffensweg hinweg zu den unterschiedlichsten literarischen Vorlagen aus sehr verschiedenen literarischen Traditionen greifen ließ, wobei er stets einen untrüglichen Sinn für das Qualitätvolle und Individuelle entwickelte. Als literarischer Kosmopolit war er dabei auch immer am im engeren Sinn Literarischen der Texte interessiert, an ihrer sprachlichen Gestalt und begrifflichen Aussage, also quasi an der literarischen ‘Oberfläche’. Sein Interesse an Stilvielfalt zeigt sich an der Varia- tionsbreite seiner Textgrundlagen, die von mittelenglischen und chinesischen Texten über Michelangelo, Donne, Blake, Hölderlin, Puschkin zu Rimbaud, Eliot und Auden reichte, ohne daß diese Liste vollständig wäre. Mit Auden im Speziellen verband Britten dieses Interesse am Stilpluralismus, und beide zeichnet gemeinsam der Sinn für Klarheit, Prägnanz und Knappheit sowie der Zweimal ‘Johnny’: Der treulose Herzensbrecher bei Brecht/Weill und Auden/Britten 85

Hang zum Konkreten und Realen aus. Auden schätzte an Brittens Vertonun- gen seine Bereitschaft, sich genau auf seine Textvorlagen einzulassen und, wie es Peter Porter ausdrückt, bloß die vorgegebenen sprachlichen Äußerungen zu ‘amplifizieren’, also zu verstärken, erläutern, auszuweiten (vgl. 1984: 274). Au- den stellte Britten als Vertoner von Texten in eine Reihe mit Dowland, Cam- pion, Purcell und Hugo Wolf (vgl. Mitchell 1981: 169f.) und hatte dabei deren hervorragende literarische Textsensibilität im Auge.

Geht man mit diesem Vorverständnis der Britten’schen Vertonungspraxis an seine musikalische Umsetzung von Audens “Johnny” heran, so kann nicht überraschen, daß er ganz offensichtlich den Text mit Gründlichkeit ‘entlang’ vertont, sich also illustrierend mit dem Gang seiner Aussage auseinandersetzt. Der Text ist auch so angelegt, daß er dazu geradezu einlädt, da leicht musikali- sierbare konkret lebensweltliche Situationen seinen Verlauf bestimmen.

Zur Darstellung des Sommerspaziergangs der ersten Strophe wählt Britten den einfachen erzählenden Volksliedton, wobei das im Text erwähnte ironische Vogelgeschwätz über wechselseitige Liebe (“whispering” in der Liedfassung, das viel abstraktere “arguing” in der späteren Druckfassung Audens) durch eine entsprechende Spielfigur in der Begleitung (T. 4 und 8) andeutungsweise illustriert wird. Der Wohltätigkeitsball der zweiten Strophe findet seine Cha- rakterisierung durch eine leicht stampfende Square Dance-Musik, der Besuch der Oper in der dritten durch ein großartig angelegtes, hochdramatisches Re- zitativ mit Orgelpunkt, Koloratur, gehaltenen Hochtönen, sequentiellen Stei- gerungen und ausladendem Tremolo. Der English Waltz der vierten Strophe ist ebenfalls durch den Text nahegelegt, während Britten für die Darstellung des Alptraums der letzten Strophe die Form eines sehr langsamen Trauermar- sches in den tiefen Registern wählt, was die Vision der jungen Frau, in einem zehntausend Meilen tiefen Abgrund zu liegen, illustrierend aufgreift. Auch die seltsame Vorstellung der tamburinrasselnden Sterne wird lautmalerisch nachgezeichnet. Zwischen diesen meisterhaften Pastichen erscheint jeweils auf den Refrain über den düster abweisenden Johnny eine bluesartige Jazzformel, die die Lässigkeit und Indifferenz des Mannes suggerieren mag.

Kehrt man nach dieser Beschreibung des stilistisch so vielfältigen musikalischen Verlaufs von Brittens “Johnny” zur Interpretationsfrage zurück, so läßt sich sagen, daß sie noch keinen Schluß darüber erlaubt, ob diese musikalische 86 Zweimal ‘Johnny’: Der treulose Herzensbrecher bei Brecht/Weill und Auden/Britten

Gestaltung einer der beiden angebotenen Textausdeutungen den Vorzug gibt. Man kann sie durchaus als Spiegel der Empfindungen der schwärmerischen jungen Frau lesen, mit deren Schmerz über die Herzlosigkeit Johnnys man bereit ist, sich zu identifizieren.

Die mit musikalischen Mitteln erzielte Anschaulichkeit der Erlebniswelt der begeisterungsfähigen Frau kann die Bereitwilligkeit des Hörers, ihr Sym- pathie entgegenzubringen, sogar noch erhöhen. Gleichwohl kann im Gegen- satz dazu Brittens Wahl stark konventionalisierter musikalischer Formen als Argument dafür herangezogen werden, daß er damit auch die Konventiona- lität der Sprecherin hervorkehrt, ihren gesellschaftlichen Konformismus und ihre operettenhafte Erlebnisweise. So gesehen können die Stilpastichen auch zur Distanzierung von der Frau auffordern.

Formale Mittel und ihre Bedeutung

Löst also die Tatsache allein, daß Britten in seinem Song in illustrativer Ab- sicht verschiedene gebräuchliche musikalische Formen einsetzt, die interpre- tatorische Frage nicht, so führt jedoch ein Blick darauf, wie er diese Formen verwendet, einen Schritt weiter. Es finden sich nämlich genügend Hinweise dafür, dass er sie augenzwinkernd bis karikierend einsetzt. Die volksliedhaf- te erste Strophe, “semplice” zu singen, scheint recht ehrlich gemeint zu sein, doch ist ein leicht ironischer Ton nicht zu übersehen, wie sich vor allem an den schon erwähnten Vogelgeschwätzfiguren und den Temposchwankungen sowie den pathetisierenden Fermaten zeigt. Der Square Dance hat trotz seiner Simplizität etwas Verspieltes, Preziöses an sich, wie sich an den manierierten Vorschlägen (T. 24–27) und am Sprung in den höchsten Diskant (T. 23) in der Begleitung ablesen läßt. Das Opernrezitativ ist in seiner übertriebenen Drastik nur als Karikatur zu verstehen, und der Walzer kehrt bis zu seinem Schlußar- peggio eine durchaus überzogene Süßlichkeit heraus. Der abschließende Trau- ermarsch kann auch kaum ernsthaft für bare Münze genommen werden, seine Tragik wird durch die schwerfälligen Off-beats und die düstere Harmonik im tiefsten Register zu dick aufgetragen. Hinzu kommt, daß Britten die ersten drei Strophen jeweils mit einer in hoher Lage platzierten Floskel im Klavier ab- schließt (T. 14, 41, 54), die nicht anders denn als Ironiesignal gedeutet werden Zweimal ‘Johnny’: Der treulose Herzensbrecher bei Brecht/Weill und Auden/Britten 87

kann, quasi als Anführungszeichen, das den Zitatcharakter des Vorangehen- den markiert. Liest man Brittens Noten in diesem Sinn, so kann kein Zweifel darüber bestehen, daß er die Sprecherin ironisiert und sie als persona sieht, deren begrenzter Erlebnishorizont vor dem Hörer ‘enthüllt’ werden soll. Damit verlagert sich die Sympathie von ihr weg zum geheimnisvollen Johnny, dessen Jazzformel dann gleichsam als Kommentar aus der Sicht einer freieren, soziale Konventionen abstreifenden Lebenshaltung gedeutet werden kann.

Damit ist aber noch nicht das letzte Wort über Brittens Komposition gesagt. Nach der vierten Strophe, vor dem Übergang zur Darstellung des Alp- traums, fehlt das erwähnte zitatmarkierende Ironiesignal, und anstatt dessen erfährt die Jazzformel Johnnys eine durch harmonische Verfremdungen bedingte schwerwiegende Verdüsterung (T. 79f.), die dann beim Vers “Ten thous- and miles deep in a pit there I lay” (T. 90f.) wieder aufgegriffen wird und auch den Schluß des Songs (in einer alternativen Fassung sogar wörtlich wiederholt) kennzeichnet. Man kann nicht anders, als diese tragische Verdüsterung ernst zu nehmen und sie als Spiegel der kritischen Zwangslage der jungen Frau auf- zufassen, womit dieser Schluß – ganz im Weillschen Verfahren – ein durch harmonische Verfremdung im trivialen Rahmen kundgetanes Engagement für eine wenngleich sentimentale, so doch ernsthaft gequälte Natur erkennen läßt.

So geht durch Brittens Song ein Riß, indem er zwischen Karikatur und Engagement schwankt, womit gesagt ist, daß die Komposition die angesprochene Problematik der Interpretation von Audens Text nicht löst. Sie liefert musikalische Passagen, die jeweils unterschiedliche Deutungen der Problema- tik der verlassenen Frau implizieren. Es ist hervorzuheben, daß es jeweils einzelne Passagen sind, die diese Deutungen vornehmen, nicht aber das Werk als Ganzes. Dieses enthält also nicht eine durch seinen Grundton bedingte Ambi- valenz, sondern die zu beobachtende Zwiespältigkeit ‘passiert’ gleichsam durch die wechselnde Darstellungsweise ‘dem Text entlang’. Dadurch entsteht das Rißartige der Ambiguität des Songs.

Es ist aufschlußreich, Sarah Walkers und Roger Vignoles’ erste Platten- einspielung von “Johnny” (s. 1982) unter diesem Gesichtspunkt zu beurteilen. Die Sängerin gestaltet den Schluß des Liedes textkonform als tragische Vision in voller Identifikation mit der Sprecherin, überträgt diese Haltung aber als Grundeinstellung auf den ganzen Song, womit aber die Ironien, vor allem des 88 Zweimal ‘Johnny’: Der treulose Herzensbrecher bei Brecht/Weill und Auden/Britten

Trauermarsches, fast gänzlich verlorengehen. Nur in der Opernszene und im Walzer kommt das karikierende Moment – weil von der musikalischen Gestal- tung her unvermeidlich – zum Tragen. Die im Grunde persiflierende Anlage des Songs wird also im Sinne der Identifikationsnotwendigkeit am Schluß ignoriert. Die Balance von Parodie und Identifikation wird gegenüber dem Brit- tenschen Notentext verkehrt11.

Verfremdete Trivialität – zwei Perspektiven

Greift man nun abschließend wieder die Frage der Motivation für die verfrem- dende ironische Distanzierung im Rahmen populärer Formen bei Weill und Britten auf, so läßt sich im Anschluß an die Betrachtung seines “Johnny” Brit- tens Haltung näher umreißen. Bei Weill hat sich als Verfremdungsmotivation die Verwirklichung einer Idee, im Konkreten der Idee sozialen Engagements, erwiesen. Weill stellt, wie gesehen, die ästhetische Frage gegenüber der ethischen zurück. Dies äußert sich in seinem Desinteresse an ‘Oberfläche’, an Sprachlich-Begrifflichem, an Tonmalerei und Illustration. Wie schon Ernst Bloch feststellte, Weill ist nicht ‘musikantisch’ (vgl. 1935/1975: 54). Bei Brit- ten, der in den Dreißiger-Jahren sehr unter dem Einfluß Audens stand – und darunter auch litt –, trat hingegen das soziale Anliegen als ethischer Anspruch weniger deutlich hervor. Die britischen Intellektuellen der Zeit waren ‘fellow travellers’ und betrieben die soziale Revolution eher aus der Lehnstuhlperspek- tive. Wie es Frederick Buell formuliert, “revolutionary tendentiousness remains more a form of individualistic extravagance than inner necessity” (1973: 94).

Wenn sich Brecht/Weill und Auden/Britten zwar auf ähnliche Wei- se populären Formen zuwenden, so steht dem bei den beiden Deutschen da- hinterstehenden Wunsch nach größerer Volksnähe und nach ideologischer Aufklärung bei den beiden Briten weit eher die experimentelle Suche nach Alternativen zu den etablierten Kunstformen gegenüber. Mit ihrer kunstiko- noklastischen Absicht sind sie vorwiegend ästhetisch ausgerichtet, sie spielen

11 Diese Art von Mißverständnis der performatorischen Interpretation ist, wenngleich bedauerlich, durch die Ambivalenz von Brittens Song selbst bedingt, umso mehr als hier kontextuelle Faktoren und Autorenhinweise – im Gegensatz zu der bereits besprochenen Situation bei Brecht/Weill – fehlen. Das Mißverständnis, dem die Weillschen Songs als zugkräftige Beispiele ‘leichter’ Musik im breiten Musikkonsum unterliegen, ist demgegenüber ohne jede Rechtfertigung. Zweimal ‘Johnny’: Der treulose Herzensbrecher bei Brecht/Weill und Auden/Britten 89

verschiedene stilistische Möglichkeiten in parodistischer Intention durch, wie es im “Johnny”-Song exemplarisch zu beobachten ist. Es ist von Belang hervorzuheben, daß sich die unterschiedliche Motivation für verfremdete Trivialität bei Weill und Britten unmittelbar an der jeweils andersartigen musikalischen Faktur der untersuchten Songs festmachen läßt.

Findet sich nun aber in Brittens Song jener an Weills Schreibweise gemah- nende Schluß, so kann der beschriebene ,Riß‘ im “Johnny” auch als ein Riß zwischen ästhetischer und ethischer Zielsetzung gesehen werden, die hier un- vermittelt nebeneinander zu stehen kommen. Die unaufgelöste Ambivalenz zwischen einer sozialen und einer individualistischen Moral, die britische In- tellektuelle der Zeit bedrängt, tut sich hier schlaglichtartig kund. Die unterschiedliche literaturkritische Einschätzung der Auswirkungen von Audens Berlin- und Brecht-Erfahrung auf sein Denken und sein Werk wird so ver- ständlich.

Und Johnny, der treulose Herzensbrecher? Einmal ein Anliegen, das andere Mal eher ein Vorwand. Es ist nicht verwunderlich, daß sich der schillernde Auden der Herkunft seines über Brecht vermittelten Johnny von seinem sozial engagierten Landsmann Kipling nicht bewußt war. 90 Zweimal ‘Johnny’: Der treulose Herzensbrecher bei Brecht/Weill und Auden/Britten Zweimal ‘Johnny’: Der treulose Herzensbrecher bei Brecht/Weill und Auden/Britten 91 92 Zweimal ‘Johnny’: Der treulose Herzensbrecher bei Brecht/Weill und Auden/Britten Zweimal ‘Johnny’: Der treulose Herzensbrecher bei Brecht/Weill und Auden/Britten 93 94 Zweimal ‘Johnny’: Der treulose Herzensbrecher bei Brecht/Weill und Auden/Britten Zweimal ‘Johnny’: Der treulose Herzensbrecher bei Brecht/Weill und Auden/Britten 95 96 Zweimal ‘Johnny’: Der treulose Herzensbrecher bei Brecht/Weill und Auden/Britten Zweimal ‘Johnny’: Der treulose Herzensbrecher bei Brecht/Weill und Auden/Britten 97 98 Zweimal ‘Johnny’: Der treulose Herzensbrecher bei Brecht/Weill und Auden/Britten

References

Adorno, Theodor W. (1928/1975). “Zur Frankfurter Aufführung der Dreigroschenoper”. Drew, Hrsg. 37f. — (1929/1975). “Zur Musik der Dreigroschenoper”. Drew, Hrsg. 39–44. Bloch, Ernst (1935/1975). “Zur Dreigroschenoper”. Drew, Hrsg. 52–54. Brecht, Bertolt (1960). Gedichte 1: 1918–1929. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Britten, Benjamin (1964/1978). On Receiving the First Aspen Award. 2. Aufl. London: Faber. —, W. H. Auden (1980). Cabaret Songs for Voice and Piano. London: Faber. Buell, Frederick (1973). W. H. Auden as a Social Poet, Ithaca, NY/London: Cornell UP. Davison, Dennis (1970). W. H. Auden. Literature in Perspective. London: Evans. Drew, David, Hrsg. (1975). Über Kurt Weill. Suhrkamp Taschenbuch 237. Frankfurt am Main: Suhr- kamp. Fleischer, Herbert (1932/1975). “Kurt Weill – Versuch einer einheitlichen Stilbetrachtung”. Drew, Hrsg. 102–107. Hennenberg, Fritz, Hrsg. (1985). Brecht-Liederbuch. Suhrkamp Taschenbuch 1216. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Jarfe, Günther (1985). Der junge Auden: Dichterische Verfahrensweisen und ihre Bedeutung in W. H. Audens Frühwerk. Heidelberg: Winter. Kemp, Ian (1973/1975). “Weills Harmonik: Einige Beobachtungen”. Drew, Hrsg. 155–161. Kipling, Rudyard (1974). Barrack-Room Ballads. Hrsg., Charles Carrington. London: Methuen. Lyon, James K. (1976). Bertolt Brecht und Rudyard Kipling. Edition Suhrkamp, SV 804. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Mendelson, Edward (1981). Early Auden. London/Boston, MA: Faber. —, Hrsg. (1977). The English Auden: Poems, Essays and Dramatic Writings 1927–1939. London: Ran- dom House. Mitchell, Breon (1966). “W. H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood: The ‘German Influence’”. Oxford German Studies 1: 163–170. Mitchell, Donald (1981). Britten and Auden in the Thirties: The Year 1936. London/Boston, MA: University of Washington Press. Osborne, Charles (1980). W. H. Auden: The Life of a Poet, London: Methuen. Porter, Peter (1984). “Composer and Poet”. Christopher Palmer, Hrsg. The Britten Companion. Lon- don/Boston, MA: Cambridge UP. 271–285. Spears, Monroe K. (1963). The Poetry of W. H. Auden: The Disenchanted Island, New York, NY: Ox- ford UP. Unseld, Siegfried, Hrsg. (1960). Bertolt Brechts Dreigroschenbuch. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Walker, Sarah, Roger Vignoles (1982). LP. Cabaret Songs Live at Dartington. Meridian E77056. Weill, Kurt (1929). “Über den gestischen Charakter der Musik”. Weill 1975. 40–45. — (1930). “Musikfest oder Musikstudio? ”. Weill 1975. 191–194. — (1949). “Über Komposition”. Weill 1975. 51f. — (1975). Ausgewählte Schriften. Hrsg. David Drew. Suhrkamp Taschenbuch 285. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Prekäre angewandte Opernästhetik: Auden’s ‘sekundäre Welt’ und Hans Werner Henzes Elegie für junge Liebende [1994]

Die Librettoforschung, der der vorliegende Beitrag zugeordnet werden kann, ist eine Disziplin, die ein Schattendasein zwischen den Fronten der Literatur- und Musikwissenschaft fristet, oder – wie es Peter Hacks formuliert, dem ein erfrischender und grundvernünftiger “Versuch über das Libretto” zu danken ist – ein “Blümlein, das am Fuße der Mauer der großen Gattung” (gemeint ist die Oper) “dahinkümmert” (1975/1980: 209). Die folgenden Überlegungen kommen aus der Sicht eines Literaturwissenschaftlers, es mag jedoch ein leicht paradoxer Zug an ihnen sein, daß sie gerade die speziell literarische Dimensi- on des Librettos zugunsten seiner musikalischen problematisieren wollen und damit den heute gängigen Typus der Literaturoper der Kritik aussetzen. Dabei ist jedoch keinesfalls ein vereinfachendes, pauschalierendes Urteil zu erwarten.

Hans Werner Henzes 1961 in Schwetzingen uraufgeführte und nach wie vor von allen Henze-Opern – vor allem im deutschen Sprachraum – besonders akzeptierte Oper Elegie für junge Liebende ist ein hervorragend geeignetes Werk, um die Problematik moderner Opernlibrettistik zu verdeutlichen1. Es ist bekannt, daß Henze ein besonders ‘literarischer’ Musiker ist, für den Musik einen ausgeprägten Sprachcharakter besitzt und dessen Werke in lebendiger Auseinandersetzung mit literarischen Vorlagen stehen. (Peter Petersen listet in seinen Hamburger Vorlesungen von 1986 an die achtzig Autoren auf, die zu Henzes Werken Pate gestanden haben; vgl. 1988: 26). Darüber hinaus stammt das Libretto zur Elegie von W. H. Auden und dessen namhaft an der Ausarbei- tung beteiligten Dichterkollegen und Freund Chester Kallman, wobei der Ge- winn dieser Zusammenarbeit Henzes mit Auden und Kallman nicht nur darin

1 Der bei Schott erschienene Klavierauszug enthält sowohl die englische als auch die deutsche Text- fassung (s. Henze 1961). Das deutsche Libretto ist – unter demselben Titel – ebenfalls bei Schott erschienen (s. Auden/Kallman 1961a). Dort ist auch der Text der Librettisten über die Entste- hung des Werks abgedruckt (s. Auden/Kallman 1961b). 100 Prekäre angewandte Opernästhetik: Elegie für junge Liebende

liegt, daß Auden einer der angesehensten englischen Dichter des 20. Jahrhun- derts ist, sondern daß er auch eine weitgehend geschlossene Ästhetik der Oper vertrat und in immer wieder neuen Ansätzen formulierte, deren wesentlichste Züge mit den Grundpositionen Henzes offensichtlich in Einklang stehen. So läßt sich anhand der Elegie – was bisher erstaunlicherweise noch nicht mit einiger Gründlichkeit geschehen ist – unmittelbare angewandte Opernästhetik betreiben, wie es der Titel dieses Beitrags ankündigt. Der eigentliche Gewinn – und die Faszination – einer Auseinandersetzung mit dem Libretto der Ele- gie und seiner musikalischen Umsetzung durch Henze liegt jedoch darin, daß sich diese Anwendung der opernästhetischen Kategorien Audens als durchaus problematisch erweist. Gerade dieser Umstand führt jedoch – wie hier zu zeigen versucht werden wird – an einige Grundfragen heutigen Opernschaffens heran. Dabei liegt die Problematik der ‘angewandten Opernästhetik’ nicht nur darin, daß Auden mit seiner Elegy for Young Lovers ein Libretto schuf, das in entscheidenden Punkten seinen eigenen theoretisch formulierten Vorstellun- gen eines Librettos nicht entspricht – was natürlich keinesfalls besagt, daß es deshalb ein schlechtes Libretto wäre –, sondern daß vor allem Henze das Li- bretto – sowie seine eigene Musik dazu – in den, wie wir wissen, sehr kon- trastiven Phasen seiner Entwicklung höchst unterschiedlich auffaßte und be- urteilte. Dies ist nicht nur biographisch und musikgeschichtlich – und auch kunstideologisch – von Interesse, sondern wirft auch ein Licht auf die rezep- tionsästhetische Dimension musikalischer Semantik und damit auf den Spiel- raum der Verstehensmöglichkeit von Musik.

Ist damit der Bezugsrahmen der folgenden Überlegungen abgesteckt, so hat die Argumentation mit einer Charakterisierung der Audenschen Opern- ästhetik einzusetzen, die hier nur ganz knapp dargestellt werden kann (s. Weisstein 1970; Engelbert 1983; Raimund 1988). Audens Vorstellungen sind bekanntlich inspiriert von seiner Kierkegaard-Lektüre (s. Auden 1944), aus der er seine Grundkonzeption schöpft, die darin besteht, daß er eine klare Di- chotomie sieht zwischen einer ‘primären Welt’ der ‘alltäglichen sozialen Er- fahrung’, die ethischen Prinzipien unterliegt, und einer ‘sekundären Welt’ der Kunst und Künstlichkeit jenseits von Realismus und Alltagswelt, die das Äs- thetische repräsentiert und eine rein geistige Welt darstellt, welche ethischen Kategorien gegenüber indifferent ist (vgl. Auden 1968a: 12; Weisstein 1970: 118f.). Diese ‘sekundäre Welt’ des “Poet”, wie Auden sagt, baut zwar auf der ‘primären’ des “Historian” auf (1968a: 41), ‘transformiert’ (vgl. ebd.: 83) diese Prekäre angewandte Opernästhetik: Elegie für junge Liebende 101

aber im Versuch, einen utopischen oder paradiesischen Zustand der Vollkom- menheit zu erzielen (vgl. Auden 1962: 71).

Auden glaubte zu erkennen, daß die Literatur und Dichtung der modernen Zeit nicht mehr in der Lage seien, diesen Anspruch der ‘sekundären Welt’ einzulösen: Sie können nicht mehr ‘die Stimme erheben’ und mit der Geste des “High” oder “golden style” auftreten (Auden 1968a: 102). Nur die Oper kann Auden noch als das ‘letzte Refugium des Hohen Stils’ ansehen (vgl. ebd.), weil nur im Gesang, als einer virtuosen Kunst (wie daneben auch noch das Bal- lett (vgl. Auden 1968b: 12), die “historisch-gesellschaftliche Lage” “überhöht” wird (ebd.: 18). In seiner Rede zur Eröffnung der Salzburger Festspiele 1968 sprach er recht suggestiv vom ‘walking’ der Literatur im Gegensatz zum ‘flying’ der Oper (vgl. ebd.: 35). Im Anschluß an Kierkegaard sieht Auden nur im Ge- sang die Möglichkeit von spontaner Unmittelbarkeit des Gefühlsausdrucks (vgl. ebd.: 12), die Möglichkeit des ‘freien Aktes’ einer Faktensetzung ohne Re- flexion (vgl. Weisstein 1970: 121), ohne Zukunft und Vergangenheit, sondern der reinen Gegenwärtigkeit, die paradoxerweise Dauer impliziert, also einen Zustand der Zeitenthobenheit (vgl. Auden 1968a: 115). Wie bereits gesagt, an- kert diese ‘sekundäre Welt’, die sich demnach in der Oper realisieren läßt, in der ‘primären Welt’ der historisch-gesellschaftlichen Wirklichkeit, transzendiert diese aber und erfährt eine “Verzauberung”, wie es etwa auch Carl Dahl- haus formuliert hat (1983/1989: 262)2. Auden selbst drückt diese Kunstauffas- sung in seinem “New Year Letter” von 1940 in folgenden typisch Audenesken Versen aus:

Art in intention is mimesis But, realized, the resemblance ceases; Art is not life and cannot be A midwife to Society, For art is a fait accompli. (1940/1976: 162)

Diese Transzendierung der mimetischen Funktion von Kunst, die Überwin- dung ihrer Hebammenrolle gegenüber der Gesellschaft durch die Setzung eines ästhetischen Faktums, wie sie in der Oper realisierbar ist, wird nach Auden

2 Ähnlich von “Verzauberung” als Ziel der Oper spricht Rolf Urs Ringger (1986: 69). 102 Prekäre angewandte Opernästhetik: Elegie für junge Liebende

am ehesten durch den Mythos ermöglicht. Denn im Mythos werden – nach Audens Definition – ‘Aspekte der menschlichen Befindlichkeit’ dargestellt, ‘die den Menschen unabhängig von Zeit und Ort bleibend bewegen’ (vgl. 1968a: 83). Hauptfiguren einer Oper haben daher ‘heroische übermenschliche Wesen’ zu sein, deren ‘mythische Dimension’ ‘ihre historischen und sozialen Umstände transzendiert’ (vgl. Auden 1961: 14). Diese mythische Dimension – als Ausdruck allgemeingültiger menschlicher Erfahrung – enthebt sie dem moralischen Urteil, sie unterliegt, wie es Auden von Kierkegaard übernahm, nicht den ethischen Normsetzungen gesellschaftlicher Bezüge. Nur der Kom- ponist ist in der Lage, durch die beschriebene Evidenzhaftigkeit seiner Kunst diese durch den Mythos bedingte ethische Wertfreiheit ästhetisch zu verwirk- lichen. Dies drückt Auden im gerne zitierten Schlußterzett seines Sonetts mit dem Titel “The Composer” aus:

You alone, alone, imaginary song, Are unable to say an existence is wrong, And pour out your forgiveness like a wine. (1938/1976)

Dieses Bild, daß nur die Musik “Vergebung über die Menschen auszuschütten vermag wie reinen Wein”, übernimmt im Übrigen Henze wörtlich – ohne Au- den als Quelle zu nennen – in Bezug auf die Elegie in seinen “Anmerkungen” zur Oper von 1962 (1962: 13; 1962/1976: 82).

Die hier skizzierte Opernästhetik Audens wurde von der Kritik recht ein- hellig als eskapistisch verurteilt, am schärfsten von Hans Raimund beim Wiener Auden-Symposion von 1984. Er bezeichnet sie als “konservativ und reaktionär” (1988: 35), als “in ihrer Abhängigkeit vom Ästhetizismus der Romantik gegen- wartsfremd” (ebd.: 37f.), und auch Ulrich Weisstein stellte 1970 fest, daß sie aus der Sicht der damaligen Experimente im Musiktheater ‘übervorsichtig, wenn nicht ausgesprochen reaktionär’ sei3. (Ein heutiges Urteil Weissteins ist hingegen – wie noch zu sehen sein wird – ambivalenter formuliert; vgl. 1992: 378–380.)

Die kritische Ablehnung der opernästhetischen Anschauungen Audens wurde jedoch selten auf seine Libretti ausgedehnt, und selbst Raimund be-

3 “[…] overly cautious if not downright reactionary” (Weisstein 1970: 124). Prekäre angewandte Opernästhetik: Elegie für junge Liebende 103

zeichnet diese als gut (vgl. 1988: 38). Allgemein gelten die Libretti zu Stra- winskys The Rake’s Progress sowie zu Henzes Elegie und Bassariden als die be- deutendsten seit Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Der Beurteilungsdiskrepanz von Theorie und Praxis kann man anhand der Elegie besonders gut nachgehen, weil Auden und Kallman eine recht ausführliche Darstellung der Entstehung des Librettos dieser Oper veröffentlicht haben (s. Auden/Kallman 1961b), die sehr aufschlußreichen Einblick in die Opernwerkstatt gewährt (und sich übri- gens wie ein Demonstrationsfall von Peter Hacks’ Ausführungen zum Thema lesen; s. 1975/1980).

Am Beginn stand Henzes Wunsch nach einer psychologisch differenzier- ten Kammeroper, deren Atmosphäre “zarte, schöne Klänge erforderte” (Au- den/Kallman 1961b: 61), und man fand als geeigneten Stoff für diese Vorgabe – deren Musik Henze offensichtlich schon im Kopf trug – die Idee einer Grup- pe von Personen, die alle – ‘Pirandello-haft’ (vgl. Auden 1968a: 89) – von einem Wahn besessen sind. Als zentrale Figur kristallisierte sich bald eine von der Vergangenheit besessene Gestalt heraus, die später zur Hilda Mack der Oper wurde, jener Frau, die ihren Bräutigam vor vierzig Jahren am Hochzeitstag im Gletschereis verlor und für die seither die Zeit stillgestanden ist; sie wartet immer noch auf seine Rückkehr, die dann auch im Laufe der Handlung erfolgt; der Gletscher gibt den Leichnam endlich frei. Diese Ötzi-Geschichte hat ihr Vorbild, wie man erkennen wird, in E. T. A. Hoffmann und in Hofmannsthals Bergwerk zu Falun sowie auch in Dickens’ Great Expectations (in der Figur der Miss Havisham). Als weiteres Fabelmoment kam dann eine altbewährte Drei- ecksgeschichte hinzu, die klassische Konstellation einer jungen Frau zwischen einem romantischen jungen Mann und einem – wie Auden/Kallman schreiben – “reifen, weltgewandten und zynischen Rivalen” (1961b: 61). Für diesen Rivalen erwies es sich als schwierig, die geeignete Figur zu finden, weil sie einerseits – der Grundkonzeption entsprechend – von einem Wahn befallen sein und andererseits – der geschilderten Opernästhetik entsprechend – eine mythische Dimension besitzen sollte. Man glaubte, diese dann im “Künstlergenie des 19. und des frühen 20. Jahrhunderts” (ebd.: 63) gefunden zu haben, dessen Wesen dadurch charakterisiert ist, daß bei ihm Kunst und Leben radikal ent- koppelt sind und die Größe der schöpferischen Leistung durch moralische Ver- worfenheit im Leben erkauft wird. So wurde als spätere Hauptfigur der Oper Gregor Mittenhofer, der fiktive große österreichische Dichter, geschaffen, der die Visionen der Hilda Mack für seine Dichtung ausschlachtet und dann, als 104 Prekäre angewandte Opernästhetik: Elegie für junge Liebende

diese Inspirationsquelle durch die ‘Entblindung’ Hildas verlorengeht, die jungen Liebenden in den Tod schickt, um damit Stoff für seine meisterhafte “Ele- gie” zu bekommen. Dieses Thema ist im Übrigen vorgeprägt in E. T. A. Hoff- manns Erzählung “Das Fräulein von Scuderi” aus den Serapionsbrüdern, deren Mittelpunkt, der genial-asoziale Goldschmied Cardillac, den Typus des ver- brecherischen, todbringenden Künstlers exemplarisch verkörpert. Dieses romantische Künstlergenie ist nun – nach Auden/Kallman – ein “echter[r] My- thos; denn das Nichtvorhandensein einer Identität von Gut und Schön, vom Charakter des Menschen und dem seiner Schöpfungen, ist ein permanenter Aspekt der menschlichen Situation” (ebd.).

Wir haben also in Audens Libretto zur Elegie zwei Themenkomplexe vor uns, zum einen die Wahnwelt der jungen romantisch Liebenden, Elisabeth Zimmer und Toni Reischmann, sowie vor allem der Hilda Mack (im Weiteren auch der zusätzlichen Nebenfiguren, Carolina von Kirchstetten und Dr. Wil- helm Reischmann) und zum anderen die geniale und verbrecherische Welt des Künstlers Gregor Mittenhofer. Die Genese des Librettos zeigt sehr klar, daß der zweite Themenkomplex erst nach Mühen im Nachhinein in die Konzep- tion aufgenommen wurde, dann allerdings zentrale Bedeutung als das offen- sichtliche Thema der Oper gewann, aber mit der ursprünglichen Vorstellung Henzes, eine ‘Atmosphäre zarter, schöner Klänge’ zu realisieren, nicht mehr viel zu tun hat. Es geht also gewissermaßen ein Bruch durch das Libretto, was keineswegs als Schwäche anzusehen ist, aber als Erklärung dafür dienen kann, daß die Oper vom Publikum, von der Kritik und auch von Henze selbst sehr widersprüchlich aufgefaßt und eingeschätzt wurde.

Dieser Bruch sei nun im Lichte der geschilderten Opernästhetik betrachtet, und man kann zunächst festhalten, daß der erstgenannte Themenkom- plex der Wahnvorstellungen – vor allem die visionären der Hilda Mack, aber auch die illusionistischen der jungen Liebenden – auf exemplarische Weise den beschriebenen Kriterien einer ‘sekundären Welt’ im Sinne Audens entspricht. Die Überhöhung, die Entrückung aus der Wirklichkeit, der ‘Flug’ in eine Welt des reinen Geistes, die Enthobenheit von Zeit und Raum sind hier wie selten sonst realisiert und haben Henze jene ‘zarten, schönen Klänge’ ent- lockt, die ihm offensichtlich vorschwebten. Monroe Spears, einer der profun- desten Auden-Kenner, hat sehr einsichtig festgehalten, daß dieses Thema der Wahnvorstellungen in der Elegie ganz im Sinne des Eden-Mythos entwickelt Prekäre angewandte Opernästhetik: Elegie für junge Liebende 105

ist, der einen prominenten Platz im Denken des späten Auden einnimmt (vgl. 1963: 288). Dahinter steht der Wunsch – wie schon gesehen – nach einer uto- pisch-paradiesischen Transzendierung der Wirklichkeit, der – wie gerade das Libretto der Elegie zeigt – illusionär bleiben muß, denn die Wunschvisionen von Hilda, Elisabeth und Toni erweisen sich als Chimäre; sie alle jagen einem falschen Eden nach. Wichtig ist, daß es sich hier wirklich um einen Mythos handelt – ganz im Sinne von Audens eigener Auffassung –, weil ein universeller Aspekt des menschlichen Daseins zum Ausdruck gebracht wird, der nicht an bestimmte historische und gesellschaftliche Voraussetzungen gebunden ist. So ist der Eden-Mythos, der die Grundkonzeption der Elegie trägt, aus der Sicht Audens auch eminent operngerecht.

Betrachtet man nun den zweiten Themenkomplex des Künstlergenies, so drängt sich zunächst die Frage auf, ob dieser wirklich, wie Auden meint, ein universeller Mythos im genannten Sinne ist. Auden benennt ihn selbst als von der europäischen Romantik erfunden (vgl. 1968a: 95), was ihn ja als ein räum- lich und zeitlich begrenztes Phänomen definiert, und gerade auch Hoffmanns “Fräulein von Scuderi” zeigt, wie sehr gesellschaftliche Momente die Ausfor- mung dieses Künstlertypus bestimmen. Nicht von ungefähr lautet der Titel von Henzes Auseinandersetzung mit seiner Elegie von 1975 “Der Künstler als bürgerlicher Held” (s. 1975/1976). Die Künstlergestalt Gregor Mittenhofer, so, wie sie sich im Libretto darstellt, transzendiert also keineswegs als eine mythische Figur ihre historisch-gesellschaftlichen Voraussetzungen, sie ist vielmehr ein eindeutiges Produkt dieser Voraussetzungen und ganz an sie gebunden. Sie lebt also nur in der ‘primären Welt’ der Historie und erlangt keine ‘sekundäre’, überzeitliche Dimension im beschriebenen Sinn, ist daher auch nicht eigentlich opernhaft – immer nach der Auffassung Audens. Dies haben einige Kri- tiker schon früh erkannt, wie etwa Kurt Honolka, der bereits 1961 feststellte, das Libretto ‘lechze keinesfalls nach Musik’ (vgl. 1961: 46), oder Martin Bern- heimer, der es als “none-too-operatic” bezeichnete4. Dazu kommt noch ein weiteres Moment, das den genialisch-kriminellen Künstlertypus opernfern macht. Dieses liegt darin, daß seine Grundsituation ein eminent moralisches Problem darstellt, wie auch Auden und Kallman beobachten, wenn sie sagen, er verkör- pere “ein ethisches Prinzip”, eben jenes – wie bereits zitiert – vom Konflikt zwischen “Gut und Schön” (Auden/Kallman 1961b: 63). Gerade eine solche

4 Musical Quarterly (Jan. 1962); zit. Spears 1963: 287. 106 Prekäre angewandte Opernästhetik: Elegie für junge Liebende

Fragestellung ist jedoch – nach den Kierkegaardschen Kategorien, denen sich Auden ja in der Theorie anschließt – nicht musikabel, weil die Musik nach dieser Auffassung ethisch indifferent ist und keine moralischen Urteile fällt – man erinnere sich an Audens Sonett “The Composer”.

Es läßt sich also erkennen, daß – um dies verkürzt darzustellen – der Bruch im Libretto der Elegie darin besteht, daß der eine Themenbereich – als The- matisierung von ‘sekundärer Welt’ – äußerst operngerecht ist (immer nach Au- dens Kriterien), der andere hingegen – als realistische Darstellung einer gesell- schaftlich bedingten, ‘primärweltlichen’ moralischen Problematik – als nicht operngemäß erscheint, sondern als eminent literarisch, das heißt mit referen- tiellem Wirklichkeitsbezug in mimetischer Absicht, mit psychologischer Dif- ferenzierung und kritisch-argumentativer Reflexion. Auden scheint sich dieses Bruchs bewußt gewesen zu sein, wenn er sagt, die Herausforderung der Elegie bestand darin, “complexity of character, subtlety of motivation and interesting dialogue” des Sprechstücks mit der Singbarkeit eines Librettos zu verbinden (1968a: 89). Vielleicht war es auch dieses Dilemma, das Auden dazu führte, von dem Werk bald als der Allergy — statt Elegy — zu reden (zit. Osborne 1979: 254). Denn die innere Widersprüchlichkeit der Elegie stellte sich in der Rezeption der Oper von Anfang an heraus. Das Times Literary Supplement sprach schon 1961 von einer ‘Unsicherheit des Tons und der Haltung’ (zit. Spe- ars 1963: 287), Andrew Porter vom Schwanken zwischen Romantik und Paro- die (vgl. 1961: 419), und der springende Punkt der Ambivalenz war dabei stets die Beurteilung der Figur des Gregor Mittenhofer.

Alle jene Kritiker, die in dem fiktiven Dichter eine Karikatur sahen, wie etwa Ulrich Weisstein (vgl. 1970: 110) und Edward Callan (vgl. 1974: 73), oder die Darstellung monströsen Verbrechertums, wie Charles Osborne (vgl. 1979: 251), Marc Roth (vgl. 1979: 101), Rolf Urs Ringger (vgl. 1986: 69) u. a., gingen von der literarischen Perspektive des Libretto-Texts aus. Doch wurde Mitten- hofer auch als “admirable character” (Spears 1963: 287) eingestuft, man sah in ihm “keine gehässige Desavouierung” (Lohse 1985/1986) des Genies, und Claus-Henning Bachmann stellte sogar fest: “Die Autoren erklären, daß sie dem Mythos vom ungebundenen ‘Künstlergenie’ zur Auferstehung verhelfen wollen.” (1961: 384) Diese letzteren Stellungnahmen reagieren nun offensichtlich aus der Opernperspektive des musikalisierten Librettos und identifizieren sich – in Bestätigung der dargelegten Opernästhetik – mit der Unmittelbarkeit Prekäre angewandte Opernästhetik: Elegie für junge Liebende 107

der dargestellten Ausdruckswelt unter Ausklammerung von moralischer Beur- teilung und kritischer Reflexion. Dies wird ja auch dadurch gefördert, daß das Libretto keinen Zweifel an der künstlerischen Größe Mittenhofers aufkommen lassen will. Auden und Kallman selbst beziehen hier eine widersprüchli- che Position, weil sie einerseits vom “schändliche[n] Verhalten” Mittenhofers sprechen (1961b: 64), andererseits fordert Auden aber, daß der große Dichter nicht nach den moralischen Standards, die wir ‘gewöhnlichen Sterblichen’ ge- genüber anwenden, beurteilt werden soll (vgl. 1968a: 90). Opernfiguren haben eben – wie gesehen – heroische, übermenschliche Wesen zu sein. Edward Callan hat in einem sehr einsichtsvollen Aufsatz herausgearbeitet, daß Auden selbst zwischen einer romantischen und einer post-romantischen Heldenkon- zeption schwankte, wobei er als bewußt handelnder Mensch den neuen, wie er ihn bezeichnet, Horazischen Typus verfocht. Dies ist ein Heldentypus, der Grenzen anerkennt und selbst angesichts manifester Sinnlosigkeit des Lebens- zusammenhangs innerhalb der gesetzten Grenzen konstruktive, handwerkli- che Perfektion anstrebende Aufbauarbeit leistet. Im Grunde aber war Auden der romantischen Heldenkonzeption verhaftet, und Callan sagt sehr treffend, daß sich Auden sein ganzes Leben hindurch darum bemühte, den Mittenhofer in sich selbst exorzistisch zu bannen5. (Derselbe Konflikt mit derselben Am- bivalenz der Haltung des Autors findet sich ja auch in Hoffmanns “Fräulein von Scuderi” zwischen der Wertewelt der Scuderi und des Cardillac.) Ähnli- ches hat Monroe Spears im Auge, wenn er bei Auden einen Konflikt zwischen einem Ariel- und einen Prospero-Impuls erkennt. In der Auseinandersetzung Audens mit Shakespeares Tempest wird deutlich, daß er mit Ariel die zeitlose, vollkommene Welt der Kunst assoziiert, mit Prospero hingegen die häßliche reale Welt, die Wahrhaftigkeit und Moralität verkörpert. Dem Impuls zur Ver- zauberung und fantasy steht jener zur Entzauberung und kritischen Diagnose gegenüber. Spears erkennt nun, daß Auden als Dichter vom Prospero-Impuls bestimmt ist (vgl. 1963: 308f.), man muß aber ergänzen, daß er aufgrund seines Ariel-Impulses zur Oper gedrängt wurde, in der er – wie gesehen – das letzte Refugium des Hohen Stils der Kunst zu finden glaubte. In der Elegie stehen in den beiden identifizierten Themenkomplexen der Opern-Impuls zur ‘sekun- dären’ Ariel-Welt des Eden-Mythos und der literarische Prospero-Impuls zur entzaubernden Diagnostik der häßlichen Welt einander gegenüber, und sie reiben sich in unaufgelöster Dialektik.

5 “Auden, who spent a lifetime excorcising the Mittenhofer in himself” (Callan 1974: 73). 108 Prekäre angewandte Opernästhetik: Elegie für junge Liebende

Auf der Grundlage dieser Beobachtungen zum Libretto der Elegie und zu Au- dens ambivalenter Haltung, die sich darin widerspiegelt, kann nun endlich der Komponist Henze in die Diskussion eingebracht und der Versuch unternom- men werden, dessen ebenfalls sehr widersprüchliche Auseinandersetzung mit dem Werk zu perspektivieren. Es liegen von Henze substantielle Äußerungen zur Elegie aus der Entstehungszeit, also den frühen Sechziger-Jahren, aus der Mitte der Siebziger-Jahre und dann wieder aus den späten Achtziger-Jahren vor, und ihr Vergleich ist in mancher Hinsicht bemerkenswert.

In den “Anmerkungen zur ‘Elegie für junge Liebende’” von 1962 hebt Hen- ze – ganz im Sinne der Audenschen Opernästhetik – das Wesen der Oper als “artifizielle Form” hervor, als ein Verwandeln von “Fiktion zu höherer Wahr- heit” (1962: 12) – also, in Audens Kategorien, als Transzendierung der ‘primä- ren’ zur ‘sekundären’ Welt –, und er beschließt seinen Beitrag mit dem genannten Zitat aus Audens Gedicht “The Composer”, daß nur die Musik “Vergebung über die Menschen auszuschütten vermag wie reinen Wein” (ebd.: 13). Noch deutlicher war Henze in seinem Gespräch mit Horst Goerges von 1960, wo er “das Offenlassen der Schuldfrage” als das Moderne an dem Künstlergenie-Stoff der Mittenhofer-Figur ansah (1960/1976: 85), also die ethische Indifferenz der Opern-Welt in der Kierkegaard-Auden-Nachfolge unterstrich. 1975 veröffent- lichte Henze dann, als Reflex seiner eigenen Inszenierungsarbeit für das Edin- burgh Festival von 1971, eine Einführung in die Oper mit dem bereits erwähn- ten Titel “Der Künstler als bürgerlicher Held”. Dies geschah also nach der sensationellen ‘politischen Wende’ Henzes, und nunmehr erscheint Mittenho- fer als “de[r] angeklagte[] Dichter” (Henze 1975a/1976: 232), als “der gewaltige Dracula”(ebd.: 238), und die Vorstellung wird als ‘grauenhaft’ und ‘katas- trophal’ bezeichnet, daß der Künstler ein Außenseiter der Gesellschaft sei, der mit anderen Maßstäben zu messen sei als “normale Menschen” (ebd.: 233). Die Oper wird nun als “Parabel” (ebd.: 232) und “Lehrstück” (ebd.: 233) gesehen. Jungheinrich gegenüber sagte Henze 1972: “Die Brandmarkung des ‘Künstlers als Held’ gefällt mir sehr.” (1972/1976: 191) Was geschehen war, ist offensichtlich: Der ästhetisierende, der sinnlichen Klangwelt verfallene “Cimarosa des 20. Jahrhunderts”, wie ihn Krellmann nannte (1977: 121), hatte sich zum politisch engagierten Gesellschaftskritiker gewandelt, und er hatte nunmehr im Libretto der Elegie für sich die literarische, ‘primärweltliche’ Dimension entdeckt, die ja nicht zu seiner ursprünglichen Konzeption der ‘zarten, schönen Klänge’ gehört hatte und erst in einem späteren Schritt von Auden eingebracht Prekäre angewandte Opernästhetik: Elegie für junge Liebende 109

wurde. Das Interessante ist, daß er jetzt auch seine eigene Partitur mit anderen Augen las und in ihr Parodie, Ironie und Verfremdung erkannte, deren Feh- len ihm von der Kritik schon früh angekreidet worden war. (Claus-Henning Bachmann hatte kritisiert, daß Henze in der Elegie keine “dialektische Posi- tion zum Libretto” einnahm, “die das Ganze in eine der Fragwürdigkeit der Gestalten viel gemäßere ‘Offenheit’ hätte münden lassen”; 1961: 384.) Der “ly- risch-expressive[] Zug” (Honolka 1961: 46), der “helle[], klagende[] Grund- ton der Partitur” (Stuckenschmidt 1972: 129), der traditionelle Charakter der Oper (vgl. Petersen 1988: 39) waren stets hervorgehoben worden. Dies ist ja wohl auch der Grund für den Publikumserfolg der Oper. Nun aber sah Henze in seiner Partitur “das jugendstilhafte Weben und Flüstern der entfremdeten Natur” (1975a/1976: 234), sah “Sarkasmus und Überlappungen” (ebd.: 233), ‘Preziosität’ (vgl. ebd.: 235) und ‘Denunziation’ (vgl. ebd.: 233). Als ein Beispiel nennt Henze das Herzstück der Oper, das Sextett aus dem zweiten Akt, in dem Mittenhofer von seinem Gedicht “Die jungen Liebenden” spricht und alle An- wesenden in seinen Bann zieht. Die Szene führt das Charisma Mittenhofers und die Kraft seiner dichterischen Fähigkeiten vor Augen. Der Gesang ist nur von der Harfe begleitet, und Auden hat diese Musik, die jeden davon über- zeugen könne, daß das entstehende Gedicht sehr gut ist, als “very beautiful” (1968a: 94) bezeichnet. Für den Henze von 1975 erscheint die Harfe jedoch als “Parodie der Leier Apollos”, die die Fragwürdigkeit der Ausstrahlung Mit- tenhofers decouvriert. Er sagt: “Dies ist der leiseste Augenblick in der Oper, aber auch derjenige, der ihr kritisches Moment am deutlichsten ausspricht.” (1975a/1976: 236) Es ist offensichtlich, daß bei dieser Einschätzung die literarische Dimension des Librettos – als ein kritisch-reflektierendes Moment – die Sicht der Szene bestimmt. Doch muß fraglich bleiben, ob das opernhafte musikalische Erleben der Szene mit dieser Sicht übereinstimmt. Die Musik wird um eine kontextuell bedingte, interpretatorisch erfaßte Bedeutungsdimensi- on, quasi als beigefügtes Anführungszeichen, angereichert, die der Ironiesig- nale bedarf, um als solche erfaßt zu werden. Diese Ironiesignale liegen jedoch nicht in der Partitur selbst, sondern können allenfalls in der Performanz der theatralischen Umsetzung eingebracht werden, also in der sängerischen Ge- staltung oder auch in der Inszenierung des Werks. Vor allem setzen sie einen Deutungswillen voraus, eine Sinnintention im Hörer, die eine dementspre- chende semantische Anreicherung anstrebt. Ein Spielraum der Rezeption dieser Art besteht bei einem künstlerischen Werk immer, weshalb es durchaus le- 110 Prekäre angewandte Opernästhetik: Elegie für junge Liebende

gitim ist, Umdeutungen wie die Henzes vorzunehmen, umso mehr, als sie im Texthaushalt des gesamten Werks angelegt sind, wie eben hier in der Elegie. Insofern ist Petersen nicht recht zu geben, wenn er feststellt, daß diese eigenen Umdeutungen Henzes “das Werk” “verfehlen” (1988: 40). Wohl aber sind sie nach den Kriterien der Unmittelbarkeit der opernhaften Aussage, wie sie Au- den verficht, nicht operngemäß. Auden sagt, ‘es hat keinen Sinn zu fragen, ob ein Komponist meint, was er sagt, oder ob er es nur vortäuscht’ (vgl. 1968a: 80); Musik ist immer nur Präsens Indikativ 1. Person (vgl. Auden 1968b: 10). Die- ser Position scheint sich der spätere Komponist Henze wieder anzunähern. In einem Gespräch mit Johannes Bultmann im Jahre 1989 antwortete Henze auf die Frage, ob die Musik urteilen oder anklagen könne: Die Musik “hat keine Moral, und urteilen oder gar richten kann sie nicht, auch nicht mit Zuhilfe- nahme von Wörtern” (Henze/Bultmann 1889/1990: 22). Nachdem er es noch 1975 als befreiende Erkenntnis verbucht hatte, wie sehr es ihm möglich war, in We Come to the River “ein solches Ausmaß von Wirklichkeit zu reproduzieren” (Henze 1975b/1976: 252), sprach er 1989 von der “enormen Anstrengung”, die es gekostet hatte, in We Come to the River “meiner Musik die Gegenwart, die Schrecknisse der Realität, die Wirklichkeit zuzumuten, ihr Gewalt anzu- tun” (Henze/Bultmann 1989/1990: 19). Was sich hier äußert, ist die erlangte Skepsis, mit Musik ‘primäre’ Welt abbilden, geschweige denn verändern zu können, vielmehr lesen sich Henzes Worte von 1989 über die Musik wie eine Apotheose der ‘sekundären’ Welt: Musik sei ein “Ort der Erhöhung”, sie betrei- be “Umgang mit der Geisterwelt, mit den Angelegenheiten der Seele”, sie sei “ein animistisches In-die-Welt-Hineinhören”, “die Suche nach den wortlosen Vokabeln” (ebd.: 10), nach “traumhafte[n], traumartige[n] Bilder[n], surreal” (ebd.: 12). Henze sagt, er mache sich “concetti”, d. h. “selbstgemachte künstliche (gekünstelte) Paradiese und Höllen, in die andauernd Außenwelt hineinwill, oder solche, die in die Außenwelt hinüberreichen und dort in Gefahr geraten” (ebd.: 11), ganz so wie der Eden-Mythos in der Elegie und seine Gefährdung durch Gregor Mittenhofer.

Um zum Schluß zu kommen: Ulrich Weisstein hat vier Traditionen des europäischen Opernschaffens voneinander unterschieden: die klassizistische, die ihren Ausgang vom Wort nimmt und der Musik eine anzillarische Funktion zuweist; die romantische, die von der Musik ausgeht und dieser die literarische Dimension unterordnet; die Wagnersche, in deren Zentrum das Drama steht, dem – idealerweise verschmolzen – Musik und Wort dienen; so- Prekäre angewandte Opernästhetik: Elegie für junge Liebende 111

wie die epische, bei der die kritische Intention in den Vordergrund rückt, in deren Dienst Musik und Wort weitgehend unabhängig voneinander stehen (vgl. 1964: 5f.). Henze – dem als ‘Vollblutmusiker’ die klassizistische Positi- on fremd sein muß – scheint als Grundhaltung der romantischen Auffassung verpflichtet, doch neigt er als engagierter, an der gesellschaftlichen Reali- tät leidender Zeitgenosse zur ‘epischen Oper’ mit ihrem kritischen Potenti- al, ohne daß jedoch seine musikalische Sprache in ihrem Grundzug der dazu nötigen Distanzhaltung entspräche. Die Wagnersche Konzeption – die ihm Auden anhand der Bassariden aufzwingen wollte – ist ihm durch den klang- lich-psychologischen, formal geprägten Ansatz seiner Musik ebenfalls fremd. Was bleibt, ist die Verwandtschaft mit Audens romantischer Ästhetik und das Reiben an dieser, wie bei Auden selbst, als Ausdruck der unauflöslichen Span- nung zwischen den Wunschtraumansprüchen der Innenwelt und den erschre- ckenden Gegebenheiten der äußeren Wirklichkeit. Ulrich Weisstein hat diesen Sachverhalt anhand einer unlängst veröffentlichten Auseinandersetzung mit The Rake’s Progress – dessen Libretto ja ebenfalls von Auden stammt – in die Formel einer Spannung zwischen Progression und Regression gebracht (vgl. 1992: 378–380), was wohl dem erwähnten Gegensatz des Prospero- und des Ariel-Impulses entspricht, und man kann auch sagen – im modernen kulturellen Klima – der Spannung zwischen dem Impuls zur Literatur und dem zur Oper. Ich kann hier mit Peter Hacks konform gehen, der seine Zukunfts-Oper als ein Werk sieht, das durchaus eine Oper im traditionellen Sinn ist – und sein muß –, mit der Faktensetzung ‘großer Musik’ als Ausdruck einer ‘sekundären Welt’, gleichzeitig aber auch – wie er sagt – “gattungsausschöpfende Literatur” (1975/1980: 306), sofern diese ausreichend ‘parole sceniche’ im Sinne Verdis enthält, um Unmittelbarkeit und Identifikation mit großem Empfinden zu er- möglichen. Die Elegie für junge Liebende scheint dieser Forderung in hohem Maße zu entsprechen.

Ist eine solche Haltung nun ‘reaktionär’ und ‘konservativ’, wie das gängige Urteil aus avantgardistischer Sicht lautet? In dem heutigen, gerne als postmodern apostrophierten kulturellen Klima sind diese Kategorien wohl prinzipiell fragwürdig oder bedeutungslos geworden, weil hinter ihnen die Konzep- tion einer linearen historischen Entwicklung von Prozessen steht, die jedoch brüchig zu werden scheint. Es gibt heute Auseinandersetzungen mit der Oper, aus dem Bereich der poststrukturellen, vor allem französischen Literaturkritik, mit einem stark psychoanalytischen Ansatz im Anschluß an Roland Barthes 112 Prekäre angewandte Opernästhetik: Elegie für junge Liebende

(s. 1977), die das Erlebnis der ‘reinen Stimme’ in der Oper als eine existenti- elle Erfahrung deuten, als eine Erfahrung von Genuß und Ekstase, ‘jouissance’ im Sinne Lacans, also gleichsam als den Eintritt in eine ‘sekundäre Welt’, oder besser die subversive Freilegung einer ‘sekundären Welt’ der Triebschicht, jenseits der Alltagswirklichkeit mit ihren bedrängenden Signifikationen (vgl. Poizat 1991: 195–197); für Barthes ist diese ‘jouissance’ ‘revolutionär und aso- zial’ (vgl. 1973: 39). Wenn es der Oper gelingt, diese – zweifellos ‘regressive’ – Funktion zu erfüllen, soll ihr dies nicht als Mangel angelastet werden, ja man kann es ihr durchaus als Ziel vor Augen führen, vor allem dann, wenn das Li- bretto darüber hinaus eine dem denkenden Subjekt zugängliche ‘progressive’ literarische Auseinandersetzung mit der ‘primären Welt’ gesellschaftlicher Wirklichkeit bereitstellt. Prekäre angewandte Opernästhetik: Elegie für junge Liebende 113

References

Auden, W. H. (1938/1976). “The Composer”. Collected Poems. Hrsg. v. Edward Mendelson. London: Faber. 148. — (1940/1976). “New Year Letter (January 1, 1940)”. Collected Poems. Hrsg. v. Edward Mendelson. London: Faber. 159–193. — (1944). “A Preface to Kierkegaard”. The New Republic: 683–686. — (1961). “A Public Art”. Opera 12/1: 12–15. — (1962). The Dyer’s Hand and Other Essays. London: Faber. — (1968a). Secondary Worlds. London: Random House. — (1968b). Worte und Noten: Rede zur Eröffnung der Salzburger Festspiele 1968. Salzburg. —, Chester Kallman (1961a). Elegie für junge Liebende. Oper in drei Akten. Libretto. Mainz: Schott. — (1961b). “Geburt eines Librettos”. Auden/Kallman 1961a: 61–64. Bachmann, Claus-Henning (1961). “Henze: Elegie für junge Liebende. Uraufführung bei den Schwetzinger Festspielen”. Österreichische Musikzeitschrift 16: 384f. Barthes, Roland (1973). Le plaisir du texte. Paris: Seuil. — (1977). “The Grain of the Voice”. Stephen Heath, Übers. u. Hrsg. Image – Music – Text. Glasgow: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 179–189. Callan, Edward (1974). “Exorcising Mittenhofer”. London Magazine 14: 73–85. Dahlhaus, Carl (1983/1989). “Euripides, das absurde Theater und die Oper: Zum Problem der Anti- kenrezeption in der Musikgeschichte”. Vom Musikdrama zur Literaturoper: Aufsätze zur neueren Operngeschichte. Serie Musik Piper Schott 8238. München/Mainz: Schott. 228–266. Engelbert, Barbara (1983). Wystan Hugh Auden (1907–1973): Seine opernästhetischen Anschauungen und seine Tätigkeit als Librettist. Regensburg: G. Bosse. Hacks, Peter (1975/1980). “Versuch über das Libretto”. Oper. dtv 1508. München: Deutscher Taschen- buchverlag. 199–306. Henze, Hans Werner (1960/1976). “Komponist und Regisseur: Gespräch mit Horst Goerges”. Henze 1976. 82–85. — (1961). Elegy for Young Lovers, Opera in three acts / Elegie für junge Liebende, Oper in drei Akten von W. H. Auden und Chester Kallman, Musik von Hans Werner Henze, deutsche Fassung von Ludwig Landgraf unter Mitarbeit von Werner Schachteli und dem Komponisten, Klavierauszug von Markus Lehmann. Edition Schott 5100. Mainz: Schott. — (1962). “Anmerkungen zur ‘Elegie für junge Liebende’”. Opernwelt 12: 12f. — (1962/1976). “Über ‘Elegie für junge Liebende’”. Henze 1976. 78–82. — (1972/1976). “Musica impura – Musik als Sprache (1972): Aus einem Gespräch mit Hans-Klaus Jungheinrich”. Henze 1976. 186–195. — (1975a/1976). “Der Künstler als bürgerlicher Held (1975): Eine Einführung in die Oper ‘Elegie für junge Liebende’”. Henze 1976. 231–240. — (1975b/1976). “‘We come to the river’ (1975)”. Henze 1976. 251–265. — (1976). Musik und Politik: Schriften und Gespräche 1955–1975. Hrsg. v. Jens Brockmeier. dtv 1162. München: Deutscher Taschenbuchverlag. 114 Prekäre angewandte Opernästhetik: Elegie für junge Liebende

Henze, Hans Werner, Johannes Bultmann (1989/1990). “Sprachmusik: Eine Unterhaltung”. Hans Werner Henze, Hrsg. Die Chiffren: Musik und Sprache. Neue Aspekte der musikalischen Ästhe- tik IV. Fischer Taschenbuch 6905. Frankfurt/Main: Fischer. 7–24. Honolka, Kurt (1961). “Schwetzinger Festspiele – Henzes ‘Elegie für junge Liebende’”. Opernwelt 9: 45–47. Krellmann, Hanspeter (1977). “Moderne Oper – zeitgenössische Oper – zeitgerechte Oper?”. Musica 31: 119–125. Lohse, Günter (1985/1986). “Röntgenstunde gegen ein Genie”. Programmheft Elegie für junge Lieben- de. Klagenfurt: Stadttheater Klagenfurt [o. S.]. Osborne, Charles (1979). W. H. Auden: The Life of a Poet. London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Petersen, Peter (1988). Hans Werner Henze: Ein politischer Musiker. Zwölf Vorlesungen. Hamburg: Argument. Poizat, Michel (1991). “‘The Blue Note’ and ‘The objectified voice and the vocal object’”. Cambridge Opera Journal 3/3: 195–211. Porter, Andrew (1961). “Elegy for Young Lovers”. The Musical Times 102: 418f. Raimund, Hans (1988). “Über Auden und die Musik”. W. H. Auden 1907–1973: Ergebnisse eines Sym- posions. Wien: Niederösterreichisches Pressehaus. 31–48. Ringger, Rolf Urs (1986). “‘... not information but revelation’: W. H. Auden als Opernlibrettist”. Neue Zürcher Zeitung (14./15. Juni): 69f. Roth, Marc A. (1979). “The Sound of a Poet Singing Loudly: A Look at Elegy for Young Lovers”. Com- parative Drama 13/1: 99–120. Spears, Monroe K. (1963). The Poetry of W. H. Auden: The Disenchanted Island. New York, NY: Ox- ford UP. Stuckenschmidt, H. H. (1972). “Hans Werner Henze und die Musik unserer Zeit”. Universitas 27/1: 125–132. Weisstein, Ulrich (1964). “Introduction”. Ulrich Weisstein, Hrsg. The Essence of Opera. London: Free Press of Glencoe. 1–10. — (1970). “Reflections on a Golden Style: W. H. Auden’s Theory of Opera”. Comparative Literature 22: 108–124. — (1992). “Between Progress and Regression: The Text of Stravinsky’s Opera The Rake’s Progress in the Light of its Evolution”. Bernt Olsson, Jan Olsson, Hans Lund, Hrsgg. I musernas sällskap: Konstarter och deras relationer. En vänbok till Ulla-Britta Lagerroth 19. 10. 1992. Höganäs: Wi- ken. 355–390. An Exegetic Composer: Benjamin Britten’s Journey of the Magi1 [1995]

To consider a composer as an exegete is most likely the greatest challenge to anyone who concerns himself with the fascinating question of the relationship between literature and music. Exegesis – even if taken not in its stricter sense of interpretation and explication of Biblical texts, but of any text – implies that the person engaged in this activity is in search of meaning, and the meaning he is after will not be of a trivial nature but will rather belong to the sphere of the conceptual, the speculative, the philosophical, the spiritual and such. And the question must arise whether music, as a signifying medium, is at all able to reach into this more sophisticated world of meaning, that is, whether a composer can really be an exegete in the given sense. According to the opinion most widely held today music is an excellent medium for expressing emotions, but conceptual meaning seems to be beyond its reach; music is credited with a ‘pathogeneous’ quality, as it is sometimes called, but not with a ‘logogeneous’ quality. As music, in general, lacks referential meaning in the linguistic sense and, therefore, has no established relationship between a signifier and a specific signified, it must seem unable to convey any cognitive content, and exegesis, after all, concerns itself with such cognitive content.

Certainly the situation is different when music is combined with words, which, indeed, have their cognitive quality. When music accompanies words the meaning of the words will possibly contaminate, as it were, the music, and the music might mirror what the words are saying and thereby acquire some form of secondary meaning which is suggested by the words. To take an often-quoted example from poetry (cf. Ransom 1938: 95–97): A verse line from Tennyson’s The Princess (VII) talks about “the murmuring of innumerable bees”. In this case of onomatopoeia the sounds of the line acquire the meaning

1 This essay is based on a lecture which was given at the Centre for Art and Christianity of Copen- hagen University in February 1994. 116 An Exegetic Composer: Benjamin Britten’s Journey of the Magi

suggested by the words and can be said to ‘mean’ the sound of bees; but without the specific referential meaning of the words of the line they would not mean anything at all. This can be demonstrated by slightly changing the words of the line and saying, instead of “the murmuring of innumerable bees”, “the murdering of innumerable beeves”. In this case the sounds of the line acquire no secondary meaning although the signifier is almost identical with Tenny- son’s version. So the meaning of sound structures – and, consequently, also the meaning of music – is always an associative meaning which is only suggested by the referential meaning the words, as in this case, – or by other conventions, as in music without words – and is not inherent in the sound structure itself. In the Tennyson example, the meaning suggested is onomatopoetic and thus, as a form of word-painting, mirrors a sound of the real world in the sound of the poetry. This is no case of a cognitive meaning but the example was given to demonstrate how music is able to acquire meaning at all, which is a necessary step towards assessing the chances of an ‘exegetic composer’ who deals with far more complex levels of meaning in the texts he uses.

The history of musical settings shows that with the humanists a tradition was established in which vocal music was supposed to be shaped according to the principles of what can be called expressive mimesis. Ever since it has been the dominating idea of musical settings of texts to illustrate the texts by musical means in the form of what Steven Scher has called a “composed reading” (1986: 156) of them, and in the earlier stages of that practice the imitating activity of the composer consisted mainly in the ‘doubling’ in the music, as it were, of what the text says. It is fascinating to survey the development of word setting over the centuries, and we can distinguish stages of ever-widening areas of reality in which attempts were made to express them in music, and this historical process can be seen as a process of increasing literarisation of music which finally culminated in late-romantic practices. In the beginning, composers were satisfied with setting literal meaning only, echoing external reality in the kind of word-painting which we found in the Tennyson example. (Sixteenth-century madrigals are a conspicuous case of this form of practice.) Soon the imitation of internal reality set in, and composers began to concern themselves with emotional meaning as well. But in the earlier stages they were satisfied with mirroring general ‘affects’ only, such as joy, pain or sorrow, and wrote music the overall tone of which captured the general mood of the text they set. (Many Elizabethan airs, for example, demonstrate this attitude.) An Exegetic Composer: Benjamin Britten’s Journey of the Magi 117

It was in the Baroque period that composers went a step further and began also to illustrate more specific affections in their music. They developed what could be called a musical language of the passions and tried to mirror in their music, as it went ‘along the text’, all its emotional implications. However, these emotional states – such as, for instance, anger, exuberance, hesitation, or dejection – were conventionalized, and so was the musical language to express them; formulae were developed which were available in the contemporary Affektenlehre. It was with the romantic period that the increased interiorisation of feelings and the new emphasis on subjective personal experience also challenged music to mirror more individualized feelings and states of mind. Music acquired the competence of expressing those inner activities of a more private and intimate character and achieved an un- foreseen flexibility of expression, a fluidity, however, which simultaneously increased its vagueness and indeterminacy as the old conventions of expression were eventually put out of practice.

It is only at this stage of the development of art song that one is justified in saying that it also began trying to express thoughts and ideas, in addition to feelings and emotions, and it is usually Robert Schumann who is credited with introducing this more sophisticated form of musical reading of a text, which implies that the composition not only tries to express what is in the poem but also reflects on the poem and its implications; the persona of the song is no longer necessarily identical with the persona of the poem but very often becomes an agent entering into an exchange with the poem. It is usually the piano accompaniment which now no longer simply illustrates the text but becomes an independent element of reflection on it, manifesting an experience of the persona with the text, and thus may go beyond the obvious meaning of the latter. It is only at this stage of the interaction of words and music that we are justified in talking about the composer as an ‘exegetic composer’ because only here can we experience him as trying to extricate meaning from a text that is not obviously there and often reflects a very personal attitude which he takes towards the text and its implications.

The general vagueness of these interpretive activities of the composer – which I have already referred to and which is a natural consequence of the lack of a conventionalized vocabulary for such music – is certainly a great obstacle to the critic who tries, as it were, to exegise the exegete, and this is why – as was 118 An Exegetic Composer: Benjamin Britten’s Journey of the Magi

said in the beginning – this topic of the ‘exegetic composer’ is one of the most challenging for a student of art song: complexities of a literary text are reflected in complexities of a musical text in a language which has no established meaning. This is said in order to raise an indispensible warning flag about the methodological pitfalls awaiting those who venture to analyse complex interpretive music, of which Benjamin Britten’s Journey of the Magi, now to be discussed, is an outstanding case in point.

Britten was a very ‘literary’ musician who based the larger portion of his oeuvre on literary works from various cultures and, as a consequence, is an exemplary case of an expressive-mimetic composer whose music ‘talks’ very vividly and has a pronounced language quality. His vocal music includes not only operas based on famous literary works, such as Death in Venice or The Turn of the Screw, but also a wide range of songs, mostly in song-cycles, of which his Canticles de- serve special attention. According to Britten, a canticle is “an extended setting of a single poem on a subject of spiritual significance”2, and he wrote five such canticles between 1947 and 1974. The one to be analysed here, Journey of the Magi, is Canticle IV, written in 1971 and based on T. S. Eliot’s well-known poem of 1927 of the same title. The poem tells the old story of the birth of Christ from the viewpoint of one of the magi in retrospect, many years after he has returned home, in the form of a dramatic monologue; the magus seems to be addressing a younger person who is asked to set down – for future generations, one can assume – what the magi’s experience was in that cold December many years ago. The magus interprets the event unquestionably in the spirit of St. Matthew’s overture to his gospel, where we find the story reported with the intention of giving an example to illustrate the conviction that gentiles are also welcome to the New Israel. The magus talks about the “old dispensation” (413; Eliot 1969), in which he is “no longer at ease” (41), “With an alien people clutching their gods” (42), and when he says that “this Birth”, which they have witnessed, “was / Hard and bitter agony for us”, was “like Death, our death” (38f.), this implies that he is talking of the death of the Old Adam in terms of Pauline theology, and of the magi’s spiritual rebirth into the New Dispensation4.

2 Quoted by Timothy Day on the cover of Britten’s recordings of his canticles (argo ZRG 946). 3 Line references in brackets. 4 I am grateful to Franz Zeilinger, Professor of New Testament Bible Studies and Prorector of the University of Graz, for his theological advice. An Exegetic Composer: Benjamin Britten’s Journey of the Magi 119

One can say, therefore, that the poem basically conforms to the tenets of Christian orthodoxy. We may notice, however, that some of the essential elements of the story, as we know them from the New Testament, are conspicuously missing in the poem. There is no mention of the encounter with Herod and of the fact that the three magi took another way back (which symbolical- ly indicates their spiritual change), but, above all, there is no reference to the star which led them on their way. Instead, the major part of the magus’s report is devoted to the hardships of the journey, the trivialities of earthbound life, sore-footed camels, dirty and expensive villages, cursing men “wanting their liquor and women” (12). We learn nothing about the motivation of the three magi to go on their wearisome journey; instead, we hear that on their way they longed for their pleasant life back home, with “silken girls bringing sherbet” (10). The old magus tells his listener that they had voices in their ears “saying / That this was all folly” (19f.). When they came down into the fertile valley they saw “three trees” (24), “an old white horse” (25) and people “dicing for pieces of silver” (27), but there is no indication in the poem that the magi had – or that the reporting magus now has – an intimation of the significance of these observations in the context of Christ’s further destiny. What is most vexing in the poem, however, is the fact that the central and essential event of the story, the magi’s encounter with the new-born Christ, is only very briefly reported and that the magi’s reaction to it is expressed in a famous understatement of the flattest kind: “it was (you may say) satisfactory” (31): no mention of the presents of homage to the king, of adoration and proskinesis, only an evasive remark which completely leaves open what the actual experience of the three travellers was. Similarly unspecific is the final line of the poem where the magus says that he “should be glad of another death” (43), which most likely refers to his own physical death, but we cannot be sure of its implications, whether his desired death would imply an awakening to final fulfilment and a rebirth to eternal bliss, or, otherwise, a final extinction which would at long last take him away from the Waste Land-world of earthly aberrations.

The strange presentation of the familiar story in the poem and the ambiguity of its attitude and perspective have attracted much critical attention, and one can distinguish probably three different critical approaches to the poem and its meaning. The first could be called a straight reading which embraces the orthodox position and maintains that the magus has joyfully “reached his goal” (Margolis 1972: 68), that he dreams a “dream of memory” and a “dream 120 An Exegetic Composer: Benjamin Britten’s Journey of the Magi

of anticipation” towards “final consummation” (Ward 1973/1978: 241), that the Waste Land-world has turned positive and regeneration has taken place; it is seen as a document of unshaken belief5. The second position takes the opposite view and characterizes the magus as a deeply disillusioned and resigned man who has come to a stage of “desiring nothing” (Smith 1974: 123). In some readings this stage of complete negation is seen, however, as part of a quest and a necessary step which leads on to the final stage of mystical union (cf. Riehle 1979: 70f.; Smith 1974: 123).

The third approach takes an ambivalent position and argues that the speaker is a disturbed and bewildered man who has indeed experienced a transformation, but “a painful rather than joyful transformation” (Bergonzi 1972: 112), he has been left with scepticism and the nagging “demon of doubt” (El- iot qtd. ibid.: 113), his experience was only “an ‘approach to meaning’, but no arrival” (Moody 1979: 134), and the poem is seen as being Christian “more in intention than fact” (Bush 1983: 127). The magi are “Tantalus-like, they verge close to what they cannot grasp” (Smith 1974: 128). Followers of this interpretation of the poem base their argument on Eliot’s other works of the time of writing “Journey of the Magi” and above all on the biographical situation of the author in 1927, when the poem was written. This was the year of Eliot’s conversion to the Anglican faith, and it seems natural that the poet would have written this poem about a ‘conversion’ – that of the magi – and about the central Christian doctrine of the Incarnation. There is evidence that, at that time, Eliot was highly ambivalent about his own conversion, for though he gave “intellectual assent” (Canary 1982: 202) to his new faith he was far from wholehearted belief. As Ronald Bush puts it: “If Eliot [...] cannot credit the Christian explanation of things, he is at least willing to entertain it.” (1983: 129) Eliot’s poetry of the time conveys “the feeling of a man in the process of dying to one life and unable to be born into another” (ibid.: 167). This is exactly, one is led to observe, what we find expressed in “Journey of the Magi”. We experience a very considered rather than an ecstatic expression of faith, a statement rather than a confession, and Bernard Bergonzi’s observation seems very much to the point when he says that the poem reads like “summaries of experience rather than enactments of it” (1972: 112). The cool, summarizing detachment of statement, most clearly tangible in the “satisfactory” phrase, – this detachment

5 Cf. summary of research in Riehle (1979: 65–72). An Exegetic Composer: Benjamin Britten’s Journey of the Magi 121

which the reader observes instead of the expected expression of spiritual up- lifting – fits in very well with the choice of the old man speaking in retrospect rather than the younger man enacting the actual experience; but it apparently also fits in very well with the poet’s own disposition at the time of writing. I would like to conclude this assessment of Eliot’s poem by referring to its general tone which is conversational and matter-of-fact, unemphatic and without ornamentation, as befits a summary given by an old man, and critics agree that this tone is very much a mirror of Eliot’s own temperament. As to the general mood of the poem, its characterization will depend on the interpretive position one takes towards the central meaning of the poem: as indicated above, there is a choice – if I may simplify – of a positive, a negative, or an ambivalent reading, and with this ambiguous view of the poem we may be prepared to take a look at Britten’s composition.

The canticle is set for counter-tenor, tenor, baritone and piano, so the idea is suggested that the one speaker of the poem is in fact voicing all three of the magi, and, from a purely technical point of view, the three voices offer the composer a wider range of musical expression than a single voice would do. Being an expressive musician, Britten makes ample use of all the illustrative possibilities of music, which will be apparent even at a first hearing of the canticle. I would like to distinguish between a first and a second hearing of the work, and this distinction, I suggest, plays an important role in our assessment of Brit- ten’s exegetic approach to the poem. At a first hearing the listener will perceive many mimetic passages of the kind which I described earlier: there is obvious word-painting at the very beginning when the piano’s bass illustrates the “sway- ing and lurching of the camels” (Johnson 1984: 306), and the frequent repetition of words, combined with repetitive melodic formulae, suggests quite vividly the weariness of the journey. The ‘refractoriness’ of the camels, of which the poem speaks, and the running away of the camel drivers are as well illustrated as the magi’s longing for the pleasures of the sherbet-serving girls (using falling melisma lines in two voices) or the travellers’ dejection when they begin travel- ling by night (heavy basses in the piano). All this is word-painting of external reality or illustration of specific affections ‘along the text’ as described earlier. The most striking feature of the composition at a first hearing of the canticle will certainly be the setting of the crucial phrase of the poem, “it was (you may say) satisfactory” (31). Britten gives much space and emphasis to this passage by repeating the word “satisfactory” no less than eight times, and in the piano we 122 An Exegetic Composer: Benjamin Britten’s Journey of the Magi

hear the melody of Magi videntes stellam, “the Antiphon before the Magnificat at First Vespers for the Feast of the Epiphany”6. The same plainsong melody is heard again in the postlude to the canticle after the speaker’s final line, “I should be glad of another death”. These two very conspicuous passages of the work call for immediate interpretation, and we experience Britten as an obvious exegete of the text: although Eliot has deliberately (though vexingly) given no clue as to the character of the satisfaction addressed, Britten’s music seems to take it in terms of the familiar story and to express in his music the humble joy and the pious adoration which we usually associate with the situation. The composer seems consistent in his attitude when at the end of the canticle he again takes up the plainsong melody and thus interprets the death wish of the final line in terms of a vision of eternal bliss.

As indicated before, such a reading of the canticle is the most likely at a first hearing of the work as it responds to the most striking features of the composition. As to the faithfulness of this reading to Eliot’s poem two observations can be made. When we consider the general tone of the composition we are bound to note that the unemphatic, cool and matter-of-fact quality which we have observed in the tone of the poem is noticeably missing in the music: instead of the detached statement of the magus’s report we have a vivid enactment of what has happened on the journey. In terms of narrative theory, while in the poem the perspective is that of the ‘narrating I’, that is, of the old magus looking back on his earlier experience, in the composition the perspective seems to be that of the ‘experiencing I’, that is, of the three men in actu on their journey. It is only in keeping with this change of perspective that in the canticle all three of the men are singing: in this way it is even more inevitable that the listener feels himself present at the events described. Obviously music as an artistic form lends itself very easily to this form of presenting actuality of experience; it is an inherent quality of the medium which – as W. H. Auden once said – is always ‘first person present indicative’ (cf. Auden 1968: 10): music is no suitable medium for detachment, its very nature, as a sensual phenomenon without regular referential meaning, in principle precludes distance from what it is expressing. So, by changing the general tone and ignoring the narrative situation of Eliot’s dramatic monologue, Britten only followed the pressures of his medium; he did so, however, at the expense of the specifically detached

6 Britten’s head note (see 1972). An Exegetic Composer: Benjamin Britten’s Journey of the Magi 123

quality of Eliot’s style, and also at the expense of some of the poem’s ambiguity of meaning. This statement may lead to a discussion of the second observation which can be made in respect to the interpretive implications of our first hearing of the canticle.

The reading of the text in this first hearing obviously interprets Eliot’s text in terms of what we have called the ‘positive’ interpretation of the poem. When critics who take this line of an orthodox reading of the text, as we have seen, talk, for instance, about the old magus dreaming a “dream of memory” and a “dream of anticipation” of final fulfillment (cf. Ward 1973/1978: 241), then Britten’s composition, by introducing the plainsong, seems to be demonstrating and manifesting just that, although the text itself does not say so explicitly. And when one critic says that the plainsong appears in the canticle “like a shaft of sunlight in a dark pagan world” (Johnson 1984: 306) this also manifests an orthodox, ‘straight’ reading of the music and of the poem. From the viewpoint of Eliot’s text, however, this reading must appear as a limitation of meaning, and, in a way, such an interpretation of Britten’s composition is bound to be disappointing. After all, one could easily argue, if one followed this reading, that Britten has simplified the poem and reduced it to an obvious meaning in terms of the familiar story. What this statement implies, of course, is that on a second hearing we may begin to see the composition in a more sophisticated light and become aware of more facets of the poem than on the first hearing.

When the work was first performed at the Aldeburgh Festival in 1971 the review in The Times by William Mann, its chief music critic, observed: “It is not a hard-hitting piece; for once Britten is not voicing deep discontent” (qtd. Carpenter 1992: 520) – which neatly conforms to what we have said is the most likely reaction at a first hearing. But William Mann goes on to say: “or below the surface is he?” I am very much inclined to agree with this afterthought for what we find in the composition, on top of the illustrative enactment of the story, is the “unmistakable ‘Britten sound’” (Kennedy 1993: 222) of his harmonic language, the dominating features of which are repeated dissonant chord configurations, including clusters, on the one hand, and the characteristic alternation of minor and major thirds, on the other (cf. ibid.); these elements of musical language, however, produce an effect of ambiguity and of a basic lack of resolution. As this harmonic language pervades the whole composition it decisively shapes the general mood of the canticle, and one is forced to admit 124 An Exegetic Composer: Benjamin Britten’s Journey of the Magi

that this musical texture mirrors very well the disturbed, bewildered and ag- onized state of the old magus’s mind, if one accepts such a reading of the poem. It introduces into the composition that spirit of agony which is expressed in the poem when the speaker says, “this Birth was / Hard and bitter agony for us” (38f.), and which is neglected in the ‘straight’ reading of the poem. And the “satisfactory” passage, too, is set in a far more ambiguous way than some would have it, for the supposed “shaft of sunlight” of the plainsong melody is obviously clouded by ominous eclipses when one also listens to the harmonic ground of the ethereal melody: this harmonic ground is a very dissonant chord which is harmonically unrelated to the melody, and it is sustained throughout the passage. It expresses very well the mixed feelings and the ambivalent attitude taken by the magus towards the experience of that birth, which is death to him as well. This conforms far more closely to the Pauline notion of the ag- onies involved in the Death of the Old Adam and the Birth into the New Israel than the simple reading of unquestioning adoration would do.

It is equally rewarding to look at the return of the plainsong at the end of the canticle with this view of its first appearance in mind. There, the harmonic ground to the melody is obviously different: instead of the dissonant chord we find the chord of g minor, which implies a form of resolution. But this chord is still vexingly unrelated to the plainsong melody above it which consists of a, b, c sharp and e and ends on the b. So the song ends with the triadic equivocati- on of g minor and g major. This very moving ending, played with supreme de- licacy by Britten on his recording7, cries out for exegesis in the context which we have been developing here. It is worlds apart from a vision of eternal bliss to be expected in a better world, and it is very much in keeping with the ambivalent readings of Eliot’s poem quoted earlier: it shows doubt and scepticism, “an ‘approach to the meaning’, but no arrival” (Moody 1979: 134), it shows the Tantalus-like situation of one incapable of wholehearted belief, of one “dying to one life and unable to be born into another” (Bush 1983: 167). The fact that the harmonic ground of that ending is the g-minor chord suggests that the basic mood now is one of resignation because the tonal resolution implies finality and the minor aspect of the chord implies finality without an element of hope, and this is very much in contrast to the earlier situation of the “satisfactory” passage where the harmonic ground of the dissonant chord, indeed, implies

7 See above note 2. An Exegetic Composer: Benjamin Britten’s Journey of the Magi 125

pain, agony and strife, but also non-finality and thus a process which does contain an element of hope and a possible prospect of fulfilment. But the composition says that this hope and prospect are not redeemed at the end. Still, on top of that g-minor chord we hear, as from afar, the plainsong melody, and it tells us that the speaker – although resigned – has not lost his yearning for fulfilment and spiritual elevation.

Having come to this conclusion about a possible meaning of Britten’s setting of “Journey of the Magi” it is revealing to read a recent review of Humphrey Carpenter’s biography of Britten (see Spice 1993). There, the very perceptive critic, Nicholas Spice, tries to assess the fundamental quality of Britten’s music and comes to the conclusion that it is “strung out between psychological hell and an unstable, fragile heaven”, that it expresses “the what-could-have-been and the what-almost-but-not-quite-is”, and he observes: “Even the spiritual in Britten’s music is more unearthly than heavenly”. Talking about Death in Ven- ice, which was Britten’s last opera, written shortly after its companion-piece Journey of the Magi, he says that it “is a merciless reworking of the Tantalus myth” and that its ending “has nothing to do with peace, only an infinite sus- pension and frustration of mental and emotional fulfilment” (ibid.: 6). Our reading of the canticle led to a very similar conclusion, and what is strangely fascinating to observe is the fact that Eliot’s works in the later ’twenties seem to have been permeated by a very similar spirit. Britten’s spiritual condition in the early ’seventies seems to have been akin to Eliot’s in the ’twenties, and this spiritual brotherhood may have induced Britten to choose “Journey of the Magi” as the text for his canticle, an unexpected choice because he had neither set Eliot before nor anything in a similar style. This brings me to my final remarks and to the question of which conclusions can be drawn from the comparison we have undertaken as to the exegetic activities of a composer.

We have seen at the beginning that music is not at all a natural medium for transporting meaning and that, once composers adopted the idea of using music for expressive-mimetic purposes, it was only in very gradual steps that the language of music evolved means to perform increasingly more sophisticated acts of signification and we have seen that we can at no stage of this development say that the meaning of the music is in the sound material itself but that it is always we as listeners who attribute meaning to the music; so musical meaning is always a secondary or an associative meaning, as said earlier, and it 126 An Exegetic Composer: Benjamin Britten’s Journey of the Magi

is established by conventions which exploit the iconic power of sound material distributed over time. We have also seen that it is easier to exploit this signifying potential of music when the music is combined with words, for the referential meanings of the words suggest iconic interpretations of the music. As a consequence, much of word setting in the tradition of European art song was a form of ‘doubling’ what the words said by means of musical suggestion. The texts that lend themselves most readily to this kind of word setting are the ones which have been called ‘pathogeneous’, that is, such as are basically emotive in their character. We have further realized that it was only at the latest stages of this literarization of music that music also became an instrument of reflection on the text and not only of the manifestation of the text. This reflective compositional approach is in demand when the text to be set is ‘logogeneous’ in character and emphasizes conceptual over emotive meaning. It is obvious that the challenge to a composer who attempts such a setting is high as the sensual character of his medium seems inimical to his attempt.

The example discussed here can be said to be illuminating as far as the chances a composer has of performing well in the face of this challenge. Eliot’s poem is very much a ‘logogeneous’ text, and its tone, as we have observed, is particularly cool and detached; as one critic has phrased it, the description of the familiar story is “colourless to feeling” (Tamplin 1987: 145). As a composer in the tradition of expressive mimesis, Britten chose to ignore this tone of the poem and to inject feeling into it. He did so, as we have seen, by enacting, in his music, the events of the story; he hypostatizes and sensualizes what, in the poem, is only present in the mind of the speaker. It is in the nature of music that it makes patent what is only latent in words, and this procedure entails the danger of simplification or distortion. We have seen that at a first hearing of Brit- ten’s canticle this danger is all too imminent. Britten, however, has not fallen into this trap as his musical texture contains contradictory elements which mirror the fact that the magus’s attitude is ambivalent. This, in my opinion, redeems the composition as a successful attempt to follow the poem’s intention, but still one has to ask whether it is ultimately faithful to the poem. We have observed a great variety of interpretations of Eliot’s text by literary critics, and it is obvious that the poem deliberately leaves a final message open; we are aware of the trap of the ‘proper meaning superstition’: a modernist poem such as “Journey of the Magi” does not have a ‘proper meaning’, its signification is intentionally left ambiguous. But Britten’s music limits the range of interpreta- An Exegetic Composer: Benjamin Britten’s Journey of the Magi 127

tions of the poem and suggests one and/or another, and it inevitably does so because it enters into an exchange with the text and ‘speaks’ descriptive-emotive language. To put it in a nutshell: Britten’s music is specific (although multifari- ous) where Eliot’s words are not, and in this respect the composition cannot be called faithful to the poem. One could hold against this that I have suggested a similarity of the poet’s and the composer’s spiritual states when each of them wrote his ‘Journey of the Magi’. What is to be avoided, however, is the trap of the ‘intentional fallacy’: whatever the personal impulse behind the creation of these works may have been, once they were written they acquired a life of their own, and the life of Eliot’s poem as well as the life of Britten’s canticle have included other readings than those conforming to their authors’ (possible) intentions. These considerations may demonstrate why it was necessary to talk about the methodological pitfalls of exegizing the exegete. Britten might have avoided the censure of ultimately being unfaithful to Eliot’s poem had he decided to write a kind of music which does not involve itself with the poem’s meaning: he could have written non-interpretive music (see Bernhart 1988), as many composers have chosen to do when they set ‘logogeneous’ poems. This kind of song develops its music quite independently from the text and performs the function of merely setting a frame for the presentation of the poem. But such a practice would have been very much against Britten’s nature as a person and as an artist, and it would not have given us an opportunity to reflect on the fortunes and misfortunes of an ‘exegetic composer’. 128 An Exegetic Composer: Benjamin Britten’s Journey of the Magi

References

Auden, W. H. (1968). Worte und Noten: Rede zur Eröffnung der Salzburger Festspiele 1968. Salzburg: Salzburger Festspiele. Bergonzi, Bernard (1972). T. S. Eliot. London: Macmillan. Bernhart, Walter (1988). “Setting a Poem: The Composer’s Choice For or Against Interpretation”. Yearbook of Comparative and General Literature 37: 32–46. Britten, Benjamin (1972). Canticle IV: Journey of the Magi, for Counter-tenor, Tenor, Baritone and Piano, op.86. Poem by T. S. Eliot. London: Faber Music. Bush, Ronald (1983). T. S. Eliot: A Study of Character and Style. New York, NY/Oxford: OUP. Canary, Robert (1982). T. S. Eliot: The Poet and His Critics. Chicago, IL: American Library Associ- ation. Carpenter, Humphrey (1992). Benjamin Britten: A Biography. London: Gale. Eliot, T. S. (1969). “Journey of the Magi”. The Complete Poems and Plays. London/Boston, MA: Fa- ber. 103f. Johnson, Graham (1984). “Voice and Piano”. Christopher Palmer, ed. The Britten Companion. Lon- don: Clarendon Press. 286–307. Kennedy, Michael (1993). Britten. London: J. M. Dent. Margolis, John D. (1972). T. S. Eliot’s Intellectual Development 1922–1939. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Moody, A. D. (1979). Thomas Stearns Eliot Poet. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. Ransom, John Crowe (1938). The World’s Body. New York, NY: Louisiana State UP. Riehle, Wolfgang (1979). T. S. Eliot. Erträge der Forschung 106. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buch- gesellschaft. Scher, Steven Paul (1986). “Comparing Poetry and Music: Beethoven’s Goethe Lieder”. Janos Riesz, Peter Boerner, Bernhard Scholz, eds. Sensus Communis: Contemporary Trends in Comparative Li- terature. Festschrift for Henry Remak. Tübingen: Gunter Narr. 155–165. Smith, Grover (1974). T. S. Eliot’s Poetry and Plays. 2nd ed. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Spice, Nicholas (1993). “Darkness Audible”. London Review of Books 2: 3–6. Tamplin, Roland (1987). A Preface to T. S. Eliot. London/New York, NY: Longman. Ward, David (1973/1978). “The Ariel Poems (1973)”. B. C. Southam, ed. Eliot’s Shorter Poems. Case- book Series. London: Palgrave Macmillan. 240–247. ‘Kalogenetic’ Functions of Prosody: An Exercise in Comparative Poetics [1995]

The subject of this paper is comparative poetics, i.e. the comparative study of poetological systems, in particular comparative prosody, the comparative study of prosodical systems, more specifically, of metrical systems in lyric poetry. It was at the second congress of this venerable series of events organized by the ICLA, held at Chapel Hill in 1958, that Craig La Drière pronounced, with due emphasis, that comparative prosody was “the most typical and representative instance of the character and operation of comparative literary study generally” (1995: 164). La Drière justifies his statement by observing that comparative prosody is a field which in an exemplary way combines both a historical and a theoretical approach (ibid.: 166), and he thus points to a vital problem area of the methodology of comparative literature. I share the view expressed by the present ICLA president, Professor Earl Miner, who says that “theory is useful because it tends to enlarge areas of likeness” while “history tends to overpar- ticularize and render relative” (Miner 1987: 138f.).

Especially when comparing Western and Eastern literary systems, one is trapped between, on the one hand, the tendency to overemphasize – from a more theoretical viewpoint – the similarities between the systems, and, on the other hand, the tendency – mainly historically motivated –to overemphasize the individuality and therefore incomparability of the systems. Comparative prosody is a field which, properly handled, can steer a middle course between universalism and relativism, and I agree with Irmela Hijiya-Kirschnereit’s call for a “moderate relativism” (1990: 24) which accepts the fundamental comparability of systems across cultural boundaries, while at the same time being sceptical towards undifferentiated generalizations. Thus, I find particularly useful Professor Miner’s advocacy of the pursuit of homology in comparative studies, i.e. of a conception of comparability that is of a higher order than mere analogy but expressly avoids rash assertions of identity (cf. 1987: 137). Hence homology forms an intermediate stage of comparability, and so, in what fol- 130 ‘Kalogenetic’ Functions of Prosody: An Excercise in Comparative Poetics

lows, I will take up Earl Miner’s suggestion to study function as a particularly useful form of homology by comparing functions of metre in different literary systems. The systems to be compared will be the Western and the Japanese metrical traditions, and as no primary sources, no poems themselves, will be compared, such a comparison will hopefully be acceptable to a non-Japanese speaker.

A survey of the functions which have been attributed to poetic metre in the West can conveniently be found in the well-known Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. There Paul Fussell summarizes the most widespread notions of why poetry tends to use metre (cf. 1974), metre which can be defined as a feature of poetical form organizing prosodical elements into recurrent patterns. It is generally seen as answering a basic human impulse towards order, which implies an element of control, and it is frequently held to be responsible for a pleasing effect on the recipient. The reasons given for this pleasant effect generally fall into two categories, which Fussell labels rationalist and romanti- cist respectively. ‘Romantic’ attitudes tend to emphasize a lulling or hypnotic effect, sometimes also one of exhilaration and physical invigoration. ‘Ration- alistic’ (or preferably ‘cognitive’) interpretations stress the element of refined awareness and heightened attention achieved by metrical organization. ‘Ra- tionalists’ also see in metre a primarily mnemonic device, essential in oral traditions. An interesting interpretation maintains that metre “establishes a sort of ‘distance’ between both poet and subject and reader and subject by interposing a film of unaccustomed rhythmical ritual between observer and experience” (ibid.: 499). This echoes William Wordsworth’s well-known phrase that metre has a tendency “to divest language of reality”. Metre as such a filter of reality, in this view, produces the impression of artificiality and – to use Fussell’s words again – a “mysterious air of permanence”. From there it is only one step to regard metrical patterns also as Platonic forms and thus as unconsciously present conceptions of beauty.

More recently, in 1988, a theory of metre appeared, developed – in Amer- ican-German cooperation – by Frederick Turner and Ernst Pöppel, a theory which seems capable of accounting for these divergent interpretations by explaining the function of metrical organization in neurophysiological terms. In their essay “Metered Poetry, the Brain, and Time” (see Turner/Pöppel 1988), they discuss the various functions performed by information processing in the ‘Kalogenetic’ Functions of Prosody: An Excercise in Comparative Poetics 131

human brain and go on to consider poetic metre in this context. Turner and Pöppel see metrical organization as closely related to the hemispheric specialization of the human brain, and they assume that “metrical patterns are elements of an analogical structure, which is comprehended by the right cerebral hemisphere, while poetry as language is presumably processed by the left temporal lobe”; “meter is partially a method of introducing right brain processes into the left brain activity of understanding language” (ibid.: 77). Thus, in metred poetry, they find realized a heightened interaction of the two cerebral hemispheres whereby the left is understood to process the language side of poetry and the right its metre side.

Investigations into hemispheric lateralization have been prolific over the years (they are cautiously summarized by Springer and Deutsch [see 1985]) and many dichotomies of brain functions have been offered: left intellectual vs. right intuitive, deductive vs. creative, discrete vs. continuous, digital vs. analogical, analytical vs. holistic, successive vs. simultaneous, historical vs. timeless, Western vs. Eastern ways of thinking, and so on. Springer and Deutsch talk of a widespread dichotomania, and I share their scepticism as to how well-founded most of these dichotomies in fact are. To me, the most convincing explanation of cerebral lateralization was given by Jerre Levy (see 1988). I quote Turn- er and Pöppel’s succinct summary of her main point: “[...] the left brain maps spatial information into a temporal order, while the right brain maps temporal information into a spatial order” (1988: 75). Hence the right brain organizes the temporal flux of experience into a spatial pattern, and, vice versa, a spatial pattern determines our understanding of temporal experience. In other words, our right hemisphere interprets the reality of our temporal world for us, it constructs a coherent image of reality. This extraordinary function of the brain Frederick Turner calls its “kalogenetic” (literally the ‘beauty-begetting’) function. He defines it as “a strong drive to construct affirmative, plausible, coherent, consistent, concise, and predictively powerful models of the world1” (ibid.).

Returning to our discussion of poetic metre, this description of the func- tioning of the right cerebral hemisphere, in conjunction with the fact that metre seems to be processed by this hemisphere, implies that poetic metre plays a part in performing such a kalogenetic function. Metre, then, is a construc-

1 “word” for “world” in the original text is an obvious printing error. 132 ‘Kalogenetic’ Functions of Prosody: An Excercise in Comparative Poetics

tive spatializing patterning process which is performed by the unconscious and non-linguistic right brain on the sensory input. This very general conception of metre can be used as a framework for explaining some of the functions of metre which I mentioned earlier. It incorporates, for instance, the view that metre is an impulse towards order and has a cognitive basis. It also accounts for the often observed lulling or hypnotic effect of metre, because right brain activity is unconscious. It certainly also explains how metre serves as a filter of experience, as a technique of ritual and artifice which interprets our experience of reality in terms of a coherent vision of reality; in other words, metre introduces a vision of beauty. (I say this in due deference to a theme of this conference2.)

Taking a leap from these rather deep-searching Western theories of metre, I will now turn to Japanese metrics. The overwhelmingly dominant form of metre in the Japanese tradition is deceptively simple and consists, basically, of an alternation of 5- and 7-syllable lines, most frequently in the shape of the waka, or tanka, the ‘short poem’, which consists of 5 lines with a sequence of 5-7-5-7-7 syllables. (Why there should be this persistent alternation of 5- and 7-syllable lines –which can also be found in the haiku, the renga, and all the other lyric forms – is a fascinating question which I am not able to go into here.) Over the centuries different groupings of the lines in the waka, as forms of internal structure, have developed, introducing an element of metrical variation, but essentially the metre is limited to the very few features mentioned. There is, of course, an additional prosodic feature in the intonation, and it would be a worthwhile project to systematically analyse the distribution of the four pitch tones of Japanese over the 31 syllables and see what patterns emerge. But this prosodic practice is part of the rhythmical, i.e. submetrical level of poetry and need not concern us here.

A very illuminating description of the waka as a literary form and of its essential quality as a lyric genre was presented by Toyo Izutsu (see 1981)3. This theory of the waka conceives of it as a “poetic-linguistic ‘field’” which, within the limits of its brief 31 syllables, transcends the “linear, temporal succession of words” and achieves the impression of a synchronic unity in which time seems

2 [ICLA ’91 TOKYO – XIIIth Congress of the International Comparative Literature Association: “The Force of Vision”. Section: “Visions of Beauty”.] 3 For a German translation see Izutsu/Izutsu, eds. (1988). The earliest English version of this theory of the waka can be found in Izutsu/Izutsu (1971). ‘Kalogenetic’ Functions of Prosody: An Excercise in Comparative Poetics 133

“to be standing still or even annihilated”. In the waka we experience “an ‘a-temporal’ aesthetic equilibrium or plenitude” which thus has a static and permanent quality like a field extending in space. Izutsu explains the establishing of this field in linguistic terms and demonstrates very convincingly that the rhetorical conventions which govern the composition of the waka aim at subdu- ing the syntactical aspect of language and activating what he calls a “semantic articulation” (ibid.: 5f.). Pillow words, pivot words and similar practices help to establish a network of associative ideas and images that interact freely across the whole poem and thus achieve that semantic richness and fullness which is experienced as a simultaneous presence of meaning.

It is obvious that what is being described here is a process of spatializing temporal experience, and from what we have heard about artistic processes and the interaction of the cerebral hemispheres we are tempted to interpret Izutsu’s description in terms of an activation of the right brain hemisphere. In fact, in my view this description is an exemplary presentation of the a-temporal, holistic quality of right brain activity which is characteristic of artistic processes and constructs relations in space out of events in time.

Within the framework of our discussion of poetic metre, the question must arise whether the spatializing effect of the waka as described by Izutsu can be related to its metre as well. Izutsu’s observations do not address themselves to this question, although at one point they include the remark that the only thing that distinguishes a waka from any random prose sequence of 31 syllables is its very internal structure of the special sequence of syllable units (ibid.: 3). But the main argument of how the waka field is established, as we have seen, is semantic and not metrical. This is where I would like to suggest an extension or elaboration of this theory by claiming that the very form of the waka, its basic metrical frame – prior to any other features that may in addition contribute to the same goal and profoundly enhance its effect – performs the spatializing function described. The formal scaffold of the poem already undermines the forward thrust of the language and links all parts together, which is possible because of the essential brevity of the form. In other words, the waka can be seen as a particularly fine example of the spatializing function of metrical organization.

Izutsu observes that in late phases of the development of the waka, in the early thirteenth century of the Shinkokin-shu, the use of semantic devices to 134 ‘Kalogenetic’ Functions of Prosody: An Excercise in Comparative Poetics

enhance a ‘field’-making consciousness of the waka increased (cf. ibid.: 6), and I would interpret this historically fluctuating intensity of rhetorical-semantic field-generation as fluctuating awareness of the basic field-disposition of the waka form and fluctuating trust in the field-generating capacity of the metre. The point I am trying to make is that the spatializing field-generation is inherent in the waka form itself and that other linguistic elements may or may not be added to strengthen the effect.

Can the waka metre therefore be seen as performing a ‘kalogenetic’ function in the way described? Does it aim at constructing a coherent, harmonious, aesthetic model of the world? Izutsu asserts that – according to Tsurayuki’s famous description of kokoro in his preface to the Kokin-shu, and according to Teika Fujiwara’s reflections on the waka – the ideal waka is based on kokoro. This fundamental poetical quality of a poem consists in what Izutsu calls a “state of mind”, in a “structural supposition” that serves as the “creative Ground” for the poem and achieves an intuitive “Awareness” of things. Kokoro is non-temporal and unarticulated, it is prior to the transitory world of experience (cf. ibid.: 6–8). Again, all this sounds very much like a vivid description of right brain functions, and it is interesting to realize that poets, the more they tried to refine the linguistic shape of their poems, the more they felt themselves to be moving away from kokoro, i.e. – one could say –, left brain activity is seen as endangering right brain activity. As to the ‘kalogenetic’ aspect of the waka, Izutsu asserts that, when a poem is based on kokoro, it possesses a “peculiar charm of ineffable beauty, an undefinable aesthetic equilibrium” (ibid.: 11). So we are led to believe that the field-disposition of the waka, when realized in the proper spirit, guarantees aesthetic harmony. The ideal mental disposition of kokoro achieves a profound awareness of reality, it serves as a “filter of perception” and constructs a unified, harmonious image of the world.

I do not want to overstrain the point, but there is a clear challenge to interpret Izutsu’s profound assessment of the essential qualities of the waka form in terms of an advanced aesthetic theory developed in the West (and the early date of Izutsu’s first presentation of the waka theory precludes direct Western influence). Such an interpretation can also be seen as a modest contribution to the question whether an Eastern way of thinking has a certain disposition to emphasize right brain activity, as has often been claimed. Our discussion of the very specific and, some would say, fairly marginal problem of the waka and its ‘Kalogenetic’ Functions of Prosody: An Excercise in Comparative Poetics 135

metre seems to suggest an affirmative answer to this question.

One final point. When discussing the ‘kalogenetic’ function of metre and poetry, Turner and Pöppel point to the fact that modernist literary criticism attacks poetry for performing this function on the grounds that, by doing so, it adapts itself too closely to brain mechanisms and leads away from reality (cf. 1988: 85). Poetry is criticized for adjusting reality too rigidly to make it conform to preconceived notions of coherence and unity, for forcing order and harmony on a world that actually is disharmonious and chaotic. Metre, in this view, is a means of falsifying reality and conventionalizes human experience. The unprejudiced, rational door to the world, which is represented by our left cerebral hemisphere, ought not to be slammed by the dirigiste authority of the right brain. This attitude to metre as an artificial means of restrictively modifying our experience of reality has led to its widespread discredit within modernist poetics, and in Japan, too, a similar tendency seems to be prevailing among present-day poets and up-to-date critics (although the enormous success of Machi Tawara’s modern-world tankas in her Salad Anniversary [see 1989] might speak against this assertion). Turner and Pöppel object to this modernist rejection of metre and, in turn, attack free verse practices as mirrors of bureau- cratic societies which are overparticularized and deny integration or a unified view of social life (cf. 1988: 87). Turner and Pöppel see the kalogenetic function of metre as an “excellent survival strategy” (ibid.: 85) which enables us to face reality and to ‘make sense’ of it. This, of course, sounds like the most commonly held view of the origins of art in primitive societies, and it is obvious that very disparate ideological paradigms are responsible for the radically opposite evaluation of metrical functions by the different critical schools.

To return to the question of methodology in comparative poetics, I do think that what we have seen shows that looking at functions of literary practice can lead us to discover homologies between systems in use in different cultural spheres. The waka is a distinct and unique literary form, an outstanding representative of the Japanese genius; but still one can find a similarity in intent, if not in execution, with forms that have developed elsewhere, and it would be a fascinating experience to take the approach which Toyo Izutsu has developed in analysing the waka and apply it to a form as different from it as, for example, the Italian sonnet; perhaps here, too, we would find evidence of a homologous ‘field’-generating practice with a ‘kalogenetic’ purpose. 136 ‘Kalogenetic’ Functions of Prosody: An Excercise in Comparative Poetics

References

Fussell, Paul (1974). “Meter”. Alex Preminger, ed. Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. Prince- ton, NJ: Princeton UP. 496–499. Hijiya-Kirschnereit, Irmela (1990). Was heißt: Japanische Literatur verstehen? Edition Suhrkamp, New Series 608. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Izutsu, Toyo (1981). “The Aesthetic Structure of waka”. Toshihiko Izutsu, Toyo Izutsu, eds. The The- ory of Beauty in the Classical Aesthetics of Japan. The Hague/Boston, MA/London: Kluwer. 3–25. Izutsu,Toshihiko, Toyo Izutsu (1971). “Poetry and Philosophy in Japan”. Raymond Klibansky, ed. Contemporary Philosophy: A Survey. Florence: La nuova Italia. 523–548. —, eds. (1988). Die Theorie des Schönen in Japan. Cologne: Du Mont. La Drière, Craig J. (1959). “The Comparative Method in the Study of Prosody”. Werner P. Friederich, ed. Proceedings of the Second Congress of the ICLA. Vol. 1. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. 1/160–175. Levy, Jerre (1988). “Cerebral Asymmetry and Aesthetic Experience”. Ingo Rentschler, Barbara Herz- berger, David Epstein, eds. Beauty and the Brain: Biological Aspects of Aesthetics. Basle: Birkhäu- ser. 219–242. Miner, Earl (1987). “Some Theoretical and Methodological Topics for Comparative Literature”. Po- etics Today 8: 123–140. Springer, Sally P., George Deutsch (1985). Left Brain, Right Brain. Rev. ed. New York, NY: Freeman. Tawara, Machi (1989). Salad Anniversary [Sarada kinenbi]. Trans. Juliet Winters Carpenter. Tokyo/ New York, NY: Kodansha International. Turner, Frederick, Ernst Pöppel (1988). “Metered Poetry, the Brain, and Time”. Ingo Rentschler, Bar- bara Herzberger, David Epstein, eds. Beauty and the Brain: Biological Aspects of Aesthetics. Basle: Birkhäuser. 71–90. How Final Can a Theory of Verse Be? Toward a Pragmatics of Metrics [1996]

In this paper I present an in-depth discussion and critique of Eske Bockelmann’s Propädeutik einer endlich gültigen Theorie von deutschen Versen, which proposes a radical revision of metrical theory from an anti-essentialist perspective that has been avoided by most metrists to date. Bockelmann’s approach acknowledges the subject-dependency of metrical perception, and his primary objective is to show that the pattern of alternation is not a property of specific metrical texts, but rather of the minds of ‘reading’ subjects who identify a metrical mode, a ‘predisposition’ outside and beyond language of which they are largely unaware. I demonstrate that Bockelmann’s approach is as dogmatic as most other theories of metrics which impose a single principle on all types of verse, and I claim, among other things, that he finally neglects the rhythmic (i.e., temporal) consequences of his own theory. In response to Bockelmann’s claim that the language-dependent principle of alternation can be traced to a philosophical shift in the late Renaissance, I also raise a number of more specific issues, such as when that principle was formulated. I believe that Bockelmann’s greatest limitation is his failure to discern any temporally oriented metrical systems operating in Western verse prior to the advent of rationalist binary alternation, hence his perception of this principle as the only one operating ever since then. Moreover, Bockelmann’s claim as to when this principle was introduced in German verse (i.e.. Opitz in 1624) overlooks earlier manifestations in English verse from the 1550s, as theorized by Gascoigne in 1575. Bockelmann’s study nonetheless attests to, and is part of, an important opening up of the field, enabling metrics to be aligned with recent developments in literary criticism and reintroducing it as a non-Formalist branch of general aesthetic discourse that seeks answers to fundamental questions about man’s creative understanding of the world.

When a book appears which sports a title claiming that it presents a foundation for a ‘finally valid’ theory of German versification, it is bound to raise the interest of a notoriously troubled practitioner in the scholarly field of metrics and, at the same time, to arouse his suspicions. Both reactions are justified in the face of Eske Bockelmann’s (1991) Propädeutik einer endlich gültigen Theorie von den deutschen Versen. The book is of value in that it attempts a radical reconsideration of several much-revered tenets of metrical theory by means of an epistemological approach that, while hardly new, has so far been avoided by most metrists. The 138 How Final Can a Theory of Verse Be? Toward a Pragmatics of Metrics

recognition of the subject-dependency of metrical perception, on which Bockel- mann bases his argument, undermines the deeply ingrained conviction of most metrists that a particular meter is inherent to the language of a metrical line. The anti-essentialist position, which regards meter as bestowed on the text and its language by the author, reader, or reciter rather than as what is already there, is of considerable consequence indeed for an understanding of metrical history and of metrical practice. It opens the door widely and brings fresh air into metrics since it implies space for variety, a freedom of choice, and – because it accepts the basic historicity of verse – a lack of finality. It is on this last point that suspicions about Bockelmann’s assertions first arise, for if one chooses, as Bockelmann does, to propose an anti-essentialist position, then such finality as is expressed in his title is necessarily precluded, insofar as finality presupposes axiomatic foundations of argument. Apart from this basic theoretical and methodological dilemma in the conception of the book, it has additional, more practical shortcomings and mis- conceptions which are related to its basic dilemma. Among the most striking of these is that although the basic subject-dependency of metrical perception – with its logically implied openness to variety in the historical process – is assumed, the metrical inventory is drastically reduced to a single feature, namely, alternation, whose presence or absence is thought to have determined all of German metrical history. Ironically, this attempt ends precisely at the point from which it aimed to depart, that is, at a dogmatic theory based on a single, quasi-a priori principle. While this is done in a more sophisticated way than is usual among dogmatic metrists, the radical elimination of all forms of metrical structuring other than alternation from the discussion clearly undermines Bockelmann’s essentially attractive and valid epistemological position.

What I propose to do here is, first, to discuss and critically evaluate Bock- elmann’s main tenets in the light of these reservations and, second, to examine the literary period which is of central concern to Bockelmann, namely, the late Renaissance, and indicate the variety of metrical styles used at that time. Bas- ing my argument on contemporary writings, I will affirm the historical presence of verse forms based on different conceptions of temporality and will argue that freedom of choice prevailed among the different systems available at the time. This is meant to correct Bockelmann’s restricted outlook on the metrical scene of the period and to focus on his views from a historical perspective. As Bockelmann’s language is highly involved and difficult even for native Ger- man speakers, I will begin by trying to summarize his main points succinctly. How Final Can a Theory of Verse Be? Toward a Pragmatics of Metrics 139

1. German metrical history began with what Bockelmann calls the ‘historical turn’1 (cf. 1991: 8) of 1624, when Martin Opitz published his Buch von der Deutschen Poeterey. Although alternation had developed during the Re- naissance, it was only in 1624 that it was ‘ratified’ as a principle and became the one and only constitutive principle of German verse (cf. ibid.: 54; 71; 4). Bockelmann stresses the ‘totality’ and ‘ubiquity’ of this principle once it had become established (cf. ibid.: 59f.). He considers its application to verse earlier than 1624 to be incorrect, since that early verse was solely defined by rhyme and – though not always – syllable count (cf. ibid.: 4; 21; 60). This principle has applied exclusively and unmitigatedly since 1624, however, even in free verse, by negation (cf. ibid.: 83–85).

2. Bockelmann suggests only one reason for the advent of the new principle of alternation in the early seventeenth century (and only in passing at that): its origin in the rising rationalist philosophy of the age – Descartes is mentioned – and in the new understanding of the ‘modern subject’ (cf. ibid.: 54). This subject acquired a new ‘competence’ for alternation, one that Bockelmann places on a par with competence for language (cf. ibid.: 47). The nature of this alternation is strictly binary, that is, characterized by the opposition of accent and non-accent or, more generally, of quality and non-quality, and by the total pre- clusion of a gradation of values. It is a principle which operates not only in verse, but also in music and, maybe even more effectively, in philosophical fields (cf. ibid.: 54). So it is a principle ‘beyond language’ (cf. ibid.: 49), external to both language and verse, a principle situated in the perceiving subject as a ‘predisposition’, a ‘quasi-a-priority’, that permeates all metrical experience (cf. ibid.: 47f.). The principle is supposed to work in all European alternating verse, not only in German (cf. ibid.: 95). This alternation is to be strictly distinguished from the ‘heresy’ of Heuslerian bar metrics, as the former does not follow isochrony (cf. ibid.: 49). However, the ‘regular fall of accents’ in alternation is ‘necessarily a temporal phenomenon’ and also implies ‘temporal regularity’ (cf. ibid.: 51).

3. Conceptualizing alternation in these terms implies a change in the generally accepted principle of verse constitution, according to which verse is constitut- ed by the interaction of language and meter, that is, of the ‘relevant linguistic material’ and a ‘scheme’ (Schema) (cf. ibid.: 11). In Bockelmann’s eyes, this

1 This and all further translations are mine. 140 How Final Can a Theory of Verse Be? Toward a Pragmatics of Metrics

two-level model applies to ancient verse only where the relevant linguistic material (i.e., syllable length) is a graded dimension (long vs. short) which is subjected to a repetitive ordering by the metrical ‘scheme’. With the introduction of alternation, however, this two-level model had to be extended to a three-level model that included alternation as a level called ‘pattern’ (Muster) (cf. ibid.: 41). This pattern – binary, not graded – affects both of the other two levels and closes the gap between them: ‘Without it there would be no verse’ (cf. ibid.). It is ‘central’ to Bockelmann’s theory that alternation thus affects not only the scheme, but also the language (cf. ibid.: 37).

4. Alternation can affect language because of what Bockelmann calls the ‘deficiency of accent’ (cf. ibid.). Accent in German – unlike length in Ancient Latin and Greek – is only partially determined; there is a ‘continuum’ of determinacy from highly determined word accent, through accent regulations in ‘dynamic systems’ (i.e., phrases), to indeterminacy of accent along sequences of monosyllables (cf. ibid.: 45; 37). It is only by virtue of alternation that this prosodic deficiency of accent can be compensated for and accent can acquire ‘prosodic dignity’ through being fully determined (cf. ibid.: 37). This is why Bockelmann feels bound to assert that alternation is a prerequisite for accents becoming a constitutive feature of verse. There can be no accentual verse principle apart from alternation (cf. ibid.: 31). Another position taken by Bockelmann concerning accent is his rejection of Paul Kiparsky’s (see 1975; 1977) and others’ assessment of levels of accent as irrelevant for metrics because it is the binary quality of metrical accent (accent vs. non-accent) which determines verse.

To take these points in reverse order, the first thing I want to say, in defense of Kiparsky, is that his primary goal has been to describe structures of accent patterns in language – structures which certainly demonstrate different grades of accent – and to find correspondence rules for their acceptability as instances of the verse pattern. This endeavor is not made futile by the fact that the verse pattern is binary (which merely makes it easier to find correspondences), and the linguistic constraints on the metrical use of language have become far more intelligible through Kiparsky’s research. It is true, however, that his attempt to define meter exclusively in linguistic terms, that is, to eliminate the notion of ‘verse’ from his theory and to replace it with linguistic categories, has failed (cf. Küper 1988: 221). Bockelmann’s reason for the inevitability of this failure – the prosodic ‘deficiency’ of German accent, as opposed to the prosodic defi- How Final Can a Theory of Verse Be? Toward a Pragmatics of Metrics 141

niteness of Ancient Greek and Latin accent and length – basically holds. Ger- manic word accent is morphological – in contrast to, say, the positional word accent of Latin – and the sentence accent is primarily a sense accent, shifting with varying intentions of emphasis and distribution of meaning. It follows alternation secondarily, in prose also, as Bockelmann (cf. 1991: 90) observes, and as is generally accepted, particularly by English phoneticians.

So one can agree with Bockelmann that alternation works as a kind of ‘external skeleton’ (cf. ibid.: 82) and contributes to shaping accent sequences that would otherwise be poorly defined. He goes one step further, however, and asserts that alternation is also a prerequisite for accent’s becoming a metrical feature: no alternation, no accentual verse. This is a slap in the face of traditional metrics, which holds that Germanic verse is basically accentual, or tonic (i.e., based on counting heavy stresses), as opposed to syllabic verse, which is based on syllable counts. Bockelmann believes instead that accent determines verse only in its syllabotonic form, that is, when both syllables and stresses are counted. Yet, there is little reason why this should be the case. If accent needs the crutch of external support – as it does – to function as a metrical feature, why then should a fixed number of accents per line not serve as such an external factor? It is true that in alternation there is no choice of where the accent falls, while in tonic verse there is, at least in principle. But since Germanic sentence accent is a sense accent, the number of accents expected by the tonic meter will naturally fall on the words carrying the most meaning, so there is little room for accentual ambiguity. Bockelmann’s alternative metrical principle for Ger- manic verse is, in fact, nonexistent because he believes this verse to be shaped primarily by rhyme and – to a much more limited degree – by syllable count.

Alternation as the only possible constitutive feature of accentual verse must therefore be rejected. Indeed, one can question whether it is constitutive of accentual meter at all because, as already mentioned, alternation works in prose as well. This brings me to the question of verse constitution, which is discussed at length by Bockelmann.

It is his contention that since the introduction of alternation, verse has been verse only because of alternation (cf. ibid.: 41). Its ‘pattern’ works as a third level above, and prior to, the other two levels of ‘language’ and ‘scheme’, to which ancient metrics was restricted. It is worth noting that at no point in 142 How Final Can a Theory of Verse Be? Toward a Pragmatics of Metrics

his discussion of alternating verse does Bockelmann mention the second level of the ‘scheme’ as needing to be distinguished from the third-level ‘pattern’ of alternation. Obviously, it has dissolved, and it seems natural that it has simply been replaced by the ‘pattern’, as one would expect some such singular metrical frame to be operative vis-à-vis language. To be sure, alternation, as a metrical frame, does operate differently from Latin meters, and it is one of Bock- elmann’s achievements to have clearly explicated the difference between these principles, although there is nothing new about this. (Ancient verse has a fixed prosody and a variable metrical frame, while German verse has a relatively undetermined prosody and a fixed metrical frame; cf. ibid.: 23.) So alternation is a different, not an additional, metrical principle operative in verse, and a three-level model seems superfluous.

One wonders why Bockelmann thought it necessary to introduce alternation as a further level. I attribute it to his fundamental conception of meter. Apparently, for him alternation is not in the same category as, say, the Greek meters; in fact, it does not seem to be a meter at all. This attitude can be deduced from two aspects of alternation which Bockelmann stresses: one is his assertion that alternation is an unlimited, ongoing process, showing no inherent interruption over time; this quality he takes to be the reason why it can easily be split up into variable sections – independent of the traditional four, five, or six alternations per line – and thus how it opened the way for the free rhythms of German verse (cf. ibid.: 83). Thus, in this light, alternation would seem to be a parametrical principle rather than a meter in and of itself. The second aspect of alternation that is relevant here – and closely linked with the first – is Bockelmann’s conviction that it rests with the perceiving subject rather than with the utterance. As we have already seen, alternation is an external factor that shapes the utterance and determines the placement of accents. Now, if one follows Bockelmann’s argument, its consequent implication is that only the alternation principle can function as such an external, ‘subjective’ factor and that the ‘meter’ – which Bockelmann calls the ‘scheme’ – must therefore be ‘inherent’ to the utterance; it is this conclusion that would seem to justify his construction of three separate operative levels. But no such alternation/ meter distinction exists for the simple reason that any meter is a ‘subjective’, external factor introduced to shape an utterance into verse in a desired way.

This seems to be the crux of the matter: an inevitably anti-essentialist po- How Final Can a Theory of Verse Be? Toward a Pragmatics of Metrics 143

sition needs to be taken in order to account for the variety of metrical systems that have developed historically and to define the process of verse constitution. By 1921, Edward Sapir had made it clear that verse and prose could have the same phonetic structure and that the verse effect was latent in all prose (cf. 1921: 225). What distinguished verse from prose was the capacity of the subject to perceive it rhythmically, or, in other words, to perceive it as structuring time: “Verse, to put the whole matter in a nutshell, is rhythmically self-conscious speech or discourse” (ibid.: 224 [Sapir’s emphasis]); “the same passage is both prose and verse according to the rhythmic receptivity of the reader or hearer or according to his waning or increasing attention” (ibid.: 226). It takes a certain “psychological set”, according to Sapir, to perceive verse as verse (i.e., as rhythmically structured), and if this mind-set is absent, there is no verse. This is, no- lens volens, the basic condition of verse constitution.

The extremeness of Bockelmann’s anti-essentialist position is mitigated by the historical fact that metrical systems have developed. These various metrical systems have invariably conventionalized rhythmic processes of structuring utterances for temporal perception, that is, they are what could be called ‘modes of temporalization’ for conventionalizing verse-making, and it is obvious that they have made use of diverse features, linguistic and extralinguistic, to ensure quick rhythmic perception of an utterance; otherwise, it would be difficult to establish a convention. As a result of this desire for quick perception, only a few such conventions have been successful on a large scale and have acquired a quasi-canonical degree of acceptance. But this fact should not blind us to the basic freedom of choice that prevails with respect to the rhythmic means of structuring verse. Inventiveness and a capacity for experiment in the service of artistic purpose have historically demonstrated this fundamental poetic freedom.

To return to Bockelmann’s argument, his assertion that ‘without alternation there would be no verse’ is clearly untenable. Nevertheless, he is correct about alternation’s being a disposition in the perceiving subject that can be conducive to constituting verse. This insight is undermined, however, by Bockelmann’s inability to grant that there might be other operative dispositions in subjects as well and that these could lead to quite different forms of rhythmic structuring than alternation. He shares this limitation with other dogmatic metrists, who tend to recognize no principle other than their own, but at least his recognition of the subject-dependency of metrical perception 144 How Final Can a Theory of Verse Be? Toward a Pragmatics of Metrics

leads him halfway in the right direction. There is another limitation in Bock- elmann’s definition of verse, however – his inability to distinguish between the operations of alternation in verse and in prose. On the one hand, he asserts that alternation is constitutive of verse, yet on the other he regards it as operative in prose as well. This contradiction was nullified by Sapir’s insight that verse is “rhythmically self-conscious”: alternation becomes verse-constitutive in the context of a mind-set for rhythmic perception; in prose it operates only as an un- perceived structural element.

Once the subject-dependency of metrical systems is recognized, there is no rationale for Bockelmann’s condemnation of Heuslerian bar metrics as ‘heresy’ (cf. 1991: 49). Bar metrics simply represents a different ‘mode of temporalization’, one which makes obvious use of human isochronic-motoric dispositions as an extralinguistic feature that determines accent placement and rhythmic perception. (The well-documented introduction of the modern bar system into Western music during the late Renaissance was the result of, among other factors, the influence of dance music and the advent of purely instrumental music, both of which are characterized by their physical-motoric dimension.) When Bockelmann condescendingly relegates bar metrics to nursery rhymes alone (cf. ibid.: 52), he reveals his acceptance of the isochronic- motoric origin of this metrical mode. But why be dogmatic about it and rule out, in principle, its operation in other forms of verse as well? It is certainly a metrical option, evidence of which can be readily found in verse. Heusler’s insistence on bar metrics as the single dominating principle of German verse is as unjustified as Bockelmann’s (almost) complete rejection of it. It takes careful consideration, based on close textual analysis and, above all, historical evidence, to determine whether a poem uses this or that metrical mode or em- ploys this or that metrical convention, nor should one forget that conventions are always historical and there are no universal principles. So I would also like to defend Christoph Küper against Bockelmann’s ridicule of Küper’s (cf. 1988: 278) attempt to read the Nibelungenstrophe in terms of four bar periods:

muget ir nu wunder hœren sagen.

There is no historical evidence to refute such a reading, and there is much to recommend it, particularly considering the oral form of delivery assumed for How Final Can a Theory of Verse Be? Toward a Pragmatics of Metrics 145

the poem. It is true, however, that the first accent, given to “ir” by Küper, seems misplaced because “muget” carries a stronger sense accent. Since the poem does not employ alternation, there is no need to stress “ir”. Of course, the line could be read as trochaic pentameter, with accents on “muget” and “ir”, but the poem’s historical context makes such a choice of metrical mode unlikely, given that it is undocumented for the relevant period.

Similarly, I would like to defend Klopstock against Bockelmann’s criticism. Klopstock gives the following notation:

. . – . / . . – . / . . – . . – . / . . – for “Wenn der Schimmer von dem Monde nun herab / In die Wälder sich er- gießt”. Bockelmann (cf. 1991: 58) says that this notation (indicating three unaccented syllables between accents and two-syllable ‘upbeats’) ‘cannot prevent’ the lines from ‘being heard’ as

– . – . – . – . – . – – . – . – . –

(i.e., as alternating trochees). He believes this to be so because of the ‘quasi-a priori disposition’ to alternation in the subject (i.e., after 1624). Again, I would call his view dogmatic because, to anyone with an ear for the differences of rhythmic sequence, the two readings will be worlds apart. In musical terms it is the difference between C and alla breve, which indicates that the pulse is different even though the mathematical division is the same. And as there is obviously a choice of pulse frequency in music, why should there not be one in verse as well, even more so when the poet himself expressly demands a particular pulse option? Klopstock’s reading is, again, simply a different ‘mode of temporalization’, different from – though related to – the alternation mode and based on German sense accent, with the pulse falling on the content words, and the function words left unaccented. 146 How Final Can a Theory of Verse Be? Toward a Pragmatics of Metrics

At this point, I need to touch on a complex problem which is usually by- passed in metrical discussions. Several times I have used the term ‘reading’ for the process of identifying a metrical mode, and I have always used it in the literal, acoustic-motoric sense and not in the metaphoric sense of ‘understanding’. For only in enacting a form of temporalization (mentally or physically) is it possible to identify a certain mode of temporalization, namely, a meter. The problem lies in the fact that modern metrics diligently separates levels of verse and distinguishes – to use Jakobson’s terms – among ‘verse design’, ‘verse instance’, and ‘delivery instance’. The ‘design’ is the meter, the ‘instance’ the individual line (more or less perfectly realizing the meter), and the ‘delivery’ an actual ‘reading’ in the physical sense. There is a consensus among modern metrists that metrics is concerned with only the first two levels and that ‘delivery’, as a subjective activity thought to have little to do with meter, is left out of consideration. The ‘design’ is regarded as an abstract scheme and the ‘instance’ as determined by the linguistic structure and corresponding to the meter according to rules (the formulation of which is the basic activity of metrists nowadays). From the viewpoint of this conceptual framework, it must seem eccentric to try to identify and define meters by way of the ‘delivery’, that is, by way of an actual temporalization of the utterance. However, it is impossible to define Klop- stock’s meter, as an example, without performing such a temporalization – and an unwillingness to do so prevents the recognition of the true meter – yet this activity is unjustified by the standards of modern metrics.

It appears that meters can belong to different categories, that is, to one of two categories, the first being the category of abstract meters, the second that of temporal meters. One could say that modern metrics applies to the abstract, syllabotonic meters (practically all studies are based on the iambic pentameter tradition), while a different kind of metrics would apply to temporal meters. So we would be drawn back to the old opposition of ‘stressers’ versus ‘timers’, the two camps of metrists who have never been reconciled.

But how ‘abstract’ is the iambic pentameter? Bockelmann’s discussion of his favorite principle, alternation, is a telling indicator of the difficulty of answering this question. He convincingly asserts, as I mentioned before, that alternation can be seen as a matter of a shift between quality and non-quality, between accent and non-accent, and there can be no doubt that this binary disposition of alternation is of a highly abstract character. This is underlined by How Final Can a Theory of Verse Be? Toward a Pragmatics of Metrics 147

the fact that alternation operates as a principle in a variety of fields. It seems to be a general cognitive disposition beyond the world of contingency. It is on the basis of this quality of alternation that Bockelmann distinguishes it so sharply from bar metrics, with its implied isochrony. The relevant passage amply demonstrates the telling dilemma in Bockelmann’s argument:

It is plain that bar metrics is based on linking the regularly falling accents of the alternation pattern with fixed intervals of time. This linking is arbitrary and invalid, although the regular fall of accents according to the pattern, which is necessarily a temporal phenomenon, also suggests temporal regularity, that is, precisely isochrony. (1991: 51)

So, apparently, the abstract cognitive principle of binarity necessarily takes up a quasi-isochronic temporal form when applied to verse. Bockelmann says as much a few pages later: “Alternation is the form which binarity has to take when it extends in time” (ibid.: 55). I am able to see and share Bockelmann’s dilemma, namely, alternating meters are abstract notions that, at the same time, cannot be separated from the temporal dimension. One solution to the dilemma may be to accept different levels of abstraction, an approach that is, however, controversial in recent metrics (cf. Küper 1988: 106–110; Bernhart 1989: 180). Yet different degrees of temporalization could be assumed, ranging from a physical delivery of an utterance through a mental enacting of such a tempo- ralized delivery (probably the only appropriate mode of silently reading verse) to a form of mere consecutiveness, which would imply time, but only in a fairly abstract way, as a kind of mental frame. One could then say that the modern alternating mode of temporalization in verse is based on temporality in the more abstract sense of mere consecutiveness and that the ballad meter, say, operates in a more hypostatized temporal mode. This would imply that certain metrical conventions presuppose certain levels of temporalization and that in writing and reading verse there is a basic choice of level of temporalization.

Is there historical evidence for such a choice and, by implication, for different levels of temporalization? This question brings us back to Bockelmann’s argument and his major premise, namely, that German verse experienced a ‘historical turn’ in 1624 when Opitz introduced the alternation principle, which Bockelmann interprets in terms of a very abstract form of temporalization. He asserts that this principle was completely new, although its ground was laid during the Renaissance, and he traces its origin to the changing philosophy of the age 148 How Final Can a Theory of Verse Be? Toward a Pragmatics of Metrics

and the consequently changed status of the ‘modern subject’. All of this is not so much argued by Bockelmann as merely stated, and it remains vague, having been mentioned only in passing. Still, there is some truth to the assertion, as the extensive discussion of this topic, particularly in musicological research, shows (for a survey, cf. Bernhart 1993: 246–267; 307–338). Descartes published his Com- pendium musicae in 1618, and there – within the framework of his attempt to establish a new cognitive psychology (see Seidel 1970) – gave the first definition in music criticism of regular alternation, vying between an abstract, mathematical conception of it (cf. ibid.: 296) and its interpretation in terms of the intensity of breath and touch on an instrument (cf. ibid.: 303). Such a clear distinction between alternation and barring, based on levels of abstraction and temporalization, as Bockelmann demands, thus cannot be found even in Descartes. But an abstract notion of alternation was apparently circulating at the time, and the contemporaneity of the publication dates – 1618 for Descartes’s musical treatise and 1624 for Opitz’s seminal poetics – may be significant. Still, the factors contributing to the formation of this new experience of time, with its consequently new conception of structuring verse and music, were certainly complex, and its genesis cannot be fixed by any specific date in history.

There is evidence in the history of English versification which undermines Bockelmann’s rigid assertion of 1624 as the relevant historical turning point. The well-known English work that corresponds to Opitz’s German formulation of the principle of alternation is George Gascoigne’s treatise, Certayne Notes of Instruction Concerning the Making of Verse or Ryme in English, which appeared in 1575 and thus antedated Opitz’s Buch von der deutschen Poeterey by half a century. It shows the notorious confusion of the time between length and accent, but it is obvious that what Gascoigne had in mind was accent. The relevant passage from the treatise is the following: “That all the wordes in your verse be so placed as the first syllable may sound short or be depressed, the second long or eleuate, the third shorte, the fourth long, the fifth shorte, etc.” (Gascoigne 1575/1971: 51).

What is of considerable interest for the discussion here is the fact that Gas- coigne compared this principle of alternation, which he said was used “commonly now a dayes”, with a form that was used “in times past” (ibid.: 50). He illustrated the two different forms graphically in a very illuminating way, the older form as follows: How Final Can a Theory of Verse Be? Toward a Pragmatics of Metrics 149

No wight in this world, that wealth can attayne, ` ´ ` ` ´ ` ´ ` ` ´ Vnlesse he beleue, that all is but vayne.

Then the new form in this way:

I vnderstand your meanying by your eye.

And, he added, the following version would not do as a proper line:

` ´ ` ´ ` ´ ` ´ ` ´ Your meaning I vnderstand by your eye. (Ibid.: 50f.)

What is interesting about these illustrations is that their underlying rhythmic conception (i.e., their mode of temporalization) can be inferred. In the first example, the illustration clearly demonstrates an isochronic conception in that two unstressed syllables, such as “in this” or “is but”, are of the same duration as one unstressed syllable, such as “that” or “can”, or as any of the stressed syllables. What we have here is an obvious case of four-beat lines consistent with a bar-metrical system. The other graphic displays all syllables as of equal length, despite Gascoigne’s references to “long” and “shorte” syllables (by which he actually meant “eleuate” and “depressed”, or “graue” and “light” accents). Appar- ently, the graphic depiction – and the concept behind it – is not primarily time-conscious, but rather seems intended to illustrate the consecutiveness of positions in a more abstract temporal sequence, as discussed above. However, the fact that the positions are marked so as to show extensions in time, that is, as lines rather than the points typical of more recent illustrations of iambic pentameter:

(see Brauer 1964; Bernhart 1973), should warn us against interpreting his graphic in overly abstract terms. This is corroborated by Gascoigne’s referen- 150 How Final Can a Theory of Verse Be? Toward a Pragmatics of Metrics

ces to grave and light accents, indicating that he was thinking of graded values – as is also demonstrated by his accent marks – rather than of a binarity in Bockelmann’s sense (accent vs. non-accent). One should bear in mind that Gascoigne described the iambic pentameter as already “commonly” in use at the time and recall the well-known historical fact that the verse of Tottel’s Mis- cellany, which first appeared in 1557, was already demonstrating strict alternation. By the 1550s, then, alternation had established itself in English verse, as witness Tottel’s notorious ‘improvements’ of Sir Thomas Wyatt’s poems (most of which had been written in the 1530s under an obviously different metrical conception), smoothed out according to the alternation principle (see, e.g., the two versions of “They flee from me” in Wyatt [1969: 27] and in Rollins [1928/1965: 39]. The introduction of alternation into English verse during the 1550s is usually ascribed to the influence of the Italian endecasillabo, but while this could account for syllabicity, it does not explain alternation, which is not basic to Italian verse (cf. Elwert 1968: 48). So where alternation in verse came from is still much of a mystery, and Bockelmann’s hypothesis is not very convincing since presuming any effect of the new rationalist philosophy as early as the 1550s would be anachronistic. A more likely influence would have been the musical forms that were ushered in with humanist poetics, but research on this is only a desideratum.

That mid-sixteenth-century alternation was still a highly inflexible verse form is indicated by Gascoigne’s “lament that wee are fallen into suche a playne and simple manner of wryting” (1575/1971: 50). This “lament” seems to indicate that alternation was not yet seen as only a framework within which there was a degree of freedom to choose actual verse instances. This inference also applies to the assumption that alternation was not yet such a highly abstract mode of temporalization as it was in later phases of metrical history, but was still physically enacted in verse-delivery instances. As much is also suggested by Gascoigne’s graphic illustration of the iambic pentameter, which seems to represent a middle position between motorically based isochrony as a fully temporal embodiment, on the one hand, and temporal reduction to mere consecutiveness, on the other.

Such a model of stages of decreasing grades of temporalization in verse-making implies a historical development through those stages in the later sixteenth century and raises the question of why this kind of development How Final Can a Theory of Verse Be? Toward a Pragmatics of Metrics 151

should have occurred. An explanation may lie in the concurrent development of the status and function of poetry, which – in the framework of contemporary humanist thought – was intrinsically linked to that of rhetoric. English rhetoric was then characterized by a gradual shift from the Ciceronian to the Ramist mode, which implies a shift of emphasis from elocutio and pronuntiatio to ‘thought’ and ‘contemplation’. The position of the audience also changed from that of mere listeners to a role as participants in an act of contemplation, or an “overhearing audience” (Sloan 1974: 230). Ramist rhetoric became a “rhetoric of meditation” (ibid.: 233), and the poem evolved from an oral or spoken utterance to a printed object that could be silently read, reread, and reflected on. This turning point in the history of poetry entailed a gradual internalization of the poetic process and eventually resulted in the poem’s becoming an exclusively mental activity rather than a mixed physical, social, and mental one.

The link between this changed status of poetry and the function of rhythm and meter in verse is obvious, for the progressive internalization of poetic activity implies a progressively more abstract, internalized mode of temporalization. ‘Real time’ was gradually replaced by ‘mental time’, or, as I have described it: “durative” time was replaced by “accentual” time (cf. Bernhart 1993: 268– 270); or, in the terms used by Thrasybulos Georgiades, ‘filled time’ (erfüllte Zeit) made room for ‘empty time’ (leere Zeit) (cf. 1958: 18).

This last observation takes our discussion back to Bockelmann’s argument, for his concept of Cartesian, binary alternation corresponds to Georgi- ades’s concept of ‘empty time’, which the latter considered to be characteristic of all Western (abendländisch) rhythm, in contrast to Ancient Greek rhythm, which ‘filled’ time. Georgiades’s recognition of such oppositional conceptions of time was a truly revolutionary insight. His limitation lay in his sweeping historical generalization about the application of these concepts to Ancient Greek versus modern Western verse. Bockelmann comes closer to the historical truth when he recognizes ‘empty time’ as having become a general aesthetic experience only in the early seventeenth century, but he shares Georgiades’s limitation when he sees it as operating exclusively in verse ever since. And they both fail to recognize that a physically based, motoric kind of rhythm of a naturally accentual character has been operative at all times in folk traditions and, during certain phases of artistic endeavor, has surfaced or been activated in the meters of more sophisticated verse. 152 How Final Can a Theory of Verse Be? Toward a Pragmatics of Metrics

So Bockelmann’s greatest limitation ultimately is that he sees no temporally oriented metrical systems operating in Western verse prior to the advent of rationalist binary alternation – and nothing but alternation operating since then. We have observed, on the contrary, clear evidence of both bar-metrical conceptions at work before binary alternation appeared and more physical forms of temporalization in use afterward. In addition, the latent interest in reviving quantitative verse manifested throughout European metrical history can be seen as a desire to use more concrete modes of temporalization and to give poetry more of a bodily presence than its relatively internalized forms could accommodate (see Bernhart 1993).

What conclusions can be drawn from this discussion of Bockelmann’s book? Among his main tenets, the ‘historical turn’ of the early seventeenth century is valid – if all of the qualifications discussed above are taken into consideration, particularly the fact that other metrical systems were operating as well, both before and after the advent of binary alternation. Equally valid is Bockelmann’s recognition of the ‘deficiency’ of Germanic accent as the fundamental factor of verse, for external factors are needed to establish meter; in other words, meter is not reducible to linguistic categories. Bockelmann’s limitation again lies in his recognizing only binary alternation as such an external factor when a variety of other factors can also serve this purpose. Any meter is necessarily established by a convention that aims to guarantee quick rhythmic perception, that is, easy identification of the given mode of temporalizing an utterance. So Bockelmann’s principle of verse constitution is only partially acceptable, insofar as he rightly recognizes its fundamental subject-dependency but undercuts this insight by drastically limiting the subject’s choices to a single option.

The failure of Bockelmann’s attempt ultimately rests with his declared aim – as expressed in the title of his book – which was to formulate one ‘finally valid’ theory of German verse. While we may sympathize with the intellectual urge to find some unifying principle in the flux of phenomena, such an under- taking always risks culminating in a falsification of data and a prescriptive dog- matism. What is required is the ‘negative capability’ of accepting non-finality in the face of a wealth of historical data and of recognizing variety as a consequence of human creativity. How Final Can a Theory of Verse Be? Toward a Pragmatics of Metrics 153

Bockelmann’s book, however, also indicates that metrics, as a discipline, is moving in a direction which is noticeably freeing itself from structuralist limitations and aligning with more recent developments in literary criticism, even reintroducing itself as a branch of general aesthetic discourse. Metrics increasingly appears to be a field that is concerned with principles of poetic activity by which an intimate interaction of text and subject can be realized as an artistic process. Shedding its Formalist straitjacket, metrics is emerging as a discipline which can even try to answer fundamental questions about man’s creative understanding of this world. There is hope for the future of metrics. 154 How Final Can a Theory of Verse Be? Toward a Pragmatics of Metrics

References

Bernhart, Walter (1973). Ein metrisch-rhythmischer Vergleich der beiden Fassungen von Wordsworths Prelude: Unter Verwendung eines phonologisch begründeten graphischen Analyseverfahrens. Vien- na: Verband der wissenschaftlichen Gesellschaften Österreichs. — (1989). Christoph Küper. Sprache und Metrum: Semiotik und Linguistik des Verses (review). Arbei- ten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik 14: 179–182. — (1993). ‘True Versifying’: Studien zur elisabethanischen Verspraxis und Kunstideologie. Unter Einbe- ziehung der zeitgenössischen Lautenlieder. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Bockelmann, Eske (1991). Propädeutik einer endlich gültigen Theorie von den deutschen Versen. Tübin- gen: Niemeyer. Brauer, Robert (1964). Tonbewegung und Erscheinungsformen des sprachlichen Rhythmus: Profile des deutschen Blankverses. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Elwert, W. Theodor (1968). Italienische Metrik. Munich: Hueber. Gascoigne, George (1575/1971). “Certayne Notes of Instruction Concerning the Making of Verse or Ryme in English”. G. Gregory Smith, ed. Elizabethan Critical Essays. Vol. 1. Oxford: OUP. 46–57. Georgiades, Thrasybulos (1958). Musik und Rhythmus bei den Griechen: Zum Ursprung der abendlän- dischen Musik. Hamburg: Rowohlt. Kiparsky, Paul (1975). „Stress, Syntax and Meter“. Language 51: 576–616. — (1977). “The Rhythmic Structure of English Verse”. Linguistic Inquiry 8: 189–247. Küper, Christoph (1988). Sprache und Metrum: Semiotik und Linguistik des Verses. Tübingen: Nie- meyer. Rollins, Hyder Edward, ed. (1928/1965). Tottel’s Miscellany (1557–1587). Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP. Sapir, Edward (1921). “The Musical Foundation of Verse”. Journal of English and Germanic Philology 20: 213–228. Seidel, Wilhelm (1970). “Descartes’ Bemerkungen zur musikalischen Zeit”. Archiv für Musikwissen- schaft 27: 287–303. Sloan, Thomas O. (1974). “The Crossing of Rhetoric and Poetry in the English Renaissance”. Thomas O. Sloan, Raymond B. Waddington, eds. The Rhetoric of Renaissance Poetry: From Wyatt to Mil- ton. Berkeley, CA/Los Angeles, CA/London: University of California Press. 212–242. Wyatt, Thomas (1969). Collected Poems of Sir Thomas Wyatt. Eds. Kenneth Muir, Patricia Thomson. Liverpool: Liverpool UP. ‘Proportion’ in Elizabethan Poetry and Music [1996]

In this historically orientied essay, I discuss the use of ‘symmetry’, ‘proportion’ and related terms in the major critical writings of the Elizabethan period in England. These terms oscillate between a very abstract meaning, which in the Humanist context, shows a survival of ancient and medieval, ‘quadrivial’, notions, with cosmological, mathematical and theological implications, and more specific meanings in relation to poetry and music. There they refer to forms of poetical and more narrowly defined metrical structure, in most cases to quantitative meter, which at the time was also applied to music. These contemporary Humanist conceptions of ‘symmetry’ and ‘proportion’ existed side by side with emerging more realistic and rational approaches which radically put into question their validity from a ‘trivial’ perspective.

The subject of this paper is the Elizabethan period in England, i.e., the age of Shakespeare, Spenser and Sidney in poetry, in the eyes of many the culmination of English literature of all times; but it was also the age of William Byrd, John Dowland and Thomas Morley, the famous madrigalists, lutenists and song-writers, who again represented, in the eyes of many, the most productive period in the history of English music. It was culturally a fascinating time, and the intense cultural activity was based on the newly achieved self-confidence of the nation, mainly due to the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588. It was politically a stable society with a strong monarchy and a refined social order, clearly stratified, a highly structured ‘body politic’ and based on the underlying concept of ‘degree’; as expressed by Ulysses in Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressi- da (I, 3, 75–137): ‘degree’ implies a principle of proper subordination, of social ranking, of a proper balance in society, everything being in harmony and at its proper place within a highly organized structural frame.

A popular and influential description of this typical Elizabethan situation can be found in E. M. W. Tillyard’s short study called The Elizabethan World Picture, which first came out in 1943 (with numerous reprints; see 1943/1978), and, although it has been criticised for being too sweeping in its assertion of a unified world picture of the time, it still holds true in its basic tenets. The Eliz- 156 ‘Proportion’ in Elizabethan Poetry and Music

abethan mind, according to Tillyard, was deeply impressed by the notion of order, and it was fascinated by the idea that order permeated the whole universe. A special feature of this sense of order in the universe is the idea of a correspondence between the various levels of creation, i.e. the idea of corresponding planes of order in the universe. The most important of these correspondences are seen to be vertically arranged and to exist among the macrocosm; the com- monwealth, or body politic; man, or the microcosm; and the lower creation, including the arts. It is among these planes that the Elizabethans thought to find a network of equivalences and correspondences of structural relationship. We know, of course – and so does Tillyard – that this idea of correspondences and equivalences among planes of existence was not an Elizabethan invention but goes back to the Middle Ages and to antiquity. What we can observe, however, is the fact that the Elizabethans acquired a new attitude to these correspondences. On the one hand, they intensely shared the strong medieval desire for order but, on the other hand, they were far more aware of the complexity of this world and the “fierce variety of real life”, as stated in Tillyard’s fine phrase (ibid.: 107). As a consequence, Elizabethan attitudes became more ambivalent and wavered between an older, quasi-mathematical view of the universe, on the one hand, and a metaphorical one, on the other, which saw only resemblan- ces, and no longer true equivalences, among the corresponding planes. This reduction to a merely metaphorical interpretation of the structural coordination among the planes, of course, undermined the whole conception of a harmonic order in the universe and ultimately led on to modern, more ‘enlightened’ views of the question. Thus we can see that the Elizabethan period – and this, I think, is, in fact, one of its great strengths – was an intensely transitional period with a fascinating juxtaposition of highly divergent views ranging from late medieval to early modern conceptions. And it will be of interest, I hope, to look at the consequences of this situation for our understanding of contemporary notions of order.

The terms Elizabethans were likely to use for their conceptions of that universal order were in no way rigidly defined, and there was certainly no consistency in applying specific terms for specific aspects of that order. What we find most frequently are the terms ‘symmetry’ and ‘proportion’, along with ‘harmony’, ‘rhythm’, ‘number’ or ‘numerosity’. It would be possible to give many examples of the very general use of these terms in Elizabethan writing, but I shall initially quote only from two texts which are fairly representative. One ‘Proportion’ in Elizabethan Poetry and Music 157

is by Thomas Campion, who was a poet and musician (as well as a medical doctor); in fact, he is one of the rare cases we find in all Western history of a true Doppelbegabung in the fields of both music and poetry. In his controversial “Obseruations in the Art of English Poesie” of 1602 we find the well-known phrase: “The world is made by Simmetry and proportion” (1904/1971: 2/329), and this succinctly expresses one of the dearly held commonplaces of the time. We will come back to Campion. The other quotation is from George Herbert, usually grouped with the so-called ‘Metaphysical poets’ in the tradition of John Donne and thus writing in the later phase of the period. It is therefore even more interesting to note that he expresses the commonplace without any hesitation and shows no doubts about its validity, quite in contrast to John Donne’s scepticism, as will be shown later. Herbert writes in his poem called “Man” (from The Temple, 1633):

Man is all symmetrie, Full of proportions, one limbe to another, And all to all the world besides: Each part may call the furthest, brother: For head with foot hath private amitie, And both with moons and tides. (ll.13–18) (Hutchinson, ed., 1941/1953: 91)

This is a beautiful description – worthy of being the poetic motto of an Inter- national Society for the Interdisciplinary Study of Symmetry1 –, and it expresses very vividly the idea of a universal interconnection of things, the ‘brotherhood’ of all elements in the universe, and man being the centre of it, closely linked with the cosmos (“moons”) and the natural world (“tides”). The terms used for this orderly interrelationship among all elements in the universe are again “symmetrie” and “proportions”.

I have already pointed out that such a faithful description of the commonplace is rather surprising so late in the period, and even more so from a Metaphys- ical poet; consequently, I should give an example of the sceptical view which arose at the time and questioned the validity of this world picture. Not surprisingly, it comes from John Donne, that arch-critic, who was highly perplexed by the new

1 [The present paper was read at the third International Conference of the International Society for the Interdisciplinary Study of Symmetry (ISIS), held at Alexandria, DC, in August 1995.] 158 ‘Proportion’ in Elizabethan Poetry and Music

scientific discoveries in astronomy and other fields and who is a main representative of the new spirit which called into doubt the solidity and stability of the Eliza- bethan cosmology described before. I quote from his poem called “An Anatomy of the World. The First Anniversary” (1611), from the section called “Disformity of Parts”, and we can again observe that the central concept Donne uses is that of ‘proportion’, although he is now arguing against its validity.

For the world’s beauty is decayed, or gone, Beauty, that’s colour, and proportion. We think the heavens enjoy their spherical, Their round proportion embracing all. But yet their various and perplexed course, Observed in divers ages, doth enforce Men to find out so many eccentric parts, Such divers down-right lines, such overthwarts, As disproportion that pure form. It tears The firmament in eight and forty shares, And in these constellations then arise New stars, and old do vanish from our eyes. (ll. 249–260) (Smith, A. J., ed., 1971: 277)

In this poem the beauty of the world is associated with the idea of proportion, which is conceived in terms of a purity of form manifesting itself in roundness, in a spherical shape (the heavens’ “round proportion embracing all”). But the beauty of this proportion is “decayed”, or even “gone”, and this idea is visu- alized by vertical and horizontal lines (“down-right lines” and “overthwarts”) which destroy the pure roundness of form, and by the image of the 48 Ptole- mean constellations of stars falling apart. What destroys the beauty of the cosmos is the experience of variety, diversity, eccentricity and novelty, i.e., essentially the experience of change, and the introduction of this idea of change in the universe implies the introduction of disproportion, as the opposite of its immutability which is now seen to be lost. John Donne was deeply unsettled by the implications and consequences of the Copernican revolution.

It is a well-known fact that from antiquity the notion of cosmic order, as here put into question by Donne, was closely associated with the idea of music. The Pythagorean conception of a celestial harmony and music of the spheres found its popular early medieval expression in Boethius’s phrase of the ‘har- ‘Proportion’ in Elizabethan Poetry and Music 159

monia mundana’, which had its equivalences – based on the idea of the corresponding planes – in the ‘musica humana’, the harmony in human life, particularly the harmony of mind and body, and the ‘harmonia instrumentis constituta’, i.e., in instrumental music. In the medieval tradition, as a consequence, the most important aspect of music was what was called ‘musica specu- lativa’, the cosmological aspect of music and its implications for human life. In- strumental music – also called ‘musica practica’ – was of secondary importance only and not considered a serious form of study. Music, as a discipline, was part of the septem artes liberales but, of course, a part of the quadrivium, i.e. associated with astronomy, arithmetic, and geometry. That this speculative view of music was still present in the minds of Elizabethans can be seen, e.g., in the phrase which Sir Philip Sidney, the great English courtier, poet and critic, uses in the final paragraph of his influential “Apologie for Poetrie” of ca. 1583 (publ. 1595), where he talks about the “Plannet-like Musick of Poetrie” (1595: 1/206). And even as late as 1643 we find Sir Thomas Browne as a staunch defender of the old Pythagorean notion when he says, in Religio Medici (part II, sect. 9):

For there is a musick where ever there is a harmony, order or proportion; and thus far we may maintain the musick of the Sphears: for those well-ordered motions, and regular paces, though they give no sound unto the ear, yet to the understanding they strike a note most full of harmony. Whosoever is harmonically composed, delights in harmony; which makes me much distrust the symmetry of those heads which declaim against all Church-Musick. (Sayle, ed., 1927: 1/100f.)

This is not only a classical statement of ‘speculative’ vs. ‘practical’ music, but shows, above all, a very interesting use of the word “symmetry”. What Browne seems to say is that people who cannot appreciate the harmony, or symmetry, of church music have no symmetry of their heads, which can either be understood seriously, in the sense that these people lack harmony in their minds, or satiri- cally, in the sense that they lack intelligence.

We can see that in these statements music and poetry are closely linked; in fact, they were seen, in the framework of ‘speculative music’, as being synony- mous. Thomas Campion quotes Terence’s phrase that poets are those, “artem qui tractant musicam, confounding Musick and Poesy together” (1602: 2/329); so poets practice the art of music. The common denominator of the two disciplines was held to be the fact that they both constitute the language, as it were, 160 ‘Proportion’ in Elizabethan Poetry and Music

in which God created the universe. Thus Thomas Browne calls God “the first Composer” (Religio Medici; Sayle, ed., 1927: 1/101), and Abraham Cowley, another notorious Metaphysical poet, talks about the creation as “God’s Poem” (Davideis I, 1. 451; Grosart, ed., 1881/1967: 2/49). The common element of poetry and music is seen in their numerosity which they share with the universe. So Cowley says that the original chaos consisted of “ungovern’d Parts [...] / ’Till they to Number and fixt Rules were brought / By the eternal Mind’s Poetick Thought” (ll. 453–456; ibid.). Similarly Thomas Campion in one of his songs, to which I shall refer later, addresses “th’omnipotent Creator, / Author of number that hath all the world in / Harmony framed” (“Come let us sound”, ll. 2f.; see 1601/1968; Nr. 21).

All these quotations demonstrate that far into the seventeenth century ideas of harmony, symmetry and proportion were current which closely linked music and poetry with the organization of the universe on a speculative, nu- merological basis. However, there is also enough evidence, as I was trying to demonstrate by referring to John Donne’s poetry, that this harmonical world picture was also radically put into question by some leading intellectuals of the time. What we experience, in the phrase John Hollander used as the title of his influential book, is The Untuning of the Sky (see 1961).

As a consequence, we can observe two rival conceptions of art, music and poetry at the time, the first of which is the ‘quadrivial’ understanding of the arts in speculative, numerical terms. The second, influenced by Humanist developments, takes a practical attitude and basically attributes rhetorical functions to the arts. In other words, music and poetry become associated with the trivium of the septem artes liberales, i.e., with grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic. We should keep in mind this distinction between poetry and music understood in a quadrivial, as in contrast to a trivial, context; we will come back to it in the final section of this talk.

So far I have discussed the concept of proportion and its synonyms on a very high level of abstraction, as we find it in the philosophically and art-ide- ologically oriented passages of Elizabethan texts. What we can observe, however, is its appearance also in contexts which do not imply such a highly abstract meaning of the term, and it is a challenge to critics of Elizabethan texts to ver- ify on which level of abstraction the term is used in a specific passage. For it is ‘Proportion’ in Elizabethan Poetry and Music 161

a characteristic feature of these texts that there is, within short passages, a very smooth transition from the very general to the very specific. An explanation for this very interesting fact can be found in the conception of the corresponding planes referred to earlier: as Elizabethans believed in some form of equivalence of structural principles among the various levels of existence, it was easy and natural for them to move freely among those levels.

One interesting case of a less abstract, though still fairly general, use of the term ‘proportion’ can be found in the most extensive British poetological essay of the period, in Puttenham’s “Arte of English Poesie” of 1589. This work, which is the finest critical study of the period after Sidney’s “Apologie”, is conceived in three books comprising altogether seventy-four brief chapters. The second book is called “Of Proportion Poetical” and contains eighteen chapters, the first of which is definitional. As it is a typical case of the strange way Eliz- abethans used to argue I will quote from it more extensively. Puttenham starts off by saying (1589: 2/67f.):

It is said by such as professe the Mathematicall sciences, that all things stand by proportion, and that without it nothing could stand to be good or beautiful.

(This is the Pythagorean position referred to before.)

The Doctors of our Theologie to the same effect, but in other termes, say that God made the world by number, measure, and weight; some for weight say tune, and pera- duenture better,

(This is the creation myth already mentioned; we will later come back to the question of ‘weight’ and ‘tune’.)

For weight is a kind of measure or of much conueniencie with it [...]. Hereupon it seemeth the Philosopher gathers a triple proportion, to wit, the Arithmeticall, the Ge- ometricall, and the Musicall.

(This is a reference to the quadrivial context of music and proportion.) 162 ‘Proportion’ in Elizabethan Poetry and Music

And by one of these three is euery other proportion guided of the things that haue conueniencie by relation [...].

(This again implies the idea of correspondence and equivalence. Puttenham gives a few examples of these relations and continues:)

Of all which we leaue to speake, returning to our poeticall proportion,

(Of which he has not yet spoken!)

which holdeth of the Musical, because, as we sayd before,

(That was much earlier, in the first book.)

Poesie is a skill to speake & write harmonically: and verses or rime be a kind of Musicall vtterance, by reason of a certaine congruitie in sounds pleasing the eare,

(This is the Terentian commonplace referred to before, of poetry being a form of music.)

though not perchance so exquisitely as the harmonicall concents of the artificial Mu- sicke, consisting in strained tunes, as is the vocall Musike, or that of melodious instruments, as Lutes, Harpes, Regals, Records, and such like.

(What Puttenham is saying here is that vocal and instrumental music are more pleasing in sound than poetry is. It is interesting to note that he is now suddenly talking about music from a practical, ‘trivial’ perspective – he refers to actual sounds – and no longer from the ‘quadrivial’ viewpoint which has so far prevailed in this definitional chapter. The chapter comes to an unexpectedly quick ending by Puttenham saying:)

And this our proportion Poeticall resteth in fiue points: Staffe, Measure, Concord, Sci- tuation, and Figure, all of which shall be spoken of in their places. ‘Proportion’ in Elizabethan Poetry and Music 163

All of these are aspects of metrics and prosody which turn out to be the – essentially quite traditional – subject matter of the rest of this Second Book of Puttenham’s “Arte”.

What this fairly detailed discussion of the initial chapter to Puttenham’s metrics can demonstrate, I hope, is the fact that Elizabethans had little critical originality and their heads full of commonplaces which they found it difficult to put into logical relationships. I also hope that the passage will demonstrate the difficulties which we find as modern critics to disentangle that typically Elizabethan knot of clichés and to talk sensibly about the views of the time.

Thus the remaining seventeen chapters of Puttenham’s Second Book show that what he really means by ‘proportion poetical’ is metrics and prosody, and so he discusses rime, stanza forms, and the structure of verse, including the problem of the adaptation of classical quantitative meter for English poetry, which stimulated the most heated critical debate of the time and to which I will come back. A very interesting chapter of the book is devoted to what Putten- ham calls “Proportion in Figure” and where he discusses, and gives examples of, poems whose “ocular representation” appears in such a shape that the verses are “by good symmetrie reduced into certaine Geometricall figures” (ibid.: 2/95). Thus we find circular, triangular, cylindrical poems, and it is interesting to note that Puttenham here discusses an aspect of poetry which is rarely discussed at all, and never in the context of metrics, but which fits in very well under his overall heading of ‘proportion poetical’. We can see that his use of the term is fairly general and that, in this respect, he is not restrict- ing himself to traditional metrics only. But at the same time he is not using it in such a universal, abstract and philosophical sense as we have found it used before. I quoted from Puttenham’s first chapter of his Second Book in order to demonstrate the typically Elizabethan jumping among levels of abstraction which is due to their thinking in terms of correspondences. Another fine example, which equally shows the ambiguous use of the term proportion in contemporary writing, is the first chapter of Thomas Campion’s “Obseruations in the Art of English Poesie”. I have already quoted from this essay the well-known phrase, “The world is made by Simmetry and proportion” (1602: 2/329), as an example of the cosmological aspect of ‘proportion’ in Elizabethan thinking. Campion subsequently quotes Terence, as already indicated, saying that poets practice the art of music. He then goes on to ask: 164 ‘Proportion’ in Elizabethan Poetry and Music

What music can there be where there is no proportion obserued? Learning first flour- ished in Greece; from thence it was deriued vnto the Romaines, both diligent obseruers of the number and quantity of sillables, not in their verses only but likewise in their prose. (Ibid.)

We again observe that smooth transition from a very abstract to a far more specific use of the word proportion, namely, what it obviously means in this last quotation is the structuring of verse on the basis of quantitative principles, as was the Greek and Roman practice. That this is the sense Campion had in mind is emphasised by a passage only a few lines before where he postulates that “in a verse the numeration of the sillables is not so much to be obserued as their waite and due proportion” (ibid.). And, again, the ensuing chapters of Campi- on’s essay – as of Puttenham’s – bear out the implied meaning of the term as it is used in the introductory chapter: namely, Campion’s “Obseruations” turn out to be the strongest contemporary defense of the use of quantitative principles in English poetry and music against the use of rhyme, which was seen as a rude and barbaric poetic device. So there can be no doubt that for Campion the word ‘proportion’ basically implied the application of quantitative principles in actual music and poetry, but he was Elizabethan enough to see reflected in those actual sounds more universal structural principles.

Campion applied his theoretical views to his musical practice, and we find evidence in his songs which demonstrate his conceptions of ‘proportion’ based on quantitative principles. The concluding song, “Come let us sound with melody the praises”, of his Booke Of Ayres of 1601 is the only song, however, which strictly follows a quantitative pattern, namely the pattern of the Sapphic stanza form. This means that in the music there are only two time values – long and short – and that their distribution speaks out, as it were, the Sapphic line. Cam- pion also makes sure that not the notes only, but the syllables of the text as well, precisely follow the pattern of longs and shorts. This congruence of music and poetry on the rhythmical level was his idea (but not his only, it was a common idea) of the identity of the two art forms. The text of “Come let us sound” is equally suited to this form of presentation as it praises – as I have already quoted – “th’omnipotent Creator, / Author of number that hath all the world in / Harmony framed” (see Example 1). ‘Proportion’ in Elizabethan Poetry and Music 165

Example 1: Thomas Campian. The Songs from Rosseter’s Book of Airs, Nr. 21; 1601/1968: 40f. 166 ‘Proportion’ in Elizabethan Poetry and Music

This is the kind of music that most Elizabethans would have accepted as observing ‘proportion’. The basic principle governing such a view is that there should be, in a ‘proportionable’ use of music and poetry, a clear structuring of time, based on its durational aspect; i.e., the underlying idea was that time should be filled out in an orderly pattern. This view that proportion implies the structuring of the duration of time finds its expression also in an interesting passage from William Webbe’s “Discourse of English Poetrie” (1586) where the author maintains that “meeter or verse” should be “proportionable to the tune whereby it is to be reade or measured” (1/268). This statement reminds one of the use of the word ‘tune’ in the Puttenham passage which we have looked at. In this case, ‘tune’ does not mean ‘melody’, as we would expect from modern usage, but Webbe makes sure in a later passage that he is talking about “tune or stroke” (his words) (ibid.: 1/272). So what he refers to is a form of measuring, and we can detect a similarity between what Webbe says and what Campion says when he talks about “waite and due proportion”, as we have seen. Whether this form of measuring the duration of time is exclusively the form we know from the classical quantitative patterns is an interesting question to ask because the notion of ‘stroke’ implies regularly recurring isochrony – equal lengths of time stretches – which we do not find in the quantitative patterns. Thomas Morley, famous madrigalist of the period and influential printer, defines ‘stroke’ as “a successiue motion of the hand, directing the quantitie of euery note & rest in the song with equall measure” (1597/1969: 9). So we are led to believe that ‘proportion’ – on top of referring to the quantitative patterns, as we find it in “Come let us sound” – also referred to the stroke of regular timing as it was practiced in the tactus – this is what Morley in fact describes in his definition – i.e., a form of measuring time which is a forerunner of modern bar measuring but distinguishes itself from it by its durational rather than accentual character. (For a detailed discussion see Bernhart 1993, esp. ch. v.)

Come let us sound with melody the praises Of the kings’ King, th’omnipotent Creator, Author of number that hath all the world in Harmony framed.

Heav’n is his throne perpetually shining. His divine power and glory thence the thunders. One in all, and all still in one abiding, Both Father and Son. ‘Proportion’ in Elizabethan Poetry and Music 167

O sacred Sprite, invisible, eternal, Everywhere, yet unlimited, that all things Canst in one moment penetrate, revive me, O holy Spirit.

Rescue, O rescue me from earthly darkness. Banish hence all these elemental objects. Guide my soul that thirsts to the lively fountain Of thy divineness.

To round off this discussion I will come back to our earlier observation that the Elizabethan age was of a strongly transitional character and that it exhibits a juxtaposition of competing art-ideological positions. We have observed two camps in this dispute, one of the traditionalists and idealists who adhered to the venerable conceptions of Pythagorean and Platonic origin in their various forms and representing the established Elizabethan world view of an ordered universe; and the other, of a far more progressive persuasion, which was affected by scientific discoveries of the age and had a more rationalist approach to the issues involved, including scepticism and a decidedly realistic and empirical mind, characterized by notions of ‘naturalness’ and practicality and against against the other camp’s notions of ‘artificiality’ and speculation.

We know that this dispute found its most tangible expression in the con- troversy over rhyme versus quantity in poetry and music, and what I am trying to say is that this dispute was closely linked with the notion of ‘proportion’, which was held to be most directly reflected in quantitative verse. We find a number of references in the critical texts of the period which demonstrate the dispute and thus connect it with the concept of ‘proportion’. In Campion, for instance, we find the following sentence:

The eare is a rationall sence and a chiefe iudge of proportion; but in our kind of riming what proportion is there kept where there remaines such a confused inequalitie of sillables? (1602: 2/330)

Thus, for Campion, rhymed texts show no internal structuring of the sequence of syllables and therefore lack ‘art’; they demonstrate no awareness of the need to shape the line ‘proportionably’, and they are thus like prose. 168 ‘Proportion’ in Elizabethan Poetry and Music

As always, Sir Philip Sidney is the finest critic of the period, and so also with respect to this issue. He took a neutral position in the quantitative contro- versy and accepted both forms of verse – rhyme and quantity – but made a distinction, depending on the subject matter of the text, as to where they should be applied. This is the relevant passage from his “Apologie”:

[...] not speaking (table talke fashion or like men in a dreame) words as they chanceably fall from the mouth, but peyzing each sillable of eache worde by iust proportion according to the dignitie of the subiect. (1595: 1/160)

Thus Sidney here distinguishes two forms of reading verse, one negligent, paying no attention to words and syllables, “table talke fashion”, one could say a form of verse delivery unconcerned about the signifier; and the other ‘proportionable’, “peyzing each sillable” (“peyzing” means ‘weighing’, and we remember Campion’s use of the notion of ‘weight’). Sidney considers this form of reading, which is signifier-oriented, observes syllable weights and thus shapes the verse line internally into a durational pattern, as apt for dignified subjects. Thus, according to Sidney, it is a matter of decorum where poets and musicians should apply ‘proportion’ and where not. Dignified subjects expect a ‘quadrivial’ form of delivery, lower subjects a ‘trivial’ one. The first is quantitative, observing ‘proportion’, the other is accentual, observing nothing, only following the natural ‘inclination’ of the words (as was the most common contemporary expression for ‘accent’).

I will try to give a demonstration of these two different forms of verse delivery, which, at the time, were obviously practiced side by side, by reading a Sidney poem in two different ways. It is Nr. 12 from the Old Arcadia, one of Sidney’s experiments in quantitative meter. It again follows the pattern of the Sapphic stanza, and the subject is a praise of immortal beauty beyond death and of the power of love to ensure eternal life for the soul. For this truly sublime topic Sidney chose a dignified verse form whose quantitative pattern I will now try to realize in my first reading of the text.

– . – – – . . – . – – (3 times) – . . – – ‘Proportion’ in Elizabethan Poetry and Music 169

If mine eyes can speake to doo harty errande, Or mine eyes’ language she doo hap to judge of, So that eyes’ message be of her receaved, Hope we do live yet.

[…]

Yet dying, and dead, doo we sing her honour; So become our tombes monuments of her praise; So becomes our losse the triumph of her gayne; Hers be the glory.

If the senceless spheares doo yet hold a musique, If the Swanne’s sweet voice be not heard, but at death, If the mute timber when it hath the life lost, Yeldeth a lute’s tune,

Are then humane minds priviledg’d so meanly, As that hatefull death can abridge them of power, […]? (Ringler, ed. 1962: 30f.)

It would take the craftmanship of a trained actor, which I am not, to perform this poem in the true spirit of its authorial intention. But my reading may have given you an idea of what ‘proportionable’ reading in Elizabethan terms could have been like. My second reading will simply follow the word accents in a form of verse delivery which is now common practice but which, most likely from what we have heard, would have been considered inappropriate for the chosen subject by Elizabethan traditionalists. (For a more detailed discussion of these comparative readings cf. Bernhart 1993: 296–299.)

It is a well-known fact of English literary history that the whole quantitative movement, and in particular Campion’s condemnation of rhyme, was severely, and successfully, attacked by Samuel Daniel’s “Defence of Ryme” of 1603. This meant the end of the ‘hot’ phase of Humanist poetology in England and also the end of the hot phase of ‘proportionable’ verse writing. The attack was launched in the spirit of the new realism and of ‘naturalness’ and – maybe most importantly – of a national English defense against foreign influences which many began to consider as a form of alienation from the roots. Thus actual poetry and music based on the contemporary idea of ‘proportion’ is rarely 170 ‘Proportion’ in Elizabethan Poetry and Music

found after the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603. But the ‘Elizabethan’ conceptions of ‘proportion’ and its contemporary synonyms on a more abstract level lived on, far into the seventeenth century, as we have already noticed. It is a remarkable fact that only during the culmination period of the Elizabethan age, when it produced its most impressive and lasting works both in poetry and music, we also find attempts to realize materially, in actual texts, what generations of scholars had talked and speculated about in art-ideological terms. This is a sign, I believe, of the extraordinary cultural strength of the period, but we have to realize and accept that it was only a historical episode which came to an end when more solid and pragmatic minds began to dominate the scene.

References

Bernhart, Walter (1993). ‘True Versifying’: Studien zur elisabethanischen Verspraxis und Kunstideolo- gie. Unter Einbeziehung der zeitgenössischen Lautenlieder. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Campian [sic], Thomas (1601/1968). The Songs from Rosseter’s Book of Airs. The English Lute-Songs, Series I, 4 & 13. Ed. Edmund H. Fellowes. Rev. ed. Thurston Dart. London/New York, NY: Stainer & Bell. Campion, Thomas (1602). “Obseruations in the Art of English Poesie [etc.]”. Smith, Gregory, ed. 1904/1971. 2/327–355. Daniel, Samuel (1603). “A Defence of Ryme [etc.]”. Smith, Gregory, ed. 1904/1971. 2/356–384. Grosart, Alexander B., ed. (1881/1967). The Complete Works in Verse and Prose of Abraham Cowley. 2 vols. New York, NY: AMS Press. Hollander, John (1961). The Untuning of the Sky: Ideas of Music in English Poetry 1500–1700. Prince- ton, NJ: Princeton UP. Hutchinson, F. E., ed. (1941/1953). The Works of George Herbert. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Morley, Thomas (1597/1969). A Plaine and Easie Introdvction to Practicall Musicke. London 1597. The English Experience 207. Amsterdam/New York, NY: [publ. missing]. Puttenham, George (1589). “The Arte of English Poesie [etc.]”. Smith, Gregory, ed. 1904/1971. 2/1– 193. Ringler, William A., Jr., ed. (1962). The Poems of Sir Philip Sidney. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Sayle, Charles, ed. (1927). The Works of Sir Thomas Browne. 2 vols. Edinburgh: John Grant. Sidney, Sir Philip (1595). “An Apologie for Poetrie”. Smith, Gregory, ed., 1904/1971. 1/148–207. Smith, A. J., ed. (1971). John Donne: The Complete English Poems. London: Allen Lane. Smith, Gregory, ed. (1904/1971). Elizabethan Critical Essays. 2 vols. Oxford: OUP. Tillyard, E. M. W. (1943/1978). The Elizabethan World Picture. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Webbe, William (1586). “A Discourse of English Poetrie [etc.]”. Smith, Gregory, ed., 1904/1971: 1/226–302. Cardillac, the Criminal Artist: A Challenge to Opera as a Musico-Literary Form [1997]

This paper has two motivations: one is to make a small contribution to the question of the ‘essence of opera’ – to use a phrase which forms the title of Ulrich Weisstein’s early seminal book on opera (see 1964/1969) – by reflecting on the problem of proper subjects for successful operas; and the other is to commemo- rate the one-hundredth anniversary of the birth of Paul Hindemith. In spite of his declining popularity there is no doubt that Hindemith is a modem classic whose operas, above all, are still performed today, most frequently his Cardillac, a work whose subject deserves discussion in connection with my first motivation for this paper. For in the centre of Cardillac is the criminal artist-genius, a hero type that is not the most obvious choice for an opera, as is reflected in the remarkable fact that Hindemith wrote two versions of Cardillac: one first performed in 1926 (= Cardillac I) and a substantial revision of it, first performed in 1952 (= Cardillac II). The first version is based on an essentially expressionistic libretto by Ferdinand Lion (see 1926/1954), while the second uses a text, written by Hin- demith himself, which decisively changes the plot structure, the characters, ideas and complete substance of the opera. The older Hindemith was deeply dissatisfied with his earlier version, but it is the irony of history that the version which is always played today and has established itself firmly in the repertore is the older version. So what I intend to do here is to try to account for this situation, and I will argue that the treatment of the subject of the criminal artist in the earlier version responds far better to the demands of the operatic medium, while the revised version, far more sophisticated as it is, introduces too many alien elements into the genre to be successful as an opera. My discussion will necessarily be brief in view of the limited space available.

Cardillac I shows the famous goldsmith from E. T. A. Hoffmann’s tale Das Fräulein von Scudery as the prototypical bourgeois artist figure, i.e. as a representative of the l’art pour l’art ideology, who, following an absolutist conception of artistic autonomy, exemplifies a narcissistically exaggerated ver- 172 Cardillac, the Criminal Artist

sion of it. He is in the tradition of modern conceptions of the artist as being in conflict with the dictates of society, as an eccentric, anarchistic figure strug- gling against the restrictive norms of his inimical environment. This general idea of the artist’s individual and autonomous morality, which is at odds with the social morality of his fellow men, has been an operatic subject at least since Monteverdi’s Orfeo; but it has found its most extrem treatment in Cardillac, who becomes a notorious murderer in relentlessly following his views of an artist’s independent morality: by killing those who buy the products of his art. In Lion’s libretto of Cardillac I the title character acquires a demonic stature, a strange and uncanny kind of dignity, and this dignity is suggested by the cosmic, elemental and metaphysical context into which Cardillac is set by Lion’s typically romantic imagery: his world is the world of gold and of earth, of night and darkness and the moon, which is clearly contrasted with the world of day and sunlight. Cardillac becomes a mythical and superhuman figure who treats the king as his equal and shows no sign of human love and pity, he is a god-like creator but at the same time an angel of hell, a satanic rebel who refuses to re- pent, in the tradition of Milton’s Satan or the Byronic hero. What is essential in Lion’s treatment of this hero type is that it avoids any naturalistic elements and any form of psychologizing as well as any social criticism: the quality of the text is like a woodcut, only the basic features are thrown into relief, there are no arguments, no reflections, only the simple facts of this demonic personality, and constellations of people around him like marionettes who do not even have names (“die Dame”, “der Kavalier”, “die Tochter”). No moral judgment is passed but at the end we have what could be called a heroic transfiguration of Cardillac: the artist hero perishes as a victim of social pressures.

We learn from Ferdinand Lion – later reflecting on Cardillac II, in whose writing he no longer had a hand (cf. 1957: 128) – that the young Hindemith strongly identified himself with this romantic image of Cardillac as shown in 1926. Ten years later Lion observed a change in Hindemith towards a more religious view of things, and this also led – according to Lion – to the composer’s increasing dissatisfaction with the libretto and its hero figure. Hindemith’s documents are not very explicit about his motivations for revising his opera (he only writes that, e.g., he wanted to make his characters more forceful –“ein- dringlicher”1; but, of course, we have his new text, and there is no doubt that it

1 Programme note, Zurich production 1952, p. 2; qtd. Schelling 1962: 2. Cardillac, the Criminal Artist 173

is radically different. As I cannot go into details I will try to summarize briefly: the main point is that the new version is now firmly rooted in the social world and, as a consequence, a kind of Lehrstück or drama of ideas. Cardillac is no longer a demonic figure with a mythical dimension but a far more common criminal person who becomes a calculating liar and schemer in trying to cover up his dark deeds (as the text tellingly says: “sein Spiel ist zu Ende [my emphasis]” (1952: 225); he and all the other characters of the opera are involved in superficial social activities and are far nearer to our own world of experience than Cardillac I and the other nameless characters of the earlier version are. And there are lengthy discussions and arguments about a romantic philosophy of art: questions are asked and answers are given about the meaning of the life of an artist and of human life at large. There is much ambiguity involved, various positions are presented (by partly newly introduced characters, like the primadonna and “der Geselle”, the journeyman), and critics happily disagree about the meaning of the ending of the opera, whether Cardillac acquires an artistic aureole as in the earlier version and is redeemed by love2, whether he is forgiven in the Christian sense3, or whether the people exculpate him because they, with their social norms, are ultimately responsible for his criminal acts4. The essential point to make is that in the later version the problem of individualistic, autonomous artistic morality becomes a matter of critical reflection rather than of direct presentation and that questions of moral judgement are seriously argued at length. In this respect it has become a Lehrstück and Ideendrama which, no doubt, is more sophisticated, deeper, richer in its human substance, morally and intellectually superior to the earlier version.

But why then is it an obviously less successful opera? In an attempt to answer this question I would like to refer to W. H. Auden’s very stimulating ideas about the ‘essence of opera’, which he expressed in various documents over many years of his later life. The basic texts are in The Dyer’s Hand and Other Essays (see 1962) and Secondary Worlds (see 1968), which latter phrase is a key concept of Auden’s views on opera. He clearly distinguishes between our

2 “[…] und die Aureole seines Künstlertums steigt auf im Zwiegesang der Tochter und des Gesellen, die in ihrer Liebe sein Werk entsühnen.” (Ruppel 1960: 138) 3 “Im lehrhaften, vorbildlich-christlichen Verzeihen und Entschuldigen […].” (Schilling 1962: 39) 4 “Die Menge verzeiht Cardillac, um im nächsten Satz auch für sich selbst Vergebung zu beanspru- chen. Sie tut dies aus dem Wissen heraus, selbst Grund von Cardillacs Wesen zu sein.“ (Rexroth 1973: 77) See also Rexroth (1978). 174 Cardillac, the Criminal Artist

“primary” world of everyday social experience, which is a realistic world func- tioning on the basis of ethical principles, on the one hand, and what he calls a “secondary” world of art beyond realism and everyday life, on the other, a “secondary” aesthetic world that is indifferent to ethical categories (ibid.: 12). This secondary world, although grounded in the primary world, transcends it and acquires a mythical quality of more universal significance, and this mythical world is one of evidential presence, of immediate expression and spontaneous emotionality as in contrast to the primary world’s reliance on reflection and historical embedding5.

This summary of Auden’s ideas is necessarily brief and cannot do justice to the complexity of his argument, but it will suffice in offering a welcome perspective on our question at hand: having Auden’s categories in mind, one can easily argue that the first version of Cardillac is very much a representation of a ‘secondary’ world in Auden’s terms, where a mythical central figure transcends the empirical world and, representing aesthetic autonomy as he does, is also beyond ethical categories; there are no reflections in the work, Cardillac simply exists, and his existential murderous passion is not morally judged but ultimately forgiven as not being motivated by impulses from this world. Cardillac II, in contrast, lives very much in the ‘primary’ world, as we have seen, he is part of a realistic empirical world, he subjects himself to the laws of this empirical social world and is thus morally condemned by his society after much reflection on the issues involved. There is next to no evidence of a ‘secondary’ world of experience, in Auden’s sense, in the libretto of Cardillac II.

Having classified the two versions of Cardillac according to Auden’s categories of worlds, we may now follow Auden’s further argument and notice his observation that twentieth-century literature is no longer able to describe ‘secondary’ worlds as it is too realistic in attitude and has lost its sense of purely aesthetic qualities. Only opera, according to Auden, is still able to guarantee the experience of ‘secondary’ worlds today because singing is the only form of expression which can still carry myth by the spontaneity and immediacy of its character (cf. Auden 1968: 102). Only singing achieves a transcendence of the empirical world by the very laws of the musical medium itself. In this medium everything expressed is a “ fait accompli”, according to Auden (1940/1976: 162),

5 For more extensive descriptions of Auden’s concept see Weisstein (1970) and Bernhart (1994). Cardillac, the Criminal Artist 175

and opera, to be successful, ought to rely on that ‘secondary’ world and leave the ‘primary’ world behind (see the Aida-syndrome).

Having reached this stage in our argument we have virtually come up with an answer to our question as to why Cardillac I happens to be the more successful version: Auden would have said because it presents a ‘secondary’ world and is thus genuinely operatic in character, while Cardillac II is too deeply concerned with the ‘primary’ world and its social laws to be the true stuff of opera.

This verdict on the two versions can be put into perspective by looking at the music of Cardillac. The earlier version is a typical product of the ’twenties and a famous case of what has been called a Musizieroper (Ruppel 1960: 137) with a detached, abstract and strongly formal type of music, which some listeners consider to be sharp and harsh, cold and calculated, while others think it fresh and youthful, full of forceful phrases and sound gestures. The main point to be made about this music, however, is that it is significantly unrelated to what is going on on the stage: the murder in the first act, e.g., is accompanied by a flute duet in the orchestra, and the whole music fulfils no function of illustration, commentary or heightening of the text. It is a highly stylized form of music and, according to one critic (cf. Schilling 1962: 30), supposed to catch the ‘essence’ of a scene rather than to follow punctiliously the sequence of actions on the stage. This makes sense, but even more to the point seems the comment recently given by Udo Bermbach, who argues that music and text are so disparate in this opera in order to emphasize the singularity of the artist Cardillac: the disparity suggests the unbroken exceptionality of the artist in a pre-political and pre-social condition (cf. 1992: 158). In other (Auden’s) words, the detached music which does not involve itself with what is going on on the stage guarantees the ‘secondary’-world character of the opera. So Hindemith’s non-naturalistic and non-psychological music collaborates with the libretto of Cardillac I in presenting a mythical world which is deliberately alienated from, and transcends, empirical reality.

As for the music of Cardillac II, it is basically the same as in 1926, apart from the new act based on Lully’s Phaeton, a certain easing and smoothing of vocal lines and some other less important changes. Some critics consider it nearer to music drama of the Wagnerian type, with increased psychology and reference to the stage (cf., e.g., even Lion 1957: 129), but this opinion is scarce- 176 Cardillac, the Criminal Artist

ly backed by the score itself. These critics have been led astray by the changes which Hindemith made in the libretto; in contrast to these the musical changes are not substantial. (A very telling example is the beginning of Cardillac’s great aria at the end of Act Two where we have the same music – only one bar is dropped in the later version – but the stage directions differ significantly between the versions. In Cardillac I it says: “Cardillac geht hängenden Kopfes an seinen Arbeitstisch. Er setzt sich mit leidend geschlossenen Augen, die Hände untätig.6” (1926/1954: 112) In Cardillac II it says: “Noch immer höhnisch lachend zündet Cardillac das Licht über seinem Werktisch an, wird aber plötz- lich von einem zornigen Ernst besessen und beginnt übereifrig zu arbeiten.7” (1952: 134) So it is not the music, one will have to conclude, which is responsible for the lesser success of Cardillac II; however, one could argue that it is not strong enough to compensate for the weaknesses of the text as an opera libretto.

I will round off my discussion by taking a quick historical look at the presentation of villains on the operatic stage. Stefan Kunze has recently published a very helpful study on the subject (see 1992), and he makes the point that villainy is generally unproductive in opera, dramatically, and that in earlier opera villains are either conspicuously absent or, when they appear, they are never morally condemned because their villainy is only a consequence of their heightened passion turned negative; even Beethoven’s Pizarro is not fundamentally evil but misled by exaggerated passion. And there is the interesting case of Bouilly and Gaveaux’s forerunner of Fidelio, Leonore, where Pizarro is a speaking part only8. All this backs up Auden’s verdict that opera is essentially an aesthetic product and is therefore unable to treat ethical subjects. The fundamental problem is the difficulty of musically representing evil; certain codes for illustrating evil were developed in romantic opera (trills and tremolos, chromaticism, unisono passages, drum rolls, repetitions etc.; cf. ibid.: 218), but apart from very few cases of successful application (Samiel, Caspar, Iago, Scarpia) they are not really at home in opera.

6 ‘Cardillac goes to his work-table, his head hanging. He sits down, his eyes closed in suffering, his hands limp.’ My trans. 7 ‘Still laughing scornfully, Cardillac turns on the light over his work-table but is suddenly seized by stern fury and starts to work obsessively.’ My trans. 8 With the following justification: “Denn was die Musik der Person oder der Handlung an Identität hinzufügt, vermindert die Realität des Bösen.” (Kunze 1992: 216; ‘For the idealistic dimension which music adds to people and plots reduces the reality of evil.’ My ttans.) Cardillac, the Criminal Artist 177

The most fascinating study of operatic villainy I know of is Kierkegaard’s discussion of Mozart’s Don Giovanni. There we find many of the ideas which Auden later took up for his own theory of opera. What Kierkegaard says is that “music always expresses immediacy in its immediacy” and that “[r]eflec- tion kills the immediate” (1992: 80); that Mozart’s Don Giovanni represents the immediacy of “the elemental voice of passion” and that, as he does not reflect, he does not live in “the realm of sin”. With Don Giovanni “the sensual assumes the form of the demonic in aesthetic indifference” (ibid.: 97) because he does not fall under ethical restrictions. Such a character can only appear in opera, according to Kierkegaard, because “opera is less concerned with character delineation and action as its immanent goal; it is not reflective enough for that. On the other hand, in opera passion, unreflective and substantial, finds its expression. The musical situation lies in a unity of mood [...]” (ibid.: 120f.).

If we apply these criteria, which Kierkegaard developed discussing Mo- zart’s ‘villain’ Don Giovanni, to Hindemith’s ‘villain’ Cardillac, we find further interesting backing for the reasons given earlier why the 1926 version is more successful than that of 1952. Only in Cardillac I do we find this unre- flected immediacy of ethically indifferent greatness of passion in an untrans- parent character, and there also the music establishes that unity of mood which is able to suggest a ‘secondary’ world. As Dieter Rexroth, eminent Hindemith scholar, indicates, the composer had an early urge to withdraw into a ‘better’ aesthetic world, to escape into the illusion of another world at the expense of – ultimately – a total loss of reality (cf. Rexroth 1973: 65; 73). This is reflected in Hindemith’s early admiration for Cardillac. But the maturer composer developed a sense of social responsibility and moral consciousness which made him turn away from his earlier position and thus from his own earlier work, and the product of this new understanding, Cardillac II, is – as a verbal text – an impressive document of moral and social awareness and of an intense intellectual struggle about the role of the artist in society. It is the dilemma of opera that it is not a natural medium for transporting such an awareness, and because Hin- demith chose not to use expressive-mimetic music of the music-drama type for his revised version he ultimately lost his cause: only such a musico-dramatic kind of music could have attempted to accompany and enrich his new drama of ideas. But even then he is unlikely to have succeeded: the discrepancy between intense moral reasoning – as seems inevitable in our murderous century – and great passion – as is inevitable in opera – is simply too large. This is the 178 Cardillac, the Criminal Artist

dilemma of many twentieth-century Literaturopern – witness, among others, the works of Hans Werner Henze9 – but it was honest and courageous of Hin- demith to take up the challenge, and his failure is not a personal failure but a failure of his medium, opera, in a cultural climate which is alien to its basic conditions.

9 Henze’s and (Auden’s) Elegy for Young Lovers is comparable to Cardillac in topicalizing the criminal artist hero and addressing the conflict of artist and society (see Bernhart 1994). Cardillac, the Criminal Artist 179

References

Auden, W. H. (1940/1976). “New Year Letter (January 1, 1940)”. Edward Mendelson, ed. Collected Poems. London: Faber. 159–193. — (1962). The Dyer’s Hand and Other Essays. London: Faber. — (1968). Secondary Worlds. London: Faber. Bermbach, Udo (1992). “Berufe und Berufsbilder in der Oper”. Udo Bermbach, Wulf Konold, eds. Ge- sungene Welten: Aspekte der Oper. Berlin/Hamburg: Dietrich Reimer Verlag. 137–160. Bernhart, Walter (1994). “Prekäre angewandte Opernästhetik: Audens ‘sekundäre Welt’ und Hans Werner Henzes Elegie für junge Liebende”. Walter Bernhart, ed. Die Semantik der musiko-literarischen Gattungen: Methodik und Analyse. Eine Festgabe für Ulrich Weisstein zum 65. Geburtstag / The Semantics of the Musico-Literary Genres: Method and Analysis. In Honor of Ulrich Weisstein on his 65th Birthday. Book Series of Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik 10. Tübingen: Gun- ter Narr Verlag. 233–246. Hindemith, Paul (1926/1954). Cardillac: Oper in drei Akten (vier Bildern) von Ferdinand Lion. Mu- sik von Paul Hindemith. Piano score by Otto Singer. Edition Schott 3219. Mainz et al.: Schott (= Cardillac I). — (1952). Cardillac: Oper in vier Akten nach einer Bühnenhandlung von Ferdinand Lion. Text und Musik von Paul Hindemith. Piano score. Edition Schott 3219. Mainz et al.: B. Schott’s Söhne (= Cardillac II). Kierkegaard, Søren (1992). Either/Or: A Fragment of Life. Ed. Alastair Hannay. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Kunze, Stefan (1992). “Bösewichter, Außenseiter und Gescheiterte in der Oper”. Udo Bermbach, Wulf Konold, eds. Gesungene Welten: Aspekte der Oper. Berlin/Hamburg: Dietrich Reimer Ver- lag. 209–221. Lion, Ferdinand (1926/1954). Cardillac: Oper in drei Akten (vier Bildern) von Ferdinand Lion. Musik von Paul Hindemith. Opus 39. Libretto. Edition Schott 3219. Mainz et al.: Schott. — (1957). “Cardillac I and II”. Akzente 4: 126–132. Rexroth, Dieter (1973). “Von der moralischen Verantwortung des Künstlers: Zu den großen Opern von Paul Hindemith”. Hindemith-Jahrbuch: 63–79. — (1978). “Zum Stellenwert der Oper Cardillac im Schaffen Hindemiths”. Dieter Rexroth, ed. Er- probungen und Erfahrungen: Zu Paul Hindemith’s Schaffen in den Zwanziger Jahren. Frankfurter Studien 2. Mainz: Schott. 56–59. Ruppel, K. H. (1960). “Hindemiths neuer Cardillac”. Musik in unserer Zeit: Eine Bilanz von zehn Jah- ren. Munich: Prestel. 137–139. Schilling, Hans Ludwig (1962). Paul Hindemiths Cardillac: Beiträge zu einem Vergleich der beiden Opernfassungen – Stilkriterien im Schaffen Hindemiths. Würzburg: Konrad Triltsch Verlag. Weisstein, Ulrich (1970). “Reflections on a Golden Style: W. H. Auden’s Theory of Opera”. Compara- tive Literature 22: 108–124. —, ed. (1964/1969). The Essence of Opera. New York, NY: The Free Press of Glencoe/reprint Norton.

Iconicity and Beyond in “Lullaby for Jumbo”: Semiotic Functions of Poetic Rhythm* [1999]

1. Kinetic Processes in Poetic Rhythm

The great majority of studies of iconicity in poetic texts are devoted to the visual aspect of the semiotic device because the visual dimension is most readily identifiable in written texts; but also the sound aspect of poetic iconicity has been studied with some intensity as the sound dimension of language is conventionally objectified in the graphic representation of the texts as well. In contrast, the investigation of the rhythmical dimension of poetic texts has suf- fered relative neglect1, and one can easily argue that the main reason for this neglect lies in the fact that the written text encodes this dimension only very imperfectly. If we define rhythm as the segmentation of time into perceptible units2, we can see how little information the written text gives about its rhythmical dimension: for the lapse of time is only optionally encoded since a unidirectional, uninterrupted reading of a poem from beginning to end is only one form of its reception; other temporal scannings are possible and likely, even expected by some (e.g., ‘concrete’) texts. And as to the segmentation of time, it is virtually uncoded because morphological and syntactic segmentation by no means correlates significantly and consistently with temporal segmentation. Only the fixed line endings of poetry seem to imply temporal breaks, but they also may easily be overridden, as so many readings – including by poets them-

* I am grateful to Werner Wolf (University of Graz) for his helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper. 1 “[...] iconic communication in sound-time has had a very modest development in comparison with that enjoyed in almost every culture by the spatial icon” (Osmond-Smith 1972: 32). 2 This definition follows Heusler (“Gliederung der Zeit in sinnlich faßbare Teile”; 1925–1929: 1/17). Similarly Fraisse: “To speak of rhythm is to speak of an ordering in temporal succession” (1978: 235). 182 Iconicity and Beyond in “Lullaby for Jumbo”

selves – demonstrate. So it is difficult to study possible iconic qualities of poetic rhythm from written texts when rhythm is only so very insufficiently encoded.

As to the signified of possible iconic qualities of rhythm, it is obvious that movements are most likely to be represented iconically. Kinetic processes, as particular forms of energy distribution over time, lend themselves most readily to reflection in poetic rhythm.

The question I will ask myself in the following is whether interpreting such kinetic processes in poetic rhythm in terms of iconic signs is the only acceptable one or whether other semiotic interpretations are also possible. In order to be able to argue this question from a tangible basis it seems necessary to find a text which bypasses the methodological dilemma addressed before and offers a consistently encoded rhythm which can be critically analysed.

2. Edith Sitwell’s Façade

Texts suitable for this purpose are the poems from that exceptional collection by Edith Sitwell called Façade (see 1957/1961: 110–158)3, which came out in the annus mirabilis of English modernism, 1922 – i.e., in the year of Ulysses and The Waste Land – and are undoubtedly most astonishing lyric avant-garde products of the period. They were conceived as typically depersonalised4, ex- perimental5 poems which use a symbolist, freely associative style of writing (cf. MacNeice 1968: 54)6 and, according to some, are pure nonsense7, while others are convinced that they do make some sort of sense (cf. Lindsay 1950/1976:

3 The final shape of the collection contains thirty-seven poems. 4 Osbert Sitwell, in his autobiography, talks about the “elimination of the personality of the reciter” as one of the main objectives of Façade (1949: 183). Cf. also Singleton 1960: 50. 5 “Experiments with words” (Sitwell, O. 1949: 192). 6 For a discussion of the symbolist background of Sitwell’s poetry cf. Lindsay 1950/1976: 14f. 7 In an early review in The Saturday Westminster Gazette we can read that “Miss Sitwell [...] dances a gracefully grotesque ‘pas seul’ of absurdities” (qtd. Gerstmann 1936: 103). Similarly, Julian Symons called Edith Sitwell “the arch-nurse of empty phrases” (qtd. Morrison 1981: 90). Frank Howes postulates that Façade “must rather be appreciated as nonsense verse is appreciated” (1965: 11). Iconicity and Beyond in “Lullaby for Jumbo” 183

18)8, though, admittedly, of a rather private character9. They are a very personal expression of Sitwell’s, that upper-class poet’s, difficulties with enduring “Victorian Aristocratic Life” (Sitwell, E. 1987: 22), and as such they typically reflect early modernism’s anti-Victorian attitudes. This is done, very subtly, by introducing a child’s perspective10 so that the texts appear as “sophisticated nursery-rhymes”, as Louis MacNeice has very aptly labelled them (1968: 52; cf. also Lindsay 1950/1976: 15).

The reasons why these poems are relevant in the present context are at least twofold. First, the texts originated in the poet’s playful experiments with rhythms in which she attempted to realise, in poetry, dance measures such as waltzes, polkas, fox-trots and others (cf. Sitwell, O. 1949: 185). So, in Edith Sit- well’s own words, these “abstract poems” are often “virtuoso exercises in technique” (1961: xvi) and use “heightened” rhythms (ibid.: xv), and in many cases they reflect defined ‘cultural units’ of a kinetic character such as the dances already mentioned but also others like “The Drum” or “The Wind’s Bastinado” (which are titles of poems from Façade)11.

The second reason is that we not only have recorded readings of the poems by the poet herself, which give us a clue as to her rhythmical intentions, but also a musical notation of the rhythms. Façade was the product of a collaboration between Edith Sitwell and the composer William Walton12, and both had a work in mind which was modelled on Cocteau and Satie’s Parade and Schoen- berg’s Pierrot Lunaire. That is, the words of the poems are recited, not sung, to accompanying music, and so the composition cannot be said to be a ‘musical

8 Edith Sitwell herself has expressed her intention “to make [her] images exact – though heightened” (1961: xxxiv). 9 This is the gist of Pamela Hunter’s interpretations, see Sitwell, E. 1987: passim. (“[...] Edith’s comment that her texts were often based on personal memory rather than general experience, and that the reader must therefore be excused for not understanding certain details”; ibid.: 11). 10 In a reference to Cocteau/Satie/Picasso’s Parade, which is one of the models for Façade, Edith Sitwell herself talks about “the poetry of childhood overtaken by a technician” (1961: xvii). 11 Of the thirty-seven poems in the final collection seventeen have titles which imply an acoustic and/or kinetic dimension, among them five dances and five songs (such as “Jodelling Song” or “Popular Song”) and some ‘natural’ phenomena (like “Rain” or “Madame Mouse Trots”). 12 For a comprehensive presentation of all the various versions of Façade cf. Craggs 1977: 51–75. The definite version of the poems with musical accompaniment is of 1951 and comprises twenty-one poems out of the complete thirty-seven. 184 Iconicity and Beyond in “Lullaby for Jumbo”

setting’ of the poems in the traditional sense. The score of these “recitation poems” (Singleton 1960: 48) only indicates the rhythm – i.e., the segmentation of time, without any reference to melody –, and it is worth mentioning that some of the poems were published before the collaboration started (cf. Pearson 1978/1989: 180; 183) and, thus, were not written with the musical association in mind.

3. “Lullaby for Jumbo”

One of these poems is “Lullaby for Jumbo”13 (see Figure 1), which was chosen for discussion because, on the one hand, it best captures the “child-like” (Mac- Neice 1968: 52) quality and nursery spirit of the poems and, on the other, implies, from its title, a specific kinetic image that lends itself very well to the kind of analysis here attempted. Osbert, the elder of Edith’s brothers, tells us that the Sitwell children were very fond of a generation-old rocking-horse they had at home (cf. 1946: 38; qtd. Sitwell, E. 1987: 11), and Pamela Hunter, chief-exegete of Sitwellian semantic puzzles, confesses that she has “always imagined Façade taking place through the eyes of a child, rocking to the music as it sees everything larger than life” (ibid.). So the image, suggested by the poem’s title, of the rocking cradle or the mother’s – or any other person’s – rocking motion when soothing a baby, reflects the ‘master image’, as it were, of the collection, namely the rocking-horse, representing a very specific form of rhythmical energy distribution.

13 No. 7 in Edith Sitwell (1961a: 119) and in Craggs (1977: 60). Iconicity and Beyond in “Lullaby for Jumbo” 185

Figure 1: Edith Sitwell, “Lullaby for Jumbo” (1957/1961: 119).

This is not the place to attempt an interpretation of the poem, but this much ought to be said that, according to Hunter’s information (cf. Sitwell, E. 1987: 45f.), little Edith experienced steamships as elephants, with their funnels as “trumpeting” (l. 6) trunks, their double planks as “thick furs” (1. 2), the engine’s noise as “blurring conversations” (1. 4) and so forth. The “mouldy” (1. 20) Don Pasquito is Edith’s “boring and dull” (ibid.: 46) father, with his skin reddened (1. 18) from swine fever. Jumbo, the elephant, is “asleep” (1. 1) and “snores” (1. 14): so the ship seems to be idling on in the heat (“the torrid day”; 1. 12), and we might even sense in the poem a gentle rolling motion of the ship as well.

In an attempt to identify illustrative rhythmic elements in the recitation of “Lullaby for Jumbo” (see Figure 2), one can first of all observe that the bar measure of the notation is 6/8, which is the traditional measure for lullabies as, e.g., in Chopin’s famous “Berçeuse”14. (The 9/8 which we also find in “Lullaby for Jumbo” results from the instrumental interludes, so it is not used for the

14 Brahms’s popular “Wiegenlied” with its slow 3/4 measure is an exception. 186 Iconicity and Beyond in “Lullaby for Jumbo”

Figure 2: Edith Sitwell/William Walton, “Lullaby for Jumbo” (Walton 1951, recited part: 12). recitation itself.) The basic pattern of the 6/8 lullaby measure is a slow alternation of ‘long’ and ‘short’, which gives the characteristic lilt and gentleness of the motion. Looking at the recitation, we notice that it is consistently structured by two such measures of 6/8, usually as four- bar periods. (Only in the middle of the poem do we find a distribution of six plus two bars, which again make eight, i.e., two times four.) Thus the segmentation of the text shows no interruption of the gentle see-saw motion.

Looking at the number of accents per line, we can observe that in the book version of the printed poem their placement is ambiguous in several cases (e.g., ll. 2 and 17, see Figure 1), but in Sitwell’s own reading of the text15 – which follows (with some rubato) the version in the musical notation – all lines, irre- spective of their number of syllables, have two accents. This distribution clearly strengthens the see-saw effect we have noticed. The ‘model’ for the distribution of accents is XxxX, a configuration which we find spread over the whole poem,

15 Recording with Dame Edith Sitwell, Sir Peter Pears and the English Opera Group Ensemble conducted by Anthony Collins (Decca set LXT 2977, rec. Oct. 1954). Iconicity and Beyond in “Lullaby for Jumbo” 187

i.e. in lines 1, 5, 11, and 16. The other lines deviate from this model to a lesser or higher degree, but they never give up the two-accents rocking structure.

A very interesting additional observation was made by Edith Sitwell herself as to the kinetic effect of assonances and alliterations in poems: she says that a “most giddy rocking sound” (1961: xxxvii) is achieved when a phrase at the end of a line forms a rhyme, assonance or alliteration with the beginning of the next line. This is what we find at several places in “Lullaby for Jumbo”: “asleep” and “leaves” (ll. 1f.), “keep” and “Conversations” (ll. 3f.), “daughter” and “Watch” (ll. 8f.) and possibly – as loose forms of assonance – “furred” and “ears” (ll. 2f.) as well as “snores” and “Harsh” (ll. 14f.) are cases of such sound links which, according to Sitwell, produce a “giddy rocking sound”. In this case it is the sound quality which determines the rhythmical effect and not – as we have observed in the other cases – the energy distribution, i.e. the accents, the durations and the breaks. One could also argue that the abab rhyme scheme of the poem – i.e., another structure based on sound quality – equally suggests a rhythmical see-saw effect.

The observations made so far have all been based on the printed versions of the poem’s text, in both their ‘literary’ and ‘musical’ notations, and on Dame Edith’s own reading. If we look at the instrumental accompaniment (see Figure 3) we realise that it is the bass clarinet that first introduces the lullaby rhythm of slow alternating shorts and longs in 6/8, and that other instruments take it up. I do not detect further iconic rhythmic effects in the instrumental parts but, of course, there are numerous sound illustrations, which need not concern us here (the ‘snoring’ of the bass clarinet, the suggestion of ‘big animal’ by the slow play of the low instruments, the eccentric ‘elephantine’ saxophone, the brooding heat suggested by the general ‘drowsiness’ of the music, etc.)16.

16 Very likely, a model for some of these musical suggestions – as for the poem’s title and central idea – was Debussy’s piano piece “Jimbo’s Lullaby (Berceuse des elephants)” from Children’s Corner (Coin des enfants), 1908. The earliest version (1922) of Sitwell’s title was “Jumbo’s Lullaby” (cf. Craggs 1977: 51). 188 Iconicity and Beyond in “Lullaby for Jumbo”

Figure 3: Edith Sitwell/William Walton, “Lullaby for Jumbo” (Craggs 1977: 60).

4. Icon

With the example of “Lullaby for Jumbo” at hand we may be in the position to take up the central question of this paper about the semiotic status of kinetic processes in poetic rhythm. The obvious answer is that the poem offers a typical example of what has been called “prosodic iconicity” (Brogan 1993a: 552), “mimetic”, “representational” rhythms (Brogan 1993b: 776), or “imitative rhythms”, “[e]xpressive effects” (Harding 1976: 93; 85), and so on: i.e., the poem mirrors the rocking movement which we generally associate with a cradle or a person soothing a baby. This is an association that is suggested by the title of the poem and at the same time a particular interpretation of the text based on the “latent” power and “potential suggestibility” of language (Shap- iro/Beum 1965: 14f.). The ability of language to perform that iconic function rests in the fact that speech rhythm itself is “a movement system” (Harding 1976: 93), i.e., a system of a bodily, muscular movement, in the words of The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics: “[i]n poetry the medium for Iconicity and Beyond in “Lullaby for Jumbo” 189

mimetic enactment is of course the body of the poem, its corporeal substance” (Brogan 1993c: 1038). This “corporeal substance” of the poem is the “energy-deployment” or “energy discharge” of speech articulation, and I agree with D. W. Harding that “energy expenditure” is “the essential expressive feature of rhythm” (1976: 156; 102; 107). Thus our rocking mother, cradle or horse re- leases energy in a distinctive distribution which is related to that which we also find in the poem.

5. Intrinsically Coded Act

The essential semiotic question concerns the nature of this relationship. It is only incidentally that Harding hits the nail on its head when he says, “rhythm reflects – or, more properly, is itself part of – the energy conditions” in the referential world (1976: 101). This remark indicates an awareness of the fact that both the movement of the cradle and the movement of the speech rhythm in the poem have the same energy distribution; in other words, they are partly identical. The “movement is not a ‘meaning’” of the poem “but rather an in- trinsic property” of it (Lidov 1987: 70). With this perspective, the rocking of “Lullaby for Jumbo” is, in Umberto Eco’s terminology, the ‘pseudo-iconic phenomenon’ of an “intrinsically coded act”, defined as “signification through the use of a part of the referent” (1976: 209). Eco’s well-known example of such an intrinsically coded act is the picture of a red flag: while the rectangular shape of the flag on the picture is an iconic representation, its redness is not; the redness of the referential and pictured flags is the same (cf. ibid.: 210f.). Thus, by analogy, the energetic aspect of the real-life rocking cradle, or real-life rocking person, is ‘intrinsically coded’ in the poem, which implies that all these movements have a common denominator, as it were, i.e., they are “homomaterial”, in Eco’s terms (ibid.: 225), or are “tokens of a type” (Monelle 1992: 211) of motion and thus, by definition, are not iconic.

But then there are other aspects of the cradle and the person, such as, e.g., their visualisation as an object or human being respectively, which of course are not found in the poem. In other words, there are two links between the extrinsic referent – the ‘cultural unit’ (to use Eco’s concept) – of the ‘lullaby’ on the one hand and the poem on the other. One link is on the sensual level, more 190 Iconicity and Beyond in “Lullaby for Jumbo”

precisely on the proprioceptive level of kinetic experience, i.e. the rhythm, and the other is on the cognitive level, which implies an act of interpretation evoking images, in our case – induced by the title of the poem – evoking (most likely, but not inevitably) the images of mother or cradle. What I am referring to is of course the janus-like nature of all verbal utterances, namely their having a sensual-material and a mental-cognitive side, or their being a thing and a sign at the same time. The one is a matter of experience, of immediacy, of physical enactment, the other a matter of reflection, of interpretation, of meaning-generation. It is the nature of the poetic use of language to foreground the sensual side, the ‘corporeal substance’, as we have called it, of the text17, and it is a major purpose of poetic rhythm to make possible, and to guarantee, that experiential function of poetry. However, it will depend on the inclination of the recipient whether (s)he will choose such an experiential approach to the text and experience a rhythm like the rocking of “Lullaby for Jumbo” as such an ‘intrinsically coded act’ or whether (s)he will take a cognitive attitude and imagine, iconically, a lulling woman, or rocking-horse, or garden swing, or nothing at all.

6. Index

The final phase of this paper discusses a further semiotic approach to kinetic processes in poetic rhythm which is closely linked with the one just treated but goes in a different direction. It is an approach which has been strongly propagated by Vladimir Karbusicky (see 1987a; 1987 b), and though it very well applies to poetry, it has had its main impact in the field of the semiotics of music (see Lidov 1987; Tarasti 1987; Nattiez 1990, Ch. 5.5.: “Referring External- ly”, 118–127; Monelle 1992, Ch. 7.6.: “Music as Indexical Sign”, 209–214). As with the conception of ‘intrinsically coded acts’, it proceeds from the material basis, the ‘energetics’, of the text (cf. Karbusicky 1987a: 28) but, in contrast to that other semiotic device, it does not concern itself with the relationship of the energetics of the text with its extrinsic referent but with the text’s recipient. Thus the interest, with this approach, lies in the influence, the impact, the effect of the kinetic ‘corporeal substance’ of the text on the listener. This line of interest of course is not new, it is the time-honoured aesthetic concern with the

17 “In expository prose the physicality of words is suppressed, whereas in poetry it is foregrounded” (Brogan 1993c: 1041). Iconicity and Beyond in “Lullaby for Jumbo” 191

expressive force, the provocative power of ‘energetic’ presentations18. This expressive force has traditionally been connected with the emotions, i.e., what is being evoked by the presentation are feelings, and from antiquity these feelings have been associated with movement: the Aristotelian notion of movere has survived in our modern conception of ‘moving the passions’. So the idea is that the motion of the text stirs a motion, and emotion, in the recipient. It cannot be ruled out that it is possible to experience such effects, but their description is necessarily vague19, and Karbusicky argues bravely that such emotions induced by the text are “encoded in the depth of our consciousness” (1987a: 29).

The question as to the semiotic status of these emotional effects has generally been answered in terms of index. According to Peirce’s definitions this seems justified: an index is “a sign which refers to the Object that it denotes by virtue of being really affected by that Object”, and these indices “direct the attention to their objects by blind compulsion” (1949: 107f.)20. These definitions stress the naturalness and inevitability of such connections about which there is “no question of resemblance” for they are “dynamic” connections, in Ray- mond Monelle’s words: “[t]he sign-function of this sort of ‘dynamic index’ is synergistic, based [...] on contiguity-in-motion”; the relation “is metonymic rather than metaphoric, indexical rather than iconic” (1992: 212f.)21. The exact nature of this relationship is still very little understood, some talk about a “structural homology” (Steiner 1993: 1141), for others the movement presented and the emotion evoked are “isogenous, linked by an inner behavior” (Lidov 1987: 77f.). Karbusicky attempts the following description: “To the affect belongs [...] the experienced bodily movement that we repress in the course of our socialization; it becomes the kinetically-felt impulse (motorisch empfundener Antrieb) of inner-life.” (1987a: 31)

18 For a historical survey of ‘energetic’ aesthetics cf. Bernhart 1993: 313–331 (Ch. 6.1.: “Exkurs: Die ‘energetische’ Kunstauffassung”). 19 This is why even the normative eighteenth century found it difficult to assign definite affects to rhythms and metres: “these inconsistent and vague categories do not constitute a doctrine” (Neu- bauer 1986: 56f.). 20 Karbusicky equally stresses “the directness, [...], the singularity, the event character, and the psy- chosomatic symptoms” of such compulsive indices (1987a: 24). 21 Eco argues in a similar way: “I propose not to consider as ‘iconic’ the so-called ‘expressive’ properties of certain signals, by which they are supposed to ‘induce’ a feeling of similarity between the signal and a given emotion” (1976: 203). 192 Iconicity and Beyond in “Lullaby for Jumbo”

Whatever the attempted explanation may be, kinetic processes in poetic rhythm can perform a recipient-oriented, emotionally based indexical sign-function22.

7. Conclusion

By way of summary, I may draw three conclusions from what has been said. First, the fact that the poetic rhythm of one and the same text, such as Ed- ith Sitwell’s “Lullaby for Jumbo”, allows at least three different semiotic interpretations underlines Eco’s conviction that there are no fixed “types of signs” but rather various “modes of producing sign-functions” (1976: 217). Which sign-functions are produced by the text and its recipients largely depends on the specific aspect chosen from the total semiotic context to look at the sign. Second, the discussion of “Lullaby for Jumbo” has shown that there is an obvious iconic dimension in the poem on the level of the rocking poetic rhythm, but the foregoing discussion will have shown that significant other forms of en- coding – such as intrinsically encoded acts and indexical sign-functions – can be identified in the poem as well. This reflects more recent post-structuralist, or “postmimetic” (Brogan 1993c: 1041) tendencies in literary criticism which distrust the representational capacities of language and accept a greater potential of interaction in the aesthetic experience between the perceptual data basis and the perceiver. And third, the discussion might also have shown that the quiz games or puzzles of Edith Sitwell’s early poetry point directly to such a more open conception of the aesthetic experience and thus prove their moder- nity by emphasising their ‘corporeal’-performative character and the ensuing multivalent semiotic status.

22 It should be stressed that the indexical emotions here addressed are emotions evoked by the text and not emotions which are represented in the text; only recipient-oriented, ‘pragmatic’ emotions are indexical; extrinsic, ‘referential’ emotions are what Osmond-Smith calls “‘unconscious icon[s]’” in which “the abstract form” of the text relates to “pertinent relational features of a perceptual model” (1972: 40). A still different matter are those emotions which, according to some people’s view, are the poet’s own emotions finding immediate expression in the poem. Such sender-oriented emotions would be indices, like the recipient-oriented ones, could they be verified. I agree with Monelle referring to the parallel situation in music: “The naive interpretation of music aesthetics – that music is the expression of some real emotion or other – represents music as an indexical sign, like a spontaneous cry. In this form, such a view is untenable” (1992: 198). Iconicity and Beyond in “Lullaby for Jumbo” 193

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This paper considers how the investigation of instrumental music may benefit from applying findings of literary genre theory within the framework of a traditional comparatist and structuralist methodology. The focus is on a possible ‘narrative’ quality of instrumental music, an issue which is discussed from the viewpoint, first, of ‘mediacy of presentation’/‘diegesis’ and ‘voice’ and, then, of ‘story’/‘organized successions’ and ‘discourse emphasis’. Results show that only marginal forms of instrumental music can meaningfully be called ‘narrative’ in an established literary and non-metaphorical sense, and that music shares its presentational mode far more directly with the lyric genre of literature. The paper concludes by suggesting possible links between theoretical and historical/cultural considerations and makes the observation, to be pursued in further research, that in the 19th century, in all genres and media discussed, some controlling subject or ‘authentic personality’ plays a dominant role, while in the 20th century the tendency is towards more autonomous, depersonalized forms of discourse and presentational modes.

In view of Steven Scher’s well-known distinction between major areas of interest in Word and Music Studies (cf. 1984: 14) my reflections belong to the area of ‘literature in music’: I will try to apply some of the findings of literary theory and criticism to music. Since it is the objective of my considerations to test the applicability of some of the concepts of literary genre theory that have been developed in a structuralist context to music, my method is that of finding parallels between the two fields of observation by comparative analysis, i.e., ‘Com- parative Arts’ in the traditional sense. However, I hope my reflections will also show that a theoretical discussion of literary genres – and I will confine myself here to the lyric and the narrative modes – may open up a view on more general aesthetic issues and their manifestations in the historical process, and thus, at the same time, may transcend the purely ‘literary’ perspective and envisage a cultural context. My discussion of possible ‘lyric’ and ‘narrative’ qualities of music – the implication being instrumental music – aims primarily at investigating, on a theoretical, comparative basis, the adequacy or inadequacy of the use of some basic literary terms in music criticism and, in addition, at increasing our awareness of the cultural relevance of such an investigation. 196 Some Reflections on Literary Genres and Music

To start off, there seems to be a general agreement among critics that instrumental music is not basically of a narrative nature. If we take as one of the defining qualities of narrative – following Franz K. Stanzel’s widely accepted Theory of Narrative – the mediacy of presentation1, it will be little questioned that instrumental music is not obviously characterized by such a diegetic2 disposition. As John Neubauer has phrased it, “instrumental music cannot alternate between showing and telling, cannot speak in first or third person, distinguish between external and internal narrators, speak in indirect and free indirect discourse, distinguish between public and private voices, narrate or fo- calize on different levels” (1997: 118f.). All this is undoubtedly true; however, it should be added that, although instrumental music cannot ‘alternate between showing and telling’, it can ‘show’ very well. In fact, it generally performs a pure act of ‘showing’. And although instrumental music cannot ‘speak in first or third person’, it emphatically does speak in the first person. (The best-known statement confirming this position was made by W. H. Auden in his opening address at the 1968 Salzburg Festival, where he compared the different arts in grammatical terms and thus characterized music: “All musical statements [...] are intransitive, in the First Person, singular or plural, and in the Present Indica- tive.” 1968: 27)

What I am implying is that instrumental music, although it does not have access to the great variety of forms of presentation which narrative has, is generally characterized by one form of presentation which we also find in narrative and, according to Stanzel, gives ‘the illusion of immediacy’3, when the narrative agency withdraws from the scene and is no longer conspicuous on the surface of the discourse. But the submerged narrative instance remains active on the level of “the process of production (the genetic deep structure)” (1979/1984: 147) as a shaping agency or force. This form of presentation is not a traditional narrative practice but is frequently used in modernist fiction, mostly in the form of the interior monologue; it finds its purest expression in what has been labeled the ‘camera-eye technique’ which is applied, e.g., in the nouveau roman

1 See Stanzel 1979/1984, chapter 1: “Mediacy of presentation as the generic characteristic of narration”. 2 “Diégésis is pure narrative [...], in contrast to the mimésis of dramatic representation” (Genette 1983/1988: 18). 3 “In this case the mediacy of presentation is characteristically obscured by the reader’s illusion that he is witnessing the action directly” (Stanzel 1979/1984: 146f.). Some Reflections on Literary Genres and Music 197

and hides the diegetic process as much as possible. The transmission occurs “without apparent selection or arrangement” (ibid.: 232) and is thus the purest verbal form of ‘showing’.

What conclusion can be drawn from this for instrumental music and the applicability of the term ‘narrative’ to it? There is a form of narrative in fiction that has a status, as far as the diegetic process is concerned, which is similar to music, namely, that the discursive agency, or ‘voice’, does not appear on the surface but performs its shaping function on a submerged, covert level only.

Structuralist-oriented music criticism has paid little attention to the question of voice in instrumental music, and it is only Edward T. Cone who has addressed himself more extensively to it from this perspective (see 1974; 1992)4. In spite of the seminal merits of Cone’s work in dealing with ‘voice’ from a musicological viewpoint, there is a basic limitation in its approach which is already indicated by the titles of his studies: they assume that it is the ‘composer’ or the ‘poet’ themselves who ‘speak’ to us in a lied or any piece of music. But even if we neglect the indispensable distinction between the ‘real-life’ composer and a possible ‘implied’ or ‘inferred’ composer of the composition5 – comparable to the ‘inferred author’ of a literary work (cf. Genette 1983/1988: 150) – there remains too much of a necessarily personal, subjective status of that implied ‘voice’ – which I have so far rather laboriously labeled as ‘discursive agency’, ‘shaping force’, ‘presentational source’ or ‘narrative instance’ – to be generally acceptable. Lawrence Kramer is similarly sensitive on this point and has “avoided Cone’s term musical persona precisely in order to avoid its continuous af- firmation of a controlling, all-embracing subject” (1990: 187). Thus that covert discursive agency, which we find both in instrumental music and in some forms of fiction, should, in principle, not be seen in terms of an ‘authentic personality’ but in terms of a mental attitude discernible in the discourse. In fact, from a structuralist perspective, one should go a step further and abandon altogether the idea that there be such a thing as an external force at all, working on the discourse from the outside, and clearly realize that the discursive agency is

4 Carolyn Abbate’s Unsung Voices (see 1991) is a major study of ‘voice’ from a post-structuralist angle. 5 Cone makes sure that “the composer’s persona” is “not ‘the persona of the composer’ but ‘a persona of the composer’” but still talks about “the composer’s message” and thus envisages the empirical composer as the source of the discourse (1974: 18). 198 Some Reflections on Literary Genres and Music

part of the discourse itself, i.e., an organizational function which is performed by the text itself. Such a constructivist position seems almost indispensable, particularly in relation to instrumental music, as it forms the foundation and justification for the open semiosis of music, i.e., its openness to the interpretive activities of musical hermeneutics. Without that autonomy and independence from external sources music could not lend itself so readily and thrillingly to a wide range of interpretations. The very abstract definition which is given here of the self-organizational function of the discourse does not rule out, however, that in some works, in some traditions – as will be shown later – this function crystallizes into more subject-like agencies which may acquire even the status of a personal ‘authorial’ voice, in Cone’s terms.

When I have said before that there are forms of narrative which, as far as the covert status of their diegetic process is concerned, are comparable to the general status of instrumental music, this was based on an understanding that, in fiction, this form of narrative is not the most usual and regular case. A lot of traditional narration characteristically foregrounds the narrative process through the strong presence of a (mostly omniscient) authorial narrator, who appears as a ‘controlling, all-embracing subject’ in Cone’s sense, and we find a wide narrative distance between the referential (‘story’-)level and the narrational (‘discourse’-)level of the text. In the majority of cases there is a ‘harmony’, as it were, between these two levels insofar as the narrator cooperates and instru- mentalizes himself in telling his story, with a strong emphasis on drawing the reader’s attention to the story itself. Only in later developments of fiction, in particular with the advent of proto-modernist writing in Henry James – prefigured by Sterne’s glorious Tristram Shandy –, do we find what Kramer calls a “dissonance between story and metastory” where the literary narrative becomes “the art of not telling a story” (1990: 186).

If we look at these two distinct forms of fiction, both of which, in different ways, show a strong presence of ‘voice’, we can observe that the first – which is characteristically represented by the Victorian novel of the Dickens or Har- dy type – seems to find its equivalent in some kinds of music. One could argue that in some dominant forms of 19th-century instrumental music, notably the symphonic tradition, we have a discursive agency at work which gives the impression of shaping and determining the musical discourse very much as a highly individualized subject in Cone’s terms. I am not saying that we find in Some Reflections on Literary Genres and Music 199

such music, like in the Victorian novel, an overt, surface presence of this strong subjective voice – this is ruled out by music’s essential ‘immediacy’ discussed before: it is only covertly active but nonetheless strongly to be felt as a dominating, singular shaping force. To account for this impression by analyzing individual works and their idiosyncratic shaping of symphonic material from a ‘voice’-perspective would be a challenging task for musicologists.

The other strongly voice-centered presentational mode found in fiction, the one indicating a dissonance between story and metastory, is considered by Kramer as producing the most typical “narrative effects” when applied in music (1990: 189). This is convincing as it is only in such cases that the diegetic process – if it be taken as one of the defining principles of narrative – surfaces and becomes directly perceivable in music. Kramer refers to the “quasi-narrative techniques of interpolation” as found, e.g., in Schumann’s piano pieces (ibid.: 188), and one can think of other citational practices in music, of the use of irony and related musical alienation effects as further examples: wherever there is a categorical disruption in the organizational unity of the musical discourse, we become aware of different voices being active at the same time. As Kramer puts it, “instrumental music [...] draws closest to narrative effects when it is at its most heterogeneous, its most self-conscious, its most experimental” (ibid.: 209). This is saying as much as that only marginal forms of music in the European tradition – to limit the cultural context – can be called ‘narrative’ in approach, taking overt mediacy as the defining principle of narrativity. It needs to be added that also in the literary tradition this kind of disruptive discourse in the manner of Sterne is only one form of narrative practice, which is a relative latecomer in the history of fiction.

Having noticed earlier that there is some music, such as the 19th-century symphonic tradition, which gives the impression of an ‘all-embracing subject’ as its discursive agency, and having claimed that this form of presentation is comparable to the discursive habits of the Victorian novel, I might provoke objection as there seems to be general consensus that such a presentational form is typical of the lyric rather than the epic mode. To quote again from Kramer: “As a monological form, nondramatic music affiliates itself fundamentally with lyric poetry, which also tends to privilege a single-subject position in which the authorial, narrational, and focusing activities are merged.” (Ibid.: 188) It cannot be denied that much of what we consider lyric poetry is characterized 200 Some Reflections on Literary Genres and Music

by such a perspective of a strongly individualized, ‘authentic’ single subject, as put forward by Wolfgang G. Müller’s well-known genre-defining description of the ‘lyric I’ (cf. 1979: 12). However, criticism as to the limitation of such a unidirectional ‘subjectivist’ definition of the lyric has been expressed, and I have proposed elsewhere (see 1993) that two forms of lyric presentation ought to be distinguished: one, in Müller’s – or Cone’s – sense, where the discursive instance manifests itself as a personal, individualized subject, like in typical Romantic poetry, and the other, where it acts merely as a neutral shaping agency in the way described earlier. This latter form of what I call ‘autonomous’ poetry (cf. ibid.: 366) is represented above all by much of 20th-century poetry (Dinggedichte, ‘poetry of statements’, ‘poetry of place’, concrete poetry, etc.)6.

The distinction between these two types of poetry with a personal versus a neutralized presence of the discursive agency strikingly resembles the distinction we found earlier in narrative fiction between such texts that show overt diegesis by an omniscient personal narrator and such that give the illusion of immediacy by a withdrawing, depersonalized narrational instance. This resemblance justifies a comparison, from the perspective of voice, of 19th-century symphonic music to both the Victorian novel and Romantic poetry.

It is a logical consequence of this situation – that both lyric and narrative texts are similarly characterized by two contrasting forms of an overt and covert mediating process – to question mediacy as the distinguishing mark of narrative (cf. Bernhart 1993: 367f.). As a further consequence, the mediacy criterion proves to be of little help to define more comprehensively possible ‘narrative’ qualities of instrumental music. The discussion above has shown that few musical works demonstrate an overt form of mediacy which, in addition, is less qualified to serve as a defining criterion of narrativity than it is usually granted.

The other obvious contender for defining narrativity in music is the story element; and we are grateful to John Neubauer for his survey of the various scholarly attempts to define the narrative quality of music from the story viewpoint (see 1997). There is no space here to summarize his – basically skeptical – results, but it should be noted that they significantly coincide with Kramer’s

6 Müller has recently accepted this distinction and now refers to ‘explicit’ and ‘implicit’ subjectivity in poetry, however, without abandoning the idea of ‘subjectivity’ being involved in all lyric poetry (see 1995). Some Reflections on Literary Genres and Music 201

(cf. 1990: 183–189). I would like to add to the discussion by referring to a passage from Kramer which distinguishes typical “organized successions” of units of discourse in the lyric and the narrative modes. He says: “[...] lyric successions are organized with primary reference to gestures of reflection, expression, and interpretation, whereas narrative successions crystallize primarily around patterns of action and consequence. (Primary is a key term here; both kinds of organization occur regularly in both kinds of text.)” (Ibid.: 185) This observation draws attention to the fundamental fact that in any discourse we need to distinguish between the matter or content of the discourse – I prefer to call it the discursive ‘substance’ (Aussagesubstanz) – and the agent or voice of the discourse – the discursive ‘instance’ or ‘agency’ (Aussageinstanz; cf. Bernhart 1993: 366). Both are inseparable and always present in any discourse, but an essential distinction between the lyric and the narrative modes seems to lie in the different emphasis which is put on the two discursive elements in the rival genres. In the narrative mode the primary motivation for, and emphasis in, the discourse lies on the discursive ‘substance’, i.e., on the world of contingency, of “action and consequence”, in Kramer’s words; in the lyric mode the primary motivation and main emphasis lies on the discursive ‘agency’, i.e., on the mental attitude which is taken towards the ‘substance’, as “gestures of reflection, expression, and interpretation”. Applying these distinctions to instrumental music, Kramer claims that it “leans more towards lyric than towards narrative in its organization of successions” (1990: 185; cf. also 1984: 4–23), which seems to be naturally true for much music one can think of. It is worth considering, however, whether musical activities of a strongly social and performative character might not be more ‘substance’-related and action-oriented in their orgaiz- ational set-up.

To summarize, it can first be observed that the mediacy criterion seems ultimately not helpful for identifying narrative elements in instrumental music. There are forms of narrative in literary texts which disguise their mediacy just as much as instrumental music generally disguises its mediating processes. The rare cases in music where the diegetic process is foregrounded are comparable to a ‘disruptive’, metafictionally or self-referentially oriented narrative practice in fiction, which cannot be considered the standard case in the historical development of fiction. What can also safely be said is that – to use a necessarily vague phrase – the ‘traditional and most common’ narrative practice of an overt, authorial discursive instance which is in ‘harmony’ with the story can- 202 Some Reflections on Literary Genres and Music

not be found in ‘traditional and most common’ European instrumental music.

As far as – from a literary genre perspective – a lyric quality of instrumental music is concerned, it can be observed that mediacy of presentation is not restricted to the narrative mode but can also be found in the lyric mode. It is true that a great body of poetry projects an illusion of immediacy and disguises the diegetic process, but it is equally true that a considerable number of poems – take Wordsworth’s prototypical Romantic poem “I wandered lonely as a cloud” – foreground their mediacy. Consequently, as concerns instrumental music, mediacy is again no ultimate defining criterion for its lyric qualities. Yet it can be observed that ‘traditional and most common’ instrumental music, with its illusion of immediacy, parallels ‘traditional and most common’ forms of lyric poetry which also appear to be spontaneous and unmediated. In this restricted sense – from the mediacy perspective – instrumental music can be said to incline towards the lyric mode.

More promising for a helpful distinction of lyric and narrative elements in instrumental music is the story criterion along the lines of organizational patterns and motivational emphasis as outlined above. Here one can observe that instrumental music shows a stronger affiliation to the lyric mode in literature, which is characterized by an emphasis on the mental attitude taken in an utterance rather than on the substance of the utterance, as is the case in the narrative mode.

These observations result from applying findings of literary genre theory with a structuralist orientation to instrumental music and lead to the conclusion that literature and music, as it were, share a common ground, i.e., they pose the same problems and can be investigated by the same tools. This process of investigation leads in some way toward deciding how meaningfully we can talk about music being ‘narrative’ or ‘lyric’ in its presentational mode. One result is that we ought to be very careful in applying the concept of narrativity to instrumental music; as far as our knowledge goes, only marginal forms of music can be labeled ‘narrative’ from a structuralist perspective. At any rate, close studies of musical works from this particular viewpoint are still outstanding. Also, special interest ought to be invested in tracing overt diegesis in the form of quotations, irony and other forms of multiple perspective and in analyzing organizational patterns as to their ‘lyric’ or ‘narrative’ dispositions in the senses defined. Some Reflections on Literary Genres and Music 203

Apart from these conclusions that bear on the theoretical comparison of ‘word and music’ the observations made in this essay also allow some conclusions on the historical level. We have observed that in poetry and narrative fiction as well as (possibly) in instrumental music a status of the discursive agency can be identified which can be seen in terms of an ‘authentic personality’, a highly individualized subject that is in powerful control of the discursive process. This seems to be one of the prevailing discursive modes in 19th-century aesthetic activities. We have seen, in addition, that this controlling subject can take either a ‘harmonious’ or a ‘disruptive’ attitude towards the discursive substance of the presentation, where the disruptive form appears to be less dominant in the 19th century and finds its more extensive application only later in the 20th century. We have also observed that, again in all the genres under inspection, we can trace a discursive instance which has withdrawn from the surface and manifests itself merely as a – more or less specific – mental attitude towards the discursive substance or, in more extreme cases, performs only a completely depersonalized organizational function vis-à-vis the discursive substance. This presentational mode seems to be a typical 20th-century phenomenon.

These observations imply that genre considerations are helpful in identifying historical developments and may fruitfully enrich our understanding of historical situations. As reflected in modern genre theory, the last two hundred years have witnessed the emergence of various attitudes of applying ‘mind’ to ‘world’, and these attitudes are manifested in the variety of cultural products which represent their historical moments. Interart studies contribute significantly to the identification of such cultural situations. The present essay wants to show a direction in which theoretical investigations, by using a comparatist methodology, can work towards that end. 204 Some Reflections on Literary Genres and Music

References

Abbate, Carolyn (1991). Unsung Voices: Opera and Musical Narrative in the Nineteenth Century. Prin- ceton, NJ: Princeton UP. Auden, Wystan Hugh (1968). Worte und Noten: Rede zur Eröffnung der Salzburger Festspiele 1968. Salzburg: Festungsverlag. (English version: 25–38). Bernhart, Walter (1993). “Überlegungen zur Lyriktheorie aus erzähltheoretischer Sicht”. Herbert Fol- tinek, Wolfgang Riehle, Waldemar Zacharasiewicz, eds. Tales and ‘their telling difference’: Zur Theorie und Geschichte der Narrativik. Festschrift zum 70. Geburtstag von Franz K. Stanzel. Hei- delberg: Winter. 359–375. Cone, Edward T. (1974). The Composer’s Voice. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. — (1992). “Poet’s Love or Composer’s Love?”. Steven Paul Scher, ed. Music and Text: Critical Inquiries. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. 177–192. Genette, Gérard (1983/1988). Narrative Discourse Revisited. Transl. Jane E. Lewin. Ithaca, NY: Cor- nell UP. (French orig.: Nouveau discours du récit. Paris: Editions du Seuil). Kramer, Lawrence (1984). Music and Poetry: The Nineteenth Century and After. Berkeley, CA: Uni- versity of California Press. — (1990). Music as Cultural Practice, 1800–1900. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Müller, Wolfgang G. (1979). Das lyrische Ich: Erscheinungsformen gattungseigentümlicher Autor-Sub- jektivität in der englischen Lyrik. Heidelberg: Winter. — (1995). “Das Problem der Subjektivität der Lyrik und die Dichtung der Dinge und Orte“. Ans- gar Nünning, Sabine Buchholz, Manfred Jahn, eds. Literaturwissenschaftliche Theorien, Modelle und Methoden: Eine Einführung. WVT-Handbücher zum literaturwissenschaftlichen Studium 1. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier. 93–105. Neubauer, John (1997). “Tales of Hoffmann and Others: On Narrativizations of Instrumental Music”. Ulla-Britta Lagerroth, Hans Lund, Erik Hedling, eds. Interart Poetics: Essays on the Interrelations of the Arts and Media. Internationale Forschungen zur Allgemeinen und Vergleichenden Litera- turwissenschaft 24. Amsterdam/Atlanta, GA: Rodopi. 117–136. Scher, Steven Paul (1984). “Einleitung: Literatur und Musik – Entwicklung und Stand der For- schung”. Steven Paul Scher, ed. Literatur und Musik: Ein Handbuch zur Theorie und Praxis eines komparatistischen Grenzgebietes. Berlin: Schmidt. 9–25. Stanzel, Franz Karl (1979/1984). A Theory of Narrative. Transl. Charlotte Goedsche. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. (German orig.: Theorie des Erzählens. Uni-Taschenbücher 904. Göttingen: Van- denhoek & Ruprecht). Die Ambivalenz der Unschuld: Benjamin Britten auf der Suche nach dem kindlichen Sein [1999]

Im 4. Hauptstück von Menschliches, Allzumenschliches – geschrieben, als sich Nietzsche von seinem Künstlerheros Wagner abzuwenden begann – kann man lesen, daß der Künstler “nicht in der vordersten Reihe der Aufklärung und der fortschreitenden Vermännlichung der Menschheit” steht: er ist vielmehr “zeitlebens ein Kind [...] geblieben”, und es wird “zu seiner Aufgabe, die Menschheit zu verkindlichen; dies ist sein Ruhm und seine Begrenztheit”. Zeigt sich hier zwar eine erste deutliche Absetzbewegung von rousseauistisch inspirierten romantischen Haltungen, so formuliert sich diese aber doch im Wissen um die zwischen Faszination und Gefährdung liegende Ambivalenz einer Orientierung auf kind- hafte Zustände, zu der das romantische Künstlertemperament neigt.

Wohl auf kaum einen Komponisten des 20. Jahrhunderts trifft Nietzsches Charakterisierung unmittelbarer zu als auf Benjamin Britten, dessen Werk auf vielfältigste Weise um das Kindliche kreist – sei es, daß Werke für Kinder geschrieben wurden, wie beispielsweise The Little Sweep (quasi ein Peter Grimes für Kinder) oder The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra; sei es, daß Kinder auch als Ausführende vorgesehen sind, wie etwa in The Golden Vanity (ein Bil- ly Budd für Kinder, wenn man so will, 1967 geschrieben für die Wiener Sän- gerknaben); oder sei es, daß gewaltsame Kindheitserfahrungen thematisiert werden wie in Children’s Crusade (1958), basierend auf Brecht, oder im späten Liederzyklus Who Are These Children? (1972), wo der engagierte Pazifist Brit- ten leidenschaftlich Partei für Kinder als Opfer kriegerischer Gewalttätigkeit ergreift, oder im dramatisch angelegten Canticle II, Abraham and Isaac, das auf eindrucksvolle Weise dramatisch verdichtet das unfreiwillige Kindesopfer des biblischen Stammvaters schildert; oder sei es schließlich, daß kindliche Be- wußtseinszustände erfaßt werden, wie – um das markanteste Beipiel zu nennen – in The Turn of the Screw, jener bedeutsamen Kammeroper, die Henry James’ großartiger Geschichte um zwei ‘unschuldige’ Kinder und deren ‘Ver- führung’ eine höchst beklemmende musikalische Existenz verleiht. 206 Die Ambivalenz der Unschuld

Zweifellos war Britten zeitlebens umgetrieben von der Suche nach einem Zustand kindlicher Unschuld, wobei die Biographen unterschiedliche Speku- lationen anstellen, worauf dies zurückzuführen sein könnte. Bereits sehr früh mußte der sensible Junge das Elternhaus und damit vor allem die Mutter verlassen, um die obligate englische Internatserziehung zu erfahren. Auch über- nahm er bereits im Alter von nur 16 Jahren durch seine Aufnahme ins Roy- al College of Music professionelle Verantwortung im Komponieren, wodurch ebenfalls sehr früh die kindlich-spielerische Auseinandersetzung mit Musik nun zur ‘Arbeit’ wurde. Am entscheidendsten jedoch mag gewesen sein – wie Britten seinem Freund und engen Mitarbeiter Eric Crozier anvertraut haben soll –, daß er als Junge in der Schule vergewaltigt worden sei. Eine solche traumatische Erfahrung mag in der Tat die überzeugendste Erklärung dafür liefern, daß die Thematik der Suche nach dem ‘verlorenen Paradies’ den Kom- ponisten bis an sein Lebensende nicht losließ, dies umso mehr, als durch seine homosexuelle Veranlagung eine solche frühe Erfahrung einen ganz besonderen Stellenwert einnehmen mußte.

Die Rückwendung zu einem als ideal angesehenen Zustand kindlichen Be- wußtseins findet sich vielleicht am prägnantesten formuliert im siebten Lied aus Who Are These Children?, betitelt “A Riddle”. Der Text stammt von Willi- am Soutar, dem 1943 verstorbenen, jahrelang bettlägrigen schottischen Dich- ter, mit dem Britten seinen leidenschaftlichen Pazifismus teilte. In dem im schottischen Dialekt verfaßten Rätsel in Form eines Kindergedichts heißt es über das zu Erratende:

It was your faither and mither [es war dir Vater und Mutter] [...] Wit and wisdom it lent ye [es verlieh dir Geist und Weisheit], Yet it wasna lairèd [doch es wurde nicht belehrt/unterrichtet].

Wenn die Lösung des Rätsels lautet “The Child You Were”, wird deutlich, daß hier Soutar/Britten – ganz im Sinne von William Wordsworths bekanntem Zi- tat “The Child is father of the Man” (aus dem Gedicht “My Heart Leaps Up”) – dem Kind ein Bewußtsein einräumen, von dem wir alle herkommen/‘ab- stammen’, von dessen ursprünglichem Wissen wir uns aber entfremdet haben. Die Ambivalenz der Unschuld 207

Am berührendsten ist Brittens Sehnsucht nach einem ‘paradiesischen’, noch nicht entfremdeten kindlichen Zustand im Liederzyklus Winter Words auf Tex- te von Thomas Hardy zum Ausdruck gebracht. Dessen letztes Lied, “Before Life and After” – für viele das eindrucksvollste aller Britten-Lieder –, spricht von einem Zustand “Before the birth of consciousness, / When all went well”, einer vorbewußten, heilen Existenzform, die jedoch keinen Bestand hatte:

But the disease of feeling germed, And primal rightness took the tinct of wrong; Ere nescience shall be reaffirmed How long, how long?

Es sind unsere Gefühle, die – als ‘krankhafte Keime’ – dem, was ursprünglich Recht war, die ‘Tönung’ des Unrechts geben, und das Gedicht stellt die Frage, wie lange es noch dauern werde, bis das alte ‘Nicht-Wissen’ wiederhergestellt ist. Daß dieser ‘krankhafte’ Zustand des Unrechts als Zustand der Sünde gesehen wird, an dem Kinder nicht teilhaben, geht aus einer Textstelle aus dem zweiten Lied der Winter Words hervor. Dieses Lied – genannt “Midnight on the Great Western (or The Journeying Boy)” –schildert die raum-zeitliche Ab- gehobenheit eines Jungen auf einer Eisenbahnfahrt – man weiß nicht woher, man weiß nicht wohin –, und der Text reflektiert darüber, ob der Junge Zu- gang zu einer uns unzugänglichen Existenzsphäre hat, und darüber, daß er offensichtlich unserer Welt der Sünde, in der er zwar lebt, jedoch nicht wirklich angehört (“This region of sin that you find you in, / But are not of”). Auch in weiteren Liedern aus Winter Words wird der Blickwinkel von Kindern ein- genommen, welche den in “Before Life and After” formulierten Zustand der ‘nescience’ verkörpern (“At Day-close in November”, “Wagtail and Baby (A Sa- tire)”, “At the Railway Station, Upway (or The Convict and Boy with the Vi- olin)”): Hier repräsentiert das Kind überall ein Stadium unschuldigen Seins.

Es entspräche jedoch nicht dem komplexen Bewußtsein Brittens, ließe er es bei einer solchen Idealisierung kindlicher Unschuld bewenden. Daß viele seiner Werke eine charakteristische Doppelbödigkeit, Tragik, manchmal Schärfe kennzeichnet, liegt darin, daß sich in ihnen ein grundlegender Zweifel über die Tatsächlichkeit eines solchen unschuldigen Seins kundtut. Der kindliche Zu- stand des ‘Nicht-Wissens’ wird skeptisch gesehen und erfährt eine Ambiguisie- rung, getragen von der Erkenntnis, daß er wohl nur Produkt von Täuschung 208 Die Ambivalenz der Unschuld

und Wunschdenken sein kann. Die Unfähigkeit, an Unschuld tatsächlich zu glauben, durchzieht Brittens Werk und scheint tief verwurzelt in der eigenen Erfahrung des Komponisten, den Unsicherheiten und latente Schuldempfin- dungen wegen seiner homosexuellen Veranlagung sein Leben lang begleiteten.

Am eindrücklichsten stellt sich die Problematik um die Ambivalenz von Unschuld bei Britten in der Oper The Turn of the Screw dar, deren Stoffwahl durch Britten nicht überraschen kann, wenn man sich vergegenwärtigt, daß Henry James mit seinem berühmten Roman einen klassischen Fall ambiva- lenten Erzählens schuf. Die höchst kunstvolle Erzählweise von James spaltet bis heute Literaturkritiker in unversöhnliche Lager, weil sie offen läßt, ob die beiden Kinder, die in einem einsamen Landschloß einer jungen, unerfahrenen Erzieherin überlassen sind, tatsächlich von den verstorbenen ehemaligen Be- diensteten des Hauses korrumpiert werden, wie die Erzieherin glaubt, oder ob sie unschuldig sind und Opfer der Halluzinationen der verklemmten Erziehe- rin werden. Brittens Opernfassung dieser Erzählung – vor allem das Libretto – versucht, die Ambivalenz des Textes aufrechtzuerhalten, doch vom Gesamtein- druck der Aufführungserfahrung des Werks her vermittelt sich am stärksten die Macht des Bösen zur Zerstörung von Unschuld. Daß dies auch das zentrale Anliegen Brittens in dieser Oper war, geht daraus hervor, daß er in den Text einen Vers von William Butler Yeats einfügte, dessen Erscheinen zu einem Hö- hepunkt des Werks wird, wenn die Geister singen: “The ceremony of innocence is drowned.” Wie sehr Britten von solchen Bildern der Korruption der Unschuld angezogen wurde, zeigt sich auch darin, daß im Zentrum der belieb- ten Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings die Vertonung von William Blakes berühmtem Gedicht “The Sick Rose” steht, das veranschaulicht, wie auch hier die ‘dunkle verschwiegene Liebe’ eines bedrohlichen ‘unsichtbaren Insekts’ das Leben der Rose zerstört:

O rose, thou art sick, The invisible worm That flies in the night, In the howling storm,

Has found out thy bed Of crimson joy, And his dark secret love Does thy life destroy. Die Ambivalenz der Unschuld 209

Die musikwissenschaftliche Diskussion um Brittens Tonsprache hat das Wis- sen um Brittens Haltungen, wie sie hier skizziert werden, für die Werkanaly- sen fruchtbar gemacht und festgestellt, daß die Musik diese Haltungen auch technisch assimiliert. So hat man etwa beobachtet, daß die melodische Gestal- tung bei Britten vorwiegend entwicklungslos ist, und auch, daß häufig Osti- natopassagen dominieren. Beides wird als Spiegel von Zeitlosigkeit, von Still- stand gedeutet und der kindlichen Erfahrungswelt, wie sie etwa die Texte aus Winter Words darstellen, zugeordnet. Auch die charakteristisch fluktuieren- de Dreiklangswelt bei Britten kann als die Suche nach den absoluten Zustän- den von Schönheit und Unschuld gedeutet werden, wobei ein Kritiker so weit geht, den Zustand der ‘nescience’, des ‘Nicht-Wissens’, durch A-Dur symbo- lisiert zu sehen. Demgegenüber verweisen – durchaus in traditioneller Deu- tung – chromatische beziehungsweise tonal ungebundene Gestaltungsweisen auf Gefährdungen, Destruktionen, oder ganz allgemein auf Umbruchs- und Veränderungszustände. Brittens Ambivalenz der Harmonik verkörpert demnach eine Koexistenz von Regression und Progression im technischen wie im ideologischen Sinn. Ähnliches kann über Brittens Instrumentation gesagt werden, wenn etwa die Harfe, traditionellerweise ‘seligen Sphären’ zugeordnet, bei Britten höchst sinistre Wirkungen erzielt – so ist sie zum Beispiel Peter Quints, des Verführers, Leitinstrument in The Turn of the Screw – und somit unmittelbar für die Ambivalenz der Unschuld steht. Britten entkommt also dem eingangs zitierten Verdikt Nietzsches, ein reiner Eskapist zu sein, der als typischer, ‘begrenzter’ Künstler bloß die heile Welt des Kindes sucht und sich der ‘männlichen’, ‘aufgeklärten’ Erfahrungswelt der Erwachsenen verweigert. Und doch dient es ihm zum ‘Ruhm’, daß er auch ‘regressiv’ genug ist, den Ver- lust des Kindlichen im Erwachsenensein auf stets neue Weise in seiner mesme- rischen Musik zu beklagen.

A Profile in Retrospect: Calvin S. Brown as a Musico-Literary Scholar [2000]

Calvin S. Brown’s reputation in the field of musico-literary studies is so high and his seminal role as the father of modern research in this area is undisputed that an assessment of his scholarly achievement seems almost superfluous. The fact that a volume like the one at hand sees the light of day attests to the undiminished impact of his work on later research in this area of specialization and demonstrates the love and esteem in which he is still held several years after his untimely death in 1989. Elsewhere in this posthumous Festschrift1, Ulrich Weisstein gives an impressive survey of Professor Brown’s life and work2, offering a comprehensive picture and touching on a large variety of facets characteristic of his striking personality. These include his aesthetic convictions, his tastes and preferences in matters musical and literary, and the methodological positions which he took in his career.

What the following essay proposes to do is to enlarge on these issues and to sketch a profile of the scholar Brown from the viewpoint of his basic attitudes and underlying convictions concerning the arts and their serious study as reflected in his publications. These publications will have to serve as the almost exclusive source of information because I never met Professor Brown in person. As the latter’s most important work, his monograph on Music and Literature (see 1948/1987), was written over fifty years ago, and as even his last substantial contribution to musico-literary research, “Theoretische Grundlagen zum Studium der Wechselverhältnisse zwischen Literatur und Musik” (see 1984b), is more than ten years old, it seems inevitable to consider the historical distance and to apply the perspective of the 1990s when establishing that profile. What follows, then, is an attempt to view Brown’s accomplishments with the eyes of

1 See Jean-Louis Cupers, Ulrich Weisstein, eds. Musico-Poetics in Perspective: Calvin S. Brown in Memoriam. Word and Music Studies 2. Amsterdam/Atlanta, GA: Rodopi. 2 See Ulrich Weisstein. “The Miracle of Connectedness: Calvin S. Brown. A Critical Biography” (ibid.: 75–113). 212 Calvin S. Brown as a Musico-Literary Scholar

someone who belongs to a later generation but is willing to share his own experiences with those reflected in Professor Brown’s impressive output.

From the start, there was general agreement that Brown was “a scholar with a capital S”, as an early reviewer put it (Drewry 1953)3, who was “erudite, precise, exact and exacting”, possessed an “encyclopedia knowledge of literature and music” (ibid.), and was violently opposed to “purely subjective rapprochement” (Brown 1970a: 6), “muddle-headed amateurishness” (Brown 1948/1987: xiv) as well as to the “sloppy work” of “dabblers” (Brown 1970a: 6). In fact, all his scholarly activities were grounded on a pedal point of common sense, which resulted in a refreshing readability and intelligibility of his publications. His rationalist, no-nonsense stance shows up, among other things, in the vocabulary of praise which he uses in his highly acclaimed survey of musico-literary research in the period 1950 to 1970 (see ibid.)4, and the general attitude underlying this lexicon is identical with that which gave rise to his penchant for theoretical constructs, systematically conceived categories and terminological rig- or. Precisely in this vein Brown offers “a systematic view of the field” and gives “a fine theoretical table” of musico-literary research (1970b: 102) which sys- tematizes the various kinds of interrelationship between the two artistic media. Similarly, Brown’s staunch battle against the loose metaphorical use of musical terms when applied to literature was a permanent fixture and, from Music and Literature to his well-known “Caveat comparator!” of 1984 (1984b: 30), constitutes a red thread of warning and exhortation in this domain.

Equally nourished by Calvin Brown’s love of precision and intellectual clarity was his predeliction for definitions, one of which, his definition of Comparative Literature as “any study of literature involving two different media of expression” (Brown 1970b: 102), has been both influential and gen-

3 I am grateful to Mrs Irene Brown, Professor Brown’s widow, for giving access to documentary material which was in her late husband’s possession. 4 Passim: “careful and critical”, “thoroughly responsible”, “competent”, “concise”, “adequate”, “workmanlike”, “meticulously done”, “sound”, “solid”, “detailed and precise technical information”, “concentration”, “consistency”, “order and comprehensibility”, etc. Calvin S. Brown as a Musico-Literary Scholar 213

erally accepted, while others, like the one of vocal music as “simply a simultaneous presentation of a literary work and a musical work” (Brown 1948/1987: 44), are less fortunate; for one would have thought that it is the presentation of one work using two artistic media simultaneously. As it were, Brown’s definition is typical of his ‘separatist’ approach to be discussed further down. It is, incidentally, contradicted by a definition of vocal music given later on in the book, where he says that in works of this kind “the text is a part of the music” (ibid.: 229), an assertion which, furthermore, demonstrates the author’s musical bias in matters musico-literary.

The definition of the leitmotif as “a musical word” with “a fixed meaning” (ibid.: 95) as well is not felicitous as it stresses the trivial tag quality of the device and ignores its connective function in the wider context. How- ever, this definitional shortcoming is compensated subsequently by the assertion that the leitmotif “must refer to something beyond the tones and words which it contains” (ibid.: 211). Further examples of definitional ambiguity are evidenced by the definitions of literature and music, respectively, which are offered early on in Music and Literature, where literature is said to be an art “employing sounds to which external significance has been arbitrarily attached”, and music is an art of “sound qua sound” whose “tones have intricate relationships among themselves, but no relationship to anything outside the musical composition” (ibid.: 11). This sounds quite plausible and actually reflects semiotic conceptions without using semiotic terminology; but it is ironic that large sections of Brown’s seminal book struggle to identify devices of external signification as being productive in music – thus making it ‘literature’ according to his own definition.

The semantic issue will be taken up later; but the point I wish to make here is that Music and Literature reveals an impulse toward logical precision which tends to lead to simplification of which the author becomes aware as he pene- trates more deeply into the subject matter. As a consequence, Brown eventually mitigates his logical rigor to the point of finally admitting that “one must aim at acceptable generalities while remaining fully aware that there are plenty of exceptions, differences of perception, and valid differences of opinion” (1984a: 9).

Professor Brown’s willingness to put aside demands of logic and precision when he finds other qualities in a work more persuasive is demonstrated by 214 Calvin S. Brown as a Musico-Literary Scholar

his assessment of W. H. Auden’s opinions on opera, in which he detects “little accuracy” but sufficient “sensitivity” to recommend them (1970a: 11). A key phrase characteristic of Brown’s basic attitude toward work done in the field crops up in his evaluation of Frederick W. Sternfeld’s Music in Shakespearean Tragedy (see 1963), where the author is praised for the “high degree of critical taste in both arts” (1970a: 13) which he displays in that monograph. This very quality is amply attested to in Brown’s own work, for instance in his analyses of Schubert’s “Erlkönig” (cf. 1948/1987: 70–80) and the ending of Act 2 of Tristan und Isolde (cf. ibid.: 98f.), where his own definitions of vocal music and the leitmotif are by no means rigorously applied. Not that one would like to do without Brown’s theoretical discussions, which constitute a useful general frame of reference; but his detailed analyses of specific works demonstrate that, fortunately, his impulse toward logical precision was ultimately not as strong as his critical acumen.

An important aspect of Brown’s scholarly personality is also revealed in an early review of Music and Literature which states that his “approach is ‘technological.’ Mr. Brown goes systematically about a factual analysis of the two arts, taking them apart much as a mechanic might two motors to compare the various parts” (Rice 1949)5. This disposition of Brown’s mind manifests itself on almost every page of his writings and led him to become a stern defender – and also practitioner, though not exclusively so – of the inductive method. He made a point always to start off by looking at specific cases rather than by applying a priori principles (cf. 1984b: 29), voicing the opinion that one ought to begin by observing “a multitude of everyday things” and then to proceed “to mature judgements” (1984a: 8). As we have seen, he was least successful in his critical endeavors when he did not follow this procedure.

Professor Brown’s inductive penchant made him a skeptic with regard to all forms of universalism, in particular to all attempts at establishing “universal aesthetic principles”. He even went so far as to reject the whole idea of “a concept of art per se” (1970b: 98). Thus his reaction to Susanne Langer’s critique of his work shows his unwillingness to accept “universally applicable laws or philosophical absolutes” (1984a: 9) such as Langer’s definition of art as “the creation of forms symbolic of human feeling” (1953: 40). Brown confessed to a

5 Similarly, Charles E. Gauss talks about the book “exploring the technical possibilities and limitations inherent” in ‘music and literature’ (1949). Calvin S. Brown as a Musico-Literary Scholar 215

basic prejudice against ‘philosophy’ which, in his view, leads to “this sort of ultimate universal rightness” by expressing what is either too abstract or too banal (1984a: 8). (It might be added in parentheses that he was obviously unaware of those strands of modern analytical philosophy which are perhaps closer to his own convictions than the philosophical views which he condemned.)

The basically analytical disposition of Brown’s mind had far-reaching consequences in his field of specialization, that is to say, in regard to his basic understanding of the relationship between music and literature. In this sense, he was, indeed, a ‘separatist’ insofar as he always insisted on stressing the differences between two artistic media rather than their similarities. In this vein, the final paragraph of his article on “Theme and Variation as a Literary From” memorably articulates his views on this issue:

It would seem to be best for each art to mind its own business, not hesitating to steal from the other arts anything that will actually serve its own purpose, but not making an issue or a virtue of it. [...] An artist should borrow from another art as a man borrows a neighbor’s lawnmower, not as an acrobat dances on a tightrope. (1978: 43)

There is no doubt that this ‘separatist’ attitude has had decisive methodological consequences in the field of Comparative Arts and constitutes Brown’s most important contribution to musico-literary studies in that it justified him in brushing aside earlier efforts in the emerging field as uncritical, impressionistic, ‘empathetic’ and unaware of the material basis of their observations.

However, this ‘separatist’ stance had other consequences as well, on two of which, one concerning genre and the other historical period, I shall focus. Both are related to Brown’s reluctance to accept what might be called the synthesizing impulse.

Regarding the first, the title, “The Dilemma of Opera”, which Brown chose for his chapter on the genre in Music and Literature, points to the difficulties he had with musical drama. Here the author pinpoints his principal objection when he condemns its “attempt to combine so many arts into one integrated whole” (1948/1987: 91). In this vein, he discusses Richard Wagner at some length, but only from a technical point of view – his use of alliteration and the leitmotif – without making a single reference to the concept of the Ge- 216 Calvin S. Brown as a Musico-Literary Scholar

samtkunstwerk, which one would have thought to be of major interest for the student of interarts relationships.

Professor Brown’s historical partiality manifests itself, among other things, in his neglect of the Renaissance period. In the historical survey presented in his contribution to Literatur und Musik, he silently passes over it and discusses the eighteenth century right after antiquity (cf. 1984b: 28). He also ignores the important Italian and French Humanist discussions of music and poetry in his earlier survey of 1970, where he makes only a condescending remark on Thomas Campion as a musico-literary critic and a more favorable one on Joa- chim Burmeister (cf. 1970b: 98). In Music and Literature, on the other hand, he states in passing that “the Elizabethan composers respected their poets far more than have recent composers” (1948/1987: 20), and that Ronsard insisted “that poetry and music should go together” (ibid.: 45). According to him, however, Ronsard “was fighting a losing battle”, and “the modern separation began” (ibid.) – a development, one cannot help but observe, Brown seems to have embraced happily. Professor Brown was obviously aware of the ‘synthesis’ of music and literature for which the Humanists were striving, but somehow felt out of sympathy with it, most probably also because of the speculative, ‘philosophical’ nature of many Renaissance studies on the subject6, but mainly on account of his suspiciousness with regard to the ‘synthesizing impulse’. The same bias, in fact, colors his assessment of romantic art criticism, of which he says that it favored “a synthesis” of the arts which “others dismiss as the romantic confusion of the arts” (1970b: 99). It is only in keeping with this outlook that his preferred period was the eighteenth century, where music and literature drifted apart and which saw the publication of Lessing’s Laocoon, “perhaps the most important study of the interrelationship of the arts ever written” (ibid.). Need it be added that Lessing’s treatise is also the most pronouncedly ‘separatist’ study ever written?

Taking into account more recent developments in the arts, one must observe that they are altogether out of sympathy with these ‘separatist’ tendencies. Due to the technological revolution of the last decades and other, mainly sociological, factors shaping today’s cultural climate, the arts have become extremely diversified, and many new media of expression have been developed,

6 For a critical assessment of Humanist art ideology and a close investigation of English Renaissance art song see Bernhart 1993. Calvin S. Brown as a Musico-Literary Scholar 217

or activated for artistic purposes. The availability of such a variety of means of expression has led to their fairly random use in various combinations; and the pressure of the originality axiom of modern aesthetics has speeded up the process of the disintegration of the fixed generic model. Thus one could well say that today’s cultural climate is ‘synthetic’ and ‘syncretistic’ rather than ‘separatist’ in outlook, and one might go a step further and say that the genre and media perspective itself is becoming less and less relevant with the result that combining various genres, or media, to form a synthesis has become a well-nigh obsolete procedure. With the emphasis in the aesthetic communicative process now changing from the signifier to the interpretant, the media perspective loses its dominant position in art and art criticism. The fact that the name increasingly preferred for the discipline here involved is ‘Interarts Studies’ (or also ‘Media Studies’), rather than ‘Comparative Arts Studies’, is a further indication of this change of emphasis. Professor Brown’s studies show no signs of having been, in any way, affected by these recent developments which, it can be surmised, he would have heartily disliked. This is not to diminish the value of his undisputed scholarly achievements but merely to put them into perspective and to indicate their limitation.

Speaking of aspects of the contemporary cultural scene with which Profes- sor Brown felt out of tune, one also ought to mention his rather elitist conception of art which, one might venture to say, he would have liked to spell with a capital A. Thus he decries “mere Unterhaltungsliteratur” (1970a: 22) and defines art as a form of communication in which “the experiences communicated are human experiences which we feel to have some permanent value” and which “are of such a nature that their communication requires particular ability and is not a matter of everyday occurrence” (1948/1987: 5). Many people will sympathize with this definition which, from a contemporary intellectual perspective, may be questioned on at least two grounds. The first of these is fundamental insofar as it derives from the observation that this definition constitutes a universalist statement of the very kind condemned by Professor Brown, while the second, more to the point in the present context, results from the awareness that it discriminates against numerous modes of aesthetic activity by excluding them from the realm of art, be it because they have no permanent value (as in the case of happenings), because they require no particular ability (as in action painting), or because they are everyday occurrences (as in TV music or Trivial- literatur). The more recent technological and sociological changes have opened 218 Calvin S. Brown as a Musico-Literary Scholar

up, and brought to our attention, a large variety of human activities involving the production of sounds and the use of words which perform an aesthetic function and are, therefore, subject to musical and literary criticism. The scholarly trend to devote oneself to these newly developed areas – as the flourishing of Cultural and Ethnic Studies, among others, demonstrates – is strong; but Professor Brown had little patience with such tendencies.

His skeptical attitude toward opera has already been mentioned; it was based not only on the multi-media character of the genre but also on its histri- onic and mass-culture qualities as he discerned them. Thus, in keeping with his general prejudices he objects to opera’s “sensational scenes” and “absolutely ste- reotyped” actions as an outgrowth of the “mass production system” and aim- ing at the “display of individual virtuosity” “with the sole purpose of personal aggrandizement”. In fact, in his eyes opera was an offshoot of “the disastrous Hollywood ‘star’ system” (ibid.: 89f.). Even Virgil Thomson, who warmly welcomed Music and Literature, felt urged to object to this denunciation and dryly commented that Professor Brown did not understand opera as a dramatic form and theatrical phenomenon (see 1948).

The concluding section of this essay will be devoted to a discussion of Professor Brown’s conceptions of the work of art and of musical signification – queries which, it is hoped, will round off the attempted delineation of his scholarly profile from a latter-day perspective.

Regarding the first topic, we have two substantial statements from his pen. One can be found in Music and Literature, the other in his contribution to Professor Scher’s handbook, which means that the two statements lie approxi- mately four decades apart. Let us take a closer look at them, as they show significant similarities as well as differences and thus reflect Brown’s partly changing views on the subject. Calvin S. Brown as a Musico-Literary Scholar 219

Both statements are based on the communication model and describe the “artistic process” (1948/1987: 4) between a ‘sender’ and a ‘recipient’. In the earlier version this model takes the following shape (ibid.):

artist

experience 1 organization work of art organization experience 2

recipient

The explanation given for this model says that the recipient “takes the ‘work of art,’ perceives its structure, relationships and ‘meanings,’ and comes finally to an experience of his own which is as nearly as possible the same as the experience of the artist” (ibid.), whereas the later version describes the artistic process in the following terms:

Der Schöpfer eines Gedichts oder einer Sonate erzeugt kein Kunstwerk, sondern bloß einen Entwurf. Er hält Zeichen auf dem Papier fest, die weder Musik noch Literatur sind, sondern lediglich konventionelle Symbole, die dem erfahrenen Vortragenden er- möglichen, Laute zu erzeugen, die die eigentliche Musik oder das Gedicht so rekonstru- ieren, wie es vom Schöpfer ursprünglich entworfen war. Die Rekonstruktion ist nur eine Annäherung, und sogar bei demselben Vortragenden werden wiederholte Darbie- tungen nie identisch sein. Demzufolge ist, was wir ein musikalisches oder literarisches Werk nennen, in Wirklichkeit eine platonische Idee [...]. (1984b: 30)

Both passages describe roughly the same process, but there is no doubt that the second one is far more sophisticated and presents a more complex picture. The first version talks about an ‘experience’ of the artist that is to be communicated, which allows the statement to be grouped with the so-called ‘expressive’ theories of art, where the emphasis in the artistic process is on the ‘sender’ side. This experience is here envisaged as being packed, or coded, into a material carrier which, in this version, is seen to be the ‘work of art’. The recipient, decoding the message, is then supposed to experience something similar to what the ‘sender’ has experienced. This is a fairly mechanistic model, which has its obvious shortcomings as regards both the experience involved and the function of the material carrier. 220 Calvin S. Brown as a Musico-Literary Scholar

The second version seeks to avoid these shortcomings and, to begin with, abandons the notion of an experience to be communicated. In fact, the content of what is being transmitted is now left unconsidered; and a closer look will show that the process described is no longer a truly communicative one although there are still two agents concerned with a material product. But these agents are no longer conceived as sender and recipient of a kind of message but rather as creator and performer jointly involved in establishing the work of art which is now no longer seen as a tangible product but as an elusive entity called a ‘platonic idea’. Thus the artistic process has turned from being the expressive act of communicating a person’s experience into being a joint activity of two individuals seeking to breathe life into a seemingly preconceived idea existing outside both of them.

This far more sophisticated model – which, in its main outline, is of neo-Platonic origin and might be called a model of aesthetic autonomy, as it puts the work of art, rather than its creator, at the center of interest – shows a high degree of awareness of the circumstance that the signs of the material carrier are only a coding instrument for something that is external to it and has a distinctly elusive character. Because the entity which is coded in the signs and is to be decoded by the performer is the idea, or essence, of the work of art, according to this view, the position taken by the later Calvin S. Brown is also called ‘essentialist’; and it is of considerable interest to note that after his earlier, author-oriented ‘expressivist’ beginnings, Professor Brown became an ‘autonomous’ essentialist .

However marked and decisive this change of views on Professor Brown’s part may be, the two positions have an important element in common as both conceive of the artistic process as one of reconstruction – in the first case that of the artist’s experience, and in the second that of the essential idea of the work. In both instances, the reconstructive activity is only partly successful because “experience 2” does not completely match “experience 1” in the earlier model, and because different performances of a work will vary considerably and will always be at best approximations of the idea of the work, as the later Calvin S. Brown asserts. Thus the two positions share a certain defeatist element that might be said to have been nourished by romantic notions of unattainable perfection. Calvin S. Brown as a Musico-Literary Scholar 221

More recent art criticism and performative activities have been more as- sertive and have tended to see the unavoidable diversity of interpretive acts in a more positive light. What can be noted is a conspicuous reevaluation, in art and in art criticism, of the function of interpretive activities within the artistic process to which, as an essential and fairly independent element thereof, more weight is given. As a result, these activities are no longer viewed as being reconstructive but as truly constructive. This reevaluation of interpretation is based on the notion that all theories which propagate aesthetic reconstruction are extremely vague about what actually is being reconstructed. The shortcomings, in this respect, of the ‘expressive’ model are obvious enough; but the ‘essentialist’ view, for its part, merely postulates that there exists a preconceived idea to be reconstructed, without being able to prove the actual existence of such an idea. If such is the case, however, it follows logically that not the material product but the artistic process itself constitutes the work of art. It is on the basis of this conception that the recipient’s activity becomes a constructive, rather than a reconstructive one, which leads to the previously discussed reevaluation of the interpretant in the artistic process. According to this conception of a pragmatic, reception-oriented aesthetics – which is unquestionably today’s prevailing mode – a work actually exists only in its reception, which, in turn, implies that it cannot be seen as being independent of the historical process and is, therefore, subject to constant change. An area in which these considerations are of vital importance is that of semantics because reception aesthetics implies that there is no ‘proper’ meaning of a work somewhere waiting to be discovered (‘reconstructed’) but that meaning is generated only in the act of aesthetic reception.

This rather lengthy comparison between the essentialist and the pragmatic conceptions of art, leading up to a reference to the problem of aesthetic meaning, had to be made in the present context as, interestingly enough, Professor Brown can be seen to have taken an ambiguous stance in this dispute, a stance which is just as evident in his views on the meaning of music. One can argue, for instance, that his obvious preference for discussing questions of form and technique is a consequence of this essentialist – and also his earlier expressivist – position insofar as both take the work of art per se for granted and assume that it can be described in objective terms. 222 Calvin S. Brown as a Musico-Literary Scholar

The fact that Professor Brown felt far less at home in the realm of meaning emerges clearly when he talks about “the vexed question of significance in music” (1948/1987: 96). His feelings in this regard are, indeed, mixed. In Mu- sic and Literature, for instance, he confesses being an ‘absolutist’ at heart (ibid.: 230), i.e., someone ultimately in Eduard Hanslick’s camp – a position which manifests itself in his definition of music as “sound qua sound” with “no relationship to anything outside the musical composition” (ibid.: 11). This view allows him to breathe a sigh of relief because it circumvents ‘the vexed question of significance’. However, as his argument proceeds, we encounter numerous references to forms of musical signification which glaringly contradict his original definition. Thus, to give but a few examples, music is found to be capable of “emotional suggestion” (ibid.: 50), can “express states of mind” (ibid.: 64) and has “universal” (ibid.: 66), “abstract significance” (ibid.: 64); there are “formulae for the musical expression of certain ideas” (ibid.: 67), “standardized” patterns which “have definite meanings” (ibid.: 235), such as he also ascribes to the leitmotif which, according to him, constitutes “a musical word” (ibid.: 95). Furthermore, in Brown’s view, the development of the orchestra since Mozart “has come about largely as a result of constant strivings to express non-musical ideas” (ibid.: 259), as “illustration” (ibid.: 268), and quotations are like leitmo- tifs except that their signification is “already established” (ibid.: 264).

From all this one gains the impression that Professor Brown rather reluc- tantly but in honest recognition of the importance of this issue faced the problem of musical signification even though it was not one that was close to his heart. But when he did he did so in the spirit of pragmatic reception aesthetics, which explains why there is no real contradiction between his definition of music, denying signification, and his subsequent demonstrations of its existence. For meaning, as the pragmatic view asserts, does not inhere in the sounds themselves but, in the historical process, is assigned to sounds through various interpretive activities.

In Music and Literature, there are strong indications that Professor Brown was fully aware of the role of convention in establishing meaning in music as it does in language, most strikingly so in his vision of a “language of music, in which musical phrases would have the exactness of words” (ibid.: 97) – a notion which was sufficiently important for him to be once more expressed at the very end of his book, where he notes: “Is it possible, then, that music simply has Calvin S. Brown as a Musico-Literary Scholar 223

not yet had sufficient time to develop its capacities for the expression of things outside itself?” (Ibid.: 270) This is a vision which puts music in the same position as literature and which, in actual fact, tends to break down the distinction between the two arts. It is in keeping with this argument that Brown observes the increased ‘literarization’ of music in the nineteenth century as reflected in its great freedom of form (cf. ibid.: 221). These observations concerning the collapse of the difference between music and literature seem paradoxical coming from the mouth of a scholar who was an avowed ‘separatist’ and the bulk of whose scholarly activities was aimed at keeping alive the feeling for the traditional musical forms rather than accepting the loose application of musical terms and techniques to literature. Here, then, we have still another facet of the truly paradoxical nature of Brown’s musico-literary scholarship.

To sum up: Calvin S. Brown’s rationalist, analytical, systematic and, at the same time, highly commonsensical stance is responsible for making him an undisputed authority in the field of musico-literary research, especially as a model of methodological rigor and of serious, ‘objective’ scholarship. The same basic attitude has led him to become a stern defender of the ‘separatist’ view of the relationship between music and literature and a critical analyst primarily of formal aspects in both arts. It also favored his theoretical interests and an extremely serious conception of art which in his mature years was of a basically ‘essentialist’ persuasion. Almost inevitably, this overall disposition led to prejudices concerning certain historical periods that were syncretistic rather than separatist in nature and to aesthetic activities which are not of a distinctly serious character. It also resulted in his reluctance, on account of the apparent vagueness of musical signification, to deal with problems of musical semantics. By way of contrast, Professor Brown, when tackling a specific problem, often dealt with it in the pragmatic spirit more congenial to recent critical theory. From the standpoint of the 1990s, then, his positions seem rather dated, just as some of his theoretical statements have not stood the test of time. Yet, as this essay has sought to demonstrate, he himself frequently undermined his own position, showing an awareness of alternative ones when reflecting on the evolution of the arts and, above all, when analyzing individual works. Thus, in spite – or perhaps also because of – his biases and the essentially paradoxical nature of his scholarly work, Professor Brown, the undisputed pioneer in the study of musico-literary relationships, more than amply deserves being the posthumous recipient of the memorial volume for which this contribution was written. 224 Calvin S. Brown as a Musico-Literary Scholar

References

Bernhart, Walter (1993). ‘True Versifying’: Studien zur elisabethanischen Verspraxis und Kunstideolo- gie. Unter Einbeziehung der zeitgenössischen Lautenlieder. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Brown, Calvin S. (1948/1987). Music and Literature: A Comparison of the Arts. Hanover, NH/Lon- don: University Press of New England. — (1953). Tones into Words: Musical Compositions as Subjects of Poetry. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press. — (1970a). “Musico-Literary Research in the Last Two Decades”. Yearbook of Comparative and Gene- ral Literature 19: 5–27. — (1970b). “The Relations between Music and Literature as a Field of Study”. Comparative Literature 22: 97–107. — (1978). “Theme and Variation as a Literary Form”. Yearbook of Comparative and General Literature 27: 35–43. — (1984a). “The Writing and Reading of Language and Music: Thoughts on Some Parallels between Two Artistic Media”. Yearbook of Comparative and General Literature 33: 7–18. — (1984b). “Theoretische Grundlagen zum Studium der Wechselverhältnisse zwischen Literatur und Musik”. Steven Paul Scher, ed. Literatur und Musik: Ein Handbuch zur Theorie und Praxis eines komparatistischen Grenzgebietes. Berlin: Erich Schmidt. 28–39. Drewry, John E. (1953). Review. Calvin S. Brown. Tones into Words: Musical Compositions as Subjects of Poetry. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1953. New Book News. Athens, GA: Universi- ty of Georgia (Sept. 12). [n. p.]. Gauss, Charles E. (1949). Review. Calvin S. Brown. Music and Literature: A Comparison of the Arts. Hanover, NH/London: University Press of New England. 1948. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Cri- ticism 8. [n. p.]. Langer, Susanne K. (1953). Feeling and Form: A Theory Developed from ‘Philosophy in a New Key’. New York, NY: Scribner. Rice, James G. (1949). Review. Calvin S. Brown. Music and Literature: A Comparison of the Arts. Ha- nover, NH/London: University Press of New England. 1948. South Atlantic Bulletin. [n. p.]. Sternfeld, Frederick W. (1963). Music in Shakespearean Tragedy. London: Routledge. Thomson, Virgil (1948). Review. Calvin S. Brown. Music and Literature: A Comparison of the Arts. Hanover, NH/London: University Press of New England. 1948. The New York Herald Tribune (Sept. 12). [n. p.]. Typologische Überlegungen zum Melodrama* [2000]

Jaroslav Jiránek hat bereits einen fundierten Überblick über das Melodrama gegeben (see 1994), sowohl aus historischer Sicht als auch in theoretischer Be- trachtung1, sodass etwa hier anzustellende systematische typologische Über- legungen zum Melodrama Gefahr laufen könnten, bereits Bekanntes zu du- plizieren. Demnach werde ich mich in meinen Betrachtungen mehr mit konkreten Beispielen melodramatischen Schaffens und weniger mit einer theoretisch ausgerichteten Typologie befassen. Gleichwohl wird sich, wie ich hoffe, herausstellen, dass eine erstaunliche Vielzahl von unterschiedlichen Typen melodramatischer Gestaltung beobachtet werden kann, was uns belegt, dass die intermediale Gattung des Melodrams eine erstaunliche Vitalität und Viel- seitigkeit besitzt, und dies besonders auch im nunmehr zu Ende gehenden 20. Jahrhundert und nicht nur im 19., für welches das Melodram ohnehin als eine quasi ‘klassische’ Form angesehen werden kann. So werde ich mich auch weniger auf diese früheren historischen Ausformungen konzentrieren, sondern eher auf neuere und auch gewissermaßen außer- und ungewöhnlichere, die grundle- gendere Fragen der gattungsmäßigen Zuordnung aufwerfen mögen.

Ich möchte mit einer terminologische Reflexion beginnen und darauf verweisen, dass der Begriff ‘Melodrama’ zwar die Herkunft der Gattung im 18. Jahrhundert allgemein und bei Rousseau im Speziellen aus dem Drama deutlich widerspiegelt und auch einen hohen Anteil der bestehenden Werke in seiner Gattungsorientierung sinnvoll benennt, dass aber doch ein großer Teil des vorhandenen Schaffens in keiner Weise als ‘dramatisch’ – mit welcher spezi-

* [Dies ist eine leicht revidierte Fassung des Beitrags, welche die Referatssituation anlässlich des Vortrags bei der Anlass-Konferenz ausblendet (Fibich – Melodram – Secese / Fibich – Melodrama – Art Nouveau: On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the birth and the 100th anniversary of the death of Zdenĕk Fibich in connection with the UNESCO 2000 jubilee. Prag, 20.–22. Oktober 2000).]

1 Die gründlichste Überblicksdarstellung zum Melodram findet sich in der zweiten, neubearbeite- ten Ausgabe von Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart (s. Finscher, Hrsg. 1997: s. v.). 226 Typologische Überlegungen zum Melodrama

elleren Bedeutung auch immer – und also auch nicht als ‘melodramatisch’ im wörtlichen Sinn angesehen werden kann. Dies trifft etwa für Schuberts unver- gleichlichen “Abschied von der Erde” mit seiner entrückten Lyrizität – wie- wohl vom Komponisten selbst als “Melodram” bezeichnet – ebenso zu wie beispielsweise für Friedrich Nietzsches “Zerbrochenes Ringlein” auf den Text von Eichendorff (“In einem kühlen Grunde da geht ein Mühlenrad”). Für solche Fälle ausgesprochen lyrischer Gestaltung – und sie sind im Bereich der sogenannten Konzert-Melodramen durchaus nicht selten – wäre eine Bezeichnung, wie sie das Italienische kennt, nämlich ‘Melolog’ (‘melologo’), wesentlich passender. (Im Italienischen ist der Begriff ‘melodramma’ ja als Bezeichnung für die Oper bereits besetzt.) Werke wie Theodor Gerlachs Gesprochene Lieder (s. 1898) – die auch eine (in Bezug auf Schubert) mutige Sprech-Fassung von Wil- helm Müllers “Leiermann” enthalten – wären damit weitaus besser benannt. Gerlachs Gestaltung des Sprechtexts ist im übrigen durchaus eigenständig, indem er zwar – wie in der älteren Praxis – weder die Rhythmisierung noch die Tonhöhe festlegt, dafür aber die Artikulation, wie bei Singstimmen üblich, mit allen dynamischen und agogischen Zeichen genau angibt. Darüber hinaus wird punktuell – also nicht durchgehend – durch Textunterstreichungen für eine lokale Text-Musik-Koordinierung gesorgt, dies sogar auch antizipatorisch, d. h. punktierte Unterstreichungen von Wörtern ‘warnen’ vorausblickend den Sprecher vor Stellen von gesteigerter Text-Musik-Kongruenz2.

Solche Werke wären also vielleicht passender als ‘melologisch’ denn als ‘melodramatisch’ zu bezeichnen. Problematisch ist die Benennung unter Um- ständen auch bei der Vielzahl von Balladen, die im 19. Jahrhundert für eine melodramatische Behandlung am beliebtesten waren, vielleicht am Proble- matischsten bei Schumanns Balladen für Declamation mit Begleitung des Pi- anoforte (auf Texte von Hebbel und Shelley), die eine große Nähe zu Schu- manns Liedschaffen aufweisen, am wenigsten wohl bei den recht bekannten, sehr ‘dramatisch’ angelegten Balladen von Max Schillings, Edvard Grieg oder Richard Strauss. Schillings’ Hexenlied etwa (Op. 15, auf einen Text von Ernst

2 In der Anmerkung des Komponisten in der Magdeburger Ausgabe heißt es dazu: “Der Sprechende wolle sich nicht etwa peinlich danach zu richten versuchen, dass sein Vortrag Wort für Wort mit der darunter stehenden Musik genau überein stimmt. Nur nach den mit ..... bezeichneten Stellen und bei unterstrichenen Worten muss zur Erreichung der beabsichtigten Wirkung genauer auf die Musik geachtet werden. Die entsprechenden Absätze ergeben sich dann von selbst.” (Gerlach 1898: 3) Typologische Überlegungen zum Melodrama 227

von Wildenbruch) besitzt eine sehr textnahe, gestisch-dramatische musikalische Gestalt. Das Werk zeigt mehrere Spielarten der Wort-Musik-Koordinie- rung nebeneinander: Außer der traditionellen alternierenden Folge von Text und Musik gibt es vorwiegend einen parallelen Verlauf der beiden Medien, teils frei zugeordnet, teils mit punktueller Kongruenz, teils sogar mit genauer Rhythmisierung des Texts. Der spätromantischen Ästhetik entsprechend läßt sich also hier die Musik sehr genau – je nach Bedarf mehr oder weniger fixiert – auf den Text ein. Griegs einst populäres Bergliot (Op. 42) reduziert dem- gegenüber die Musik viel stärker und setzt sie vorwiegend im Stil des Accom- pagnato ein, was die Textdeutlichkeit entscheidend fördert (auch gibt es viele alternierende Passagen); das Werk ist entsprechend vom Komponisten auch als “Declamation mit Orchester” bezeichnet worden und somit ein gutes Beispiel für Wortdominanz im melodramatischen Zwitter. Richard Strauss räumt hingegen in seinem allgemein sehr geschätzten Enoch Arden (Op. 38, 1898, nach Lord Tennyson) der Musik viel mehr Eigenständigkeit ein, obwohl das Werk prinzipiell konsekutiv-alternierend, mit langen unbegleiteten Textpassagen angelegt ist. Aber der Sog der Strauss’schen Musik fehlt eben auch hier nicht und gibt dem Werk letztlich seine Überzeugungskraft.

Scheint die Bezeichnung ‘melodramatisch’ für die vorherrschenden Bal- laden des 19. Jahrhunderts also im wesentlichen gerechtfertigt, so läßt sich die Frage erneut, und verschärft, für das melodramatische Schlüsselwerk des frühen 20. Jahrhunderts, für Schönbergs Pierrot Lunaire (Op. 21, 1914), aufwerfen. Zweifellos handelt es sich bei den 21 Miniaturen auf Texte von Albert Giraud in der deutschen Übertragung von Otto Erich Hartleben um höchst sensible lyrische Gebilde, deren Reiz gerade darin liegt, dass sie sich dem Nar- rativ-Ereignishaften und damit landläufig ‘Dramatischen’ verschließen. Das Werk steht insofern am Übergang zwischen Spätromantik und Modernismus, als es zwischen einer expressiv-exaltierten und einer innermusikalisch-selbstreferentiellen Haltung angesiedelt ist. Diese Ambivalenz ist für das Verständnis prinzipiell möglicher melodramatischer Spielarten von großem Interesse – darauf wird noch zurückzukommen sein – und läßt sich an den unterschiedlichen Zielsetzungen festmachen, mit denen Schönberg selbst und seine erste Interpretin und Widmungsträgerin des Pierrot Lunaire, Albertine Zehme, an das Werk herangingen (vgl. Meyer-Kalkus 2000: 54). Diese Zehme – auch die Auftraggeberin des Werks – war eine engagierte Rezitatorin, die dem Sprechen von Texten einen pädagogischen, ja therapeutischen Zweck beimaß, indem ihr 228 Typologische Überlegungen zum Melodrama

die “Stimmbefreiung” – so ihr eigener Ausdruck (1920: 5) – das wesentliche Ziel der Rezitation war. In ihrem Traktat “Über lyrischen, melodramatischen und dramatischen Vortrag” (Leipzig 1920) schreibt sie: “Die Melodik des Spre- chens [...], eine freiere Schwester der strengen vokalen Musik [...], läßt sich von den eisernen Gesetzen, denen jene unterworfen ist, nicht binden” (ibid.: 33). Das melodramatische Sprechen geht vom Wort aus (“Im Anfang war das Wort”, zitiert sie etwas pathetisch), und es ist vor allem der “Sinn klarzulegen”, worunter sie den “gefühlsmäßig[en]” “Ausdruck” (ibid.: 32f.) versteht. Charak- teristisch ist, dass für Albertine Zehme der Sprecher im Vortrag “eine eksta- tische Wortvibration” (ibid.: 35) zu vermitteln habe, womit die exaltierte Ex- pressivität der Rezitationspraxis der Zeit angesprochen ist, die hier gefordert wird und die in den überlieferten – an sich faszinierenden – Tondokumenten etwa Alexander Moissis heute noch erlebt werden kann.

Zeigt sich hier bei der Zehme also ein spätromantischer Einstieg, indem das melodramatische Gebilde zur gefühlsmäßig übersteigerten Ausdeutung des Wortes dienen soll, so sind Schönbergs Vorstellungen entscheidend anders gelagert. In seinem “Vorwort” zum Pierrot hält er nämlich ausdrücklich fest: “Niemals haben die Ausführenden hier die Aufgabe, aus dem Sinn der Worte die Stimmung und den Charakter der einzelnen Stücke zu gestalten, sondern stets lediglich aus der Musik. Soweit dem Autor die tonmalerische Darstellung der im Text gegebenen Vorgänge und Gefühle wichtig war, findet sie sich ohne- dies in der Musik” (Schönberg 1914). Hier wird sehr anschaulich die musikau- tonome Position der modernistischen Ästhetik ausformuliert, und es ist charakteristisch, dass Zehme, obwohl sie Schönbergs Vorwort in ihrem Traktat ausführlich zitiert, gerade diese Passage übergeht; sie steht nämlich in völligem Widerspruch zu ihren eigenen Vorstellungen über die Prinzipien der Melodra- matik.

Aus diesem Fallbeispiel läßt sich eine allgemeine Beobachtung über das Melodram und seine Akzeptanz als eigener Gattung ableiten. Wenn das Anse- hen des Melodrams im Laufe des 20. Jahrhunderts generell als gering anzuset- zen ist, so ist dies vor allem darauf zurückzuführen, dass das Melodram – ganz im Sinn der Albertine Zehme – traditionellerweise als eine musikalisch un- terstützte pathetische Übersteigerung des Wortes angesehen wurde, was den Grundanliegen der nunmehr vorherrschenden modernistischen Ästhetik zu- widerlief. Dazu kommt, dass bei dieser wort-primären Auffassung vom Melo- Typologische Überlegungen zum Melodrama 229

dram die disziplinäre Zuordnung der Gattung bei der Literatur bzw. bei der Li- teraturwissenschaft liegt, woselbst jedoch der expressiv-pathetische Anspruch sprachlicher Gestaltung in Misskredit steht. Dem Melodram dieser Orientie- rung fehlte somit die ‘Heimat’ sowohl im Ästhetisch-Ideologischen als auch im Wissenschaftlich-Disziplinären.

Es ist hingegen charakteristisch, dass ein Werk wie Schönbergs Pierrot durchaus im Kanon der öffentlichen Akzeptanz lag und natürlich immer noch liegt, was darin begründet scheint, dass es – nach Schönbergs eigenem Ver- ständnis – der modernistischen Ästhetik verpflichtet ist und somit die ästhe- tische Autonomie des Werks als einem letztlich musikalischen nicht in Fra- ge steht. Der von Zehme beanspruchte Primat des Wortes ist tatsächlich im Pierrot nicht eingelöst, sondern in dessen Sprechgesang ist der Wortanteil des Werks in der Musik aufgegangen. (Dem entspricht ja auch, dass in der hier verwendeten Form des ‘gebundenen’ Melodrams das musikalische Grundele- ment der Melodik – ganz gegen Zehmes Wunsch – eine bewusste Gestal- tung erfährt.) Das so realisierte musik-primäre Werk hat somit nicht nur den kunstideologisch geforderten selbstreferentiellen Charakter erhalten, sondern hat damit auch seine disziplinäre ‘Heimat’ in der Musik und in der Musikwis- senschaft gefunden, deren Erwartungshaltungen das Werk voll gerecht wird.

Es entbehrt nicht der inneren historischen Logik, dass auch Schönbergs Antipode, Josef Matthias Hauer, im selben Zeitraum eine neue Form der Kom- bination von Sprache und Musik suchte und – ebenfalls in seinem Opus 21, den Hölderlin Liedern von 1922 – auch fand. Was die beiden Ansätze miteinander verbindet und somit gemeinsam von spätromantischen Vorgaben absetzt, ist ihre Absage an die pathetische Wortübersteigerung und Sinnaus- deutung. Gleichwohl gehen sie in der Gestaltung der Textstimme selbst sehr verschiedene Wege. Während sie Schönberg wie eine Singstimme mit allen agogisch-dynamischen und rhythmischen Differenzierungen notiert und nur der Tonhöhe eine Variabilität (nach Erreichen der notierten Festpunkte) ein- räumt, hält Hauer gerade nur die Tonhöhe genau fest und gibt bei den übri- gen Parametern große Freiheiten. Er sagt in seinem Vorwort: “Der Vortrag der Lieder richtet sich genau nach der Sprache des Dichters. [...] Der musikalische Ausdruck ist dem Melos der Sprache abgehorcht, daher immer tempo rubato, häufiger und rascher Wechsel der dynamischen und agogischen Schattierun- gen” (Hauer 1922). Die Textstimme läßt sich also genau auf das Wort ein, al- 230 Typologische Überlegungen zum Melodrama

lerdings nicht auf der inhaltlichen Ebene wie im romantisierenden Denken, sondern auf der prosodischen, die Hauer als ‘Melos’ bezeichnet. Insofern gibt es hier einen Primat des Wortes, wäre da nicht die fixierte Tonhöhe, die bei Hauer zwar nicht der Sprechintonation zuwiderläuft, aber doch einen hohen Grad der Stilisierung besitzt.

Die Frage, die sich hier stellt, ist folgende: Handelt es sich bei diesen Wer- ken Hauers um verkappte Melodramen? Hauer spricht eindeutig von ‘Liedern’, und auch jede Konvention bezeichnet Textstimmen mit fixierter Tonhöhe als ‘Gesang’ und damit nicht als ‘Rezitation’ oder ‘Sprechgesang’; so sind Hau- ers Hölderlin Lieder, Op. 21, sicher keine ‘Melodramen’ in irgendeinem traditionellen Sinn. Gleichwohl machen die Werke selbst und ihre Beschreibung durch Hauer klar, dass hier das Wort im Vordergrund steht und die musikalische Gestaltung radikal zurückgenommen ist, also quasi eine ‘Urform’ des ‘bedeutsamen Redens’ erfahrbar wird, was einem Grundanliegen melodramatischen – oder ‘melologischen’ – Gestaltens entsprechen mag.

Es zeigt sich, dass das frühere 20. Jahrhundert mit seiner Experimentierfreu- de interessante Lösungen entwickelte, welche die überlieferten Gattungsgren- zen in Frage stellten und neue Wege erforschten, wobei, was Wort-Ton-Kom- binationen betrifft, das ihnen Gemeinsame in einer Skepsis gesehen werden kann, nämlich in der Skepsis einerseits gegenüber einem primär semantischen Bezug der beiden Medien zueinander und andererseits in der Skepsis gegenüber expressiven Intentionen, was sich in einem hohen Grad der Unpersönlichkeit der Darstellungsweise niederschlägt.

Ein weiteres markantes Beispiel hierfür ist das höchst reizvolle melodramatische Werk mit Musik von William Walton und Texten von Edith Sitwell, Façade, ebenfalls 1922 entstanden (s. Walton 1951). Die Texte der Dame Edith stehen in DADA- und Nonsens-Nähe und sind in der Partitur streng rhyth- misiert, aber ohne Tonhöhenangaben notiert. Die Tonaufnahme der faszinierenden eigenen Rezitation durch die Dichterin zeigt einen sehr neutralen, mo- notonen Tonfall, der sich kaum auf das Gesagte einläßt3 (was bei diesen Texten auch schwierig wäre), und dasselbe gilt auch für die jazzige Instrumentalbeglei- tung. Die Unpersönlichkeit der Darbietung kam bei der Uraufführung von

3 S. Aufnahme vom Oktober 1954 mit Dame Edith Sitwell, Sir Peter Pears und dem English Opera Group Ensemble unter der Leitung von Anthony Collins (Decca LXT 2977). Typologische Überlegungen zum Melodrama 231

Façade dadurch drastisch zum Ausdruck, dass die Sprechstimme nur durch eine Art Megaphon ertönte (vgl. Sitwell 1949: 183). (Beim Pierrot war wenigs- tens nur das Orchester unsichtbar, wie es übrigens auch bei Berlioz’ Lélio gefordert ist, dem Melodrama, das bei den heurigen Salzburger Festspielen wieder- belebt wurde; s. Berlioz 2000.) Man sieht, auch die provokant-ikonoklastische Intention der Edith Sitwell fand im Melodram eine passende Ausdrucksform, wobei der synkretistische Charakter der Gattung (im Sinne Jiráneks) diesen Absichten entgegenkam.

Die sprachverfremdende Tendenz des Dadaismus fand ihr Fortleben in den Sprachkompositionen ab den Fünfziger-Jahren, in denen allerdings zu- meist Sprache auf ihre Lautelemente destruiert wird. Diese Lautelemente werden dann zum musikalischen Material, zu einem Teil des musikalischen Vokabulars, wodurch ebenfalls eine (nunmehr synthetische) Grenzform des Sprach-Musik-Zusammenhangs entsteht – wenn nicht überhaupt ein rein musikalisches Gebilde.

Auf ganz andere, unerwartete Weise belebte sich die provokant-aggressive Funktion der Zusammenstellung von Musik und Sprechstimme ab den Sieb- ziger-Jahren in der New Yorker Hip-Hop-Kultur im sogenannten Rap (vgl. Childs/Storry 1999). Ohne hier vortäuschen zu wollen, ein Kenner dieser Sze- ne zu sein, kann festgestellt werden, dass im Rap eine von DJs (also Disk Jo- ckeys) zusammengestellte Collage von Musiknummern (also keine Live-Mu- sik) von der Sprechstimme eines MC (ursprünglich ‘Master of Ceremonies’), also einer Art Moderator begleitet wird. Diese Kombination von Sprecher und ‘recycled music’ ist das Innovative und für uns hier Interessante an der Rap-Musik, wobei der Sprecher zunächst nur improvisierend sein Publikum anfeuerte, also situationell-kommunikativ wirkte. Später begannen die MCs dann sozial-aggressive, gereimte Texte zum Soundtrack hinzu zu rezitieren, Texte, die wegen ihrer Gewaltbereitschaft oft die Polizei auf den Plan riefen. Aus ästhetischer Sicht liegen hier also ‘Werke’ – besser ‘Situationen’ – vor, die im Bereich der Performance Art liegen, wobei der Schwerpunkt im synkretis- tischen Wort-Ton-Gebilde der Performance zunächst bei der Musik, dann aber beim Wort lag, dessen politisch motivierte rhetorische Wirkung durch die Mu- sik erhöht werden sollte.

Finden sich also im 20. Jahrhundert durchaus Ausformungen des Melo- 232 Typologische Überlegungen zum Melodrama

drams, die weitab der historischen Tradition liegen, so seien abschließend noch zwei Werke erwähnt, die insofern Grenzfälle melodramatischen Schaffens darstellen, als in beiden Fällen zwar nicht-gesungene Texte parallel zur Musik exis- tieren, diese aber nicht erklingen, aus Zuhörersicht also ‘reine’ Musik vorliegt.

Der erste Fall sind die nachträglichen Textunterlegungen Theodor von Zeyneks zu Beethovenschen Klaviersonaten. Zeynek rechtfertigt diese nach- träglichen ‘Melodramatisierungen’ durch die Tatsache, dass sich Beethoven selbst als ‘Dichter’ bezeichnet hat und meinte, bei ihm stehe stets eine poetische Idee hinter der musikalischen Gestalt (vgl. Zeynek [o. J.]). Zur Erhellung dieser programmatischen Grundlagen Beethovenscher Werke haben Hartmut Krones und andere (s. Krones 1994) entscheidend beigetragen, und niemand wird diese generelle poetische Intentionalität Beethovens leugnen und den ver- suchten Nachweis spezifischer Programme bei Beethoven ablehnen. Problema- tisch muss es aber erscheinen, wenn ein Nachgeborener wie Zeynek nicht aufgrund von Quellenstudien poetische Vorgaben eruieren möchte, sondern als Interpret und Ausdeuter im Nachhinein Textvorstellungen an die Musik he- ranträgt, wobei so weit wie möglich bis ins rhythmische Detail die passenden Worte gefunden werden sollen. So läßt Zeynek etwa die Sonate pathétique, Op. 13, mit folgenden Worten beginnen: “Welt, verhüll dein Antlitz, Licht, hör auf zu leuchten!” ([o. J.]), und der Rest ergeht sich dann in der trivialsten Version von Enttäuschung und Frustration eines von seiner Geliebten Verschmähten. Hier wird völlig übersehen, dass Beethoven von einer ‘poetischen Idee’ spricht, die hinter seinen Werken steht, nicht aber von konkreten Worten und Situati- onen, die seinen Werken zugeordnet werden sollen. Insofern ist die nachträgli- che Melodramatisierung Beethovenscher Klaviersonaten ein aus meiner Sicht ästhetisch völlig fehlgeleitetes Unterfangen, wobei es kaum von Belang ist, dass unklar bleibt, ob sich Zeynek eine tatsächliche Rezitation zur Musik vorge- stellt hat, oder nur eine gedankliche Zuordnung im Auge hatte.

Ein ganz anderer Fall rein gedanklicher Zuordnung eines Texts zur Mu- sik liegt in einer Komposition des Grazer Künstlers Heimo Puschnigg aus dem Jahr 1996 vor. Sie trägt den Titel TROST / für Klavier / eine Meditation / über 64 Klänge / geordnet – zufällig / zufällig – geordnet / nach dem / I GING (unveröffentlicht). Das Stück gliedert sich in streng alternierende Klang-Pha- sen und Pausen-Phasen, wobei die Partitur in den Pausen-Phasen Textstellen aus dem Tao-Te-King verzeichnet. Das Modell des Werks ist also die älteste, Typologische Überlegungen zum Melodrama 233

synkretistisch-alternierende Form melodramatischer Gestaltung. Über diese Pausen sagt jedoch der Begleittext: “Die Pausen zwischen den Klängen struk- turieren sich. 1. Durch eine Zeit des ‘Hörens’ nach den Klängen, (frei zu wäh- len) 2. durch das innere Vorsprechen der Texte des Lao Tse (die Texte dür- fen keinesfalls laut gesprochen werden!) unmittelbar darauf folgt der nächste Klang”. Zweifellos hat bei dieser Aufführungsanweisung der Zuhörer keinen – zumindest unmittelbaren – Zugang zur Textgrundlage des Werks; er hört ihn ja nicht. Adressat des Texts kann also nur der Interpret sein: Der Text liegt also im Bereich der ‘Spielanweisungen’ – wie ungewöhnlich sie hier auch aus- fallen mögen. Dass die Texte nichts Zufälliges an sich haben sollen, geht aus der Anweisung hervor, “unmittelbar” (hervorgehoben!) nach der inneren Re- zitation mit dem nächsten Klang einzusetzen. Dieser soll also wohl durch die innere Erfahrung des meditativen Texts beeinflusst werden, und insofern dies geschieht, erfährt also auch der Zuhörer indirekt die Auswirkung des Texts durch die Gestaltung des Klangs. Gleichwohl verliert der Text in seiner Aus- wirkung auf die Klanggestaltung jede Konkretheit, und insofern ist die Ziel- richtung dieses Werks nicht so weit weg von jener Beethovens, indem auch hier eine ‘poetische Idee’ – in diesem Fall ein allgemeiner Meditationsinhalt – als Impuls hinter dem Klang steht, womit aber noch kein melodramatisches – oder ‘melologisches’ – Erlebnis von gleichzeitiger Sprech- und Musikerfahrung eintritt. Insoweit ist jedoch der ästhetische Ort dieses Werks grundverschieden von dem Beethovens, als hier der äußerst kommunikationsorientierte, nach außen gerichtete Botschaftscharakter der Beethovenschen Werke völlig fehlt und vielmehr extreme Introspektion herrscht, weshalb der Adressat des Werks letztlich mit dem aufführenden Künstler identisch ist und ein allfälliger Zu- hörer nur insofern ‘dazugehört’, als er bereit und in der Lage ist, sich in das Werkgeschehen selbst meditativ einzubinden und damit Teil der Aufführung wird. So gesehen ist der ungesprochene Text dann doch ein integraler Teil der ästhetischen Erfahrung des Werks, womit es dann doch zu einem genuin ‘melodramatischen’ Werk wird.

Ich möchte meine typologischen Überlegungen zum Melodrama hier ab- brechen, hoffe aber anhand einiger Beispiele gezeigt zu haben, dass der Gar- ten des Melodramas nicht nur eine Vielzahl sehr unterschiedlicher Blüten ent- hält, sondern sich darunter auch höchst ausgefallene Exemplare befinden, die jedoch den Besuch des Gartens besonders reizvoll machen. 234 Typologische Überlegungen zum Melodrama

References

Berlioz, Hector (2000). Lélio ou Le retour à la vie: Monodrame lyrique. [Frz., dt., engl.]. Bärenreiter Urtext. Klavierauszug. Kassel: Bärenreiter. Childs, Peter, Mike Storry, Hrsgg. (1999). Encyclopedia of Contemporary British Culture. London/ New York, NY: Routledge. Finscher, Ludwig, Hrsg. (1997). Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Sachteil 6. Kassel: Bärenrei- ter/Stuttgart: Metzler. Gerlach, Theodor (1898). Gesprochene Lieder mit Klavierbegleitung. Op. 16. Magdeburg: Heinrichs- hofen. Hauer, Josef Matthias (1922). Hölderlin Lieder. Op. 21. Berlin: Schlesinger/Wien: Haslinger. [Vor- wort]. Jiránek, Jaroslav (1994). “Die Semantik des Melodrams: Ein Sonderfall der musiko-literarischen Gat- tungen, demonstriert am Werk Zdenĕk Fibichs”. Walter Bernhart, Hrsg. Die Semantik der musiko-literarischen Gattungen: Methodik und Analyse. Eine Festgabe für Ulrich Weisstein zum 65. Geburtstag / The Semantics of the Musico-Literary Genres: Method and Analysis. In Honor of Ulrich Weisstein on his 65th Birthday. Buchreihe zu den Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik 10. Tübingen: Narr. 153–173. Krones, Hartmut (1994). “‘Una specie di romanzo ossia programma’: Geheime (?) Programme in klassischer Instrumentalmusik”. Walter Bernhart, Hrsg. Die Semantik der musiko-literarischen Gat- tungen: Methodik und Analyse. Eine Festgabe für Ulrich Weisstein zum 65. Geburtstag / The Se- mantics of the Musico-Literary Genres: Method and Analysis. In Honor of Ulrich Weisstein on his 65th Birthday. Buchreihe zu den Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik 10. Tübingen: Narr. 51–74. Meyer-Kalkus, Reinhart (2000). “Sprechmelodien in Pierrot Lunaire: Arnold Schönbergs Zusammen- arbeit mit Albertine Zehme”. Neue Zürcher Zeitung (15./16. 4.): 54. Schönberg, Arnold (1914). Dreimal sieben Gedichte aus Albert Girauds Pierrot Lunaire (deutsch von Otto Erich Hartleben): Für eine Sprechstimme [etc.] (Melodramen). Op. 21. Partitur. Wien: Uni- versal Verlag. “Vorwort”. Sitwell, Osbert (1949). Laughter in the Next Room. London: Macmillan. Walton, William (1951). Façade: An Entertainment with Poems by Edith Sitwell (1887–1964). For Re- citer and Chamber Ensemble. Oxford: OUP. Zehme, Albertine (1920). Die Grundlagen künstlerischen Sprechens und Singens. Leipzig: Carl Mer- seburger. Zeynek, Theodor von ([o. J.]). “Vorwort zu Beethovens Klaviersonaten in Worten” und “Vorbemer- kungen”. Beethoven. Sonate op. 13 pathétique mit Worten von Theodor Zeynek. Wien: Europäi- scher Verlag. Three Types of Song Cycles: The Variety of Britten’s ‘Charms’ [2001]

The great variety of Benjamin Britten’s ‘song-cycle’ oeuvre forms the empirical basis for identifying three types of song cycles. Criteria for defining these types are both the strength of coherence among the individual songs of the cycle and the dominating features which establish coherence. In this essay the types are accordingly labelled as ‘loose’, ‘literary’ and ‘musical’ song cycles, and a substantial number of individual cohesive features constituting these types are discussed. Their defining properties are demonstrated by referring to representative examples from Britten’s works. Contribu- tions from Britten criticism to the song-cycle issue form the starting point for much of the theoretical discussion of this paper, which concludes on some general definitional considerations.

“Not since the days when musician and poet were the same person has there been a great composer whose art is as profoundly bound up with words as Ben- jamin Britten’s.” (Porter 1984: 271) These words by the prestigious Austral- ian-born poet and critic Peter Porter indicate that Britten is an unavoidable ‘victim’ of Word and Music Studies and, as he was a prolific writer of songs which almost exclusively appeared in whatever kind of ‘song-cycle’ form, he is also bound to be a ‘victim’ of a conference devoted to this intermedial artform.

Britten wrote song cycles in every period of his creative life and, as they have such a wide range and show such an impressive variety of formations, it is tempting to base one’s reflections on the song cycle in general on some form of ‘empirical’ assessment of Britten’s songs. If one takes as the crucial issue of song cycles the way in which they are able to achieve unity and coherence as a whole while at the same time preserving the autonomy and separateness of the individual songs, it seems justified to begin one’s investigation by trying to identify the various cohesive features and devices that can be found in the cycles. It is a further ‘empirical’ element of this research to collect statements by critics of Britten’s works about the song-cycle issue. Yet it is of interest to observe that the various careful book-length studies on Britten deal with the song cycles as 236 Three Types of Song Cycles

song cycles only in passing, although they occasionally contain very perceptive remarks on the issue. Following these research lines it is possible to arrive at three general types or categories of song cycles to be described and illustrated in this essay. The discussion of these types will be conducted, at least in part, in the light of Cyrus Hamlin’s seminal definitional considerations to be found in the proceedings of the 1997 Graz conference on Word and Music Studies (see 1999), and the paper will find its conclusion by presenting some further definitional observations of my own.

The main body of Britten’s songs consists of 17 song collections (see Ap- pendix below)1. This number does not include two groups of Britten songs: the folk-song arrangements, which came out in several collections, carefully selected by Britten himself, but which – though written in typical Britten style – cannot be considered original works; and the five Canticles, which in many ways are similar to the song cycles, both in length and general approach; yet they have to be left out of consideration as they are all based on single texts and not on sequences of separate poems2.

All the 17 collections are written for a single voice (mostly a high voice, having Peter Pears in mind), and 13 of them have a single accompanying instrument, in most cases the piano; a guitar is used in Songs from the Chinese (1957), and a harp in Britten’s last cycle, A Birthday Hansel (1975), based on texts by Robert Burns. Four of the cycles have an orchestral accompaniment, including Britten’s then scandalous first cycle of 1936, Our Hunting Fathers (created in collaboration with W. H. Auden), which is also the only work which was named a cycle by Britten: he calls it Symphonic Cycle; no other collection was given a genre description by the composer himself. The titles sometimes refer

1 This list does not include ambiguous cases of ‘song cycles’ such as the Owen settings in the War Requiem, for which, as a song cycle in its own right, Donald Mitchell recently has found eloquent words (it “authentically represents Britten’s final orchestral song-cycle”; “Violent Climates”: 196). Yet it is so intricately linked up with the rest of the requiem (a fact which Mitchell equally acknowledges, cf. ibid.: 207f.) that it defies comparison with the main body of Britten’s cycles as here discussed. Similarly, the Spring Symphony is outside the scope of the present investigation. (“Com- mentators have called the Spring Symphony a cantata, a song-cycle, and a latent opera. In truth, the work is all and none of these”; Ashby: 224.) Finally, the juvenile Quatre chansons françaises (1928), written by the fourteen-year-old Britten, are left out of consideration for their lack of artistic independence (although they have recently found their advocate in Christopher Mark; cf. 25-27). 2 Yet Graham Johnson calls Canticle I, based on a poem by Francis Quarles, “a sort of continuous song-cycle”; “Voice and Piano”: 292. Three Types of Song Cycles 237

to the kind of texts used in the cycle – e.g., Lyrics, Rhymes and Riddles by Wil- liam Soutar, the subtitle of Who Are These Children? – but mostly they only give the musical cast (e.g., Songs and Proverbs of William Blake. For Baritone and Piano).

Twelve of the 17 collections are based on texts by a single poet, and the range of poets – in various languages, with one exception (Chinese) composed in the original is impressive. In five of these twelve collections the texts are selections from original poetry cycles (such as Donne’s Holy Sonnets or Rim- baud’s Illuminations), but in no case Britten preserved the original order. Only five sequences contain texts by different poets. Again, Our Hunting Fathers is a special case as the subtitle says Text Devised by W. H. Auden: it contains two poems by Auden himself and three typically weird choices by Auden, animal poems of a satirical political intent. One critic observes that “Auden provided a libretto” for Our Hunting Fathers (Kennedy 1993: 228), which is a rather unusual – and not very convincing – use of the term ‘libretto’.

A brief remark is in place on how Britten found and used his texts. He was in the habit of wandering about the house and randomly picking books from the shelves (cf. Carpenter 1992: 185). He would later remember what he had read and use it for his compositions. He once marked over twenty poems in a Goethe edition, “which suggests he was considering a Goethe cycle” (ibid.: 259). (However, the only Goethe poem Britten actually set was “Um Mitter- nacht”; cf. ibid.) Britten also “usually composed more items than he needed, excluding some because they did not fit into his final scheme” (Kennedy 1993: 258). This is a remark pertinent in our context, as one is bound to wonder by which criteria (of coherence, we can assume) they would ‘not fit into his scheme’. To my knowledge he, regrettably, never expressed himself more specifically on this issue.

Before discussing the three types of song cycles to be distinguished, two of the 17 collections will have to be excluded from the list as they cannot be considered ‘song cycles’ in any meaningful way as they are only editorial collections. Four Cabaret Songs were published posthumously in 1980, and Donald Mitchell, in charge of the Britten legacy, reports that at least seven were written between 1937 and 1939 and “more may still turn up” (“[Introduction]”). They were “composed with [the singer Hedli Anderson] in mind” (Kennedy 1993: 238 Three Types of Song Cycles

18); but this fact alone does not, as such, give any artistic unity to the collection. Equally, the stylistic similarity of the songs, as cabaret songs, is not sufficient to establish a ‘song cycle’.

The other collection to be excluded from the list is Tit for Tat, again a later publication of songs written early in Britten’s life. As a schoolboy he wrote over fifty songs, most often based on texts by Walter de la Mare, from which Britten chose five to be published – in a partly revised shape – in 1969. He says himself that he chose them according to ‘completeness of expression’ (cf. “Prefatory Note”), i.e. on the basis of their individual quality, and not in view of any coherence among them.

The first type are what can be called ‘loose song cycles’, which show a weak form of coherence if coherence at all. It comprises the following collections: On This Island (1937), A Charm of Lullabies (1947), Songs from the Chinese (1957), Who Are These Children? (1969) and A Birthday Han- sel (1975). The most popular and characteristic of these is On This Island, based again on texts by Auden, and it has elicited interesting, contradictory remarks from critics as to the issue here pursued. Michael Kennedy states that the songs “are often wrongly called a song-cycle, implying a formal unity they do not possess” (1993: 133), while Peter Evans observes that “even On This Island feels like a cycle because it reveals a consistent response to Auden” (1979: 355) and because each song is “neatly realized within a simple structural frame” ( ibid.: 73).

Two very different criteria for cyclicity are here invoked, that of ‘formal unity’ and that of ‘unity by a single poet’. For Kennedy, the “formal unity” established by the collection’s “simple structural frame” – as it is attributed by Evans – is not sufficient for cyclicity: an introductory “Maestoso” song is followed by a slow, a fast, another slow and a final fast song, whereby the finality of that last song is emphasised by the fact that it ends on a sixfold repetition of the word “final”. (Such a structure reminds us, e.g., of Schumann’s Myrthen, whose final song, after a freely structured, contrastive sequence of songs, is tellingly called “Zum Schluß”.) I agree with what is implied in Kennedy’s statement, namely, that such a ‘linear structural frame’ alone – which is determined by Three Types of Song Cycles 239

contrasts3 and finality (and ultimately follows basic rhetorical principles) – is insufficient to establish cyclicity as otherwise any well-structured song recital, offering contrasts in the programme to keep the audience awake and bringing the evening to a marked conclusion, would become a ‘song cycle’.

The second option for cyclicity offered by Peter Evans is what he calls “that unity which the verse of a single poet can bring to the most diverse subjects” (1979: 355). Following this statement, even Tit for Tat, which I have previously excluded as a mere editorial collection, would qualify as a cycle as all its texts are by Walter de la Mare. So Evans’s statement about ‘a single poet’ needs some qualification. It can only be convincing when it refers to a particular form in which the poet manifests himself in his poetry, i.e. when the texts share a common tone and the common speaker role of a unified ‘lyric I’. Such a lyric I is not identical, but has an affinity with the poet, shares some of his or her views, thoughts and feelings (they share common attitudes and have a similar ‘set of mind’), and lives – as the critical jargon has it – ‘on the same level of existence’ as the poet without being coextensive with his or her biographical person. A strongly defined common ‘lyric I’ in this sense, being reflective of some essential aspects of the poet’s own personality, may very well establish some form of unity and cyclicity among individual poems.

Whether this applies to On This Island, however, is another case. Auden is not a poet whose texts are generally characterized by such a strong lyric I (although some of them are). Particularly his early, often experimental work of the thirties shows a great variety of speaker roles, a kaleidoscopic versatility as to lyric voices, which fundamentally undermines the notion of a unified tone of his texts. This is also true for On This Island, where, as an example, we have the sharp contrast of the tender, lullaby-like “Nocturne” and the jazzy, cabaret-style “As it is, plenty” in the two final songs. In addition, while we find a typical Audenesque diction in both these texts, a common lyric attitude, or ‘set of mind’, as a unifying factor is difficult to identify. Thus one is tempted to argue that a common diction, i.e., a similar way of handling language, is not a factor that contributes essentially to cyclicity on the literary level. As a consequence, I tend to agree with Michael Kennedy and object to calling On This Island a song cycle in any but a loose sense.

3 Ralph Woodward observes “contrasts of mood and, indeed, technique” in On This Island, which are “features common to many Britten song-cycles” (1999: 262). 240 Three Types of Song Cycles

Another case of a loose cycle is A Charm of Lullabies. Here the texts were written by several poets, and as the five songs are all separate entities the question of what holds them together significantly arises. Of course, they are all lullabies, but it is again Kennedy who observes that the cycle, “lacking a central theme”, “makes a patchwork effect” (1993: 175). Thus, interestingly, the lullaby is considered the subject, but not a theme of the cycle, which attitude, in this case, is backed by Peter Evans, who observes that the lullaby does not offer a “rich visionary world”, as, e.g., the subjects of ‘sleep’ or ‘night’ so often do in Britten, and he quotes Peter Pears as saying, “a lullaby is – a lullaby, sonst nichts or almost nichts” (Evans 1979: 355). Thus we may conclude that a subject, to be productive as a unifying ‘theme’, needs to be richly suggestive of a wider range of experience. A Charm of Lullabies is characterized by a diversified ‘linear structural frame’ in the sense described above (by strong internal contrasts among the songs) but this, again, – along with the lack of a suggestive unifying theme – does not yet constitute a song cycle in any but a loose sense.

Such a judgement may sound rather restrictive, but Peter Porter is even more restrictive, as the following quotation shows: “A distinction should always be made between a true cycle, dramatically organized and telling a story (Die schöne Müllerin)[,] and a collection of poems by the same author or one illustrating a theme (Dichterliebe, Britten’s Nocturne).” (1984: 279) In the light of what has already been said this statement needs to be qualified: both ‘unity by author’ and ‘unity by theme’ do establish cyclicity on the specific conditions given above. (On the dramatic and narrative elements see below.)

The other collections of this first group of ‘loose song cycles’ are similar in their setup to the ones already discussed. They show a ‘linear structural frame’ through contrasts and the ‘sense of an ending’ (cf. Johnson 1984: 304) – which alone are insufficient to establish cycles – but they are given a cycle quality by the unified tone of a single author’s poems. However, their cyclicity appears only in a loose form, as striking facts of performance and publication illustrate: Who Are These Children?, based on Soutar texts, was first performed by Pears and Britten in a version comprising only seven of the twelve songs; and, similarly, Britten himself published a shorter, piano version of the seven songs of A Birthday Hansel (which was originally written for the harp) as Four Burns Songs. Apparently he did not conceive of these two works as organic units. This is particularly interesting to note as in A Birthday Hansel we have instrumen- Three Types of Song Cycles 241

tal links between the individual songs which, however, – for lack of a common theme of the poems – perform no ‘meaningful’ function as they do, e.g., in Nocturne, as will be shown later.

The second group of Britten song collections comprises the Rimbaud (1939), Michelangelo (1940), Donne (1945), Hardy (1953), Hölderlin (1958), and Pushkin (1965) cycles, and the Serenade (1943), which is based on texts by different poets. All these cycles, except for the popular Serenade with its horn and strings, are for voice and piano. They represent a type of song collection which can be called ‘song cycles with a dominant literary coherence’ or, for easier reference, ‘literary song cycles’. They are characterised by a distinctive cyclicity which is primarily established by coherence on the literary level, which does not exclude the existence of musical cohesive devices as well; yet these are not the principal unifying factors.

As not all Britten cycles belonging to this type can be discussed here, the Hardy cycle, Winter Words – which, according to Graham Johnson, is “at the centre of Britten’s song oeuvre” (1984: 295) – shall be used for demonstration. It is a great artistic achievement, and no-one has as yet doubted its ‘unity in diversity’. Yet its unity is not obvious to trace: there are nine clearly separated and strongly contrastive Lyrics and Ballads, as the subtitle indicates, such as the narratives of “The Choirmaster’s Burial” and “Journeying Boy”, the satire of “Wagtail and Baby”, or the very lyrical “At Day-close in November”. Evans sees the cycle’s unity and “focus through the poet” (1979: 355), which is a vague statement. Kennedy is more specific when he says: “Britten’s insight into Har- dy’s melancholy fatalism and naive imagery gives an overall unity to one of his most satisfying works for voice and piano” (1993: 196). Thus it is not vaguely “the poet” who unifies the work but a specific mental disposition or set of mind, a particular lyric attitude of a ‘lyric I’ – in this case, “melancholy fatalism” – that does so (most likely reflecting a facet of the poet’s own personality).

Even more illuminating on the factors establishing the unity of Winter Words is Humphrey Carpenter’s observation that “the meaning of Winter Words” lies in the last song, “Before Life and After” (1992: 331). This song – Peter Porter thinks it is Britten’s “greatest single song” (1984: 280) – has, very perceptively, been compared to the final song of Die schöne Müllerin (cf. John- son 1996: 65f.): both – in the words of Hardy’s poem – share the vision of “A 242 Three Types of Song Cycles

time [...] / Before the birth of consciousness, / When all went well” and the vision of a time before “[...] the disease of feeling germed, / And primal rightness” was. It is this vision of an innocent earlier and of a later idealized state, “released from all human concerns and sufferings” (ibid.: 63), that binds the songs of Winter Words together and in a profounder sense gives the collection a cyclic quality.

This observation is clearly in congruence with, and fundamentally asserts, Cyrus Hamlin’s definition of the song cycle as a literary form in terms of a “retrospective understanding” (1999: 123), “a ‘recognitive’ [...] awareness of the meaning of the cycle as a whole” (ibid.: 121), achieved by the workings of memory in the listener during the receptive act in performance. Similar- ly, Peter Porter, who has a less ‘technical’ view of song-cycle coherence than most other critics, asserts that selections from experience form what he calls “a shape in memory” (1984: 275), giving it a gestalt on a secondary level. The same idea is expressed by Peter Evans when he comments on Britten’s Michel- angelo, Donne, Hölderlin and Hardy cycles that in each of them the composer has “striven to make the final song a statement [...] of some fundamental philosophical tenet of his poet, one that could in retrospect embrace all that had gone before” (1979: 370).

Yet only twice in Britten’s song cycles do we find literal cyclic returns (modelled on Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte or Schumann’s Frauen-Liebe und -Leben), i.e. in the Pushkin cycle (The Poet’s Echo) and in the Serenade, where the “Epilogue” repeats the impressive “Prologue”, played by the natural horn. What prevails in the second group of ‘literary song cycles’ is the ‘retrospective cyclicality’ in Hamlin’s terms.

I am aware of only one Britten cycle as having been described in terms of a “storyline” (Carpenter 1992: 158): Humphrey Carpenter detects an “implied narrative” (ibid.: 159) in the Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo. The supposed story element consists in the narrative presentation of the progress of a love relationship from courting through some form of happy togetherness to the anticipation of its dissolution in death – all this of course being reminiscent of Frauen-Liebe und -Leben. I strongly share Cyrus Hamlin’s conviction that to conceive of song cycles in narrative terms, as here attempted, and in terms of “a unified and rounded slice of time and experience”, as Anthony Newcomb does Three Types of Song Cycles 243

(1996: 167, qdt. Hamlin 1999: 117), is “in direct conflict with the principle of the lyric as an autonomous and self-contained effusion” (ibid.). This position conforms with the views on the generic distinction of lyric and narrative which I have expressed elsewhere (cf. Bernhart 1993: 369f.), namely to consider it unjustified to look for plot-like sequences in lyric texts; lyric texts are characterized by a primary emphasis on the presentation of mental/emotional states. Nonetheless, a set of poems in a song cycle may form a sequence of such mental states, a sequence that may imply a temporal order, which, however, does not mean that necessarily a story in the traditional sense is being told. Such a flux of mental states, often leading to a final – mostly fatal – condition, is a genuinely lyric form of experience which is extremely suitable for song cycles and can be observed in several of its most prominent representatives. In this respect it forms a further cohesion factor in song cycles – in addition to the ‘recognitive’ factor and the factor of the common ‘mental disposition’ discussed before.

What the ‘flux’ element implies, however, is that the agency of the unifying process is not only – as discussed above – a fairly abstract ‘mental disposition’ manifesting itself in the text (as, e.g., the “melancholy fatalism” of Winter Words), but that it becomes more tangible in the conception of a ‘lyric persona’ behind the text which experiences the sequence of mental states. It needs to be stressed, however, that this does not mean that a quasi real-life ‘person’ appears ‘on the stage’, as it were, a ‘character’ with a full psychological setup and development, which is also rejected by Hamlin (cf. 1999: 118); it only implies that the lyric consciousness can appear at a higher or a lower degree of concreteness in the text. In other words, when a song cycle presents a ‘flux of mental states’ the lyric consciousness appears in a middle position on a scale of varying concreteness of manifestation: it manifests itself as a ‘lyric persona’, which is a more concrete manifestation than a mere ‘mental disposition’, but it is not as concrete as a ‘character’. (Only rarely in a song cycle, if at all, the lyric consciousness appears as a fully realized ‘person’ or ‘character’; which does not rule out that listeners to song cycles may be inclined, to varying degrees, to establish in their minds such a full ‘character’ from the clues the text gives. Yet to do so runs counter to the generic frame of a lyric text.)

What all this amounts to is a rejection of Peter Porter’s conception of “a true cycle”, as quoted above, namely that a true cycle is “dramatically organized and telling a story” (1984: 279). The basic misunderstanding of this concep- 244 Three Types of Song Cycles

tion rests in the fact that a song cycle, whatever shape it may take, will always primarily belong to the lyric genre, which implies that, in individual cases, it may incline, to different degrees, to the dramatic or to the narrative mode, but it will never be ‘dramatic’ or ‘narrative’ in the generic sense.

In the ‘literary song cycles’ of the second group the primary cohesion factors work on the literary level but, as briefly mentioned before, there are additional musical factors of cohesion in this group as well. They are basically of two kinds: either there is a basic musical motif which keeps recurring in the work; this is, e.g., true of Britten’s Michelangelo cycle (cf. Kennedy 1993: 146) and especially the Donne cycle, where such a motif “runs through the piano part in ever-changing form” (Johnson 1984: 241); or there are musical links between individual songs which serve as subtle cohesive factors. A very fine example of this latter device can be found in Britten’s Serenade, where the “El- egy”, based on Blake’s famous poem “The Sick Rose”, is intricately linked to the following “Lyke-Wake Dirge”, which begins with a reversed version (G – A flat – G) of the semi-tone motif on which the “Elegy” is based and also ends (G sharp – G – G sharp).

It is in the third group of song cycles that musical elements predominate as cohesive factors, which is why they can be called ‘song cycles with a dominant musical coherence’ or, for easier reference, ‘musical song cycles’. Britten’s cycles of this type are the early Our Hunting Fathers (1936), Nocturne (1958), and the Songs and Proverbs of William Blake (1965). The defining factor in these cases is that all three are throughcomposed, not necessarily also that they are orchestral. (Les Illuminations is orchestral but does not belong here.) Yet, Our Hunt- ing Fathers and Nocturne are orchestral, and in the Blake cycle the piano has been accredited with a particularly forceful orchestral character (cf. Johnson 1984: 300). Thus the orchestral disposition is not indispensible but conducive to a musical dominance in the cycle.

These ‘musical song cycles’ have a symphonic texture, as already implied by the title Britten gave to Our Hunting Fathers (Symphonic Cycle). To quote Michael Kennedy: “[...] its ‘symphonic’ epithet [is] fully justified by the deriva- tions and transformations of a motto-theme – a major arpeggio falling to the tonic and ascending to the minor third – which binds and unifies the cycle.” Three Types of Song Cycles 245

(1993: 129) 4 Similarly, the Nocturne has been called a “symphonic dreamscape” (Palmer 1984: 322) or a “song cycle in the guise of symphony” (Kennedy 1993: 96), and it is characteristically dedicated to Alma Mahler. The well-known linking feature of the Nocturne is what has frequently been called “the ‘breathing’ motif”, which refers to the sleeping persona of the cycle, and “the interludes of peaceful, deep-breathed slumber in a succession of dreams” (Evans 371). In Palmer’s words, it “is the motif of muted strings, divisi, breathing gent- ly in and out in [...] dactylic rhythm” (1984: 322)5. The point is that here, as in the other cycles of that type, we have ritornelli (cf. Woodward 1999: 271f.) as links which – in contrast to Tit for Tat (see above) – are meaningful links also in terms of the literary dimension of the work.

Another ‘symphonic’ feature of these cycles is the fact that here the sequence of the songs tends to remind one of the sequence of movements in a symphony. It is telling that Kennedy talks about the setting of the famous poem “The Tyger” in the Blake cycle as “the scherzo of the cycle” (1993: 228; similarly, on Our Hunting Fathers, cf. 129). We can observe that the ‘linear structural frame’ referred to earlier quite often reflects, as a musical cohesive device, the overall pattern of symphonies or sonatas.

As a final remark, before reaching the conclusion, it can be observed that in a cycle like Nocturne the musical coherence becomes such a strong element of the work that it tends to lose its character of a song cycle because the sense of a collection of individual songs disappears. A very telling indication that this is the case, and that it is also part of the composer’s overall conception of the work, lies in the fact that, in the score, – in contrast to all other cycles – the beginning of a new poem is not marked in the singer’s text. Thus we find a continuous flow of words, not only for those who listen to the work but also for those who sing it. This is a situation familiar from the Canticles, which are based on single texts, and thus Nocturne appears as a borderline case of cyclicity, at the other end of Tit for Tat, which – as was pointed out above – shows no real unity of the songs: in contrast, Nocturne shows no real separateness of the songs; and whatever one may be inclined to call ‘true’ song cycles: what defines

4 Woodward observes that Our Hunting Fathers is “unified by a five-note cell, its juxtaposition of major and minor infiltrating many structural moments” (1999: 262). 5 In fact, the smooth long-short sequences of the eighth and sixteenth notes form a trochaic, rather than a dactylic rhythm. 246 Three Types of Song Cycles

them is that combination of unity and separateness which can be found, in various forms, in all the types of song cycles here discussed.

The conclusion can be brief. The New English Dictionary (NED) does not give a definition of ‘song cycle’, only the Supplement of 1987 defines it as “a series of songs intended to form one musical entity and having words dealing with related subjects”. The “one musical entity” applies, as a defining element, only to the third group here discussed, and the reference to “related subjects” is vague and certainly insufficient. Webster’s Third is wiser and no doubt more careful when it defines the song cycle as “a group of songs based on the same general subject [again!] or having some other unifying feature” – which answers no question either. The investigations presented in this paper have brought definitional results which are substantially in harmony with Cyrus Hamlin’s findings. Yet, in the light of the three types here discussed, it can be argued that, though ‘retrospective understanding’ is identifiable as the central force behind cyclicity, there are literary elements (such as a lyric persona with his/her flux of mental states, or a central mental attitude, or a common suggestive theme) as well as musical elements (such as motivic, harmonic/tonal etc. links between the songs, or a symphonic texture) which may function as other, or additional, unifying factors in a cycle. Further, there are sequences or collections of songs which are not inherently unified cycles at all but only appear to be so on the basis of external factors, such as editorial or performative conditions.

Thus the term ‘song cycle’ proves – like most terms do upon closer scrutiny – to be rather problematic: in most cases it is too specific, especially considering the fact that only relatively few examples of so-called ‘song cycles’ show the circularity which the term basically implies (the same is true for the term ‘garland’, which is sometimes used for similar works); the dictionaries prefer terms like ‘group’ or ‘series’ or ‘sequence’ which, by contrast, are too general and neu- tral6. The term I prefer, maybe rather idiosyncratically – it is used in the title of this paper -, is ‘charm’, which is taken from Britten’s song collection called A Charm of Lullabies. As Eric Crozier’s introductory commentary in the score of

6 A term worth considering is ‘composite’, as used in the following recent study: Rolf Lundén. The United Stories of America. Studies in the Short Story Composite. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1999. (The publisher’s note states that the book “discusses the American short story composite, or short story cycle, a neglected form of writing consisting of autonomous stories interlocking into a whole.”) Three Types of Song Cycles 247

this song collection tells us, “‘charm’ is the collective noun for a flight of gold- finches” (similar to ‘a flock of finches’). According to the NED, ‘charm’ is an alternative form of ‘chirm’, which also – significantly – refers to the din or noise that birds make. ‘Charm’ is derived from the Latin carmen (‘song’), which, in the present context, is very pertinent, even more so as the word ‘charm’ in the sense of magic or spell also goes back to the same root of carmen. Thus I find it particularly attractive to reflect on types of ‘charms’ which Benjamin Britten’s prolific song output teaches us to distinguish. 248 Three Types of Song Cycles

Appendix

1928–31 Tit for Tat. Five Settings from Boyhood of Poems by Walter de la Mare. (Re-written 1968, published 1969). 1936 Our Hunting Fathers. Op. 8. Symphonic Cycle for High Voice and Or- chestra. Text Devised by W. H. Auden. [2 poems by Auden and 3 others]. 1937 On This Island. Op. 11. Words by W. H. Auden. [For high voice and piano]. [5 poems]. 1937–39 Cabaret Songs. For Voice and Piano. [Words by W. H. Auden]. [4 poems]. (Published 1980). 1939 Les Illuminations. Op. 18. For High Voice and Strings. Poems by Arthur Rimbaud. [In French]. [9 poems]. 1940 Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo. Op. 22. [For high voice and piano]. [In Italian]. 1943 Serenade. Op. 31. For Tenor Solo, Horn and Strings. [6 poems by various poets]. 1945 The Holy Sonnets of John Donne. Op. 35. High Voice and Piano. [9 poems]. 1947 A Charm of Lullabies. Op. 41. For Mezzo-Soprano and Piano. [5 poems by various poets]. (Published 1994). 1953 Winter Words. Op. 52. Lyrics and Ballads of Thomas Hardy for High Voice and Piano. [9 poems]. 1957 Songs from the Chinese. Op. 58. For High Voice and Guitar. [6 poems by various poets; Engl. tr. A. Waley]. 1958 Nocturne. Op. 60. For Tenor Solo, Seven Obligato [sic] Instruments and String Orchestra. [8 texts by various poets]. 1958 Sechs Hölderlin-Fragmente. Op. 61. [For voice and piano]. [In German]. 1965 Songs and Proverbs of William Blake. Op. 74. For Baritone and Piano. Selected by Peter Pears. [14 texts]. 1965 The Poet’s Echo. Op. 76. For High Voice and Piano. Poems by Alexander Pushkin. [In Russian]. [6 poems]. 1969 Who Are These Children? Op. 84. Lyrics, Rhymes and Riddles by Wil- liam Soutar. For Tenor and Piano. [12 poems]. 1975 A Birthday Hansel. Op. 92. For High Voice and Harp. Poems by Rob- ert Burns. [7 poems]. (Selection for voice and piano: Four Burns Songs, 1975.) Three Types of Song Cycles 249

References

Ashby, Arved (1999). “Britten as Symphonist”. Mervyn Cooke, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Ben- jamin Britten. Cambridge: CUP. 217–232. Bernhart, Walter (1993). “Überlegungen zur Lyriktheorie aus erzähltheoretischer Sicht”. Herbert Fol- tinek, Wolfgang Riehle, Waldemar Zacharasiewicz, eds. Tales and ‘their telling difference’. Zur Theorie und Geschichte der Narrativik. Festschrift zum 70. Geburtstag von Franz K. Stanzel. Ang- listische Forschungen 221. Heidelberg: C. Winter. 359–375. Britten, Benjamin (1969). “Prefatory Note”. Britten. Tit for Tat. Five Settings from Boyhood of Poems by Walter de la Mare. London: Faber Music.[n.p.]. Carpenter, Humphrey (1992). Benjamin Britten: A Biography. London: Faber. Crozier, Eric (1994). “Introduction”. Benjamin Britten. A Charm of Lullabies. Op. 41. For Mezzo-So- prano and Piano. London et al.: Boosey & Hawkes. 2. Evans, Peter (1979). The Music of Benjamin Britten London et al.: Dent. Hamlin, Cyrus (1999). “The Romantic Song Cycle as Literary Genre”. Walter Bernhart, Steven Paul Scher, Werner Wolf, eds. Word and Music Studies: Defining the Field. Proceedings of the First Inter- national Conference on Word and Music Studies at Graz, 1997. Word and Music Studies 1. Amster- dam/Atlanta, GA: Rodopi. 113–134. Johnson, Graham (1984). “Voice and Piano”. Palmer, ed. The Britten Companion. London/Boston: Faber and Faber. 286–307. — (1996). Die schöne Müllerin. The Poems and Their Background. The Hyperion Schubert Edition. Complete Songs 25. London: Hyperion Records. Kennedy, Michael (1993/1981). Britten. 2nd. ed. London: Dent. Lundén, Rolf (1999). The United Stories of America. Studies in the Short Story Composite. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Mark, Christopher (1999). “Juvenilia (1922-1932)”. Mervyn Cooke, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Benjamin Britten. Cambridge: CUP. 11–35. Mitchell, Donald (1980). “[Introduction]”. Benjamin Britten, W. H. Auden. Cabaret Songs. For Voice and Piano. London: Faber Music. — (1999). “Violent Climates”. Mervyn Cooke, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Benjamin Britten. Cambridge: CUP. 188–216. Newcomb, Anthony (1986/1996). “Structure and Expression in a Schubert Song: Noch einmal ‘Auf dem Flusse’ zu hören”. Walter Frisch, ed. Schubert: Critical and Analytical Studies. Lincoln, NE: Univ. of Nebraska Press. 153–174. Palmer, Christopher (1984). “Embalmer of the Midnight: The Orchestral Song-cycles”. Christopher Palmer, ed. The Britten Companion. London/Boston, MA: Faber and Faber. 308–328. Porter, Peter (1984). “Composer and Poet”. Christopher Palmer, ed. The Britten Companion. London/ Boston, MA: Faber and Faber. 271–285. Woodward, Ralph (1999). “Music for Voices”. Mervyn Cooke, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Ben- jamin Britten. Cambridge: CUP. 260–275.

Parsifal for Our Times: Young Artists Show the Way from Interpretation to Cyberstaging [2001]

Among the numerous competitions world-wide which challenge young artists and musicians to show off their talents, only one, organised by the Wagner Fo- rum of Graz, Austria, in collaboration with the local opera company, is devoted to stage direction and stage design. It is held every three years. In 1997 the set project was the opening scene of Rheingold. In 2000 the young contestants were confronted with Parsifal and had to stage an abridged, 35-minute version of Act Two of Wagner’s opus ultimum. It was somewhat surprising – faced with this typical product of lofty old-age ‘wisdom’ – that as many as 120 young participants from 13 nations took part.

They were required to form teams each including a director and a designer. It was difficult for the distinguished jury of directors, designers, music journal- ists and Intendanten to select the most promising concepts from the great number of generally very stimulating entries. In the end, four teams moved into the finals. Their versions were put on stage, separated only by the intervals made necessary by their technical requirements.

It is not the point of this essay to describe the great variety of approaches to Parsifal that this competition brought to light. What I would like to do is draw attention to a shift in theatre aesthetics mirrored in the contributions. This shift deserves careful attention.

Most competition entries were firmly rooted in the theatre aesthetics that prevail in central Europe today. Following this trend, productions tended to offer highly individual readings of the works, in a process of what could be called ‘selective interpretation’. Because the works to be staged are complex and multi- dimensional, only certain facets can actually be put on stage and there is a need to ‘interpret’ the work from a particular perspective. What such an approach 252 Parsifal for Our Times

implies is that the work is not ‘just there’ to be ‘reproduced’ by each production, but that the ‘work’ is only a kind of blueprint for something that becomes reality only in production. Ultimately the ‘work’ does not literally exist until it is performed on the stage, and such a performance will necessarily be coloured – nay shaped – by the views and interests of those staging it.

All this is something of a slap in the face to those who hold that the ultimate measure of theatre productions and the source of their meaning lies in the will of the author, which he has put down and expressed in his ‘work’. Authors’ intentions are notoriously elusive, and defenders of ‘selective interpretation’ find an advocate for their position – to name just one – in that great creative artist James Joyce, who once remarked, ‘How do we know what we are creating when we are creating?’. In this view, the work acquires an independent state of its own, i.e. independent of its creator, and needs another ‘mind’ to ‘interpret’ it and thus bring it to life.

This necessarily brief and fragmentary excursion into the field of art theory is taken in order to place and make accessible the one contribution to the Graz competition that proved to be truly innovative. It courageously went beyond the aesthetics just summarised and broke completely new ground in the field of opera performance.

The main innovation of this approach lies in the fact that the work is no longer seen as something to be interpreted, i.e., it is no longer taken as a source of meaning. Rather, the work is considered as something that triggers theatrical action and stimulates commentaries and reflections; it is not a source of meaning but a source for theatrical events. This kind of theatre, a fairly radical newcomer on the scene, has been called ‘post-dramatic theatre’. Theater heute (December 1999), the leading German theatre journal, published a stringent reflection on this type of theatre in its review of Hans-Thies Lehmann’s book, Postdramatisches Theater (Frankfurt am Main, Verlag der Autoren, 1999). The term ‘post-dramatic’ implies that this is ‘theatre after drama’, drama having been replaced by various other forms of theatrical activity: ‘dance theatre’, ‘space theatre’, ‘image theatre’, ‘energetic theatre’, ‘concrete theatre’, ‘spectacle theatre’, ‘media theatre’ are some of the labels that have recently mushroomed. What they all share is their unwillingness to make meaning their primary aim. Theatre is there to ‘happen’ and offer a kind of holistic experience to all the Parsifal for Our Times 253

people involved in a performance, not just to tell a story or suggest any particular idea or conviction. One central element of this post-dramatic form of theatre is its intention to ‘overcome’ story, fable and dramatic illusion, i.e., it undermines and fundamentally questions the linear narrative character of theatre and replaces coherent plot by overtly unrelated sequences. It dissects the continuity of time and freely juxtaposes elements of action, light, text, visual stimuli, etc., thereby dethroning logical coherence on any level. It consequently also dethrones the notions of human individuality and coherence of personality, destroying the idea of ‘character’ and ‘self’ and stressing ‘thingness’: ’object-ness’ instead of ‘subject-ness’.

While such an experimental concept of theatre may be irritating enough in ‘spoken theatre’ – where, however, it has found its ‘cosy corner’ and thrives as much as innovations of this sort can thrive at all – the musical stage has so far resisted any attack from this direction. This is not surprising, as musical scores of stage works generally do not question the idea of linearity and temporal coherence. They almost exclusively encompass a strict sequence of constituent elements. No one would seriously think, for example, of chopping up Parsifal in such a way as to have the hero catch the holy spear before he kills the swan!

Thus the challenge of introducing ‘post-dramatic’ elements to the musical stage is highly controversial. Therefore, the intention of the organisers of the Graz competition to make this test led them to encourage participants to confront head-on what they called ‘cyberstaging’. The idea was that young artists would be encouraged to apply elements of the new media to the musical stage and test out a new aesthetic based on newly developed technologies.

Few of the contestants took up the challenge and some withdrew during the course of the competition. One team, however, stayed the duration and made it into the finals, where they won a fine second prize. Anja Diefen- bach and Christoph Rodatz, both from Germany, impressed the jury and their audience with a ‘version’ of Parsifal which directly applied new media concepts as well as being firmly rooted in the post-dramatic aesthetic outlined above.

At the footlights were placed five boxes, each closed in on all four sides. One side had a door; the front was transparent. As the stage of the Graz Schau- spielhaus, where the performances took place, is not very large, the five boxes, 254 Parsifal for Our Times

each a metre wide, drastically reduced the view of the stage behind them, particularly for those sitting in the front rows. The two outer boxes were occupied by Anja and Christoph, the other three by the artists singing Kundry, Parsifal, and Klingsor, respectively, when they were not required to sing at the back of the stage. So they left their boxes only to sing their parts and as soon as they had finished they returned, switched on a light, sat down at their table and began talking.

The rear stage was a rostrum and showed – as far as one could see them – the piano (replacing the orchestra for all the competition performances) and the singers positioned between a video camera and a TV monitor while they sang. The singers were asked to sing the music faithfully but to keep their gestures and facial expressions to a minimum; no ‘acting’ had been rehearsed. The singers’ portraits were projected on to five large screens, positioned between the boxes and the rostrum and extending down to about two metres above the stage. About ten minutes into the performance these screens began to move back and forth. Additional visual material were two videotapes showing Anja and Christoph running within moving surroundings to give the impression of running but getting nowhere.

The audience was equipped with a conference system consisting of ear- phones and a five-channel infra-red receiver. It enabled them to switch from box to box to listen to director Christoph Rodatz or designer Anja Diefen- bach, or any of the three singers – when not singing their parts on the rear of the stage – talking. The performance of singers and piano could be heard at all times ‘unplugged’, giving the audience the option of listening to Wagner’s music instead of the talkers.

The situation clearly simulated the new media behaviour of ‘zapping’ and ‘surfing’ between channels and links in an interactive process of moving freely through hypertextual structures. Each member of the audience moved differently through the ‘cyberspace’, so each theatrical experience was different. This demonstrated that the aesthetic fact was an active and separate process for each member of the audience rather than the passive taking in of a given artefact. The linearity of Wagner’s drama and of the five talks in the boxes was fragmented and disfunctionalised for every member of the audience. Parsifal for Our Times 255

The simultaneous transmission of all channels in real time enabled every audience member to do his or her own ‘reading’ of the theatrical event. This led to very individualised experiences amongst them, in all probability not a single one matching any other. Some were attracted by the story the Danish singer (Parsifal) told about the search for his mother, whom he envisaged as a great German opera singer. Others were fascinated by the professionalism of the singer of Kundry when she switched over, in next to no time, from doing and chatting about her makeup to being completely absorbed in her role on stage. Still others were charmed by the singer’s (of Klingsor) humorous story of how he came to love singing as a choirboy in Dresden, or were enlightened by the sophisticated reflections on hypertext and cyberstage coming from the box of the stage director Christoph.

Some audience members were irritated, others mesmerised by the video projections of the two people running always aimlessly. Some were enthralled by the giant singing faces on the screen, others wanted to see more of the pianist, some closed their eyes to all the goings-on and wanted to be left alone with Wagner’s music – and some wished they had never come.

It is evident from what happened that the audience was not faced with a new reading of Parsifal: in fact they were faced with no ‘reading’ of the opera at all. Rather, as was said before, they did their own ‘reading’ in that theatre, not of Wagner’s work, but of the theatrical event they had come to. Thus the approach to Parsifal occurred very much on a meta-level: the plot, the ‘meaning’, the worlds of the grail and of Klingsor’s magic garden were only quoted, as it were, were only referred to. They were only a trigger or starting point for everyone involved in the theatrical event: the director, the designer, the singers, the pianist, the audience. In this way the performance was truly ‘post-dramatic’ in that it went beyond the drama. Yet, obviously, it did not do away with the drama altogether but gave it a different position in the theatrical event from what we are accustomed to in traditional or ‘interpretive’ theatre.

What remains to be asked is the Gretchenfrage, the naive question striking at the root of the matter: why then Parsifal? Couldn’t one do what was done here with any work? Christoph Rodatz took up that question in his searching reflections on his project. He says (in literal English translation): ‘it could have been chance that Parsifal was used; but it wasn’t, as the concept could emerge 256 Parsifal for Our Times

only from “reading” Wagner’s opera. Still, any other work could easily be adapted to the concept.’ Well, this is no clear answer, and one would probably not expect a clear answer. Obviously, the hypertextual network structure of the performance would be applicable to any other work, yet there are elements in it that do point to the world of Parsifal, and a willing audience may be prepared to link the theatrical experience with experiences drawn from Wagner’s work itself. (It should be observed that in following such a path one reverts to the ‘old’ way of ‘selective interpretation’ and abandons the strict line of post-dramatic theatricality.)

In one sense, the video projections of Anja and Christoph running without getting anywhere remind theatre-goers of what we find in a great number of performances of Act 1 of Parsifal, when Gurnemanz and Parsifal leave the park and approach the Gralsburg. The revolving stage is the mechanism that usually achieves the desired effect. But then, of course, Gurnemanz says, very significantly, at this point, “Zum Raum wird hier die Zeit” (‘Time here becomes space`), and it is this idea which is not only central to our understanding of the world of the grail in Wagner’s work but is also central to our understanding of the cyberspace experience. When ‘cyberstaging’ and ‘post-dramatic’ theatre do away with the linearity of time they transform it into a real or virtual space to be inhabited by contemporary ‘knights of the grail’, another exclusive elite of cognoscenti.

How was ‘cyberstaging’ received at Graz? Open-minded people at the theatre found it fascinating but also elitist and too sophisticated for the general opera-goer, who expects a completely different, far more direct aesthetic experience. Richard Black, the reviewer in the London Wagner News (October 2000), himself involved in the competition as a pianist, personally found “the entire concept irritating, pointless and pretentious”, and he summarised the prevailing reaction in the foyer afterwards – as he experienced it – as “interesting, usually said in that certain tone of voice”. Josef Lienhart, President of the Inter- national Association of the Wagner Societies, in Wagner weltweit (September 2000), cannot see it as a ‘masterway’ (“Königsweg”) or as something for the ‘newcomer’ (“Einsteiger”). ‘But’, he reflects, ‘who knows what the interlocking of computer and Internet will eventually bring in the future, after so short a presence?’. Maybe it is ‘the beginning of an irreversible development’ at the end of which we may hopefully not find that it has produced a monster. Parsifal for Our Times 257

What this short essay intends to point out is that most recent experimental approaches to the staging of opera, such as ‘cyberstaging’, work in a defined framework of aesthetic reflection. Experimental approaches have their place in moving from an ‘interpretive’ concept of theatre to a more radically ‘theatrical- ised’ form in the continual development of the arts in our post(post)modern- world. But it also intends to highlight that Wagner will never be far away when such theatrical innovations take place, as the richness of his work will always form a starting point and trigger for genuine creativity.

The Turn of the Screw: Ein Glanzstück der Literaturoper [2002]

Henry James, auf dessen Kurzroman Benjamin Brittens Oper The Turn of the Screw basiert, ist einer der ganz großen europäischen Erzähler, dessen oft un- verlässliche Erzählerfiguren äußerst vieldeutige Geschichten erfinden, die typisch wurden für modernes Erzählen überhaupt. The Turn of the Screw, 1898 erschienen, ist sein berühmtestes Werk dieser Art, unzählige Male interpre- tiert und noch immer rätselhaft. Dabei ist es besonders ironisch, dass James selbst das Werk ganz gering einstufte, es als ein rein kommerzielles Machwerk heruntermachte und als eine seiner Leichtfertigkeit entspringende kleine Ge- schichte abtat, als launisches Amusement und spielerisches Experiment ohne Tiefe und Substanz. Es war für James selbst bloß die Frucht seiner erzähltech- nischen Leidenschaft, eine rein mechanische Angelegenheit, das Produkt kal- ter artistischer Kalkulation und seines Hangs zu Scharfsinn und intellektueller Wendigkeit. Was war denn das Ziel seines spielerischen Tuns? Es wollte eine Geschichte erfinden, der den Eindruck äußersten Schreckens vermittelt, des größten Unheils, des Abscheulichen und absolut Bösen, um jene Leser zu fes- seln und für sich zu gewinnen, die über Horrorgeschichten der üblichen Art sonst nur milde lächeln. Als Anstoß für eine solche Erzählung bot sich ihm jene Geschichte an, die ihm der Erzbischof von Canterbury bei einer der zahl- losen Dinnerparties, die der Salonlöwe James frequentierte, erzählt hatte und ganz vage von zwei Kindern handelte, die von zwei verstorbenen Bediensteten heimgesucht und zu verruchten Übeltaten verführt werden. In diesem Stadi- um der Geschichte war noch nicht die Rede von einer Gouvernante, welche die beiden Kinder vor dem schrecklichen Einfluss schützen und erretten will. Die Unausgeführtheit und Vagheit der Geschichte, die James hörte, ihre ‘Dünne’, wie er sie selbst bezeichnete, war genau ihr Reiz und bot die beste Vorausset- zung für die erzähltechnische Herausforderung, der sich James stellen wollte. Er erkannte, dass nur die reine Andeutung und das völlige Aussparen von konkreten Einzelheiten den gewünschten Effekt erzielen kann. Er sah, dass man 260 The Turn of the Screw: Ein Glanzstück der Literaturoper

den Leser dazu bringen muss, das Böse zu denken; man darf es aber nicht darstellen wollen: Der Leser muss veranlasst werden, seine eigenen latenten Vor- stellungen des Bösen und der Verderbtheit in die Geschichte hinein zu projizieren, denn nur dann wird der (ganz subjektiv erlebte) Eindruck des Schreckens groß genug sein können. Die ‘Dicke’ der Geschichte kommt aus dem Kopf des Lesers, der ‘dünnen’ Geschichte muss es nur gelingen, das ganze Reservoir von Schreckensvisionen im Leser zu wecken.

Gerade dies tut der Autor mit großem Geschick, indem die raffinierte Er- zählstruktur des Romantexts in immer neuen Anläufen und stets gesteigerter Intensität üble Dinge suggeriert, die auf dem geheimnisvollen Landgut Bly geschehen sollen. Die Erzählerin der Geschichte ist die junge und schöne, aber unerfahrene Gouvernante der beiden Kinder Miles und Flora, eine Erzählerin, deren Verlässlichkeit als Beobachterin des Geschehens sich beim Leser bald in Frage stellt – oder auch nicht, je nachdem, was für ein Leser man ist. Die Kom- plexität der Erzählstruktur wird dadurch erhöht, dass – ganz im traditionellen Stil romantischen Erzählens – eine Rahmenhandlung vorgelagert ist, in der gesagt wird, dass das Ganze eine ‘Liebesgeschichte’ sei. Ja, wer liebt denn da wen? Klar ausgesagt wird darüber im eben sehr ‘dünnen’ Text äußerst wenig, und wiederum wird dem Leser freigestellt – durchaus im Sinne des Autors –, seine eigenen Vorstellungen darüber in die Geschichte hineinzutragen. Am of- fensichtlichsten ist die Gouvernante in den Vormund der Kinder verliebt, aber das ist nur eine von vielen Varianten.

Ist die Deutung des Textes nach der Absicht des Autors also prinzipiell offen – und je offener sie erscheint, desto besser ist der Text nach James’ eigenen Vorstellungen gelungen –, so haben sich doch in der Rezeptionsgeschichte von The Turn of the Screw zwei Deutungsrichtungen entwickelt, die als zwei oppositionelle ‘Lager’ erscheinen. Die einen lesen die Geschichte als eine ‘Geis- tergeschichte’ im konventionellen Sinn und glauben der unschuldigen Gou- vernante, dass sie im Kampfe zum Schutz der ebenfalls unschuldigen Kinder gegen böse metaphysische Kräfte steht, die sie korrumpieren. Die anderen lesen eine ‘Liebesgeschichte’ und sehen in der Gouvernante eine zwar zunächst unschuldige, aber verklemmte jungfräuliche Person, die mit ihrer eigenen und der erwachenden Sexualität der beiden Kinder nicht zurande kommt und deshalb die bösen Mächte herbeihalluziniert und damit den Kindern gegenüber schuldig wird. Beide Lesungen lassen sich mit Bezug auf James’ Text belegen The Turn of the Screw: Ein Glanzstück der Literaturoper 261

und schließen einander – auf der Basis der prinzipiellen Offenheit des Romans – auch nicht aus. So gibt es auch Deutungen, die beide Lesungen unter einen Hut bringen wollen und dann etwa so argumentieren, dass Bly, das prächtige Anwesen, ein verwunschenes Paradies ist, das jede sensible Seele korrumpiert, die sich dorthin verirrt. Bly wird dann so etwas wie ein Garten Eden, in dem mit unbeirrbarer Konsequenz im Verborgenen Unschuld zerstört wird.

Als Myfanwy Piper, deren Ehemann John mit Britten seit langem befreun- det gewesen war, dem Komponisten The Turn of the Screw als Vorlage für seine nächste Oper nach Billy Budd (1951) vorschlug, mag es diese Thematik des ‘verlorenen Paradieses’ gewesen sein, die Britten die Idee sofort aufgreifen und Mrs. Piper mit der Abfassung des Librettos beauftragen ließ. Ein zentraler Be- leg dafür ist der großartige Zitat-Einschub, den der Operntext – der sich ansonsten so weit als möglich auf den Jamesschen Wortlaut stützt – in der ersten Szene des zweiten Akts enthält: Im Zwiegesang der beiden Geister zitieren diese aus William Butler Yeats’ Gedicht “The Second Coming”, in dem der große irische Dichter eine Vision davon heraufbeschwört, wie Unschuld untergeht und erstickt. Mit unerhörter Eindringlichkeit singen Quint und Miss Jessel: ‘The ceremony of innocence is drowned.’ Mrs. Piper spricht in ihren Äußerun- gen über das Libretto dementsprechend als zentrales Thema der Oper auch ‘die Verletzlichkeit von Unschuld zu allen Zeiten’ an. Dass Britten von dieser The- matik umgetrieben wurde, zeigen viele seiner Werke. Vor allem die Verletzlich- keit kindlicher Unschuld wird mehrfach auch außerhalb von The Turn of the Screw angesprochen, etwa in den Liedsammlungen Who Are These Children? oder Winter Words. Es ist nicht verfehlt, nach biographischen Wurzeln dieser Obsession bei Britten zu suchen. Er wurde früh quasi seiner Kindheit beraubt, indem er sehr jung das Elternhaus für die obligate englische Internatserziehung verlassen musste und bereits als Sechzehnjähriger ins Royal College of Music aufgenommen wurde, wo er professionelle Verantwortung im Komponieren übernahm und die kindlich-spielerische Auseinandersetzung mit Musik zur ‘Arbeit’ wurde. Am einschneidendsten mag jedoch gewesen sein – wie Brit- ten seinem Freund und engen Mitarbeiter Eric Crozier anvertraut haben soll –, dass er als Junge in der Schule vergewaltigt wurde. Eine solche traumatische Erfahrung mag in der Tat die überzeugendste Erklärung dafür liefern, dass die Thematik der Suche nach einem ‘verlorenen Paradies’ den Komponisten bis an sein Lebensende nicht losließ, dies umso mehr, als durch seine homosexuelle Veranlagung eine solche frühe Erfahrung einen ganz besonderen Stellenwert 262 The Turn of the Screw: Ein Glanzstück der Literaturoper

einnehmen musste. Beim puritanisch geprägten gesellschaftlichen Moralbe- wusstsein der englischen Mittelschicht konnte Britten dem Gefühl unschuldig-schuldhafter Verstrickung nicht entgehen. An The Turn of the Screw führ- te dann wohl kein Weg vorbei, bot der Text doch eine ausreichende Offenheit der Deutung, um – wie gesehen – die eigenen Nöte in ihn hinein zu projizieren.

So nimmt es nicht wunder, dass Mrs. Piper behauptet, sie und Britten hät- ten den Text im Libretto nicht ausgedeutet, sondern nur angestrebt, die Am- biguitäten des Romans von einem Medium in ein anderes zu übertragen. Dies ist ja insofern glaubhaft, als Britten seiner Librettistin auftrug, bei der Textge- staltung nur ‘genaue’ und ‘einfache’ Worte zu verwenden: ‘Gib den Wörtern keine Farbe; das macht dann die Musik’. So ist das Libretto – eines der besten des Jahrhunderts, neben jenen Hofmannsthals für Strauss sowie Audens und Bachmanns für Strawinsky und Henze – ein Glanzstück theatralischer Texte, das perfekte parole sceniche im Sinne Verdis liefert. Es gibt der Musik den nöti- gen Spielraum, ihre Suggestivkraft zu entfalten, ohne sie durch Überdeutlich- keit einzuengen. Dies geschieht ganz im Geist von Henry James’ erzähltechni- schem Spiel in seinem Roman: Britten hatte freie Hand, seine Vorstellungen von der Ambivalenz des Bösen in die Oper hineinzutragen, und er machte besten Gebrauch davon, wie die Partitur zeigt, die zu den faszinierendsten der modernen Oper zählt.

Dabei war der Anspruch von Piper und Britten, in der Oper keine einseiti- ge Deutung des Jamesschen Texts vorzunehmen, kaum einzulösen, wenn man die medialen Bedingungen des Musiktheaters bedenkt. Im Roman erscheinen die beiden Geister (egal ob real oder halluziniert) immer wortlos. Für die Oper bestand Britten aber aus verständlichen Gründen darauf, dass sie singen. (Was wäre das für eine Oper, in der zwei Hauptfiguren stumme Rollen sind.) Doch wenn diese körperlich erscheinen und singen, wie soll man dann die Deutungs- möglichkeit aufrecht erhalten, dass sie nur von der Gouvernante halluziniert werden? Einige Inszenierungen – und sie zählen zu den interessantesten – haben trotz dieser Schwierigkeit versucht – etwa in Analogie zur subjektiven Ka- meraführung im Film –, die Geister als bloße Wahnvorstellungen der Gou- vernante zu realisieren. Das andere Problem mit den singenden Geistern hatte die Librettistin damit, welchen Text sie ihnen geben soll; dafür gab es ja keine Vorgabe aus dem Roman. Abgesehen vom genialen Einfall des Yeats-Zitats war Mrs. Piper klug genug, dem Rat Brittens zu folgen, die Worte knapp zu The Turn of the Screw: Ein Glanzstück der Literaturoper 263

halten und vor allem der Musik die Aussage zu überlassen. Das Problem Brit- tens war ein anderes: Wie sollte er glaubhaft Kinder als Hauptrollen auf die Bühne bringen? Auch er hatte eine gute Hand bei seiner Entscheidung, häufig Kinderreime zu verwenden. Diese lockern nicht nur die unheimliche Grund- stimmung des Werks auf, sondern eignen sich hervorragend dazu, die Ambiva- lenz der Kinder zwischen Unschuld und Verdorbenheit zu suggerieren. So ver- sprüht das frühe Lied “Lavender’s blue” der dritten Szene tatsächlich noch vor allem kindliche Ausgelassenheit, doch Miles’ betörendes “Malo”-Lied wird zu einem erschütternden Zeichen einer Existenz zwischen tatsächlicher Unschuld und der trost-losen Sehnsucht nach verlorener Unschuld. Es zählt zu den genialen Einfällen der Handlung der Oper, dass die Gouvernante am Schluss, nachdem sie mit Entsetzen erfahren muss, dass Miles tot ist, sein “Malo”-Lied an- stimmt: Sie erkennt erstmals, dass ihre eigene Unschuld Täuschung war, dass sie schuldlos schuldig wurde, und sie bindet sich ein in Miles’ hoffnungslose Sehnsucht nach einer Rückkehr ins verlorene Paradies.

Brittens Partitur erhält durch ihre kleine Kammerbesetzung eine Transpa- renz, die der Thematik des Werks kongenial entspricht. Den sinnlich-betören- den Ton der Oper bewirkt vor allem die Kombination der Harfe mit den tiefen Holzbläsern, und Glocken und Celesta vermitteln jenen ätherischen Ein- druck, der so täuschend ‘himmlisch’ ist, aber gleichzeitig das ganz Teuflische sein kann. Die Instrumentation gewinnt so eine symbolische Funktion für die Grundthematik des Werks, wie sie Britten in den Jamesschen Text hineinlas. So ist es nicht ganz zutreffend, wenn, wie es geschehen ist, leitmotivische Ver- fahren identifiziert werden: Die Celesta steht nicht etwa für Peter Quint – sie erscheint ja auch in anderem Zusammenhang –, sondern erscheint eben allgemeiner in dieser symbolischen Funktion. Dasselbe gilt für die ‘himmlischen’ Melismen, die wie ein sinnlich-rauschhafter Sirenengesang nicht ‘leitmoti- visch’ an Quint hängen, sondern gleichfalls generell die versteckte Erotik des Reinen und die trügerische Unschuld des Apollinischen suggerieren.

Als Britten einen Titel für seine Oper suchte, erkannte er letztlich, dass James’ Originaltitel die Sache, um die es ging, auf den Kopf traf. Die episo- dische Struktur des Romans, bei der jede weitere Episode die Spannung so weit erhöht, bis zuletzt der Stillstand des Paroxismus eintritt, hat Britten mit seiner Variationenstruktur auf das zwölftönige Screw-Thema minutiös über- nommen. Das von James gewählte technische Bild der Drehung der Schraube 264 The Turn of the Screw: Ein Glanzstück der Literaturoper

veranschaulicht nicht nur treffend diesen Spannungsverlauf, sondern verweist auch darauf, dass sich James, als der alte Fuchs des Erzählens, ein technisches Problem gestellt hatte, das er souverän löste und das Britten zu einer seiner genialsten Opernschöpfungen verlockte. The ‘Destructiveness of Music’: Functional Intermedia Disharmony in Popular Songs [2002]

This paper takes its clue from a phrase used by Linton Kwesi Johnson, the well-known British pop poet and musician, who talked about the ‘destructiveness’ of his own Reg- gae music in relation to his lyric texts which were meant to carry a message of political protest. The paper identifies four functional contexts or preconditions under which music may, or is likely to, develop such a ‘destructive’ quality towards the words with which it is combined. These are related to the ‘logogeneous’ (vs. ‘pathogeneous’) character of the verbal text; the ‘non-interpretive’ (vs. ‘interpretive’) approach of the music to the underlying text; the specific audience constitution (mass audience vs. intimate group or individual) in the performance situation; and to the ‘melocentric’ (vs. ‘logocentric’) mental disposition of the individual listeners.

The central notion to be discussed in this paper, the ‘destructiveness of music’, has nothing to do with such legendary effects as the sensational destruction of the walls of Jericho through the power of music – it refers to one particular aspect of the intermedial relationship between words and music, namely the possible danger that the music, when it is combined with words, may in some way ‘destroy’ the words. This implies that music, in a multimedia situation, as far as its effect on an audience is concerned, possibly overrules, displaces, absorbs the words and what they have to say. This notion is likely to disconcert people who are accustomed to believe, in a traditional ‘romantic’ context, in the cumula- tive, Gesamtkunstwerk effect of the arts when combined, and who tend to trust in the powerful reinforcement of words by accompanying music.

The phrase of the ‘destructiveness of music’ was used by Linton Kwesi Johnson during a phase of his artistic life and served him as a bitter comment on his experience when he performed his poetry, accompanied by reggae music, before audiences all over Europe1. LKJ – as he is usually referred to – is a

1 Johnson regularly used the phrase in conversation and during perfomances. A written reference can be found in “SG” 1985: 51. 266 The ‘Destructiveness of Music’: Functional Intermedia Disharmony in Popular Songs

Jamaican poet, born in 1952 and living in Great Britain, who became the leading voice of London’s West Indian community in the 1970s and 1980s. He has been described as “the acknowledged head of the new wave of performance poets, whose words welded politics and social conscience with a potent challenge to those in power” (Online 1); he is considered “one of the world’s foremost black poets” (Online 2) who has developed “the newest and most original poetic form to have emerged in the English language in the last quarter century”2, one who is “Britain’s widely acclaimed cult hero” (Online 3) and has even been called “the alternative poet-laureate” (Online 4) of our days.

In his earlier years he was an active member of the Black Panthers Move- ment. Fighting for the political rights of his community, he was involved in the legendary Brixton riots and became a highly articulate spokesman of anti- racism in Thatcherite Britain. Yet in spite of his political activism he has always considered himself above all a poet, and his several publications attest to his stature as a highly gifted and sensitive user of words. His reputation rests on the fact that, although Johnson’s works are suffused by “seething political anger”, they are “never undone by simple vituperation. Johnson is, if anything, a thoughtful radical, more analytical than simplistic” (Online 5). He had begun by writing poetry of an intimate, private character, partly based on biblical language, but he soon realized that poetry was “not only a private, contemplative art form” but “a public arena for opinion and debate”(Online 6), and so he began looking out for better means of reaching a wider audience than a volume of lyric poetry can do. It was natural for him to remember his own native Jamaican tradition, with its popular form of reggae music, which led him to invent what is now called ‘dub poetry’.

The term ‘dub poetry’ is far from clear, and the definitions one can find – also by LKJ himself – are anything but consistent or unambiguous. Basical- ly, ‘dub’ refers to one of the most decisive developments and conceptual shifts in music recording history, namely when studio engineers stopped merely re-producing or imitating performance situations in the studio and began re- mixing existing recordings, thereby producing new ‘artificial’ soundtracks of far greater variety than ‘real life’ performances ever can achieve (cf. Online 7). ‘Dubbing’ was first practiced by reggae DJs, and they also introduced another

2 Fred D’Aguiar. Qtd. Online 1. The ‘Destructiveness of Music’: Functional Intermedia Disharmony in Popular Songs 267

feature which inspired Linton Johnson’s poetry, namely their habit of ‘toasting’, i.e. of talking over their music; this was referred to as their “own brand of outrageous jive talk” (ibid.). This sort of chatter to go along with reggae music gave LKJ the idea for his ‘dub poetry’, which is of central concern to us here as it forms a very up-to-date manifestation of what we traditionally call ‘melodrama’, i.e. the combination of a spoken text with instrumental music. As to the musical side of Linton Johnson’s poetry, i.e. its ‘dub’, it usually is a reduced version of reggae where the basic rhythm track has been extracted from the full version and some other instrumental playing has been added. This practice comes out in one of the definitions Johnson gives of ‘dub’: “‘Dub is drum and base music. If you want to be academic about it or technically you can say it’s the deep structure of Reggae. It’s the very skeleton of the music.’ [...] ‘[...] Let’s say it’s the art of de- construction. It’s a deconstructive art.’ ‘You have a piece of music and you take away the different elements and you’re left with the drum and the base. And then you bring in guitar, you bring in keyboard, you bring in piano, whatever...’” (Online 8). In Johnson’s case, of course, what we find on top of this ‘dub’ is not the chatter of DJ ‘toasting’ but the text of his own poetry.

It was this kind of performance in the shape of ‘dub poetry’ which LKJ introduced in order to reach a wider audience than a pure poetry reading would do and, initially, it proved to be extremely successful. He toured all of Europe for many years and established his high reputation, as is reflected in the quotations given above.

An example of dub poetry can be found in one of his most popular songs called “Reality Poem”. It is a critical address to those people in the black community who follow the Rastafari ideology, i.e. people who turn away from our modern world and try to escape into a dream world, a romantically inspired move ‘back to the roots’ which Johnson sees as no solution to the problems of blacks in England: he claims that “dis is di age of reality”, “of science an’ teknalagy”, “the age of decishan”, and we should not escape into a world of “mitalagy” (‘mythology’) and “antiquity”; we should “leggo relijan” (‘let go religion’), “leggo divishan”, we should not “shout ‘bout sin” but “fight fi win” (Johnson 1980). The language here is a Jamaican form of Patois, highly rhythmical and ‘musical’ in its intonation patterns: Johnson recites it like a chant, or sprechgesang, which is typical of melodramatic performances. 268 The ‘Destructiveness of Music’: Functional Intermedia Disharmony in Popular Songs

As indicated above, this sort of performance of Johnson’s chant accompanied by reggae music was extremely successful, also outside of England. Yet he soon realized that people flocked to his concerts not to hear his texts and their political and social message but to hear his music. This frustrated him, and a very moving incidents occurred at Zurich, where he had had most devoted audiences for many years and where on one occasion, in September 1985, a crowd of over a thousand people had turned up for his performance. Yet Johnson was extremely irritated by the fact that his audience became terribly noisy and inattentive and had no interest in listening to his poetry readings without the music; in the latter part of the concert he did not allow his band to accompany him, and he left the stage in a sad and angry mood, talking about the ‘destructiveness of music’ and complaining that his words had lost all their impact, as expressions of his strong moral concerns, through the addition of music. This and similar experiences elsewhere led to a veritable crisis in Johnson’s career, and he basically stopped giving performances for about ten years. He brought out only very few recordings, one purely instrumental, without recitation, called LKJ in Dub, in 1992, and one purely vocal, without any music, called LKJ a cappella live, in 1996. (To be factually correct, he continued performing every now and then – there was, e.g., a tour through Austria in February 1990 – but these concerts seem to have been given under economic pressure.)

It is interesting to note that, although LKJ’s strong views on the precar- iousness of music accompanying his littérature engagée are well documented and borne out by the practice of his performing and recording career, there are few explicit statements in his rather numerous interviews which address the issue. In one of his later interviews (cf. Online 9) he was directly asked why he had retired from giving performances in the mid-eighties and why he had blamed Bob Marley for watering down his music and message by signing a con- tract with a big mass audience label. Yet LKJ evaded the question and only gave some superficial reasons. When pressed harder he, dismissively, acknowledged that at that time he had been in his “more furious frame of mind” which, by implication, was now past. He had obviously taken up the attitude of playing down his earlier criticism, both out of solidarity with his musician friends and in order not to rub his audience the wrong way. It is only most recently that he seems to feel free again to express his concerns more directly when, on the occasion of the release of his most recent recording, called More Time, he says: “[...]There is always the danger of the music dominating the words. [...].” “I do The ‘Destructiveness of Music’: Functional Intermedia Disharmony in Popular Songs 269

worry in a sense that people might forget that I’m a poet and just get off on the music [...].” (Online 10)

The issue here raised is of more universal significance as it concerns an aspect of the word/music relationship which has rarely been considered, probably caused by the common ‘romantic’ understanding of the relationship, as suggested at the beginning. I would like to identify four functional contexts, or preconditions, under which music may, or is likely to, develop a ‘destructive’ quality in relation to the words.

1. First, it will depend on the kind of text that is being used and accompanied by music. Texts of an argumentative character, such as intend to explain things, describe situations, discuss problems and try to offer solutions to problems, i.e. texts of what may be called a ‘logogeneous’ disposition requiring active rational participation for their comprehension and proper reception, are unlikely to benefit from accompanying music in their adequate reception. Texts with a purpose, such as, e.g., a political message, are easily ‘destroyed’ by music, which will distract the audience’s attention from the indispensible referential meaning of the text. By contrast, a text which mainly establishes a mood or gives expression to emotions, i.e. a text with what may be called a ‘pathogeneous’ disposition, will far more readily benefit from musical accompaniment – on the condition that the music choose to take up that mood or emotion and ‘du- plicate’ it, as it were.

To come back to Linton Johnson’s “Reality Poem”, this is basically a ‘logogeneous’, argumentative text, not likely to be made more comprehensible by the addition of music. (There is enough emotion in the poem, eg in the rhetoric of its many repetitions, yet this is only secondary to the message of the poem.)

2. Second, the ‘destructive’ quality of music will very much depend on the kind of music used for the accompaniment. There is music which tries to enter into a dialogue with the words and concerns itself in one way or another with the meaning of the text. I have elswhere called this type of music ‘interpretive’ music (see Bernhart 1988), and it is this form which is less likely to be ‘destructive’ than music which is ‘non-interpretive’, ie, which appears more or less independent from the text and mainly serves as a background. Returning to LKJ’s dub poetry, we may observe that the instrumental reggae ‘dub’ obviously performs 270 The ‘Destructiveness of Music’: Functional Intermedia Disharmony in Popular Songs

such a background function only and does not enter into a dialogue with the text. Essential for the word/music relation in such a situation is the balance of the two media, of the voice and the instruments, and there is an interesting comment by LKJ on this issue when he says: “We have to be very careful with the equalization because my voice is very bass-y [sic] and therefore we have to be careful what frequencies we feed to the other instruments because otherwize [sic] there could be a serious clash. The voice always sits on top of the music, not mixed into the music.” (Johnson 1991) We can see the poet’s concern with the acoustic independence of his reciting voice, obviously in order to be better understood – we may wonder, though, with how much success as there will be an additional need of a very careful balance of volume, which is rarely in favor of the single reciting voice at battle with the thundering bass and drums; thus, in spite of Johnson’s efforts, his chant is very likely to be drowned out, ‘destroyed’ by the instrumental sound. It is quite ironic and rather naive of one commen- tator to say that “Johnson uses the rhythms of reggae to get his message across” (Online 10): he himself was far more clearly aware of the fact that the rhythms of reggae did not ‘get his message across’ but rather killed it.

It is interesting to observe that in his latest release, More Time, Johnson – again in his own words – has tried “[...] to make the music suit the mood of each poem. [...]” (qtd. ibid.), i.e. he has obviously begun to take up the challenge of ‘interpretive’ music; he says, “[...] I always like to think of it in this way, that the music articulated [sic] in a good way, and also the views are plain and clear and articulated well. [...]” (qtd. ibid.): LKJ seems to develop a new sense for intermedial duplication.

3. The third precondition for ‘destructive music’ is sociological in the wider sense and has to do with audience constitution. LKJ distinguishes clearly between his poetry readings and his musical performances: he once said that performing “with a band in front of thousands of people” is “very impersonal” but also “much easier because the attention is focused on the bass player, the drummer, the keyboard player”: “the audience [...] comes to hear the band [and] are usually there for that element”. Only in poetry readings “they come for the poetry and it’s much more intimate” (Online 9). When saying this he seemed resigned to accept the fact that mass audiences do not come for the message but for the fun. In a very perceptive recent study (see Mayer 2000), Ruth Mayer discusses the common fate of protest songs in popular culture and convincing- The ‘Destructiveness of Music’: Functional Intermedia Disharmony in Popular Songs 271

ly argues that pop songs, with their standard attitude of protest, dissent, subversion and resistance, are inevitably appropriated by the “machineries of the mainstream”: they suffer trivialization and “commercialization as an indication of corruption and political sellout” (ibid.: 150). “More often than not, the additional rhythmic and melodic structures of signification [in pop songs], just like specific instances of performance, deflect from the semantic level of the lyrics up to a point of sheer contradiction – this is as pop signification works.” (Ibid.: 152) Such a statement would have been music to the ears of LKJ in his ‘furious frame of mind’ when he talked about the ‘destructiveness of music’ towards his lyrics.

What needs to be stressed, however, – and we find it implied in the statement just quoted – is the fact that the political semantics of the text may be thus ‘deflected from’ or ‘destroyed’ in pop songs but that an additional signifying process is likely to take place, triggered by the music itself, a process that may very well produce political signification of its own. Typical pop music, with its rousing rhythms and catchy tunes, inspires jouissance in the audience and may lead to more or less subtle effects of a hypnotic character, all of which may easily stimulate attitudes of protest. At the same time, and additionally, these rhythms and tunes are likely to establish a community feeling, a sense of solidarity, which, in turn, may produce in-group and out-group distinctions with a high political potential. Thus, in pop songs, political issues, argued on the semantic level of the lyrics, are generally betrayed, but political attitudes can easily be roused and may acquire a powerful status in the audience.

4. The fourth and final precondition for the experience of ‘destructiveness of music’ in relation to words lies on the personal level of individual listeners’ mental disposition. There are individual listeners who are ‘melocentric’ and who thus concentrate far more readily than others on music as soon as they hear it; such listeners find it difficult to experience music as a mere background sound as they always feel forced to listen attentively. As a consequence they are unlikely ever to pay attention to words as soon as music accompanies them; they are typical ‘word-destructive’ listeners. Another type of listeners – they may be called ‘logocentric’ listeners – are less easily distracted from a text by accompanying music, they are far more able to concentrate on words even with a powerful musical background. I am not aware of any empirical study devoted to this distinction, but it should offer interesting results which may very well 272 The ‘Destructiveness of Music’: Functional Intermedia Disharmony in Popular Songs

apply to various kinds of word/music experiences, not only pop songs but including classical lieder, operas, etc.

To sum up, this paper argues that Linton Kwesi Johnson, by complaining about the ‘destructiveness of music’, has put his finger on an issue that deserves more attention than it has so far received. The brief and necessarily limited survey here given of functional contexts and preconditions under which one may meaningfully talk about such ‘destructiveness’ has established that – to put things in a (necessarily rough and ready) nutshell – a song with a ‘logogeneous’ text and ‘non-interpretive’ music sung or spoken to a mass audience and heard by a ‘melocentric’ listener is characterized by a maximum of functional intermedia disharmony, where the music is very likely to be experienced as highly ‘destructive’ in relation to the text. In contrast, a ‘pathogeneous’ text set to ‘interpretive’ music and sung or spoken to an intimate audience of ‘logocentric’ listeners may very well manifest the highest degree of word/music harmony. The ‘Destructiveness of Music’: Functional Intermedia Disharmony in Popular Songs 273

References

Bernhart, Walter (1988). “Setting a Poem: The Composer’s Choice For or Against Interpretation”. Yearbook of Comparative and General Literature 37: 32–46. Johnson, Linton Kwesi (1980). Inglan Is a Bitch. London: Race Today Publications. 24–25. — (1991). Tings an’ Times. London: LKJ Records. Mayer, Ruth (2000). “Pop as a Difference Engine: Music, Markets, and Marginality”. Elisabeth Kraus, Carolin Auer, eds. Simulacrum America: The USA and the Popular Media. Rochester, NY: Cam- den House. 149–160. “SG” (1985). “Trauriger Abschied: Linton Kwesi Johnson im Volkshaus”. Neue Zürcher Zeitung 28/29: 51. Online 1: Atkin, Sharon (1995). The Carribean Times. http://lister.ultrakohl.com/homepage/Lkj/ lkjquot.htm. Online 2: Portland Press Herald, USA, 1990. http://lister.ultrakohl.com/homepage/Lkj/lkjquot.htm. Online 3: The South African Star. http://lister.ultrakohl.com/homepage/Lkj/lkjquot.htm] Online 4: Time Out, 1996. http://lister.ultrakohl.com/homepage/Lkj/lkjquot.htm. Online 5: John Dougan, All-Music Guide. http://www.ubl.com/ubl_artist.asp?artistid=33742. Online 6: “The Power to Persuade”. http://www.poetrysoc.com/npd/johnson.htm. Online 7: “A Brief History of Dub“. wysiwyg://227/http://www.geocities.com/EnchantedForest/ Meadow/8887/. Online 8: http://cri.cipnet.de/lkj-dub.htm. Online 9: “Linton Kwesi Johnson. Interview by Billy Bob Hargus”. http://niceup.com/interviews/lin- ton_kwesi_johnson. Online 10: “Nancy Rawlinson talks to reggae musician, dub poet and political activist Linton Kwesi Johnson”. http://www3.mistral.co.uk/dotongues/linton.html.

Peter Grimes: Auf George Crabbes Spuren zwischen Realismus und Romantik [2003]

Peter Grimes erschien 1945 wie ein Hecht im Karpfenteich der englischen Oper, brachte den Durchbruch für Benjamin Brittens internationales Anse- hen als Komponist und leitete eine neue Ära des englischen Musiktheaters ein. Britten war 1942 aus dem vom leidenschaftlichen Pazifisten 1939 selbst- gewählten Exil in Amerika zurückgekehrt, weil ihn im fernen Kalifornien das Heimweh plagte – Heimweh nach Suffolk, nach der rauhen Nordsee, dem Kreischen der Möwen, dem steifen, kalten Nordostwind. (Britten hatte bereits 1937 in einer aufgelassenen Windmühle an der Suffolk-Küste Wohnung be- zogen.) Ausgelöst hat diese Sehnsucht ein Bericht des bekannten Romanciers E. M. Forster – inzwischen im allgemeinen Bewusstsein als brillanter Autor der Vorlage für David Leans Kultfilm “Reise nach Indien” –, ein Bericht über den im Suffolkschen Aldeburgh geborenen George Crabbe und dessen Verser- zählung “The Borough” von 1810. Dort fand Britten auch einen Hinweis auf “Peter Grimes” , eine Geschichte, tief verwurzelt in der East Anglia-Welt seiner Kindheit (er war in Lowestoft geboren), und eine Geschichte, deren Inhalt vielstimmig mit eigenen Problemfeldern resonierte.

Wer war George Crabbe? Selbst Anglisten ist Crabbe heute nicht mehr besonders nahe, obwohl der Arzt, Theologe und Dichter zu seiner Zeit höchst angesehen und etwa der Lieblingsautor der Jane Austen war (in ihrer Familie nannte man sie scherzhaft “Mrs Crabbe” ). Der Zeitgenosse Goethes (auch er starb 1832, war jedoch fünf Jahre jünger) wurde berühmt durch seine Vers- erzählungen in der Manier Walter Scotts, unterschied sich von diesem aber durch seinen pointierten Realismus, der ihm die Kritik seiner romantischen Kollegen einbrachte: Er habe keine Phantasie. Seine lose in Brieffolgen struk- turierten Erzählungen sind Dorfgeschichten, voll der genauen Beobachtung vom Alltagsleben, vor allem des kleinen Mannes, in der kargen, rauhen Land- schaft und der spießigen Enge der örtlichen Gemeinschaft. Solche ‘topographi- sche’ Lokalchroniken mit deutlich sozialkritischem Anliegen galten vielen als 276 Peter Grimes: Auf George Crabbes Spuren zwischen Realismus und Romantik

‘unpoetisch’, und sie verletzten auch das zarte Empfinden mancher an Senti- mentaleres gewöhnten Zeitgenossen und Zeitgenossinnen, vorwiegend dann, wenn die dargestellte Welt ins Abwegige führte und abnorme Gegebenheiten und Charaktere schilderte. Dem Opiumesser Crabbe selbst waren abnormale mentale Zustände durchaus nichts Fremdes.

In diesem Umfeld, das seine literarische Gestaltung in Erzählungen wie “The Village” (“Das Dorf” , 1783) oder “The Borough” (“Die Kleinstadt” , 1810) fand, steht Peter Grimes, der im 22. Brief von “The Borough” erscheint. Für ihn soll es ein lebenswirkliches Original gegeben haben, wofür aber sowohl ein Fischer aus Aldeburgh zur Zeit, als Crabbe dort als Arzt wirkte, herhalten muss, oder aber ein sogar namentlich genannter Tom Brown, ein Fischer und Tunichtgut aus der Mitte des 18. Jahrhunderts.

Jedenfalls hat dieser Peter Grimes, wie ihn Crabbe in seiner Umwelt an der Küste von Suffolk darstellt, die Phantasie Brittens und seines Partners Peter Pears stark angeregt, sodass Montagu Slater mit der Abfassung eines Librettos betraut wurde, nachdem Kussewitzky Britten den Auftrag für eine neue Oper erteilt hatte.

Was war nun reizvoll an Peter Grimes? Er ist eine zutiefst zwiespältige Fi- gur, die die unterschiedlichsten Reaktionen auslöst, von Mitleid und wohlwol- lender Anteilnahme mit einem an der Gesellschaft zerbrechenden Menschen in allen Schattierungen bis hin zu Hass und Abscheu gegenüber einem grau- samen, pathologischen, mörderischen Egoisten. Die Ambivalenz der moralischen Beurteilung des Charakters dieses Menschen ist wohl die Wurzel für die Faszination, die ungebrochen von dieser Gestalt ausgeht und die auch Britten angetrieben haben mag. Dabei war für Britten – soweit er sich dazu überhaupt äußerte und soweit er sich dazu konsistent äußerte, denn er selbst scheint im Laufe der Jahre unterschiedliche Facetten an Grimes gesehen zu haben – das zentrale Moment an Grimes sein Außenseitertum. Dies spiegelt auf zumindest dreierlei Weise Brittens eigene zwiespältige Rolle im sozialen Gefüge wider. Zum einen sieht Britten in Peter Grimes ganz allgemein den künstleri- schen Menschen als Außenseiter, vor allem – wie er verbittert feststellt – in der englischen Gesellschaft seiner Zeit. Zum anderen wusste sich Britten als dem kriegsführenden Land entflohener Pazifist als Außenseiter, was der noch zur Kriegszeit Zurückkehrende schmerzhaft am eigenen Leib erfahren musste. Peter Grimes: Auf George Crabbes Spuren zwischen Realismus und Romantik 277

Dann aber empfand sich auch der an seinen homosexuellen Neigungen leiden- de Komponist als ein Ausgestoßener der Gesellschaft, was in der Thematik des Peter Grimes ausreichend Widerhall findet, wird doch dem eigenbrötlerischen Fischer Pädophilie mit seinen Jungen als Gehilfen – wie unterschwellig auch immer – nachgesagt.

Hat man diese Züge Grimes’ im Auge, rückt er in die Nähe des Wozzeck und zieht Mitleid auf sich, als ein vom Spießertum geächteter und der Lynch- justiz ausgesetzter, vom Pöbel unverstandener visionärer ‘Ausnahmemensch’. Peter Pears hat sich deutlich für diese Sicht des Peter Grimes ausgesprochen und seine Darstellung auf der Bühne auch entsprechend gestaltet. Viele Insze- nierungen fühlen sich diesem Bild des Grimes verpflichtet.

Dem steht natürlich entgegen, dass Grimes eindeutig gewalttätig ist, seinen Jungen schlägt, unfähig ist, Liebe, die ihm entgegengebracht wird, zu er- widern, diesen einzigen Menschen, der ihn liebt, – Ellen Orford – ebenfalls schlägt und in verbohrter Besessenheit auf seine idee fixe und im Hass auf seine soziale Umwelt den Tod zweier Jungen verursacht.

Dieses negative soziopathologische Bild des Peter Grimes geht in seiner Substanz auf George Crabbe zurück, wo diese Züge noch viel krasser hervor- treten als in der Oper. Doch wird die Zeichnung der Figur bei Crabbe von Kritikern meist pauschal als unkomplizierter Sadist und damit ausschließ- lich ablehnend und verurteilend gesehen, was dem humanen Diagnostiker Crabbe, der er war, unrecht tut. Es gehört zu den Stärken Crabbes, dass er sich dem moralischen Urteil verweigert, und eine Feinheit im Text von “The Borough” ist eine längere Fußnote, in der der Autor selbst die Problematik des Charak- ters von Peter Grimes thematisiert. Er spricht dort von dessen Halsstarrigkeit, Gefühlskälte, düsterer Misanthropie, dem wachsenden Wahnsinn und Hor- ror seiner Phantasien, seinem fehlenden Mitleid, seiner Unfähigkeit zur Reue und seiner Schamlosigkeit, überlässt es aber dem Leser, diese Erscheinungen zu beurteilen. Wohl aber weist Crabbe darauf hin, dass Mangel, Krankheit, Einsamkeit und tiefe Enttäuschung Grimes zum Opfer seiner fürchterlichen Wahnvorstellungen gemacht haben und die Korrosion dieses Menschen ver- ursachten. 278 Peter Grimes: Auf George Crabbes Spuren zwischen Realismus und Romantik

Man kann also feststellen, dass die Ambivalenz der Beurteilung des Grimes bereits bei Crabbe angelegt ist – andernfalls hätte der Text wohl kaum das Interesse Brittens erregt. Die zwei Seiten des ‘guten’, ‘Apollinischen’ und des ‘bösen’, ‘Dionysischen’ Grimes (nach S. A. Allen im Cambridge Compa- nion to Benjamin Britten von 1999) stehen also bei jeder Deutung des Werks zur Disposition. Der Sicht von Peter Pears steht die ebenso legendäre von Jon Vickers gegenüber, der den aggressiven, von ungewollter Brutalität geprägten Menschen hervorkehrte (Britten hat diese Zeichnung der Figur heftig abge- lehnt), aber die Gestaltung durch Philip Langridge – ebenfalls im zeitlosen Britten-Kanon –, rückt in ihrer Darstellung den in seiner In-sich-Gekehrtheit und Kommunikationsunfähigkeit Unverstandenen in die Nähe Peter Pears’. Zwischen ‘Lichtgestalt’ und ‘Frankensteins Monster’ schwankt sein Charak- terbild in der Operngeschichte.

Keine Deutung kommt jedoch – ausgehend von Brittens Hinweis auf die zentrale Rolle von Grimes’ Außenseitertum – aus ohne die Vorstellung, dass hier der Einzelne im Konflikt mit der Gesellschaft steht, und man hat sich gerne die Frage gestellt, wer denn nun die ‘eigentliche’ Hauptrolle im Werk spiele. Vor allem die überwältigende Präsenz der Dorfbewohner in den großartigen Chorszenen der Oper machten im Urteil mancher Kritiker dem Titelhelden diese Rolle streitig. Dies hat viel für sich, vor allem, wenn man Grimes primär als Opfer seiner engstirnigen sozialen Umwelt sieht, die hier wie kaum in einem anderen Werk des Musiktheaters mit aller Eindringlichkeit und einer un- nachahmlichen, vielleicht typisch englischen Detailgenauigkeit und Drastik in Erscheinung tritt. Dabei ist zu beobachten, dass die Figuren der Kleinstadt, sofern sie als Einzelne agieren, durchaus menschlich-allzumenschliche Züge tragen, dass sie aber erst im Kollektiv, wenn sie das Böse in einem Fremdkörper als gemeinsamen Feind wittern, der Hysterie verfallen. Das Werk entstand 1942 bis 1945 ...

Die Ironie in der Gestalt des Peter Grimes besteht aber darin – und das übersehen gerne die eher simplistischen Deutungen, die den Protagonisten als reinen Gegenpol zur sogenannten ‘Gesellschaft’ sehen –, dass er sich letztlich den Spielregeln seiner gesellschaftlichen Umwelt unterwirft: Er will ein ‘bür- gerliches’ Leben führen, er will Ellen heiraten, aber er will dies nur tun, wenn er genügend Geld hat, um ein angesehener Bürger der Stadt zu sein. Das ist ja seine ‘Vision’, für welche seine Freunde Balstrode und Ellen – tatsächlich Peter Grimes: Auf George Crabbes Spuren zwischen Realismus und Romantik 279

innerlich Freie – kein Verständnis aufbringen. Sein Versagen auf der bürger- lichen Ebene von ihr vorgehalten zu bekommen, führt ihn ja auch zur Aggres- sion gegenüber Ellen. Die Tragik des Peter Grimes besteht gerade darin, dass er die Forderungen der Gesellschaft ernst nimmt und sich von ihnen nicht lösen kann; drum wird er auch leicht zu ihrem Opfer.

Dies vor allem deshalb, weil er etwas in sich trägt, das ihn von den anderen radikal unterscheidet und das ihn den tosenden Sturm auf hoher See den Reizen von Aunties Etablissement so uneingeschränkt vorziehen lässt. Er hat ein intuitives Wissen um die schicksalhafte kosmische Einbettung unserer Existenz, ein Wissen, das in seiner ‘Arie’ “Now the Great Bear and Pleiades” hervorbricht, die im Dorf jedoch nur fassungsloses Unverständnis hervorruft. Peter Grimes – in dieser Dimension eine zutiefst romantische Figur – ist sich seiner fundamentalen Verwurzelung in den Elementen, seiner chthonischen Existenz überscharf bewusst, sehnt sich aber – wie all die Wassermänner, Ni- xen und Undinen – nach einem erfüllten Dasein in der menschlichen Gemein- schaft. Dazu ist er als ‘Naturwesen’ nicht fähig, der Sog – im wörtlichen Sinn – der Elemente, des Wassers, zieht ihn zwanghaft hinweg. Die ‘Erlösung’ wird verfehlt, Ellen ist keine Senta. (Das Hervorkehren dieser Dimension des Wer- kes mag wohl auch der Grund gewesen sein, warum Britten gegenüber dem Entwurf von Slater das homoerotische Moment der Beziehung zwischen Gri- mes und dem Jungen zurückgedrängt wissen wollte zugunsten seiner Bezie- hung zu Ellen, die bei Crabbe eine durch und durch christlich geprägte Hiobs- figur ist.)

Erscheint somit Grimes als elementares ‘Naturwesen’, so macht es durchaus Sinn, wenn so manche Deuter des Werks die ‘eigentliche’ Hauptrolle von Peter Grimes dem Meer zuweisen, und es ist natürlich die Musik der Oper, die dieser Deutung vollen Rückhalt gibt. Britten hat ja selbst die zentralen In- strumentalpassagen des Werks als die “Sea Interludes and Passacaglia” für den Konzertgebrauch zusammengestellt und damit deren Bedeutung signalisiert. Die Form der Passacaglia spiegelt perfekt die Dynamik des Meeres wider – gro- ße Freiheit der Bewegung innerhalb rigorosestem Zwang der Wiederkehr –, und Brittens grandiose Musik vermittelt mit packendem Zugriff das allzu Be- drohliche und Sinistre der – nicht nur für Peter Grimes – zerstörerischen Flu- ten. Man kann in dieser Musik – geschrieben 1944 und 1945 – das Leiden des Pazifisten Britten an den Gräueln des zuende gehenden Krieges hören, man 280 Peter Grimes: Auf George Crabbes Spuren zwischen Realismus und Romantik

kann aber auch viel allgemeiner in ihrer Kälte, Grausamkeit, Wildheit und Schönheit das Schicksalhafte des gottfernen menschlichen Lebens erkennen. Zweifellos dringt diese Musik in die Bereiche elementarer Urgewalten vor, was dem Werk eine Ominösität und ‘balladeske Schwere’ verleiht, denen sich die Hörer schwer entziehen können.

Vielleicht liegt die Stärke von Brittens Peter Grimes – unbestritten eine der wichtigsten Opern des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts – gerade darin, dass sie das Erbe der romantischen Oper – mit modernem, desillusioniertem Akzent – verbindet mit der sozialkritischen modernen ‘Literaturoper’, eine Verbindung, die er zur völligen künstlerischen Integration führte. Es war wohl ein Glücks- fall, dass Britten, vom Heimweh befallen, sich an seinen Landsmann George Crabbe klammerte, der zur Zeit der Hochblüte der Romantik mit seinem sozialkritischen Realismus Aufsehen erregte. Masterminding Word and Music Studies: A Tribute to Steven P. Scher [2002]

The section “Defining the Field” has become a regular feature of WMA conferences, and it usually contains no further qualification or limitation as to scope of observation. This year, however, there is a qualification as the section is designed to be “In Honour of Steven P. Scher”. This qualification surely implies no limitation in scope: there is little doubt that Professor Scher has been the mastermind behind establishing and ‘defining the field’ of Word and Mu- sic Studies as a recognized interdisciplinary area of scholarly enquiry. The fact that he has recently turned 65 seems reason enough to draw public attention to these achievements. But when I intimated to him the idea of doing so, he characteristically pushed it aside. Yet he seemed not to downright condemn the idea: I certainly did not feel encouraged, but also not completely discour- aged. Thus we find ourselves gathered here and turning to him with a eulogis- tic frame of mind. His reluctance to accept such an event is typical of his complete lack of vanity and self-centredness. It also fits in very well with some other characteristics I admire in him: his sober common sense, his natural keenness of mind and direct approach to things and, perhaps most captivatingly, his genuine curiosity and constant humane concern, not to speak of his wit and subtle humour.

What, then, is the more precise link between Steven Scher and ‘defining the field’? Our overall conceptions of the field have largely been shaped – in many cases quite unconsciously so, I believe – by his views and ideas about the relationship of ‘word and music’. It is true, he was not the ‘founder’ of the discipline (if we care about having one): that was Calvin S. Brown (to whom the second volume of the Rodopi book series Word and Music Studies is devoted; cf. Cupers/Weisstein, eds.). It was Brown who first drew attention to the methodological issues involved in studying the relationships of word and music, and in this respect he took positions which still merit serious consideration today. Yet Brown had no systematic concerns and had no interest in surveying the 282 Masterminding Word and Music Studies: A Tribute to Steven P. Scher

field as a whole. This is where Professor Scher broke new ground, and in doing so he put Word and Music Studies on the map of scholarship as a distinct field of study, defined by its systematically assessed inner structure. Many of us have become aware of Word and Music Studies as a separate and independent scholarly field only through him; and this is certainly true for me.

I first met Steven Scher in 1984 when he came to Graz as a guest professor. He was the first to open our eyes to the possibilities of transcending disciplinary boundaries by talking about ‘Literature and Music’, interdisciplinarity then still being considered, if not downright unacceptable, yet rather unortho- dox and a little dubious. New Critical structuralism with its ‘separatist’ rigour concerning the study of various artforms was still very much in the air. At about the same time Ulrich Weisstein came to Graz as well (he now lives there), introducing ‘Literature and the Visual Arts’ to us. It was thus in the mid-1980s that we came into contact with recent American developments in the area of what was then called ‘Literature and the Other Arts’ or ‘Compar- ative Arts’ (its main centre being the Comparative Arts Program at Indiana University in Bloomington). Comparative Arts was considered part of Com- parative Literature then – a view that is still with us in some quarters. Yet the concept of Comparative Arts Studies has now been widely replaced by that of Interart Studies (a term which Swedish scholars prefer) or Intermedia Studies (preferred by German-speaking colleagues). Scher and Weisstein, both originally from Europe, had a genuine interest in ‘exporting’ the new approach back to Europe and had jointly published in 1981 the Proceedings of the Innsbruck ICLA (International Comparative Literature Association) Congress on “Liter- ature and the Other Arts”.

Steven Scher was the spearhead of this new scholarly activity in at least two ways: for one, as Chair of the Bibliography Committee of the MLA Division on Literature and Other Arts, he was the editor of the yearly Bibliography on the Relations of Literature and the Other Arts (founded in 1954) from 1972 to 1986. Needless to say, bibliographical work is one of the central pillars of a discipline, an indispensible prerequisite for establishing a scholarly field. His work for the Bibliography made Scher aware of the richness of worldwide activity in the field and of the need to organize these efforts in some way. Secondly, he edited the volume Literatur und Musik. Ein Handbuch zur Theorie und Prax- is eines komparatistischen Grenzgebietes, published in 1984 by Erich Schmidt Masterminding Word and Music Studies: A Tribute to Steven P. Scher 283

Verlag in Berlin. (The companion piece on Literatur und die bildende Kunst, edited by Weisstein, appeared in 1992.) Scher’s introduction to his Handbuch was partly based on his 1982 contribution on “Literature and Music” to the Barricelli/Gibaldi volume on Interrelations of Literature and partly on his summary in the Innsbruck Proceedings of 1981. This Innsbruck text had a characteristic title: “Comparing Literature and Music: Current Trends and Pros- pects in Critical Theory and Methodology”. Characteristic insofar as it chose the then dominant comparatist standpoint, made theory and methodology its main concern, and took a typical ‘Scherian’ interest in future developments (‘prospects’). The central points of this essay are his attacks on what he calls the “age-old terminological confusion” (“Comparing Literature and Music” 219) and on the “rampant metaphorical impressionism” (ibid.). The titles alone of some of the papers read at the 2001 Sydney WMA conference – collected in this volume – confirm that these concerns have lost none of their topicality. In his Innsbruck text of twenty years ago Scher also complained about the scar- city of theoretical studies in the field and, among others, called for serious semiotic studies, then fairly new on the market; yet he already showed a certain scepticism about semiotic approaches, which has since increased, if I judge him correctly. Generally, theoretical interests have certainly increased over the last twenty years.

For Steven Scher himself it had all begun in 1968 with Verbal Music in German Literature, based on his Yale dissertation, a brilliantly written study on one form of musicalization of literature, the thematic form (in contrast to the acoustic and structural forms). It led to his 1970 article called “Notes To- ward a Theory of Verbal Music”, which, it appears to me, formed the germ for his well known tripartite systematic model of word and music relationships.

This first study, with a focus on theoretical issues, was followed by his first methodological study that I have been able to trace: it was published in 1975 in the Yearbook of Comparative and General Literature and had the title: “Lit- erature and Music: Comparative or Interdisciplinary Study?”. It was as early as this that Scher asked a question and raised an issue which became a dominant methodological concern only later, in the 1990s.

Still another ‘first’ was his 1972 article entitled “How Meaningful is ‘Mu- sical’ in Literary Criticism?” (yet another question mark: he is a very inquisitive 284 Masterminding Word and Music Studies: A Tribute to Steven P. Scher

person!). It is here that he addressed for the first time the terminological issue which later became a dominant concern of his, also reflected in some of the papers read at the Sydney conference.

Another area Scher moved into in the 1980s was the lied: he introduced the notion of what he called “composed reading” in his 1986 essay on Beetho- ven’s Goethe lieder (cf. 156). It is this area where his interests come closest to my own: ‘Literature and Music’, in his familiar terminology, or as he at times later called it, the area of “compenetration”1 (or “plurimediality”, according to Werner Wolf 2). Scher’s interest in strategies of ‘composed reading’ is reflected, among others, in his illuminating though perhaps not so well known study called “The German Lied: A Genre and Its European Reception”. It was published in 1990, typically in a collection called European Romanticism: Liter- ary Cross-Currents, Modes, and Models; typically, because it brings together Scher’s two main areas of scholarly work, Word and Music Studies and Ger- man Romanticism, with special emphasis on writer/composer E. T. A. Hoff- mann. No doubt, the two areas share much common ground, and Professor Scher has tread on it with a firm stride. We are here not immediately concerned with his contributions to Romantic Studies, but rather where they successfully overlap with Word and Music Studies. To mention a few relevant items: “Carl Maria von Weber’s Tonkünstlers Leben: The Composer as Novelist?” (again a question mark!) (1978); „Der Opernkomponist Hoffmann und das europäis- che Musiktheater seiner Zeit“ (1993); or, very recently, „Judith Weirs Heav- en Ablaze in His Breast: E. T. A. Hoffmanns Der Sandmann als postmoderne Tanzoper“ (2000).

I have already referred to Scher’s genuine curiosity for what is new – a typical title is that of his essay “Theory in Literature, Analysis in Music: What Next?” (question mark!) (1983). Thus there is also his characteristic interest in contemporary British composer Judith Weir, just mentioned, or in the legendary rock group Talking Heads, about whom he read a paper in Graz (cf. “Acous- tic Experiment”, 1994).

1 In Scher, “The German Lied” 129, he refers to Louise Rosenblatt’s term, taken from Tompkins, ed. 259. 2 See his essay in this volume [i.e., Wolf 2002]. Masterminding Word and Music Studies: A Tribute to Steven P. Scher 285

The title “Theory in Literature, Analysis in Music: What Next?” is revealing for Scher also in another way: one can regularly observe in him a certain distance from, or scepticism against, theory and analysis for their own sake; he is sceptical of ‘pure theory’. It is his common-sense attitude and his pragmatic approach which always draw him to texts and their interpretation. His genuine concern for methodology and theory has never led him astray: he has always avoided the pitfalls of theory-obsessed sterility – of curling locks on a bald head, as the sarcastic Karl Kraus has once put it. He has instinctively found a happy mixture of critical theory and interpretive practice and never got lost in mere abstractions.

So ‘what was next’ after the 1980s, a decade in which Professor Scher had given the summary account of the state of the art of Word and Music Studies? Next was, in 1992, his edition of Music and Text: Critical Inquiries. His “Pref- ace” to this collection of essays stresses the interdisciplinary character of Word and Music Studies, thus providing an answer to his 1975 question – comparative or interdisciplinary study? –, while also describing the progress the discipline has made since about ten years before. (Incidentally, by then he preferred to call the discipline ‘melopoetics’, adopting a term from Lawrence Kramer [cf. 1989]; he also uses ‘musicopoetics’ in an article of 1992. I personally find the term ‘melopoetics’ unsuitable and in fact misleading.) Scher’s preface to Music and Text sees progress of the discipline above all in the fact that the scope of Word and Music Studies has dramatically widened by 1992: he names “[p]ost- structuralism, hermeneutics, semiotics, reception aesthetics, and deconstruc- tion, as well as Marxist, feminist, psychoanalytic, and reader-response criticism, and more recently [then!] New Historicism” (“Preface” xiii). It was again Scher who led Word and Music Studies into this ‘brave new world’. He was fortunate enough to enlist Hayden White to write a magisterial “Commentary” to Music and Text: a perceptive methodological reflexion on the introduction of what we are now likely to call the ‘Culturalist Turn’ in the Humanities, as it applies to Word and Music Studies. It is with great satisfaction that Scher there regis- ters the efforts in the field of musicology to participate in this paradigm shift, in a field which, as he puts it, “until recently, of all humanistic disciplines”, “has been perhaps least receptive to novel critical approaches” (xiv).

How enthusiastic Professor Scher was about this new trend in musicology became evident – and it is again very characteristic of him – when, as an example, 286 Masterminding Word and Music Studies: A Tribute to Steven P. Scher

he sent me, in 1994, a review article from the journal Lingua Franca called “A Female Deer?” (cf. Ross), which reviewed the latest gender-oriented studies in musicology. The topicality of Music and Text was reason enough for me to ask Scher to read the opening paper at the Graz conference on “Word and Music Studies: Defining the Field” in 1997, when and where the International Asso- ciation for Word and Music Studies (WMA) was founded. In his paper entitled “Melopoetics Revisited: Reflections on Theorizing Word and Music Stud- ies” he substantiated his observation that musicology had recently undergone a “momentous transformation in critical orientation” (11); what had emerged as the ‘new musicology’ was a powerful, vibrant field, fully integrated into “our Age of Cultural Studies” (12). In this 1997 essay, Scher reflects searchingly on the impact of the ‘new musicology’ on Word and Music Studies and arrives at a circumspect statement, so very typical of his sober and deliberate judgement: “Situated at the interface of musical and literary study, melopoetics might benefit most by yielding to the allure of the ‘new musicology’, albeit without dis- tancing itself from its more traditional base in literary criticism and theory.” (13) Scher welcomes the increased interest of musicologists in Word and Music Studies – “a change for the better, of course” (ibid.) –, but he also notes that literary critics have increasingly moved into the former domain of musicology by seriously studying opera and the lied (an observation to be confirmed by the two subsequent WMA conferences in Ann Arbor and Sydney).

Again, as so often before, Steven Scher was most perceptive of the ‘trends and prospects’ and clearly defined where Word and Music Studies stood, where it was going, or where it ought to be going. On this evidence, it is undoubtedly justified to say what the title of this modest tribute to Professor Scher states, namely that he has been masterminding the discipline for these last twenty years or so. Saying this implies at least two things: for one, he has always been a keen observer of what was going on in the field, and by persuasively writing about it has decisively increased our general awareness of the state of the art; and he has always done so in an educative spirit, showing us new directions and encouraging us to try out new departures.

The other side of his ‘masterminding’ presence is that he is not only a keen observer and eloquent teacher but an eminently original contributor to the field as well, not only an ardent disseminator but an independent Forscher: he has increased our historical knowledge, particularly of the Romantic Age; he Masterminding Word and Music Studies: A Tribute to Steven P. Scher 287

has developed new concepts (such as “verbal music” or “composed reading”); his systematic model has structured our view of the whole field (this typology of word and music relations is still strongly with us; it has stimulated others to amend, refine, and complicate it, but no-one has lost sight of it); his terminological criticism has lost none of its relevance; his concern with the interpretive relationship between music and text is alive and thriving. The papers read at the Sydney conference attest to the fact: they show how his ideas have become starting points for further reflexion and have stimulated other minds to find their own solutions to central issues of the field.

If we want to honour Professor Scher on his 65th birthday we cannot do better than show how he has shaped our thinking and has taught us how to talk no-nonsense in a field which has notoriously been prone to vagueness, reduced argumentative rigour and much speculation. He has taught – at least me – to attempt that fine balance between concreteness and abstraction which I have already referred to; his concern for critical theory and methodology is always informed and mitigated by his love for individual texts, for the singular work. Above all, however, we can learn from him his inquisitiveness and his optimism which, it seems to me, are the ultimate sources of his success. These springs, I am positive, will keep him going for another twenty years or more, and we will have to be prepared to hear from him about the ‘trends and prospects of Word and Music Studies’ in 2020 or later. And we will be enlightened by his words and thoughts as much as we have been enlightened by them for the last twenty years or so. And for this we are grateful to him. 288 Masterminding Word and Music Studies: A Tribute to Steven P. Scher

References

Barricelli, Jean-Pierre, Joseph Gibaldi, eds. (1982). Interrelations of Literature. New York: The Mo- dern Language Association of America. Cupers, Jean-Louis, Ulrich Weisstein, eds. (2000). Musico-Poetics in Perspective: Calvin S. Brown In Memoriam. Word and Music Studies 2. Amsterdam/Atlanta, GA: Rodopi. Kramer, Lawrence (1989). “Dangerous Liaisons: The Literary Text in Musical Criticism”. Nine- teenth-Century Music 13: 159–167. Ross, Alex (1994). “A Female Deer? Looking for Sex in the Sound of Music”. Lingua Franca 8/9: 53– 60. Scher, Steven Paul (1968). Verbal Music in German Literature. New Haven, CN/London: Yale Univ. Press. — (1970). “Notes Toward a Theory of Verbal Music”. Comparative Literature 22: 147–156. — (1972). “How Meaningful is ‘Musical’ in Literary Criticism?”. Yearbook of Comparative and Gene- ral Literature 21: 52–56. — (1975). “Literature and Music: Comparative or Interdisciplinary Study?” Yearbook of Comparative and General Literature 24: 37–40. — (1978). “Carl Maria von Weber’s Tonkünstlers Leben: The Composer as Novelist?”. Comparative Literature Studies 15: 30–42. — (1981). “Comparing Literature and Music: Current Trends and Prospects in Critical Theory and Methodology”. Scher/Weisstein, eds. 215–221. — (1982). “Literature and Music”. Barricelli/Gibaldi, eds. 225–250. — (1983). “Theory in Literature, Analysis in Music: What Next?”. Yearbook of Comparative and Ge- neral Literature 32: 50–60. — (1984). „Einleitung: Literatur und Musik – Entwicklung und Stand der Forschung“. Scher, ed. 9–25. — (1986). “Comparing Poetry and Music: Beethoven’s Goethe Lieder”. János Riesz, Peter Boerner, Bernhard Scholz, eds. Sensus Communis: Contemporary Trends in Comparative Literature. Fest- schrift für Henry Remak. Tübingen: Gunter Narr. 155–165. — (1990). “The German Lied: A Genre and its European Reception”. Gerhart Hoffmeister, ed. Euro- pean Romanticism: Literary Cross-Currents, Modes, and Models. Detroit, MI: Wayne State Univ. Press. 127–141. — (1992a). “Preface”. Scher, ed. xiii–xvi. — (1992b). “Musicopoetics or Melomania: Is There a Theory behind Music in German Literature?”. James M. McGlathery, ed. Music in German Literature: Their Relationship since the Middle Ages. Columbia, SC: Camden House. 328–337. — (1993). „Der Opernkomponist Hoffmann und das europäische Musiktheater seiner Zeit“. Hart- mut Steinecke, ed. E. T. A. Hoffmann: Deutsche Romantik im europäischen Kontext. Berlin: Erich Schmidt. (E. T. A. Hoffmann-Jahrbuch 1, 1992/93). 106–118. — (1994). “Acoustic Experiment as Ephemeral Spectacle?: Musical Futurism, Dada, Cage, and the Talking Heads”. Walter Bernhart, ed. Die Semantik der musiko-literarischen Gattungen: Metho- dik und Analyse. Eine Festgabe für Ulrich Weisstein zum 65. Geburtstag / The Semantics of the Musico-Literary Genres: Method and Analysis. In Honor of Ulrich Weisstein on his 65th Birthday. Tübingen: Gunter Narr. 201–213. Masterminding Word and Music Studies: A Tribute to Steven P. Scher 289

— (2001). “Melopoetics Revisited: Reflections on Theorizing Word and Music Studies”. Walter Bern- hart, Steven Paul Scher, Werner Wolf, eds. Word and Music Studies: Defining the Field. Procee- dings of the First International Conference on Word and Music Studies at Graz, 1997. Word and Music Studies 1. Amsterdam/Atlanta, GA: Rodopi. 9–24. — (2000). “Judith Weirs Heaven Ablaze in His Breast: E. T. A. Hoffmanns Der Sandmann als postmoderne Tanzoper”. Alo Allkemper, Norbert Otto Eke, eds. Literatur und Demokratie: Festschrift für Hartmut Steinecke zum 60. Geburtstag. Berlin: Erich Schmidt. 49–60. — ed. (1972–1986). Bibliography on the Relations of Literature and the Other Arts. MLA Division on Literature and the Other Arts. — ed. (1984). Literatur und Musik: Ein Handbuch zur Theorie und Praxis eines komparatistischen Grenzgebietes. Berlin: Erich Schmidt. — ed. (1992). Music and Text: Critical Inquiries. CUP. — , Ulrich Weisstein, eds. (1981) Literature and the Other Arts: Proceedings of the IXth Congress of the International Comparative Literature Association, Innsbruck. Vol. 3. Innsbrucker Beiträge zur Kulturwissenschaft, Sonderheft 51. Innsbruck: Verlag des Instituts für Sprachwissenschaft der Universität Innsbruck. Tompkins, Jane P., ed. (1980). Reader-Response Criticism: From Formalism to Post-Structuralism. Bal- timore, MD: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press. Weisstein, Ulrich, ed. (1992). Literatur und die bildende Kunst. Berlin: Erich Schmidt. White, Hayden (1992). “Commentary: Form, Reference, and Ideology in Musical Discourse”. Scher, ed. 1992. 288–319. Wolf, Werner (2002). “Intermediality Revisited: Reflections on Word and Music Relations in the Context of a General Typology of Intermediality”. Suzanne Lodato, Susan Aspden, Walter Bern- hart, eds. Word and Music Studies: Essays in Honor of Steven Paul Scher and on Cultural Identity and the Musical Stage. Word and Music Studies 4. Amsterdam/New York, NY: Rodopi. 13–34.

The Rake’s Progress: Klassizistische Oper zwischen Moralität, Märchen, Mythos und Groteske [2004]

Als Igor Strawinsky 1947 das Chicagoer Art Institute besuchte und dort Willi- am Hogarths (1697 – 1764) Kupferstichserie A Rake’s Progress aus den frühen dreißiger Jahren des 18. Jahrhunderts sah, war ihm sofort klar, dass er damit das Thema für eine Oper gefunden hatte. Seit seiner 1945 erfolgten Einbür- gerung trug er, der bereits 1939 nach USA gekommen war, den Wunsch in sich, eine englischsprachige Oper zu schreiben, und Hogarths Sujet aus dem 18. Jahrhundert entsprach vollkommen der klassizistischen Orientierung, der er sich, als aufgeklärter Weltbürger, seit der Abwendung von seinen russischen Wurzeln verschrieben hatte. Die in der Folge entstehende Oper, die am 11. September 1951 (einem damals noch nicht ominösen Datum) im Teatro La Fenice von Venedig uraufgeführt wurde (Strawinsky ist auch in Venedig begra- ben), ist nicht nur das längste Werk des Komponisten, sondern stellt auch den Höhe- und gleichzeitig Wendepunkt seiner klassizistischen Phase dar. Mehrfa- che Gründe, unter denen der Tod seines großen Gegenspielers Arnold Schoen- berg im selben Jahr 1951 am meisten Spekulationen auslöst, führten dazu, dass sich Strawinsky nach The Rake’s Progress ironischerweise der auf Schoenbergs Kompositionstechnik beruhenden seriellen Schreibweise zuwandte.

In W. H. Auden, der, obwohl Brite, ebenfalls seit Ausbruch des Krieges in den USA lebte, fand Strawinsky einen kongenialen Librettisten für seine Oper, der ebenfalls zu einer klassizistischen Ästhetik gefunden hatte und in der Wiederbelebung und Anverwandlung älterer Formen einen fruchtbaren Weg in die Zukunft sah. Beide, Strawinksy und Auden, waren Form-Freaks, deren technische Brillanz und formaler Witz unübertroffen sind. So gilt auch Auden’s Libretto zu The Rake’s Progress, das er gemeinsam mit seinem Le- benspartner Chester Kallman verfasste (ihre jeweiligen Beiträge voneinander zu trennen, erweist sich als unmöglich), als das eleganteste und geistreichste in der englischen Sprache, wobei sich diese Brillanz unter anderem darin zeigt, dass dieses Libretto zwar eine recht simple “Fabel” erzählt (so auch der Unter- 292 The Rake’s Progress: Klassizistische Oper zwischen Moralität, Märchen, Mythos und Groteske

titel der Oper), deren inhaltliche Deutung jedoch an recht komplexe Weltsich- ten heranführt.

Die Fabel ist vorgegeben durch Hogarths acht Kupferstiche, die die ‘Kar- riere’ oder ‘Laufbahn’ eines Wüstlings/Libertin darstellen und damit eine Art moralische Geschichte erzählen, wobei der sozialkritische Impuls zur Verur- teilung Londons als modernem Sündenbabel im Vordergrund steht. Die Ver- derbtheit des städischen Milieus wird aufklärerisch angeprangert, und Tom Rakewell, der Wüstling, ist keine mit individuellen Zügen ausgestattete Figur, sondern erscheint viel eher als bloßes Mittel zum Zweck der allgemeinen Zeit- kritik. Hogarth griff mit der Wahl seines Sujets und des Titels satirisch auf ein damals höchst populäres Werk der Erbauungsliteratur zurück, auf John Bunyans (1628 – 1688) The Pilgrim’s Progress (1678), das als Darstellung einer ‘Pilgerreise’ und als in einer sehr einfachen Sprache aber höchst lebendig geschriebene Allegorie in der langen Tradition der mittelalterlichen Mo- ralitäten steht und einen durchaus wirklichkeitsnahen Sittenspiegel abgibt. Während allerdings bei Bunyan der “Progress” des Helden “Christian” (als Al- legorie eines Christenmenschen) tatsächlich einen ‘Fortschritt’ zur Läuterung und Besserung darstellt, ist bei Hogarth das ‘Fortschreiten’ seines Helden ein kläglicher Abstieg in Elend und Wahnsinn. Strawinsky schätzte an Hogarths Bildern sowohl deren Realismus als auch deren moralischen Gehalt und Auden bezeichnete sie als eine “bürgerliche Warnungsgeschichte”, was eine gewisse innere Distanz zu ihrer unmittelbaren Moralaussage impliziert – viel mehr so als wohl bei Strawinsky. Klar ist, dass die beiden Künstler des 20. Jahrhunderts als Klassizisten das Hogarthsche Modell einer moralischen Geschichte im Ge- wande des 18. Jahrhunderts mit seinem exemplarischen, entindividualisierten Jedermann-Charakter schätzten, gleichzeitig aber dieses Modell ins Zeitgenös- sische ihrer eigenen Epoche kehrten und es entsprechenden Veränderungen unterwarfen. Dieses Vorgehen auf der inhaltlichen Ebene war für die beiden Form-Besessenen Anlass genug, sowohl musikalisch als auch literarisch analog vorzugehen und auf vielfältige Art ältere Formmodelle aufzugreifen, diese aber umzugießen und zu ‘entfremden’. Bei Strawinsky ist dies vor allem die pastic- cioartige Imitation der Welt Mozarts und der italienischen Nummernoper, bei Auden das Spiel mit Nursery Rhymes, balladesken Formen und antikisieren- den Verstraditionen. The Rake’s Progress: Klassizistische Oper zwischen Moralität, Märchen, Mythos und Groteske 293

Der exemplarische, moralitätenhafte Charakter der Welt von The Rake’s Progress wird bereits bei der Auflistung der handelnden Personen offenkundig. Die Namen sind durchwegs assoziationsreich und typisch konzipiert. “Tom Rakewell” heißt der Wüstling bereits bei Hogarth. In der englischen Tradition ist ‘Tom’ im Gegensatz zu ‘Jack’, dem raffinierten Schlauen, stets der ehrliche Dumme. (Es gibt “Tom Fool” und sogar “Tom o’Bedlam” – also aus dem Irren- haus –, unmittelbar fruchtbar gemacht und im Schlussbild bei Hogarth und in der Oper.) Diese Charakterisierung des Helden als Naivem kommt auch im Namen “Rakewell” zum Tragen, was eine Abwandlung von “Rakehell”, der ursprünglichen Wortform von “Rake” ist (“Rake” ist eine spätere Verkürzung von “Rakehell”). Dass “hell” (‘Hölle’) zu “well” (‘wohl’) geändert ist, spricht für sich; Tom ist nicht wirklich böse. “Nick Shadow” ist auf seine Weise ebenso sprechend. “Nick” ist als “Old Nick” eine alte Bezeichnung für den Teufel (ur- sprünglich ein böser Wassergeist des Nordens; “treuloses Nickergezücht” sind die Rheintöchter in Alberichs Augen). “Shadow” ist mehrfach bedeutungs- trächtig. Nicht nur kommt Nick aus der Welt der ‘Schatten’, also der Hölle oder des Hades (wo Adonis, als den sich Tom am Ende der Oper sieht, nach dem Mythos die Hälfte des Jahres verbringen muss), er ist auch der ‘Schatten’ Toms im Sinne C. G. Jungs, mit dem sich Auden zur Zeit der Abfassung des Librettos befasste, was, wie noch zu sehen sein wird, seinen Niederschlag in der Konzeption der Oper fand. “Trulove” sprach bereits vor Grace Kellys und Bing Crosbys romantischer Bootsfahrt für sich. Auch der Name “Sellem” für den Verkäufer bei der Aktion ist offensichtlich. Interessant ist “Mother Goose” als Name für die Bordell-Madame. Der Begriff bezieht sich auf populäre englische Kinderreime, deren Bezeichnung auf eine Dame aus Boston diese Namens zu- rückgeht. Diese Dame ließ ihre Kinderverse von ihrem berühmten Buchdru- cker-Sohn, Thomas Flett, 1719 erstmals in London drucken. “Mother Goo- se” ist somit nicht nur eine Anspielung auf die Hogarth-Zeit, sondern spricht auch die kindliche Welt an, die, wie sich ebenfalls noch herausstellen wird, in der Oper eine nicht unwichtige Rolle spielt. Darüber hinaus ist ‘to goose’ ein (durchaus unschöner) amerikanischer Slang-Ausdruck für koitieren, was zur Profession der Mother Goose passt. “Baba the Turk” – ebenfalls wie Mother Goose von Auden erfunden und ein Beleg für dessen sprühende Phantasie – ist ein wiederum sehr geschickt gewählter Name. “Baba” bezieht sich in sla- wischen Sprachen auf alte Frauen und Großmütter, im Arabischen ist es aber männlich besetzt (etwa Alibaba), was auf die androgyne Erscheinung der Tür- 294 The Rake’s Progress: Klassizistische Oper zwischen Moralität, Märchen, Mythos und Groteske

kenbaba anspielt (“Baba the Turk” ist im Englischen ja auch geschlechtsneut- ral). “The Turk” suggeriert nicht nur die exotisierende Welt des Jahrmarkts, aus der Baba kommt, sondern spielt auch auf den mächtigen ‘Bart des Prophe- ten’ an, mit dem man im Abendland über die Türken in Berührung kam.

Als sich Strawinsky und Auden daran machten, ein Szenario für ihre Oper auf der Basis von Hogarths Bilderserie zu entwickeln, stellte sich rasch heraus, dass von den acht Szenen, die sich bei Hogarth finden, nur zwei unmittelbar in dramatisches Geschehen umsetzbar sind. Dies sind die Bordellszene und die Schlussszene im Irrenhaus, die auch zu markanten Punkten der Oper wurden. Um das Ganze zu einem für eine dramatische Präsentation unerlässlichen Handlungsgeschehen zu gestalten, wurde Nick Shadow als Gegenspielerfigur eingeführt. Damit war die klassische Opernkonstellation von ‘Held’, ‘Heldin’ und ‘Bösewicht’ gegeben – im Szenario, das Auden und Strawinsky zunächst entwickelten, heißen sie auch noch ‘Hero’, ‘Girl’ und ‘Villain’. War einmal der operngeschichtliche Kontext gegeben, stellten sich – bei der traditionsorien- tierten Haltung der Autoren – zwanglose Assoziationen zu bekannten Gestal- ten ein. Das Mädchen kam einer Micaëla-Figur ‘gefährlich nahe’, wie Strawins- ky selbst leicht selbstkritisch feststellt; auch Peer Gynts Solveig liegt nicht allzu ferne. Der Bösewicht ist, nach Auden, ein als Leporello verkleideter Mephisto. Probleme machte den Autoren nach wie vor die Zeichnung Tom Rakewells. Er war immer noch, wie bei Hogarth, zu passiv und farblos, haltlos und bequem, und somit gerade eben kein Don Giovanni, den große Leidenschaftlichkeit, Dämonie und innere Glut antreiben, und kein Faust mit seinem Erkenntnis – und Lebenshunger. Um ihm mehr Profil und Willenspräsenz zu verleihen, erfand Auden das Handlungselement der drei Wünsche, die Tom äußert, ein Märchenmotiv, das in der Folge auch die Struktur der ganzen Oper bestimmte.

Führt der erste Wunsch nach Geld zur Befriedigung von Toms materiellen und körperlichen Begierden in der Bordellszene (es ist köstlich, wie Mother Goose – ganz ähnlich wie Kundry bei Parsifal – ihre minderen Konkurren- tinnen beiseite schiebt), so erfüllt sich der zweite Wunsch nach Freiheit in der grotesken Eheschließung mit der bärtigen Türkenbaba. Die Freiheit dieser Ver- bindung besteht darin, dass Tom diese Ehe weder aus Trieb, Lust und Begier- de noch aus Vernunft, Gewissensanspruch oder Pflichtbewusstsein, sondern aus reiner Laune eingeht. Dieser acte gratuit wurde von Auden in satirischer Verhöhnung existenzphilosophischer Haltungen in die Handlung eingeführt, The Rake’s Progress: Klassizistische Oper zwischen Moralität, Märchen, Mythos und Groteske 295

denen er nicht das Geringste abgewinnen konnte. Die Schärfe dieser Ableh- nung spiegelt sich darin wider, dass Auden die skurrile Figur der Türkenbaba erfand, in schriller Übersteigerung der Situation, die sich bereits bei Hogarth findet. Dort geht Tom nämlich auch eine Ehe ohne Liebe ein, allerdings mit einer reichen, einäugigen alten Jungfer, also eine durchaus konventionell ‘vernunft’betonte Verbindung. Toms dritter Wunsch ist es, dass sein Traum nach Allmacht, indem er Steine in Brot verwandeln kann, in Erfüllung geht. Dieser Alchimistenwunsch hat auch eine Basis bei Hogarth und dem dort erschei- nenden Stein des Philosophen im Spielsalon, geht aber natürlich auf die ähnli- che Versuchung Christi, wie bei Matthäus berichtet, zurück.

Die Erfüllung aller drei Wünsche führt bei Tom bloß zu ennui und Ent- täuschung, und es haben Auden und Kallman bald deutlich erkannt, dass auch dieses Szenario der drei Wünsche aus Tom nicht wirklich einen Handelnden macht. Auden sah eine Lösung dann darin, dass er den Helden als einen psychi- atrischen Fall zeichnet, der als Manisch-Depressiver zwischen Euphorie und lethargischer Niedergeschlagenheit schwankt. Doch auch dadurch entstand kein Operndrama im herkömmlichen Sinn

Carl Dahlhaus hat sehr einsichtig auf diese letztlich undramatische An- lage von The Rake’s Progress verwiesen, die dadurch gegeben ist, dass dieser Oper einerseits das handlungsvorantreibende Element des spannungsvollen Dialogs zwischen ausgeprägten Charakteren und andererseits die Affekthal- tung großer Leidenschaften fehlt. Auden hat schon früh erkannt, dass dies Elemente sind, die Strawinskys künstlerischem Temperament ohnehin nicht sonderlich liegen, weshalb er Märchenmotive und die großen, teils grotesken Theatereffekte zu Hauptträgern des Geschehens in dieser Oper machte. Bunt- heit ersetzt hier also Geschlossenheit der Handlung – Einstieg in postmoderne Befindlichkeiten.

Dies kam aber auch den ästhetischen Neigungen Audens entgegen, im Be- sonderen seiner eigenen, durchaus eigenständigen Auffassung vom Wesen der Oper. Für Auden war die Oper eine Kunstform, die noch als Refugium des, wie er es nannte, ‘goldenen Stils’ dienen konnte, wo gegenüber den Erfordernissen realistischer, wirkichkeitsgesättigter Darstellungen nach den Erwartungen der zeitgenössischen Ästhetik noch der Anspruch auf idealisierende Vorstellungen einlösbar scheint, Auden spricht von einer ‘sekundären Welt’, die jenseits der 296 The Rake’s Progress: Klassizistische Oper zwischen Moralität, Märchen, Mythos und Groteske

‘primären Welt’ unserer Alltagserfahrung angesiedelt ist und in sublimen For- men der Kunst wie der Oper Ausdruck finden kann. Auden nannte dies seinen ‘Eden-Mythos’, der für ihn eng mit der Musik verknüpft war, die allein einen Zugang zu jener Erfahrungswelt eröffnet, welche über unsere Alltagsver- stricktheit hinauszuführen vermag.

Die Oper The Rake’s Progress beginnt mit einer pastoralen Idylle, die als Spiegel jenes ‘Eden-Mythos’ erscheint – jedoch geht dieses ‘Goldene Zeitalter’, von dem der Text dieser Szene ja auch spricht, mit dem Auftritt der ‘Schlange’ in Gestalt Nick Shadows und dem folgenden Teufelspakt rasch zuende. Es war sehr folgerichtig, dass Auden und Strawinsky eine bei Hogarth völlig fehlende Szene, die Friedhofsszene des vorletzten Bildes, einfügten, in der – nach dem Modell des Goetheschen Faust – die Abrechnung des Teufels erfolgt. Wie bei Goethe wird der Teufel auch im Rake geprellt, allerdings hier wiederum unter Anwendung eines Märchenmotivs, nämlich der Wette um Kopf und Kra- gen, wie etwa auch zwischen Mime und dem Wanderer in Wagners Siegfried. Anders als Mime gewinnt Tom Rakewell die Wette, doch hat seine Erlösung durch Annes Liebe – als Rache Nicks – einen Haken: Tom wird wahnsinnig. Dies bedeutet eine gewichtige Umdeutung der ,Erlösung durch Liebe’, wie sie etwa bei Faust durch Gretchen viel vollständiger erfolgt. So wird die erlösen- de Gestalt der Anne Trulove, die offensichtlich ein eigenes Profil besitzt, in ein besonderes Licht gerückt. Um dieses Profil näher zu bestimmen, muss auf den Mythos verwiesen werden, den Auden am Schluss der Oper einführte, indem sich Tom in seinem Wahnsinn nunmehr als Adonis sieht. (Der Mythos von Venus und Adonis hat in der englischen Tradition eine deutliche Präsenz durch Shakespeares frühes episches Gedicht, das zu seinen Lebzeiten sein po- pulärstes Werk war.) Adonis, von Venus geliebt, die er aber verschmäht, muss, nachdem er von einem Eber getötet wird, in den Hades, darf aber auf Drängen der Venus jeweils ein halbes Jahr auf Erden verbringen. Adonis ist also halb im Himmel und halb in der Hölle, also weder der erlöste Faust bei Goethe noch der verdammte Don Giovanni bei Mozart. Wenn Tom Rakewell also in Bedlam (als Name eine Verballhornung von ‘Bethlehem’ als Stätte der caritas) landet, ist dies nicht nur ein Erbe Hogarths, bei dem diese markante Schluss- szene vorgeprägt ist, sondern auch eine inhaltlich gewünschte, aber eben nur halbe Zurücknahme des romantischen Erlösungsgedankens. Dies bedeutet, die Erlösungsidee ist in der Oper zwar zentral angesiedelt und führt zu den bewegendsten Momenten der Partitur, wenn Anne für Tom ein Wiegenlied The Rake’s Progress: Klassizistische Oper zwischen Moralität, Märchen, Mythos und Groteske 297

singt, dessen berührende Worte an die genialsten lyrischen Texte Shakespeares gemahnen (etwa “Fear no more the heat of the sun”). Aber Anne stirbt nicht wie Aida oder Isolde den gemeinsamen Liebestod, sie kehrt vielmehr mit ihrem Vater in die Welt zurück, und Tom stirbt ohne sie. Sie verkörpert also nicht eine transzendente Erlösungsmacht, sondern das eigentliche Realitätsprinzip, demgegenüber jene Wirklichkeit, in der sich Tom verstrickt hat, rein äußerlich und illusionär bleibt.

Die zyklische Anlage der Oper, mit einer Rückkehr zur pastoralen Idylle des Anfangs, ist also nur scheinbar, denn Auden war Realist genug, um den Stellenwert seines ,Eden-Mythos’ richtig einzuschätzen. Gleichwohl steht hinter der Handlung der Oper ein Entwicklungsmodell, das von Chandler Carter überzeugend im Sinne C. G. Jungs gedeutet wurde. Mit Jung hat sich Auden, wie bereits erwähnt, befasst, als er am Libretto von The Rake’s Progress schrieb, und es kann das ‘Fortschreiten’ Tom Rakewells durchaus sinnvoll als ein Indi- viduationsprozess in der Jungschen Deutung angesehen werden, in welchem Nick Shadow die Rolle des ‘Schattens’ und Anne Trulove jene der anima einnimmt. Erkennt der Held zunächst – als ‘Gesellenstück’ seines Reifungspro- zesses – in seinem ‘Schatten’ als seinem alter ego die dunklen Seiten seiner selbst, so führt – als ‘Meisterstück’ – die endliche Annahme seiner anima zur erlösenden Integration ins Mythische des kollektiven Unbewussten. Mit diesem schließlichen Aufgehen im Mythisch-Unbewussten geht aber ein Verlust des Realitätsempfindens einher, den der irre Tom am Ende der Oper mit seiner Selbstprojektion als Adonis-Figur schlüssig signalisiert. So hat Auden in seinem Rake-Libretto das ‘Progress’-Modell jenseits von Bunyans puritanischer und Hogarths sozialkritischer, aber auch von Goethes letztlich romantischer Deut- ung als einen archetypischen Entwicklungsprozess gestaltet. Als klassizistisch-traditionsbezogener Verwerter vielfältiger Anregungen aus den unterschiedlichsten Quellen des breiten europäischen Kulturschatzes schuf er damit dennoch Neues im Denkzusammenhang seiner eigenen Zeit.

Doch solche Gedankenschwere erlebt der Besucher der Oper The Rake’s Progress nicht unmittelbar. Was ihn anspringt sind der Witz und die Sprit- zigkeit von Musik und Text, die bereits angesprochene Buntheit der Bilder und Situationen, die kaleidoskopartige Vielfalt der Effekte. Das Märchen- und Traumhafte, die kindliche Welt spielt in der “Fabel” eine große Rolle, und Ul- rich Weisstein hat darauf verwiesen, dass das ganze Werk in seiner Anlage dem 298 The Rake’s Progress: Klassizistische Oper zwischen Moralität, Märchen, Mythos und Groteske

Surrealismus verpflichtet ist, der sich den Gesetzen von Märchen, Mythen, Kinderwelt und Wahnsinn unterwirft. Doch geben Auden und vor allem Stra- winsky die Klammer der ‘moralischen Geschichte’ über dieser Hingabe an eine spielerische Doppelbödigkeit nicht auf: Der Epilog der Oper – in bewusster Analogie zu Mozarts Don Giovanni –schafft einen moralisierenden Kehraus, der sich – ganz im Sinne der alten Moralitäten – in den letzten Worten direkt ans Publikum richtet. Damit kommt ein Werk zum Abschluss, das nicht nur eine Kulmination der Oper im 20. Jahrhundert darstellt, sondern eine Einma- ligkeit in seiner Anlage besitzt, die darauf beruht, dass in Strawinsky und Au- den zwei Vollkönner ihres Metiers aufeinander trafen, denen das Opernhafte im gängigen Sinn allerdings so gar nicht lag, die aber aus diesem Defizit heraus unter Einsatz ihrer genialen Begabungen bisher völlig ‘Unerhörtes’ und erfri- schend Originelles schufen.

References

Carter, Chandler (1998). “The Rake’s (and Strawinsky’s) Progess”. Siglind Bruhn, ed. Signs in Musical Hermeneutics. The American Journal of Semiotics 13: 183–225. Dahlhaus, Carl (1989). “Igor Strawinskijs episches Theater”. Vom Musikdrama zur Literaturoper. München/Mainz: Piper. 186–227. Weisstein, Ulrich (1992). “Between Progress and Regression. The Text of Strawinsky’s Opera The Ra- ke’s Progress in the Light of its Evolution”. I musernas sällskap konstarter och deras relationer; en vänbok till Ulla Britta Lagerroth 19. 10. Höganäs: Wiken. 335–390. Der ’postmoderne’ Rosenkavalier [2005]

Im Gedenken an Steven Paul Scher († 25. Dezember 2004)

In der New York Times vom 5. September 2004 erschien zu Anlass der New Yorker Erstaufführung von Strauss’ Daphne (1938) ein Artikel, der darauf verweist, dass diese Oper das Lieblingsstück des alten Strauss war, was auch einer heute allgemein zu beobachtenden Umwertung des Schaffens des Meisters aus seiner mittleren Periode entspricht. Mit 1989 – zum 40. Todestag des Kompo- nisten – endete auch der kalte Krieg um Richard Strauss, der 1964 – anläss- lich seines 100. Geburtstags – noch mit voller Intensität ausgetragen wurde. Damals stand der Modernismus Schoenbergscher Prägung auf seinem Höhe- punkt, dessen Urteil über Strauss – es ist die immer noch weit verbreitete Auf- fassung ‘aufgeklärter’ Bekenner zum 20. Jahrhundert – folgend lautete: Der Komponist war – nach seinen frühen, vom Vater inspirierten anti-Wagneri- schen Anfängen – von ca. 1885 bis zur Elektra (1908) ganz am Puls der Zeit, ja er prägte die künstlerische Entwicklung der Moderne um die damalige Jahr- hundertwende entscheidend mit. Ab 1910, mit dem Rosenkavalier, erfolgte aber ein abrupter Wechsel: Strauss wurde rückorientiert und – mit den kritischen Röntgenaugen Adornos beobachtet – zum Vertreter kommerzieller Aus- beutung sowie des falschen Bewusstseins der spätkapitalistischen Gesellschaft, zum Spiegel der bösen historischen Lage Deutschlands und zum Handlanger der Unterdrückung. Erst die späten Werke in der Nachkriegszeit wurden wieder akzeptiert als Ausdruck des abgeklärten Alters des Meisters. All dies wird heute nicht mehr ganz so einfach so gesehen, der Blickwinkel der neuerlichen Jahrhundertwende eröffnet andere Perspektiven, die anhand dreier neuerer Publikationen über Strauss hier ins Bewusstsein gerückt seien.

Entscheidenden Einfluss auf das geänderte Bild des Garmischer Meisters hatte ein Aufsatz Leon Botsteins, der 1992 erschien und eine “revisionisti- sche Sicht” – so der Untertitel – auf Strauss eröffnete. Botstein stellte fest, 300 Der ’postmoderne’ Rosenkavalier

dass Strauss immer schon eine schwer fassbare, undurchsichtige Persönlich- keit war und dass eine Neubesinnung, ja radikale Neubewertung von Per- son und Werk unerlässlich sei. Vieles, was diese kennzeichnet, sei typisch für Haltungen des ‘postmodernen’ späteren 20. Jahrhunderts und finde seine deutlichste Ausprägung in den Werken des Meisters zwischen 1910 und 1941. Mit dem Rosenkavalier setzte die innovativste Phase seines Schaffens ein, die in Ariadne auf Naxos (1912/1916) ihre wesentlichste Ausformung erreichte. Strauss und Hofmannsthal empfanden ja selbst den Rosenkava- lier als “Durchbruch”, und Strauss erscheint somit nicht – wie aus modernistischer Sicht – als eine letztlich regressiv ausgerichtete Übergangsfigur, die den Anschluss an den Fortschritt nicht schaffte oder wollte, sondern als ein Vorreiter und Wegbereiter des späteren Neuen. Er ist somit nicht eine bloß marginale Erscheinung außerhalb der wesentlichen künstlerischen Entwicklungen im 20. Jahrhundert, in deren Zentrum Schoenberg steht, sondern wird zum Vorläufer der Ästhetik der Postmoderne. In den Worten Alex Ross’ im Milleniums-Essay des New Yorker vom Januar 2000: Strauss ist “der Komponist des Jahrhunderts”.

Was sind nun aber die Züge, die eine solche Umbewertung rechtfertigen mögen? Nach Botstein ist an erster Stelle zu nennen, was man als den historischen und ästhetischen Pessimismus Strauss’ (und auch Hofmannsthals) bezeichnen könnte. Die historischen Anspielungen, die in den Werken seit dem Rosenkavalier massiv einsetzen, markieren nicht etwa ein genuines historisches Interesse an vergangenen Epochen um ihrer selbst willen, sondern dienen lediglich als stilistische Fragmente und Versatzstücke zu völlig unhistorischem Zweck. Dieser Historismus des 20. Jahrhunderts unterscheidet sich markant vom ‘klassischen’ Historismus des 19. Jahrhunderts, der von der Integrität und Geschlossenheit diskreter historischer Epochen in einer kohärenten Aufein- anderfolge ausging. Solches stellt der ‘pessimistische’ Historismus neuerer Prä- gung jedoch deutlich in Frage, wobei er konsequenterweise natürlich auch die Zielgerichtetheit historischer Prozesse leugnet. Das unverbundene Neben- und Ineinander-Bestehen im Rosenkavalier der Frühzeit Maria Theresias, der Wal- zerzeit des 19. Jahrhunderts und der zeitgenössischen Vorkriegszeit um 1910 ist ein offensichtliches, bekanntes Beispiel dieses eigenständigen Verhältnisses zur Historie bei Hofmannsthal/Strauss. Einer solchen Mélange unvermittelter und einander überschneidender historischer Perioden entspricht auch die äs- thetische Haltung, die jene Werke auszeichnet: Stilzitate und -anspielungen Der ’postmoderne’ Rosenkavalier 301

als ironische Vereinnahmungen und Aneignungen im bunten Nebeneinander kennzeichnen diese Ästhetik, die sich die heute bestehende Verfügbarkeit des gesamten kulturellen Inventars in ganzer historischer Tiefe und geogra- phischer Breite nutzbar macht. Mit diesem Aufgeben der Vorstellung historischer Entwicklungen wird aber auch – und dies ist der ‘ästhetische Pessimis- mus’, der mit dieser Haltung einhergeht – die Vorstellung eines künstlerischen Fortschritts obsolet, wie sie die Ästhetik der Moderne so ganz entscheidend bestimmt hat. Gleichzeitig wird der Begriff der Originalität fragwürdig, wenn dieser sich nicht mehr – wie etwa bei Adorno – an der sich linear entwickeln- den und konsequent entfaltenden Ausweitung der künstlerischen Mittel festmachen lässt. So gesehen, erweist sich gerade die modernistische Ästhetik als rückorientiert, weil dem Fortschrittsdenken des 19. Jahrhunderts verpflichtet – und dies trotz der innovativen Oberfläche des ‘dissonanten’ Charakters der eingesetzten künstlerischen Mittel. Demgegenüber ist Strauss’ Ästhetik der mittleren Periode, trotz der ‘konsonanten’, publikumsfreundlichen Oberfläche der Werke, aufgrund ihrer dargestellten ahistorischen Mélange-Logik auf die Postmoderne vorausweisend. Botstein sieht eine deutliche Parallele zwischen dieser revisionistischen Situation bezüglich Strauss in unserer Zeit und jener, die Schoenberg 1947 in Bezug auf Brahms berühmterweise auslöste, als er Brahms als den gegenüber Wagner Zukunftsweisenderen darstellte. Auch bei Brahms ist die ‘Syntax’ der Werke trotz ihres traditionellen musikalischen Vokabulars ‘moderner’ als die Wagners, dessen ‘fortschrittliche’ Harmonik an der Oberfläche nicht über die traditionellen Bauformen seiner Werke hinweg- täuschen kann. Originalität besteht bei Strauss und der von ihm realisierten Ästhetik nach Botstein nicht mehr in einer Überwindung, welcher Art auch immer, von Vorangehendem, Vergangenem, sondern vielmehr in einem re- spektlosen Sich-Ausliefern an das Vergangene, das jede Vorstellung von sich sinnvoll entwickelnder Geschichte auflöst. Ein Blick auf das, was alles an his- torischem Material – inhaltlich, literarisch und musikalisch – in den Rosenka- valier Eingang gefunden hat, kann diesen Befund nur bestätigen.

Eine wichtige Ergänzung noch zum Selbstverständnis historischer Stilan- spielungen bei Strauss: Auch in der Moderne gab es Stilzitate und historische Fragmente als Bestandteile der Werke, besonders auffällig etwa bei Mahler. Botstein verweist allerdings darauf, dass solche Fragmente dort stets als frem- de, abgesetzte Elemente wahrnehmbar bleiben, während sie sich bei Strauss auf charakteristische Weise nahtlos in den kontinuierlichen dramatischen 302 Der ’postmoderne’ Rosenkavalier

Verlauf integrieren. Es kommt nicht zu Stilbrüchen, vielmehr wird das Ma- terial viel gründlicher umgeformt und dem typischen Strausschen Stil einver- leibt, seien dies – im Rosenkavalier – der Mozart-Ton des Frühstücksmenuetts oder der Zauberflöten-Anklang im Schlussduett, die Reminiszenz an Alessan- dro Stradella und den verismo in der Tenorarie beim Lever der Marschallin oder die opera buffa-Gesten der Annina im dritten Akt. So bestehen die historischen Einverleibungen immer nur partiell und werden stets ironisch verstanden, ohne die eigene Positionierung und die augenzwinkernde Solidari- sierung mit dem Publikum aufzugeben.

Hand in Hand mit der Weigerung, in die “trockene archäologische Genauigkeit” zu entfliehen (so Hofmannsthal an Strauss), geht in der Ästhe- tik der beiden Künstler die Ablehnung, Kunstwerken eine quasi-religiöse Be- deutsamkeit beizumessen und den Künstler auf romantisierende Weise als eine außergewöhnliche, mit seherischen Fähigkeiten ausgestattete Persönlichkeit außerhalb und im Widerspruch zur schnöden bürgerlichen Gesellschaft anzusehen. Diese Auffassung von Kunst und Künstler lebte im modernistischen Pathos Schoenbergscher Couleur ungebrochen weiter, wurde aber vom skat- spielenden Großbürger und Geizhals Strauss völlig unterwandert, dem das Profane, Gewöhnliche, Reale am Herzen lag und der großen Respekt für sein (zahlendes) Publikum zeigte. Wie auch Botstein festhält, suchte Strauss neue Wege gerade in der Tradition des Realismus, was ebenfalls auf die postmoderne Ästhetik mit ihrem deutlichen Hang zum Oberflächenrealismus voraus- weist. Dieser erschöpft sich jedoch nicht in der Darstellung trivialer Alltagsbe- langlosigkeit, sondern schließt durchaus eine Ernsthaftigkeit ambivalenter, ja bewegender und ergreifender Aussagen keineswegs aus. Auch dafür gibt es im Rosenkavalier, bei all seiner prallen Alltags- und Realitätsfülle, schönste Bele- ge. (Dazu mehr noch später.)

Simon Williams stellt in seinem Rosenkavalier-Aufsatz von 2002 ebenfalls fest, dass die vielen dramatischen und musikalischen Referenzen in der Oper die Vorstellung einer fixierten historischen Epoche auflösen. Interessan- terweise findet er für diese Charakteristik des Werks eine durchaus eigenstän- dige – und auch plausible – Begründung, indem er darin die politische Kultur der Habsburgermonarchie widergespiegelt sieht. Deren Vielsprachigkeit und Nebeneinander heterogener Ethnien stand in bewusstem Kontrast zur im 19. Jahrhundert vorherrschenden Vorstellung des ethnisch einheitlichen Natio- Der ’postmoderne’ Rosenkavalier 303

nalstaats, der Hofmannsthal nichts abgewinnen konnte. Der Dichter war ein glühender Verfechter der Habsburg-Idee mit ihrem Rückgriff auf das gesamt- europäische Erbe und ihrer Vision des friedlichen Zusammenlebens in kul- tureller Vielfalt. Er sah die Blüte dieses Habsburgertums in der Gestalt Maria Theresias verkörpert, weshalb es nicht von ungefähr ist, dass der Rosenkavalier zur Zeit der Regierung Maria Theresias spielt. Dies geschieht aber eben nur sehr oberflächlich im wörtlichen, historischen Sinn, sondern vielmehr vor allem ideell, indem das Werk aus dem Geist der Maria Theresianischen Zeit heraus lebt, wie ihn Hofmannsthal sah. Die anti-nationalistische habsburgische Haltung hatte im 20. Jahrhundert einen schlechten Ruf, gewinnt aber heute in Zeiten ausgeweiteter europäischer Integration immer mehr an Gewicht. Auch hier repräsentiert also der Rosenkavalier eine in die Zukunft weisende Schau. Williams verfolgt dies bis in die dramatischen und theatralischen Bezüge des Werks hinein, indem er dort “das Konstruktionsprinzip der Habsburgermo- narchie” verwirklicht sieht: Diese typischeste wienerische Oper ist (nur ober- flächlich paradoxerweise) genährt von vielseitigen europäischen Quellen, vor allem von französischen (Louvet de Couvray, Molière, Beaumarchais), englischen (Falstaff, Restaurationskomödie des 18. Jahrhunderts, Hogarths Kup- ferstiche) und österreichischen (Philipp Hafners Megära, Nestroy). Und das Schlussterzett der Oper sieht Williams als den schönsten Tribut an das Ide- al Österreich, indem hier – durch die große Andersartigkeit der betroffenen Menschen bedingt – stärkste menschliche Konflikte enthalten sind, diese aber ohne Gewalt in Balance gebracht werden.

Im Rosenkavalier-Kapitel ihres Buches Traumtheater (2001) stellt Nike Wagner unter dem Titel “Ist halt vorbei” die Marschallin einer Lieblingsfi- gur des 18. Jahrhunderts, Casanova, gegenüber, wie er in Arthur Schnitzlers Novelle “Casanovas Heimkehr” (1918) erscheint. Gemeinsam ist den beiden Werken das Thema des Alterns und des Liebesverzichts, und dies zur Zeit des Ancien Régime. Der alternden, auf Oktavian verzichtenden Marschallin steht in Schnitzlers Novelle der 53-jährige, in seine Heimatstadt Venedig zurück- kehrende Casanova gegenüber, der – dazu nur mehr in Verkleidung fähig – die Verlobte eines jungen Leutnants verführt, den er im unvermeidlich folgenden Duell niedersticht. Schnitzler war selbst 53 Jahre alt, als er den Text schrieb, bei der Erzählung handelt es sich also um eine “ausgeschriebene Altersdepression” des Autors – so Nike Wagner – in einer Lebens- und Schaffenskrise. Warum aber – so fragt die Autorin – die Rückprojektion ins 18. Jahrhundert? Nach 304 Der ’postmoderne’ Rosenkavalier

den Wirren der Französischen Revolution und ihren Nachwehen wurde das Ancien Régime ab der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts – so die Antwort – zum “Ort träumerischer Selbstverwirklichung des Menschen”, wo Seelisches und Sinnliches ausbalanciert sind und sich somit eine Alternative bietet zum Ma- terialismus und zur “Fortschrittsduselei” der viktorianischen Zeit. So weit sind Schnitzler in der Novelle und Hofmannsthal mit seinem Rosenkavalier geistesverwandte Weggefährten in ihrer Kritik an den Befindlichkeiten des 19. Jahrhunderts und ihrem therapeutischen Blick zurück ins 18. Wo sich ihre Wege trennen, ist in der Art, wie sie die in den beiden Werken dargestellte Al- ters-Problematik bewältigen. Während Schnitzler – und man könnte sagen, in typisch modernistischer Haltung – die Konflikte offen legt und den Kultur- und Zivilisationsimpulsen gegenüber der Triebgewalt keine Chance gibt, was Casanova letztlich zum Mörder macht, manifestiert sich in der Einstellung der Marschallin – “Ist halt vorbei” – eine ‘kultivierte’, versöhnliche Haltung, die dem Wesen Hofmannsthals und Strauss’ entspricht und die wiederum – als ein versuchtes Ausbalancieren heterogener Momente – als typisch ‘postmodern’ erscheint. Nike Wagner formuliert den Sachverhalt nicht in diesen Kategorien (an anderer Stelle in ihrem Buch ist es ihr ein Anliegen, auf traditionelle Wei- se die Modernität des früheren Strauss hervorzukehren), doch ist ihr die Sa- che selbst vertraut und wichtig. Dies zeigt sich in ihrer Erkenntnis, dass die geschilderte charakteristische Versöhnungshaltung mit der Kunsttheorie von Hofmannsthal/Strauss Hand in Hand geht und dass damit die Strauss’schen Werke ab dem Rosenkavalier offensichtlich einer geänderten Ästhetik unterliegen. Am eindrücklichsten manifestiert sich diese andere Ästhetik in jenem Aphorismus Hofmannsthals, den Nike Wagner als die zentrale Kunstmaxime des Dichters zitiert und der aus dem Buch der Freunde (1922) stammt: “Die Tiefe muß man verstecken. Wo? An der Oberfläche.” Prägnanter lässt sich die Faszination, die von Werken wie dem Rosenkavalier ausgeht, nicht formulie- ren, und darin zeigt sich eine der großen Stärken ‘postmodernen’ Denkens und Fühlens. Der ’postmoderne’ Rosenkavalier 305

References

Botstein, Leon (1992). “The Enigmas of Richard Strauss: A Revisionist View”. Bryan Gilliam, Hg. Richard Strauss and His World. Princeton, NJ: Prinston University Press. 3–32. Gilliam, Bryan (2004). “Why the Dying Richard Strauss Couldn’t Get Enough of Daphne”. The New York Times (5. September). http://www.nytimes.com/, online. Wagner, Nike (2001). “Ist halt vorbei: Casanova und die Marschallin”. Traumtheater: Szenarien der Moderne. Frankfurt am Main: Insel. 185–205. ”Famos modern: Richard Strauss im Aufbruch”. 110–124. Williams, Simon (2002). “Der Rosenkavalier and the Idea of Habsburg Austria”. Suzanne M. Lodato, Suzanne Aspden, Walter Bernhart, Hrsgg. Word and Music Studies: Essays in Honor of Steven Paul Scher and on Cultural Identity and the Musical Stage. Word and Music Studies 4. Amster- dam/New York, NY: Rodopi. 263–275.

’Die lustigen Weiber’ proben den Aufstand: Transzendiertes Biedermeier in Otto Nicolais Oper [2005]

Shakespeares Merry Wives

Einer nicht gesicherten Überlieferung aus dem frühen 18. Jahrhundert zufolge soll Königin Elisabeth I. von England gewünscht haben, den feisten Ritter Fal- staff, über den sie in Shakespeares Henry IV hatte lachen können, in der Rolle des Liebhabers auf der Bühne zu erleben. Der schlagfertige Falstaff, Kumpan des Kronprinzen und späteren Königs Heinrich V., ist in dem Historiendrama trotz seiner Feigheit und seines Schmarotzertums ein liebenswerter Kerl, aufgrund seiner Schlauheit, Selbstironie und aus dem Bauch heraus gelebten Vita- lität. Als Shakespeare dann – wiederum der Überlieferung zufolge – innerhalb von zwei Wochen in der Komödie The Merry Wives of Windsor tatsächlich einen verliebten Falstaff auf die Bühne brachte, war dieser dann allerdings doch ganz anders geraten, hatte seinen Witz weitgehend eingebüßt und wurde viel mehr zum Tölpel und geprellten Liebhaber, der eher rat- und hilflos zum Op- fer seiner eigenen Intrigen wird, zum ‘betrogenen Betrüger’, ganz in der Tradi- tion der italienischen Novellen der Renaissancezeit. In Shakespeares einziger rein bürgerlicher Komödie – auch der einzigen, die im zeitgenössischen Eng- land angesiedelt ist – herrscht das Farcenhafte vor, eindimensionale Situati- onskomik, ‘Heiterkeit’, ganz wie sie der Titel der ‘Lustigen Weiber’ ankündigt, ohne den poetischen Zauber und Charme der berühmten ‘romantischen’ Ko- mödien des genialen Dramatikers. The Merry Wives of Windsor haben in der Rezeptionsgeschichte Shakespeares eine große Publikumspopularität erlangt, kamen in der Literaturkritik aber meist nicht besonders gut weg: In der Hand- lungsstruktur und Charakterdarstellung zu flach und grob gezeichnet erscheinen die Dinge. 308 ’Die lustigen Weiber’ proben den Aufstand: Transzendiertes Biedermeier in Otto Nicolais Oper

Falstaff als Opernheld

Gleichwohl erwies sich der Komödienstoff um Falstaff und die munteren Bür- gersfrauen aus der Kleinstadt Windsor als durchaus fruchtbar in der Bühnenge- schichte, vor allem im Musiktheater, aber auch in Sprechtheaterbearbeitungen (wie z. B. Die lustigen Abenteuer an der Wien von 1771). Karl Ditters von Dit- tersdorfs Oper von 1796 und vor allem Antonio Salieris Falstaff ossia Le tre burle von 1799 waren recht erfolgreich (letzteres eine reizvolle Spieloper, die 1961 in Siena und 1977 in Triest gezeigt wurde). Das 19. Jahrhundert brachte dann – als großes Jahrhundert der Oper – jene zwei Opernfassungen des Stoffes hervor, die ins internationale Repertoire Eingang fanden, Otto Nicolais Lustige Weiber von Windsor (1849) und Verdis überragenden Falstaff (1893). Daneben gab es aber auch eine englische Fassung des damals sehr geschätzten Henry Bishop (1824) und Adolphe Adams Falstaff von 1856, und im 20. Jahrhundert Gustave Holsts At the Boar’s Head (1925) – mit Bezug auf Falstaffs Kneipe – und Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Sir John in Love (1929), das zeitgenössische elisabethanische Songs wie “Greensleeves” mitverarbeitet und wovon eine ansprechende Einspielung unter Richard Hickox (2000) auf dem Markt ist.

Otto Nicolais künstlerisches Leben

Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor sind Otto Nicolais (1810-1849) letzte Oper, nachdem er, als er in Italien (vor allem in Rom) lebte, bereits für Turin und die Mailänder Scala fünf Opern im italienischen Stil geschrieben hatte. Er kam 1841 als Hofkapellmeister nach Wien ans Kärntnertortheater, gründete im Jahr darauf – als musikhistorische Großtat – die Wiener Philharmoniker und sollte dann 1845 für sein Haus eine deutsche Oper schreiben. Als diese – eben Die lustigen Weiber – erst 1846 fertiggestellt wurde, lehnte man sie ab, was Ni- colai bewog, 1847 nach Berlin zu gehen, nicht ohne dass er beim Abschieds- konzert mit den Wiener Philharmonikern einige Stücke aus der Oper mit Jen- ny Lind als Sängerin zu Gehör gebracht hätte. Die Uraufführung am 9. März 1849 im Berliner Königlichen Opernhaus war sehr erfolgreich, und vor allem die Ouvertüre wurde rasch populär. Völlig überraschenderweise starb Nicolai nur zwei Monate nach der Premiere erst 39-jährig an einem Hirnschlag. ’Die lustigen Weiber’ proben den Aufstand: Transzendiertes Biedermeier in Otto Nicolais Oper 309

Eine “komisch-phantastische” Oper

Nicolais Librettist war Salomon Hermann von Mosenthal (1821-1877), ein deutsch-jüdischer Kaufmannssohn aus Kassel, der bald nach Wien kam und sich dort sowohl als ein erfolgreicher Dramatiker als auch als ein angesehener Beamter hervortat. Er brachte es – ungewöhnlich bei seiner jüdischen Her- kunft – zum Kaiserlichen Rat und wurde in den Ritterstand erhoben. Sein erfolgreichstes Drama, ja ein damaliger Welterfolg, war Deborah (1848), und als Librettist war er nicht nur der sehr versierte Verfasser des Texts zu den Lus- tigen Weibern, sondern auch zu Karl Goldmarks Königin von Saba (1875), der Sensationsoper der Zeit. Als Honorar erhielt Mosenthal für jede Nummer der Lustigen Weiber zehn Gulden – denn es handelt sich um eine Nummern- oper, die allerdings auf geschickte Weise über den Stil der reinen Spieloper hinausgeht, in welcher traditionell statische Arien- und Ensemblenummern mit handlungsvorantreibenden Sprechdialogen abwechseln. In Fortführung der Mozartschen Opernpraxis verwendet das Mosenthal/Nicolaische Libret- to hingegen auch handlungsorientierte musikalische Rezitative – was noch Richard Strauss als eine bedeutende historische Leistung der Lustigen Weiber hervorhob. Diese Oper verbindet nämlich auf gelungene Weise die deutsche Spieloper mit der italienischen opera buffa. Dies mag ein wichtiger Grund für ihre hervorgehobene Position in der Geschichte der deutschen Oper sein. So verbindet sich in den Lustigen Weibern die deutsche Schule mit italienischer Leichtigkeit, das Erbe der Lortzingschen Spieloper sowie der Weberschen Ro- mantischen Oper einerseits mit dem mediterranen Geist andererseits, den Ni- colai in den Werken seines Freundes Donizetti widergespiegelt fand. Bezeich- nenderweise ist die Oper auf dem Titelblatt als eine “komisch-phantastische” charakterisiert, was auf die Verbindung der opera buffa mit der Romantischen Oper verweist. Während vor allem die Finali des ersten und zweiten Akts das buffa-Element hervorkehren, taucht der dritte Akt mit der Ballade vom Jäger Herne und dann im Wald von Windsor in die romantische Sphäre ein. Hier wird – über The Merry Wives of Windsor hinausgehend – die Welt von Shake- speares romantischen Komödien heraufbeschworen, was sich auch darin äu- ßert, dass Anna Reich als Titania und Fenton als Oberon erscheinen, womit deutlich auf die Welt des Sommernachtstraums im Wald außerhalb von Athen angespielt wird. Natürlich gab dies Nicolai die Gelegenheit, die damals durch Mendelssohn so populär gemachte Evokation der phantastischen Elfenwelt 310 ’Die lustigen Weiber’ proben den Aufstand: Transzendiertes Biedermeier in Otto Nicolais Oper

aufzugreifen und damit, einschließlich des berühmten Mondchors, das Pub- likumsbedürfnis nach romantisierender Musik zu befriedigen. Dass diese Ro- mantik nicht naiv und unverstellt ist, zeigt sich daran, dass sie handlungsmäßig als Produkt einer Verkleidungskomödie erscheint. Gleichwohl ruft die musikalische Gestaltung das romantische Erleben unmittelbar auf, was wohl entscheidend zur Popularität der Ouvertüre beigetragen hat, die sich auf die Musik des dritten Akts stützt, aber – gemäß der Funktion einer Potpourri-Ouvertüre – ohne Handlungsbezug ist. Der heutige Hörer – an ironische Brechungen ge- wöhnt – schätzt hingegen im Schlussteil der Oper gerade die Unterwanderung des romantischen Impulses durch den skurrilen Mummenschanz.

Transzendiertes Biedermeier

Die Oper Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor ist als “vielleicht die überragende Hervorbringung des deutschen Biedermeier im Musiktheater” bezeichnet worden (Ulrich Schreiber), wobei diese Beurteilung, soweit sie die Qualität betrifft, sicherlich vor allem die musikalische Gestaltung im Auge hat, die mit großer Feinsinnigkeit Komödie zu machen versteht und mit viel Brio und me- lodischer Eingängigkeit Zuhörer zu packen versteht. Die bereits beobachtete, nationale Begrenzungen transzendierende, sehr geschickte Verquickung erfolgreicher nationaler Stile trägt zu diesem Qualitätsniveau entscheidend bei. Doch die zitierte Beurteilung macht auch deutlich, dass es sich bei der Oper um ein markantes Produkt des deutschen Biedermeier handelt, was sich natür- lich vor allem im Libretto widerspiegelt. Aus der Sicht sozialpolitischer Frage- stellungen muss dieses Libretto – als deutlicher Repräsentant des Biedermei- erlichen – allerdings enttäuschen, weil es sehr wenig vom Geist des Vormärz atmet und etwa die Verurteilung und Verfolgung Falstaffs durch die ‘lustigen Weiber’ nichts von einer typisch bürgerlichen Rache an einem typisch aristo- kratischen Schwadroneur an sich hat. Eine klassenspezifische Perspektive ist aber bereits bei Shakespeare zu finden, was schon Friedrich Engels aufgegriffen hat, als er den Merry Wives mehr Realität als der gesamten deutschen Literatur zubilligte und damit auf den klassenkämpferischen Impuls im Stück anspielte. Die Oper hingegen reicht tatsächlich in diesem Sinne kaum in die politische Sphäre hinein und verharrt diesbezüglich im wesentlichen in der sprichwört- lichen häuslichen Enge biedermeierlicher Alltagsbefindlichkeit. Gleichwohl ’Die lustigen Weiber’ proben den Aufstand: Transzendiertes Biedermeier in Otto Nicolais Oper 311

wird Falstaff häufig als “Sir John” angesprochen und erscheinen in der Trink- szene persönlich differenzierte, aber namenlose “Bürger” , womit das Bewusst- sein eines Klassenunterschieds signalisiert wird.

Der andere typisch biedermeierliche Aspekt, der in den Lustigen Weibern kritisch angemerkt wurde, ist die bürgerliche Prüderie der Frauen, wenn sie sich zur Verteidigung der “Weiberehre” , wie es im Text heißt, an Falstaff rä- chen wollen. In der festgefügten Welt sittlich-moralischer Wertvorstellungen, wie sie in Windsor herrschen, hat ein Weiberheld, der ein riskantes Doppel- spiel zur gleichzeitigen Verführung zweier Frauen spielt, keinen Platz. Dazu kommt, dass Falstaff (wie übrigens bereits bei Shakespeare) ironischerweise zu seinen Avancen gar nicht primär erotisch motiviert ist, sondern finanziell, was in die viktorianische Welt der Lustigen Weiber sehr gut hinein passt – dies ganz anders als etwa bei Boito/Verdi, wo Falstaff ein “tragikomischer Späterotiker” (Schreiber) ist, der eine sehr persönlich gefärbte hedonistische Lebensphiloso- phie vertritt, deren magischer Anziehungskraft sich die Frauen letztlich nicht eigentlich entziehen können. Ein Hauch dieser Haltung findet sich interessanterweise selbst in Mosenthals Libretto, wenn am Schluss der Oper, nachdem der düpierte Falstaff um “Barmherzigkeit!” gefleht hat, Frau Fluth, die jüngere, lebenslustigere der beiden verfolgten Bürgersfrauen, “wehmütig” , wie der Text sagt, meint: “Ach Sir John, es ist uns recht unglücklich gegangen, wir konnten gar nicht zusammenkommen!” Das mag durchaus ironisch gemeint sein (die Passage ist nicht komponiert, sodass keine Musik über allfällige Iro- nie Aufschluss geben könnte), doch passt eine ‘ehrliche’ Lesung recht ins Bild, da in dieser Oper der Geprellte am Schluss eben nicht in Schimpf und Schan- de von der Bühne geht, wie etwa ein Osmin, ein Beckmesser, ein Ochs – also auch in anderen Komödien, und nicht Tragödien. Vielmehr heißt es, “Lasst uns Friede machen!” , und am Ende stehen ‘Gnade’ und ‘Verzeihen’. Sicher- lich ist in den Lustigen Weibern Sir John primär der trinkfeste Bacchus-Jünger, der die “Pfennigsgurgeln” seiner Trinkturnier-Gegner, des “Ersten” und des “Zweiten Bürgers” – eben Bürger –, verspottet und der zu verblendet ist, um die Intrigen der Frauen zu durchschauen und sich dümmlich in äußerst läppi- sche Situationen bringt. Doch ist er auch darüber hinaus – wie sein späterer, durchaus verwandter Nachfahre, Ochs auf Lerchenau – ein Mannsbild, das eine lebenssatte, anziehende Ausstrahlung besitzt und dem man letztlich nicht gram sein kann. 312 ’Die lustigen Weiber’ proben den Aufstand: Transzendiertes Biedermeier in Otto Nicolais Oper

‘Weiber’, die sich wehren

Aber Mosenthal/Nicolais Oper heißt nicht von ungefähr Die Lustigen Weiber von Windsor und nicht Falstaff: Es sind die Frauen, die im Mittelpunkt stehen, und man tut ihnen wohl unrecht, wenn man sie bloß auf biedermeierliche Tugendhennen, die ihre “Weiberehre” verteidigen, reduziert. Die Oper mag durchaus nur ansatzweise ‘politisch’ im Sinne klassenkämpferischer Töne sein, doch im heutigen ‘Gender’-Diskurs findet sie sehr wohl ihren markanten Platz, wenn man den Text im Sinne einer Auflehnung junger Frauen gegen eine do- minante ‘Männerwelt’ liest, sei diese repräsentiert durch einen bramarbasieren- den Schwerenöter wie Falstaff oder durch einen krankhaft Eifersüchtigen wie Herrn Fluth. Die Frauen wehren sich gegen männliche Bevormundung, setzen Witz und Charme ein, um den ‘Herren der Schöpfung’ eine Lektion zu ertei- len, und schaffen damit auf ihre Weise einen ‘politischen’ Sachverhalt, womit die beanspruchte ‘Biedermeierlichkeit’ der Oper relativiert wird. Dann steht die Oper durchaus in einer Tradition, die zumindest aus Mozarts Entführung aus dem Serail bekannt ist, wo Blondchen ein solches ‘lustiges Weibchen’ ist, das sich männlicher Hegemonie nicht unterwirft, und es ist nicht von unge- fähr, dass Blondchen ein englisches Mädchen ist, das also in einer freiheitlichen Tradition aufgewachsen ist – gerade so wie die ‘lustigen Weiber’ in Windsor. Es wirkt also selbst im biedermeierlichen Wien, wie es sich in Mosenthal/Nico- lais Oper widerspiegelt, aus dem Shakespeareschen Text heraus vermittelt, ein frauenemanzipatorischer Impuls, und dies in einer erfrischenden, gerade durch die musikalische Gestaltung die Zeiten überdauernden Weise.

‘Windsor’ ist immer und überall

In diesem Zusammenhang ist es von Interesse, dass es in den verschiedenen Quellen und Ausgaben widersprüchliche Angaben über die Zeit der Hand- lung der Oper gibt. Am Besetzungszettel der Uraufführung fehlt charakte- ristischerweise eine Zeitangabe, doch gibt das Berliner Textbuch aus der Zeit vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg Folgendes an: “Bei der Aufführung auf der König- lichen Hofbühne zu Berlin wurde als Zeit der Handlung der Anfang des 17. Jahrhunderts angenommen und die Oper demgemäß kostümiert.” Damit ist die Handlung in die Entstehungszeit von Shakespeares Komödie verpflanzt, ’Die lustigen Weiber’ proben den Aufstand: Transzendiertes Biedermeier in Otto Nicolais Oper 313

wie übrigens auch im Klavierauszug der alten Peters-Ausgabe. An anderer Stel- le wird als Zeit allerdings der Anfang der Regierungszeit Heinrichs V. (1413- 1432) angeführt, also jene Zeit, in der – in Fortsetzung der Handlung von Henry IV, in der Falstaff zuerst erscheint – Shakespeares Königsdrama Henry V, in dem der Tod Falstaffs berichtet wird, historisch korrekt platziert ist. Der Sprecher, der auf der CD-Einspielung von Nicolais Oper unter Bernhard Klee (1976), durch die Handlung führt, sagt einleitend klugerweise: “Unsere Ge- schichte liegt lang’ zurück” . Aber noch klüger ist ein Kommentar anlässlich der Nürnberger Einstudierung der Oper von 2003, der feststellt, dass Windsor “immer” und “überall” ist. Gerade das Thema von spielerisch sich gegen Be- vormundung auflehnenden Frauen – ein beliebter Stoff seit der antiken Lysis- trata – hat eine ungebrochene Relevanz und fand im 19. Jahrhundert eine be- merkenswerte Ausformung in Nicolais Oper, die sich – getragen von einer die Zeiten überdauernden brillanten Musik – in entscheidenden Punkten über die biedermeierlichen Einengungen ihrer Zeit hinwegsetzt.

Narrative Framing in Schumann’s Piano Pieces [2006]

His early piano pieces demonstrate that Schumann – in his own view – was a ‘literary’ composer, a qualification which shows, among others, in the fact that quite a number of these works suggest a narrative condition and that some of those have a structure identifiable as narrative framing. The criteria applied in this essay to analyse cases of narrative framing are a ‘telling voice’ (or ‘narrative flow’) in initial position in the work, and ‘double-voicing’, which implies that two distinct levels of presentation can be observed that function as an extradiegetical ‘framing’ part and a ‘framed’ story part of the piece. The ‘telling voice’ iconically suggests the speech articulation of a person telling a story, and ‘double-voicing’ is suggested by the presence of marked textural contrasts in the music. A variety of examples is given showing a wide spectrum of kinds of framing – not only narrative – to be detected in Schumann’s piano music, and some theoretical consi- erations placing the findings in the research context round off the discussion.

There are only three papers read at this conference which concern themselves with music, which can be taken as an indication that framing, as a physical textual device, is a phenomenon that is rarely associated with music and seems used in music only in a restricted way. The fact that this paper proposes to discuss “Narrative Framing” indicates a further restriction, as this implies that music will, additionally, be considered as a medium that is capable of narrative – which is again no undisputed quality of music.

Thus, what follows is deliberately moving into more or less unexplored territory. More theoretical implications of this situation will be discussed later, what ought to be done first – to round off these cautionary introductory remarks – is to justify the choice of Schumann as a practitioner of ‘narrative framing’.

Robert Schumann is a composer whose first 23 works (written between 1830 and 1840) were exclusively piano pieces. These early piano pieces were , from the very beginning, considered to be exceptional and groundbreaking – particularly Papillons, op. 2 (1831) – in that they irritated Schumann’s audiences by their frag- 316 Narrative Framing in Schumann’s Piano Pieces

mented character and their lack of consistency with traditional musical forms (cf. Daverio 1997: 87). It was Schumann himself – a highly ‘literate’ son of a successful book dealer – who emphasized the literary dimension of his music and, for instance, has puzzled critics up to this day about the link he claimed to exist between his own Papillons and Jean Paul’s novel Flegeljahre (cf. ibid.: 79–93; Dietel 1989: 176–196). Schumann’s admiration for Jean Paul made him want to write a novel himself and consider the novel as a guiding model for musical construction (cf. Dietel 1989: 33). For Schumann, his Papillons were ‘figures and speaking characters’1, and there is ample evidence of terms related to telling or narration in titles of his works. These observations seem to offer enough external evidence to claim Schumann as a ‘narrative’ composer, but we should not fall too easily into a trap. When Friedrich Ludwig Rellstab, the authoritative founding father of literary music criticism, criticized Schumann’s Kinderszenen, op. 15 (1838) for being ‘fragmented’2 and unmusical because of the titles that were given to the individual pieces (most notoriously “Träumerei”), Schumann famously defended himself against this verdict by saying – and he expressed himself similarly on many occasions – that “I’ve underlaid the text to the music, and not the reverse – otherwise it would be a ‘foolish beginning’” (qtd. Daverio 1997: 83); or, similarly: “The inscriptions for all my compositions only come to me after the composition is complete.” (Qtd. ibid.: 84) His titles are ‘nothing but subtle indications for execution and mental conception’3, and ‘in no case a specific content is fixed or character and origin of the music is determined’4. Schumann insisted that his music reflected “Seelenzustände” (“‘soul states’”), not “Lebenszustände” (“‘external events’”, qtd. ibid.: 85).

The obviously complex relationship of music and literature that can be found in Schumann’s piano music is neatly summarized by John Daverio when he says: “Schumann was arguably the first composer to view his musical creations [...] as literary products. This means neither that music should ‘tell stories’ nor that it must depend on literary models.” Yet “music should aspire to the same intellectual substance as the ‘lettered’ arts: poetry and philosophy” (ibid.: 89).

1 “Gestalten und redende Charaktere” (qtd. Dietel 1989: 35). 2 “[...] zerbröckelt” (qtd. Draheim 1996: 60). 3 “[...] nichts weiter als feinere Fingerzeige für Vortrag und Auffassung” (qtd. Dietel 1989: 206). 4 “Keineswegs wird [...] ein Inhalt bestimmt oder Wesen und Ursprung der jeweiligen Musik deter- miniert.” (Qtd. ibid.: 206) Narrative Framing in Schumann’s Piano Pieces 317

Consequently, as far as a possible narrative quality of Schumann’s music is concerned, we are more or less back at the beginning and need to accept that his works, in general, are not ‘literary’ or ‘narrative’ in any narrow, specific sense – as we know it, let’s say, from fictional writing – but that they are intentionally ‘poetic’ and ‘philosophical’, which nonetheless implies that they contain essential non-musical and, for that matter, ‘literary’ qualities in a wider sense. What can be further claimed is that some of them – and not so few, in fact – show elements of narrativity in a more specific sense, and that among those works which can be conceived in narrative terms we even find interesting cases that can be interpreted as containing ‘narrative framing’.

I need to define the criteria by which I claim to identify forms of narrativity in Schumann´s piano music, i.e., to name the “narratemes”5 that can be applied to these works. I will at this point discuss them very briefly and leave it to a later discussion to place them in a theoretical context, in particular relating them to narrative criteria as defined by Werner Wolf (cf. 2002: 85f.).

With Jean-Jacques Nattiez I see the need of what he calls a “narrative impulse” (1990: 257) on the side of the recipient to ‘read’ music as being ‘narrative’. In Schumann’s case, such a reception-dependent narrative impulse, or narrative stance, is above all favoured by the frequent titles which he gave to his works and which clearly refer to narrative situations: e.g., in Kinderszenen, “From Foreign Lands and People”, “At the Fireside”, “Strange Story”6, or, elsewhere, “Romanze”, “Fabel”, and so on. Such paratextual references naturally establish a narrative impulse or stance in the listener, but we should keep in mind that all these titles were given only after the composition. So there must have been internal factors and inherent qualities in the music itself that suggested such ‘narrative’ titles even to Schumann himself after composition. A narrateme that can frequently be found in this music is what shall be called a ‘telling voice’ (Erzählstimme) or ‘narrative flow’ (Erzählduktus). These terms imply that the texture and articulation of the music appear in such a shape that its flow resembles that of the speaking voice of someone telling something. If we look, e.g., at the opening phrases of “At the Fireside” (see Figure 1):

5 ‘Narratemes’ are those “intracompositional factors that render texts and artefact narratives and determine their degree of narrativity” (Wolf 2004: 87). 6 “Von fremden Ländern und Menschen”; “Am Kamin”; “Kuriose Geschichte”. 318 Narrative Framing in Schumann’s Piano Pieces

Figure 1: “Am Kamin” or of “Hark! the Poet speaks”7 (see Figure 2):

Figure 2: “Der Dichter spricht” this is what we find: a soft, low voice, a moderate tempo, a melodic line of predominantly small intervals imitating a relaxed speech inflexion, a phrasing that follows natural breathing and pausing. It is interesting to note that the tone which is established by such a ‘narrative flow’ and the atmosphere which it creates resemble the “narrative scene” that can typically be found in literary frame-stories, as described by Jeffrey Williams: a mood suggestive of leisure, warmth, intimacy and gentle anticipation, the “primal scene” of sitting “round the hearth” (Williams 1998: 110–112) – ‘At the Fireside’. It is characteristic of Schumann that we find this form of a ‘telling voice’ or ‘narrative flow’ evoking a scene of story-telling also in pieces which have no respective title but are still unmistakably suggestive of ‘narrative’, e.g., Nr. 4 of Bilder aus Osten (see Figure 3):

7 “Der Dichter spricht”, the final piece from Kinderszenen, op. 15. Narrative Framing in Schumann’s Piano Pieces 319

Figure 3: Bilder aus Osten, Nr. 4

It is equally characteristic that in a piece whose title would make one expect such a ‘telling voice’, like in “Strange Story” (see Figure 4), one cannot find it: this opening suggests a dance, maybe a mazurka.

Figure 4: “Kuriose Geschichte”

A second narrateme active in Schumann’s piano music, in addition to a ‘telling voice’ or ‘narrative flow’ – and this brings us closer to the issue of framing –, is the existence of what can be called ‘double-voicing’. ‘Double-voicing’ implies the presence of two distinct discourse levels in the work: in such pieces there is no unified and single “world invoked” but the impression is given of a “heterogeneous juxtaposition” of more than one world (Micznik 2001: 218).

Several critics have defined a “presence of conflict” (ibid.: 220) or “disruptive processes” (Kramer 1990: 189) as indicative of narrativity in music. Such a narrative contrastive double structure is seen as replacing unified “formal schemata” (Micznik 2001: 196) as the organizing principle of the music. In Schumann we 320 Narrative Framing in Schumann’s Piano Pieces

frequently observe such an “avoidance of straightforward, monological discourse” (ibid.: 248), and a heterogeneity of musical discourse of this kind contributes to the impression of fragmentation which has often been observed in Schu- mann, as noticed before. The ‘double-voicing’ here addressed is a special case of such discursive fragmentation in that, instead of an apparently unorganized, loose sequence of fragmented and disparate elements, we find two clearly separate discourse levels which are identified as such two distinct levels of discourse by their contrastive configurations.

Thus, by way of summary, the condition which – in a perceptive listener who follows a ‘narrative impulse’ – evokes the impression of ‘narrative framing’ can be defined in the following terms: on the one hand, the music needs to manifest a situation of ‘double voicing’, with two contrastive levels of discourse in the form here described; and, on the other hand, the one level placed in initial position needs to be characterized by what has been described as a ‘narrative flow’ or ‘telling voice’. Thereby a higher, extradiegetic framing level is being suggested, and the following contrastive part suggests the framed ‘narrative proper’, the level of the ‘story told’.

Such a typical situation of narrative framing can be found, for example, in Schumann´s “Fabel” from Fantasiestücke, op. 12 (1837) (see Figure 5). It is difficult to avoid reading this piano piece as a frame-story. The beginning clearly sets a narrative gesture in a leisurely ‘telling voice’ announcing a story (the melody may very well be sung to words like “Listen, hear me tell a story now”), and the following part shows a strongly contrastive texture using excited, fast staccati. The frame returns internally in an extended version, like an intrusion, after eight bars and, completing the frame, reappears terminally at the end of the piece, as a placid comment on the dramatic ‘story’ that has been ‘told’ – two and a half pages long – in the main part of the work. It is an evident point to make that nothing definite can be said about a possible content of this ‘story’; following Schumann, no ‘external states’ (“Lebenszustände”) are mirrored in his music. But what we do have is the outline shape, the morphology of a story (“‘Hohlform’”, in Wolf’s terms; 2002: 97). To be true, the title of the piece suggests that a story is being told, and this will establish a narrative impulse in the receptive listener. But as the title came later, it may very well be conjectured that Schumann – considering his literary inclinations – had the outline of a frame-story situation in his mind, as a formal motivation for his Narrative Framing in Schumann’s Piano Pieces 321

Figure 5: “Fabel” 322 Narrative Framing in Schumann’s Piano Pieces Narrative Framing in Schumann’s Piano Pieces 323

Figure 6: “Romanze” composition, when he wrote this work.

A case similar to “Fabel” is “Romanze” from Albumblätter, op. 124, composed in 1835 (see Figure 6). Again a short, leisurely two-bar phrase in a ‘telling voice’ opens the piece, announcing a ‘narrative’, and returns verbatim at the end, as a thoughtful reflection on what has been ‘told’. In between there is an embedded ‘narrative proper’ in A B A form (slow – fast – slow) that may be seen as telling a ‘romance’, as the title suggests – again obviously only showing the morph- 324 Narrative Framing in Schumann’s Piano Pieces

ology of a story.

An interesting case is “Fürchtenmachen” from Kinderszenen (see Figure 7). Again, there is a strong contrast between two musical textures that suggests ‘double-voicing’, and as the initial voice shows a ‘narrative flow’, again a framing situation is suggested. The title was most likely stimulated by the second, the ‘framed’ voice, which is in strong contrast to the first and suggests a fleet- ing, uncanny appearance that might scare a child. Such uncanny appearances return twice again, with the first voice interrupting each time, maybe sooth- ingly, to gain dominance at the end. In contrast to the two ‘frame-stories’ of “Fabel” and “Romanze”, here the first voice is the more extensive part, which may imply that the first voice is not only announcing a story but is telling (part of) a story itself, i.e., it may very well be seen as forming part of the ‘narrative proper’. With such a reading, there would be no frame at all, and it would be a case of ‘narrative’, but not of ‘narrative framing’.

Structurally comparable to “Fürchtenmachen” is No. 6 of Papillons (see Figure 8). Yet here the initial part, the first voice, shows no ‘narrative flow’ but a fast-moving, agitated texture in a minor key. This first voice returns in the middle of the piece and also forms its end, thus establishing a genuine framing situation, surrounding two contrastive sections of clearly different musical texture, both slower, calmer and in major keys. In this case, the two voices again appear as parts of one single discourse, in a paratactical construction, yet without a narrative introduction. Thus, here, in contrast to “Fürchtenmachen”, we can observe a framing situation, yet it is not a case of ‘narrative framing’, comparable to a literary frame-story, because the distinction between a higher, extradiegetic framing level and a lower, framed ‘story’ level is missing.

Two similar cases are “Abendmusik” from Bunte Blätter, op. 99 (1841), and – particularly intriguing – “Vision” from Albumblätter, op. 124 (1838). “Abendmusik ” (see Figure 9) may not be the most successful Schumann piece but, from the viewpoint of our subject, shows an interesting frame. The whole work is in tempo di minuetto but the opening phrase sounds more like a sombre march played by low brass instruments followed by a ‘narrative flow’ of celli and double-basses to lead on to the actual dance music. The same phrase reappears at the end, followed by a reminiscence of the dance music to round off the piece. This sequence of ‘events’ reminds one of Weber’s “Aufforderung Narrative Framing in Schumann’s Piano Pieces 325

Figure 7a: “Fürchtenmachen” (beginning) 326 Narrative Framing in Schumann’s Piano Pieces

Figure 7b: “Fürchtenmachen” (end) Narrative Framing in Schumann’s Piano Pieces 327

Figure 8: Papillons, No. 6 328 Narrative Framing in Schumann’s Piano Pieces

Figure 9: “Abendmusik” (beginning: 7 bars, and end: 12 bars) zum Tanz” (“Invitation to the Dance”), yet its title, “Abendmusik” (“Evening Music”) suggests more of a Biedermeier-Hauskonzert with dance music than an actual dancing event as in Weber’s piece. This is also what the fairly sombre style of the opening and ending suggests – a rather dull evening. Whether the ‘double-voicing’, with the low-strings ‘narrative flow’, really suggests an extradiegetic first voice and thus a true narrative frame, or whether the opening passage is part of the ‘narrative proper’, as in Weber’s “Invitation to the Dance”, cannot be clearly said. Yet the existence of a distinctly different voice framing the central part of the piece cannot be questioned.

The same is true of “Vision” (see Figure 10). What is exceptional in this case is the fact that the frame consists of a single bar each at the beginning and the end, on a single tone or chord respectively; but it clearly forms a separate voice in the piece. The extremely reduced musical means employed seem sufficient to establish a scene, signalling an expectation that there is something to come and Narrative Framing in Schumann’s Piano Pieces 329

Figure 10: “Vision” 330 Narrative Framing in Schumann’s Piano Pieces

rounding the situation off after something has happened. The second voice is in obvious contrast to the mysterious first voice and opens up an extremely vivid, but very soft, fairy-like world reminiscent of Mendelssohn’s overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream and his frequent fast movements of that style in other works. The title Schumann chose, “Vision”, seems very fitting, and the framing situation suggests the sudden appearance of a spooky fairy world springing up in the imagination of a tranquil, though alert, mind. (Interest- ingly, Schumann’s discarded his earlier title, “Fata Morgana”, probably because the character of the world evoked does not answer the expectations of a fata morgana.) In “Vision” we again find double-voicing with a frame that establishes a separate level representing an existential sphere which is distinctly different from the evoked ‘vision’ itself. This particular situation cannot be called a ‘narrative framing situation’, as a ‘telling voice’, and therefore a narrative introduction, is missing. The framing condition and the double-voicing found in this piece can more fittingly be called a ‘lyric framing situation’ as the suggested condition resembles that of a meditative mind that, in a (typically Wordswor- thian) contemplative, tranquil and receptive mood, imaginatively evokes a distinctly different, ‘visionary’ world.

All the framing situations discussed so far are “bracketing” or “recurring” framings, to take up Jeffrey Williams’s terms (1998: 122f.), i.e., in each case we find the reappearance of the frame at the end of the piece and sometimes also, additionally, at places in the middle. Yet a number of Schumann’s piano pieces show only initial framing, without further reappearance of the framing part. Some of these initial framings can be seen as ‘narrative’ as they show a ‘telling voice’ as, e.g., the “Introduzione” to Papillons (see Figure 11):

Figure 11: Papillons, “Introduzione” Narrative Framing in Schumann’s Piano Pieces 331

Some pieces, like, e.g., Papillons, No. 11 (see Figure 12), have neither double-voicing nor a telling voice but open with a separate phrase which, however, performs a mere announcing function like a flourish in preparation for the pol- onaise to start:

Figure 12: Papillons, No. 11

In Papillons, No. 9, “Prestissimo” (see Figure 13), we find an opening section that is strongly contrastive to the rest of the piece but, like in No. 11, shows no telling voice. Yet in this case it has no mere announcing function and appears to be part of the main discourse of the work.

Similarly, in Papillons, No. 10 (see Figure 14), we find even two introductory sections – in themselves strongly contrastive – which give way to the much longer main part of the piece, a spacious waltz. What is interesting in this case is a sudden interruption of the waltz – strongly contrastive in texture – towards the end of the piece (bars 10 to 14 from the end, in ff): we definitely hear another voice, and its musical material is clearly reminiscent of the opening of the piece. So this is a case of internal framing. It is a structure like this that brought Schumann’s early piano works – as mentioned before – the criticism of being “zerbröckelt” (‘crumbled’ or ‘fragmented’). Such a structure is paratactical with no implication of a narrative hierarchy of voices, but the sequence of parts suggests a framing situation rather than a mere medley, as many contemporary listeners were inclined to see it. 332 Narrative Framing in Schumann’s Piano Pieces

Narrative Framing in Schumann’s Piano Pieces 333

Figures 13 & 14: Papillons, Nos. 9 & 10 334 Narrative Framing in Schumann’s Piano Pieces

To characterize, by way of summary, the use of framing in some of Schu- mann’s piano pieces, I take my departure from Jeffrey Williams’s helpful considerations (cf. 1998). It is Williams’s central concern to define the various functions of literary framings in relation to the framed stories, and it is one of his aims to show that they form part of the self-reflexivity stratagems of literary narratives (cf. ibid.: 102). In so doing he distances himself from positions that give a mere marginal position to framing borders and see them as only “ancillary” and “extraneous” “appetizers” (ibid.: 4), as a mere “ornament or façade on a building”, “supplemental”, “negligible”, “arbitrary” and “non-necessary” (ibid.: 104). The function that Derrida attributes to a picture frame as a “par- ergon” (1987: 144), as a “bastard” element (Williams 1998: 104) that is “neither work nor outside-the-work” (Derrida 1987: 122), is not appropriately attributed to literary framings – according to Williams – because literary frames are far more intimately linked to the embedded story – with self-reflexive purposes – than picture frames are8.

Looking at framings in music, as I have done with Schumann’s piano pieces, one can assert that they are equally never merely ‘supplemental’ or ‘orna- mental’ ‘parerga’ but always integral parts of the works themselves that cannot be cut off or left out without seriously damaging the work. This is true even for the brief prologue framings of a purely introductory nature which we have seen (e.g., Papillons, “Introduzione”, see Figure 11, or No. 11, see Figure 12). In this respect musical framings are, of course, far nearer to framings in narrative fiction than in traditional paintings. Yet their link to the ‘framed narrative’ is in all cases more intimate than in typical literary frame-stories as it is more difficult in music to establish unequivocally two distinct voices of presentation, which is a necessary prerequisite for the experience of framing in temporal media. We said at the beginning that it takes a narrative impulse or stance to become aware of such double-voicing in music, and as we went along we found musical conditions that encourage the identification of double-voicing, mainly conditions of textural contrast and disruption. Of course, the ultimate onto- logical reason for the necessarily integral status of framings in the musical works they are part of, lies in the fact that music essentially lacks external referentiality. This is also the reason why the presence of two voices is unequivocally

8 Such an assessment is true for what Wolf refers to as “intratextual framings”; of course it does not apply to “extratextual framings” such as title pages, prefaces etc. (see Wolf’s “Introduction” in this volume [2006]). Narrative Framing in Schumann’s Piano Pieces 335

identifiable only in musical works which introduce obvious external references, as for example in Schumann’s Faschingsschwank aus Wien, op. 26 (1841), No. 1 (“Allegro”), where the Marseillaise is quoted9.

The topic of external referentiality brings me to my concluding remarks and the promised attempt to place my findings in the framework of musical narratology.

Werner Wolf, in his magisterial contribution to establishing an intermedial narratology (cf. 2002), is basically sceptical of musical narrativity and accepts only a ‘quasi-narrative’ status of music. He grounds his verdict on the premise that ‘every discourse that is supposed to stand in the service of narration, in order to fulfil the basic presentational qualities of narrative, must be capable of precise hetero-referentiality, i.e., of reference beyond the respective work and its medium’10. On such a rigid premise – and music’s essential external non-referentiality – it is rather unexpected that musical narrativity, in actual fact, gets so much benevolent treatment in Wolf’s study. He even gives a list of seven narratemes, of internal musical conditions or ‘stimuli’, that encourage a narrative reading of music (cf. 1998: 85 f.). This list summarizes succinctly what earlier research has brought forth and adds some new insights. In the following I slightly revise and extend this list in the light of the findings of this essay. I can here discuss only those additional points.

Wolf s first-mentioned narrateme is ‘a not too small length of the composition’ in order to give enough space for ‘temporal experience’, which is ‘typically suggested by narrative’11. This observation obviously reflects the experience of Mahlerian symphonies and their kinship to 19th-century novel writing (see Micznik’s careful analysis of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony, 2001: passim). Schu- mann’s piano pieces, however, have shown that length is no indispensable prerequisite for suggested musical narrativity and that even short pieces can evoke narrative conditions.

9 This, however, is no case of framing but a digression, to take up Williams’s meaningful distinction (cf. 1998: 107). 10 “Jeder Diskurs, der im Dienst des Narrativen stehen soll, muß zur Erfüllung der basalen Darstel- lungsqualität des Erzählens zu präziser Heteroreferenz, d. h. zu einer Referenz jenseits des betref- fenden Werkes und seines Mediums, befähigt sein” (Wolf 2002: 77). 11 “[...] ein nicht zu kleiner Umfang der Komposition [...], denn erst eine gewisse Länge würde die erzähltypische Suggestion zeitlicher Erfahrung auslösen können” (ibid: 85). 336 Narrative Framing in Schumann’s Piano Pieces

A further narrateme, following Wolf, is the ability of musical structures to evoke the ‘projection of figures’, among others by ‘recitative-like or tuneful melodies reminiscent of human voices’12. Such melodic structures may very well remind us of human voices, but a ‘recitative-like’ style of singing usually evokes a dramatic, rather than a narrative condition, and a ‘tuneful’ song a lyric one. The evocation of human voices and figures, as such, do not eo ipso establish the impression of narrative, and it takes a particular configuration of dynamic, agogic and melodic features, as discussed, to suggest a ‘telling’ voice.

The issue of ‘voice’ is taken up again on Wolf’s list when he refers to Car- olyn Abbate’s discussion of a “narrating” or “narrative voice” as a narrateme13. Abbate sees a “narrative voice” related to “imitation of singing” (1991: 19), but “imitation of singing” alone is, again, not sufficient to suggest a ‘narrating voice’; narration is only one form of applying a voice. Abbate’s investigations following up the idea of a narrating voice concentrate on opera and programme music but do not address themselves more specifically to the particular style of singing that suggests the speaking voice of someone telling a story (what I call a ‘telling voice’). Here a terminological clarification is in place: I avoid using the terms ‘narrative voice’ or ‘narrating voice’ for what I call ‘telling voice’ because ‘voice’ in ‘narrative voice’ implies reference to a narrative persona, i.e., the presentational instance or agency of a work, while ‘voice’ in ‘telling voice’ refers to the performative instrument of auditory articulation.

The notion of ‘double-voicing’ (and here ‘voice’ refers to presentational instances) as discussed in this paper does not feature in Wolf’s list of narratemes, other than by implication. The list talks about ‘contrast relations’ and ‘unexpected developments’ in music14, which we have observed as important preconditions for the experience of double-voicing. Wolf also refers to ‘musical harmony and forms’ as bases for such contrasts to be perceived as ‘elements

12 “Bereitstellung von Strukturen [...], welche die Projektion von Figuren gestatten”, z. B. durch “rezitativähnliche oder sangliche und daher an eine menschliche Stimme erinnernde Melo- dieführung” (ibid.: 85f.). 13 Abbate 1991: 19 and passim; see Wolf 2002: 86. 14 “Kontrastrelationen”; “überraschende[...] Unvorhersehbarkeit der musikalischen Entwicklung” (Wolf 2002: 85). Narrative Framing in Schumann’s Piano Pieces 337

of narrative development’15. One could name any further elements of musical texture and articulation, like dynamics, agogics, rhythm etc. – in addition to harmony and forms – that are capable of contributing to contrastive situations. The conclusion that such contrastive situations in musical developments may mirror contrastive voices, or levels, of the musical discourse can easily be drawn: I have tried to demonstrate that contrastive voices of this kind can in some cases even be interpreted in terms of a narrative hierarchy between an extradiegetical narrative voice and an embedded narrative voice, which condition establishes a genuine narrative framing situation. True, such situations are not extremely frequent in music but they naturally belong to the strategies of the kind of ‘literary’ music that Schumann and others of his cultural background had in mind. Narratologists may be reluctant to accept the existence of such two voices in music because they are used to associating with the two narrative levels two distinct worlds of experience, which – because of its lack of external reference – cannot unequivocally be established in music. We may identify such a distinction, however, if we do not expect actual worlds to be presented and actual stories to be told in music, but are prepared to experience the structural morphology of stories. And such an experience of narrative morphology may be triggered and suggested by an initial ‘telling voice’ in the music.

A ‘telling voice’, by imitating the speech of someone telling, or announcing to tell, a story, introduces an element of external reference into the music and is, thus, an iconic device – and, in fact, a typical iconic device in music as it represents a performative and gestural feature. To sum up: the genuinely musical device of an iconic gestural ‘telling voice’ in music may trigger in the listener a narrative impulse and, in combination with contrastive situations in the musical development, is able to suggest the presence of two separate narrative voices or levels that may establish a narrative framing situation. Without identifying such ‘narrative’ conditions in Schumann’s piano pieces we clearly reduce the intellectual pleasure and aesthetic satisfaction that Schumann meant to stimulate in his audience.

15 “[...] die Anwendung einer musikalischen Harmonik und Formenlehre, vor deren Hintergrund z. B. Kontraste, Erwartungen, Spannungen und Lösungen als Elemente erzählerischer Entwicklung überhaupt erst wahrnehmbar werden” (ibid.: 86). 338 Narrative Framing in Schumann’s Piano Pieces

References

Abbate, Carolyn (1991). Unsung Voices: Opera and Musical Narrative in the Nineteenth Century. Prin- ceton, NJ: Princeton UP. Daverio, John (1997). Robert Schumann: Herald of a ‘New ‘Poetic Age’. New York/Oxford: OUP. Derrida, Jacques (1987). The Truth of Painting. Trans. Geoff Bennington, Ian McLeod. Chicago, IL: Chicago UP. Dietel, Gerhard (1989). ‘Eine neue poetische Zeit’: Musikanschauung und stilistische Tendenzen im Kla- vierwerk Robert Schumanns. Kassel et al.: Bärenreiter. Draheim, Joachim (1996). “Schumanns Kinderszenen op. 15: Offene Fragen, neue Antworten, unbe- kannte Materialien”. Gerd Nauhaus, ed. Schumann-Studien 5. Köln: Studio. 55–64. Kramer, Lawrence (1990). Music as Cultural Practice 1800–1900. Berkeley, CA/London: Univ. of Ca- lifornia Press. Micznik, Vera (2001). “Music and Narrative Revisited: Degrees of Narrativity in Beethoven and Mah- ler”. Journal of the Royal Musical Association 126: 193–249. Nattiez, Jean-Jacques (1990). “Can One Speak of Narrativity in Music?”. Katherine Ellis, ed. Journal of the Royal Musical Association 115: 240–257. Williams, Jeffrey (1998). Theory and the Novel: Narrative Reflexivity in the British Tradition. Cam- bridge: CUP. Wolf, Werner (2002). “Das Problem der Narrativität in Literatur, bildender Kunst und Musik: Ein Beitrag zu einer intermedialen Erzähltheorie”. Vera Nünning, Ansgar Nünning, eds. Erzähltheo- rie transgenerisch, intermedial, interdisziplinär. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag. 23–104. — (2004). “‘Cross the Border – Close the Gap’: Towards an Intermedial Narratology”. European Jour- nal of English Studies 8/1: 81–103. — (2006). “Introduction: Frames, Framings and Framing Borders in Literature and Other Media”. Werner Wolf, Walter Bernhart, eds. Framing Borders in Literature and Other Media. Studies in Intermediality 1. Amsterdam/New York, NY: Rodopi. 1–40.] ‘Musikalische Verse’: “Ich weiß nicht, was soll es bedeuten” [2006]

Wenn ich als Untertitel für dieses Referat die Formulierung “Ich weiß nicht, was soll es bedeuten” gewählt habe, so sicherlich nicht deshalb, weil ich Diet- mar Goltschnigg, der hier über Heinrich Heine sprechen wird, ins Gehege kommen möchte – dies schon deshalb nicht, weil ich primär Anglist bin und nur nebenbei auch Germanist, weshalb im Übrigen die Textbeispiele, die ich fallweise heranziehen möchte, aus der englischen Literatur stammen.

Vor allem wählte ich den Untertitel – wie überhaupt die Thematik für dieses Referat – als Geste gegenüber Steven Paul Scher, dem zu Weihnachten 2004 völlig unerwartet und allzu früh verstorbenen Bahnbrecher und Vorden- ker der Wort/Musik-Forschung. Scher gilt gemeiniglich als der Begründer der modernen Intermedialitätsforschung im Bereich von Literatur und Musik, und es war für ihn besonders erfreulich – und kann post festum als eine glück- liche Fügung angesehen werden –, dass seine gesammelten Schriften zu Litera- tur und Musik noch kurz vor seinem Tode in der Buchreihe Word and Music Studies erschienen sind (s. Bernhart/Wolf Hgg. 2004).

Einer der früheren Aufsätze Schers, wiederabgedruckt in diesem Band und ursprünglich 1972 erschienen, trägt den Titel “How Meaningful Is ‘Musical’ in Literary Criticism?”. Der Tenor dieses Aufsatzes liegt in einer für seine noch stark dem Paradigma des New Criticism verpflichtete Entstehungszeit charak- teristischen Skepsis gegenüber allzu unbedachten fach- und medienübergrei- fenden Analogiesetzungen und daher recht deutlichen Ablehnung der Verwen- dung des Begriffs ‘musikalisch’ im literaturkritischen Diskurs. So umreißt der hier gewählte Titel, “Ich weiß nicht, was soll es bedeuten”, die Haltung Schers, wenngleich sich die Formulierung nicht wörtlich so bei ihm findet. Die Tat- sache, dass ich sie als Titel für meine Überlegungen gewählt habe, impliziert, dass ich die Anwendung des Begriffs ‘musikalisch’ auf literarische Phänomene, im Speziellen auf Versdichtung, auf ähnliche Weise wie Scher als im Wesentli- 340 ‘Musikalische Verse’: “Ich weiß nicht, was soll es bedeuten”

chen problematisch ansehe. Es ist mir jedoch ein Anliegen, mehr Verständnis dafür zu wecken, dass man überhaupt auf die Idee kommen kann, von ‘musikalischen Versen’ zu sprechen, selbst wenn damit keine eindeutigen und un- missverständlichen Aussagen gemacht werden können. Keineswegs kann am Ende meiner Überlegungen stehen, dass ich quasi ex cathedra feststelle, inwieweit und unter welchen Bedingungen es nun doch gerechtfertigt erscheint, von ‘musikalischer Dichtung’ zu sprechen. Wohl aber hoffen die anzustellenden Beobachtungen etwas klarer herauszustellen, welche Qualitäten von Dichtung angesprochen sind, wenn sie als ‘musikalische Dichtung’ eingestuft wird, und damit auch einen kleinen Beitrag zur allgemeinen Definitionsproblematik von Lyrik und Versdichtung zu leisten. Auf diese Weise kann der interdisziplinäre Diskurs zur Erhellung von Phänomenen innerhalb einer Disziplin – in diesem Fall der Literaturwissenschaft – beitragen, die ohne diesen Diskurs noch stärker im Dunkeln liegen würden, als sie es ohnehin tun. Ich spreche also eindeutig als Literaturwissenschaftler und kann auch beobachten, dass die meisten Feststellungen über ‘musikalische Verse’, die ich kenne, von Literaturleuten stammen. Umso mehr ist es von Interesse, wie Musikwissenschaftler und Mu- siker auf diese Fragestellung reagieren.

Schers prinzipielle Ablehnung eines ‘metaphorischen Impressionismus’ (s. 1972)1 bei allzu vager Analogiesetzung von Musik und Dichtung stützt sich auf Zitate folgender Art: Coleridge, der bedeutende englische Romantiker, etwa schreibt mit Blick auf Shakespeare: “Ein Mensch ohne Musik in der Seele kann kein echter Dichter sein. ” (zit. ebd.: 41)2 Ezra Pound, der bahnbrechende frühe Modernist, meint ähnlich unbestimmt: “In melopoeia [dies ist Pounds Begriff für ‘musikalische Dichtung’] sind die Worte über ihre einfache Bedeu- tung hinaus mit einer gewissen musikalischen Eigenschaft aufgeladen, welche die Haltung oder Tendenz dieser Bedeutung bestimmt.” ( zit. ebd..: 39)3 Je- doch verlautet Pound im Anschluss nichts Genaueres über diese ‘gewisse musikalische Eigenschaft’. Ein besonders markantes Beispiel stammt von Luigi Ronga (der allerdings Professor für Musikgeschichte in Rom war, geschrieben 1956): Gute Dichtung zeige “jenes geheimnisvolle rhythmische und melische

1 Wiederabdr.: Bernhart/Wolf, Hgg. 2004: 38. 2 “The man that has not music in his soul can indeed never be a genuine poet.” 3 “In melopoeia [...] the words are charged, over and above their plain meaning, with some musical property, which directs the bearing or trend of that meaning.” ‘Musikalische Verse’: “Ich weiß nicht, was soll es bedeuten” 341

Pulsieren, welches auch die genaueste Analyse nicht erfassen kann. Alle großen Dichter sind daher musikalisch.” ( zit. ebd..: 40)4

Gegenüber solcher Vagheit bezieht sich die am häufigsten zu beobachtende, etwas konkretere Verwendung des Begriffs ‘musikalische Dichtung’ auf einen Aspekt des Schönklangs, demzufolge ‘musikalische Verse‘ einfach ‘hübsch klingen’, eine Feststellung, die üblicherweise auch ein Werturteil impliziert und auf eine angenehme Gestaltung der Verse auf der lautlichen Ebene anspielt. In der monumentalen New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, in der sich die summa heutigen poetologischen Wissens versammelt findet, verweist der Artikel “Music of Poetry” (s. Winn 1993) interessanterweise zunächst auf den Eintrag “Euphony”, in welchem der Begriff der Euphonie als jene Qualität von Dichtung definiert wird, die dann gegeben ist, wenn der Text “angenehme, leicht auszusprechende, oder weich-fließende Laute enthält, die frei von Härte sind” (Bishop 1993: 389)5. Euphonie ist zwar eine nicht eindeutig fassbare Er- scheinung, doch lässt sie sich anhand weitgehend objektivierbarer phonetischer Strukturen belegen. Sie ist bereits seit Dionysius von Halicarnassus thematisiert und hängt mit Momenten der Sonorität und Stimmhaftigkeit von Lauten zusammen und ist prinzipiell eine Frage der geringen Obstruktion im sprachlichen Artikulationsstrom. Leichte Artikulation zeitigt also Euphonie und ist – einer gängigen Auffassung zufolge – daher ‘musikalisch’.

Gegen diese von ihm als die ‘akustische’ bezeichnete Deutung von ‘musikalischer Dichtung’ wendet sich Scher mit dem verständlichen Argument, dass Musik ja nicht eo ipso euphonisch sei; die akustische Dimension der Sprache in der Dichtung könne ja auch durchaus ‘kakophon’ sein und somit keinen Wohl- klang ausmachen. Wenn man also eine klangliche Qualität von Versen anspre- chen wolle (sei diese nun konsonant oder dissonant), sollte man, nach Scher, eben ‘euphonisch’ oder ‘kakophon’ sagen und sinnvollerweise den Begriff ‘musikalisch’ für ‘euphonisch’ vermeiden (vgl. Scher 2004: 45).

Scher schließt sich hier explizit – wenn auch auf viel gemildetere Weise – der provokant formulierten Auffassung Northrop Fryes an, der in seiner sei-

4 “[...] that mysterious rhythmic and melic pulsation which even the closest analysis cannot capture. All great poets, therefore, are musical.”

5 “The quality of having pleasant, easily pronounced, or smooth-flowing sounds, free from harshness”. 342 ‘Musikalische Verse’: “Ich weiß nicht, was soll es bedeuten”

nerzeit viel beachteten und grundlegenden Anatomy of Criticism von 1957 eine radikale Ablehnung der Gleichsetzung von Euphonie und Musikalität in der Dichtung propagierte. Frye bezeichnete eine solche Gleichsetzung als die ‘sentimentale ’ Verwendung des Begriffs ‘musikalisch ’ und setzte dieser eine – von ihm so bezeichnete – ‘technische’ Verwendung entgegen. Dies ist Fryes Defini- tionsversuch: “Wenn wir in der Dichtung eine stark hervorgehobene Betonung und eine variierbare Anzahl Silben zwischen den Betonungen haben, dann ist dies musikalische Dichtung, das heißt Dichtung, die in ihrer Struktur der zeit- genössischen Musik ähnlich ist.” Und weiter: “Dieser technische Gebrauch des Wortes musikalisch unterscheidet sich grundlegend von seiner gefühlsmäßi- gen Anwendung auf irgendwelche Dichtung, die hübsch klingt.” (Frye 1964: 256) Drastischer heißt es dann noch: “Wenn wir auf scharfe, bellende Akzen- te, holperige und schwierige Sprache, eine Häufung von Konsonanten und sich lang dahinschleppende Vielsilber stoßen, haben wir vermutlich melos vor uns oder Dichtung, die eine Analogie zur Musik [...] aufweist.” So verstandene ‘musikalische ’ Verse seien “für das Groteske und Schreckliche” geeignet und mit “einem verschrobenen Intellektualismus” (ebd..: 257) verwandt. So weit Frye.

Die Beispiele, die Frye anführt, um in seinem Sinn ‘musikalische’ Verse gegenüber ‘sentimentalen’, ‘unmusikalischen’ Versen zu charakterisieren, seien hier nicht vorenthalten. Sie stammen vom (wie Frye meint) ‘unmusikalischen’, ‘euphonischen’ Lord Tennyson und dem ‘musikalischen’, ‘sperrigen’ Robert Browning.

‘O mother Ida, many-fountained Ida, Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die. I waited underneath the dawning hills,

Aloft the mountain lawn was dewy-dark, And dewy dark aloft the mountain pine: […].’

Alfred Lord Tennyson, “Oenone” (1969/1972: 385/V. 44–48) ‘Musikalische Verse’: “Ich weiß nicht, was soll es bedeuten” 343

I could favour you with sundry touches Of the paint-smutches with which the Duchess Heightened the mellowness of her cheek’s yellowness (To get on faster) until at last her Cheek grew to be one master-plaster Of mucus and fucus from mere use of ceruse: In short, she grew from scalp to udder Just the object to make you shudder.

Robert Browning, “The Flight of the Duchess” (1970: 466/ V. 826-833)

Man wird die Weigerung Fryes, Tennysons Text mit seinem Vokalreichtum und seinen vorwiegend stimmhaften Konsonanten als – aufgrund dessen – besonders ‘musikalisch’ einzustufen, nachvollziehen können; aber seine Alter- native gibt nun doch einige Nüsse zu knacken auf, denn allzu vieles scheint hier schräg zu liegen. Um auf seine zitierten Definitionen von ‘musikalischer Dichtung’ zurückzukommen: Frye spricht von einer “stark hervorgehobenen Betonung” und einem “vorwärtsdrängenden, akzentuierten Impetus der Mu- sik”, dessen Rhythmus aus dem Tanz stammt (1964: 256), und er sagt weiter – was seine Position besonders deutlich macht –, dass ‘musikalische Dichtung’ “in ihrer Struktur der zeitgenössischen Musik ähnlich ist”. Dies verdeutlicht zum einen, dass er also von einer historisch stark eingeengten Musikvorstel- lung ausgeht (‘zeitgenössische Musik’), und zum anderen wird klar, dass für Frye das Entscheidende für die ‘Musikalität’ von Dichtung in einer Analogie von Strukturen in der Dichtung mit Strukturen in der Musik liegt. Eine solche Strukturparallele glaubt er also zwischen der – wie er feststellt – dynamischen und metronomisch-scharf akzentuierten Viertaktstruktur der Musik (ganz verallgemeinert) einerseits und dem Browningschen Gedicht andererseits zu erkennen6. Sich einer solchen neuerlichen – gegenüber der Euphonie-Vorstel- lung noch viel radikaleren – Einschränkung der Musikauffassung wird man sich schwerlich anschließen können, wenngleich man verstehen kann, dass in der historischen Stunde der 1950er-Jahre angesichts der rasanten Entwicklung der (damals) Neuen Musik der Wunsch nach einer Ablösung von, wie er sie nennt, ‘sentimental’-romantischen Musikvorstellungen bestand. (Auf analoge

6 Darüber hinaus sieht er das akzentische Viertaktprinzip als das in der englischen Sprache (!) grundlegend wirksame musikalische Prinzip überhaupt an: “Eine Zeile mit vier Betonungen scheint der Struktur der englischen Sprache inhärent zu sein” (ebd..: 252). 344 ‘Musikalische Verse’: “Ich weiß nicht, was soll es bedeuten”

Weise ist verständlich, dass Elias Canetti interessanterweise einmal feststellte, dass er die tschechische Bezeichnung für Musik, hudba, als für die Musik Bartóks oder Bergs viel passender empfinde als das Wort Musik, das sich ja in den meisten übrigen Sprachen in irgendeiner Form in Verwendung findet: Das ‘euphonische’ Wort Musik entspreche viel weniger als hudba dem Charakter der modernen Musik.7)

Scher schließt sich im Prinzip der Auffassung Fryes an, dass die einzige Ebene, auf der es sinnvoll erscheint, von ‘musikalischer’ Dichtung zu reden, die strukturelle ist (ohne allerdings die starke Beschränkung des Strukturdimen- sion bei Frye zu beleuchten). Dies wird auch anzuerkennen sein, wenn man davon ausgeht, dass die Organisation und Systematisierung von Klängen ein Grundzug von Musik ist. Bei dieser Betrachtung steht also das Gliederungs- moment gegenüber dem klanglichen im Vordergrund, wird also Musikana- logie in der Dichtung in einem abstrakteren, der Klangkomponente überge- ordneten Sinn gesehen. Dies ist ein essentiell anderer Zugang zu Musik in der Dichtung als der klangliche, ein Zugang, den auch T. S. Eliot in seiner einflus- sreichen Schrift “The Music of Poetry” (1942) thematisiert, wenn er nicht nur von ‘musikalischen Klangmustern’ in der Dichtung, sondern auch von ‘musikalischen Mustern von Sekundärbedeutungen der Wörter’ spricht8. Hier wird also ‘Musikalität’ auch für die semantische Ebene von Versen beansprucht, womit nur gemeint sein kann, dass ein ‘musikalisches’ Strukturierungsprin- zip eben wiederum auf einer allgemeineren, abstrakteren Ebene wirksam ist als bloß auf der akustischen. Man wird leicht feststellen können, dass eine solche abstrakte Verwendung des Musikbegriffs letztlich in der alten, ‘quadrivialen’ Tradition der theoretischen Vorstellung einer musica mundana steht, worauf sich wohl alle jene Äußerungen zurückführen lassen, die ‘musikalischer’ Dich- tung Qualitäten von ‘Proportion’, ‘Harmonie’ oder Ähnlichem zusprechen. (Wenn – wie oben zitiert – etwa Coleridge von der ‘Musik der Seele’ spricht, die den ‘echten’ Dichter auszeichne, stehen zweifellos solche letztlich pythago- räisch-platonisch inspirierten Vorstellungen dahinter.)

Eliot spricht sich also deutlich dagegen aus, dass das ‘Musikalische’ in der

7 s. Österreichischer Rundfunk (ORF), Radiosender Ö1, Sendung vom 15. Sept. 2005 (ohne nähere Angabe). 8 “[...] a ‘musical’ poem is a poem which has a musical pattern of sound and a musical pattern of the secondary meanings of the words which compose it” (Eliot 1942. 1984: 149) ‘Musikalische Verse’: “Ich weiß nicht, was soll es bedeuten” 345

Dichtung auf der Ebene des Klanglichen allein zu suchen sei, für ihn sind eben semantische Momente auf gleiche Weise der ‘Musikalisierung’ zugänglich. Da- mit wendet er sich gegen eine Schule des Dichtens, die zu seiner Zeit einiges Gewicht besaß, nämlich jene Schattierung symbolistischen Schreibens, die auf charakteristische Weise die Aussagedimension der Texte verschleierte und als sogenannte poésie pure den Klang zur dominanten Dimension erhob. Es handelt sich dabei um den Versuch von Autoren – kulminierend in Mallarmé –, sich von der semantischen Tyrannei der Sprache zu befreien und eine ‘autonome’ Dichtung zu schaffen, die inhaltlichen Momenten gegenüber indifferent ist. Diese Tradition, die weit ins 20. Jahrhundert hineinreichte (bis zur Beat- lyrik und zur ‘konkreten’ Lautdichtung), geht letztlich auf Edgar Allen Poe zurück, der bereits 1850 sein “Poetic Principle” formulierte, demzufolge die semantischen Eigenschaften der Sprache den phonetischen unterworfen sind (s. 1850. In der bereits zitierten Princeton Encyclopedia heißt es dazu – relevant für die hier verfolgte Fragestellung –, dass die pure poetry in ihrer Wirkung mit der Musik praktisch identisch sei und dem Wunsch der Symbolisten entspreche, in ihrer Dichtung den Zustand der Musik zu erreichen (s. Fishman/ Brogan 1993).

Ich möchte als ein Beispiel solcher Dichtung einen Text aus Edith Sitwells Façade zitieren, ein Werk, das hier interessant ist, weil es, unterlegt mit der Mu- sik William Waltons, von der Autorin rhythmisch rezitiert vorgetragen wurde, und weil es 1912 herauskam, im selben Jahr wie The Waste Land, also mit Be- zug zu Eliot, von dessen Ansichten wir hier ausgehen.

THAT hobnailed goblin, the bob-tailed Hob, Said, ‘It is time I began to rob.’ For strawberries bob, hob-nob with the pearls Of cream (like the curls of the dairy girls), And flushed with the heat and fruitish-ripe Are the gowns of the maids who dance to the pipe.

Edith Sitwell, “Country Dance” (Façade, 1912) (1957/1961: 130/V. 1–6) 346 ‘Musikalische Verse’: “Ich weiß nicht, was soll es bedeuten”

Der Titel dieses Gedichts, “Country Dance”, impliziert bereits eine entsprechend rhythmisch markierte Gestaltung und Lesung des Texts. Besonders aber finden sich auffällig viele lautliche Rekurrenzen in Form verschiedenster Reim- arten, sodass der gewünschte Effekt eintritt und die Aufmerksamkeit von der (ohnehin schwer fassbaren) Textaussage abgezogen wird. Sitwells Gedichte wurden gerne als Nonsens-Gedichte angesprochen (wenngleich es ausreichend kritische Versuche gibt, ihnen Sinn zu entlocken), und auch in diesem Gedicht fällt es schwer, über bloß Assoziatives hinaus eine schlüssige Textaussage fest- zumachen.

Da kann man gleich zur reinen Nonsens-Dichtung greifen und sich fragen, inwieweit diese nun ‘musikalisch’ sei. Das berühmteste Beispiel aus der viktorianischen Tradition ist Lewis Carrolls “Jabberwocky”:

’ Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.

Lewis Carroll, “Jabberwocky” (Through the Looking-Glass, 1872) (1939: 140/V.1–4)

In diesem sehr ungewöhnlichen Textstück, dem Anfang des Gedichts, sind alle Inhaltswörter nicht Bestandteil des englischen Lexikons, weshalb der Text keinen fixierbaren Sinn ergibt. Gleichzeitig sind aber die Funktionswörter eindeutig englisch, ebenso wie die Morphologie der Inhaltwörter: Diese sind also klar als Verba, Adjektiva etc. identifizierbar. Alice, mit diesem Text konfron- tiert, stellt deshalb auch klugerweise fest: ‘Irgendwie scheint es mir den Kopf mit Ideen voll zu stopfen – ich weiß nur nicht genau welche!’ (ebd..: 142)9 Die intakte – das heißt, den Konventionen entsprechende – Syntax suggeriert re- lationelle Sinnhaftigkeit, wenngleich bloß als eine erkennbare Form, als eine strukturelle Sinnhülle, jedoch ohne konkreten Inhalt.

Was können uns die letzten beiden Beispiele zeigen? Für die sogenannte ‘autonome’, ‘absolute’ pure poetry wird beansprucht, dass sie musikähnlich sei, indem sie die referentielle, wirklichkeitsbezogene Aussagedimension des Texts

9 “‘Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas – only I don‘t exactly know what they are! […].’” ‘Musikalische Verse’: “Ich weiß nicht, was soll es bedeuten” 347

vernachlässigt und im Ausgleich dafür die Klangebene eine besonders inten- sive Gestaltung und Strukturierung erfährt. Es ist allerdings interessant, dass diese poésie pure üblicherweise nicht als ‘musikalische Poesie’ bezeichnet wird, dass also eine Zurückhaltung besteht, das Musikalische auf rein Klangliches zu reduzieren – in diesem Fall also sehr wohl ohne Implikation eines Wohlklangs, im Gegensatz zum früher besprochenen Standardfall dessen, was gerne unter ‘musikalischer Dichtung’ verstanden wird. Dies kann wohl auf den nicht zu leugnenden Umstand zurückgeführt werden, dass die Klangseite der Sprache im Vergleich zu all den schier unbegrenzten Klangmöglichkeiten, die der Mu- sik offen stehen, extrem limitiert ist. Wie es W. K. Wimsatt – einer der pronon- ciertesten Vertreter des New Criticism – ausgedrückt hat: “Die Musik gespro- chener Worte ist in sich dürftig.” (zit. Brogan 1993: 1177)10 Es zeigt sich, dass das Hervorkehren der klanglichen Schicht des Texts allein – ohne Hinweis auf entweder eine allfällige euphonische Gestaltung des Klangs oder auf Parallelen in der Klangstruktur – nicht auszureichen scheint, um eine ‘Musikalität’ der Gedichte zu signalisieren.

Noch deutlicher wird dies im genannten Beispiel der Nonsens-Dichtung: Ein Text, der wie der Anfang von “Jabberwocky” keinen referentiellen Bedeu- tungsbezug besitzt, wird aufgrund dessen allein noch nicht als ‘musikalisch’ einstufbar, obgleich das Fehlen einer solchen Referenz als ein wesentlicher As- pekt des Musikalischen angesehen wird. Darüber hinaus zeigt “Jabberwocky” eine geringe Strukturierung auf der klanglichen Ebene (im Gegensatz zu etwa Sitwells “Country Dance”), zumindest keine, die über das Übliche in Verstexten hinausgeht (Endreim und allfällige Alliterationen). Gleichwohl ist die Form- ebene dieses Nonsens-Gedichts insofern sehr musikähnlich, als das Fehlen konkreter Inhalte bei einer sinnfälligen, im wesentlichen konventionell fixierten Formgebung von Klangmaterial als ein wichtiges Merkmal musikalischer Gestaltung gilt.

Wenn bisher einige Positionen abgetastet wurden, welche die ‘Musikalität’ von Versen anhand klanglicher oder anhand struktureller Bestimmungsgrö- ßen definiert sehen wollen (zu letzteren werden wir noch zurückkommen), so gibt es noch eine andere Betrachtungsperspektive, in der ein weiteres Moment des Musikalischen Berücksichtigung findet, nämlich die prosodische Ebene

10 “[…] the music of spoken words is in itself meagre.”. 348 ‘Musikalische Verse’: “Ich weiß nicht, was soll es bedeuten”

der Dichtung. Auch hier ist es wieder einer der großen Dichter – vielleicht der bedeutendste englischsprachige Dichter des 20. Jahrhunderts –, der sich diese Dimension des Musikalischen in der Dichtung zum Anliegen machte. William Butler Yeats stellte nämlich fest, dass er eine ganz bestimmte ‘Art und Weise von Musik’ (“manner of music”) in seiner eigenen Dichtung entdecke (1961: 15), und zwar in deren “tune and rhythm” (‘Melodie und Rhythmus’) (ebd..: 16). Yeats gestand sehr entwaffnend, dass er und einige andere Geistesgrößen seiner Zeit, die er nennt, zwar völlig unmusikalisch seien, dass sie die Musik an sich hassten und nicht die eine Melodie von einer anderen unterscheiden könnten – dass sie aber sehr wohl die ‘Musik der Dichtung’ (ebd..: 20)11 liebten. Diese ‘Musik der Dichtung’ liegt nach Yeats eben in der Prosodie der Sprache, in der Intonation und im rhythmischen Verlauf der Sprachartikulation, sie ist also dem Text als Sprachmaterial inhärent. Diese Seite der Sprache will Yeats auch in der Rezitation von Gedichten hervorgekehrt sehen, was in der Praxis auf eine Art chanting hinausläuft, bei der die prosodische Ebene der Sprech- stimme überhöht wird, jedoch ohne dabei ins Singen zu verfallen. (Yeats ver- suchte sich in seinem Essay sogar an Notationen eines solchen chanting.) Wie viele Dichter war auch Yeats skeptisch gegenüber musikalischen Vertonungen seiner Gedichte, schätzte aber sehr wohl, wenn sie emphatisch gelesen werden, was ihre inhärente ‘Musik’ in seinem Sinn (also ihre Prosodie) hervorkehrt. (Man denke etwa auch an Goethe und seine Vorliebe für Zelters ‘prosodische’ Vertonungen im Gegensatz zu denen Schuberts; (s. Bernhart 1988). Dadurch entsteht – nach Yeats – jene ‘subtile Monotonie’, die jede Kunst an der Oberfläche auszeichnet, um die Entfaltung ‘innerer Vielfalt’ zu ermögli- chen12 (vgl. 1961: 18).

Northrop Frye hat sich ebenfalls mit Yeats auseinandergesetzt und erkannt, dass es zwei grundverschiedene Vorstellungen von melos in der Dich- tung gibt: die eine, die ‘den äußeren Einfluss der autonomen Kunst der Musik reflektiert’, also externe Analogien zur Musik setzt (was auch seine eigene, oben referierte Position ist); und die andere, die ‘bestimmte musikalische Elemen- te in die verbale Struktur integriert’, also sprachinhärente prosodische Fakto-

11 “[…] the music [...] of poetry ”. 12 “[…] that subtle monotony of voice […]. All art is, indeed, a monotony in external things for the sake of an interior variety”. ‘Musikalische Verse’: “Ich weiß nicht, was soll es bedeuten” 349

ren berücksichtigt (wie etwa Yeats)13 (Fry 1957: xxiv). Der letzteren Position entspricht die lange humanistische Tradition, derzufolge man in der rhythmischen Schicht der Gedichte die Verwandtschaft mit der Musik zu erfassen meinte (s. Bernhart 199314). (Noch Milton spricht vom “musikalischen Ver- gnügen” in den Versen seines großen Epos Paradise Lost, das “nur im passenden Rhythmus, der geeigneten Silbenquantität”15 [zit. Frye 1964: 258] liegt.)

Sprechen wir von der rhythmischen Ebene der Gedichte, so sprechen wir aber auch wiederum von Strukturmomenten, und es zeigt sich, dass eine wesentliche Formkomponente der Dichtung eben in ihrer inhärenten Materia- lität liegt, die einer gezielten Strukturierung unterworfen ist. Schon die Ety- mologie des Wortes ‘Vers’ verweist auf ‘Wiederkehr’, und es ist offensichtlich, dass sich im Rhythmus ein Rekurrenzprinzip manifestiert. Die Princeton En- cyclopedia führt auch konsequenterweise die Wiederholung als “grundlegendes einheitsstiftendes Prinzip aller Dichtung” an, woraus für die Dichtung ein “er- höhter Quotient der Selbstreferenz” resultiert (Shapiro 1993: 1035)16. Schon Roman Jakobson hat die ‘poetische Funktion’ ja in diesem Sinne definiert (s. 1960).

Was hat dies nun mit Musik zu tun? Aus struktureller Sicht wird gerade für die Musik ein besonders hoher Grad an Rekurrenz beansprucht, was dazu führt, dass Selbstreferentialität geradezu als ein kennzeichnendes Merkmal von Musik anzusehen ist. Durch das weitgehende Fehlen konventioneller Hetero- referenz in der Musik ist diese Kunstform aufgrund ihrer Formgebungsprinzi- pien der Paradefall selbstreferentieller ästhetischer Gestaltung. Heißt das also, je mehr Wiederholung und damit Selbstreferenz sich findet, desto ,musikalischer‘ und damit ‘ästhetischer’? Geht es nach diesem Kriterium, dann sind von den besprochenen Gedichtbeispielen Fryes – Tennyson und Browning – beide als sehr ‘musikalisch’ anzusehen, weil sie beide überdurchschnittlich häufige Rekurrenzen auf lexikalischer und phonetischer Ebene aufweisen.

13 “[…] a contrast between two conceptions of melos: one which reflects the external influence of the autonomous art of music, and one which incorporates certain musical elements into a verbal structure”. 14 v. a. Kap. VI: “Kunstideologische Voraussetzungen der Rhythmusdiskussion der Zeit”. 307–338. 15 “[...] true musical delight; which consists only in apt numbers, fit quantity of syllables […]”. 16 “R[epetition] is a basic unifying principle in all poetry […] resulting in a heightened quotient of self-reference”. 350 ‘Musikalische Verse’: “Ich weiß nicht, was soll es bedeuten”

Eine solche Sichtweise hat durchaus etwas für sich und erklärt zumindest die vielleicht interessanteste Äußerung der Ästhetikgeschichte im Zusammen- hang mit der hier verfolgten Fragestellung, nämlich Walter Paters bekanntes Diktum: “Alle Kunst strebt ständig nach dem Zustand der Musik.” (Pater 1982: 473)17 Nach Pater, dem Vater des Ästhetizismus in England, ist der angestrebte Zustand ein solcher der Identität von Form und Inhalt: dass die “Form [...] selbst zum Endzweck werde, jeden Teil des Stoffes durchdringen sollte” (ebd..). Diese l‘art-pour-l‘art-Haltung mit dem Ziel eines Form-Inhalt-Zusammenfalls ist ja auch jene, die bei Eliot zu beobachten war, wenn er von ‘musikalischen Klangmustern’ sprach, die mit ‘musikalischen Mustern von Sekundärbedeu- tungen der Wörter’ identisch sind: “indissoluble and one” (Eliot 1942/1984 149). Der Vorteil dieser Haltung gegenüber jenen, welche entweder eine ‘musikalische’ Komponente der Dichtung bloß auf der reinen Klangebene zu erkennen glauben oder in der Musik angewandte Strukturprinzipien von außen per analogiam an Verstexte herantragen, liegt darin, dass hier inhaltliche Mo- mente nicht ausgeblendet werden, sondern vielmehr von der Sprache mit ihren Wörtern ausgegangen wird. Gleichwohl findet aber durch die ‘poetische Funk- tion’ und damit durch die Hervorkehrung der Formebene quasi eine semantische Entlastung statt, und die ästhetische Erfahrung beruht dann in einem Schwebezustand zwischen inhaltlicher und formaler Erfahrung, in semioti- scher Sprache in einer ausgleichenden Aufmerksamkeitsverteilung zwischen Signifikat und Signifikant. Dies wird zumindest von Pater und Eliot als der angestrebte ästhetische Zustand angesehen, der primär die Musik auszeichnet. Wenn das so ist, dann heißt das aber auch, dass es von der Rezeptionshaltung des Einzelnen abhängt, ob man bei der Lektüre eines Gedichttextes bereit ist, einen solchen Form-Inhalt-Zusammenhang zu erkennen oder nicht. Wenn man dies tut – und nur, wenn man dies tut – rezipiert man ihn als ‘musikalisch’ – unabhängig davon, welches Formmoment man nun als signifikant aktiviert. Liegt darin nun ‘eigentlich’ die ‘Musik’ der Dichtung?

Carl Friedrich Zelter hat in einem berühmt gewordenen Brief an Schiller aus dem Jahre 1798 auf dessen Frage, was denn Musik ‘eigentlich’ sei, Folgen- des geantwortet:

17 “All art constantly aspires towards the condition of music.” (Pater 1873: 133). ‘Musikalische Verse’: “Ich weiß nicht, was soll es bedeuten” 351

Sie können mich wohl fragen, was ich unter musikalisch verstehe, und so will ich Ihnen nun gleich sagen, dass ich es selbst nicht recht weiss; dass ich aber von andern Musikern weiss, dass sie es auch nicht wissen; und dass die meisten unter ihnen so unwissend sind nicht zu wissen, dass sie es nicht wissen [...]. Wir Musiker [haben] gar keinen bestimmten Begriff für das was wir musikalisch nennen. (z. Scher 2004: 41f.)

Wir wollen uns als Forscher und als Theoretiker nicht klüger dünken als die Praktiker, und mein Versuch, einen Überblick über einige Bedeutungen zu geben, die dem Begriff ‘musikalisch’ von jenen beigemessen wurden, die sich über Dichtung Gedanken machen, hat wohl deutlich gemacht, dass keine Ein- helligkeit in dieser Frage besteht. Zu sehr fließen bei solchen Äußerungen in- dividuell sehr unterschiedlich bestehende Vorstellungen dessen, was das ‘Mu- sikalische’ ausmacht, in die Aussagen ein. Dass mir manche Verwendung des Begriffs sinnvoller erscheint als andere, wird sich vermittelt haben, aber es soll hier der Schritt von der Deskription zur Präskription – wie einleitend gesagt – natürlich sehr bewusst nicht getan werden. Vielmehr soll es uns freuen – und hiermit gehe ich über einen skeptischen terminologischen Rigorismus hinaus –, dass bei vielen Kunstinteressierten der intermediale Impuls stark genug ist, sodass bei ihnen der Wunsch besteht, auch auf der Ebene der Begriffsverwen- dung eine ‘wechselseitige Erhellung der Künste’ zu betreiben. Dass man sich dabei aber zumindest auch kritische Gedanken darüber machen soll, was man denn eigentlich damit meint, wenn man Verse als ‘musikalisch’ bezeichnet, scheint immerhin eine legitime Forderung zu sein. 352 ‘Musikalische Verse’: “Ich weiß nicht, was soll es bedeuten”

References

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Myth-making Opera: David Malouf’s and Michael Berkeley’s Jane Eyre [2007]

David Malouf, one of Australia’s leading writers and intellectuals, read Jane Eyre (and Wuthering Heights) at the age of twelve when he spent hot Christ- mas holidays at Surfers Paradise, and was fascinated by Jane going for a walk in the snow (cf. “Lost Classics” 7). This fascination with the world of Jane Eyre made him suggest the story for a second opera on which to collaborate with Michael Berkeley, whose earlier opera, Baa Baa Black Sheep, with a libretto by Malouf based on Rudyard Kipling’s youth and his Jungle Books, had been very successfully premiered in 1993. Berkeley “really took a very big breath” (qtd. Service 2002: 6) at the suggestion, knowing about the challenge of basing his new opera on one of the best-known and best-loved novels in the English language. With Malouf, however, he was in very good hands for meeting that challenge of writing a successful libretto drawn from a sensitive literary text: it was to be Malouf’s fourth libretto, two of which he had written for the Aus- tralian composer Richard Meale (Voss, 1986, based on Patrick White’s great novel, and Mer de Glace, 1991, based on Frankenstein), the third being Baa Baa Black Sheep. All the stories which Malouf has turned into librettos have an element of “the mythic or fantastic” (Benson: 3), which speaks for the writer’s wisdom about opera, and Berkeley was happy to acknowledge that Malouf “really understands the nature of opera” (Copeland 6). Stephen Benson (passim) has carefully traced Malouf’s very sound conceptions of music, in particular his views on the libretto, especially as they apply to Berkeley’s operas. We will return to these views later, yet a general statement by Malouf will be able to form a fruitful point of departure for our discussion of Berkeley’s opera Jane Eyre as an adaptation of the Brontë novel: “No libretto can reproduce the novel from which it is drawn. […] The best a libretto can do is reproduce the experience of the book in a new and radically different form.” (Malouf 1986, qtd. Halliwell: 2001: 33) 356 Myth-Making Opera: David Malouf ’s and Michael Berkeley’s Jane Eyre

Before following up the fundamental differences to be observed between the Jane Eyre novel and opera, a few facts about the opera and its composer should be given. The opera was premiered at the 2000 Cheltenham Interna- tional Festival, whose Artistic Director Berkeley has been since 1995. It was produced by the Music Theatre Wales, had “glowing reviews” (Price) and subsequently toured the UK. It is a chamber opera in two acts, lasting a little over 70 minutes, and has a cast of only five singers (Jane Eyre – soprano, Adele – soprano, Mrs Fairfax – mezzo-soprano, Mrs Rochester – contralto, Mr Rochester – bass) and an orchestra of not more than 13 instrumentalists. It is modelled on Benjamin Britten’s chamber operas, mainly The Turn of the Screw, which is also otherwise re-echoed in various ways. The link to Britten is no surprise as Michael Berkeley, who was born in 1948, is Britten’s godson and was from his earliest childhood influenced by the famous composer’s musical language and artistic discipline. This accounts for Berkeley’s basic grounding in a modernist aesthetics, yet further shaping forces for him (cf. Copeland 3f.) were his time as a chorister at Westminster Cathedral, which made him familiar with musical fundamentals such as Gregorian plainchant and Bach, and French influences (Poulenc, Ravel, Debussy), and Stravinsky, whose sensational Rites of Spring, which opened up for him the world of rhythm. Berkeley also played in a rock group around the age of twenty – all in all, a wide musical background, typical of his generation. Referring to the musical style as found in his operas, Berke- ley said himself “that opera is not necessarily the palette on which you mix your most innovative colours”, and one ought to be “more cautious” because of the singers and the audience (Copeland 7). This moderation, characteristic of modern English opera, has elicited slightly condescending remarks from some critics1, yet if the opera’s music may be disappointing to critics of an avantgarde persuasion, it answers successfully expectations of a more general audience and finds itself – with its mixture of styles2 – in league with established postmodernist practices. The recording of the 2000 premiere of Jane Eyre (with booklet) was brought out by Chandos in 2002 (see Service 2002).

1 “[…] an enjoyable melodrama” (Elsom); too much “period costume and waltz tunes” (Griffiths); “naïve interludes that lack the terror of Britten’s ‘Malo’” (Elsom), referring to Miles’s song in The Turn of the Screw; “[a]s a purely aural experience, it has its limitations” (Haywood). 2 “[…] somewhere between Britten and Berg, with a nod (at the end) to Lloyd-Webber thrown in”, “soaring Puccini melodies” (Haywood), a “saucy Parisian waltz and a snatch of Donizetti” (Mad- docks). Myth-Making Opera: David Malouf ’s and Michael Berkeley’s Jane Eyre 357

The changes that had to be made in order to convert Charlotte Brontë’s long novel into a 70-minute chamber opera were indeed drastic. The first decision was to concentrate on Jane’s experiences at Thornfield Hall and leave out completely her earlier life with Mrs Reed and at Lowood School as well as the Rivers episode. This reduced the dramatis personae to five characters, which is in keeping with the requirements of a chamber opera. The next decision was to give up the idea of ‘telling the story’ sequentially and rather to focus on Jane and make her recall the events at Thornfield from a later perspective when she seeks inner rest from the turmoils of her Thornfield experiences. This is why the opera starts with the solitary Jane at an unspecified setting wishing for “Silence. Quietness. […] a place / of the still heart” (33). This decision was triggered by Malouf’s conviction that “Jane’s voice as narrator [in the novel], one of the most intimate and compelling in all fiction” (viii), in a dramatization of the novel “must find […] an equivalent [...], something that will engage us with the same intimacy, catch us in the same web of enchantment” (ix). Thus Malouf turned the spacious fictional romance into a compact mental drama, which is yet faithful to the first-person narrative situation and the strong presence of Jane’s personality in the novel. This introduction of a central consciousness in whose mind a “psychodrama” (x) develops has decisive consequences for the structure of the opera where fixities of time and space are dissolved and the opera-goer is confronted with jumps in time and space, mental leaps, flashbacks and strange offstage voices. This establishes a fundamentally lyric artistic condition and emphasises the “dreamlike” (x) and “spiritual dimension” (Benson 9) of the opera by opening up a mythical space (cf. x) that partakes of, but at the same time transcends, reality.

We have noted earlier that Malouf knows very well the requirements for writing a successful opera, and Stephen Benson has drawn attention to Ma- louf’s conviction that in an opera the libretto must leave ample room for the music to evoke that transcendent, “Edenic space” (Benson 9) of “enchantment” (ix), which is the gist of opera. Malouf’s ideas are very much in keeping with W. H. Auden’s well-known views on opera, which he has expressed at various places, as someone who was obsessed with the genre. Auden distinguishes the ‘primary world’ of our ‘historical’ reality from the ‘secondary world’ of a transcendent, ‘poetic’ reality, which has a mythical quality and represents such

3 Numbers in parentheses refer to pages in the libretto edition (see Malouf 2000). 358 Myth-Making Opera: David Malouf ’s and Michael Berkeley’s Jane Eyre

an ‘Edenic’, ‘enchanted’ state beyond our everyday world of experience. Auden was convinced that in modern literature, as in the modern age at large, there was little room for this ‘secondary world’ which he felt could now only be experienced in opera; it was only there that he found still in place an elevated, ‘high’ or ‘golden’ style, and he saw it brought to life by music (see Auden 1968; 1962)4. Auden makes sure that the ‘secondary world’ is originally rooted in the ‘primary world’, yet in a fulfilled state it transcends it to become freed from temporal and spatial contingencies5. This observation is of particular relevance for our understanding of Malouf’s Jane Eyre libretto as we find there the initial and basic condition of Jane’s mental act of recalling her past and lyrically evoking her visions, yet in the course of the opera we also experience various dramatic scenes in which realistic situations and dialogues take place (e.g., the scenes with Adele, the dialogues between Jane and Rochester)6. These scenes, however, are frequently interrupted by ‘voices’ evoked in Jane’s mind – particularly Rochester’s famous telepathic call, which is made central in the opera by frequent repetition – and indicating that she has access to ‘other-worldly’ realms. Thus we experience “real space and real time”, as Malouf asserts (x), unfolding within the basic mythical space and time of the opera’s central lyric consciousness.

It is the consequence of the presence of such a strong ‘unreal’ space in successful operas that an experienced librettist will see the need of strengthening the mythical dimension of the story he is about to tell. If – as is the case of Jane Eyre – an existing story is being adapted for his opera he will want to concentrate on those elements of the story at hand which will best contribute to this aim. Malouf did so for Jane Eyre by highlighting at least four mythopoeic features of the Brontë novel, all of which experience intensification and transformation, to a higher or lesser degree, over its source text. Those features are associated with the notions of the fairytale, of the Byronic hero, of Gothic ghostly

4 For general discussions of Auden’s views on opera see Weisstein 1970; Bernhart 1994: 233–236. 5 Auden’s succinct statement on this condition can be found in his “New Year’s Letter (January 1, 1940)”: Art in intention is mimesis But, realized, the resemblance ceases; Art is not life and cannot be A midwife to society, For art is a fait accompli. (Auden 1976: 162) 6 In Benson’s words, the opera shows “harsh realism countered by compensatory fantasy” (12). Myth-Making Opera: David Malouf ’s and Michael Berkeley’s Jane Eyre 359

horror, and of redemption. In what follows they will be discussed in turn.

Malouf himself draws attention to the fairytale element of Brontë’s novel when he talks of “Jane’s own sense that the story she is telling, with its echoes of Bluebeard and The Demon Lover and Beauty and the Beast, is itself a fable, with something of the shape and archetypal glow of fairytale” (viii). One may wonder how strongly this suggestion of a fairytale frame is actually felt when one reads Brontë’s novel, told as it is by the sober voice of Jane and solidly set as it is in the Victorian world (it seems more distinctly present in Wuthering Heights – e.g., in Heathcliff’s enigmatic biographical circumstances). Yet, in Malouf’s libretto, when Jane enters into her narrative she clearly takes up an archetypal fairytale pattern: “Is it a year, is it just a year / since I set my work aside, / […] / and left my old self sitting, / to go, all eager, / my breast in a turmoil, to meet / life, fate, my one / true love.” (4) A person with an unspecified past leaves her ‘old’, unshaped self behind and ‘eagerly’ and ‘in turmoil’ sets out on her quest for individuation, with the intention of ‘meeting her fate’, which she subsequently does, emphatically so, at Thornfield. This is worlds apart from what the novel tells us about Jane who, before coming to Thornfield, has already reached a respectable position as a teacher at Lowood and leaves there only because Miss Temple has left the school to get married. Jane’s decision to advertise for the post of a governess is not taken ‘in turmoil’ and has nothing of the spirit of ‘eagerly meeting her fate’ about it, and most tellingly the libretto also talks about Jane’s intention of meeting “my one true love”. Certainly, there is also in Brontë’s novel a sub-current in the story suggesting that Jane will want to find a partner for life, but this impulse is never clearly expressed, and what Malouf is doing in his libretto is exactly what opera expects him to do, namely to strengthen and highlight an archetypal and mythical pattern that lies behind a realistic, ‘primary-world’ story. And – in this opera – of course the fairytale pattern is also fulfilled – however clumsily, as we shall see – when in the final scene Jane is united with her “one true love” after so many obstacles have been overcome.

Rochester is first introduced in the opera by Adele, who – in contrast to what she is like in the novel – is far more discerning and mature in her observations, in fact has little of the childlike simplicity and superficiality found in 360 Myth-Making Opera: David Malouf ’s and Michael Berkeley’s Jane Eyre

the novel7. She stresses right at the beginning, by repeating it, that Rochester is “sad, very sad”, but also “sometimes angry”. She makes sure, and again repeats this, that he “is wounded […] in his heart” (8). Rochester himself observes that he is “moody”, “dark”, “an ogre”, having “spoiled my youth in dissipation” (10) and knowing “of the world and its evil”. Jane is struck by his “sternness”, his “pride” from being “hurt” in his “affections” (11). He is “[h]eart weary [sic], soul-embittered” (15), he “knows no quiet, / can discover no rest” (9) and is haunted by the past, the reasons for his desolate condition being left ominously unexplained for the greatest part of the opera. This is so despite the fact that Rochester’s confession to Jane – in contrast to the novel – comes in two phases, the first of which appears before a marriage of the two is even contemplated. This first phase of the confession seems introduced into the opera mainly for dramaturgical reasons as it forms a necessary transition from the horrifying first appearance of Mrs Rochester to Rochester’s and Jane’s love duet at the end of Act I when they decide to get married. This first phase of Rochester’s confession is told from a neutral, third-person perspective (“Imagine / a boy, wild in nature, / from his first childhood spoiled”; “Conceive that he commits / […] a fatal error – not a crime”; 14), which tellingly leaves open what the “error” that so fatally determines this doomed life consists of.

All the elements referred to here as shaping the image of Rochester in the opera are obviously part of the topos of the Byronic hero, which powerfully expresses the ambivalence of a strong and attractive man who at the same time is guilt-ridden and marked by the experience of evil. The combination of rebel- lious defiance and gloomy weltschmerz characterizes this hero type and makes him a striking figure of mythical proportions and archetypal resonance. It is significant that in the Jane Eyre opera the ominosity and intensity of Roches- ter’s fate and character are magnified and strengthened over the novel, where Rochester definitely also bears features of the Byronic hero but where they again characteristically appear in a far less conspicuous manner than in the opera.

7 It appears that Adele in the opera acquires certain features of Flora, her parallel figure in The Turn of the Screw. Both are the girl charges of an inexperienced governess arriving at a mysterious house. Flora, of course, is drawn as a highly ambivalent character both by Henry James in the novel and Myfanwy Piper/Benjamin Britten in the opera, as a girl that seems to have an awareness of hidden evil. Myth-Making Opera: David Malouf ’s and Michael Berkeley’s Jane Eyre 361

The Gothic horror elements – no doubt present in the novel – are again highlighted and strongly emphasised in the opera. In particular, right from the beginning there is almost an obsession with ghosts and ghostlike appearances. Already in the opening lyric effusion by Jane, which evokes an atmosphere of ‘wuthering heights’ with their storms on the moor, their “wintry blast” (4) and rattling panes, the girl expresses her wish to escape into a peaceful world where “no ghost lifts the latch” (3). Similarly, at the beginning of Act II, in the scene with the wedding veil, “[t]he dress already hangs, rather ghostlike, on a model nearby” (19). Mrs Rochester – who plays a central role in the opera – asks herself, “Who am I? A ghost / in this house? […] Mrs Edward Rochester, the ghost / of Thornfield” (20), and Rochester himself confronts Jane – quite unlike to what he would ever do in the novel – with a ghostly image of his wife: “Always, always at the door / of Thornfield there stands / a figure that bars my way, a hag who raises her finger […] and laughs!” (11-12) From the beginning Thorn- field is “a strange house” (7) to Jane, “a plague house” (11) and a Gothic “dun- geon” (13) to Rochester. The strange laughter – of course a prominent feature in the novel as well – is mentioned no less than ten times in the libretto and is several times heard menacingly in the theatrical performance8. The ghostly presence of Mrs Rochester throughout the opera has been emphasised by the composer as a central feature of the work (“But all the time there is this wail- ing of this mad-woman upstairs” [Copeland 7]), and also the madness aspect of the woman is brought out in the libretto and score by the frequent textual and musical references to Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor9. With subtle reference to Scott’s original title of Donizetti’s source, Jane, Adele and Mrs Fairfax jointly sing of Jane as the “bride of Thornfield” (20f.), which, with deep irony, points to that other ‘bride Lucia’ in the attic, who is soon to appear in the scene and tear up the wedding veil in the presence of Jane and Rochester. The Gothic element of the sinister presence of horror and madness at the haunted

8 It is a striking, slightly mannered, poeticizing element of the libretto text that Jane describes Mrs Rochester’s laugh four times as “dark as molasses” (7, 13, 14), which evokes the world of Wide Sargasso Sea without having its actual source there. 9 Again it is the ‘clever’ Adele who – poorly motivated, unless she knows about the presence of Mrs Rochester in the house, which is quite unlikely, even in the opera – first refers to Donizetti’s opera in Malouf/Berkeley’s opera. The introduction of this ostentatious reference in the opera has been criticised as ‘unwise’ (cf. Griffiths), and it was an idea that had come from the composer rather than the librettist. The obvious attraction from a musical perspective is the possibility of using the famous melody from Lucia’s mad scene as a kind of leitmotif, with obvious reference to Mrs Rochester’s condition, and its “lyrical” quality (Berkeley, qtd. Copeland 7). 362 Myth-Making Opera: David Malouf ’s and Michael Berkeley’s Jane Eyre

place is a dominant feature of the Jane Eyre opera whose music – triggered by the specifications of the libretto – unfolds a constant undercurrent of distur- bance, restlessness and unease, even in the overtly ‘happiest’ scenes. It is a supreme qualification of opera to be able to do so and thereby to underline the ‘other-worldliness’ of its story.

It is a new feature of Malouf’s libretto – as has already been observed – that Rochester tells Jane early on (in disguise) about his disastrous experiences in the West Indies in a first phase of his confession. Although the story is told as if it were about some unidentified young man Jane is quick in feeling personally involved in the story and is deeply touched by it. She asks: “Whose story is this? Why does my blood / quicken so, with pity, / with fear? Is this the story / I sought? Is it my life now that the story / demands for its end?” (14f.) This reaction links up with Jane’s fairytale motivation for going on her quest, as discussed before. She now senses that the time has come to fulfil her mission and to sacrifice her life for the rescue of this man: after all, what she says is that ‘her life’ is ‘demanded’ and that she is motivated by “pity” and “fear” (the classical Aristotelean dyas). Tellingly she does not say that she loves the man, and even when she agrees to marry him (“Edward, yes, I will marry you.” 16) she does so without having confessed any love (in contrast to Rochester: “Oh Jane, Jane, […] / I love you.” 15). All this deviates decisively from what we find in Charlotte Brontë’s novel where Jane certainly does not feel first of all ‘pity’ and ‘fear’ for Rochester – she does not know about his plight, she may only sense it in a way – but she is fascinated by his character and is won over – against social prejudices – by his insistence (and his cunning play on her jealousy against Blanche Ingram). It is characteristic of the opera version of this love that when Jane finds out about Rochester’s marriage he implores her to stay with him by asking dolefully: “Have you no pity? […] Only you can save me, / Jane.” (22) So his love seems to be ultimately grounded in self-pity and in his wish to be ‘saved’ from a calamity.

It is in keeping with the strong image of Rochester as a Byronic hero in this opera that this tragic, guilt-ridden hero is in need of a redeemer, and what we have just observed makes good sense if we realize that Jane – quite in contrast to what the novel says – is presented in the opera above all as that redeemer figure. Malouf’s Jane Eyre thus follows a characteristic romantic opera pattern, most clearly realized in Wagner’s Der fliegende Holländer, where the Dutch- Myth-Making Opera: David Malouf ’s and Michael Berkeley’s Jane Eyre 363

man is the prototypical Byronic hero and Senta his self-sacrificing redeemer. The typical metaphysical extension when – as in this constellation – human characters are mythologized can be found in Malouf’s libretto when Roches- ter’s damnation, from which Jane should ‘save’ him, is said to extend into eternity. Rochester implores her: “Would you see me bound / for ever to that mad woman, that fiend, for all / eternity bound, flesh to flesh / without joy […] / through all eternity10?” (22f; my emphases) Already at the beginning, when Jane sets out on her quest, she hopes to meet her “one true love / in this world and all others” (4), and when she rejects Rochester she points out to him that the mad woman is “[y]our wife, Edward; in this world and the next” (22), and she tries to comfort him by saying: “We shall meet again, / Edward, […] but not / in this world” (25; my emphases throughout).

It can be seen that the Jane Eyre libretto makes free use of the operatic convention of envisaging a ‘secondary world’, in Auden’s terms, which is set apart from and transcends the world of our earthly reality. Malouf’s willingness to follow that convention – for the benefit of writing a ‘good’ opera – comes out most clearly in the final scene of the ultimate reunion of Jane and Rochester. “They embrace”, the stage direction says, but they also question the reality of what is happening: “Are you real?” asks Rochester, and Jane says – as the final words of the opera – “I will not leave you / again, my love, my dear love. / Never again, never, never / in this world. Never. Never.” (27), which verbally echoes her former statement saying that they would meet “never / again […] / in this world” (26; my emphases). This ending, however, is quite illogical as the words imply that Jane might leave him again in another world, which is contrary to the spirit of the story and the ‘metaphysical’ dimension of the opera just discussed. Stephen Benson, as a careful reader of the text, draws the conclusion from the words of this ending that the characters “remain in this world, as opposed to that ‘world beyond themselves’” (15). Yet anything the music says in that scene is in contradiction to what the final words might imply: what we hear is a final apotheosis, an Aida-like love duet manifesting a transcendent escape into an ‘Edenic’ ‘secondary world’ – very much what you expect of a ‘moving’ opera finale. This ending of the opera has partly found a critical re-

10 The awkwardness of the cliché of ‘eternity’ becomes apparent when it is here juxtaposed with the ‘earthly’ cliché of being “for all eternity bound, flesh to flesh” (my emphasis). 364 Myth-Making Opera: David Malouf ’s and Michael Berkeley’s Jane Eyre

ception11, but Malouf himself is aware of its textual shortcomings and says that it is “no more than a suggestive sketch”. Yet he significantly continues by saying, “[a]t this point the music must take over” (xi), which speaks for his ‘operatic wisdom’. As Tony Haywood asserts, “the final duet […] will, I guarantee, stick in your mind as readily as anything in Richard Strauss or Puccini […] in the best traditions of Romantic grand opera”. This is so because the music opens up a space which allows for a ‘secondary world’ to expand that transcends quotidi- an reality and ‘pours out forgiveness’12 even over textual infelicities.

What has been said so far may be able to demonstrate that the Jane Eyre opera very clearly concentrates on such elements in the novel that increase its myth-quality and enhance those effects of enchantment and haunting which Malouf finds in Brontë’s story. It is an important observation by the librettist in his introductory remarks to the text, however, that they are the elements of the novel which guarantee its appeal as a model for an opera, yet they are not necessarily those “intellectual” ones which account for the general actuality of the novel in our days. Malouf is aware of what has made Jane Eyre most attractive to contemporary minds, whether “in fiction, trashy or otherwise, or as subjects for socio-critical analysis”, and he names specifically “questions about female sexuality and the patterns of feminine rebelliousness and submission” and questions “about colonial exploitation, and the lure, but also the fear, of the exotic”. These “intellectual issues” (vii) are no doubt reflected in the libretto as well and they have also considerably determined the shape of the work. Yet one can observe that they are not in all cases very successfully dealt with in the opera, a fact which, however, need not speak against the work.

Michael Berkeley, the composer, developed a particular interest in the erotic undercurrents of Brontë’s story and wished to bring out in his opera the “suppressed eroticism” of the novel: “The great thing that music can do is point up an inner turmoil of frustrated desires.” (Qtd. Service 2002: 7) Berkeley was able to go back to the model of Britten’s The Turn of the Screw for using sophisticated musical material to suggest hidden eroticism (the composer draws at-

11 “[…] a curiously unaffecting conclusion”; “[a]t the end of the opera, it is difficult to empathise with the two lovers” (Service, Online); “[t]his rapturous final love scene is slightly ambivalent and is insufficiently expansive” (Dunlop); the finale “comes suddenly out of nowhere” (Griffiths). 12 This is a reference to Auden’s poem “The Composer” (see 1976: 148) and what it says about the effects of music. Myth-Making Opera: David Malouf ’s and Michael Berkeley’s Jane Eyre 365

tention to the “dark, glissando-y turbulence” in his music), and it is one of the attractions of the score to bring this out in vivid colours. There is little explic- itness about the erotic dimension of the story in the text of the libretto, yet the text is “skeletal” enough to provide with the music “the work’s flesh and clothes” (Berkeley, qtd. Service 2002: 7) to suggest that dimension.

Berkeley also makes the point that his opera is taking a fresh look at the novel from a postcolonial perspective and that it is seen “very much from the position of the mad Mrs Rochester and the tragedy of her position” (Copeland 7). “She is not as wicked as we have been led to believe”, he says, and she is rather a “tragic figure, somebody you sympathise with” (qtd. Service 2002: 6). This reflects the fact that both librettist and composer read Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea before starting to work on their opera (cf. Copeland: 7), and it is true that Mrs Rochester has a far more prominent place in the opera than she has in the novel and is present on the stage through much of the work. She is an essential and dominant element of the Gothic horror story, strengthened in the opera over the novel, as we have seen. However, the psychological and moral evaluation of Mrs Rochester in the opera has troubled critics, and their response is far from unanimous as to whether she really appears as a person only to sympathise with, in the way Berkeley wants to have her. For some critics she is – following Berkeley’s idea – “the unwanted, but in truth almost harmless and pathetic, Creole wife” (Maddocks), “deranged as well as profoundly wronged” (Service, Online), yet others are struck by her “malignancy” (Griffiths) and observe that the libretto is “remarkably faithful” to the novel and does not “foreground the obvious critique” (Benson 8) expressed by postcolonial responses to the way Mrs Rochester is drawn in Brontë’s story. It is true that – far more so than in the novel – she raises pity, and it is in keeping with what we have seen as Jane’s response to Rochester’s confession and his plea to have pity with him that Jane says: “Yes, I have pity, I have pity – / for your wife, that poor mad woman. And for myself […]” (22). Yet it is interesting to observe that Mrs Rochester’s speeches – and she does not talk much but mainly appears in pantomime passages – in fact show very little madness or confusion but are mainly tearful complaints about her captivity13. As no madness can be detected in her speeches it is hard to believe that she would act out of madness, in spite of what the text says at times. Her dances also – both the one in front of the

13 A typical speech by Mrs Rochester is the following: “O Edward, Edward – / why have you put me / away? Why have you sent me / to a living grave? Condemned me / to walk the corridors / of this house, a living / ghost?” (20) 366 Myth-Making Opera: David Malouf ’s and Michael Berkeley’s Jane Eyre

wedding dress and the one conjured up by Rochester’s confessional narrative of his experiences in the West Indies – do not appear so much as being ‘mad’ but rather show her “active female sexuality” (Dunlop). What is it then that makes her so utterly repulsive to Rochester? The opera does not give a psycho- logically convincing answer to this question (Rochester’s possible fear of her sexuality, e.g., could be one) but rather takes the ‘operatic’, fairytale route and presents her – in more or less simplistic terms – as a representative of evil. As already quoted, Rochester defends himself vis-à-vis Jane by saying, “[y]ou have no knowledge / of the world and its evil” (11), and what he has in mind when saying this must be his own experience with his wife. Later he bitterly complains that his “fatal error” in the West Indies has tainted his “whole existence with / horror and filth” (14), and he addresses his wife as a “fiend” (22). Also to Jane Mrs Rochester appears as a “savage beast” (13) when she has attacked her husband and scratched his face. Before the next attack – when Mrs Rochester draws a knife at Jane and her wedding dress (the Mason attack in the novel is thus transposed into the opera) – Mrs Fairfax and Adele ominously wish Jane goodnight by saying, “God bless you. / Let nothing evil / approach” (20).

This opera, like so many others, willingly revives the cliché contrast of Good and Evil, represented by Jane and Mrs Rochester, and any attempts to draw a more ambivalent and sophisticated image of the ‘bad’ Mrs Rochester are ultimately frustrated by what the opera actually does, namely destroy the ‘bad’ third person in a love triangle who stands in the way of the happy union of the hero and the heroine. It would not do justice to the libretto if its failure to produce – in full recognition of the complex issues involved in Mrs Roch- ester’s person and background – a convincing psychological study of her, were turned against it14. Where a literary critic will find faults with inconsistencies and crudities of character drawing and of intellectual discrimination, an opera critic may find persuasive facets in a work which uses the immediacy of music

14 An interesting ‘literary’ reading of the libretto comes from Stephen Benson, who conceives of the opera – from a postcolonial perspective – as a Bildungsroman, i.e. as a “quest for selfhood” of Jane with “a colonial helper”, i.e. Mrs Rochester (Benson 14). Benson’s argument mainly rests on the insistence with which Jane stresses and repeats towards the end of the opera that she is “Jane Eyre” (mainly 22, 26), which he sees as “foregrounding the act of naming” (Benson 14) and thus ‘finding herself’ by exploiting Mrs Rochester. In my view this misreads the reasons why Jane stresses that she is ‘Jane Eyre’: she does so to make clear to Rochester – at this stage – that she will never be ‘Jane Rochester’. In addition, I would argue – in line with the general argument of this essay – that the idea and structure of a Bildungsroman is ‘non-operatic’. Myth-Making Opera: David Malouf ’s and Michael Berkeley’s Jane Eyre 367

to evoke an awareness of basic conditions of existence in archetypal terms.

Taking a closer look at a recent operatic adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s famous novel Jane Eyre can tell us not only a great deal about the fundamental differences that exist between a fictional narrative, using the verbal medium, and an opera, that complex mixture of musical, verbal and theatrical elements. What has been said may have been able to draw attention to a number of features that need to be observed in order to arrive at a successful operatic adaptation. Of course, there is not only one type of opera, which is why there necessarily exists a variety of options for what to consider essential in an adaptation. Yet the main thrust of the argument followed in this essay, namely that – from the perspective of W. H. Auden – a successful opera version of a narrative text needs to stress the mythological and archetypal ‘secondary-world’ dimension of its literary source, can be claimed to have a more general validity for many types of opera. What, in addition, the careful comparison of the opera and the novel Jane Eyre may have been able to tell is that the novel contains enough ‘operatic’ elements which make it a very suitable source for an opera. In the novel – despite its solid grounding in the Victorian world – we find an undercurrent of archetypal issues, which may account both for the lasting appeal of the story into times which are quite remote from the Victorian world and, at the same time, make the underlying story universally attractive through its mythic aspects and thus make it more easily convertible into opera. It throws a light on the greatness of the Brontë novel that it appeals to a twenty-first-century audience not only because of the ‘intellectual issues’ it raises, such as the gender and postcolonial issues, but that, at the same time, it proves to be a ‘myth-making’ work that is attractive to a librettist and composer like Malouf and Berkeley to create an opera which successfully exploits these mythic qualities. 368 Myth-Making Opera: David Malouf ’s and Michael Berkeley’s Jane Eyre

References

Auden, W. H. (1962). “Notes on Music and Opera”. The Dyer’s Hand and Other Essays. London: Fa- ber. 465–474. — (1968). Secondary Worlds. London: Faber. — (1976). “New Year’s Letter (January 1, 1940)”. Collected Poems. Ed. Edward Mendelson. London: Faber. 159–193. Benson, Stephen. “David Malouf’s Moments Musicaux”. 1–17. http://jcl.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/39/1/5.pdf [22/11/2004]. Bernhart, Walter (1994). “Prekäre angewandte Opernästhetik: Audens ‘sekundäre Welt’ und Hans Werner Henzes Elegie für junge Liebende. Walter Bernhart, ed. Die Semantik der musiko-literarischen Gattungen: Methode und Analyse. Eine Festgabe für Ulrich Weisstein zum 65. Geburtstag / The Semantics of the Musico-Literary Genres: Method and Analysis. In Honor of Ulrich Weisstein on his 65th Birthday. Book Series of Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik 10. Tübingen: Narr. 233–246. Copeland, Julie. Sunday Morning Radio Interview. 27/01/2002: Michael Berkeley, David Ma- louf and Tom Sokolowski. 1–9. http://www.abc.net.au/rn/arts/sunmorn/stories/s466739.htm [22/11/2004]. Dunlop, Sarah. http://www.musicweb.uk.net/SandH/2000/Nov00/Jane_Eyre.htm [22/11/2004]. Elsom, H. E. “The Second Mrs Rochester”. http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_re- view=348 [22/11/2004]. Griffiths, Paul. “‘Lucia’, Move Over: Jane Eyre as Opera”. The New York Times, 04/07/2000. http:// www.nytimes.com/library/music/070400london-festival.html [22.11.04]. Halliwell, Michael (2001). “‘Singing the Nation’: Word/Tone Tension in the Opera Voss”. Walter Bernhart, Werner Wolf, eds. Word and Music Studies: Essays on the Song Cycle and on Defining the Field. Word and Music Studies 3.Amsterdam/Atlanta, GA: Rodopi. 25–48. Haywood, Tony. http://www.musicweb.uk.net/classrev/2002/dec02/JaneEyre.htm [22/11/2004]. “Lost Classics: Michael Ondaatje and David Malouf Talk”. 1–11. http://www.abc.net.au/arts/books/ stories/s444824.htm [28/11/2004]. Maddocks, Fiona. The Observer. 09/07/2000. http://www.theatrcymru.co.uk/plays/review_archive. asp?playname=Jane%20Eyre&company=Music%20Theatre%20Wales [22/11/2004]. Malouf, David (1986). “Essay on the Libretto”. Voss. The Australian Opera Programme. Sydney: Aus- tralian Opera. [n.p.]. — (2000). Jane Eyre. A Libretto by David Malouf. For an Opera by Michael Berkeley. London: Vin- tage. Price, Karen. http://www.theatrcymru.co.uk/plays/review_archive.asp?playname=Jane%20Eyre&- company=Music%20Theatre%20Wales [22/11/2004]. Service, Tom (2002). “Michael Berkeley: Jane Eyre”. 6f. Booklet for CD: Michael Berkeley. Jane Eyre. Premiere Recording. An Opera in Two Acts. Libretto by David Malouf. Chandos 9993. — (Online). http://www.theatrcymru.co.uk/plays/review_archive.asp?playname=Jane%20Eyre&- company=Music%20Theatre%20Wales [22/11/2004]. Weisstein, Ulrich (1970). “Reflections on a Golden Style: W. H. Auden’s Theory of Opera”. Compara- tive Literature 22: 108–124. Words and Music as Partners in Song: ‘Perfect Marriage’ – ‘Uneasy Flirtation’ – ‘Coercive Tension’ – ‘Shared Indifference’ – ‘Total Destruction’ [2007]

The very nature of intermedia phenomena frequently tempts critics to revert to metaphorical language when wanting to define the various relationships that can be found among the media. It is human relationships that lend themselves most readily to depict such intermedial relationships and make them vividly present in our minds. Descriptive Anschaulichkeit is a primary aim of effective communication, and the more the communication is rooted in everyday experience the more likely it is to be successful. As an example, the venerable tradition of ut pictura poesis is discussed most memorably in Jean Hag- strum’s early study of the “Sister Arts” (1958), and more recent studies extend the range of ‘sister arts’ beyond literature and painting: Michele Martinez sees sculpture and poetry as ‘sisters’ (see 2003), there is a website including another ‘sister’, British gardening (Online), and Joachim Möller gathers a whole family of ‘sisters’, including music, architecture, illustration, film and a number of others (see ed. 2001).

The human relations which I will use to depict metaphorically the various relations between words and music found in songs take their cue from the title of an essay which, incidentally, was published in the same year as Hagstrum’s book. It is by John Stevens and is called “The English Madrigal: ‘Perfect Mar- riage’ or ‘Uneasy Flirtation’” (see 1958). It is not surprising that Stevens’s essay discusses the Elizabethan madrigal as it was during the Renaissance period that, with the advent of Humanist rhetorical, ‘trivial’ views of music – in contrast to earlier, ‘quadrivial’ conceptions of it, on a ‘speculative’, Pythagorean basis – words and music entered into new relationships in vocal music. Their connection became far more intimate than it had been before as the music was now meant to increase the rhetorical effect of the underlying text and closely work together with the words. The most frequently quoted reference to this 370 Words and Music as Partners in Song

new view of the relation between words and music is by Thomas Campion and can be found in his preface to Two Books of Ayres (c. 1613), where he says, referring to the new type of songs which he introduces: “In these English ayres I have chiefly aimed to couple my words and notes lovingly together, which will be much for him to do that hath not power over both.” (Campion 1979: ix) Apart from the pride which this shows, as Campion, significantly, was both the poet and composer of these airs, it demonstrates that the challenge of these new songs lay in finding a complete harmony between the two media, which Campion expresses by the metaphor of a ‘loving couple’. It is from this image that Stevens derives his own reference to a ‘perfect marriage’ that may be found in the English madrigal of the period, and it will also be the guiding metaphor for my further reflections in this essay.

Of course, such a ‘perfect marriage’ of a ‘loving couple’ is likely to be more of a vision than a case of reality: the balance is always precarious, and the issue is well-known: is it as Antonio Salieri puts it in the title of his opera of 1786: prima la musica e poi le parole, or is it rather prima le parole e poi la musica? Within our metaphorical context, we may be allowed to genderize the issue and – following traditional notions – conceive, more or less playfully, of ‘music’ in female and ‘words’ in male terms (which could be justified by contrasting la musica and il termine, the latter synonym replacing la parola): English airs, therefore, within Humanist aesthetics, were clearly male-dominated because the words necessarily came first and there was no idea of prima la musica. In the hierarchy of the arts, following Plato, poetry was paramount as the main instrument of persuasion and the other arts came in only as contributing factors, en- hancing the ethical and rhetorical effects of the words. The ‘perfect marriage’ of words and music was seen to be achieved when the music mirrored what the language said; it was music’s function to illustrate the words’ meanings, which could either be achieved in the form of ‘external mimesis’, such as rising melodies when the words talk of rising suns or running music for running streams etc., or of ‘expressive mimesis’, i.e., by the musical expression of emotional-affective states addressed in the texts. Thus, music had primarily a copying function, and the ‘marriage’ was conceived of as ‘perfect’ when music, as the ancilla, adapted ‘herself’ as closely as possible to the termini. Such ‘iconic’ behaviour of the music vis-à-vis the words was seen as strengthening the ‘couple’ by having an increased, ‘redoubled’ effect on the audience. Words and Music as Partners in Song 371

It is interesting to observe that such a partnership, which is clearly dominated by one of the partners, with the other one adapting ‘herself’ as closely as possible, was seen as ‘perfect’. This may be a very pronounced ‘Victorian’ view of an ‘ideal’ partnership but, basically, all forms of songs in which ‘poems are set to music’ follow this model because the source of the song are always the words, which are there first and determine the music.

Yet there is also a history of emancipation in songs. As early as in John Dowland’s songs, music started to strive for dominance, as is indicated by a passage from Dowland’s dedication of his First Booke of Ayres (1597), which shows a telling misreading of Plato: “So that Plato defines melody [i.e., song] to consist of harmony [i.e., music], number [i.e., rhythm] and words; harmony naked of it selfe: wordes the ornament of harmony, number the common friend and uniter of them both.” (1965: iv) What Plato really says in The Republic (398 d) is the following: “[…] the melody is composed of three things, the words, the harmony, and the rhythm; […] the harmony and the rhythm must follow the words.” (Strunk, ed. 1952: 4) While Plato clearly puts the words first, Dow- land makes the words merely “the ornament” of music1. Listening to Dowland’s magnificent lute-songs will strengthen the impression that in them the music, written by the best lutenist of his age, is more important than the words are. Again, there is generally no contradiction or tension between the words and the music in these songs and the ‘perfection’ of the ‘marriage’ is guaranteed by the unquestioned dominance of one of the partners – this time the ‘female’.

The emancipation of music did not take place so smoothly in all cases. The ‘Great Tradition’ of song writing took the ambitious path of using ever more refined musical means to become a meaning-generating instrument, the music trying to express as carefully and exhaustively as possible what the underlying text is saying. The canonical body of the European song tradition consists of what I have called “interpretive songs” (Bernhart 1988), where the musical accompaniment of the singing voice acquires an increasingly sophisticated interpretive function vis-à-vis the text and becomes a more and more independent agent of reflection. While in many Schubert songs the accompaniment appears in the role of such an active partner to the text, where words and music work as two independent agencies towards the joint goal of making a unified state-

1 For a discussion of Elizabethan theoretical reflections on song writing see Bernhart 1985. 372 Words and Music as Partners in Song

ment – is this the ‘perfect marriage’? –, it is with Schumann that the emanci- patory impulse of music becomes stronger, as witnessed, among other features, by the prominent preludes and postludes that can be found in his songs. The music can be seen as making additional statements that go beyond what the text by itself is saying, and we can observe a tendency in the music to start even contradicting the words. An example frequently referred to in this respect is Schumann’s “Die beiden Grenadiere”, based on Heine’s poem, in which the piano postlude comments ironically on one of the two soldiers’ misguided enthu- siasm about his Emperor Napoleon. In such a case the partners start drifting apart, and they may become an interesting but increasingly troubled couple2.

It is along these lines that John Stevens conceives of certain forms of vocal music as cases of an ‘uneasy flirtation’ between words and music (a term introduced in this context by Frank Kermode). Although Elizabethan madrigals frequently show a playful love of word illustrations (like ‘dying’ falling melodies, etc.), Stevens sees them as particularized cases of a “crude pictorialism” which cannot outweigh “occasional gross misunderstandings” of texts and “rhythmic insensitiveness” to the words in the music (Stevens 1958: 27). In these cases they do not really enter into a partnership but are only superficially attracted to one another.

A case where there is even less of a true partnership established in a juxtaposition of words and music is quoted by Thomas Morley in his Plaine and Ea- sie Introdvction to Practicall Musicke (1597), which contains a succinct survey of “Rules to be obserued in dittying”, the first English manifesto of song setting. There Morley condemns John Dunstable for the “barbarism” of placing “two long rests” “in the verie middle of a word”, thus chopping apart the word ‘angelo – rum’ (1969: 178). It is against this kind of ‘barbaric’ and inimical practice that the whole Humanist programme of text setting revolted.

This last example of an (unsuccessful) partnership between words and music introduces a level of contact between the two media which has not been discussed so far in this essay. It is the prosodic level, and the example demonstrates that an important dimension of contact in songs between the words and the music is the rhythmical structure, which implies segmentation, accentuation and duration. In fact, this level was of greatest importance to Humanist aestheticians,

2 For a case study see Bernhart 1995. Words and Music as Partners in Song 373

as witnessed by the large number of metrical treatises published at the time. It is telling that the famous phrase by Thomas Campion, quoted above, about his aim “to couple my words and music lovingly together”, has generally been misunderstood in terms of a semantic, expressive congruence between the two media. What Campion really had in mind was far more modest and practical, namely a “company” of syllables according to their prosody. Reflecting ancient theory, he expects long syllables to be matched by long notes and short syllables by “swift notes”, as comes out in the passage immediately following the famous phrase3. In order to “keep company”, word and music must have the same “waite and due proportion” (Campion 1971: 329), i.e., they need to share the ‘material’ basis of their articulatory, physical dimension, and it is worth noticing that Campion does not say anything about also sharing ‘ideas’ on the semantic level. In fact, he is well-known for condemning “such childish obseruing of words” (Campian [sic] 1968: 1) as can be found in external word illustration and as it was also criticised by Stevens as “crude pictorialism”, quoted above.

It is true that most of Campion’s airs do not play the game of ‘expressive mimesis’, his music generally does not try to imitate what the words are saying ‘along the text’ as it unfolds. It is characteristic of the simple style of airs as represented by Campion that they have a well-shaped, memorable tune – a tuneful ‘air’ in the traditional sense – used for all the stanzas of a song, which naturally implies that it is more distanced from and less concerned with what the words are saying. I have called such vocal music “non-interpretive songs” (Bernhart 1988), which implies that it is not their aim that the music should try to match, or enter into a dialogue with, the meaning of the words. What basically holds the song together, as a plurimedial form, is the common rhythmical ground of the words and the music. Relating this situation to our ‘couple’ metaphor, this form of partnership shows a high degree of independence of one partner from the other, yet they share a common physical ground, and it cannot be claimed that one of them dominates over the other. In fact, in these songs the words tend to be intelligible and have their own voice raising attention, yet the music is also quite independent and is not expected to serve the words in an ancillary function; it can develop its melodious beauty (‘air’) in its own rights. Is this, then, a ‘perfect marriage’?

3 “The light of this will best appear to him who hath pays’d [weighed] our monosyllables and syllables combined, both which are so loaded with consonants, as that they will hardly keep company with swift notes, or give the vowel convenient liberty.“ (Campion 1979: ix) 374 Words and Music as Partners in Song

Yet, when the music in such ‘non-interpretive songs’ does, indeed, not concern itself with the meaning of the text as it unfolds, the common ground for both media may still go beyond the mere material basis of rhythm and articulation. It is particularly in the ‘age of sensibility’, in eighteenth-century song writing, that we find an increased concern about the ‘tone’ and the ‘mood’ of a poem which should be matched by the tone and mood of the music. This is the approach that Goethe shared with the representatives of the Berlin school of song, which is why he appreciated the settings of his poetry by Karl Frie- drich Zelter or Johann Friedrich Reichardt. He objected to text-oriented ‘through-composition’ as found in many Schubert settings because, to him, it gave too much emphasis to details of word expression at the expense of establishing an overall mood which matched the mood of the poem. It is interesting that in this conception the rhythmical dimension of text and music seems closely linked to the mood dimension. In Edward Cone’s words, “Goethe […] liked to think of the composer as merely uncovering the melody already concealed in his own rhythms” (1957: 6), so the atmospheric element of a poem, which should necessarily be kept alive in a musical setting in this view, is also inherent in the rhythm, which needs to be preserved in the song and manifests itself in the melody (‘air’) of the singing voice. The unity of the two media in such songs is one of tone and mood, springing from their unified rhythm, and again – as in the Elizabethan airs of the Campion type –, apart from this unity, the two media are independent and equal: an even more ‘perfect’ marriage?

Given this situation in eighteenth-century song of equality and semantic independence of the two media with a common basis of rhythm and mood, it is not surprising that it was also in this age that successful songs were produced which did not follow the conventional model of ‘setting a poem to music’ but in which the poem was written to an already existing tune. This practice, which became popular with the early-Romantic ‘antiquarian’ movement of recover- ing national folk traditions, produced works of a significant form of word-music combination and in which the fact of combination of media is essential for their proper appreciation. A case in point is Robert Burns, whose famous songs, such as “O my Luve ‘s like a red, red rose”, are clearly misunderstood when they are seen merely as “poems to be read or even orally recited, however effective they may be apart from the music” (Crawford 1978: 261). Burns wrote his hun- dreds of songs mainly for James Johnson and George Thompson, who – with the invaluable help of Burns himself – collected the musical heritage of Scot- Words and Music as Partners in Song 375

land4. It is particularly interesting to note that Burns, although he was free to write any verse he liked to go with the Scots tunes, found it hard to use Eng- lish texts for the purpose (as Thompson urged him to do, for marketing reasons), the reason being the “wild-warbling cadence” and “heart-rending melody” (Ewing/Cook, eds. 1938: 75) of the tunes. So, again, as in the Berlin school tradition, Burns tried to find a match between the music and the words on the rhythmic and melodic levels which were intricately linked with a particular tone that he could not find in the English language – only, in his case, the music came first and the words followed6: another ‘perfect’ match, this time with the ‘female’ part taking the initiative?

So far it has been established that ‘perfection’ of partnership in song may either be realized by a ‘fusion’ of the partners (where in one case the ‘male’ partner is in command, with the other one adapting ‘herself’ as closely as possible, or in another case the ‘female’ dominates, in a way absorbing her partner) or by a basic independence and equality of the two partners, on a common ground of ‘material’ and ‘atmospheric’ congruence. Yet we can observe other situations in which the partnership is troubled by the dominance of one partner, where in one case the dominant partner forces the partner to adjust himself, or where, in the other case, the partners altogether lack a common ground.

Arnold Schoenberg’s and Anton von Webern’s vocal music strikes the listener as a form of song writing in which the impulse of the music to ‘interpret’ the underlying text is weak to non-existent. The most obvious feature of this apparent unconcern of the music for textual factors is the frequent deviation of melodic lines from the rhythmical and intonational patterns of the underlying language. For example, high notes, emphatically sticking out in the vocal line, are often placed on unstressed syllables, and generally the principles of speech declamation are widely ignored (see Beckmann 1970: 11–16). This is particularly true for Webern’s later songs and can be attributed to the demands and restrictions of the serial technique applied in these works. It can thus be argued that musical constructional principles override linguistic givens, and one can equally observe that there is no tendency in these songs for the mu-

4 For an edition of Burns’s works which includes the Scottish tunes see Kinsley, ed. 1969. 5 Qtd. Crawford 1978: 263. 6 To be correct, it was Burns’s practice to “assimilate the air before trying to fit words to it” (Kinsley, ed. 1969: vi), which was common and felt legitimate with folk tunes. 376 Words and Music as Partners in Song

sic to respond to what the text is saying as the work unfolds. Yet, it would be hasty to postulate that, as a consequence, the choice of text is irrelevant in such works and that there is no essential link between the two media. Webern always made it quite clear that he very much depended on appropriate texts for his vocal compositions to materialize and that only the choice of a suitable text made the composition possible. But obviously it was not the surface meaning and linguistic shape of the text that decided on its suitability, but some more subtle element of expressivity in the text that triggered in the composer his artistic ambition. ‘Webern takes the text into his music by elevating it to become the mental inducement and reflected counterpart of the composition.’7 The composer and the text must meet ‘inwardly’8, and it very much depends on the composer’s situational responsiveness whether a text is able to stimulate a composition in him or not. The quality expected of a text is an expressiveness to which the composer can relate and which is carried into the composition by the constructional process, independent of surface congruence of text and music.

In terms of ‘partnership’, what are the implications of such a situation? There is no independence of the partners, and the music clearly dominates and overrules, even forces the text on the surface level. Yet the source of energy and ultimate cause lies in the text, and the partners thus share a common emotional ground, are even fettered to one another by that ground. Tension induced by a forceful dominant partner is precariously kept alive by a strong, coercive basic bond between the two partners: ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’?

When Webern’s songs cannot be called ‘interpretive’ in a traditional sense, as they show no significant internal dialogue between the words and the music, and as, consequently, they are only marginal cases in the long tradition of ‘setting poems to music’, even more radical cases of ‘non-interpretive songs’ can be found in the contemporary pop scene. Most frequently in modern pop songs a singer develops a style of musical performance, which becomes his trademark, and applies it to the texts he uses, which mainly serve the function of allowing him to sing (rather than make purely instrumental music). The essential irrelevance of the texts in such songs is not to be deplored as it contributes to the

7 “Webern nimmt den Text in die Musik hinein, indem der Text zum geistigen Anlaß und reflek- tierten Gegenüber der Komposition erhoben wird.” (Budde 1971: 10) 8 “[...] wenn Komponist und Text sich im Innern treffen, ist die Möglichkeit der Komposition gegeben.” (Ibid.) Words and Music as Partners in Song 377

social purpose of pop performances, and the dominance of the music is equally harmless as the music and the text share their objective of serving the market and entertaining the masses. These partners, with one taking the lead, are indifferent to one another but are held together by a shared joint purpose outside of their partnership.

The case is different when the text follows a purpose of its own and, for instance, wants to send out a message of political relevance. If such a text establishes an argument, offers vivid images and descriptions and develops a rhetorical strategy of persuasion, it is bound to perish when it is matched with droning basses, resounding drums and shrieking voices. One victim of such a situation was Linton Kwesi Johnson, who combined his fairly sophisticated texts against racial discrimination of West-Indians in England with lively reggae music and had to experience deep disappointment when his audiences completely neglected his political message and gave themselves away to the thrill of the music. In such a case we have two clearly independent partners, indifferent to one another and following contradictory objectives vis-à-vis their audience, so they become antagonists, and in this battle the music necessarily remains victorious as ‘her’ sensual presence and immediacy of impact are far more successful than the words’ rational grasp. Johnson talked about the ‘destructiveness of music’ in such situations, and one may wonder why under these circumstances the partners would ever have wanted to start such a misalliance. The fact is that Johnson at one point stopped doing performances of this kind (see Bernhart 2002).

The foregoing observations have shown that there is a wide range of diverse relationships which words and music can establish in songs, and have established in the course of European cultural history. They are basically of two types: either they are primarily concerned with meaning, and therefore take their start from a verbal text; in such ‘interpretive songs’ the music is expected to relate itself to the text and contribute to the generation of meaning by the joint two forces of the song. In the other type, meaning is of lesser concern and the function of the song is in the wider sense social, with the music usually being the driving factor; what interests the critic in ‘non-interpretive songs’ is not so much the internal, intermedial relationship between words and music and their meaning-generating activities, but their combined, or separate, relationship to the outer social sphere and the cultural environment in general. While 378 Words and Music as Partners in Song

for the former type hermeneutic methods will be the most adequate forms of song criticism, the latter type will be best served by sociological and cultural-historicist methods – which is not saying that ‘interpretive songs’ may not benefit from cultural-historical perspectives, but that any assessment which does not account for their internal meaning-production processes fails to account for an essential dimension of these songs. Historically, one can observe that with the decline of art song writing in the latter part of the twentieth century and the concomitant coming to the fore of popular forms of song writing, textual analysis has tended to find diminished application in song criticism and ‘historicist’ perspectives have gained importance. As in social life, other forms of partnership than ‘perfect marriages’ take the lead in song writing, and the critical industry is well advised to face up to the situation and develop appropriate methods of assessment. Words and Music as Partners in Song 379

References

Beckmann, Dorothea (1970). Sprache und Musik im Vokalwerk Anton Weberns: Die Konstruktion des Ausdrucks. Kölner Beiträge zur Musikforschung 57. Regensburg: Gustav Bosse. Bernhart, Walter (1985). “Theorie und Praxis der Vertonung in den elisabethanischen Airs”. Manfred Pfister ed. Anglistentag 1984 Passau. Vorträge, Giessen: Hoffmann. 245–260. — (1988). “Setting a Poem: The Composer’s Choice For or Against Interpretation”. Yearbook of Com- parative and General Literature 37: 32–46. — (1995). “An Exegetic Composer: Benjamin Britten’s Journey of the Magi”. Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik 20: 123–134. — (2002). “The Destructiveness of Music: Functional Intermedia Disharmony in Popular Songs”. Erik Hedling, Ulla-Britta Lagerroth, Jenny Westerström, eds. Cultural Functions of Interart Poetics and Practice. Internationale Forschungen zur allgemeinen und vergleichenden Literatur- wissenschaft. Amsterdam/New York, NY: Rodopi. 247–253. Budde, Elmar (1971). Anton Weberns Lieder Op. 3: Untersuchungen zur frühen Atonalität bei Webern. Beihefte zum Archiv für Musikwissenschaft 9. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner. Campian [sic], Thomas (1968). “To the Reader“. Edmund H. Fellowes, ed., rev. ed. Thurston Dart. The Songs from Rosseter’s Book of Airs (1601). The English Lute-Songs. London: Stainer & Bell/ New York, NY: Galaxy Music Corporation. 1. Campion, Thomas (1971). “Observations in the Art of English Poesy”. Gregory G. Smith, ed. Eliza- bethan Critical Essays, vol. 2. Oxford: OUP. 327–355. (1979). “To the Reader“. David Scott, ed. First Book of Ayres (c. 1613). The English Lute-Songs. London: Stainer & Bell/New York, NY: Galaxy Music Corporation. ix. — (1979). “To the Reader“. David Scott, ed. First Book of Ayres (c. 1613). The English Lute-Songs. Lon- don: Stainer & Bell/New York, NY: Galaxy Music Corporation. ix. Cone, Edward T. (1957). “The Composer’s Approach to the Text”. Northrop Frye, ed. Sound and Poe- try. English Institute Essays 1956. New York, NY: Columbia UP. 3–15. Crawford, Thomas (1978). Burns: A Study of the Poems and Songs. Edinburgh: James Thin. Dowland, John (1965). “To the Right Honorable Sir George Cary […]” (Dedication). Edmund H. Fellowes, ed. , rev. ed. Thurston Dart. The First Book of Ayres (1597). The English Lute-Songs. London: Stainer & Bell/New York, NY: Galaxy Music Corporation. iv. Ewing, J. C., D. Cook, eds. (1938). Robert Burns’s Commonplace Book 1783–1791. Glasgow. Hagstrum, Jean H. (1958). The Sister Arts: The Tradition of Literary Pictorialism and English Poetry from Dryden to Gray. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Kinsley, James, ed. (1969). Burns. Poems and Songs. Oxford: OUP. Martinez, Michele (2003). “Sister Arts and Artists: Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Aurora Leigh and the Life of Harriet Hosmer”. Forum for Modern Language Studies 39/2: 214–226. Möller, Joachim, ed. (2001). Sister Arts: Englische Literatur im Grenzland der Kunstgebiete. Marburg: Jonas. Morley, Thomas (1969). “Rules to be obserued in dittying”. A Plaine and Easie Introdvction to Practi- call Musicke. London 1597. The English Experience 207. Amsterdam/New York. 17 f. Online: “The Sister Arts: British Gardening, Painting and Poetry. 1700-1832”. http://www.laits.utexas.edu/sisterarts/sublime/index.htm [4/3/2006]. Stevens, John (1958). “The English Madrigal: ‘Perfect Marriage’ or ‘Uneasy Flirtation’”. Essays and Studies: 17–37.

„Liebling der ganzen Welt“: Sir Walter Scott als Inspiration für die romantische Oper und Donizettis Lucia di Lammermoor [2008]

Das größte Denkmal, das je einem Dichter errichtet wurde, steht in Edin- burgh und gilt Sir Walter Scott, der eine gewaltige gesamteuropäische Wirkung erzielte, die zu seiner Zeit nur von Lord Byron annähernd erreicht wurde. Er war berühmt wie Napoleon: William Wordsworth, die Zentralfigur der englischen romantischen Dichtung, nannte ihn den “Liebling der ganzen Welt”. Was war so sensationell an dem kränkelnden, geschäftstüchtigen Vielschreiber und Laird von Abbotsford? Es war Scott, der Schottland auf die Landkarte des gebildeten Europa brachte und damit ein Land ins kulturelle Bewusstsein hob, das die Phantasie der romantisch geneigten Menschen der Zeit lebhaft ent- zündete. Schottland stand für die neu entdeckte Faszination des Pittoresken und des Erhabenen, der wilden, großartigen Natur und der unverfremdeten Ursprünglichkeit, eine Faszination, die das Interesse an klassischer Schönheit, Harmonie und Ausgewogenheit ablöste, welches das 18. Jahrhundert davor be- herrscht hatte. Nicht nur die raue, machtvolle schottische Landschaft bewegte die Gemüter, auch das leidenschaftsgetränkte, als archaisch empfundene, kon- fliktbeladene Leben der Bewohner dieser Landschaft signalisierte den Zeitge- nossen eine gefühlsintensive authentische Erlebniswelt im Kontrast zur zivili- satorischen Glätte des gewohnten gesellschaftlichen Tuns. Das faszinierende urtümliche Leben spiegelte sich in den berühmten Border Ballads aus dem schottischen Grenzland zu England wider, die Scott gesammelt und einem breiten Publikum bekannt gemacht hatte. Der weltweite Erfolg des Autors be- ruhte allerdings noch mehr auf den 29 dickleibigen Romanen, die er ab 1814, dem Erscheinungsjahr von Waverley, dem Werk, das wie ein Blitz einschlug, zur Tilgung seiner Schulden in fast selbstzerstörerischer mühseliger Arbeit verfasste. Diese Romane waren aber auch dafür verantwortlich, dass – ein Faktum von höchster literarhistorischer Relevanz – der Roman als Gattung volle Aner- kennung gegenüber den vormals viel angeseheneren Gattungen lyrische Dich- 382 “Liebling der ganzen Welt”: Sir Walter Scott

tung und Drama erlangte und damit jene hohe literarische Stellung erhielt, die er heute im allgemeinen Bewusstsein einnimmt.

Die Popularität Scotts führte nicht nur dazu, dass weltweit Schriftsteller so wie er panoramatisch angelegte historische Romane zu schreiben begannen (seien dies – um nur die wichtigsten zu nennen – in Frankreich Hugo, Dumas, Mérimée, Balzac, in Russland Puschkin, Gogol, Tolstoi, in England Dickens, Thackeray, George Eliot, R. L. Stevenson, oder in Italien Manzoni, in Österreich Stifter, in Deutschland Fontane). Auch die Bühnen machten sich die Faszination Scotts zunutze und schlachteten die Romane für theatralische Umsetzungen ganz unterschiedlicher Art aus. Vor allem lieferte Scott – obwohl selbst ein erfolgloser Dramatiker – ausreichend Stoffe für die zur Zeit höchst gefragten Melodramen, die in teils sentimentalen, teils spannungsge- ladenen Szenen voll Überraschungen, Spektakeln und Schauerelementen ihre Zuseher erfreuten.

Scotts überragende Bedeutung für die romantische Oper

Am intensivsten und bis heute im kulturellen Gedächtnis am deutlichsten verankert ist die Auswirkung der Scottschen Romane jedoch im Bereich der Oper. Es gibt keine verlässliche Liste aller Scott-Opern, aber aus einer enzyklo- pädischen Aufstellung musikalischer Bearbeitungen von Werken der englisch- sprachigen romantischen Literatur kann ermittelt werden, dass zumindest 58 Opern in irgendeiner Form auf Werken Scotts basieren, wobei es für die Ver- breitung des gesamten Scottschen Oeuvres spricht, dass es nicht weniger als 18 verschiedene Werke sind, die in Opern verwertet wurden. Am häufigsten ‘ ver- opert’ wurde Ivanhoe (1820): Auf dieser populären Kreuzzugsgeschichte basieren nicht weniger als elf Opern, darunter Heinrich Marschners Der Templer und die Jüdin (1829, im Übrigen eine der Quellen für Wagners Lohengrin), Otto Nicolais Il Templario (1840) aus seiner italienischen Zeit und Arthur Sul- livans einzige ‘grand opera’, Ivanhoe (1891). Kenilworth (1821), eine Geschichte um Elisabeth I. von England, inspirierte neun Opern, darunter Donizettis frü- hes ‘melodramma’ Elisabetta al Castello di Kenilworth (1829, in späterer Fas- sung auch als Il Castello di Kenilworth bekannt). Am dritthäufigsten mit sieben Opern erwies sich The Bride of Lammermoor (1819), doch darüber später “Liebling der ganzen Welt”: Sir Walter Scott 383

noch mehr. Die erste Scott-Oper überhaupt war Rossinis La donna del Lago (1819), basierend auf The Lady of the Lake (1810), einer Verserzählung aus der Zeit noch vor den Romanen Scotts. (Auch Schubert schrieb 1826 sieben Ge- sänge auf Texte aus dieser Verserzählung.) Die Popularität von Scott-Stoffen zeigt sich unter anderem darin, dass es zwei Werke, Ivanhoé (1826) und Robert Bruce (1846), als Rossini-Pastichen gibt, die Scott-Romane dabei also als Rah- men dafür dienten, um beliebte Rossini-Stücke in einer Art Potpourri zu ver- markten. Einen sehr freien Umgang mit Scott-Material zeigt Daniel François Esprit Aubers damals sehr erfolgreiche und auch politisch brisante Oper La Muette de Portici (1828), in der zwar das titelgebende stumme Mädchen Fe- nella eine Figur aus Scotts Roman Peveril of the Peak (1822) ist, die Geschichte aber ansonsten nichts mit dem Roman zu tun hat. Auch I Puritani, Bellinis letzte, 1835 mit höchstem Erfolg uraufgeführte Oper, basiert nur sehr lose auf Scotts Old Mortality, ebenso wie François Adrien Boieldieus bekannte Oper La Dame Blanche (1825), die Elemente aus Guy Mannering (1815) und The Mo- nastery (1820) verwertet. Wie sehr Scotts Stoffe in ganz Europa die interessantesten Musikköpfe der Zeit beschäftigten, zeigen exemplarisch die Opernfas- sungen des Kreuzzugsromans The Talisman (1825) durch so unterschiedliche Männer wie Adolphe Adam, Michael Balfe, Carl Loewe und Giovanni Pacini, und auch Franz Liszt trug sich mit dem Gedanken, eine Oper über The Talis- man zu schreiben. Scott-Opern kamen nicht nur aus den ‘klassischen’ Musik- theaterländern der Zeit, Italien, Frankreich, Deutschland, es finden sich auch englische, belgische, dänische, irische, holländische, schottische Werke, ja auch ein amerikanisches. Auffällig ist jedoch, dass sie alle aus dem 19. Jahrhundert stammen, die späteren auch bereits teils mit Wagner-Einfluss: Es entspricht der allgemeinen Rezeption Scotts, dass seine Werke zwar offensichtlich den Nerv des romantisch ausgerichteten Zeitalters trafen, dass sie aber dem späteren An- sturm der Moderne nicht standhielten. Scotts Schaffen überlebte nicht den ra- dikalen Geschmackswandel, den das 20. Jahrhundert mit sich brachte und der auch das Selbstverständnis der Oper entscheidend veränderte. Scott und die Oper sind aufs Engste miteinander verknüpft, und nur Shakespeare hat mehr Opern inspiriert als Scott. Gleichwohl ist es nur die Oper des 19. Jahrhunderts, die mit Scott untrennbar verbunden ist, und insofern Scott ein typisches Phä- nomen des 19. Jahrhunderts ist, ist sein Wirken bloß für die Oper dieses Jahr- hunderts prägend gewesen, jedoch die Kenntnis der Scottschen Welt unerläss- lich zu deren spezifischem Verständnis. 384 “Liebling der ganzen Welt”: Sir Walter Scott

Der opernhafte Charakter der Scottschen Romane

Welche Gründe kann man nun anführen, weshalb Scotts Romane so ‘oper- abel’ waren? Sie haben – überraschenderweise bei ihrer breiten epischen An- lage – erstaunlich hohe theatralische und operngerechte Qualitäten. Übliche Figuren und Handlungsträger bei Scott sind einprägsame, mit gut markierten Zügen ausgestattete, aber im wesentlichen eindimensionale Personen, die sich leicht in ein Schwarz-Weiß-Schema einfügen. Sie sind eher Typen als komplexe, differenzierte Charaktere. Diese typisierten Figuren erscheinen bei Scott dann häufig in groß angelegten, die Handlung vorantreibenden Szenen, in denen es zu starken persönlichen Konfrontationen kommt. In diesen geht es meist um unlösbare, emotional höchst aufgeladene Konflikte zwischen einander diametral gegenüberstehenden kulturellen oder weltanschaulichen Positio- nen. In The Bride of Lammermoor etwa treffen die – historisch dem Untergang geweihte – katholische Tory-Welt der Ravenswoods und die – in die Zukunft weisende – protestantische Whig-Welt der Ashtons unversöhnlich aufeinander. Es ist charakteristisch für Scotts Romane, dass die zentralen Figuren meist zwischen diesen Fronten stehen und auf typische Weise zwischen den beiden Konfliktparteien hin und her schwanken. Der ‘Ahnherr’ dieser Figuren ist Waverley, der ‘Held’ des gleichnamigen ersten Romans Scotts, dessen Name bereits auf dieses typische Schwanken verweist (to waver = schwanken). Lucy, die ‘Braut von Lammermoor’, ist ebenfalls eine klassische Ausprägung dieser Konfliktsituation, und man kann bei Betrachtung wesentlicher Operngestal- ten des 19. Jahrhunderts, neben Donizettis Lucia, immer wieder diese Kon- stellation beobachten, sei dies nun bei Aida, oder Tannhäuser, oder Don José. (Carmen ist in diesem Sinn viel mehr eine typische Scott-Oper – wenngleich auf dem Text von Mérimée basierend – als Bizets Le Jeune Fille de Perth, eine Oper, die tatsächlich auf Scotts The Fair Maid of Perth beruht.) Die brennen- den Konflikte werden bereits bei Scott in zentralen Szenen ausgetragen, was sich mit einigem Geschick relativ leicht auf die Bühne übertragen lässt. Des- halb haben typische auf Scott aufbauende Opern einen tableau-artigen Auf- bau, bei denen die Handlung in aufeinander folgenden statischen Szenen, nicht aber zwischen diesen rezitativisch vorangetrieben wird. Salvatore Cammarano, Donizettis begabter Librettist für seine Lucia, hat dieses Strukturprinzip gut erfasst und in der Oper konsequent umgesetzt. (Leider ist sein Ruf durch die notorische Verworrenheit des Librettos von Il trovatore, das er ebenfalls ne- “Liebling der ganzen Welt”: Sir Walter Scott 385

ben über 20 anderen schuf, geschädigt.) Er hatte auch die später von Verdi geforderte Gabe, knappe, aber treffende und dramatisch wirkungsvolle Musik auslösende ‘parole sceniche’ zu schreiben. Als weitere opernnahe Eigenart der Scottschen Romane ist festzustellen, dass ihre Figuren oft in direkter Rede sprechen, und dies auch dann, wenn sie nicht im Dialog stehen, sondern über ihre (meist missliche) Lage reflektieren. Dies ist eine besonders günstige Aus- gangslage für die in Opern so unerlässlichen Arien. Das Gesagte macht klar, dass Scotts Romane ausreichend strukturelle Vorgaben aufweisen, die einer er- folgreichen ‘Veroperung’ förderlich sind. Natürlich enthalten die Romane viel Material, das ausführlich die historischen Gegebenheiten beleuchtet und auch – über eine Fülle von Nebenfiguren und -handlungen – ausreichend Lokalko- lorit einbringt. Doch dies alles lässt sich in einer Oper leicht ausblenden, so- lange sich die Grundhaltung typisch romantischer Befindlichkeit, wie sie das Werk Scotts in seiner meist schottischen Welt widerspiegelt, vermittelt. So sind die pittoresken Milieus und Schauplätze aus Scotts Romanen ein weiteres we- sentliches Moment für deren Attraktivität als Opernquellen.

Scotts Bride of Lammermoor als Opernstoff

Als Donizetti 1835 nach dem Riesenerfolg von Bellinis I Puritani den Auf- trag erhielt, für Neapel ein dieses übertrumpfendes Erfolgswerk zu schreiben, fiel die Wahl auf Scotts The Bride of Lammermoor, einen Roman, der davor innerhalb von nur acht Jahren bereits fünfmal als Opernvorlage gedient hatte. In Adolphe Adams teils pasticheartigem Vaudeville Le Caleb de Walter Scott (1827) geht es allerdings nicht um den Tragödienstoff von Lucy und ihrer tragischen Liebe zu Edgar, sondern um die komödiantisch orientierte San- cho-Pansa-Figur des Caleb Balderstone aus dem Roman, und auch Ivar Fre- derik Bredals dänische Oper Bruden fra Lammermoor (1832) mit einem sehr interessanten Libretto von Hans Christian Andersen (er verwertet unter anderem die fesselnde zynische Border Ballad von den “Zwei Raben”) dürften Cammarano und Donizetti nicht gekannt haben. Vertraut waren ihnen aber wohl Michele Enrico Carafas Le nozze di Lammermoor (1829), Luigi Rieschis La fidanzata di Lammermoor (1831) und Albert Mazzucatos gleichnamige Oper von 1833. Donizettis überragende Leistung mit seiner in nur 36 Tagen verfassten Lucia di Lammermoor ließ den Strom von Bride-Opern jedoch ver- 386 “Liebling der ganzen Welt”: Sir Walter Scott

siegen. Erst in den 1880er Jahren gab es wieder eine (Virginio Cappellis Evelia wurde 1885 in Pistoia aufgeführt), davor aber auch die für die Zeit unerlässli- chen burlesken Travestien wie Lucia di Lammermoor; or, the Laird, the Lover, and the Lady (1865) von Henry J. Byron. (Hier wird Henry, der Bösewicht, von einer Miss gespielt, Bucklaw ist eine Dandy-Karikatur und Lucy ein typisch viktorianisches ‘sanftes Täubchen’.) Bereits 1848 war die erste Lucia-Travestie in New York unter dem Kalauer-Titel Lucy Did Sham Amour erschienen (sham = nur zum Schein).

Lucia di Lammermoor als Adaption der Bride of Lammermoor

Scotts Roman The Bride of Lammermoor, der auf einer historischen Gege- benheit aus der Zeit nach der sogenannten ‘glorreichen Revolution’ von 1688, aber vor der parlamentarischen Vereinigung von England und Schottland von 1707 beruht, gilt als sein düsterster Roman, untypisch für den Autor wegen seines unversöhnlichen Endes, dafür aber als tragische Oper besonders geeignet. Scott war bei späterer Lektüre selbst überrascht über die ‘Monstrosität’ seiner Geschichte, die er unter Drogeneinfluss geschrieben hatte. In Camma- ranos Libretto sind die Schauerelemente, wie etwa die drei an Shakespeares Macbeth angelehnten Hexen, getilgt oder zurückgedrängt, und natürlich gibt es auch sonst drastische Kürzungen gegenüber dem Roman. Doch gilt Lucia di Lammermoor als eine gegenüber anderen Scott-Adaptionen besonders ‘origi- nalgetreue’ Oper, indem der grundlegende Handlungsverlauf aufrecht bleibt. Gleichwohl gibt es eine deutliche Reduzierung der Personen von 30 auf sieben, wobei die drastischste Veränderung gegenüber der Vorlage die Streichung von Lady Ashton, der Mutter Lucys, bedeutet. Diese spielt im Roman eine entscheidende Rolle als machiavellistische Lady Macbeth-Figur, die mit allen Mitteln die Machtdurchsetzung der aufstrebenden Mittelschicht betreibt und sich dabei über alle persönlichen Gefühle, vor allem die Lucys, hinwegsetzt. Es war bühnenpraktisch sehr klug, keine so starke Handlungsfigur neben der Titelheldin vorzusehen. Donizetti hatte ein ähnliches Primadonnen-Problem in seiner ersten Erfolgsoper, Anna Bolena, kennen gelernt. Auch Lucys viel di- plomatischerer, aber eher durchsetzungsschwacher Vater, Sir William Ashton, fehlt in der Oper, ebenso wie Lucys Bruder Sholto, ein Werkzeug der Lady. Sie alle fließen in der Oper in die Figur des Enrico ein, der im Roman als Lucys “Liebling der ganzen Welt”: Sir Walter Scott 387

Bruder Henry allerdings viel blasser und ‘harmloser’ erscheint als in der Oper. Auch sonst sind die Hauptfiguren leicht umgezeichnet: Edgar ist im Roman der typische düstere ‘Byronische Held’, attraktiv, aber sehr zurückhaltend und ein vom Schicksal Verfolgter und Getriebener, während er in der Oper viel spontaner aufbraust und seine Emotionen stürmisch auslebt (ein ‘echter Italiener’). Bucklow ist bei Scott ein Heißsporn, eher dümmlich, aber liebens- wert, in der Oper ohne deutliches eigenes Profil. Und vor allem Lucy wird in wesentlichen Zügen umgedeutet: Sie erscheint in der Oper viel leidenschaftli- cher, weniger manipulierbar und wesentlich eigenständiger, von überragender tragischer Größe, während ihre Tragik im Roman viel ausschließlicher in ihrer unterwürfigen Opferrolle liegt.

Lucias Wahnsinn

Die Umcharakterisierung Lucias erfolgte vor allem durch die wesentlichste Erweiterung, welche die Handlung der Oper gegenüber dem Roman erfährt, nämlich durch die berühmte Wahnsinnsszene. Auch im Roman verfällt Lucy dem Wahnsinn, doch kehrt sie dort nach ihrem Mord nicht zur Hochzeits- gesellschaft zurück, sondern wird nach der Mordtat, die durch zwei Schreie signalisiert sind, im Brautzimmer am Kamin hockend entdeckt. Das Bild der Irren, wie es der Roman dabei zeichnet, weicht in wesentlichen Punkten von dem ab, was Donizettis Oper vermittelt: “mit aufgelöstem Haare, ihr Nacht- kleid zerrissen und blutbefleckt, mit gläsernen Augen und die Züge von wil- dem Wahnsinn verzogen”, ‘schnattert’ sie und ‘schneidet Gesichter’ “mit der Haltung einer frohlockenden Besessenen” und – bekräftigend wiederholt – “mit einem grinsenden Frohlocken”. Erst am Morgen darauf fällt sie “in einen bewusstlosen Zustand”. Dies ist das Bild einer pathologischen Crisis mit “Zuckungen auf Zuckungen ... bis der Tod sich einstellte” und weit von dem entfernt, was der Opernbesucher im vorletzten Bild der Lucia erlebt. Dort erscheint Lucia als gleichsam somnambul Entrückte, als ein Wesen, das in die Welt einer eigene Wirklichkeit entflohen ist, in der sie in der Phantasie ihre Vision einer erfüllten Existenz durch Vereinigung mit dem Geliebten realisieren kann. Ihre Zwangslage führt nicht zum körperlichen Paroxismus, sondern entführt sie geistig-seelisch in eine ‘bessere Welt’, in deren Transzendenz ihre Empfindungen (im Goetheschen Sinn) ‘Ereignis’ werden und sie ‘Seligkeit’ er- 388 “Liebling der ganzen Welt”: Sir Walter Scott

langt. Dies ist es auch, was Donizettis Musik so bezwingend zu evozieren vermag, nämlich eine abgehobene – in W. H. Audens Terminologie – ‘sekundäre Welt’, wie sie für die Oper typisch und gattungsbildend ist. Dieser schönen ‘sekundären’ Welt steht unsere schnöde, alltägliche ‘primäre’ gegenüber, deren Zwänge alle Handlungskonflikte auslösen. Lucia ist sicherlich einerseits das Opfer eines Konflikts zwischen ‘Macht und Liebe’, des Grundkonflikts in der Oper des 19. Jahrhunderts, sei es in Wagners Ring oder in fast allen Ver- di-Opern. Doch zum anderen ist sie, bereits bevor sie Opfer aller Intrigen wird, eine ‘Abgesonderte’, dem real-gesellschaftlichen Leben weitgehend Entzogene. Dies ist in Donizettis Oper schon in ihrer Auftrittsarie mit deren sphärischen Harfenklängen manifest. Dieses von der Alltagswelt abgehobene Bild der Pro- tagonistin ist insofern bereits in Scotts Roman angelegt, als dort interessanterweise das Erste, das der Leser von ihr vernimmt, der Klang ihres Lautenspiels ist. Im Roman ist das Bild von Lucys Wahn allerdings weniger schlüssig entwickelt als in der Oper. Insofern als Lucia von allem Anfang an auf Weltent- rückung hin angelegt ist, greifen all jene Deutungen der Oper zu kurz, die ihren Wahnsinn ausschließlich als Reaktion auf die Unterdrückung durch eine machtbesessene Männerwelt sehen (wobei ironischerweise im Roman ja Lady Ashton die Hauptunterdrückende ist). Der emanzipatorische Zug in Camma- rano/Donizettis Oper ist nicht übersehbar und fördert das größte Konfliktpo- tential der Handlung, doch die ‘Magie’ der Oper liegt in der betörenden, musikalisch erzeugten Präsenz jener ‘sekundären Welt’, die sich Lucia eröffnet. Insofern ist der ‘Wahn’ Lucias nicht allzu weit entfernt von – etwa – jenem Elsas am Gestade der Schelde oder Aidas in der Gruft.

Wahnsinn in der romantischen Oper: Koloratur und Menschenwürde

Lucias Wahnsinnsszene steht natürlich nicht vereinzelt da in der Welt der romantischen Belcantooper, solche Szenen waren zur Zeit durchaus populär. Bel- linis I Puritani hatte eine, doch wird in der Vorlage dieser Oper, Scotts Old Mortality, Elviras Wahnsinn nur erwähnt. (Eine weitere Scott-Quelle für eine Wahnsinnsszene ist der Roman Heart of Midlothian für A. W. Berlijns Oper Le Lutin de Culloden von 1846.) Donizetti selbst hatte in Anna Bolena bereits eine sehr eindrucksvolle Wahnsinnsszene der Anna geschrieben, die nur durch ihren konventionell auftrumpfenden Schluss gegenüber jener der Lucia zurück- “Liebling der ganzen Welt”: Sir Walter Scott 389

steht. Die Wahnsinnsdarstellung kam auf ideale Weise den Erwartungen des Koloraturgesangs im Belcanto entgegen. Durch die Glucksche Opernreform war der artifizielle Ziergesang in Misskredit geraten und eine natürlichere, den jeweiligen dramatischen Erfordernissen angepasste, ‘normale’ Gesangsform erforderlich geworden. Die künstliche Koloratur schien demnach dramaturgisch nur mehr dann gerechtfertigt, wenn eine ‘abnorme’, ‘unnatürliche’ Situation zur Darstellung gelangen sollte, wofür sich die Wahnsinnsdarstellungen geradezu zwangsläufig anboten. Wahnsinnsszenen waren daher der willkommene Anlass für eine auch inhaltlich gerechtfertigte Anwendung der Koloratur. Das artifizielle Moment der Wahnsinnsszene in seiner Lucia wollte Donizetti – zu- sätzlich zur Koloratur – zunächst durch den Einsatz der stark verfremdet klin- genden Glasharmonika unterstreichen. Doch als sich dies als impraktikabel erwies, wählte er anstatt dessen die Flöte, was die Verfremdung zurückdrängte, dafür aber die angesprochene sublime Entrückung Lucias unterstrich. (Noch in Hans Werner Henzes Oper Elegie für junge Liebende wird der ‘irren’ Hil- da Mack die Flöte als obligates Instrument beigegeben.) Die Flöte unterstrich auch den eigenständigen Gesamtcharakter der italienischen Opernmusik der Zeit, der sich exemplarisch in Bellinis charakteristischem Melos manifestierte und eine typische mediterrane Form der Romantik etablierte, die in entscheidenden Elementen von der Romantik im nördlicheren Europa abwich.

War somit die Vorliebe für Wahnsinnsszenen in der italienischen Oper in einem hohen Grad durch opernästhetische und dramaturgische Voraussetzun- gen bedingt, so kam hinzu, dass romantische Anschauungen eine veränderte Sicht auf das Phänomen des Wahnsinns mit sich brachten. Wurden im 18. Jahr- hundert, im Zeitalter des Rationalismus – wie von Michel Foucault im Detail herausgearbeitet – Irre durch ihren Verlust der Vernunft als tierähnlich, ihrer Humanität Beraubte angesehen und kaserniert, so rückte mit der revolutio- nären Entdeckung der Menschenwürde und der Forderung nach allgemeinen Menschenrechten in der romantischen Philosophie das Individuum in seiner Eigenständigkeit und Einzigartigkeit in den Vordergrund. Damit erhält auch das Abwegige, von der Norm Abweichende seinen Eigenwert, vor allem auch dann, wenn es der nunmehr zunehmend in Misskredit geratenen Vernunft als oberstem Maß des Menschseins misstraut und andere Wertigkeiten setzt. Wa- ren dem Rationalisten – wie etwa von Theseus in Shakespeares Sommernachts- traum vertreten –ironisierend Dichter, Verliebte und Verrückte von derselben vernunftsfernen Art, so wird nunmehr der von Leidenschaft Geprägte, nicht 390 “Liebling der ganzen Welt”: Sir Walter Scott

rational Gelenkte, als ein mit dem Genie Verwandter angesehen. Der Wahn- sinnige ist nicht mehr Schauobjekt gegen Bezahlung, wie – zumindest noch bis 1770 – in der Londoner Irrenanstalt Bedlam, sondern erregt Mitleid und wird interessant als eigenständige Ausformung von Menschsein. Johann Heinrich Füsslis Darstellung der “Wahnsinnigen Kate ” (1807) ist der klassische Spiegel dieses geänderten Interesses, und es verwundert nicht, dass auch die Literatur der Zeit voll ist von Figuren, die ihrer Vernunft beraubt sind, denen jedoch die ganze Sympathie der Leser gehört. So fügt sich das enorme zeitgenössische Interesse an Walter Scott auch auf dieser Ebene insofern ins Bild, als er, wie etwa in seiner Bride of Lammermoor, eine den Erwartungshaltungen der Zeit entsprechende, von großer Sympathie getragene Darstellung einer tragischen Wahnsinnigen lieferte, die eine Nachzeichnung in musikdramatischer Form geradezu heraufbeschwor. Donizetti hat in seiner genialen Oper die Erinne- rung an die kulturhistorische Relevanz der Problemstellung bewahrt und ihr gleichzeitig durch beglückende Sinnfälligkeit eine überzeitliche Gültigkeit ver- liehen, was allerdings ohne den Anstoß aus der Anschauungswelt Scotts kaum möglich gewesen wäre.

References

Gooch, Bryan N. S., David S. Thatcher (1982). Musical Settings of British Romantic Literature: A Ca- talogue. New York, NY/London: Garland Publishing. Mitchell, Jerome (1977). The Walter Scott Operas: An Analysis of Operas Based on the Works of Sir Wal- ter Scott. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press. White, Henry Adelbert (1927). Sir Walter Scott’s Novels on the Stage. New Haven, CN: Yale UP. Reprint 1973. From Novel to Song via Myth: Wuthering Heights as a Case of Popular Intermedial Adaptation [2008]

This paper argues that adaptations of literary works into later, frequently popular, versions of them in other media are rarely cases of direct intermedial transposition but generally pass through a more abstract, essentially media-indifferent stage, which is based on the Stoff, or ‘subject matter’, of the literary source rather than on its more essentially ‘literary’ elements. Successful Stoffe for intermedial adaptation prove to be fertile towards generating myths or icons, which in turn stimulate further creative responses in various cultural contexts. Yet this successful myth-generating quality of a literary source ultimately rests in a highly literary quality of the source itself, namely in its ability to create a vivid ‘storyworld’ and to guarantee the reader’s ‘immersion’ in this storyworld. Thus, concerning source/target text relationships, critical attention is directed not so much towards the issue of the target text’s ‘fidelity’ to the source, but more so towards the source text’s ‘fertility’ relating to its ‘immersive’, ‘storyworld-building’ and ‘myth-generating’ power. The case is argued by analysing the adaptive process from Emily Brontë’s famous novel Wuthering Heights to Kate Bush’s highly successful eponymous popular song of the 1970s.

In 2005, we proudly celebrated four hundred years of Cervantes’s Don Qui- xote, which has given critics worldwide ample opportunity to contemplate the reception history of this extraordinary book. In a perceptive Times Literary Supplement review, Jeremy Lawrance observed that “the book’s recognition as a world classic goes back to the eighteenth century and its status as world myth to the nineteenth”. He added that various “forms of repackaging” of the novel (such as various “curios” from comic strips to “Quixotic cookery”) have “spared [us] the trouble of reading a thousand-page Spanish Baroque novel” (Lawrance 2005).

I take the cue for my discussion of Emily Brontë’s novel Wuthering Heights and its afterlife in adaptation from this comment, and from another one made by a clever journalist who described a classic novel as “a timeless read that I never have time to read” (Online 1). As we are concerned with Word and Music 392 From Novel to Song via Myth: Wuthering Heights

Studies, the example and case of adaptation by which I have chosen to demonstrate my views is a musical one, namely Kate Bush’s extremely successful song of 1978, called “Wuthering Heights”. What I plan to develop, however, is a more general reflection on adaptive processes from literary texts into popular media and – to indicate one of my main points right at the start – to demonstrate that such intermedial transpositions are often processes which do not involve a direct transformation from one medium into another, but rather tend to pass through a stage of a far more abstract, essentially extra-medial condition.

Kate Bush, “Wuthering Heights”

Out on the wiley and windy moors We’d roll and fall in green. You had a temper like my jealousy: Too hot, too greedy. How could you leave me, 5 When I needed to possess you? I hated you. I loved you, too.

Bad dreams in the night. You told me I was going to lose the fight, Leave behind my wuthering, wuthering 10 Wuthering Heights.

Heathcliff, it’s me, your Cathy, I’ve come home. I’m so cold, Let me in at your window.

Ooh, it gets dark! It gets lonely, On the other side from you. 15

I pine a lot. I find a lot Falls through without you. I’m coming back, love. Cruel Heathcliff, my one dream, My only master. 20

Too long I roam in the night. I’m coming back to his side, to put it right. I’m coming home to wuthering, wuthering, Wuthering Heights. From Novel to Song via Myth: Wuthering Heights 393

Heathcliff, it’s me, your Cathy, I’ve come home. I’m so cold, 25 Let me in at your window.

Ooh! Let me have it. Let me grab your soul away. Ooh! Let me have it. Let me grab your soul away. 30 You know it’s me – Cathy! Let me grab your soul away. Heathcliff, it’s me, your Cathy, I’ve come home. I’m so cold, Let me in at your window.

AHHHHHHH YAAAAA YAAAA OHHHH YAAAAAAA

(Online 2)

In this song, Catherine Bush (which is Kate’s official name) obviously sings in the role of the older Catherine from Emily Brontë’s novel. The sound of this song has been called ‘exotic’ and “idiosyncratic”, with its “repertoire of unearthly shrieks and guttural whispers” creating “a surreal world of affect” (Kruse 1990: 453–455). Patsy Stoneman, the authority on Brontë Transformations, tellingly talks about “the shriek of a banshee” (1996: 212), i.e., of an Irish death fairy. (Kate Bush is of Irish descent.) We sense in this song the identification of the singer with the dead Cathy returning to Wuthering Heights at night to haunt Heathcliff in her frustrated hope of becoming finally re-united with her star-crossed lover. Cathy remembers their harmonious early childhood out on the moors and wants to recover it, but there is also aggressiveness involved in the song, in the form of jealousy, greed, possessiveness – see the final statement of the song: “Let me grab your soul away.” (l. 34), and there is an obsessive mixture of love and hate: “I hated you. I loved you, too.” (l. 7) This is basically in the spirit of Brontë’s novel, but it is strange that the song talks about Cathy’s jealousy. In the book it is of course Heathcliff who is jealous of Cathy marrying Edgar Linton; Cathy, in fact, has no reason to be jealous. The first stanza of the song would come far more convincingly from Heathcliff: “How could you leave me, / When I needed to possess you?” (ll. 5f.)

This inaccuracy does not come as much of a surprise when one reads what Kate Bush has to say about the genesis of her song: “I remember my brother John talking about the story, but I couldn’t relate to it enough. So I borrowed 394 From Novel to Song via Myth: Wuthering Heights

the book and read a few pages, picking out a few lines. So I actually wrote the song before I had read the book right through.” (Online 3) Of course, early on in the book we find the episode when Lockwood meets Cathy’s ghost at the window, wishing to be let in1. Yet in the book it is Heathcliff who is anguished by this, not Cathy, and it is he who cries out for her as she has vanished into the dark. It is not unexpected – as Kate Bush reports in true honesty – that the Brontë Society thinks her song “a disgrace” (ibid.), but, as far as the present argument is concerned, I am certainly not blaming Kate’s ‘reading’ – or ‘non-reading’ – of the story. For Kate Bush goes on in her report: “The name Cathy helped, and made it easier to project my own feelings of want for someone so much that you hate them. I could understand how Cathy felt.” (Ibid.)

This, it seems to me, is a legitimate position to take as it answers an individual demand in a creative person, and what needs to interest us in our context – i.e., in a discussion of intermedial adaptations – is the following: what has happened to the story of Heathcliff and Cathy since its early formulation in 1847 that would encourage a creative person like Kate Bush to want to ‘project her own feelings’ into it and make her ‘understand’ the heroine? Thus, what should interest us in this context is not so much the fidelity of the adaptation to its source, but the fertility of the source for later adaptations. That could become a slogan: fertility, not fidelity.

The ‘fertility’ of Emily Brontë’s novel – and that of her sister Charlotte’s Jane Eyre – shows itself most clearly in the fact that a veritable Brontë industry has developed over the one-and-a-half centuries since these works of genius came out of the remote Yorkshire moors. Thanks to Lucasta Miller’s very recent monograph on The Brontë Myth, we now have detailed knowledge of the stages of the Brontë reception and their transformation into cultural icons. Miller concentrates on the mythification and mystification of Charlotte’s and Emily’s own lives, and carefully traces how Emily, in particular, became the “famous sphinx of English Literature” (2004: 259), “The Mystic of the Moors” (ibid.: 251), who – ridiculously so – “was recently voted twentieth most erotic person of the millennium […] in a poll among readers of the Erotic Review” (ibid.: 269). I am mentioning this as it shows very clearly how the heroine of the novel Wuthering Heights and its author merge in the popular imagination,

1 This scene has been called “the most memorable ghost scene in literature” (Miller 2005: 258). From Novel to Song via Myth: Wuthering Heights 395

all this being deeply ironic in view of the maidenly life led by the sisters at the Haworth Parsonage and of the overt (if not covert) sexlessness of the novel. Miller observes that Emily was quite neglected in the high-Victorian decades after her death in 1848 (cf. ibid.: 223), but that she started to fascinate people during what Miller calls the “Brontë epidemic” of the 1890s (ibid.: 111). She quotes D. H. Lawrence as being thrilled by the “dangerousness” of the novel Wuthering Heights and finding there “human passion as a mythic force” (ibid.: 262). Initiated by Charlotte’s “imaginative rewritings of Emily” (ibid.: 279) after her sister’s untimely and mysterious death, Emily began to be transformed “into something larger, and more abstract, than life: an embodiment of Ro- mantic visionary poetics”; and later poetic appropriations “remodeled her along archetypal lines”, testifying to the author’s “magnetism”. To mention one famous instance, in Ted Hughes’s imagination, Emily’s (purported) death wish merged with the vision of the ghostly Catherine from the novel, and the Heath- cliff-Cathy myth served the poet as a model for explaining to himself his own situation with his suicidal wife, Sylvia Plath (cf. ibid.: 279–283).

Thus, it is obvious that Wuthering Heights has by now become canonized as a great tragic love story: it has turned into “an archetype of (R)romantic [sic] love” (Stoneman 1996: 221), in which the landscape, ‘wild nature’, represented by the Yorkshire moors, plays an important role, giving the tragic lovers a cosmic, elemental dimension far beyond our everyday social world. In this context, Heathcliff, as a popular icon, reflects the Byronic hero type, the mysterious, homeless wanderer, of strong masculine fascination, but a guilty, anguished, “fierce, pitiless, wolfish man”, as Cathy describes him in the novel to Isabella, Heathcliff’s wife (Brontë 1995: 102). The special feature of Cathy’s and Heath- cliff’s tragic love – as in contrast to that other pair of great nineteenth-century romantic lovers, Tristan and Isolde – is what Stoneman calls the “twin soul theme”, that she identifies as the “fascinating core of the novel”, namely the feeling that there is “an existence of yours beyond you” (Online 4). This notion finds its most famous expression in Cathy’s confession to Nelly when she says “I am Heathcliff”, and in the description of her love for Heathcliff: “My love for Heathcliff resembles the external rocks beneath – a source of little visible delight, but necessary.” (Brontë 1995: 82) The fact that the two people experience an existence ‘beyond themselves’ contributes to a central notion of the novel, which is the notion of ‘transgression’. According to Miller, this is “the main thematic idea which holds the novel together” and implies “the dissolving 396 From Novel to Song via Myth: Wuthering Heights

of normative boundaries” such as the boundary between dream and reality, or that between the natural and the supernatural worlds (2005: 211).

These two ‘transgressive’, elementally identical people, having a single ‘twin soul’, however, experience their identity only as children out on the stormy moors, but these ‘children of storm’ have hopelessly lost their primeval union in adulthood and find themselves tragically separated and in constant frustrated search for its recovery. Stoneman observes that this pair of lovers has become an “icon of loss”, which “suggests that Wuthering Heights occupies a place in the popular imagination of the present comparable to that of Jane Eyre in the melodramatic imagination of the nineteenth century. Jane Eyre was reproduced predominantly as a social drama, the story of the orphan denied her place in family and class. Wuthering Heights”, Stoneman continues, “seems [to have] come to represent the more existential loss of the twentieth century, the fantasy of those orphaned by a non-existent God and alienated from a society which pretends to belong to us all.” (1996: 213) This is a far-reaching observation that goes a long way towards accounting for the extraordinary impact of the Wuthering Heights myth on our present-day cultural climate.

Yet it is an interesting facet of the Brontë reception during the last century that the most effective appropriation of Emily’s novel was William Wyler’s notorious film version of 1939, in which Laurence Olivier appeared as Heathcliff and Merle Oberon as Catherine. It was the same year when Gone with the Wind came out, and both were truly American, Hollywood products, which, in the case of Wuthering Heights, implied a drastic re-reading of the novel. Heathcliff, in this film, is more amiable (after all, he is played by Laurence Olivier), Cath- erine is more of a typically American capricious girl, the story has a decisive social twist and becomes the story of ‘the lady and the stable boy’ where it is the social barriers that prevent a happy union of the two2. This is a far cry from the novel’s original spirit, and Stoneman asserts that Catherine and Heathcliff in this film “miss out on the unique quality of the novel” (Online 4). Yet the two lovers “on the hilltop” out on the moors – a famous image from the film – have “become a visual emblem of what the novel ‘means’” to a mass audience (Stone- man 1996: 127).

2 This reading by Wyler’s film was first identified by Bluestone (cf. 1971: 99; ch. 3: “Wuthering Heights”: 91–114). From Novel to Song via Myth: Wuthering Heights 397

This 1939 Hollywood version of Wuthering Heights, with its “‘lovers on the hill’ mythology” (ibid.: 155) may truly form “a watershed in popular perception” of the story, as Stoneman asserts (1996: 6), and created the now most popular image of the novel. Yet it is interesting to observe how Kate Bush fits into this picture. In fact, one can find little of this sentimental, “‘weepy’” (ibid.: 213) Hollywood version of Wuthering Heights in the song, which shows far more of the Byronic hero spirit and the feeling of existential loss. As already observed, ‘dark’ emotions prevail in the song, indicated by its key-words: “jealousy”, “greedy”, “possess”, “cold”, “lonely”, “bad dreams”, “hate”, “grab”, “master” – “on the wiley, windy moors” (online 2). Bush’s text very well represents the ‘icon of loss’ and, at the same time, the profound unwillingness to accept that loss, an existential anguish much in keeping with modernist sensibilities, as already observed.

What persuasively matches with this condition, as expressed in the lyrics, is the extraordinary, very strange music of the song. Kate Bush’s unusual subjects – as she says herself, she is interested in “human beings in extreme religious or spiritual states” (Online 5) – find their equivalent in extreme sound constellations, her shrill high voice, and the obsessive repetitiveness of the music. Kate’s own description of how she came to write the song is significant in this respect: it perfectly fulfils the cliché of visionary romantic inspiration. She says: “Well, I wrote [“Wuthering Heights”] in my flat, sitting at the upright piano one night in March at about midnight. There was a full moon and the curtains were open, and every time I looked up for ideas, I looked at the moon. Actually, it came quite easily. I couldn’t seem to get out of the chorus – it had a really circular feel to it, which is why it repeats.” (Online 3) This situation, of course, is totally stereo- typed but, strangely enough, the music very well captures the hypnotic mood described, and it all seems a perfect equivalent to the ‘icon of loss’ as it appears in the lyrics. It is also telling that Kate Bush, when asked what comes first when writing her songs, the words or the music, said: “[…] the music seems to be sparked off by an idea before the lyrics, and the lyrics usually fit in just behind the music.” (On- line 6) It is significant that an ‘idea’ comes first, stimulating the music, to which the lyrics are fitted afterwards. It seems clear that the ‘idea’ which triggered the whole process in Kate Bush’s song was the Heathcliff icon and the Wuthering Heights myth, as they appeared to the singer and as they were suggested to her – however vaguely – by her superficial perusal of the novel. This ‘idea’ is basically a mixture of the Byronic hero myth and the ‘icon of loss’, as described. 398 From Novel to Song via Myth: Wuthering Heights

But one additional feature may further account for the tremendous popularity of the song. (It was number one for weeks in the UK and several other countries, it went into gold after four months, and was top ten in many Euro- pean and South American countries, also in South Africa – but interestingly not so in the United States; cf. Online 7.) I have already mentioned that Emily Brontë was, very ironically, voted one of the most erotic women of the millennium (although, it would appear, her life and novel are sexless). Yet it is clear that much of the tragedy of the Catherine-Heathcliff relationship lies in the fact that it is a case of unconsummated love. This is an essential element of the myth, which distinguishes Catherine and Heathcliff clearly from other Great Lovers, such as Romeo and Juliet, Abelard and Eloise, or Tristan and Isolde. The author Mary Evans very perceptively observes that Wuthering Heights, the novel, is “so erotically charged” precisely because this love is unconsummated and “knowledge of the other person as a physical being” is missing and the person remains “an object of fantasy” (Online 4). (In this respect, all those transformations of Wuthering Heights that feature sexual intimacy between the two protagonists seriously undermine the myth3.) Thus, the tremendous success of the Wuthering Heights myth seems to be essentially rooted in the motive of unconsummated love between two people who, as ‘transgressive’ creatures, are elementally linked (the ‘twin soul motive’) but have lost each other (the ‘icon of loss’). Jane Allen, a successful TV scriptwriter and -editor, has made a pertinent point by saying that an indispensable ingredient of any successful TV story now is what she refers to by a four-letter acronym, urst, which stands for ‘Unresolved Sexual Tension’. This is “absolutely the backbone of an ongoing series”, she says, and it is “usually internal obstacles”, such as lack of courage or imagination, which cause urst, rather than external ones (Online 4). Is this an (ultimate) explanation why Wuthering Heights has been such a success?

***

Having investigated a particular case of intermedial adaptation from a famous novel into a popular song, I will now look at some methodological and theoretical implications of the adaptive process described. There has as yet been little reflection on the issue of adaptation in Word and Music Studies, in contrast to Film Studies where adaptation has been a central concern for quite

3 A significant case is Robert Fuest’s film version of 1970 with Timothy Dalton and Anna Calder-Marshall (see 1970). From Novel to Song via Myth: Wuthering Heights 399

some time now. A very useful, up-to-date collection of essays on the ‘state of the art’ of adaptation has been edited by James Naremore (see 2000). It is impressive that even the earliest essay in that collection, a famous text by André Bazin from 1948, observes that “[w]ith time, we do see the ghosts of famous characters rise far above the great novels from which they emanate. […] Nov- els, as we all know, are mythmakers.” (Bazin 2000: 23) Similarly, Dudley An- drew, another authority on adaptation theory, observes that a successful novel exists “as a continuing form or archetype in culture”, and that what he calls the “adaptive material […] claims the status of myth” (2000: 30). This “myth” or “archetype” exists “outside texts altogether”, as Andrew, additionally, observes (ibid.), and Robert Ray in the same collection asserts that popular narratives “rely […] heavily on codes that are never medium-specific”, yet the strength of those cultural codes “depends on a signifier’s connotation remaining consistent as it migrates from form to form” (2000: 40). Thus, in such cases, in the process of transformation from one medium to another, a stage is passed where no form of media-specificity exists any longer but where a ‘connotative’ element of the source text remains active that proves to be powerful and ‘fertile’ enough to form the inspiration for further actualizations in other media.

If one wants to identify this media-independent connotative element that remains, it is usually referred to as an ‘idea’ – so does Kate Bush, as quoted before, or Alfred Hitchcock, who said, “[I] read a story only once, and if I like the basic idea, I just forget about the book and start to create cinema” (qtd. Nare- more 2000: 7; my emphases). The vagueness of the terms used for the particular media-independent element referred to becomes obvious when others call it the ‘story’ (quite in contrast to what, e.g., Hitchcock says in the quotation just given): a film director will probably say that what he needs as the basis for a film is ‘a good story’, in many cases drawn from a novel. In narrative theory the well-known distinction has been made between ‘story’ (or fabula) and ‘discourse’ (or sjuzhet, in Russian Formalist terminology), and it is generally seen as the distinction between the ‘subject matter’, the ‘what’ of a text, and its ‘treatment’, the ‘how’ of a text, or, in short, between ‘matter’ and ‘manner’. The recently published Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory (see Herman/ Jahn/Ryan, eds. 2005) identifies the ‘story’ as something that “can be taken as a non-textual given, as independent of the presentation in discourse” (Shen 2005: 567). What ‘story’ implies, however, – according to Rimmon-Kenan – is that it forms a “reconstructed”, “synthetic” version of the ‘plot’ (1983: 3); 400 From Novel to Song via Myth: Wuthering Heights

in other words, it puts the specific structure of the ‘plot’ into a chronological, more abstract sequence of events. Yet – and this is the point to be made in the present context – the ‘story’ is event-oriented. But much of the ‘connotative’ element investigated here is situated on a more abstract level than ‘reconstructed events’. It is interesting that the English language seems to be lacking a definite term equivalent to the German word Stoff, which is precisely the element that concerns us here. Typical Stoffe are Oedipus, Everyman, Don Juan, Don Qui- xote, Faust, or Tristan and Isolde. (Only rarely there is talk in English of ‘the stuff of myth’ or – as in one definition of the Russian Formalists’ fabula – of “the basic story stuff”; Shen 2005: 566. The closest English equivalent to Ger- man Stoff seems to be subject matter, which, however, is too general and also too abstract; see below).

German structuralist criticism was interested in the notion of Stoff, and one can quote the authoritative definition given by Wolfgang Kayser in Das sprachliche Kunstwerk, which first came out in 1948 and was the ‘bible’ of Ger- man literary criticism of its day: ‘Anything that lives outside a literary work in its own history and now has an effect on the literary work, is called STOFF. It is always tied to particular figures, involves activities and is more or less fixed temporally and spatially.’4 This is a very cautious definition and makes sure that, although ‘activities’ (‘Vorgänge’) are part of a Stoff, they need not amount to a string of ‘events’ as in a ‘story’ and, similarly, time and space are necessary elements of a Stoff but, as the definition says, need no final fixation (‘more or less fixed’). This is what distinguishes Stoff from ‘theme’, ‘problem’, or ‘idea’ of a work, which always refer to the ‘cognitive content’5 only, without any element of concretization. To further complicate matters, ‘theme’ needs to be additionally distinguished from ‘motive’. (‘Motives’ are, e.g., ‘mysterious origin’, ‘enemy brothers’, ‘love conflict through different backgrounds’ – all these, incidentally, to be found in Wuthering Heights.) A ‘motive’ – according to Gero von Wilpert, another earlier German authority in literary criticism – is ‘a structural unit as a typical, significant situation, which contains general thematic con-

4 “Was außerhalb eines literarischen Werkes in eigener Überlieferung lebt und nun auf seinen In- halt gewirkt hat, heißt STOFF. Der Stoff ist immer an bestimmte Figuren gebunden, ist vorgangs- mäßig und zeitlich und räumlich mehr oder weniger fixiert” (Kayser 1948/1963: 56; this and all further Engl. transl. mine). 5 “[...] geistigen Gehalt” (Wilpert 1955/1961: s. v. “Stoff”). From Novel to Song via Myth: Wuthering Heights 401

ceptions’6. So there are, in fact, at least five levels on the ‘what’ side of a work, in rising order of abstraction: ‘plot’ – ‘story’ – ‘Stoff ’ – ‘motive’ – ‘theme’. What concerns us in the present context is Stoff as the one element which seems to live on most powerfully in the process of popular intermedial transformations.

Why does all this matter in a contemporary discussion of adaptations? Al- though I have quoted definitions of Stoff, motive, theme, etc. as given by structuralist critics, it is well known that for this generation of critics Stoff was only of a subordinate significance in literature (cf. Wilpert 1955/1961: s.v. “Stoff”) and that what was considered to be shaping and ‘really’ constituting literary works were the ‘value-creating forces of form’7. This was the familiar formalist position in German criticism, and it found its American equivalent in Clement Greenberg’s view, inaugurated in his famous essay “Avant-Garde and Kitsch” of 1939, a central manifesto of modernism. There Greenberg asserts that “subject matter or content becomes something to be avoided like a plague” and that “[c]ontent is to be dissolved so completely into form that the work of art or literature cannot be reduced in whole or in part to anything not itself” (Online 8). Yet what we experience in all the successful adaptations of literary works into popular media is, in fact, exactly the opposite of what is here asserted, namely that the texts are radically reduced – as we have seen with Kate Bush, for example, or in the Hitchcock quotation given above – and that they survive only as a Stoff in the form of cultural codes, quite independent of the verbal shape they have found in the literary source. It seems unavoidable to draw the conclusion that in the process of intermedial transformation from a literary source into a popular medium the literary qualities of the source are essentially lost and become irrelevant. What survives – if it does survive – is a Stoff in the form of a ‘myth’ or an ‘icon’ quite independent of its earlier literary manifestation, and frequently users of myths are quite unaware of their literary origins.

However, there remains the fact asserted by Dudley Andrew that “[w]ell over half of all commercial films have come from literary originals” (2000: 29), which implies the assumption that, after all, there must be qualities in literary texts that encourage the development of a powerful Stoff that might even become a ‘myth’ and catch the general popular imagination. Literature always

6 “[...] strukturelle Einheit als typische, bedeutungsvolle Situation, die allgemeine thematische Vor- stellungen umfaßt” (ibid.: s. v. “Motiv”). 7 “[...] wertschaffende Formkräfte” (ibid.: s. v. “Quelle”). 402 From Novel to Song via Myth: Wuthering Heights

carries an element of prestige and, thus, may encourage artists to use literary sources for adaptations, and there are certainly strong market mechanisms which – as literary texts are usually readily available – make literary texts attractive to prospective adaptors. Yet the question of specific literary qualities which make such texts favoured sources for intermedial adaptations was already a concern for Bazin, which is evident when, at one point, he said that “[i]nsofar as the style of the original has managed to create a character and impose him on the public consciousness, that character acquires a greater autonomy, which might in certain cases lead as far as quasi-transcendence of the work” (2000: 23). This is not far from asserting – as ‘modernists’ would do – that, after all, it is the formal artistry of the literary text, its style, which does the job. The difference in perspective to the ‘postmodernist’ Bazin, however, is that Ba- zin does not claim that formal artistry creates a complex, autonomous work of art, but a great – work-transcending – autonomous character.

More recent narrative theory has increasingly been concentrating on the ‘story’ side of the story-discourse dichotomy, and one newly developed notion of interest in our context is that of the storyworld, as defined by David Her- man: “[…] storyworlds are mentally and emotionally projected environments” established by a text. Readers “do not merely reconstruct a sequence of events and a set of existents [i.e., a ‘story’], but imaginatively (emotionally, viscerally) inhabit a world in which things matter” (2005: 569). The point here is that verbal narratives are capable of creating a world which is cognitively and, above all, emotionally engaging; and Herman continues: “[…] the grounding of stories in storyworlds goes a long way towards explaining narratives’ ‘immersiveness’”, which introduces another more recent narrative key term, namely immersion. Verbal narratives – but works in other media as well – can absorb one, can make one get carried away, and “fictional devices are generally […] constructed so as to maximize their immersion-inducing power” (Schaefer/Vultur 2005: 239). Thus, it can be observed that literary texts are capable of creating an emotionally charged storyworld which invites the reader’s immersion and absorp- tion, and it can be argued that without these basic capabilities – which certainly not all literary texts share – a myth based on a literary text is unlikely to arise. Thus, although a literary text may eventually be forgotten and remain unread by later generations, the existence of a powerful ‘immersive’ literary text at the start seems to be a strong precondition for a ‘fertile’ myth or Stoff to emerge from such examples as Don Quixote, Faust, or Tristan and Isolde. An interest- From Novel to Song via Myth: Wuthering Heights 403

ing observation is made by the Routledge Encyclopedia when it says, “the decisive plane […] of the immersion-producing power […] of verbal narratives is not that of the microstructural (linguistic) level, but that of the macrostructural level of the inferential logic of action” (ibid.). This is why it is the stage of the Stoff, at a middle position between concreteness and abstraction, between the abstract ‘theme’ and the concrete ‘plot’, which is the most productive agent in the intermedial adaptive process we are discussing.

To summarize my argument, it can be stated that in the adaptive process from a verbal text into a popular medium – as demonstrated by looking at Kate Bush’s song based on Emily Brontë’s novel Wuthering Heights – that process can often be seen as passing through a stage which is extra-medial and is represented by a Stoff extracted from the verbal text and made powerful and ‘fertile’ by an ‘immersive’, ‘storyworld’-building quality of that verbal text – which implies that there is extraordinary literary competence required on the side of its author to achieve this effect. (This is why it is meaningful that – as indicated at the beginning – Cervantes’s Don Quixote first became a classic in literary terms and then a myth in cultural terms.)

Such a view of adaptation goes beyond the traditional view which generally thinks in terms of a direct transposition from one medium into another and tends to apply the category of fidelity of the target medium to the source medium as a central analytical tool. Eric Prieto has expressed himself similarly at the WMA Sydney conference in 2001 when he said that the aim of Inter- media Studies is “not the description of direct one-to-one correspondences between the arts” (2002: 51). With a modified view of adaptation, replacing the category of ‘fidelity’ by that of ‘fertility’, we are entering a far more interesting field, and any glance at contemporary cultural life demonstrates and proves what the prophetic André Bazin said as early as in 1948 – at a time, one should not forget, when adaptations were culturally anathemas –, namely that “we are moving toward a reign of the adaptation” (2000: 26). Consequently, as James Naremore asserts, adaptation study is moving from the margins to the centre of contemporary intermedia studies (cf. 2000: 15), which is confirmed by the fact that it has finally also become a central concern in the field of Word and Music Studies. 404 From Novel to Song via Myth: Wuthering Heights

References

Andrew, Dudley (2000). “Adaptation” (1984). Naremore, ed. 28–37. Bazin, André (2000). “Adaptation, or the Cinema as Digest” (1948; Engl. trans. 1997). Naremore, ed. 19–27. Bluestone, George (1971). Novels into Film. Berkeley, CA: Univ. of California Press. Brontë, Emily (1995). Wuthering Heights (1847). Ed. Pauline Nestor. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Fuest, Robert, Director (1970). Wuthering Heights (Film). Herman, David (2005). “Storyworld”. Herman/Jahn/Ryan, eds. 569f. Herman, David, Manfred Jahn, Marie-Laure Ryan, eds. (2005). Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory. London/New York, NY: Routledge. Kayser, Wolfgang (1948/1963). Das sprachliche Kunstwerk. Berne/Munich: Francke. Kruse, Holly (1990). “In Praise of Kate Bush” (1988). Simon Frith, Andrew Goodwin, eds. On Record: Rock, Pop, and the Written Word. New York, NY: Pantheon. 450–465. Lawrance, Jeremy (2005). “Still Readable”. Times Literary Supplement 5325 (22 April): 6. Miller, Lucasta (2005). The Brontë Myth. New York, NY: Anchor Books. Naremore, James (2000). “Introduction: Film and the Reign of Adaptation”. Naremore, ed. 1–16. — (2000). Film Adaptation. London: Athlone Press. Prieto, Eric (2002). “Metaphor and Methodology in Word and Music Studies”. Suzanne M. Lodato, Suzanne Aspden, Walter Bernhart, eds. Word and Music Studies: Essays in Honor of Steven Paul Scher and on Cultural Identity and the Musical Stage. Word and Music Studies 4. Amsterdam/ New York, NY: Rodopi. 49–67. Ray, Robert B. (2000). “The Field of ‘Literature and Film’”. Naremore, ed. 38–53. Rimmon-Kenan, Shlomith (1983). Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics. London: Methuen. Schaefer, Jean-Marie, Ioana Vultur (2005). “Immersion”. Herman/Jahn/Ryan, eds. 237–239. Shen, Dan (2005). “Story-Discourse Distinction”. Herman/Jahn/Ryan, eds. 566–568. Stoneman, Patsy (1996). Brontë Transformations: The Cultural Dissemination of Jane Eyre and Wuther- ing Heights. London et al.: Prentice Hall/Harvester Wheatsheaf. Wilpert, Gero von (1955/1961). Sachwörterbuch der Literatur. Stuttgart: Kröner. Wyler, William, Director (1939). Wuthering Heights (Film).

Online 1: Cosmo Landesman. http://www.independent.co.uk/stories/A1801927.html [18/01/99]. Online 2: Kate Bush. “Wuthering Heights“ (lyrics). http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Wuthering-heights-lyrics-Kate-Bush/67A6699B- 7CAE2C4D482569A0002E01D8 [30/12/05]. Online 3: Kate Bush. http://gaffa.org/garden/kate1.html [02/08/05]. Online 4: Radio National Australia. 24/08/04. “Big Ideas: Great Lovers: Episode 5: Heathcliff and Catherine”. http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bigidea/stories/s906676.htm [02/07/05]. Online 5: Kate Bush. http://gaffa.org/garden/kate18.html [03/08/05]. Online 6: Kate Bush. http://gaffa.org/garden/kate6.html [03/08/05]. Online 7: http://gaffa.org/garden/chrono.html [02/08/05]. Online 8: Clement Greenberg. “Avant-Garde and Kitsch”, p. 4. http://www.sharecom.ca/greenberg/kitsch.html [02/01/06]. Orig. publ.: Partisan Review 6 (1939): 34–49. What Can Music Do to a Poem? New Intermedial Perspectives of Literary Studies [2008]

In the light of the central concern of this conference, i.e., to identify priorities of research in present-day English Studies, I would like to draw attention to developments which can be observed in many quarters and which are characterized by an intentional overstepping the boundaries of what we are inclined to call ‘literature’. Intermedia Studies – which I am going to talk about – address issues which arise when at least two communicative media interact, or when more than one communicative medium contributes to the object under inspection. In the history of studying such objects it has traditionally been literature which was considered the basic medium from whose vantage point the other media were seen and to which other media were usually compared. Thus, Comparative Literature Studies is the forerunner of Intermedia Studies. But for various reasons – including the methodological limitations connected with the comparative method, or the decline of ‘literature’ as the unquestioned ‘master art’ – the focus has shifted, and now literature has to compete with other, very powerful media for leadership in the concert of the arts, and this is where Intermedia Studies find their place. The new developments are a true challenge to Literary Studies, and – to mention one initiative – the University of Graz, Austria, has recently set up a Faculty Program, within the university’s Development Plan, which is called “Intermediality Program” and reflects these new trends both in teaching and research.

The present paper sets out to throw some light on the mentioned shift and change of emphasis by looking at one particular area of intermedia research, namely the interaction of literature and music in the form of text and music relationships in songs. Song criticism, of course, has a venerable tradition: ever since the beginning of European art song in the wake of Humanist ideas during the Renaissance period, song has been a familiar subject of reflection, as it has been a particularly lively field of creative activity. From the very beginning in the late 16th century, critics have been concerned with the relation- 406 What Can Music Do to a Poem? New Intermedial Perspectives of Literary Studies

ship which the music of a song can have to the words of the underlying poem, in particular, in which way the music reflects textual meaning (see Bernhart 1985). This interest in the iconic quality of music was already the concern of the earliest composers of art songs, and it has as an obvious premise that, in the combination of words and music, the words dominate: they are there first, to be illustrated by the music. In such compositions music tries to ‘redouble’ what the words are saying, and there are various, more or less sophisticated aspects of the text that in this way can be mirrored by the music. The simplest form is ‘word painting’, or ‘word illustration’, which, e.g., makes the melody go up when the text talks about the sun rising, or go down when it talks about hell, etc. By its very nature, music lends itself best for illustrating motions and sounds (onomatopoeia). Also, as a simple mimetic method, the ‘tone’ or ‘mood’ of the music can reflect the ‘tone’ or ‘general affect’ of the text (merriness, sadness, martial attitudes, religious attitudes, etc.). On a more sophisticated level, the music may attempt to use its expressive means to reflect more differentiated and subtle emotional states (such as anger, dejection, exuberance, sublimity, and many others). Such practices, referring to internal, emotional states, are forms of ‘word expression’ (in contrast to mere ‘word illustration’ of external, perceptual conditions) and represent cases of what is called ‘expressive mimesis’. The intention of expressive mimesis can lead to careful psychological readings of texts through music and are usually triggered by ‘pathogeneous texts’, i.e., texts which are substantially concerned with emotional, ‘passionate’ states. (By contrast, what can be called ‘logogeneous texts’, which primarily concentrate on thoughts, ideas and reflections, lend themselves far less readily to expressive mimesis and produce less intimate links of words and music in songs.) A further step up on the interpretive ladder, the music can go beyond the mere ‘redoubling’ of what the text is saying and can become an independent agent of reflection; it is usually a more elaborate instrumental accompaniment of the singing voice (most commonly the piano) that is able to perform this function of generating additional meaning in the song. (This is a practice which Robert Schumann is generally accredited with having introduced, e.g., when in his famous song “Die beiden Grenadiere” the piano postlude makes a deeply ironical comment on what has been said.) It was only at a very late stage in the development of European art song that the music became a full exegetic factor and was able to perform sophisticated individual acts of signification. The term ‘exegetic’ implies that here the music is still closely concerned with what the text says. What Can Music Do to a Poem? New Intermedial Perspectives of Literary Studies 407

However, at this final step on the interpretive ladder the music does no longer merely attempt to mirror the meaning of the text: in fact, the music may deviate considerably from the text and go far beyond it by taking even a dissonant or clearly contradictory stance. In such cases the song as a whole may arrive at semantic positions quite different from what the text alone and the music alone may be saying or imply to be saying (see Bernhart 1995).

All songs concerned with the various relationships of word and music so far discussed have in common that they are cases of what the late Steven Paul Scher has called “composed reading” (2004), which implies that the composer ‘sets’ a text and appears in the role of an interpreter, just like a literary critic may interpret a text; hence I call songs in which the music takes such an attitude to the text “interpretive songs” (Bernhart 1988). They share a fundamental concern with meaning, and they also share the view that the ultimate source of meaning in songs are the words of the text. The hierarchy is clear: first we have a text and then the composer ‘sets’ it, thereby entering into a dialogue with the text, using musical language.

Another feature of analytical concern in the word-music relationship of songs, apart from ‘meaning’, is the level of rhythm, prosody and declamation. Again, from early on it has been the concern of composers of art songs to observe carefully the rhythmical side of the underlying poems. Such faithful declamation in the song can also be seen as an element of musical ‘redoubling’ of the text, yet in this case it is not concerned with text interpretation, which is why I call such songs “non-interpretive songs” (ibid.); their aim is not text interpretation but text clarification. From an aesthetic point of view, the purpose of such ‘non-interpretive’ musical settings of poems is to reinforce or emphasise their physical existence as poems: such songs manifest the underlying poems’ self-assertion as perceptual and performative acts, rather than as meaning-carrying objects.

All the methodological approaches to song analysis so far discussed are traditional and have been labelled “ formalist” (in a very wide sense) by Hayden White (1992); they are concerned with internal relationships between text and music within the song as an art object, with no consideration of contextual factors. The alternative category of approaches Hayden White calls “historicist”, which view art works from the perspective of their interaction with their 408 What Can Music Do to a Poem? New Intermedial Perspectives of Literary Studies

environments (in most general terms). They are seen both as products of their respective cultural contexts, and as influences on the cultural sphere. The emphasis, thus, shifts from a work-internal to an external perspective, from which the text and the music may very well be seen as independent elements and representing separate reflections of cultural conditions. The two media are combined in the song, and thus are related elements incorporated into a single art object; yet, they contribute to the overall work as much by contradiction as by correspondence, or by indifference to one another. The friction between the poem’s and the music’s voices can, e.g., draw attention to unresolved conflicts in the cultural/social/ political sphere. (For a case of demonstration see below.)

This ‘culturalist’ approach, of which Lawrence Kramer is a leading representative (see e.g. 1990), thus sees songs primarily as reflecting issues, concepts and ideas present in the cultural context, and does not stress as much as the ‘formalist’ approach does, the internal connections of word and music within the song. As a consequence, the notion of ‘setting a poem’, which naturally implies the prior existence and knowledge of a poem before the music is written, is questioned in its general applicability: we know, of course, that there are songs which use new words for already existing tunes (this is particularly true for folk traditions), and there is, among others, Arnold Schoenberg’s well-known remark that he wrote his songs without having read the full text of the poems (cf. Schoenberg 1912/1965: 66); so not all songs – also art songs – form direct responses to the underlying texts.

Thus the notion of ‘meaning’ is put up for inspection: the music may be unconcerned about the meaning of a poem on its surface level, i.e., on the level of what it literally says and what can be iconically ‘illustrated’ or mimetically ‘expressed’; yet it can very well relate to its meaning on the ‘deep-structure level’, according to Kramer, where it may address issues of unconscious self-posi- tioning and other ideological concerns (see Kramer 1990).

Seen in this light, such a practice of song analysis seems to be not far away from the kind of ‘exegetic reading’ referred to earlier, which forms the most sophisticated approach of ‘interpretive’ song analysis; yet, the difference is that ‘exegetic’ readings interpret the music in relation to the underlying text, while ‘deep-structure’ readings interpret the music and the text – separately and in their interaction – in relation to cultural implications. What Can Music Do to a Poem? New Intermedial Perspectives of Literary Studies 409

The notion of ‘meaning’ having thus been partly problematized, in that it is extended beyond what is ‘referential meaning’ in linguistic and ‘expressive meaning’ in aesthetic terms, the way is open to account for a more recent approach in song reflection which questions the concern with ‘meaning’ in songs altogether and stresses the existential experience of singing as essential to our appreciation of songs. From this perspective, again, the internal relations between words and music in song are basically irrelevant – e.g., words may be only an excuse for blissfully opening one’s mouth –, and the focus is on the activity of singing in a performative act, with all its psychological and social implica- tions1.

The history of songs in the form of art songs based on an intimate, meaning-oriented interplay of words and music, seems to be coming to an end after four hundred years of vigorous creativity, to be replaced by other forms of word-music relationships, by other forms of songs which follow paths and pur- sue objectives clearly different from traditional art song. Popular songs in many ways take the place of art songs as powerful forms of small-scale artistic activity; they have different social and cultural functions in that they are far less concerned with the generation of meaning in the traditional sense and far more geared at social and political influence, shaping group behaviour and ideological positions. This changed view of the function of songs – as a product of the ‘culturalist turn’ in our intellectual climate – is the challenge I have referred to at the beginning, and I will now turn to a particular case for demonstration and exemplification.

Linton Kwesi Johnson is a famous representative of Britain’s West-Indian culture, who became famous in the 1970s and ’80s as a reggae poet raising his voice in protest against the conditions under which his community had to live in Thatcherite England. One of his best-known texts is “Reality Poem”, which is a critical address to those people in his community who follow the Rastafari ideology and thus turn away from the modern world and try to escape into an earlier dream world: ‘back to the roots’. Johnson stresses that this is “di age of reality”, “of science an’ teknalagy”, and not of ‘mythology’, ‘antiquity’ and ‘religion’. We should not “shout ‘bout sin” but “fight fi’ win” (Johnson 1980), because “Inglan Is a Bitch”, as another notorious poem by LKJ – as he is usu-

1 A significant contribution is Kramer 1999. 410 What Can Music Do to a Poem? New Intermedial Perspectives of Literary Studies

ally referred to – announces (ibid.: 26f.). In order to reach a wide audience for his protest, he started reciting this and other poems together with the sound of reggae music from his Jamaican background, which was a highly successful form of presentation. This kind of performance proved to be very popular, yet LKJ had to realise that people were fascinated by the music but that no one cared for the political message expressed in his words; apparently they were only carried away by the jouissance of the musical event. As a consequence, he was deeply disappointed and talked about the ‘destructiveness of music’ (cf. Bernhart 2002) – which brings me back to my argument.

Here we have a case where the music and the words are essentially unrelated: it is a ‘non-interpretive’ combination of word and music, and thus the meaning of the words is blurred out by the stronger perceptual, emotional and visceral power of the music. The music is ‘destructive’ to the political message expressed in the text, and any attempt at a ‘formalist’ analysis of the song in the sense described is necessarily futile. This is obviously so as such an analysis relates the music to the semantic surface level of the text.

However, when we consider a deep-structure’ meaning level of the performance, from a ‘historicist’ point of view, we can observe that other signifying processes are going on in such a performance, when audiences gain a sense of group identity and establish communal solidarity, and when the sounds and rhythms bring them into a state of arousal and of potential aggressiveness. Thus, in a way, the performance, indeed, achieves its aim of raising an attitude of protest, but not through the channel of verbal persuasion by the recited text, but by the machinery of the instrumental music. As I have put it elsewhere: in such songs, “political issues, argued on the semantic level of the lyrics, are generally betrayed, but political attitudes can easily be roused and may acquire a powerful status in the audience” (ibid. 251).

This observation brings me back to the issue raised at the beginning, namely that, in the context of Intermedia Studies, ‘literature’ – as one interactive medium – finds itself increasingly in a position of defence and has to compete with powerful other media for significance in the cultural world – as Linton Kwesi Johnson has complained about the ‘destructiveness of music’ and about the experienced irrelevance of what his literary text is saying in the performance situation. What Can Music Do to a Poem? New Intermedial Perspectives of Literary Studies 411

Yet I am not inclined to take a wholly defeatist position and say farewell to the relevance of Literary Studies for the larger cultural processes. I argue strongly that, although the immediate impact of literary utterances in intermedia situations may be weakened, their indirect influence, however, should not be underestimated and, in fact, may be quite substantial. In the particular case of LKJ, e.g., his success in performance might very well not have been so great had he not had the reputation of an eloquent fighter in poetry for the rights of West-Indians in England; so the awareness of a literary background to cultural mass phenomena may be argued as a strong precondition for the very fact of phenomena becoming cultural mass phenomena. But to enlarge on this would be the subject of another paper (see Bernhart 2008). 412 What Can Music Do to a Poem? New Intermedial Perspectives of Literary Studies

References

Bernhart, Walter (1985). “Theorie und Praxis der Vertonung in den elisabethanischen Airs”. Manfred Pfister, ed. Anglistentag 1984 Passau. Vorträge. Giessen: Hoffmann. 245–260. — (1988). “Setting a Poem: The Composer’s Choice For or Against Interpretation”. Yearbook of Com- parative and General Literature 37: 32–46. — (1995). “An Exegetic Composer: Benjamin Britten’s Journey of the Magi”. Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik 20: 123–134. — (2002). “The Destructiveness of Music: Functional Intermedia Disharmony in Popular Songs”. Erik Hedling, Ulla-Britta Lagerroth, Jenny Westerström, eds. Cultural Functions of Interart Poetics and Practice. Internationale Forschungen zur allgemeinen und vergleichenden Literatur- wissenschaft. Amsterdam/New York, NY: Rodopi. 247–253. — (2008). “From Novel to Song via Myth: Wuthering Heights as a Case of Popular Intermedial Adaptation”. David F. Urrows, ed. Word/Music Adaptation. Word and Music Studies 9. Amster- dam/Kenilworth, NJ: Rodopi.13–28. Johnson, Linton Kwesi (1980). “Reality Poem”. Inglan Is a Bitch. London: Race Today Publications. 124. Kramer, Lawrence (1990). Music as Cultural Practice, 1800–1900. Berkeley, CA: Univ. of California Press. — (1999). “Beyond Words and Music: An Essay on Songfulness”. Walter Bernhart, Steven Paul Scher, Werner Wolf, eds. Word and Music Studies: Defining the Field. Proceedings of the First Internatio- nal Conference on Word and Music Studies at Graz, 1997. Word and Music Studies 1. Amsterdam/ Atlanta, GA: Rodopi. 303–319. Scher, Steven Paul (2004). “Comparing Poetry and Music: Beethoven’s Goethe Lieder as Composed Reading”. Walter Bernhart, Werner Wolf, eds. Word and Music Studies: Essays on Literature and Music (1967 – 2004) by Steven Paul Scher. Word and Music Studies 5. Amsterdam/New York, NY: Rodopi. 223–237. (Originally in: (1986). Sensus Communis: Contemporary Trends in Com- parative Literature. Festschrift for Henry Remak. János Riesz, Peter Börner, Bernhard Scholz, eds. Tübingen: Narr. 155–165). Schoenberg, Arnold (1912/1965). “Das Verhältnis zum Text”. Wassily Kandinsky, Franz Marc, eds. Der Blaue Reiter. New documentary ed. by Klaus Lankheit. Munich: Piper. 60–75. White, Hayden (1992). “Form, Reference, and Ideology in Musical Discourse”. Steven Paul Scher, ed. Music and Text: Critical Inquiries. Cambridge: CUP. 288–319. “... pour out forgiveness like a wine”: Can Music “say an existence is wrong”?1 [2009]

It has been claimed that the dreadful wolf’s glen scene from Weber’s Der Freischütz of 1821 marks a decisive new departure in the presentation of villainy on the opera stage, introducing a new musical vocabulary for representing evil: tremolos, trills, baseless diminished chords, chromaticism, eerie pianissimo pizzicatos in the double basses, unisono playing, low clarinets, gloomy drum-rolls, obsessive repetitions, etc. (cf. Kunze 1992: 217f.). Stefan Kunze, in a stimulating paper on ‘villains, outsiders, and failures in opera’, finds no evidence of the representation of true villainy in opera prior to Samiel and Caspar in Der Freischütz: negative characters in earlier works, from Monteverdi’s Pop- pea and Nero through Metastasio’s Vitellia to Mozart’s Elettra, Osmin and Queen of the Night, are in their essence manifestations of great passion2, and passions are obviously nothing negative by nature but only turn negative when brought to extremes (cf. ibid.: 214). This is even true for Beethoven’s Pizarro, who is not essentially bad but equally only driven by his emotions, which, admittedly, are excessively forced up into a blind rage of revenge (cf. ibid.: 216). Kunze asserts that early heroic operas of the 18th century do not have villains as protagonists as, at the time, it was unthinkable to represent evil through music because harmony was considered the essence of music, and evil contra- dicts harmony (cf. ibid.: 211f.). The element of ‘ideality’, which, in 18th-century views, is adjoined to a person or action by music, ‘reduces the reality of evil’3. Thus, as a consequence, when evil was meant to appear on stage, music tended to fall silent, which – in a telling example – is the case in Bouilly and Gaveaux’s predecessor to Beethoven’s Fidelio, their opera Lèonore ou L’amour conjugal of

1 This is partly a more extensive earlier version of the paper over the published version. 2 This even applies to the powerful scenes of invocation in 17th-century French opera as, e.g., Ar- mide’s invocation of Hate in Lully’s Armide of 1686 (Act Three, Scenes Three and Four; cf. Lully 2006). 3 “Denn was die Musik der Person oder der Handlung an Idealität hinzufügt, vermindert die Rea- lität des Bösen.“ (Kunze 1992: 216) 414 “... pour out forgiveness like a wine”: Can Music “say an existence is wrong”?

1789, where Pizarro significantly appears as a speaking part only.

From Samiel and Caspar onward, however, negativity is no longer in principle a product of excessive emotion but becomes the manifestation of inescap- able and malicious fate (cf. ibid: 216), a product of hell, whether in the shape of the Nibelungs, Alberich and Hagen, of Scarpia, or Iago. Iago appears as the representation of ‘essential evil’, but his music, according to Kunze, breaks with the traditional romantic ‘evil’ vocabulary, as characterized above, and suggests his perverted creed by a ‘dissociation of musical texture’4. Yet, generally, still following Kunze, the presentation of evil has always remained problematic, even in the 19th century, with a few exceptions, and also protagonists like Meyerbeer’s Rob- ert le Diable, marking the breakthrough of grand opèra, is no real ‘devil’ but characteristically wavers between good and evil (much like Max does in Der Frei- schütz), to be finally redeemed by mere serendipity.

Kunze’s survey does not continue into the 20th century where, in fact, the depiction of evil in opera becomes even more problematic, possibly due to the general corrosion of ethical standards and, to be sure, to the horrendous experience of mass evil in that century. What can be observed, however, is that – maybe precisely for those very same reasons – criminals or representatives of evil increasingly became protagonists of 20th-century operas. In what follows I will concentrate on central 20th-century operatic works by Hans Werner Hen- ze, Paul Hindemith and Benjamin Britten in which we find such evil central characters, who, however, – to make a major point right from the start –, do not necessarily appear as, and give the impression of being, evil and are clearly ambivalent in their presentation.

A prime example is Hans Werner Henze’s Elegy for Young Lovers, written in collaboration with W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman and premiered – in its German version – in 1961. It is, together with the libretto of The Rake’s Progress by the same authors, the finest post-Hofmannsthal opera libretto, and in spite of the (now octogenarian) composer’s unbroken productivity, the El- egy is still Henze’s most attractive and most often produced stage work. The story – clearly relevant for our topic – is quickly told. The central example is Gregor Mittenhofer, a famous elderly poet, who spends his summer vacation in the Austrian Alps where he hopes to find inspiration for his poetry through

4 “[...] durch Dissoziation des musikalischen Zusammenhangs” (Kunze 1992: 221). “... pour out forgiveness like a wine”: Can Music “say an existence is wrong”? 415

the visions of an elderly woman, ‘mad’ Hilda Mack, who, after forty years, is still waiting for her fiancé to return from an excursion into the glaciers where he meant to get her some edelweiss for their wedding. Gregor has a young lover with him, Eli-sabeth Zimmer, who – unsurprisingly – falls in love with a further guest who arrives, the young Toni. Those two, Elisabeth and Toni, are the young lovers of the opera’s title, and the rest of the title implies that they find their tragic death, to be reflected in an elegy. The circumstances of their death and of the writing of that elegy are the central concerns of the opera and of our discussion here. Gregor, deceptively magnanimous, surrenders Elisabeth to Toni, but asks as a favour that, before getting married, they should bring him some edelweiss (again) from the glaciers as he expects poetic inspiration from the flower. This is because Hilda’s visions as a source of inspiration for his work have come to an end due to the fact that Maurer, the mountain guide, has found her fiancé’s mummified body in the glacier, whereby Hilda is cured of her madness and starts a normal life, wanting to see (tellingly so) The Mer- ry Widow. Gregor, however, is warned by the guide that a blizzard is coming up, yet he denies that anyone is out and up on the mountain, which Toni and Elisabeth, however, in fact are. The ‘young lovers’ die in the blizzard (musically represented by a furioso orchestral interlude), not before – Aida-like – having pledged their eternal love (a scene which, characteristically, Henze dropped in his own later productions of the opera). Gregor is now able to write his ‘elegy’ which, at the end of the opera, is delivered before a prestigious Viennese audience, with enormous success. Yet we do not hear any words spoken or sung, what we actually hear are the vocalizing voices of all the people who have contributed to the making of the poem, a poem which we are meant to believe is a truly great artistic achievement.

Gregor Mittenhofer is the product of Auden and Kallman’s search for a character of mythic stature – in their view indispensable for an opera’s central example – representing the prototypical Romantic artist-hero (cf. Auden 1968: 83, 90; Bernhart 1994: 236f.). Models for Gregor were Stefan George, Wil- liam Butler Yeats, Richard Wagner, Rainer Maria Rilke (cf. Henze 1975: 236), and Gabriele d’Annunzio. (Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, for whom the role was written, appeared on stage in a mask suggesting both Yeats and Strindberg; cf. Henze 1966: 371.) All these artists were self-serving ‘geniuses’, ‘Masters’, “Her- renmenschen” (Ringger 2001), and it is clear that Auden, self-critically, also had himself in mind when he conceived of Mittenhofer (cf. Callan 1974: 73). 416 “... pour out forgiveness like a wine”: Can Music “say an existence is wrong”?

Reading the opera’s libretto reveals quite unmistakably that the example of this artist-hero is there seen in purely negative terms. This comes out even more directly in the first draft of the text where, e.g., Elisabeth deplores Gregor’s “utter selfishness” (Auden/Kallman 1993: 649), “the Great Bard” is ironically scorned (ibid.: 658) and Toni exclaims: “Master! The word makes me sick.” (Ibid.: 653) Toni also calls the “Poet” (as yet without a name in the draft) “You devil!” (ibid.: 659), reminding one of the well-known ending of Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw. The ridiculousness of the genius-pose of the Poet satir- ically emerges when Hilda says about him: “Goethe-woethe must be quite up- set”, or “You can use that, too, if you like, Virgiletto” (ibid.: 660). The Roman- tic cult of inspiration is equally ridiculed when the Poet explains to Toni and Elisabeth why he wants the edelweiss: “I have always found that sleeping with some under my pillow inspired my dreams.” (Ibid.: 661)

However, this satirical and sharply critical view of the devilish artist-hero in the libretto, who sends people to death for his poetic inspiration, has not been identified as such by all critics of the opera. Some saw in Mittenhofer “an admirable character” (Spears 1963: 287), detected no ‘spiteful discrediting’ of the genius5, even observed a ‘resurrection’ of the myth of the ‘untethered Künst- lergenie’6. This position was authoritatively backed up by Henze himself when he talked about ‘leaving open the question of guilt’7 and concluded his remarks on the opera of 19628 – the date is significant – by alluding to a telling passage from an Auden poem, which the title of this paper quotes:

You alone, alone, imaginary song, Are unable to say an existence is wrong, And pour out your forgiveness like a wine. (Auden 1976: 148)

5 “[...] keine gehässige Desavouierung“ (Lohse 1985). 6 “Die Autoren erklären, daß sie dem Mythos vom ungebundenen ‘Künstlergenie’ zur Auferstehung verhelfen wollen.“ (Bachmann 1961: 384) 7 “[...] das Offenlassen der Schuldfrage” (Henze 1960: 89). 8 “Am Ende steht dann, wortlos, die Musik allein, die einzige Kunst, die, wie Auden sagt, nicht in der Lage ist, zu verurteilen oder zu richten, und die daher Vergebung über die Menschen auszus- chütten vermag wie reinen Wein.” (Henze 1962: 86) (‘In the end, after all, music stands alone, wordless, the only art, as Auden says, which is unable to condemn or to judge, and which can therefore pour out forgiveness over people like pure wine.’) “... pour out forgiveness like a wine”: Can Music “say an existence is wrong”? 417

This passage is taken from a sonnet called “The Composer”, which Auden wrote in 1938 with Benjamin Britten in mind, and it expresses Auden’s conviction at the time, based on his reading of Kierkegaard, of the strict separation of the Beautiful and the Good, of the Aesthetic and the Ethical (cf. Bernhart 1994: 234). Only song, as a prototypical representative of the aesthetic, shows the spontaneous immediacy of emotional expression, is pure presence and actuality without reflection, and as such is not subjected to the historical process and independent of everyday social experience with all its ethical claims (cf. ibid.: 235). The younger Henze of 1962, who has been called the ‘Cimarosa of the 20th century’ (cf. Krellmann 1977: 121) and had “tender, beautiful noises” (Auden/Kallman 1961: 245) in mind when he thought about the opera which later became his Elegy, was attracted by the idea of the ethical indifference of free-floating artificial forms. This comes out in his reference to Auden’s poem and in his own early pardoning appraisal of Mittenhofer, in spite of what the libretto manifestly says.

Yet the sensational ‘political turn’ in Henze’s life, which took place in the later 1960s, led to a radical reinterpretation of Mittenhofer by the composer himself: his newly-acquired left-wing social commitment made unbearable to him the notion that an artist – even a great one – should be judged by different ethical standards than ‘normal’ people, and he now saw Mittenhofer as ‘the ac- cused poet’, a ‘daunting Dracula’9, and he asserted: ‘I very much like the denunciation of the “artist as a hero”10.’

It is of particular interest that Henze not only changed his opinion on Mit- tenhofer as a character representing the artist-hero type, but that he extended his re-evaluation into a re-reading of his own music. He had earlier claimed, by using the quotation from Auden’s poem “The Composer”, that through the music Mittenhofer stands uncondemned because the music functions as an agency that redeems the ‘evil’ character – ‘pouring out forgiveness’ –, and the comparison given by Auden, “like a wine”, has been seen as a reference to the re- demptive power of the Eucharist (cf. Mendelson 1981: 361). Yet the ‘reformed’ later Henze saw ‘denunciation’ and ‘sarcasm’ in his music (cf. 1975: 237) and

9 “[...] den angeklagten Dichter”; “Der Meister, der gewaltige, Dracula [sic]” (Henze 1975: 236; 242). 10 “Die Brandmarkung des ‘Künstlers als Held’ gefällt mir sehr.” (Henze 1972: 195) 418 “... pour out forgiveness like a wine”: Can Music “say an existence is wrong”?

detected in it a ‘ jugendstil-like weaving and whispering of alienated nature’11.

In his article of 1975, Henze discusses musical details of his opera in an attempt to demonstrate how the music already suggests condemnation and criticism, the ‘evilness’ of Mittenhofer. When the poet first appears on the stage we hear – in Henze’s words – ‘thudding tam-tam beats’, ‘piano and harp arpeg- gios’ and, most intriguingly, a ‘whining flexaton’ that ‘creates the atmosphere of Gothic films’12. The flexaton, a variant of the singing saw, can be heard two more times, in Act Two, when – as Henze says – Mittenhofer ‘half consciously, half unconsciously is planning his crime – the music already debunking him –’13, and again in Act Three, ‘when the crime is actually committed’14. This last occasion, the actual murder, is, from a moral perspective, the most decisive moment in the whole opera. The relevant scene starts off with Maurer, the mountain guide, warning Mittenhofer of the oncoming blizzard and asking him whether anyone is out on the mountain, which the poet denies. This is the moment of the actual crime, of Mittenhofer’s murderous lie, and it is marked by ‘the metallic clatter of a heavy object’15. Carolina, the poet’s secretary, is present and deeply shocked because she knows about Elisabeth and Toni being on the mountain. Mittenhofer notices her “shivering” and ‘dreadful looks’, interprets them, deceptively as usual, as a sign of overwork and suggests to her a “change of scene” (Henze 1961: 361), i.e., he wants to send her off.

Carolina is exasperated – she wouldn’t know where to go – and Mitten- hofer mollifies her by saying “I meant no harm”. This is a significant remark as the German version – which is the one Henze actually set to music – says: “es war nicht bös gemeint”, ‘böse’ being a word that is twice repeated. The word means ‘wicked’, or ‘evil’, but ‘böse sein’ is also used colloquially in the sense of ‘being cross’, or ‘angry’. This is crucial as in that scene a truly ‘evil’ man (‘ein böser Mensch’) is deceptively playing a social role, a situation which Carolina obviously realizes. And it is precisely at this point that the flexaton is heard,

11 “[...] das jugendstilhafte Weben und Flüstern der entfremdeten Natur” (Henze 1975: 238). 12 “[...] dumpfe Tamtamschläge”; “Klavier- und Harfenarpeggien”; “ein wimmerndes Flexaton [...], das [...] eine Atmosphäre von Gruselfilm schafft” (ibid.: 243). 13 “[...] da der Dichter sein Verbrechen, halb bewußt, halb unbewußt, plant – die Musik überführt ihn schon –“ (ibid.). 14 “[...] wenn das Verbrechen de facto ausgeübt wird” (ibid.). 15 “[...] das metallische Klappern eines schweren Gegenstandes” (Henze 1962: 85). “... pour out forgiveness like a wine”: Can Music “say an existence is wrong”? 419

for two bars only, when the stage direction says, “the sky darkens rapidly and it begins to snow”, which signals the impending death of Toni and Elisabeth (see Example 1).

Example 1 (beginning): Hans Werner Henze. Elegy for Young Lovers, Act Three, Scene V, bars 367—371 (Henze 1961: 363f.) 420 “... pour out forgiveness like a wine”: Can Music “say an existence is wrong”?

Example 1 (end): Hans Werner Henze. Elegy for Young Lovers, Act Three, Scene V, bars 367—371 (Henze 1961: 363f.)

Carolina becomes extremely nervous and starts making a fire in the stove, staging a ‘miniature-Götterdämmerung’ (cf. Henze 1975: 241). Mittenhofer comments on this, talking “to himself”, in a passage that shows him – as is un-usual in the opera – wearing no mask and giving expression to his true thinking, his infernal ‘Credo’, reminiscent of Iago’s Credo in Verdi’s opera.

What is the position and function of music in the fascinating scene of ‘evil’ here described? Most significantly, at the very moment of the actual vicious deed, i.e., when the murderous lie is articulated, the music itself is silent, precisely as if the sensual allure of music would otherwise avert attention from the monstrosity of the deed. What we do hear – apart from the words – is one of the ‘real-life sounds’ in the opera which always appear when chaos arises, as Henze observes16, in this case, the dropping of the heavy metallic object (which arguably indicates Carolina’s shock). The only musical element that Henze discusses with reference to ‘evil’ in his opera is the whining, creepy flexaton. This is quite an unexpected reference as, for one, the sound of the instrument can hardly be heard, and also because it appears at a moment when, admittedly, the disaster is ominously anticipated (snow beginning to fall), but which in itself is not significant from a moral point of

16 “[...] realistische Klänge“, „wenn etwas in Unordnung gerät” (Henze 1962: 85). “... pour out forgiveness like a wine”: Can Music “say an existence is wrong”? 421

view. A full-fledged musically assisted expression of evil can be found only later at Mittenhofer’s ‘Credo’ (see Example 2), which uses some traditional means of describing villainy – such as the deadly gloom and the sheer power of sound – and conspicuously suggests high emotional intensity (which – following the convention – numbs the ethical sense). It is characteristic that Henze, in his later attempt of 1975 to draw attention to the denunciatory, crime-disclosing function of his music in the murder scene, talks about the hardly noticeable flexaton and not about this big orchestral outburst: evil appears in a deceptively subtle shape, not with stamping feet.

Example 2: Hans Werner Henze. Elegy for Young Lovers, Act Three, Scene V, bars 474 - 483 (Henze 1961: 347) 422 “... pour out forgiveness like a wine”: Can Music “say an existence is wrong”?

Similarly subtle is the way in which the composer later reinterpreted other passages of his music. The final scene of the opera, when Mittenhofer reads his elegy in public, shows “very beautiful music”, as Auden found (1968: 94), on which Henze commented in 1962 by quoting Auden’s phrase on the ‘forgiveness poured out by music like a wine’. Yet in 1975 he wrote – again radically reinterpreting his own music – that ‘the final scene of the opera opens our eyes to the atrociousness’ of the selfish, murderous artist-hero17, and that we need to be aware of the ‘inverted commas put around the crystalline sound world’ of this music18. The ‘beauty’ of the final music, the wordless ensemble of six voices representing the remarkable poetic achievement of Mittenhofer’s elegy, needs to be heard – in the composer’s own later view – as a sinister reflection of the viciousness of the poet who wrote it. In this reading, the music becomes a highly ambiguous affair by subtly mirroring the wilful deception of the criminal artist.

Another impressive criminal artist who found operatic representation in the 20th century is Cardillac in Paul Hindemith’s eponymous opera, which in this respect can meaningfully be compared to Henze’s Elegy for Young Lovers. Cardillac, the famous goldsmith from E. T. A. Hoffmann’s tale “Das Fräulein von Scudery”, is another representative of the Romantic artist-hero and again a person who is deeply at odds with the social world around him by claiming that his artistic excellence justifies radically independent moral standards. He is a demonic character who notoriously kills those people who buy his art works as he feels totally unable to part with his great artistic products. Hindemith’s opera came out in two versions, in 1926 and 1952 respectively, the latter with a heavily revised text but, interestingly, not substantially revised music. In the first version – similar to Henze’s earlier reading of Gregor Mittenhofer – Car- dillac appears as a fascinating hero, full of dignity, and as a superhuman man who despite his evil-doings is ‘forgiven’ and becomes heroically transexampled as a victim brought down by small-mindedness and Philistinism around him. But just as the later politically and socially committed Henze reinterpreted Mittenhofer, so the mature Hindemith of 1952 reconceived Cardillac in terms of his own heightened social consciousness and thus presented him as an irre-

17 “Die Schlußszene der Oper bringt uns das Grauenhafte solcher Konzeptionen vor Augen.“ (Hen- ze 1975: 237) 18 “[...] von der in Anführungszeichen gesetzten kristallenen Klanglichkeit” (ibid.: 239f.). “... pour out forgiveness like a wine”: Can Music “say an existence is wrong”? 423

sponsible, calculating liar who wickedly covers up his murderous activities (see Bernhart 1997).

In order to discuss the role of music in the presentation of this evil character, the ending of Act One of the opera can serve for demonstration (see Example 3):

Example 3: Paul Hindemith. Cardillac, Act One, final 19 bars (Hindemith 1926: 55) 424 “... pour out forgiveness like a wine”: Can Music “say an existence is wrong”?

There, a Cavalier (the minor characters of the opera have no names), while at night presenting a piece of jewellery to his beloved Lady, is suddenly stabbed to death by Cardillac, who appears bat-like from the dark. What we hear are only two flutes, until the score says: ‘The music stops!’ (“Die Musik setzt aus!”) The subsequent lengthy stage direction tells us what happens on the stage: only the Lady sees the intruder but is ‘dumbstruck by fright’ (“stumm vor Schrecken”), which is why only when the stranger draws his dag- ger and thrusts it into the Cavalier’s neck that she ‘cries out loud in horror’ (“schreit voller Entsetzen laut ouf”) and ‘slumps aswoon into the cushions’ (“sinkt ohnmächtig in die Kissen”). It is only after these dramatic events that the music starts again, when the score says: ‘Raptor-like flight of the murderer’ (“Raubvogelhafte Flucht des Mörders”).

It is significant that the murder and the Lady’s reaction to it are accompanied by a long musical break1. Thus, the concluding dramatic music of the act does not illustrate the murder itself, but the murderer’s subsequent flight2. This situation forms an obvious parallel to the murder scene in Elegy for Young Lovers, which suggests drawing another parallel to Henze’s opera, in this case a parallel between its ‘elegy’ ending and passages from Benjamin Britten’s The Turn of the Screw.

Britten’s opera, based on Henry James’s famous novel, is the most significant product of the composer’s life-long obsession with the experience of childlike innocence and its secret subversion and loss through hidden corrupting forces. Whatever the biographical sources of this obsession may be, it can be traced in a great number of Britten’s works, in many of his songs and operas (see Bernhart 1999; 2002). But rarely has it found as impressive a manifestation as in the music of The Turn of the Screw, where, closely following Henry James, the ambivalence of innocence – the very question of whether there is innocence or not – is centrally addressed. Peter Quint, the dead former valet at Bly, the gorgeous country house, is the evil force that is thought to corrupt Miles

1 A significant analogous situation can be found in Francis Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites (1957), where the murderous death by guillotine of the nuns is similarly marked by musical silence, i.e., a long fermata pause in the eighth bar before the end of the opera, at which “La foule com- mence à se disperser” (Poulenc 1987: 255). 2 The opera’s revised version of 1952 shows a musically identical situation of the scene; only the stage direction is considerably shorter (cf. Hindemith 1952: 61). “... pour out forgiveness like a wine”: Can Music “say an existence is wrong”? 425

Example 4: Benjamin Britten. The Turn of the Screw, Act One, Scene VIII, “At Night” (Britten 1955: 82) and Flora, the two children in charge of the inexperienced new Governess. The questions of whether Quint is evil, or the nameless Governess is evil, whether Quint exists at all or is only a product of the Governess’s hallucinations, whether the children are corrupted by Quint or by the Governess, or are not corrupted at all – all these questions are left open in the novel, according to Henry James’s own intentions. It was a challenge to Britten to convey this ambivalence of evil in his music, and an investigation of two short passages from the opera may be able to show how Britten dealt with the problem. One scene is Quint’s melismatic siren song from Act One (see Example 4), where the valet wickedly 426 “... pour out forgiveness like a wine”: Can Music “say an existence is wrong”?

tempts Miles – or this is at least what the Governess thinks he is doing, at the moment when she is crying out, just before Quint’s scene starts, that the children are “Lost! Lost! Lost!” (repeated seven times).

The other scene is the one in which Malo sings his “Malo” song (act 1, scene 6; the song later makes fragmentary reappearances):

Malo: I would rather be Malo: In an apple-tree Malo: than a naughty boy Malo: in adversity (Britten 1955: 144f.)

The song is based on an old joke that makes use of the multiple ambiguity of the Latin malo (“I prefer,” “I choose,” “apple,” “crime,” “injury,” “evil”): the absured sentence “Malo malo malo malo”might be tanslated “I would rather be in an apple-tree than a naughty boy in adversity.” The suggestion is that Miles refers to himself as “a naughty boy ... in adversity” thus echoing the amgiguity of malo, but with an edge: the primary meaning of “naughty” is disobediant, not evil, but in context it suggests the primary disobedience of another “naughty boy” who figuratively fell from an apple tree, namely Adam; and “naughty” also carries a sexual connotation that may carry over into Miles’s relationship with Quint. Incidentally, “naughty” is more ambivalent in English than the German version of the text, which says “böser Bub”: ‘naughty’ may be a euphemism for ‘evil’ or ‘wicked’ (a ‘cheeky boy’, in German, is ‘ein schlimmer, frecher Bub’). The point in our context is that Miles may suggest that he is evil, bu tnot necessarily; he may very well only be playful and harmless.

When considering the music of these two songs, it is essential to observe that the music clearly dominates over the text: the verbal side is only of marginal interest, Quint’s melismas are pure vocalizations on the name “Miles”, and Miles’s enigmatic words in the Malo song distract very little from the very melic quality of his song line. Both songs – despite their different textures – are ‘beautiful’ by any common standard. They appear as cases of what Law- rence Kramer has called “songfulness” (2002), as they have a typical “indefin- able” aesthetic quality and “gratifying intimacy”, Miles’s song particularly so. Quint’s high voice and “melismatic undulation” are signs of male ‘songfulness’, “... pour out forgiveness like a wine”: Can Music “say an existence is wrong”? 427

as Kramer observes, who also makes the essential point that the beauty of songfulness rests in “the positive quality of singing-in-itself: just singing” as a medium for attaining “unattainable bliss” (ibid.: 52f.). Kramer demonstrates this ‘blissful’ quality of songfulness by analysing Schubert’s “Heidenröslein”, yet he adds a riveting story about the use which Alfred Hitchcock made of the song in his film Lifeboat. There, a captive German U-boat’s captain deceptively lulls the crew of the Allied Forces into cosy conviviality by singing the song before he commits a merciless murder, which draws from Kramer the insightful comment on “the danger inherent in all volkstümlich innocence” (ibid.: 62).

This comment can also be applied to Quint’s and Miles’s songs from Brit- ten’s The Turn of the Screw, just as on the ‘beautiful’ vocalized ending of Hen- ze’s Elegy for Young Lovers. The ambivalence to be noticed in the reception of these vocal utterances, whether they are considered as merely ‘beautiful’ or whether they at the same time suggest the presence of evil, entirely depends on the observing mind. In Kramer’s words, “voice brings the music into a space of potential or virtual meaning even [or possibly: particularly] when actual meaning is left hanging” (ibid.: 54). Equally illuminating is Kramer’s observation that “[s]ongfulness is a fusion of vocal and musical utterance judged to be […] pleasurable […] independent of verbal content” (ibid.: 53; my emphasis): it may very well be “judged” other than ‘pleasurable’, and quite a different ‘potential meaning’ may emerge.

Thus, in my discussion of the presentation of evil in 20th-century opera we have come to a point where I may hazard a few summarizing observations. Henry James, discussing The Turn of the Screw in his preface to the New York Edition of 1909, gives the following advice: “Make him [the reader] think the evil […] and you are released from weak specifications.” (1966: 123; James’s emphasis) What one needs, according to James, is a “thin” story, one that leaves things unsaid, vague and unexplained, the “shadow of a shadow” (ibid.: 118). In the modern guise, evil does no longer step onto the stage with a cleft foot snarl- ing spiteful words and openly acting out dreadful deeds, “announced”, as James puts it, “by the hot breath of the Pit” (ibid.: 122). Modern evil tends to appear in disguise, as a cunning and deceptive agency. It asks the perciever to penetrate the veil in order to recognize its very existence. It finds its expression in subtle calculation and cold-hearted double-dealing, asking for subtleness and sophis- tication on the perceiver’s side to realize its destructive power. This is why am- 428 “... pour out forgiveness like a wine”: Can Music “say an existence is wrong”?

bivalence and opacity are so much its dominant features.

How does music deal with this situation? Evil which openly appeared on the stage as Caspar or Iago did, gave music an opportunity to describe and illustrate it more or less directly. But evil of the cunningly deceptive kind can no longer be unabashedly illustrated by the kind of musical vocabulary developed in the 19th century. The wish to express the enigmatic ambivalence of innocence and evil asks for a different musical language, and it has, in significant cases, been found in the beauty and simplicity of vocalized songs whose mere ‘songfulness’ leaves it up to the listener to become aware of the underlying ambivalence. The musical instruments which usually accompany such songs in the operas discussed are the flute, bells, harp and celesta, instruments that traditionally suggest the ‘heavenly’ sphere, but here become possible voices from hell. So the question put at starting, whether music can “say an existence is wrong”, can be answered in the affirmative only on the condition that an experiencing mind – with the help of conventional devices – is willing to read music in these terms, even against what the music may openly be saying on the surface. But the general drift of music is very much like what Kierkegaard and Auden say, ‘pouring out forgiveness’ or, as Kramer expresses so disarmingly, that “songs, in their songfulness”, despite their latent dangerousness, “remain stubbornly and disconcertingly beautiful” (2002: 62). Thus, wise dramatic composers who mean to evade the musical power of ‘forgiveness’ when they are expected to show unquestionable evil, do the only reasonable thing to do in such a situation: they stop the music. “... pour out forgiveness like a wine”: Can Music “say an existence is wrong”? 429

References

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— (1952). Cardillac. Oper in vier Akten nach einer Bühnenhandlung von Ferdinand Lion. Text und Musik von Paul Hindemith. Klavier-Auszug. Edition Schott 3219. Mainz: B. Schott’s Söhne. James, Henry (1966). The Turn of the Screw: An Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Sources, Essays in Criticism. Ed. Robert Kimbrough. A Norton Critical Edition. New York, NY/London: W. W. Norton. Kramer, Lawrence (2002). “Beyond Words and Music: An Essay on Songfulness”. Musical Meaning: Toward a Critical History. Berkeley, CA, et al.: Univ. of California Press. 51–67. (Reprint from Word and Music Studies: Defining the Field. Walter Bernhart, Steven Paul Scher, Werner Wolf, eds. Word and Music Studies 1. Amsterdam/Atlanta, GA: Rodopi, 1999. 303–319.) Krellmann, Hanspeter (1977). “Moderne Oper – zeitgenössische Oper – zeitgerechte Oper?”. Musica 31: 119–125. Kunze, Stefan (1992). “Bösewichter, Außenseiter und Gescheiterte in der Oper”. Gesungene Welten. Udo Bermbach, Wulf Konold, eds. Berlin/Hamburg: Dietrich Reimer. 209–222. Lohse, Günther (1985). “Röntgenstunde gegen ein Genie”. Elegie für junge Liebende. Program Booklet. Stadttheater Klagenfurt 1985/86. [n.pp.]. Lully, Jean-Baptiste (2006). Armide. Tragédie en musique, édition de Lois Rosow. Réduction cla- vier-chant: Noam A. Krieger. Œuvres Complètes III/14. Hildesheim/Zurich/New York, NY : Georg Olms. Mendelson, Edward (1981). Early Auden. London/Boston, MA: Faber. Poulenc, Francis (1987). Dialogues of the Carmelites (1957). An Opera in 3 Acts and 12 Scenes. Text of the Drama by Georges Bernanos. Adapted to a Lyric Opera with the Authorization of Emmet Lavery; the Drama Inspired by a Novel of Gertrud von le Fort and by a Scenario of Rev. Father Bruckberger and Philippe Agostini. Vocal Score. Milan: Ricordi. Ringger, Rolf Urs (2001). “Gregor Mittenhofer oder: Schnittpunkt der Wahne”. Neue Zürcher Zeitung (2/3 June): 50. Spears, Monroe K. (1963). The Poetry of W. H. Auden: The Disenchanted Island. New York, NY: OUP. Christophorus, oder “Die Vision einer Oper”: Franz Schreker’s Opera as a Metareferential Work [2010]

Schreker’s late opera, Christophorus, oder “Die Vision einer Oper”, is the document of a creative crisis experienced by the composer in the 1920s at a time of decisive changes in the world of music and the arts in general, which Schreker felt unable to share or accept for himself. Christophorus, reflects these changes and the composer’s attitudes to them and thus forms a prime example of a metareferential work in which the focus is on self-referential considerations about its own status as a work of art. Metareferential awareness finds reflection both in the texture of the music itself, which introduces stylistic parodies of contemporary musical practices (‘music on music’), and on the generic or art-philosophical level. Here interestingly the opera proves – despite its subtitle – to be not so much specifically an ‘opera on opera’ (on the issue of how – or whether at all – to write an opera at the given time) but more generally a work about ‘drama on drama’, or ‘theatre on theatre’, demonstrating an (ultimately self-defensive) struggle of the highly theatrically oriented composer with criticism from advocates of ‘absolute music’.

Franz Schreker’s (1878–1934) last but one opera, Christophorus, oder “Die Vision einer Oper” (St Christopher, or “The Vision of an Opera”, 1924–1929), has not been in the limelight of critical attention, just as Schreker in general has not been of central concern in the otherwise lively and hotly debated world of twentieth-century opera. Yet more recently we can observe a modest Schreker revival taking place, as witnessed, for instance, by the Schreker cycle at Kiel Opera from 2001 to 2003, or by the highly acclaimed production of Die Gezeichneten (The Stigmatized Ones) at the Salzburg Festival of 2005. The reception of Schreker’s works is a particularly interesting story. One should keep in mind that Schreker was the most highly acclaimed opera composer from around 1917 to 1921. A veritable Schreker wave swept over Aus- tria and Germany at the time, based on the sensational success of Der ferne Klang (The Distant Sound 1917) and Der Schatzgräber (The Treasure Seeker 1920), and due to the judgement of Paul Bekker, the influential Frankfurt critic, who, in a seminal article of 1918 (see 1923), propagated Schreker as the only true and worthy successor of Richard Wagner who by far surpassed the 432 Christophorus, oder “Die Vision einer Oper”

other operatic heroes of the time – Pfitzner, d’Albert, even Strauss (after Sa- lome and Elektra!). The German/Austrian trauma of having lost the war left its mark on the psyche of the two nations and led them to find compensation in achievements in the world of music, where traditionally they had undisputed strengths. Thus the issue had extreme political and cultural relevance, and to have found in Schreker a “Messiah of German Opera” (as proclaimed even in America, cf. Hailey 1993: 85) became of crucial importance. This was at a time when Schreker still lived in Vienna, a city that suddenly lacked scope in a drastically shrunken country. Yet everybody’s darling, Schreker – who was also a highly successful teacher – was lured away to Berlin to become the director of the city’s prestigious Musikhochschule. Although the first few years there were a period of continued success it soon became clear that Berlin was not really Schreker’s world and that the drastic changes of the time were not to his mind. The new aesthetic tendencies of Neue Sachlichkeit (“new objectivity”, or “new sobriety”; ibid.: 168) and neoclassicism, as well as American jazz, were ultimately alien to Schreker, and the new Zeitoper (“opera of the times”; ibid.: 241, or “topical opera”; ibid.: 358) was a profound challenge to the fastidious opera composer. Schreker, who had always been admired for the opulent ‘sound magic’ (Klangzauber) and alluring timbral qualities of his refined orchestral palette, was now faced with a world of hard and dry sounds where “rhythm […] seems to dominate” and “motor impulse replaces passion”, as Schreker himself observed in an essay of 1928, significantly called “Stilwende” (‘change of styles’; qtd. ibid.: 155). As a recent New Yorker article has put it in a nutshell: the “fox- trotting nineteen-twenties” stood against Schreker’s “gossamer textures” (Ross 2005). Particularly bitter for Schreker was the fact that his own colleagues and students played a prominent role in this change of taste: Hindemith, Busoni, Krenek, Hába, Toch, Weill – they all enthusiastically welcomed the new tendencies, which, ironically, was partly a consequence of Schreker’s own characteristic style of teaching: he never took a dogmatic stance by asserting a specific style of writing and establishing a ‘school’ of his own – quite in contrast to Schoenberg, who became a very welcome colleague and friend of his in Berlin. Schreker rather believed in encouraging his students to help them find their own individual styles. Even more disappointing for Schreker than his students who avidly embraced the new trends were the attacks by influential critics of the time. They condemned Schreker on moral grounds, censuring his “artistry (Artistentum)” (Hailey 1993: 170) and immoral subjects (‘sittenlose Stoffe’) Christophorus, oder “Die Vision einer Oper” 433

treated by “a ‘soulless nerve artist’”1. Schreker was blamed for being a writer of “sexual kitsch operas” (ibid.: 146) and romantic “Schwulst”2. Above all, Adolf Weißmann from the Berliner Zeitung diagnosed music as being in a world cri- sis3 and attacked Schreker’s “‘[…] weibliche, weichliche Natur … Ja, es fehlt der zuckende, doch männliche Rhythmus einer kraftvollen Persönlichkeit […]’”4. All this led to a veritable creative crisis in Schreker, a crisis which was aggravat- ed by the fact that Nazi propaganda machinery started to push forward and targeted at Schreker, whose father had been identified as a Jew.

All these observations are very much in place for my topic as they form the background for Christophorus, which was written between 1925 and 1929 and directly reflects the critical situation just outlined. In fact, Christopher Hailey, president of the Franz Schreker Foundation and profoundest Schreker scholar, sees the composer’s problems with his students as the ultimate trigger of the opera5, as witnessed by the opera’s framing situation of a composition teacher with his students. An additional point is made by Frank Harders-Wuthenow, who considers Weißmann’s criticism, quoted above, of Schreker’s “feminine, soft nature” the main spring of the composer’s choice of subject matter, namely the legend of Saint Christopher.

The political cataclysm of 1933 had a direct impact on Schreker: the premiere of Christophorus, scheduled for the spring of that year at Freiburg, did not take place, prohibited by Hitler’s ‘seizure of power’ (‘Machtergreifung’), and the composer himself, totally shattered, did not long survive the historical watershed: he died in March 1934. A Schreker revival after the war, which could naturally have been expected, did not take place because the composer, in spite of his personal friendship with Schoenberg (Christophorus, is dedicated to

1 Harders-Wuthenow 2005: 27, quoting Alfred Heuß in Zeitschrift für Musik, 1921 (“seelenloser Nervenkünstler”; qtd. ibid.: 11). 2 Hailey 1980: 115 (‘bombast’, ‘magniloquence’). 3 Cf. Musik in der Weltkrise, the title of a book by Weißmann, published in 1922 (misquoted by Harders-Wuthenow as Die Weltkrise der Musik; 2005: 30). 4 Qtd. Harders-Wuthenow 2005: 14. (“Schreker is a feminine, soft nature … Yes, the twitching but masculine rhythm of a powerful personality […] is lacking”; ibid.: 30) 5 “Das Unbehagen über seine unbändige Kompositionsklasse der frühen zwanziger Jahre […] war wohl der Ausgangspunkt für Christophorus,.” (Hailey 2002a: 14. ‘It is most likely that uneasiness about his ungovernable composition class of the early twenties was the starting point for Christo- phorus,.’) Here and in the following all unquoted translations are my own. 434 Christophorus, oder “Die Vision einer Oper”

him), was not accepted as a member of the so-called Second Viennese School. The ‘deathblow’ came from Adorno, who saw in Schreker a “Romantic” and “Impressionist” writing “music of puberty” and “hopeless sterility”, it lacks reflection and “disregards constructive discipline” (Adorno 1963, qtd. Hailey 1993: 317–319). Adorno’s ‘modernist’ asceticism allowed for no appreciation of Schreker’s orchestral sensualism and essentially paratactic syntactical logic based on the principle of sharp contrasts and strong theatrical effects. Chris- topher Hailey argues that only the ‘postmodernist’ age brought a rediscovery of Schreker (cf. ibid.: 320), signalled by two seminal symposia, in Graz (1976)6 and Berlin (1978)7, and by the belated world premiere of Christophorus, (at Freiburg, as originally planned) in 1978, this time on the occasion of the cen- tenary of Schreker’s birth. Schreker criticism, despite some substantial individual contributions, is still in its infancy, as Hailey affirms in his groundbreaking Cultural Biography of the composer of 1993. This is particularly true for Christophorus, which is clearly Schreker’s most complex opera, but, as asserted by Sieghart Döhring, “eines der Haupt- und Schlüsselwerke”8 and, according to Gösta Neuwirth, “die Summe seiner Intentionen”9.

The complexity of Christophorus, is due to the fact that it is – far more so than any other Schreker opera – “Geheimwerk und Lebensbeichte”10, the composer’s assessment of his self-understanding as a musician at a time of distress, when his artistic value system was critically challenged and the composer des- perately tried to come to grips with a radically changed situation. This accounts for the fact that the opera – unusual for Schreker, who generally was a fast worker – had a long gestation period and saw a great number of revisions. (Hai- ley lists as many as six different versions of the opera; see 1980.) This reflects both the composer’s uneasiness with, and fundamentally ambivalent attitude towards, his subject, and accounts for its opacity and difficulty, which have led to occasional criticism and discontent.

The first version of the opera was called Christophorus, – eine moderne Le-

6 See Kolleritsch, ed. (1978). 7 See Budde/Stephan, eds. (1980). 8 Döhring 1978: 29 (‘one of his main and key works’). 9 Neuwirth 1978: 109 (‘the sum of his intentions’). 10 Harders-Wuthenow 2005: 14. (“Secret Work and Life’s Confession”; ibid.: 30) Christophorus, oder “Die Vision einer Oper” 435

gende, and its intention was to retell the old legend of St Christopher for the modern world. It is the story of the giant who wants to serve only the mighti- est authority and thus enters the service of the Emperor. But when he discovers that the Emperor is afraid of the Devil he follows the Devil, until he finds out that the Devil shuns away from a crucifix, which tells Christopher that Christ must be more powerful than the Devil. So he starts searching for Christ but does not know where to find him until he is told by a hermit that he should give up wasting his enormous strength in warfare and fighting and should rather put it to a peaceful service by carrying people across a dangerous river, which he does. One day a child asks to be carried across but when passing, the river gets terribly rough and the child becomes an extremely heavy burden: Christopher is terrified and realizes that he is carrying the Christ child and with him the burden of the world. He sinks and is swallowed up by the river but when returning to the surface the river has become perfectly calm and peaceful.

To understand the plot development of the opera it is essential to know well the details of this story since the legend is told only very briefly in the Pre- lude of the opera. In this Prelude we find the framing situation already referred to, where a master composer, Meister Johann, requires his students to write string quartets based on this legend. However, one of the students, Anselm, declines to do so: he prefers writing an opera on the subject and thinks this form to be more appropriate for the modern times. He opts for updating the plot and dramatizing the story. The equivalencies between the old legend and its modern rewriting by Anselm are made little explicit in the text, only a private “Introduction” given by the composer (not found in the score nor otherwise published by Schreker himself) offers a few hints. This Introduction was written at the request of Joseph Marx, his Styrian composer-friend, who confessed of not having understood the story. The Introduction explains that the mighty ‘Emperor’ of the legend is “heute die Kunst und die Schaffende [sic], zeugen- de Liebe in ihrer primitivsten Gestalt, der bürgerlichen Ehe”11, to be overcome by the more powerful “‘Teufel’” (“‘Devil’”), in the modern shape of “Laster” (“vice”), which is in turn overcome by the “‘Jesuskind’” (“‘Christ child’”) in its modern version, namely, “das Gottähnlichste im Menschen, das reine Auge des Kindes” and, musically, “die reinste, keuscheste Form der Musik, das Streich-

11 Schreker 2005b: 67 (“today art and creating, engendering love in its most primitive form, the bourgeois marriage”; ibid.). 436 Christophorus, oder “Die Vision einer Oper”

quartett”12. What is not particularly apparent in this Introduction, however, is the fact that the final childlike stage is also represented in the opera by a quotation from Laozi’s Daodejing, which appears at the beginning of the opera’s Postlude, again indicating a more contemporary religious sphere than the old legend’s Roman Catholic sainthood.

Anselm thinks that St Christopher is an undramatic character, that the story is “langweilig […] und sentimental über die Maßen”, and for his operatic dramatization he thinks that one essential element is missing: “das Weib, / das süße, lockende, / teuflische Weib”13. This woman, for Anselm, is Lilith from the Old Testament, the serpent, who in his version of the legend becomes vice, the modern form of the Devil. (Schreker, like many of his illustrious contem- poraries such as Schoenberg, Adolf Loos, or Karl Kraus, were deeply impressed by Otto Weininger’s misogynist theories, a typical product of the ‘nervous age’, which became a main spring for the famous ‘wicked’ eroticism in Schreker’s works; cf. Harders-Wuthenow 2005: 29.) Lilith is introduced into Anselm’s story as Lisa, who – and this contributes significantly to the complexity of the opera’s plot – is Meister Johann’s daughter and Anselm’s object of love. Lisa, however, is engaged to be married to Christoph, one of Meister Johann’s other students. So what happens is that the ‘real-life’ situation of Anselm in the frame story becomes the trigger for the central constellation in his framed story, that is, the operatic version (or ‘vision’) of the legend of St Christopher. The frame’s Christoph turns into the opera’s St Christopher, also called Christoph, and the frame’s Lisa marries Christoph, in the planned opera, and has a child. Yet she turns into a Lilith when shocked about her vanishing beauty as a consequence of child-bearing (which is an ingenious idea with reference to the legend!), and she succumbs to the temptations of Dionysiac artistic dancing, and to those of Anselm. At this, the jealous Christoph shoots Lisa, and Anselm hauls off Christoph, whom he confesses to be in love with, to rescue him. One should keep in mind, though, that all these dramatic events are elements only of Anselm’s ‘vision of an opera’, and it is a main structural point to be made that the two plot levels of the frame and the framed cannot be disentangled in the opera – they develop concurrently. It is no coincidence that the central char-

12 Ibid. (“[…] the most godlike in man, the child’s pure vision […] the purest, chastest form of music, the string quartet”; ibid.). 13 Ibid.: 75. (“Boring […] and exceedingly sentimental”; “the sweet, tempting, / devilish woman”; ibid.) Christophorus, oder “Die Vision einer Oper” 437

acter is called Anselm, alluding to E. T. A. Hoffmann’s novella “Der golden Topf” (‘The Golden Pot’) with its typically Hoffmannesque plot situation of the mingling of dream and reality. To finish the story: in the second act we find Christoph and Anselm on the run, hiding as bar musicians at an opium den, with the drug addicted Christopher trying to conjure up Lisa at a séance. Yet who appears, ‘real-life’, instead of the expected spectre is Christoph and Lisa’s child guided by Meister Johann, both as beggar musicians. Christoph is devas- tated and (mentally) ‘sinks under the weight of the child’, which marks the end of the second act. Yet in the Postlude Anselm is equally in distress because he finds himself unable to finish his opera. All characters – including the ‘real-life’ Lisa – are gathered to encourage him, and the child asks his father, Christoph, to carry him home, at which Anselm finally hears “Voices” (“Stimmen”) and the “Pulsebeat of silence” (“Pulsschlag der Stille”) within himself: “Musik und nichts weiter –“ (“music and nothing more –”) – a string quartet (Schreker 2005b: 136f.). This is in perfect keeping with the peaceful ending of the legend and finally replaces Anselm’s illusionary ‘vision of an opera’.

The complexity of the drama in Christophorus, consists, for one, in the si- multaneity, with identical characters, of a frame story and a framed story, which, further, is itself a modern adaptation of an old story. This structural complexity is additionally enhanced by the fact that the frame story contains still another story, namely that of a conflict between musical forms and styles, represented by the dispute between Meister Johann’s several students, a conflict which – as the frame and framed stories are inseparably intertwined – is continued in Anselm’s framed story, so that the conflict of musical styles becomes also an element of Anselm’s ‘vision of an opera’, which is basically the opera that we, as external observers, experience on the stage. Schreker seems to have been aware of the intricacy of this structural situation, which comes out in a remark he makes in his Introduction for Joseph Marx: “Sie werden sehen und hören, vielleicht auch ohne Hinweis entdecken, wie der Konflikt der musikalisch getrennten Welten seinen Lauf neben dem Drama nimmt.”14 This is an unusually explicit reference to the meta-musical level of the work, which appears – even more explicitly – in the sub-title of the opera (“Die Vision einer Oper”). As already mentioned, this metareferential sub-title was not there from

14 Schreker 2005b: 67. (“You will see and hear, perhaps also discover without having it indicated, how the conflict of the musically divided worlds runs its course next to the drama.” Ibid.) 438 Christophorus, oder “Die Vision einer Oper”

the beginning: the first version said “eine moderne Legende”. Christopher Hai- ley has closely traced the genesis of the opera libretto (see 1980) and has shown that the further the text evolved the more Anselm became the central character, over the Christopher of the legend and the main title of the work. This is reminiscent of the genesis of a typical Henry James story, where the emphasis also tended to shift from the story itself to the circumstances of its telling, that is, where the metareferential element became an increasingly dominant feature. When Schreker had originally chosen the subject of St Christopher – if we follow Harders-Wuthenow’s argument referred to above – in order to defend himself against Weißmann’s charge of effeminacy, he later shifted his focus more and more to the aesthetic and compositional issues of the time, whereby Anselm’s dilemma of a conflict of styles became central to the work, which, in turn, clearly reflected Schreker’s own artistic dilemma. It is for the first – and only – time that we find in Schreker’s works a “self-conscious stylistic awareness”, a “‘constructive’ principle”, as Hailey perceptively notes, which is clearly distinguished from Schreker’s otherwise “unconscious stylistic assurance” (1993: 175). As a consequence, we detect in Christophorus, a ‘stylistic mosaic’ (cf. Denut 2009: 57), which Schreker himself refers to in his Introduction by naming the following items: “klassizistische Symphonie”, “die Leidmusik von der Tragödie der Frau”, ‘künstlerischen Tanz’, “Jazzmusik”, “die volksliedarti- gen Weisen des Kindes”, and finally “absolute Musik”15. (Significantly, Schrek- er does not talk about any particular form or style of opera, or opera in general, a point to be taken up later.) H. H. Stuckenschmidt has identified an even greater number of styles in the opera and lists them as contrastive pairs: “[…] polytonale Symphonik neben archaisierendem Quartettklang, gelehrte Kon- trapunktik neben einfachem, harmonisch begleitetem Chanson, das Modein- strument der Singenden Säge neben Klavier, Saxophon und Schlagzeug, arioser Gesang neben rhythmisch und im Tonfall fixierter Sprechstimme, melodramatische Strecken neben reinem Singspieldialog”16.

15 Schreker 2005b: 67 (“classicistic symphony”, “the grief music of the tragedy of a woman”, “artistic dance”, “jazz music”, “the child’s melodies resembling a folk song”, “absolute music”; ibid.). 16 Stuckenschmidt 1970: 50 (‘polytonal symphonic style next to archaic quartet sound, learned counterpoint next to simple, harmoniously accompanied chanson, the fashionable instrument of the singing saw next to piano, saxophone and percussion, arioso singing next to rhythmical and melodically fixed speaking voice, melodramatic passages next to pure Singspiel dialogue’). The spirit of Adorno is lifting its head when Stuckenschmidt adds that the opera ‘touches most dan- gerously on the realm of the operetta’ (“streift am gefährlichsten das Reich der Operette”; ibid.) – which it nowhere actually does. Christophorus, oder “Die Vision einer Oper” 439

It is clear that some of the stylistic experiments in the opera are satirical and serve to parody styles that were propagated in the early 1920s. This is particularly true for the music that accompanies Starkmann, the critic of the Neutöner journal, who is a figure parodying Weißmann. In Scene 2 of Act I we hear five bars of fugue-like, ‘linear’ music in C major, Hindemith-like, ironising contemporary tendencies to turn away from old-style “Verstiegenheit” (“extravagance”; Schreker 1931: 13f.; Schreker 2005b: 80). Hilarious is the kind of ‘wedding chorus’ sung by the students, “frisch und burschikos”: “Starkmann blickt etwas unsicher in das Blatt und kräht mit”17 – a parody of Neue Sachlichkeit. This chorus is, in Hailey’s words, “of imbecilic simplicity” (1993: 249) and develops, musically, into a scene reminiscent of the ‘thrashing scene’ (‘Prügelsze- ne’) from Wagner’s Meistersinger.

While such cases are clearly parodies and meant to be appreciated as such, other passages which introduce ‘modern’ styles are less obviously ironic. This is true for the dance music at the beginning of Act II, which comes in the rag- time/cakewalk rhythm (familiar by Debussy’s “Golliwog’s Cakewalk” from Children’s Corner, 1906–1908), and for the “Tragisches Couplet” (“tragic couplet”; Act II, Scene 3), which is Anselm’s chanson called “‘Das Gift’” (“‘The Poison’”) and sung by Rosita, Starkmann’s escort (Schreker 2005b: 119). She is, significantly, announced as “uns’rer Oper / gefeierte Diva –“18. The satire is obvious: this operatic diva is prepared to do modern ‘light’ music in the style of Kurt Weill. Yet what further happens is that the voice of Rosita “sich all- mählich in die Lisas zu verwandeln scheint”19, and, in a dialogue which takes place parallel to the chanson, Christoph confesses his drug addiction and his desire to conjure up Lisa: the sense of parody is totally lost, and the ‘feel’ of the new style – in musical terms – is never truly established. Eric Denut, discussing self-referential (or rather, more specifically, metareferential) elements in Chris- tophorus, makes the perceptive remark that, when introducing new styles into his work, Schreker never had problems of technique, which Schreker was in full command of, yet it was his sensibility that ultimately stood against true innovation (cf. 2009: 57f.). So, although Schreker, when starting on his new

17 Schreker 2005b: 93 (“in a fresh boyish manner”; “Starkmann looks somewhat unsurely at the page and croons along”; ibid.). 18 Ibid.: 118 (“the acclaimed diva / of our opera –”; ibid.). 19 Ibid.: 119 (“gradually seems to change into Lisa’s voice”; ibid.). 440 Christophorus, oder “Die Vision einer Oper”

opera Christophorus, was optimistic as usual about his new style, he was soon annoyed by the ‘topicality’ of the work20 and seems to have realized that he should not prostitute himself, as he was wont to do due to his well-established obsession with public success. Thus, the anti-illusionist, metamusical elements of parody in the opera – in the context of its general self-referential stylistic multiplicity – are basically only of an episodic character.

A more central metamusical element of the opera is the fact that it addresses the issue of opera already in its title. Thus, Christophorus, is regularly called an ‘opera on opera’21, which, of course, to a certain extent it is. Clearly, Anselm wants to write an opera, in spite of his master’s wish for a string quartet. Anselm, however, fails in his attempt, and what we hear instead at the end is – a string quartet. This course of events has been read, somewhat rashly, as a direct response to the crisis of opera as witnessed in the 1920s, answering contemporary doubts about whether in such times it would still be possible to write operas – the suggested answer being: no. It is a misconception, however, when, as a consequence, Gösta Neuwirth, for example, talks about a ‘transformation of the opera into a string quartet’22 as a sign of turning away from opera. Schreker himself anticipated such a reaction yet clearly rejected criticism such as: “Warum aber [...] schreibe [sic] Sie denn selbst noch eine Oper?”23. The reasons Schreker gives for his denial are not particularly convincing24, but the fact is that he wrote not only Christophorus, obviously as an opera – and indeed a fine opera – and that another one was soon to follow, Der Schmied von Gent (The Blacksmith of Ghent, 1929–1932). So, Anselm’s failure to write an opera

20 “Das Aktuelle des Christophorus, stört mich.“ (Letter to Paul Bekker, 24 January 1927; qtd. Hai- ley 1980: 18) 21 For example: “Die Handlung der Oper dreht sich um drei Komponisten, doch ist Christophorus, weniger ein Künstlerdrama als eine Oper über die Operngattung selbst.” (Hailey 2002a: 15. ‘The plot revolves around three composers, yet Christophorus, is less an artists drama than an opera about the genre of opera itself.’) 22 “Wandlung der Oper zum Streichquartett” (Neuwirth 1978: 109; ‘the transition from the opera to the string quartet’). Cf. similarly: “Soll das denn heißen, dass die ganze Opernidee zuletzt nichts mehr taugt?” (Eberhardt & Horst 2003. ‘Does that mean that the whole idea of opera is no longer of any use?’) 23 Schreker 2005b: 67. (“But why […] do you yourself still write an opera?”; ibid.) 24 One reason Schreker gives is that authors need not share their characters’ opinions (which, of course, is true but contributes little to the metareferential issue of the opera), another that a time will come when opera will “be saved by a drawing on its original shape” (“Zurückgreifen auf seine ursprüngliche Art”; 2005b: 67). Christophorus, oder “Die Vision einer Oper” 441

does not imply a failure of opera at large. Opera as a genre is not put into question; however, an artistic approach, which is represented by opera, is put up for inspection in the ‘conflict of the musically divided worlds’ that Schreker addresses in Christophorus,.

A close look at the libretto – as always written by Schreker himself – surprisingly shows no direct verbal references to opera, apart from the sub-title and Rosita being called a “diva of our opera” (Schreker 2005b: 118), as already mentioned. Anselm’s references to his visionary work consistently use other terms from the world of theatre: “Dies ist dramatisch! / Doch fehlt das Weib” 25, or: “wähl ich zum Drama: / Lisa, Lilith, die Schlange”26. He plans the ‘acts’ of his work (cf. ibid.: 81) and hands over to Lisa as a wedding present “[e]iner Tragödie erster Akt”27. Later he says: “Die große Szene hebt an”28, and: “Die Szene, von der ich dir sprach, / ist fertig”29. “Die Komödie endet. / Die Szene bricht ab –“30; “Die Komödie ist aus“31; “Es war doch nur Spiel …“32; and finally Christoph realizes: “[ich] hab doch gelebt nur, / mehr schlecht als recht, / […] ein Bühnenleben”33. These quotations show that the artistic alternative to a string quartet on which Anselm is working is never referred to as an ‘opera’ at any point, the references are always to drama and theatre in far more general terms. The fundamental aesthetic issue of the work, thus, is not the contrast between opera and string quartet, but more generally the contrast of drama/theatre and – in Schreker’s own words – “absolute Musik” (“absolute music”; 2005b: 67). Schreker was “above all a man of the theater” (Hai- ley 2002b), and theatricality was one of his major ‘vices’, according to Adorno. Schreker never reflected thoroughly on his craft, and also his small essay called

25 Schreker 2005b: 75. (“This is dramatic! / But the female element is lacking”; ibid.). This one and all subsequent emphases in quotations are my own. 26 Ibid.: 76. (“I choose for the drama: / Lisa, Lilith, the snake”; ibid.) 27 Ibid.: 94. (“The first act of a tragedy”; ibid.) 28 Ibid.: 101. (“The great scene begins”; ibid.) 29 Ibid.: 104. (“[T]he scene I told you about / is ready”; ibid.) 30 Ibid.: 109. (“The comedy ends. / The scene breaks off”; ibid.) 31 Ibid.: 110. (“The comedy is over”; ibid.) 32 Ibid.: 111. (“It was only a game …”; ibid.). A more appropriate translation of the German “nur Spiel” would be “only playing”. 33 Ibid.: 133. (“[I have] lived / more wrongly than rightly, / […] only a stage existence”; ibid.) 442 Christophorus, oder “Die Vision einer Oper”

“Meine musikdramatische Idee” of 1919 is not a very profound document of self-reflection. Yet it at least honestly makes sure from the beginning that he does not really have a clearly expressed ‘musico-dramatic idea’. What Schreker asserts is that the general aim of his works is “[e]ine Art ‘Verismus’, wenn man will”34, and the most interesting notion to cull from this essay is the following: “Klang [ist] eines der wesentlichsten musikdramatischen Ausdrucksmittel […] in entscheidenden Augenblicken des Dramas”35. Yet he grants that the world which is thereby brought to stage life is only a world of appearances (Schein), and not that of pure being (Sein). There was an aesthetic debate going on at the time about the ‘naturalism’ of the vocal tone as in contrast to the ‘illusionism’ of the instrumental tone, discussed, among others, in Paul Bekker’s Klang und Eros (Sound and Eros) of 192236. Schreker increasingly realized that his own world of the theatre – as a sensual, naturalistic, vocalizing, dramatic manifestation of subconscious spheres of the psyche – is only a world of appearances and not the ‘real thing’. It is only instrumental music that he conceived of as giving access to pure being, a conviction which Schreker precisely presents on stage at the end of Christophorus,. It is a particularly moving passage when the child, “im Fiebertraum” (“in a feverish dream”), craves of his father, Christoph: “Trag mich heim / [...] woher wir kamen – / dort hinaus, / dort hinaus –”37. The phrase ‘trag mich hinaus’ (‘out there’) replaces what the old legend says, namely, ‘trag mich hinüber’, i.e., ‘across’ (the river). It is Hailey’s very persuasive reading of the passage that this ‘hinaus’ (replacing ‘hinüber’) means ‘hinaus aus dem Theater’ (‘out of the theatre’) (cf. 1980: 132), in other words, out of this world of mere appearances – and what we hear following this is the string quartet and the concluding C major to end the opera. Of course, such an ending is in perfect keeping with the idea of the legend, but we need to be aware of the fact that only a sixth attempt in the long gestation of the opera produced this ending. Schreker’s struggle with it seems to mirror his existential crisis about his self-understanding as an artist of the kind he was – a man of the theatre. The hostilities and neglect which he faced and which seriously under-

34 Qtd. Zibaso 1999: 43 (‘a sort of “verismo“, if you want’). 35 Qtd. ibid. (‘sound is one of the most essential means of musico-dramatic expression in decisive moments of the drama’). 36 “Bekker stellt dem ‘Naturalismus’ des Vokaltons den ‘Illusionismus’ des Instrumentaltons gegenüber.” (Molkow 1980: 89) 37 Schreker 2005b: 135f. (“Carry me home / […] whence we came, / out there, / out there. –“; ibid.) Christophorus, oder “Die Vision einer Oper” 443

mined his self-esteem, would induce him to write such an ending to his opera to serve him as a means of mental relief and compensation by vicariously acting out an escape from the pressures – an escape which he was consciously and in real life not prepared to take. One should, significantly, add that this ending of the opera is a perfect ending for an opera, opening up an Edenic ‘secondary world’ which, if we follow W. H. Auden, is the essence of opera (see 1968; just as the whole Epilogue of Christophorus, with its gripping orchestral interlude is a magnificent operatic achievement – in Hailey’s words, “one of the most haunting scenes in twentieth-century opera”; 1993: 246).

Thus, the major metareferential aspect of Christophorus, is not so much opera as a particular musico-dramatic genre, or the question of which kind of opera should be written at the given historical moment. Rather, the discussion focuses more generally on the central aesthetic issue of dramatic representation. An earlier essay by Wolfgang Molkow has demonstrated that in all of Schre- ker’s operas we find aesthetic metareference, ‘art on art’, in the form of what he calls “‘tönende Symbole’” (1980: 83; ‘sounding symbols’). They sometimes already appear in the title (Der ferne Klang [The Distant Sound], Das Spielwerk [The Carillon]), in other works we find centrally placed musical instruments, like the lute in Der Schatzgräber or the organ in Der singende Teufel (The Sing- ing Devil). As Molkow asserts, Schreker’s sound visions in his operas are always already prefigured in their subjects38. It is interesting to note, however, that the form of aesthetic self-reflection which Schreker chose for Christophorus, is of a character different from his earlier works. While the earlier ones manifest the composer’s famous obsession with sound, in Christophorus, the emphasis has shifted and is now put on dramatic presentation: ‘sound on sound’ is replaced by ‘drama on drama’, where the musical genres of the opera and the string quartet represent forms of ‘drama’ and ‘non-drama’, respectively. This is in keeping with the development of Schreker’s late style of writing, which acquired a far more ‘reduced’ orchestral quality (as Hermann Danuser’s careful analysis of Schreker’s Whitman Songs – its orchestral version was written at the same time as Christophorus, – has shown; cf. 1980: 50). An additional metareferential element of Christophorus, can be found in its several parodies of musical styles of the time, as discussed. These, again, are not specifically operatic styles, they

38 “[…] in allen Opern geht es um eine Klangmetaphorik, bei der die Schrekersche Klangvision bereits im Sujet vorgezeichnet ist” (Molkow 1980: 83). 444 Christophorus, oder “Die Vision einer Oper”

are more general cases of ‘music on music’. So, while it is convincing when De- nut asserts that Christophorus, is the ‘culmination of Schreker’s self-referentiality’39 – if one grants that Denut is in fact talking about metareferentiality (see Wolf 2009) – a closer investigation of the work can show that, interestingly, it is hardly an ‘opera on opera’ in any more specific sense. The fact that the opera shows forms of operatic presentation which Schreker had not used before does not, as yet, turn the work itself into a metareferential one; otherwise any work showing stylistic innovations would directly become metareferential: merely implied reflections of an author on how to write his work do not as yet turn the work into a metareferential one. To the extent that Christophorus, goes beyond this stage and actually does contain metareference to a considerable degree, it is a particularly instructive case of self-reflexivity. Harald Fricke, in his 2001 survey of ‘opera in opera’, is quite right in grouping Christophorus, with Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg and Palestrina as an art-philosophical, aesthetic-theoretical drama of ideas40. As such it deserves more critical attention than it has received so far, as it also deserves more stage productions than it has been granted in the past.

39 “[…] ist die Oper Christophorus, der Höhepunkt der Schrekerschen Selbstreferentialität” (Denut 2009: 53). 40 “[…] in der Reihe ästhetisch-theoretischer Ideendramen […] durch Wagners kunstphiloso- phisch-räsonnierende Meistersinger von Nürnberg begründet“ (Fricke 2001: 241; ‘in the series of aesthetic-theoretical dramas of ideas founded on Wagner’s art-philosophically argumentative Mastersingers of Nuremberg‘). Christophorus, oder “Die Vision einer Oper” 445

References

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— (1931). Christophorus, oder “Die Vision einer Oper”. Oper in 2 Akten (3 Bildern), Vorspiel und Nach- spiel von Franz Schreker. Klavierauszug mit Text von Erwin Stein. Berlin: Edition Adler/Magde- burg: Heinrichshofen’s Verlag. — (2002). Christophorus, oder “Die Vision einer Oper”. Oper in 2 Akten (3 Bildern), Vorspiel und Nachspiel von Franz Schreker. Libretto, reprint (in German). Programme booklet. Bühnen der Landeshauptstadt Kiel. 37–63. — (2005a). Christophorus, oder “Die Vision einer Oper”. CD. Live recording, Opernhaus Kiel, June 2002 – March 2003. CPO 999 903–2. — (2005b). Christophorus, oder “Die Vision einer Oper”. Oper in 2 Akten (3 Bildern), Vorspiel und Nachspiel von Franz Schreker. Libretto, reprint (in German and English). CD booklet [Schreker 2005a]. 64–137. Stuckenschmidt, Hans Heinz (1970). “Schreker und seine Welt”. Haidy Schreker-Bures, H. H. Stu- ckenschmidt, Werner Oehlmann. Franz Schreker. Vienna: Lafite/Österreichischer Bundesverlag. 39–52. Weininger, Otto (1903). Geschlecht und Charakter: Eine prinzipielle Untersuchung. Vienna/Leipzig: Wilhelm Braumüller. Weißmann, Adolf (1922). Musik in der Weltkrise. Stuttgart/Berlin: Deutsche Verlagsanstalt. Wolf, Werner (2009). “Metareference across Media: The Concept, its Transmedial Potentials and Pro- blems, Main Forms and Functions”. Werner Wolf, ed., in collaboration with Katharina Bantleon and Jeff Thoss. Metareference across Media: Theory and Case Studies. Dedicated to Walter Bern- hart on the Occasion of his Retirement. Amsterdam/New York, NY: Rodopi. 1–85. Zibaso, Magali (1999). Franz Schrekers Bühnenwerke: Eine Biographie in Selbstzeugnissen und Analy sen seiner Opern. Saarbrücken: PFAU. Metareference in Operatic Performance: The Case of Katharina Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg [2011]

Although the papers collected in this volume cover an impressively wide range of areas where the contemporary cultural scene shows evidence of metareferential elements, it is interesting to note that few, if any, concern themselves with the world of the musical theatre. This is quite surprising as, indeed, opera houses are nowadays – particularly in Europe – the romping place of theatrical experimentation where even stage directors who have their background in play- houses for spoken drama are increasingly attracted by the musical theatre and take up the challenge of producing operas. One may wonder why this is the case as, after all, operas are generally far more restrictive than plays, by their rigid time scheme and by the emotional and theatrical/gestural implications of the musical score. Yet these very constraints may indeed form a most welcome incentive for more adventurous stage directors, and it is a widely observed fact that nowadays opera is the dearly loved playground of innovative theatre, and that what we have learned to call ‘Regietheater’ (‘directors’ theatre’) has found its most controversial expression in opera productions1. Innovative stage directors who align themselves with the trend of ‘Regietheater’ see it as their task to take an independent stand vis-à-vis the work they are faced with and are concerned about an individual reading of the work which – if seen in a positive light – reveals aspects of the work that are of particular relevance in a contemporary context. If seen in a negative light, such an ‘individual reading’ may very well form a more or less wilful projection of the director’s own obsessions onto the work at hand. A helpful and illuminating survey of a great number

1 The term is misleading as ‘Regie’ (stage direction) is a natural part of any theatrical activity. It is the implication of the term ‘Regietheater’ that in this theatrical practice the director assumes a position superior to that of the author or any other function in the production process. So it is little surprising that the advent of so-called ‘Regietheater’ roughly coincided with “The Death of the Author” as proclaimed by Roland Barthes (see 1967). Conversely, there are indications that by now the heyday of ‘Regietheater’ seems to be over. 448 Metareference in Operatic Performance: Katharina Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg

of aspects which a devoted up-to-date stage director may have in mind when setting out to put a work on stage can be found in Anja Oeck’s study of Peter Konwitschny, Musiktheater als Chance (2008). Konwitschny, who was elect- ed ‘Stage Director of the Year’ five times by the prestigious journal, Opern- welt, is a central figure in today’s world of opera, and the survey of strategies and principles guiding his directing activities, as given by Oeck, offers welcome insight into practices and motivations of present-day theatrical work. Those of interest in the context of discussions about metareference can be found in the book’s chapter titled “Allzu Vertrautes verfremden”2. It discusses such topics as “Annähern und Distanzieren”3; or ‘Epic Theatre on the Opera Stage’; ‘The Inclusion of Extraneous Material’; ‘Premature Endings’; ‘Stepping Out of Character’; ‘Change of Time and Place’; ‘Discontinuous Narratives’; ‘Breaking Down the Fourth Wall’; ‘Surprise Castings’; ‘New and Unexpected Contexts’; etc. Most of these strategies naturally serve a self-referential function and draw audience attention to the fact that – in metareferential terms – this is theatre and that the director is manipulating theatrical devices.

Such meta-theatrical references can take the simple form of putting a theatre on the stage, as, for instance, in the 2008 Austrian production at St. Marga- rethen of La Traviata, where the stage setting was the inside of the Paris Opera House – a case of mere ‘pointing to’, in Werner Wolf’s terms (cf. 2009: 17), where this reference to opera serves as a mere backdrop and remains otherwise unexploited, so no metareferential meaning production or reflective activity in the audience is encouraged by the fact. Similarly, to pick up another chance example, in Andreas Homoki’s 1998 Berlin production of Poulenc’s The Love for Three Oranges, written signs were shown on the stage at certain intervals, saying “Tragödie”, “Komödie”, or “Lyrisches Drama”, which referred to the score’s genre attributions of the respective scenes in the opera. This is a more interesting case as such a form of performative metareference visualizes an important structural element of the opera itself discussed in its prologue, namely, the playful mixture of dramatic genres in the work (reminiscent of the similar practice in Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos). So here a metareferential element of the work itself is made explicit in the performance by an additional metaref-

2 ‘To Alienate What Has Become Too Familiar’. 3 ‘Moving Closer and Moving Further Away’, a practice reminiscent of strategies effecting aesthetic illusion. Metareference in Operatic Performance: Katharina Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg 449

erential act. We will come back to this model of referencing when discussing Robert Carsen’s Tosca in a moment and subsequently the most recent Bayreuth Meistersinger production. (Homoki’s Poulenc production, incidentally, had another significant meta-moment of ‘breaking down the fourth wall’ when during the popular march in Act 1 the lights suddenly went on and the chorus looked aghast at the seats full of people – they seemed to suddenly realize that they were singing to an opera audience.)

A rather sensational metareferential case is Robert Carsen’s 1996 Antwerp production of Tosca (revived at Zurich in 2009), in which Flora Tosca, who, in the opera, is a famous diva, played a Maria Callas type of 1950s diva, and was, of course, sung by a real-life diva (in Zurich, Emily Magee), which was a fairly complex metareferential multi-level setup. The setting was a theatre hall, Tosca took curtain calls with her back to the (real) audience, signed autographs and rehearsed the typical repertoire of primadonna gestures, the chorus waved programme booklets which were identical with the ones the people in the (real) audience held in their hands, Scarpia was a sadistic impresario, and so on. In this setup, the opera, which is not only one of the most popular operas of all times but also one of the most passionate and tragically moving ones, largely turned into comedy and into a caricature of opera life itself. Everything on stage appeared to be done and said in inverted commas, as it were, and – as one critic moaned in torment – was “achingly self-referential” and, as far as its total effect is concerned, “fatally unmoving” (Apthorp 2009). As usual, other critics took a far more positive stance and observed, for instance, that the production offered an ‘interesting intensification’ of the fact found in the opera itself that Tosca is a theatre cat (“Theatertier”; Bergflödt 2009), which is an important element of the story and contributes significantly – on the psychological level – to the tragedy of the plot. Carsen’s Tosca is a prime case of performative meta-opera, and it is particularly telling that the dominant effect of its metareferentiality was comedy (of the satirical, Juvenalian-Jonsonian type) and served the purpose of producing fun and sophisticated entertainment; this is in powerful contrast to the general purpose attributed to traditional Italian melodramma, particularly Tosca, of generating profound empathy and intense emotional involvement.

This brings us back to Peter Konwitschny and one of his brilliant ideas that so often flash up like lightning in his work and hit the nail on the head. 450 Metareference in Operatic Performance: Katharina Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg

In his 2002 Hamburg production of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, when – notoriously so – the music was unexpectedly interrupted before Hans Sachs’s final, politically very sensitive, peroration (“[…] ehrt Eure deutschen Meister!”; 1950/1988: 104), he introduced a dialogue to discuss the implications of that peroration. In the course of this discussion one of the speakers parodies a famous quotation from Sachs’s earlier monologue in the opera, “Wahn! Wahn! Überall Wahn!” 4 (ibid.: 71), by saying: “Fun, Fun, überall Fun!” (qtd. Oeck 2008: 95). It is one of Konwitschny’s explicit intentions in his production to give laughter back to this opera (cf. ibid.: 111), which is, after all, a musical comedy; and it is his general concern, true for all his productions, to use those alienation effects (“V[erfremdungs]-Effekte”; ibid.: 93) referred to earlier with the explicit purpose of achieving humour. So Konwitschny’s ingenious Sachs parody of “Fun, Fun, überall Fun!” reflects a very discerning awareness of the contemporary cultural trend towards a ‘fun society’ and adopts a clearly ambivalent, ironical stance on it; and further – as an expert stage practitioner – he is equally well aware of the fact that metareferential alienation effects are potent means to evoke such a climate of fun and humour (which, of course, is old wisdom).

Before following up the Meistersinger thread and starting to discuss Kath- arina Wagner’s production of this opera, I will briefly refer to another, particularly marked, case of metareferential operatic performance by Peter Kon- witschny, his 2001 Graz production of Falstaff. In this production one could see a graffito on the stage saying in large letters: “THEATER WAR SCHÖN”5. This metareference had a wealth of implications as the production was not only Intendant Gerhard Brunner’s final one in Graz, but it also referred to the idea of farewell, central to the opera on several levels: Falstaff is Verdi’s last opera; Falstaff is an old man; Shakespeare’s play was ordered by an old queen; etc.). The stage setting demonstrated a literal dismantling of a theatre building by demolishing it in order to turn it into a fitness centre; so theatre props, all bits and pieces, ended up in containers centrally placed on the stage. And, of course, there was an unmistakable reference to the precarious situation of contemporary theatres as financial pressures threatened their closure (‘theatre was beautiful’). There was little humour in this particular metareference, but it

4 ‘Madness! Madness! Everywhere madness!’. 5 ‘THEATRE WAS BEAUTIFUL’. Metareference in Operatic Performance: Katharina Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg 451

served a significant function in adding another dimension to the work in that the performance opened up a new perspective and made a profound critical statement on the current situation of the medium in which the work was transmitted.

This last remark forms a convenient link to a discussion, finally, of the most recent Bayreuth Meistersinger, a production which, by using a similar metareferential performance strategy, opens up additional dimensions of meaning of the respective work6. It does so by adopting a distinctively contemporary perspective, and, similarly to Carsen’s Tosca, by exploiting metareferential elements found in the work itself for this particular performance (i.e., employing ‘meta2’ in Katharina Bantleon’s terms, as discussed in this volume).

It is well-known that Richard Wagner’s Meistersinger is a work of art about art and the artist and can be seen “to reflect the complex aesthetic discour- ses of the nineteenth century” (Sollich 2007: 19), when – as summarized by Robert Sollich, Katharina Wagner’s regular dramaturg – “the poetics of the rulebook were replaced by the cult of genius” (ibid.: 20). This shift from a neo- classical to a romantically inspired aesthetics is projected by Wagner onto the early-modern period, the period of Hans Sachs, when, in Germany, in a comparable way the practices of the rule-obeying mastersinger craftsmen were superseded by more liberal and individualized forms of expression. In Wagner’s opera, the rule-ridden Masters are represented, above all, by Sixtus Beckmesser, the chief-critic, contrasted by a nature-inspired ‘original genius’, Walther von Stolzing, who finally wins the prize in the singing competition (and – as it is a comedy – also ‘the girl’, Eva, who is his main target anyway). The third central character is Hans Sachs, who – though a Master himself – sympathizes with Walther and ultimately strikes a compromise between the two conflict- ing positions by adopting an evolutionary, rather than a revolutionary stance like Walther’s, and thus favours socially acceptable reform within the traditional framework over breaking the old frame altogether. This, at least, is what a sympathetic reading of the Meistersinger aesthetics will hold. A less gener- ous reading, however, will see the situation at the opera’s ending as totally un- changed over its beginning and thus as an uncompromising triumph of the fossilized spirit of the Masters over any attempts at reform. Interestingly, argu-

6 The production can be viewed on DVD, see Bayreuther Festspiele (2008). The production process is also documented on DVD, see Krauß (2007). 452 Metareference in Operatic Performance: Katharina Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg

ments in this latter, pessimistic, direction take their cue from the music itself, which ends – after four and a half hours of playing – on the very same note of the C-major Meistersinger flourish as it started on at the very beginning of the overture (cf. ibid.: 227). From a metareferential viewpoint, it is a notable conclusion to be drawn from this observation that it is only by becoming aware of conditions in the medial system of the work itself, i.e., its musical dramaturgy, that the audience can find out about the position which the work takes on the criteria of that system, i.e., its aesthetic philosophy. This can be seen as a subtle form of metareference in Wagner’s opera – on top of its far more obvious forms of metareference, such as the fact that it is largely a work of ‘singing about singing’ and that the final Festival Meadow scene (‘die Festwiese’) substantially presents ‘musical theatre within musical theatre’ (cf. ibid.: 24).

Katharina Wagner, in her Meistersinger production, which came out in 2007 at the Bayreuth Festival, vigorously jumps on the arts issue of the work and primarily turns it into an updated twenty-first-century discourse on art. Using a flood of images and a plethora of theatrical activities – very much in the general vein of recent productions worldwide –, she stamps the idea on the minds of her audiences that this opera mainly stages an arts discourse. When trying to make this central idea come alive, she was faced with a problem: after all, in opera, where everyone sings, it is not so easy to characterize someone who sings as an artist. So she decided to turn Walther, the opera’s singer-artist, into a painter, or rather – characteristically – into an all-round artist who also plays the piano, handles a cello, and is a stage designer producing a model stage set. Taking the cue from Wagner’s idea that Stolzing represents a completely free and independent artist, Katharina turns him into a manic action painter, inspired by recent forms of Splashing and Street Art, which art form, according to an enthusiastic critical voice, ‘is able to creatively objectify the pulse of the commencing twenty-first century’8. Thus, the splasher Walther represents today’s version of Wagner’s ‘storm and stress’ genius. Katharina’s Beckmesser

7 Sollich (2009: 22) quotes Ulrich Schreiber’s position, “that ‘the whole discussion about art in the work’ is no more than a ‘sham debate’ as ‘everything remains the same’ in the end”. (“[…] ent- larvt die ganze Kunstdiskussion im Werk als Scheingefecht. Am Ende bleibt doch alles beim alten [sic]”; Schreiber 2001: 539.) 8 Cf. Lorenz 2009: 30. (“Die Zukunft der Street Art ist ungewiss. Und dennoch steht schon jetzt fest, dass kaum eine Kunst es besser vermag, den Puls des beginnenden 21. Jahrhunderts kreativ zu Verdinglichen [sic] als sie.“) Metareference in Operatic Performance: Katharina Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg 453

appears – at least in the beginning – very much like in Wagner, as the reactionary artist-bureaucrat and eager spokesman of the stiff Masters, who, in this interpretation, are all humourless professors at an art academy, diligently reading in their Reclam booklets, which, in German educational history, stand for lofty literature and the world of classical learning. Sachs, in this production, remains an outsider in this group of reactionaries and is turned into a bare-footed intellectual who smokes and sneers at his colleagues.

It is a special feature of Katharina Wagner’s reading of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg that the three artist-protagonists, who in Act 1 appear in updated twenty-first-century versions of Wagner’s roles as artists, undergo a radical change in the course of the opera, a change which is caused by the riots and the “anarchic frenzy” (Kienbaum 2008: 6), the madness (‘Wahn’), of the St. John’s Night at the end of Act 2. Stolzing turns from a “madcap young dandy” (ibid.) into a mainstream pop singer, a veritable ‘Schlagerstar’, who, as the winner of the competition, receives the trophy of a kitschy stag reminiscent of the Bambi prize, Germany’s most prestigious media award. And he also receives a giant cheque for 10,000 Euros from the Nürnberger Bank: a devastating satire on today’s totally commercialized world of art competitions. Beckmesser, in contrast, has been freed by the ‘midsummer night madness’ of Act 2 and has found his calling as a “genuinely free creative spirit” (ibid.: 7). Katharina’s version of the ‘reformed’ Beckmesser takes up a thread of interpretation which came up as early as in the 1960s: his grotesque misreading of Walther’s prize song text is no longer seen as a case of ‘inartistic plagiarism’ (cf. Sollich 2007: 26) but as a precursor of Dadaist wordplay with a strong iconoclastic impulse. In contemporary terms, Beckmesser’s text manifests “post-structuralist techniques of textual assimilation”, whereby the artist “overcomes the aesthetics of genius” by “inscribing himself in the text” (ibid.). The theatrical action that goes along with Beckmesser’s prize song – in pure contrast to Walther’s appearance as a sugary pop singer of today – reminds one of happenings in the style of Die Wie- ner Gruppe. Beckmesser pulls onto the stage a stretcher covered with a heap of clay and starts scraping off the clay, which eventually reveals a human body, an obvious reference to the primal act of creation from the Book of Genesis. The opera is full of references to Paradise, taking its cue from the name of the female protagonist, Eva: the artist-god figure of Beckmesser not only forms a human male body from the heap of clay but also extracts a woman from the ribs of the man. Beckmesser’s activity thus symbolizes a form of ‘Ur-Kunst’, in many 454 Metareference in Operatic Performance: Katharina Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg

ways different from another well-known form of ‘ur-art’, Herder’s ‘Urpoesie’, but otherwise strikingly akin to it, in that it radically turns away from aesthetic positions of formal pedantry and lifeless sterility. This latter position of ad- hering to pedantic artistic principles is surprisingly represented by Katharina Wagner’s later Hans Sachs, who, in this reading of the opera, turns from a liberal individualist into a staunch and reactionary defender of the Mastersingers’ old values, taking its cue from the words of his final peroration (“[…] ehrt Eure deutschen Meister”) – which is a reading of Sachs that interestingly conforms to the pessimistic view, referred to earlier, of the Meistersinger aesthetics, based on a focused reading of the music.

The sensational transformation of the chief artist-protagonists is the main element of artistic self-reflexion in Katharina Wagner’s production of Die Meis- tersinger, but only one among many others, and it needs to be stressed that all these self-reflective elements are full of spoof, caricature and slapstick, which is very much in the spirit of Konwitschny, as mentioned before, who wants to give laughter back to this opera. Not all the clever details of Katharina Wagner’s metareferential innuendos can be discussed here, yet two of them ought to be mentioned. First: the prominent ‘German Literary Masters’ – Goethe, Schiller, Hölderlin, Lessing and their like – can be seen in this production as solid stat- ues, which in Act 1 are diligently dusted and polished by the apprentices; yet at the end of Act 2 they start a grotesque dance – which, though it looks funny on stage, makes quite a profound statement by its implication that the classic masters should not be merely put on a pedestal and reverently worshipped but ought to be brought to a spirited, ‘dancing’ new form of life – which is exactly what Katharina Wagner herself is trying to do with Die Meistersinger. Second: the idea that the whole production, by intention, serves an essential function of artistic self-reflexion is suggested right at the beginning of the opera when in the hall of Katharinenkirche – here turned into an art academy – we find the walls full of paintings and, motto-like, in the foreground, directly facing the audience, three copies of Dürer’s famous self-portrait, whose eyes fixedly stare at us. Of course, there is a general Nuremberg reference in this, but considering the fact that Dürer’s painting marks the beginning of modern artistic self-awareness and assured individuality, this is a very suggestive and visually potent indication of the purpose, orientation and concern of the whole production. Metareference in Operatic Performance: Katharina Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg 455

To summarize: by looking at a number of examples of contemporary opera productions we have been able to focus on another medial sphere – in addition to all those discussed in this volume – where metareferential intentions are conspicuously evident, and I will now – in due deference to the volume’s aims and objectives – attempt to identify some functions and explanations why these intentions tend to prevail in the contemporary cultural climate.

A very obvious function of such operatic performative metareferences can be specified by remembering Henry James’s happy phrase about his intention with his highly sophisticated novelette, The Turn of the Screw: namely, “to catch those not easily caught” (1966/1999: 125), or, in Werner Wolf’s terms, to give “in-group pleasure” (2009: 68) to those chosen ones who are (over-)familiar with a genre, a particular work, a production routine. This function is particularly true for operas, where the repertoire of works that are constantly done all over the world is surprisingly limited (the core are hardly thirty operas at most), so that connoisseur opera audiences are easily bored by productions that merely rehearse traditional staging practices and do not offer anything new and excit- ing. This situation is intensified at a place like Bayreuth where the repertoire is even more radically limited and where the lucky people who have managed to get tickets are generally Wagner experts and know very well the few works given at the festival; Katharina Wagner has explicitly referred to this problem of the seeming exhaustion of Wagner’s major operas (cf. 2009: 24) and, thus, to the challenge of ‘catching those not easily caught’.

This basic need for new and unexpected approaches to traditional works is frequently met by resorting to elaborate and sumptuous realizations of those works: it is often easier to impress those ‘not easily caught’ by lavish, complex and costly productions than by sparse and reduced ones. Clearly the affluence of present-day culture and society encourages this impulse towards elaboration (which obviously not always implies higher artistic merits). The mere opportunity to realise intricate ideas on the technical level stimulates the directors’ play instinct, in particular when it can also be afforded, as at Bayreuth or Zurich. Expectations in this direction become even stronger when audiences are used to technically sophisticated and expensive film and television productions, as they are likely to be nowadays. In more general terms, one can say that the use of costly and elaborate elements of a medium – as is particularly true for the opera stage – naturally draws observer attention to the very fact of the presence 456 Metareference in Operatic Performance: Katharina Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg

of these elements and highlights the mechanisms of production. Thus the technical elaboration in the medium triggers metareferential media-consciousness.

This condition reflects a more general situation concerning the triangle of ‘technology – media – metareference’: the sensational technological developments of the last decades in the electronic field have led to the advent of a whole gamut of hitherto unknown medial forms, which have become known as ‘the new media’, and the fascinating presence of these new media has occupied, and even obsessed, open-minded intellectuals ever since and sharpened general media-awareness in society. Marshall McLuhan’s ground-breaking study, The Medium is the Message, which came out in 1967, is one of those landmarks indicating a theoretical starting-point for contemporary metareferential reflexion.

It is strangely coincidental that – to return to an observation already made – Roland Barthes’s seminal essay, “The Death of the Author”, also came out in 1967. As noted before, Barthes’ polemical notion of ‘the death of the author’, conceived of in defence of intellectual autonomy of the reader from authorial intentions, in its way marks the theoretical starting-point for ‘Regietheater’, with its similar claim for a higher degree of stage director independence from authorial intentions. This new departure implied a shift of emphasis away from the work as a mental product to the process of its material realisation, or – in terms of the philosophy of art – from an essentialist to an anti-essentialist position (see Weitz 1950). Thus, in the world of drama and theatre, this shift implies one from the text to the performance, which is why in the world of the theatre there is constant talk of a ‘performative turn’. Once the text is no longer the one and only authority and its stage concretization becomes the ultimate artistic aim, attention is again naturally drawn to the processes and strategies of concretization of the work in the chosen channel of realisation – in other words, media-awareness is encouraged. Thus, we are led to establish another conceptual triangle situation (in addition to that of ‘technology – media – metareference’), namely a triangle of ‘philosophy – performance – metareference’, with a claim of added explicative force in accounting for increased metareferential tendencies in the contemporary medial world, particularly in the world of art.

As – according to the subtitle of the present collection of essays – we are here dealing with ‘attempts at explanation’ for contemporary metareferential Metareference in Operatic Performance: Katharina Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg 457

predominance, a certain degree of tentativeness of explanatory ideas seems justified. Thus, I propose a third conceptual triangle of explanation, which – para- doxically so – takes its clue again from a study that came out in 1967. In that year, Alexander and Margarete Mitscherlich published their ground-breaking psychanalytical study, Die Unfähigkeit zu trauern (‘The Inability to Mourn’), which introduced the central notion of “Identifikationsscheu” (‘dread of identification’; Mitscherlich/Mitscherlich 1967/1994: 262) to account for an attitude which the authors recognized in post-war, and particularly post-fascist, culture. In Germany, the World War II generation had been duped, mainly by seductive propaganda, to identify with a varnished world of make-believe, primarily constructed by the media. So it was no surprise that the post-war generation was prone to shun emotional identification, became critical of the ma- nipulative power of the media, and started to expect mechanisms of influence to become transparent. Some critics consider this ‘collective dread of identification’, particularly in the world of the media, as a major source of ‘Regiethea- ter’ (see Steinberg 2008). This argument has a considerable persuasive force and offers another reason that can be given for the emergence of metareferential attitudes in the media, as metareferences have a natural tendency to undermine identification processes. Thus, another conceptual triangle of explanation for metareferential dominance may be established: ‘political history – dread of identification – metareference’.

By way of summary and conclusion, my cautious ‘attempts at explanation’ arrive at identifying three crucial reasons or sources for the ubiquity of metareferential activities in our contemporary culture since roughly the 1960s: in the technological advances within affluent societies; in anti-essentialist philosophical positions concerning the notion of a ‘work of art’; and in the rejection of fascist propaganda practices. All three of these causes reflect a cultural situation that has ‘lost its innocence’, as it were, and has reached a sophisticated, largely critical position about what we can do and how things work today. Such a loss of naiveté is a sign of ‘late cultures’, in which ‘Paradise’ has irretrievably been ‘lost’, so that one can easily sympathize with Bayreuth’s most recent Beck- messer’s wish to get back to the blissful primal act of creation. 458 Metareference in Operatic Performance: Katharina Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg

References

Apthorp, Shirley (2009). Financial Times, March 31. [Robert Carsen’s Zurich Tosca]. [http://www. jkaufmann.info/reviews_english/2009_Tosca_15.htm. Barthes, Roland (1967). “The Death of the Author”. Aspen 5/6. Bayreuther Festspiele (2008). DVD. Richard Wagner: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. Bayreuther Festspiele 2008. United Motion/Naxos. Bergflödt, Torbjörn (2009). “Puccini: Tosca, Zürich, 29. März 2009. Puccini in der Regie von Ro- bert Carsen am Opernhaus Zürich”. Südkurier (1 April). [www.jkaufmann.info/kritik_ deutsch/2009_tosca_19.htm. James, Henry (1966/1999). “Preface to the New York Edition” (1908). The Turn of the Screw: Authori- tative Text. Contexts. Criticism. Eds. Deborah Esch, Jonathan Warren. 2nd ed. A Norton Critical Edition. New York, NY/London: W. W. Norton. 123–129. Kienbaum, Jochen (2008). “Here’s to Art!: Notes on Katharina Wagner’s Staging of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg”. Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. Bayreuther Festspiele 2008. DVD Booklet. 6 f. Krauß, Dagmar (2007). DVD. Katharina Wagner’s Baptism of Fire: The Road to her Debut as Director in Bayreuth. Clasart Classic 1410. Lorenz, Manuel (2009). “Street Art – Kunst zwischen Straße und Sotheby’s”. Richard Wagner: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. Bayreuther Festspiele 2009. Programme Book. 26–30. McLuhan, Marshall (1967). The Medium is the Message: an Inventory of Effects. Basingstoke: Penguin. Mitscherlich, Alexander, Margarete Mitscherlich (1967/1994). Die Unfähigkeit zu trauern: Grundla- gen kollektiven Verhaltens. 23rd ed. Munich/Zurich: Piper. Oeck, Anja (2008). Musiktheater als Chance: Peter Konwitschny inszeniert. Berlin: Akademie der Künste. Schreiber, Ulrich (2001). Operführer für Fortgeschrittene: Die Geschichte des Musiktheaters. Das 19. Jahrhundert. Kassel: Bärenreiter. Sollich, Robert (2007). “‘What Matters Here Is Art’ – But What Sort of Art?: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg As a Catalyst for Artistic Self-Reflection in the Changing Course of History”. Bay- reuther Festspiele 2007. Programme Book. 18–27. Steinberg, Michael P. (2008). “Die Unfähigkeit zu träumen”. Robert Sollich, ed. Angst vor der Zer- störung: Der Meister Künste zwischen Archiv und Erneuerung. Berlin: Theater der Zeit. 174–184. Wagner, Katharina (2009). “We Do What We Do Because We Are Totally Convinced – and That’s All That Matters: Discussion with Katharina Wagner”. Richard Wagner: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. BayreutherFestspiele 2009. Programme Book. 36–39, 47–49, 54–55. Wagner, Richard (1950/1988). Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg: Handlung in drei Aufzügen. Ed. Wil- helm Zentner. Stuttgart: Reclam. Weitz, Morris (1950). The Philosophy of Arts. Cambridge: Harvard UP Wolf, Werner (2009). “Metareference across Media: the Concept, its Transmedial Potentials and Pro- blems, Main Forms and Functions”. Metareference across the Media: Theory and Case Studies. Ed. Werner Wolf, with Katharina Bantleon and Jeff Thoss. Amsterdam/New York, NY: Rodopi. 1–85. Rhythmical Ambivalence of Poetry Performance: The Case of Elizabethan Verse [2011]

The basically uncoded prosodic dimension of language in writing gives room for variations in verse delivery which may lead to highly divergent poetry performance practices. These fulfil different functions of artistic activity and reflect contrastive stylistic impulses and aesthetic positionings, ranging from more casual, ‘plain’, ‘drab’, information-oriented style variants to more formal, ‘eloquent’, ‘golden’, ‘musically’-informed ones.

This paper presents a case study from the Elizabethan period, when two distinctive types of language pronunciation were practiced (which, following Kuryłowicz, can be explained in linguistic terms as ‘morphological’ vs. ‘syllabic’) and when extensive rhythmical experimentation in verse took place (e.g., Sidney’s ‘classical metres’). Such variations in performance style can be explained by identifying oppositional art-ideological positions that inform them. They reflect the historical transition in the Elizabet- han age from humanist-inspired to rationalist conceptions of poetry, and at the same time represent more generally relevant contrastive positionings in the world of the arts.

As the programme of this conference vividly shows, there is indeed an enormous range of options to discuss performative aspects in the field of word and music studies1. Yet, interestingly, only a few are concerned with the performative dimension of poetry, that is, with the actual delivery aspect of reading poetry out loud. To the extent that nowadays poetry is read at all, it is mostly read in private, at a silent reading, the main focus of which is a search of meaning as an intellectual challenge, as an intimate, exclusively mental activity. It itrue, we have- public poetry readings today and their popularity, as far as it goes, is above all a product of the cultural upheavals in the 1960s, that decisive watershed that brought music, poetry, the arts in general, out of the closet onto the street and in front of a wider general, primarily young, public. And, certainly, there are recent developments in ‘performance poetry’ (see, e.g., Gräbner/Casas, eds. 2011; Novak 2011), and we have audio books at times also offering poetry for our ears.

1 In view of its topic, the oral character of the conference delivery of this paper, which included poetry recitation, has been preserved in this written version. 460 Rhythmical Ambivalence of Poetry Performance

The withdrawal of poetry into the private sphere was, from a historical perspective, largely a consequence of a decisive change in the conception of rhetoric as it took place in the later Renaissance period2. At that time, Pierre de la Rameé, or Petrus Ramus, developed his dialectic and a logically oriented view of rhetoric, which superseded the then prevailing Ciceronian school of rhetoric. Cicero had developed his well-known five-step system of rhetoric (in- ventio – dispositio – elocutia – memoria – pronuntiatio), and the Humanists had put a strong emphasis on ‘eloquence’ and ‘pronunciation’ in this system, i.e., on those elements that concentrate on the performative side of speaking. Ra- mus’s innovation, by stressing the logical and dialectical side of poetry, implied a marked downgrading of the performative aspect of speaking and thereby a fundamental reorientation as to the questions of what is (the aim of) poetry and what one should do with a poem. Ramist rhetoric is the source of the modern ‘Lesegedicht’ with its emphasis on the search for meaning, introspective reflexion and meditation. Ciceronian rhetoric, by contrast, had stressed the physical delivery aspect and the aspect of effective speaking, of articulating poetry with a persuasive purpose in the public sphere. It was this performative side of poetry in the context of humanist-inspired rhetoric that lined up Renaissance poetry with contemporary music, a field where also effectiveness of delivery – mainly in terms of being able to ‘move the passions’ through music – had become a central concern3.

As a consequence of this fascinating fundamental change of perspective on the function of poetry during the Renaissance period, I have chosen to talk about this interesting transitional period in my attempt to discuss performative aspects of poetry in more general terms, with a focus on the situation in England. So the question I am trying to answer is: what do we know about the way in which poetry was orally performed, in the Ciceronian context, before it turned into an activity of silent meditative concentration? And we will see that more than one style of verse delivery was available at the time, and that in fact two contrasting performative principles can be identified as having been active,

2 Much of the ensuing historical discussion is based on my earlier study, ‘True Versifying’: Studien zur elisabethanischen Verspraxis und Kunstideologie. Unter Einbeziehung der zeitgenössischen Lau- tenlieder (1993), especially ch. III, “‘Drowning of letters’: Zur Sprachartikulation in der elisabethanischen Zeit” (204–226). 3 For the influence of Ramism on poetry cf. Bernhart (1993: 226), and generally on contemporary performative rhetoric see Bornstein (1983). Rhythmical Ambivalence of Poetry Performance 461

which reflected contrasting aesthetic principles and views of the function of poetry, and art in general.

The main problem with studying the performative side of poetry delivery in a historical context is the fact that those elements of language which constitute and shape the act of oral delivery are largely uncoded in the written texts as they have come down to us, and of course we have no sound documents from the Elizabethan period. What is missing in any written text of poems is a graphic representation of their prosodic dimension, which is largely irrelevant for a purely semantic appreciation of the poems, but essential for their oral articulation. The elements of stress, intonation, rhythm (i.e., time segmentation), timbre, sound volume and tempo – all those, in common parlance, ‘musical’ elements of poetry – cannot be identified in the written document, and yet they absolutely determine the oral performance. Even the most barren musical score indicates at least pitches and durations, not to speak of elaborate post-Debussy scores with their minute specifications of dynamics, tempo, tone colour and so on. But a poem on the page has none of all this.

So how can we establish evidence of the performative practice of the time? Well, there are not so very many descriptive reports on actual Elizabethan instances of performance in courtly situations or in the pastime practices of the rising middle class (but there are some interesting ones, in fact, in plays, also in Shakespeare). Yet as the humanist period was highly educative and peda- gogical in its orientation, we do have quite a number of pertinent references in manuals of grammar, rhetoric, or poetry, and above all in the influential ‘conduct books’ of the type of Castiglione’s Cortegiano. A main source, however, are critical essays, often written by poets themselves who in these essays defended their own positions in the aesthetic debates of the time. These essays were often surprisingly controversial and, in principle, had to do with responses to the rise of rationalism, as reflected – among a number of other features – in the Cice- ro-Ramus ‘turn’ in the world of rhetoric already mentioned. Another important source is the music of the time, in particular, the Elizabethan airs, those popular solo songs with lute accompaniment as practiced by John Dowland, Thomas Campion and many others. These airs are a valid source for studying the performance also of poetry, and not only of music, because the theoretical treatises of the time made it patently clear that poetry and music were seen as sharing the same rhetorical and aesthetic aims, and that, as a consequence, the 462 Rhythmical Ambivalence of Poetry Performance

words as articulated in the songs were expected to follow carefully the articulation of the words in a spoken utterance.

A great number of the critical essays and manuals referred to are motivated by defending a ‘classical’ style of word delivery in the Humanist tradition, against tendencies that neglect the observance of a correct and accurate pronunciation of every sound and syllable in the speech flow. These critics frequently resort to vivid and sometimes quite entertaining imagery in making their point. For instance, King James, in his “Schort Treatise Conteining Some Revlis and Cautelis To Be Obseruit and Eschewit In Scottis Poesie” of 1584, complains about the frequent practice of pronouncing one syllable so very “lang” (long) that it “eatis vp in the pronouncing euin the vther syllables” (1904/1971: I/212). Similarly, George Puttenham, in his well-known Arte of English Poesie of 1589, regrets the ‘drowning’ of syllables so that it “seemeth to passe away in maner vnpronounced” (1904/1971: II/74). The same idea, using the same image of ‘drowning’, is expressed in an anonymous grammar book of around 1600, which contains the following quite self-explanatory dialogue:

Q. Nowe what thinges doe yee observe in reading: R. These two thinges. 1 Cleane sounding. 2 Dewe pawsing. Q. Wherein standeth cleane sounding:

R. In giving every letter his just and full sounde. In breaking and dividing every worde duely into his severall syllables, so that every syllable may bee hearde by himselfe and none drownd, nor slubbered by ill favouredly. (Qtd. Attridge 1979: 34)

Particularly vivid is Stefano Guazzo’s diatribe against loose pronunciation of words. In his conduct book called The Civile Conversation, which appeared in English in the 1580s, he gives the following instructions:

[…] it is not meete to utter ones woordes in suche hast, that like meate, in the mouth of one almost starved, then bee swallowed downe without chewing. […] But we must take heede above all thinges, that the last sillables be heard plainly, least we fall into the fault of some, who suffer the last letters to die betweene their teeth […]; therefore wee must speake freely, without supping up our woordes, and bringing them but halfe foorth. (1967: I/128) Rhythmical Ambivalence of Poetry Performance 463

Also to quote a musician, William Byrd, the famous composer (again in the same decade, in 1588, in his Psalmes, Sonets, & songs of sadness and pietie), gives good advice for how to avoid such ‘slubbering’, ‘drowning’, ‘supping’ and ‘eat- ing up’ of sounds. What he advocates is singing: singing, he says, “is the best meanes to procure a perfect pronunciation, & to make a good Orator” (qtd. Fellowes/Dart, eds. 1956ff.: 1965/vii). And the equally famous John Dowland, the world’s best lutenist of the age, is particularly harsh on careless speakers and singers: “Think you that God is pleased with such howling, such noise, such mumbling, in which is no deuotion, no expression of words, no articulating of syllables?” (Ornithoparchus/Dowland 1609/1973: 89)

Gioseffo Zarlino, one of the most important music theorists of the time, is the mastermind of the period concerning all discussions about the rhetorical function of music, and he is a main advocate of the subordination of music to language and poetry, to which I have briefly referred. Zarlino talks about a ‘rhetorical’ accent as an essential element of ‘ornate speech’ (“pronuncia ornata”). This ‘rhetorical’ accent works in the speech flow as an agent of “Ritenimen- to, ò Retinaculo, ò Freno” (‘obstacle, or net, or rein’) holding back the speech flow, it is an ‘artificial restraint of the breath’ (“un’arteficioso ritenimento dello Spirito”) and supposed to guarantee in the speech “ornamento & soavità” (‘ornament and suppleness’) (1588/1966: 322f.).

A final example of a famous poet and playwright of the period attacking a loose form of articulation in verse is Ben Jonson, who wrote a delightful satirical poem called “A Fit of Rime against Rime”, in which he complains about the fact that poets who use rhyme tend to ignore the rest of the prosody of their verse. He says:

Joynting Syllables, drowning Letters, Fastning Vowells, as with fetters They were bound! (1947: 183)

Jonson complains that syllables are slurred over, sounds are swallowed, and vowels are ‘fastened’, which last phrase is not so clear. It is likely to mean that the vowels are ‘fastened’ to the consonants, i.e., stick to the consonants – “as 464 Rhythmical Ambivalence of Poetry Performance

with fetters” – and so lose their full sounding; it is probably a reference to a strong quality reduction of vowels in unstressed positions.

We can see that there was a full chorus of voices attacking what the period used to call the ‘barbarism’ of negligent pronunciation, and these critics were inspired by the classical verse models of antiquity which they conceived of in terms of a stately and dignified pace of the utterance, and this vision of a leisurely, dignified form of verse delivery triggered the period’s interest in reviving classical metres for English poetry, in particular, the classical hexameter. We now know that these classical verse experiments by the Elizabethans were bound to fail because of the non-phonemic nature of syllable length in English, which implies that durational qualities of syllables, i.e., a distinction between long and short syllables, cannot become the basis of a system of versification (cf. Bernhart 1993: 219). Yet the idea of paying attention to such durational qualities of syllables, and not only to the dynamic qualities of stress accents, sharpened the poets’ minds for being careful about syllable weights in the se- quential order of their verse lines. It was this concern about the “waite [weight] and due proportion” of syllables, which Thomas Campion famously called for (1904/1971: II/329) and which encouraged poets and critics of the time to pay close attention to the careful articulation of syllables, as observed in all the statements quoted above. The aim was to achieve an intentionally ‘artificial’ (i.e., artful) style of delivery that avoided the ‘barbarism’ of careless articulation.

However, this propagation of an ‘artificial’, formal style of poetry performance was not universally accepted by all the critics and poets of the time. One significant voice attacking such a style was Thomas Nash, whose Unfortunate Traveller – tellingly so – is an ancestor of the English realistic novel. In his “Strange Newes” of 1592, Nash rejects English hexameters by saying:

Our speech is too craggy for him [the hexameter] to set his plough in; hee goes twitching and hopping in our language like a man running vpon quagmiers, vp the hill in one Syllable, and downe the dale in another, retaining no part of that stately smooth gate which he vaunts himselfe with amongst the Greeks and Latins. (1904/1971: II/240)

It is obvious that what Nash is here defending is the natural pronunciation of everyday English, where the rhythm is predominantly structured by the strong Rhythmical Ambivalence of Poetry Performance 465

stress accent and where unstressed syllables are slid over and strongly reduced. In a similar way, Samuel Daniel, the younger courtly lyric poet from the Sid- ney circle, speaks against classical hexameters in English by saying, in his “De- fence of Ryme” of c. 1603: “in the reading [of such hexameters] wee must stand bound to stay where often we would not, and sometimes either breake the accent or the due course of the word” (1904/1971: 377).

From what we have heard so far, we can draw the conclusion that in the Elizabethan age two distinct pronunciation styles were available which both found their apologists and denouncers. Research in historical linguistics has supported such a distinction. To quote one influential earlier scholar, Helge Kökeritz, eminent authority on Shakespeare’s pronunciation: on the one hand, Kökeritz observes a “radical reduction of unstressed syllables and its often non- chalant treatment of the consonants” (1953: 6); yet, on the other hand, he also identifies a “formal style of delivery […] in which sounds and syllables normally slurred tended to be more or less fully sounded” (ibid.: 14).

Such a distinction of articulatory styles found its most convincing theoretical linguistic explanation by a Polish scholar, Jerzy Kuryłowitz, who called them the ‘morphological’ and the ‘syllabic’ forms of articulation, respectively (cf. 1966: 169), because in the one form the prosodic unit is the word with its morphological accent structure, while in the other the prosodic unit is the syllable. In the one case, the syllables have different values, and the prominent accented ones are those that are also semantically prominent. In the other case, all the syllables are of equal status and form a continuity, in which word stress is still active but has lost its primary rhythmical function of time segmentation. As Kuryłowicz asserts, both styles are equally valid and historically manifest, and both are, in principle, applicable in all languages, so, of course, also in English (cf. ibid.: 164; 168). In this observation we find a justification on a theoretical level for the existence of the two styles in English poetry, and as a consequence one would not be able to claim that one of them is necessarily unacceptable in the language (as, for instance, Nash claimed). To opt for one or the other practice is a matter of stylistic choice, and not of truth or error.

What I will now try to do is to demonstrate the two ways of reading by reciting a poem by Sir Philip Sidney, who was one of the most outspoken advocates of a stylized form of verse delivery (at least early in his short life) and who 466 Rhythmical Ambivalence of Poetry Performance

was the most significant contemporary experimenter with classical metres. These experiments can mainly be found in his Old Arcadia, which he wrote in the 1570s and in which the individual books of the prose romance are separated by sequences of poems. One of the poems, “If mine eyes can speake”, is written as a Sapphic ode, and there is clear evidence that Sidney expected the poem to be read in a way observing the durational pattern of the ancient sapphic metre, which can be transcribed as follows (— representing a long syllable, . a short syllable, and x a lengthwise undetermined syllable)4:

— . — — — . . — . — x — . — — — . . — . — x — . — — — . . — . — x — . . — x

I will now try to read the poem by applying a ‘syllabic’ articulation in sapphics which observes the metrical durations of syllables, yet without wrenching the word and sentence accent:

If mine eyes can speake to do harty errande, — . — — — . . — . — x

Or mine eyes’ language she doo hap to judge of, — . — — — . . — . — x

So that eyes’ message be of her receaved, — . — — — . . — . — x

Hope we do live yet. — . . — x

But if eyes faile then, when I most doo need them, — . — — — . . — . — x

Or if eyes’ language be not unto her knowne, — . — — — . . — . — x

4 For a more detailed description of the two types of reading Sidney’s poem cf. Bernhart (1993: 296–303). The text of the poem is taken from Sidney (1971: 30f.). Rhythmical Ambivalence of Poetry Performance 467

So that eyes’ message doo returne rejected, — . — — — . . — . — x

Hope we doo both dye. — . . — x

Yet dying, and dead, doo we sing her honour; — . — — — . . — . — x

So become our tombs monuments of her praise; — . — — — . . — . — x

So becomes our losse the triumph of her gayne; — . — — — . . — . — x

Hers be the glory. — . . — x

If the senceless spheres doo yet hold a musique, — . — — — . . — . — x

If the Swanne’s sweet voice be not heard, but at death, — . — — — . . — . — x

If the mute timber when it hath the life lost, — . — — — . . — . — x

Yeldeth a lute’s tune, — . . — x

Are then humane mindes priviledg’d so meanly, — . — — — . . — . — x

[…]

Such a ‘syllabic’ reading is surely quite strange to our ears and has a strongly in- cantatory, a very static and formalized character. But it may very well be seen as perfectly suited to the metaphysical ideas of the poem about immortal beauty beyond death and about eternal life of the soul as it is obtained by the power of love. And there is surely a strongly rhetorical, and in fact a ‘musical’ force in it.

As an alternative, I will now try to do a ‘morphological’ reading of the poem, and what will come out, in metrical terms, is a verse type in the tradi- 468 Rhythmical Ambivalence of Poetry Performance

tion of the Skeltonics and early-Tudor poetry, as represented by Thomas Wyatt and others, i.e., a four-stress accentual metre with a break in the middle of the line and an unfixed number of unstressed syllables between the accents. The following transcription marks accented syllables as X, and unaccented syllables as x:

If mine eyes can speake to do harty errande, x x X x X / x x X x X x

Or mine eyes’ language she doo hap to judge of, x x X X x / x x X x X x

So that eyes’ message be of her receaved, x x X X x / x x X x X

Hope we do live yet. X x x X X

But if eyes faile then, when I most doo need them, x x X X x / x x X x X x

Or if eyes’ language be not unto her knowne, x x X X x / x X x x x X

So that eyes’ message doo returne rejected, x x X X x / x x X x X x

Hope we doo both dye. X x x X X

Yet dying, and dead, doo we sing her honour; x X x x X / x x X x X x

So become our tombs monuments of her praise; x x X x X / X x x x x X

So becomes our losse the triumph of her gayne; x x X x X / x X x x x X

Hers be the glory. X x x X x Rhythmical Ambivalence of Poetry Performance 469

If the senceless spheres doo yet hold a musique, x x X x X / x x X x X x

If the Swanne’s sweet voice be not heard, but at death, x x X x X / x x X x x X

If the mute timber when it hath the life lost, x x X X x / x x x x X X

Yeldeth a lute’s tune, X x x X X

Are then humane mindes priviledg’d so meanly, x x X x X / X x x x X x

[…]

Such an accentual, ‘morphological’ style of reading is obviously far more meaning-oriented than the ‘syllabic’ one of before and mainly by parallelisms and verbal repetitions stresses the strongly argumentative structure of the poem: ‘If / Or / So that / (Then) – But if / Or / So that / (Then) – Yet / So / So / (Therefore)’. Such a reading clearly brings out the logic of the argument and makes sure that the speaker indeed presents a rational statement with a strong impulse to convince and to persuade his audience mentally by what he is saying.

We can see that, from a metrical point of view, both readings are possible in the framework of options offered by the poetic practice of the time. There is no doubt that Sidney would have favoured the first one as it answered his inclination to follow humanist ideas as they found expression in what was called the ‘eloquent’ style of poetry, as opposed to the ‘plain’, prosaic style (see Peterson 1967), or – to take up C. S. Lewis’s distinction – as ‘golden lyrics’ in contrast to ‘drab’ poetry (see 1973). That Sidney was deeply concerned about a lofty conception of poetry in the context of neo-platonic humanist thinking is amply demonstrated by his “Apology for Poetrie”, which is the profoundest poetological document of the period in England. There he objects to “speaking (table talke fashion […]) words as they chanceably fall from the mouth” and propagates “peyzing [weighing] each syllable of each worde by iust proportion according to the dignitie of the subiect” (1904/1971: I/160), and, further, Sidney famously contrasts the rhetorical practice of cold persuasion by merely 470 Rhythmical Ambivalence of Poetry Performance

using mechanical and conventional – as he calls them – “swelling phrases” and “fiery speeches” to the true poetic expression. True poetry is a product of what he calls a “forciblenes, or Energia (as the Greekes cal it), of the writer” (ibid.: I/201). This concept of ‘energy’, energeia – which goes back to Aristotle’s Rhet- oric – is central to the most refined humanist conception of poetry. I cannot go into this issue in any detail, but it is a main point that this ‘energy’ is a force that combines mental and physical aspects: it implies a physical manifestation and sensually experienced effectiveness of a spiritual idea. Energeia, according to Aristotle, is the process of establishing such an effectiveness, it is not its product: energeia is a bodily process of materialization, which in the neo-platonic context is related to the Christian idea of incarnation. It is on account of this its physical dimension that energeia manifests itself in the frame of rhetoric at the stage of pronuntiatio (in the Ciceronian scheme), which in turn explains why proper articulation became so important5. In one of his sonnets from Astrophel and Stella (No. 58), Sidney, again, like in his “Apology”, distinguishes, on the one hand, a poet who coldly argues with “fine tropes” and “strongest reasons” and, on the other hand, the true and perfect poet who possesses “pronouncing grace, wherewith his mind / Prints his owne lively forme in rudest braine” (“Doubt there has bene”; 1971: 194; ll. 5–8).

This idea and practice of an ‘artificial’ articulatory performance style of verse which characterized the Elizabethan so-called New Poetry and answered the humanists’ desire to revive – in Zarlino’s words – the alleged ‘secret and dark power of pronunciation’ of ancient poetry6 was dryly pushed aside by such late-Elizabethan ‘naturalists’ as Daniel, Nash, or George Gascoigne. Daniel’s “Defence of Rhyme” attacks the “idle affectation of antiquitie or noueltie” (1904/1971: II/384) and even compares it to “a Viper” (ibid.: II/373) to be shunned and crushed. According to Daniel, sober natural and rational views of poetry must replace perverted speculations, an attitude that he wanted to be reflected in a natural style of verse delivery. It is a “deformitie”, Daniel says, “to make our verse seeme another kind of speach out of the course of our vsuall practise” (ibid.: II/384). Others – like Sidney –, less soberly inclined, regretted that, on such a premise, poetry dwindled into prose.

5 For a more extensive discussion of energeia in art discourse, see Bernhart 1993 (“Exkurs: Die ‘energetische’ Kunstauffassung”: 313–331). 6 “[…] un’ascosa & oscura forza di Pronuncia” (Zarlino 1573/1966: 320). Rhythmical Ambivalence of Poetry Performance 471

To round off my discussion, I will only briefly point out that later poets – and great poets among them – indeed felt sympathy for a more artificial style of reciting poetry and often favoured a ‘syllabic’ to a ‘morphological’ reading of their poems. Eliot propagated an ‘auditory imagination’ that consisted of a “feeling for syllable and rhythm, penetrating far below the conscious levels of thought and feeling, invigorating every word” (1953: 94). D. H. Lawrence confessed: “I think I read my poetry more by length than by stress – as a matter of movement in space than footsteps hitting the earth.” (1938: I/238) Pound regretted the radical change that poetry underwent in the seventeenth century and claimed: “From the Elizabethans to Swinburne, through all that vast hi- atus, English poetry had been the bear-garden of doctrinaires. It had been the ‘vehicle’ of opinion. For Swinburne it was at least the art of musical wording.” (1954/1974: 363) And Yeats, in his remarkable essay on “Speaking to the Psal- tery”, introduced graphic marks to characterize the syllables of his poems, but asserted that those “are not marks of scansion, but show the syllables one makes the voice hurry or linger over” (1961: 17). (Lawrence, by the way, also uses such graphic marks in the letter quoted above.)

This brings me back to the starting point of my considerations, namely, the missing codification of prosodic features in written language. If one conceives of the prosodic features of sound and rhythm as ‘musical’ aspects of language, and if one realizes that much of poetic language is performance-oriented (even though this aspect is widely neglected in our tradition) and that, thus, much poetry relies for its appropriate appreciation on an effective presentation of its ‘musical’ prosodic features, we cannot avoid drawing the conclusion that poetry performance can learn a lot from music, which of course is an art form that – ever since it has been established as, above all, musica practica – is centrally ‘performative’ in its character, and so, no doubt, poetry recitation is an ideal topic for word and music studies. 472 Rhythmical Ambivalence of Poetry Performance

References

Attridge, Derek (1979). Well-Weighed Syllables: Elizabethan Verse in Classical Metres. Cambridge: CUP. Bernhart, Walter (1986). “Castalian Poetics and the ‘verie twichestane Musique’”. Scottish Langu- age and Literature, Medieval and Renaissance. Fourth International Conference 1984: Proceedings. Dietrich Strauss, Horst W. Drescher, eds. Scottish Studies 4. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. 451–458. — (1993). ‘True Versifying’: Studien zur elisabethanischen Verspraxis und Kunstideologie. Unter Ein- beziehung der zeitgenössischen Lautenlieder. Studien zur englischen Philologie, new series 29. Tü- bingen: Niemeyer. Bornstein, Diane (1983). “Performing Oral Discourse As a Form of Sociability During the Renaissan- ce”. David W. Thompson, ed. Performance of Literature in Historical Perspectives. Lanham, MD/ London: University Press of America. 211–221. Campion, Thomas (1904/1971). “Observations in the Art of English Poesie” (1602). Smith, ed. II/327–355. Daniel, Samuel (1904/1971). “A Defence of Ryme” (c. 1603). Smith, ed. II/356–384. Eliot, T. S. (1953). Selected Prose. Ed. John Hayward. London et al.: Penguin. Fellowes, Edmund H., Thurston Dart, eds. (1956ff.). The English Madrigalists. London: Stainer & Bell. Gräbner, Cornelia, Arturo Casas, eds. (2011). Performing Poetry: Body, Place and Rhythm in the Poetry Performance. Amsterdam/New York, NY: Rodopi. Guazzo, Steeven (1967). The Civile Conversation. George Pettie, trans. (vols. 1–3, 1581); Bartholomew Young, trans. (vol. 4, 1586). The Tudor Translations, 2nd series, vols. 7–8. New York/NY: AMS Press. Jonson, Ben (1947). The Works of Ben Jonson. Vol. 8: The Poems and the Prose Works. Eds. C. H. Herford, Percy Simpson, Evelyn Simpson. Oxford: Clarendon. King James VI (1904/1971). “Ane Schort Treatise Conteining Some Revlis and Cautelis To Be Obser- uit and Eschewit In Scottis Poesie” (1584). Smith, ed. I/208–225. Kökeritz, Helge (1953). Shakespeare’s Pronunciation. New Haven, CT: Yale UP. Kuryłowitz, Jerzy (1966). “Accent and Quantity as Elements of Rhythm”. Poetics, Poetyka, ПОЗТИКА, vol. 2. Den Haag/Paris: Mouton – Warsaw: PWN. 163–172. Lawrence, D. H. (1938). The Letters of D. H. Lawrence. Vol. 1: 1909–1915. Ed. Aldous Huxley. Leip- zig et al.: Albatross. Lewis, C. S. (1973). English Literature in the Sixteenth Century Excluding Drama. The Oxford History of English Literature, vol. 3. Oxford: Clarendon. Nash, Thomas (1904/1971). “From Strange Newes, or Four Letters Confuted” (1592). Smith, ed. II/239–244. Novak, Julia (2011). Live Poetry: An Integrated Approach to Poetry in Performance. Internationale For- schungen zur Allgemeinen und Vergleichenden Literaturwissenschaft 153. Amsterdam/New York, NY: Rodopi. Ornithoparchus, Andreas, John Dowland (1609/1973). Andreas Ornithoparchus His Micrologus, or In- troduction: Containing the Art of Singing. John Dowland, trans., Gustave Reese, Steven Ledbetter, eds. New York, NY: Dover Publications. Rhythmical Ambivalence of Poetry Performance 473

Peterson, Douglas L. (1967). The English Lyric from Wyatt to Donne: A History of the Plain and Elo- quent Styles. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP. Pound, Ezra (1954/1974). Literary Essays. Ed. T. S. Eliot. London: Faber. Puttenham, George (1904/1971). “The Arte of English Poesie” (1589). Smith, ed. II/1–193. Sidney, Sir Philip (1971). The Poems of Sir Philip Sidney. Ed. William A. Ringler, Jr. Oxford: Clarendon. — (1904/1971). “An Apology for Poetrie” (c. 1583, printed 1595). Smith, ed. I/148–207. Smith, G. Gregory, ed. (1904/1971). Elizabethan Critical Essays. 2 vols. Oxford: OUP. Yeats, William Butler (1961). “Speaking to the Psaltery” (1902/1907). Essays and Introductions. London: Macmillan. 13–27. Zarlino, Gioseffo (1573/1966). Le Istitutioni Harmoniche. Facsimile reprint. Ridgewood, NJ: Gregg Press. — (1588/1966). Sopplimenti mvsicali. Facsimile reprint. Ridgewood, NJ: Gregg Press.

Aesthetic Illusion in Instrumental Music? [2013]

The contributions collected in this volume1 convincingly demonstrate that aesthetic illusion can be found in a wide range of genres and media of artistic (and non-artistic) expression. Yet whether it can also be found as a feature of instrumental music, which is a medium of a particularly high degree of abstraction, is in no way evident, so that the question mark constitutes an essential element of the title of this paper. In my attempt to bring light to the matter I will first confront instrumental music with the basic principles of aesthetic illusion according to what I am inclined to call the ‘standard definition’ of aesthetic illusion as developed by Werner Wolf. To anticipate, results will turn out to be fairly discouraging and will show little affinity between the two. In a further step I will take a look at two special cases in which illusionist effects triggered by instrumental music have been documented in verbalized form: a well-known passage from E. M. Forster’s novel Howards End, discussed by John Neubauer, and Nikolaus Harnon- court’s use of descriptive language in his rehearsal practice as a conductor. On the basis of these two case studies, I will return to the theoretical issue and come up with some ideas about how the ‘standard definition’ of aesthetic illusion could possibly be accom- modated to account for illusionist effects as found in instrumental music, and suggest how, alternatively, criteria should be developed that, in analogy to those developed for aesthetic illusion, could more centrally account for the specific listener effects of instrumental music.

First a disclaimer: in order to focus the discussion on the basic issue at hand, instrumental music in the shape of programme music will be left out of consideration. Not that this kind of music does not evoke images in the listeners’ minds which can have a powerful immersive impact on them: quite the contrary,

1 [Werner Wolf, Walter Bernhart, Andreas Mahler, eds. Immersion and Distance: Aesthetic Illusion in Literature and Other Media. Studies in Intermediality 6. Amsterdam/New York, NY: Rodopi, 2003.] 476 Aesthetic Illusion in Instrumental Music?

such an evocation is a main concern of much programme music2, which, thus, definitely lends itself prominently to achieving effects of aesthetic illusion. Yet in such artefacts it is the verbal programme accompanying the music, and containing references to external reality, that triggers the illusionist activity associated with the music, and it is rarely, if ever, the music itself, without the words, that does so. The music – if it is convincing programme music – will nicely match the idea suggested by the text and produce a welcome aha experience, but the illusionist experience has originally been released by the verbal suggestion.

By contrast, what interests us here is ‘pure’ instrumental music, hence unaccompanied by verbal suggestions, i.e., ‘music alone’ (to refer to the title of Pe- ter Kivy’s influential book of that title, see 1990). In the tradition of theoretical positions most readily associated with Eduard Hanslick3 or Igor Stravinsky (see 1942/1956), music has often been seen as pure form and pure sound, with no other than a ‘structural meaning’: there is nothing in the musical composition itself which has a referential meaning relating to experiences outside the mu- sic4. (Exceptions are clearly such descriptive, iconic cases of real-life imitation as birdcalls, cock-crows, the ticking of clocks, etc., but they usually produce only marginal effects and are not substantial to the fabric of the music.) Such a ‘pure’ position is basically unrebuttable: the works of instrumental music have no inherent textual features that have an unequivocal referential relation to the music-external world. Music’s semiotic system uses no semantic code, which is the reason why music is subject to a fundamental medial restriction that does not encourage, in fact, essentially precludes aesthetic illusion. Music’s medial resistance to aesthetic illusion is due to the fact that no illusion-relevant textual features can be identified in it, i.e., textual features that induce aesthetic illusion, as qualified by its ‘standard’ definition. This proposition can be demonstrated by confronting instrumental music with the six intra-compositional principles

2 Popular cases are, among many others, Bedřich Smetana’s “Vltava” (‘The Moldau’; 1874), Richard Strauss’s “Don Juan” (1888), or Paul Dukas’s “L’Apprenti sorcier” (‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’; 1897). 3 ‘Sonically moving forms are the one and only content and subject of music.’ (“Tönend bewegte Formen sind einzig und allein Inhalt und Gegenstand der Musik.” Hanslick 1854; ch. 3: “Das Musikalisch-Schöne”; emphasis in the original). For a recently published excerpt from Hanslick’s seminal study see Ammon/Böhm, eds. 2011: 185−211; this quotation: 187. 4 The most cogent discussion of ‘pure’ or ‘absolute’ music and its history is still Carl Dahlhaus’s Die Idee der absoluten Musik (1976/1994). A significant excerpt from this study can be found in Rec- lam’s helpful recent collection, Texte zur Musikästhetik (see Ammon/Böhm, eds. 2011: 323−341). Aesthetic Illusion in Instrumental Music? 477

of illusion-making that Werner Wolf has developed (see 2009).

How can we have, in instrumental music, an “access-facilitating construction and vivid presentation of the represented world’s inventory” (ibid.: 151) when there is no text-inherent evidence in it of any “represented world”, not to speak of a whole “inventory” of real-life elements, which would imply a greater number of “graphic details” and “concrete phenomena” (ibid.) to construct this world? Equally, how can there be a “consistency of the represented world” (ibid.), in terms of apparent chronology, causality, etc., when the very construction of such a world cannot unmistakably be established? Furthermore, the “principle of life-like perspectivity” (ibid.: 152) does not apply in a medium that centrally, and strikingly so, altogether lacks the dimension of ‘point of view’; for music, as an example, is possibly able to express an emotion like ‘love’ but it can never say ‘I love you’. The fourth principle, that of a media-adjust- ed form of presentation (cf. ibid.), of course, applies, in principle, to music as well, but any deviation from media adjustment that could draw metareferential attention to the process itself, would not inhibit access to an imagined world if such a world has not been built up in the beginning. The fifth principle, the rhetorical precept of using “various devices of persuasio” to generate in the recipient “interest, in particular emotional interest, in the represented world” (ibid.: 153), very well applies to music and even forms one of its fundamental functions; yet, again, this emotional interest is not invested in a “represented world” when the existence of such a world is in doubt5. Finally, the principle of celare artem, of concealing the medial processes (cf. ibid.), hardly applies to music, which, next to architecture, is the most formal and self-referential of all the media laying bare its ‘mechanics’; so also from the angle of this criterion, instrumental music resists aesthetic illusion.

It all boils down to the fact that instrumental music does not build up a “represented world”, which, however, – as emphatically expressed by Werner Wolf – is the only general condition of aesthetic illusion: “There is only one general proviso, namely that the trigger be a representation. This excludes in particular non-representational instrumental music from the range of poten- tially illuding media” (2008: 121). The same position is taken by Marie-Laure Ryan, who similarly argues that the “concept of immersion” is “fundamentally

5 More on the issue of emotionality/instrumental music/aesthetic illusion see below. 478 Aesthetic Illusion in Instrumental Music?

mimetic” and therefore does not apply to “philosophical works, music, purely abstract games such as bridge, chess, or Tetris, no matter how absorbing these experiences can be” (2001: 15). So we may as well close our discussion and accept that there is no aesthetic illusion in instrumental music.

Yet there is evidence that some listeners to instrumental music vividly imagine real-life situations when they hear the music and even consider this stimulation of their imagination as a main benefit of listening to music. Of course, as in all cases of imaginative activity, and thus also of aesthetic illusion, there exists a strong recipient-dependency on whether the sensual experience actually ac- tivates the imagination, or whether other reactions to the experience prevail. A well-known case demonstrating the great variety of listener responses that can be prompted by instrumental music is the opening of chapter five of E. M. Forster’s novel Howards End, which describes a concert performance of Beet- hoven’s Fifth Symphony, in particular the third movement and the transition to the fourth and last movement6. The passage is a classic example of ‘verbal music’ (in terms of Steven P. Scher, see 1968) and offers a brilliant succinct survey of various reception types of pure instrumental music7: Mrs Munt beats the time to the music, which is a purely physical response, the unsophisticated bodily enforcement of the musical pulse; Helen sees “heroes and shipwrecks” in the music and thus links what she hears to the real world; Margaret “can only see the music”, i.e., experiences ‘music alone’; Tibby looks into the score in his hands and chooses an intellectual approach in his encounter with music by identifying musical forms, such as counterpoint; Fräulein Mosebach’s reaction is in a way ‘New Historicist’ avant le lettre as she believes to recognize in

6 John Neubauer discusses the passage from the viewpoint of narrative qualities of instrumental music (see 1997). 7 “It will be generally admitted that Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is the most sublime noise that has ever penetrated into the ear of man. All sorts and conditions are satisfied by it. Whether you are like Mrs Munt, and tap surreptitiously when the tunes come – of course, not so as to disturb the others; or like Helen, who can see heroes and shipwrecks in the music’s flood; or like Margaret, who can only see the music; or like Tibby, who is profoundly versed in counterpoint, and holds the full score open on his knee; or like their cousin, Fräulein Mosebach, who remembers all the time that Beethoven is ‘echt Deutsch’; or like Fräulein Mosebach’s young man, who can remember nothing but Fräulein Mosebach: in any case, the passion of your life becomes more vivid, and you are bound to admit that such a noise is cheap at two shillings.” (Forster 1910/1973: 29) Aesthetic Illusion in Instrumental Music? 479

the music a cultural substratum – not a surface meaning – by thinking: “Bee- thoven is ‘echt Deutsch’”; and Fräulein Mosebach’s gallant represents a very frequent and popular reaction type: he does not engage with the music at all, it only puts him into a particular mood and stimulates his private fantasies by remembering “nothing but Fräulein Mosebach”. All these responses are, of course, presented in highly ironical terms, but surely it is a very clever brief outline of a basic typology of music reception.

What interests us most from the viewpoint of aesthetic illusion is Helen’s reaction of seeing “heroes and shipwrecks”. She is also the central consciousness of the ensuing passage, which talks about the situation when the third movement of the symphony, the scherzo, is being played. There Helen sees “goblins”, scampering, terrifyingly to her, and then, in the trio, “elephants dancing”; and subsequently, after the transition “on the drum” to the last movement (which follows attacca), the movement’s surprising monumental outburst of “[g]usts of splendour, gods and demigods contending with vast swords, colour and fragrance broadcast on the field of battle, magnificent victory, magnificent death!”8.

Helen’s imagination is incited by the music to see goblins, so for her music is able to activate memories of real-life experience (or – as in the case of the goblins – of fictitious life9). Yet Helen’s reaction to the music takes a further step from this concrete visualization of bodily creatures when she starts interpret-

8 “Helen said to her aunt: ‘Now comes the wonderful movement: first of all the goblins, and then a trio of elephants dancing’; and Tibby implored the company generally to look out for the transitional passage on the drum. […] ‘No; look out for the part where you think you have done with the goblins and they come back,’ breathed Helen, as the music started with a goblin walking quietly over the universe, from end to end. Others followed him. They were not aggressive creatures; it was that that made them so terrible to Helen. […] For, as if things were going too far, Beethoven took hold of the goblins and made them do what he wanted. He appeared in person. He gave them a little push, and they began to walk in a major key instead of in a minor, and then – he blew with his mouth and they were scattered! Gusts of splendour, gods and demigods contending with vast swords, colour and fragrance broadcast on the field of battle, magnificent victory, magnificent death! Oh, it all burst before the girl, and she even stretched out her gloved hands as if it was tangible. Any fate was titanic; any contest desirable; conqueror and conquered would alike be applauded by the angels of the utmost stars.” (Forster 1910/1973: 30f.) 9 As Wolf observes, the truth/fiction opposition is relatively unimportant for aesthetic illusion (cf. 2008: 114), that is, both fictional and factual representations can elicit aesthetic illusion. 480 Aesthetic Illusion in Instrumental Music?

ing the goblins in moral terms: they signify for her “[p]anic and emptiness!”, and they appear to her as possibly “only the phantoms of cowardice and unbelief” to be dispelled by the glorious C-major finale, by “[o]ne healthy human impulse”, the “gusts of splendour”. It is Beethoven’s trustworthy ‘truth’, according to Helen, that there is not only “splendour and heroism in the world”, as sounded in the finale of his Fifth, but also always, latently, the “malignity” of “steam and froth”, of “[p]anic and emptiness”, represented by the third movement’s goblins10.

John Neubauer discusses this passage from Howards End in his defence of narrativizations in instrumental music, in opposition to Kivy’s position of ‘music alone’, and claims that “listening inevitably mobilizes our talent to emplot, making thereby use of stories supplied by our culture and its history” (1997: 118). Neubauer uses the term ‘emplot’ for such a process of evoking real-life experiences by music, which implies that the contents of the evocations are plots, i.e., narrative. The neologism ‘to emplot’ makes sense, taking its clue from the verb ‘to embody’, which, it seems, is a term preferable to ‘to emplot’ and more adequate as its application is not restricted to narrative and can also be used, for instance, for descriptions, which can as much be part of illusionist processes as narratives are.

Neubauer traces the history of such ‘emplotments’ (or ‘embodiments’) in European music from the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century doctrine of affections (‘Affektenlehre’) to nineteenth-century “[l]iterary emplotments”, culminating in Arnold Schering’s (see 1936) notorious readings of “Beethoven’s string quartets in terms of works by Jean Paul, Goethe, or Cervantes” (Neu- bauer 1997: 120). Beethoven has always been a composer whose works have induced critics to see in them illusionist evocations of various real-life experi- ences11. The interpretive mechanism is always the same: certain structural and

10 “And the goblins – they had not really been there at all? They were only the phantoms of cowardice and unbelief? One healthy human impulse would dispel them? Men like the Wilcoxes, or President Roosevelt, would say yes. Beethoven knew better. The goblins really had been there. They might return – and they did. It was as if the splendour of life might boil over and waste to steam and froth. In its dissolution one heard the terrible, ominous note, and a goblin, with increased malignity, walked quietly over the universe from end to end. Panic and emptiness! Panic and emptiness! Even the flaming ramparts of the world might fall.” (Forster 1910/1973: 31) 11 See, for instance, Hartmut Krones’s (1994) attempt at finding secret programmes in Beethoven’s instrumental music; and, of course, Howards End is a case in point. Aesthetic Illusion in Instrumental Music? 481

acoustic elements in the music evoke memories in the recipient and suggest to him or her certain real-life or fictitious experiences, and only rarely – mostly in the rhetorical tradition – the relation between the structural elements and the evoked experiences is conventionalized and inter-subjectively identifiable.

It is an interesting fact that only in the nineteenth century (with earlier initial ideas stemming from Rousseau) music appreciation became an individualized aesthetic experience, in contrast to earlier practices when it was mainly a show-like public affair. It is no coincidence that the period of Romanti- cism, with its emphasis on subjective inner experiences, favoured the illusionist reception of instrumental music. Significantly, it was also only late in social history that at concerts lights were dimmed during the performance. Gustav Mahler was the first to turn lights off in Vienna’s Hofoper (as he also banned card games from the boxes; see Payer 2010). As in modern cinema, the suppres- sion of light thwarts contextual and situational interference with the perception of the artefact and facilitates the activation of imaginative powers in the viewers or listeners.

John Neubauer, in his survey of musical emplotting practices, at one point also refers to Nikolaus Harnoncourt (cf. 1997: 122), who is firmly rooted in the tradition of imaginative-illusionist music appreciation. His notion of Musik als Klangrede (see 1982) famously refers to the speech-like and evocative power of music. A fairly recent publication gives evidence of Harnoncourt’s own practice as a conductor of evoking real-life experiences by verbalizing musical passages. A member of the well-known Arnold Schoenberg Chor, Sabine Gruber, took careful notes of what Harnoncourt was saying during rehearsals (see 2003), and it is illuminating to learn how Harnoncourt is able to generate a wealth of images – most of them very vivid and quite down-to-earth – with the purpose of stimulating the imagination of his musicians and, through this, to achieve the desired effect in the performance of the music and, further, in his audience. Here are some examples: “Das ist Sibirien!” (‘This is Siberia!’; ibid.: 31); “Das muß klingen wie Lawinen” (‘This must sound like avalanches’; ibid.: 77); “wie eine Geschwulst” (‘like a tumour’; ibid.: 79); “nicht so wie alter Senf aus der Tube!” (‘not like old mustard from the tube!’; ibid.); “Stellts euch vor, der Fuji- jama erhebt sich. Nicht der Großglockner, der ist anders” (‘Just imagine the Fu- jiyama towering. Not the Großglockner, that is different’; ibid.: 86); “Wir müs- sen das rhythmisch wiegen, so wie wenn ein Rhinozeros schreitet” (‘We need 482 Aesthetic Illusion in Instrumental Music?

to sway this rhythmically, like the pace of a rhinoceros’; ibid.: 89); “Denken Sie an Mistkäfer!” (‘Think of dung beetles!’; ibid.: 101); and, very typically, “Das muß klingen wie Vanillesauce” (‘This must sound like vanilla sauce’; ibid.: 44).

Sabine Gruber, the attentive documentarian, perceptively comments on what Harnoncourt is doing here: ‘Harnoncourt is always concerned about content, about meaning.’ ‘He takes our thinking by surprise, unleashes our imagination and at the same time turns it into a collective experience; he gives everyone involved in the musical creative act the outline of an artistic play space; he succeeds in developing the imagination of the musicians and singers, in giving it direction yet also giving it enough space for free play, in such a way that the images they thus create resemble both the inner image of the conductor and the images between each other, without any of them being identical with another one. This situation, in turn, kindles the listeners’ imagination; (…).’12

These observations can lead us back to our earlier theoretical discussion. When reconsidering the notion of aesthetic illusion in the light of the examples given, one can observe that the possibility of powerful illusionist activities does exist in the reception of instrumental music. The question remains to which extent such illusionist activities can be seen as cases of aesthetic illusion in the accepted sense.

The basic problem of aesthetic illusion in instrumental music, as we have seen before, lies in the “only one general proviso”, postulated by Wolf, that aesthetic illusion “be triggered by a representation” (2009: 149), and that it must be “induced by perceptions of concrete representational artefacts, texts or performances” (ibid.: 144). As a consequence, in order to possibly claim aesthetic illusion for instrumental music there is, first of all, a need to clarify the notions of ‘representation’ and of a ‘representational world’ as it should be provided by

12 “Immer geht es Harnoncourt um Inhalt, um Bedeutung”. “Er überrumpelt das Denken, entfesselt die Phantasie und kollektiviert sie im selben Augenblick; er skizziert einen künstlerischen Spiel- Raum für die am musikalischen Schaffensprozeß Beteiligten; es gelingt ihm, die Phantasie der Musiker und Sänger so zu entfalten, so in Bahnen zu lenken und doch frei spielen zu lassen, dass die Bilder, die sie nun ihrerseits schaffen, dem inneren Bild des Dirigenten wie auch einander ähneln, ohne dass eines dem anderen jemals gleicht. Dies wiederum entfacht die Phantasie des Zuhörers; […].” (Gruber, ed. 2003: 94; 70) Aesthetic Illusion in Instrumental Music? 483

the artefact. As I see it, these notions reveal at least two problem areas from the viewpoint of instrumental music.

But before discussing them in turn I will briefly avoid an ‘easy solution’ to the problem as suggested by Kendall Walton. Walton, in his magisterial study, Mimesis as Make-Believe: On the Foundations of the Representational Arts (1990), is much concerned with, and very sensitive to, the representational issues involved in what he calls “Nonfigurative Art” (ibid.: 54), which of course includes music. It is his claim that even abstract paintings – he discusses Supre- matist paintings by Malevich – are ‘representational’ insofar as the marks on their surfaces call for “imaginative rearrangement” (ibid.: 57) by the observer, which process is guided by our real-life experiences, and that these surface markings thus serve as “props”, which he defines as “prompters or objects of im- agining” (ibid.: 38). And Walton adds: “Most or even all music will likely have to be considered representational for analogous reasons.” (Ibid.: 56) While the functional process of interaction between work and recipient, as described by Walton, sounds convincing, I think it is misleading to say that the work itself, as a consequence, “is representational” (ibid.; my emphasis). The props are not representations themselves, rather they may (or may not) call forth representations. Thus, instrumental music cannot really be called representational itself in any stricter sense.

This observation links up with the first problem area I identify in connection with the notion of ‘representational world’ from the viewpoint of instrumental music. For instrumental music certainly does not – to follow the standard definition of aesthetic illusion – “provide a simulation of real-life experience to the recipient” (Wolf 2008: 101; my emphasis). Yet it may certainly suggest such a simulation, as is evidenced by documented listener experiences. Walton equally observes that “one can find representationality in – or impose it on – almost any passage of music” (1990: 334; emphasis in the original), and what happens – Walton goes on – is that in listening to music we establish fictional experiences and create a “game world”. “But it is not evident that we must recognize a work world as well.” (Ibid.: 336) Such a distinction between a ‘work world’ and a ‘game world’ is very helpful and illuminating: a ‘work world’ provided by the work itself should be distinguished from a ‘game world’ that is only suggested by the work and established only by the (willing) recipient. In- strumental music does not supply a work world yet it can easily intimate a game 484 Aesthetic Illusion in Instrumental Music?

world. This precisely matches Susanne Gruber’s observation about Harnon- court’s rehearsal practice quoted before, that ‘he gives everyone involved in the musical creative act the outline of an artistic play space’ (“einen künstlerischen Spiel-Raum”), i.e., the idea of a ‘game world’ triggered by the work.

Next the question arises: what are the qualifications of the work itself that prompt the creation of such a game world in the recipient’s mind? Undeniably, inherent restrictive preconditions can be found in the work itself, as it would be absurd, for instance, to listen to the C-major brilliance of the fourth movement of Beethoven’s Fifth and see in it a ‘game world’ of, say, ‘Sibiria’. The restrictions lie in what I call ‘experiential patterns’ embodied in the music, which are text-inherent elements that do not relate to any concrete objects or events but are placed on a more abstract level and form an in-between condition between total abstraction and total concreteness, as also comes out in Susanne Gru- ber’s description, quoted above, of how meaning is generated in Harnoncourt’s rehearsal practice. Anthony Newcomb introduces the notion of ‘paradigmatic plots’ in instrumental music13, related to what I call experiential patterns, and Wolf talks about “at least formal analogies to the structures and features of real-life experience” in the illuding work (2008: 104). Similar conceptions are those of archetypal structures in artefacts as discussed in literary studies, for instance, by Vladimir Propp (see 1928/1968) or Northrop Frye (see 1980/1991). The point is that such (possibly archetypal) fairly abstract experiential patterns are contained in the artefacts and may be activated in the reception process to create a more concrete game world that has a strong illusionist power and is thus possibly akin to aesthetic illusion. (It is ‘aesthetic’ illusion in the accepted sense insofar as the defining element of aesthetic distance to the imagined world is never questioned in instrumental music on account of its fundamental self-referential character, which necessarily undermines total immersion.)

It is an unavoidable consequence of the two-step situation described, i.e., the fairly abstract intra-compositional existential pattern of the work to start with, and the subsequent individual receptive creation of a concrete game world, that the resulting illusion is particularly vague and subjective in instrumental music. Yet a certain vagueness is true for all aesthetic illusion, as – ac-

13 Cf. Newcomb 1987: 165f., summarized by Neubauer: “Listening means following the chronology of the musical episodes and fitting them into the fund of paradigmatic configurations present in the mind of ‘competent’ listeners.” (1997: 123) Aesthetic Illusion in Instrumental Music? 485

cording to Wolf – the variables of recipient and contexts, in principle, turn any aesthetic illusion “problematic” and “make it difficult, if not impossible, to decide on the actual illusionist effect of a given work” (2009: 148), and there are always strong “empathetic abilities” required of the recipients to achieve aesthetic illusion (ibid.: 147). If one were tempted to try to adapt the standard definition of aesthetic illusion, as defined above (cf. Wolf 2008: 101), to account for the special conditions of instrumental music discussed so far, one would have to modify it in the following way (additions given in italics): ‘Aes- thetic illusion is a mental state triggered by concrete objects or >artefacts< such as texts, performances, artworks etc. which through their concrete representations or experiential patterns provide or suggest a simulation of real-life experience to the recipient.’

The other major problem area in accommodating the standard conception of aesthetic illusion to instrumental music is the accepted standard qualification that aesthetic illusion be “induced by perceptions of concrete representational artefacts” (Wolf 2009:144), the emphasis here being on ‘perceptions’. Also Kendall Walton accepts that most representational activity consists in “perceptual games of make-believe” (1990: 333f.; emphasis in the original). Yet in his considerations of representational activity in music Walton makes the quite obvious point that much of musical experience is not perceptual but, in fact, emotional. Emotional expressiveness is a paramount feature of music, and it is unavoidable when talking about aesthetic illusion in instrumental music to address this issue of emotional expressiveness. Thus, as we have asserted that in instrumental music real-life experiences can be suggested by the artefact and imaginatively simulated by the recipient as game-world representations, Wal- ton draws another obvious conclusion that “musical expressiveness is sometimes to be understood as a species of representation” (ibid.: 334), or put even more succinctly: “In place of fictional perception of external objects we have fictional introspection or self-awareness.” (Ibid.: 336) In other words: are the real-life experiences suggested by the artefact in the illusionist act necessarily perceptual external experiences, or can they be emotional internal experiences as well?

The standard definition of aesthetic illusion will answer this question in the negative and assert that – as quoted before – aesthetic illusion is “induced by perceptions of concrete representational artefacts” (Wolf 2009: 144), and 486 Aesthetic Illusion in Instrumental Music?

thus not by emotional suggtion14. It is interesting, however, that Wolf, when addressing the issue of aesthetic illusion in lyric poetry in his article of 1998, cannot avoid taking up the issue of emotions, which in lyric poetry, similar to music, are a dominant dimension. It is no surprise that, in general, Wolf identifies a “generic resistance” to aesthetic illusion in lyric poetry. Yet he can, in principle, accept that aesthetic illusion exists in lyric poetry, if “only in a modified or restricted form” (1998: 253). Interestingly, Wolf asserts that in lyric poetry the “experientiality” which “an illusionist work […] must possess” can “refer to phenomena of an external or an internal, psychic nature” (ibid.: 257; my emphasis), and that the “possible world” imagined can be either one “of outer ‘reality’” or one “of inner, psychological ‘reality’” (ibid.: 258). Even more explicitly, this article of 1998 states that, in lyric poetry, “the tendency towards emotionality” “may even constitute a strong incentive for readers to feel relocated in the fictional world of a poetic text” (ibid.: 269), which is due to an “’illusion of immediacy’” (ibid.: 274). This ‘illusion of immediacy’, in turn, is characteristic of lyric poetry and a consequence of the ‘openness’ of the ‘lyric persona’ (cf. ibid.: 279). According to Heinz Schlaffer, whom Wolf quotes (cf. ibid.), the lyric persona of a poem is an “‘empty sign’” (Schlaffer 1995: 40), which is a fact that clearly facilitates “illusionist participation” (Wolf 1998: 276). In lyric poetry we find a “focus” “on a consciousness”, more so than on “objects and events”15, and “the resulting typically lyric ‘illusion of character’ is among the most powerful kinds of aesthetic illusion” (ibid.: 284).

All of this, said about lyric poetry, applies even more strongly to music, which has even more ‘immediacy’ of impact and ‘emptiness’ of signification to encourage illusionist emotional immersion. It is true that emotion does play

14 Emotionality is a relevant aspect of the standard theory of aesthetic illusion as well. Its position there is significant as a consequence of perceptual involvement of the recipient in an imagined world, in the shape of an ‘emotional involvement’ (“emotionale[s] Engagement”; Wolf 1993: 42f.) on his or her side, or of ‘qualities of affective appeal’ (“seine affektiven Appellqualitäten”; ibid.: 185; emphasis in the original) as part of the ‘interestingness’ of the illuding work. Yet it is, thus, not the mere emotional content itself of the work – as is traditionally substantial to instrumental music – that stimulates the emotional response, but the stimulus is rather an adjunct of the work, namely its emotional susceptibility associated with a world that is primarily a perceptual experience. A further function of emotionality, relevant for aesthetic illusion, in a non-representational art-work is the likelihood that the work’s emotional content evokes, in a receptive mind, an imagined perceptual world; in this case the work itself does not contain a representation of an external world, but its content of emotional internal realities stimulates the illusion of external realities. 15 For a detailed discussion of this issue see Bernhart (1993). Aesthetic Illusion in Instrumental Music? 487

an important role in the standard conception of aesthetic illusion as well, yet it does so as a major situational factor on the side of the recipient contributing to his willingness to enter the illusionist game, it is not part of the substance of the illusion itself. But what is needed to account for mechanisms of aesthetic illusion in instrumental music, in an extended version of a definition of aesthetic illusion, is to make emotions and other internal real-life experiences part of the contents of the illusionist activity as well.

Thus, if one wanted to phrase a definition of aesthetic illusion that, based on the standard definition, were able to account for the working of aesthetic illusion even in non-representational art-forms such as instrumental music or abstract painting, one could arrive at a further modified definition with the following adapted specifications (the new addition again in italics): ‘Aesthetic illusion is a mental state triggered by objects or >artefacts< such as texts, performances, artworks etc. which through their concrete representations or experiential patterns provide or suggest a simulation of external or internal real-life experience to the recipient.’

To arrive, in defining aesthetic illusion, at such a wide area of illusionist activities, which significantly extends the limits of standard conceptions of aesthetic illusion in three distinct directions, implies a broadening of the concept that may considerably weaken its usefulness in describing a vital aspect of artistic experience. Considering, however, that – as demonstrated in the beginning – a strict application of standard tenets of illusion theory totally excludes instrumental music from recognition, the present discussion will have shown that a closer investigation of instrumental music as a particular form of artistic activity recognizes a number of features it shares with other forms that are far more centrally subjected to aesthetic illusion. And if this investigation has demonstrated that instrumental music, on account of its fundamental and dominant self-referentiality, is not situated at the core of artistic illusionism, it may have sharpened the critic’s mind as to the usefulness and sustainability of the critical criteria involved and, in particular, may have increased his or her awareness of the fact that in a visually and verbally dominated cultural sphere purely acoustic phenomena such as instrumental music, with their significantly different semiotic conditions, tend to be overlooked. Instrumental music is certainly only a marginal phenomenon from the viewpoint of the (visually and verbally oriented) standard theory of aesthetic illusion. Yet in the light of the 488 Aesthetic Illusion in Instrumental Music?

venerable historical tradition of invoking the ‘powers of music’, and of the fact that music can be a very moving and most gripping art form, a systematically developed analysis of immersive acts in music – in analogy to analysing aesthetic illusion, yet based on its own criteria – is a desideratum, for which this discussion of (questionable) aesthetic illusion in instrumental music has opened our eyes. Aesthetic Illusion in Instrumental Music? 489

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Index

Abbate, Carolyn 197, 336 Beethoven, Ludwig van 176, 232, Abrams, M. H. 22, 23, 26 233, 242, 278, 413, 478-480, 484 Adam, Adolphe 308, 383, 385 Bekker, Paul 431, 440 Adorno, Theodor W. 81, Bellini, Vincenzo 383, 385, 387, 389 82, 299, 301, 434, 438, 441 Benson, Stephen 355, 357, 358, Allen, Jane 398 363, 365, 366 Allen, S. A. 288 Berg, Alban 344, 355 Andersen, H. C. 385 Bergonzi, Bernard 120 Anderson, Hedli 76, 237 Berlijns, A. W. 388 Andrew, Dudley 399, 401 Berlioz, Hector 231 Aristotle 23, 191, 362, 470 Berkeley, Michael 355, 356, 361, Aristoxenos 10 364, 365, 367 Ascham, Roger 5 Bermbach, Udo 175 Attridge, Derek 17 Beum, Robert 188 Auber, D. F. E. 383 Bishop, Henry 308 Auden, W. H. 13, 75-80, 84, 85, Bishop, Lloyd 341 87-97, 99-111, 123, 173-178, 196, 214, Bizet, Georges 384 236-239, 262, 291-298, 357, 358, 363, Black, Richard 256 365, 367, 388, 414-417, 22, 428, 443 Blake, William 84, 208, Augustine, Saint 30 237, 244, 245 Austen, Jane 285 Bloch, Ernst 88 Bachmann, Claus-Henning 106,109, Blok, Aleksandr 31 262, 416 Bluestone, George 396 Baïf, Jean Antoine de 56, 70 Bockelmann, Eske 136-153 Balfe, Michael 383 Boethius 30, 158, 159 Balzac, Honoré de 382 Boettger, Adolf 36, 46 Bantleon, Katharina 451 Boieldieu, François Adrien 383 Barthes, Roland 69, 71, 112, Boito, Arrigo 311 447, 456 Bornstein, Diane 460 Bartók , Béla 344 Botstein, Leon 299-304 Bazin, André 399, 402, 403 Bouilly, Jean-Nicolas 176, 413 Beaumarchais, Pierre 303 Brahms, Johannes 185, 301 496 Index

Brauer, Robert 149 Callan, Edward 106, 107, 415 Brecht, Bertolt 64, 75, 76-97, 205 Cammarano, Salvatore 384-386, 388 Bredal, Ivar Frederik 385 Campion, Thomas 3, 6-9, 11, Britten, Benjamin x, 2, 66, 75-78, 12, 14, 16, 55,-58, 70, 71, 85, 80, 84-97, 115, 118,121,123, 125-127, 157, 158, 160, 163, 164, 166- 205-209, 235,-238, 240-242, 244, 246, 169, 216, 370, 373, 376, 461, 464 247, 259, 261, 262-264, 285, 286, 288- Canary, Robert 120 290, 356, 360, 364, 414, 417, 424-427 Canetti, Elias 344 Brogan, T. V. F. 188-190, 192, Carafa, Michele 385 345, 347 Carpenter, Humphrey 123, 125, Brontë, Charlotte 355, 357, 358, 237, 241, 242 359, 362, 364, 365, 367, 394,-396, 398 Carroll, Lewis 346 Brontë, Emily 391, 393, 394-396, Carsen, Robert 449, 451 398, 403 Carter, Chandler 297 Brown, Calvin S. ix, 111-223, 275 Casanova, Giacomo 303, 304 Browne, Sir Thomas 159, 160 Castiglione, Baldassare 461 Browning, Robert 20, 78, 342, Cervantes, Miguel de 391, 403, 480 343, 349 Chopin, Frédéric 185 Bruinier, Franz S. 75 Cicero 151, 460, 470 Brunner, Gerhard 450 Cocteau, Jean 183 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor 36, 37, Budde, Elmar 376 340, 344 Buell, Frederick 76, 88 Cone, Edward T. 58, 59, 197, 198, Bülow, Hans von 49, 50 200, 374 Bunyan, John 292, 297 Conrad, Dieter 60-62 Burmeister, Joachim 216 Copeland, Julie 355, 356, 361, 365 Burns, Robert 236, 240, 374, 375 Corkine, William 14 Bush, Catherine 393 Couvray, Louvet de 304 Bush, Kate 391-394, Cowley, Abraham 160 397, 399 401, 403 Crabbe, George 285-190 Bush, Ronald 120, 124 Craggs, Stewart R. 183, 184, Busoni, Ferruccio 432 187, 188 Byrd, William 155, 463 Crawford, Thomas 374, 375 Byron, G. G. Lord 2, 35-50, 381 Crosby, Bing 293 Byronic Hero 172, 358, Crozier, Eric 206, 246, 261 360, 362 363, 387, 395, 397 Cupers, Jean-Louis 211, 275 Byron, Henry J. 386 d’Albert, Eugen 432 Index 497

d’Annunzio, Gabriele 415 Evans, Mary 398 Dahlhaus, Carl 2, 101, 295, 476 Evans, Peter 238-242, 245 Daniel, Samuel 169, 465, 470 Feuchtwanger, Lion 75 Danuser, Hermann 443 Fischer-Dieskau, Dietrich 415 Danyel, John 3 Fischer-Lichte, Erika 22 Daverio, John 316 Fleischer, Herbert 83 Davison, Dennis 79 Florey, Hans 68 Debussy, Claude 187, 356, 439, 461 Fontane, Theodor 382 Denut, Eric 438, 439, 444 Forster, E. M. 285, 475, 478,480 Derrida, Jacques 334 Foucault, Michel 389 Descartes, René 139, 148 Fraisse, Paul 181 Deutsch, George 131 Frank, Armin Paul 22 Dickens, Charles 103, 198, 382 Fricke, Harald 444 Diefenbach, Anja 253, 254 Frost, Robert 29 Dietel, Gerhard 316 Frye, Northrop 341,-344, 348, Dionysius of Halicarnassus 20, 341 349, 484 Dittersdorf, Karl Ditters von 308 Fuest, Robert 398 Döhring, Sieghart 434 Fujiwara, Teika 134 Donizetti, Gaetano 309, 356, Fussell, Paul 130 361, 381, 382, 384-390 Füssli, Johann Heinrich 390 Donne, John 2, 84, 157, 158, 169, Gascoigne, George 5, 137, 237, 241, 242, 244 148-150, 470 Dowland, John 3, 8, 16, 85, 155, Gaveaux, Pierre 176, 176, 413 371, 461, 463 Geibel, Emanuel 37 Dukas, Paul 476 Genette, Gérard 196, 197 Dumas, Alexandre 382 George, Stefan 415 Dunstable, John 372 Georgiades, Thrasybulos 58, 60-62, Dürer, Albrecht 454 64, 151 Eco, Umberto 27, 32, 189, 191, 192 Gerlach, Theodor 226 Eggebrecht, Hans Heinrich 2 Gildemeister, Otto 36 Eichendorff, Joseph von 226 Giraud, Albert 227 Eisler, Hanns 75 Gluck, Christoph Willibald 389 Eliot, George 382 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang v. 44, 45, Eliot, T. S. 32, 42, 84, 118-127, 58 59, 61, 64, 70, 71, 237, 278, 285, 182, 344, 345, 350, 471 296, 297, 348, 374, 387, 416, 454, 480 Elwert, W. Theodor 150 Gogol, Nikolai 382 Engels, Friedrich 311 Goldmark, Karl 309 498 Index

Goldmark, Karl 309 Hitchcock, Alfred 399, 401, 427 Greenberg, Clement 401 Hoffmann, E. T. A. 103-105, Grieg, Edvard 226, 227 107, 171, 278, 422, 437 Gruber, Sabine 481, 482 Hofmannsthal, Hugo von 103 , Gruber, Susanne 484 262, 300, 302-304, 414 Guazzo, Stefano 462 Hogarth, William 291-297, 303 Hába, Alois 432 Hölderlin, Friedrich 65, 67, Hacks, Peter 99, 103, 111 68, 70, 84, 229, 230, 241, 242 454 Hafner, Philipp 303 Hollander, J. 20, 23, 25, 30, 56, 160 Hagstrum, Jean 369 Holst, Gustav 308 Hailey, Christopher 431-434, Homoki, Andreas 448, 449 438-440, 443 Honolka, Kurt 105, 109 Halliwell, Michael 355 Hughes, Ted 395 Hamburger, Michael 65 Hugo, Victor 382 Hamlin, Cyrus 236, 242, 243, 246 Humboldt, Wilhelm von 27 Hanslick, Eduard 222, 476 Hunter, Pamela 183-185 Harders-Wuthenow, Frank 433, 434 Ingram, Reginald W. 14, 15 436, 438 Isherwood, Christopher 76 Harding, D. W. 31, 188, 189 Izutsu, Toyo 132-135 Hardy, Thomas 198, 207, 241, 242 Jakobson, Roman 28, 146, 349 Harnoncourt, N. 475, 481, 482, 484 James, Henry 198, Hartleben, Otto Erich 227 205, 208, 259-264, 360, Hauer, Josef Matthias 64-68, 70 416, 424, 425, 427, 438, 455 229, 230 Janz, Curt Paul 48 Hebbel, Christian Friedrich 226 Jarfe, Günther 29 Heine, Heinrich 339, 372 Jiránek, Jaroslav 225, 231 Henze, Hans Werner 99, 100, Johnson, Graham 121, 123, 236, 102-105, 108-111, 178 272, 240, 241, 244 389, 414-422, 424, 427 Johnson, James 374 Herbert, George 157 Johnson, Linton Kwesi 265-270, Herder, Johann Gottfried 27, 58, 454 272, 377, 409, 410 Herman, David 399, 402 Jones, Robert 14 Hertz, David M. 64 Jonson, Ben 449, 463 Heusler, Andreas 139, 144, 181 Joyce, James 182, 252 Hijiya-Kirschnereit, Irmela 129 Jung, C. G. 293, 297 Hindemith, Paul 171, 172, Kallman, Chester 99, 175-178, 414, 422, 424, 432, 439 103-105, 107, 291, 295, 414-417 Index 499

Kant, Immanuel 21 Lawes, Henry 71 Karbusicky, Vladimir 190, 191 Lawrence, D. H. 395, 471 Kayser, Wolfgang 400 Lean, David 285 Keats, John 42 Lehmann, Hans-Thies 252 Kelly, Grace 293 Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim 116, 454 Kemp, Ian 82 Levy, Jerre 131 Kennedy, Michael 123, 237-241, Lewis, C. S. 469 244, 245 Lidov, David 189-191 Kermode, Frank 372 Lienhart, Josef 256 Kienbaum, Jochen 453 Lind, Jenny 308 Kierkegaard, Søren 100, Lindsay, Jack 182, 183, 102, 106, 108, 177, 417, 428 Lion, Ferdinand 171, 172, 176 King James VI 462 Liszt, Franz 383 Kiparsky, Paul 140 Lloyd-Webber, Andrew 356 Kipling, Rudyard 29, 75, 79, 89, 355 Loewe, Carl 36, Kivy, Peter 476, 480 38, 39, 42-46, 50, 383 Klee, Bernhard 313 Lohse, Günther 106, 416 Klopstock, F. G. 145, 146, 158, 159 Loos, Adolf 436 Kökeritz, Helge 465 Lortzing, Gustav Albert 309 Konwitschny, Peter 448-450, 454 Lotspeich, C. M. 25-27, 31 Kramer, Lawrence 197-201, Lully, Jean-Baptiste 175, 413 279, 319, 408, 409, 426, 427, 428 Lundén, Rolf 246 Kraus, Karl 279, 436 Mace, Dean Tolle 22-25, 27 Krellmann, Hanspeter 108, 417 MacLeish, Archibald 71 Krenek, Ernst 432 MacNeice, Louis 76, 182, 183 Kristeva, Julia 69 Magee, Emily 449 Krones, Hartmut 232, 480 Mahler, Alma 245 Kunze, Stefan 176, 413, 414 Mahler, Gustav 301, 335, 475, 481 Küper, Christoph 140, 143, 145, 147 Malevich, Kazimir 483 Kuryłowicz, Jerzy 465 Mallarmé, Stéphane 345 Kussewitzky, Sergej 286 Malouf, David 355, 357-363, 367 Lacan, Jacques 112 Mann, William 123 La Drière, Craig 129 Manzoni, Alessandro 382 Laferrière, Daniel 27, 28, 31 Mare, Walter de la 238 Langer, Susanne K. 214 Margolis, John D. 119-120 Langridge, Philip 288 Marley, Bob 268 Laozi 436 Marschner, Heinrich 382 500 Index

Martinez, Michelle 369 Müller, Wolfgang G. 200 Marx, Joseph 435, 437 Müller-Blattau, Joseph 58 Mason, John 23 Mussorgsky, Modest 69 Mayer, Ruth 270 Napoleon Bonaparte 37, 43, 372, 381 Mazzucato, Albert 385 Naremore, James 399, 403 Meale, Richard 355 Nash, Thomas 464, 465, 470 Mendelson, Edward 417 Nathan, Isaac 36-39, 43, 45 Mendelssohn, Felix 38, 39, Nattiez, Jean-Jacques 190, 317 41, 309, 330 Nestroy, Johann Nepomuk 303 Mérimée, Prosper 382, 384 Neubauer, John 191, Metastasio, Pietro 413 196, 200, 475, 478, 480, 481, 484 Meyerbeer, Giacomo 414 Neuwirth, Gösta 440, 434 McLuhan, Marshall 456 Newcomb, Anthony 242, 484 Michelangelo Buonarroti 84, 241, Nicolai, Otto 307-309, 242, 244 312, 313, 382 Micznik, Vera 319, 335 Nietzsche, Friedrich 36, Miller, Lucasta 394, 395 40, 41, 46-50, 205, 209, 226 Milton, John 71, 172, 349 Novak, Julia 459 Miner, Earl 129 Oberon, Merle 396 Mitchell, Donald 76, 77, 85, Oeck, Anja 448, 450 236, 237 Olivier, Laurence 396 Mitscherlich, Alexander 457 Opitz, Martin 137, 139, 147, 148 Mitscherlich, Margarete 457 Osmond-Smith, David 181 Moissi, Alexander 228 Owen, Wilfred 236 Molière, Jean Baptiste 303 Pacini, Giovanni 383 Molkow, Wolfgang 442, 443 Palézieux, Nikolaus 53 Möller, Joachim 369 Palmer, Christopher 245 Monelle, Raymond 189-192 Pater, Walter 350 Monteverdi, Claudio 172, 413 Paul, Jean 316, 480 Moody, A. D. 120, 124 Payer, Peter 481 Morley, Thomas 3-6, Pears, Peter 186, 8, 11-16, 53-56, 155, 166, 372 230, 236, 240, 243, 286-288 Morris, Charles 20 Petersen, Peter 99,109, 110 Mosenthal, S. H. von 309, 311, 312 Peterson, Douglas L. 469 Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus 177, Perrine, Laurence 29, 30 222, 292, 298, 302, 309, 312, 413 Picasso, Pablo 183 Müller, Wilhelm 226 Piper, Myfanwy 261, 262, 360 Index 501

Pilkington, Francis 10, 14 Rilke, Rainer Maria 415 Plath, Sylvia 395 Rimbaud, Arthur 84, 237, 241 Plato 3, 10, 15, 23, 24, 30, Rimmon-Kenan, Shlomith 399 53, 56,66, 71, 130, 167, 219, Ringger, Rolf Urs 101, 106, 415 220, 344, 370, 371, 469, 470 Rodatz, Christoph 253-256 Poe, Edgar Allen 20, 345 Ronga, Luigi 340-341 Poizat, Michel 112 Ronsard, Pierre de 216 Pope, Alexander 19, 20, 22-28, 31 Rosenblatt, Louise 278 Pöppel, Ernst 130, 131, 135 Ross, Alex 280, 300, 432 Porter, Andrew 106 Rosseter, Philip 3, 6, 165 Porter, Peter 85, 235, 240-247 Roth, Marc 106 Poulenc, Francis 356, 424, 448, 449 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 205, 225 Pound, Ezra 340, 471 Ruppel, K. H. 173, 175 Pressl, Hermann Markus 68, 70 Ryan, Marie-Laure 477 Prieto, Eric 403 Salieri, Antonio 308, 370 Propp, Vladimir 484 Sapir, Edward 143,144 Puccini, Giacomo 176, 356, 364, 449 Satie, Erik 183 Purcell, Henry 85 Scher, Steven Paul ix, Puschkin, Alexander 84, 382 2, 55, 116, 195, 218, 275-281, Puschnigg, Heimo 232, 233 299, 339-344, 351, 407, 478 Puttenham, George 161-166, 462 Schering, Arnold 480 Pythagoras 23, 24, Schiller, Friedrich 350, 454 30, 54, 158, 159, 161, 167, 344, 369 Schilling, Hans Ludwig 173, 175 Quarles, Francis 236 Schillings, Max 226 Quintilian 21 Schlaffer, Heinz 486 Raimund, Hans 100, 102 Schnitzler, Arthur 303, 304 Ramus, Petrus 460, 461 Schoenberg, Arnold 64, 183, 231, 291, Ravel, Maurice 356 300-302, 375, 408, 432, 433, 436, 481 Ray, Robert 399 Schreiber, Ulrich 310, 311, 452 Reichardt, Johann Friedrich 58, 374 Schreker, Franz 431-444 Rellstab, Friedrich Ludwig 316 Schubert, Franz 37, Rexroth, Dieter 174, 177 59, 60-64, 71,214, 226, 240 Rhys, Jean 365 241 348, 371, 374, 383, 427 Richards, I. A. 1 Schumacher, Gerhard 65 Riehle, Wolfgang 120 Schumann, Robert 36, 37, 39, Rieschi, Luigi 385 40, 43, 46, 49, 59, 60-64, 117, 199, Rietsch, Heinrich 41 226, 238, 240 242, 315-337, 372, 406 502 Index

Schulz, Peter 58 Strawinsky, Igor 103, Scott, Sir Walter 285, 361 381-390 262, 292, 294-296, 298 Service, Tom 355, 356, 364, 365 Strindberg, August 415 Shakespeare, William 2, 107, Stuckenschmidt, H. H. 109, 438 155, 214, 296, 297, 303 307, 309-313, Sullivan, Arthur 382 340, 383, 386, 389, 450, 461, 465 Swinburne, Algernon 471 Shapiro, Karl 188, 349 Tamplin, Roland 126 Shelley, Percy Bysshe 226 Tarasti, Eero 190 Sidney, Sir Philip 155, 159, Tawara, Machi 135 161, 168, 169, 460, 465, 466, 469, 470 Tennyson, Alfred Lord 29, 30, Sitwell, Edith 182-188, 31, 32, 115, 116, 227, 342, 343, 349 192, 230, 231, 345-347Terence 159, 163 Sitwell, Osbert 182, 183, 184 Thackeray, William M. 382 Skelton, John 468 Thatcher, David 50 Slater, Montagu 286, 289 Theremin, Franz 36, 38, 39, 46 Sloan, Thomas 151 Thompson, George 374, 375 Smetana, Bedřich 476 Thomson, Vergil 218 Smith, Grover 120 Tieck, Ludwig 37 Sollich, Robert 451-453 Tillyard, E. M. W. 155, 156 Soutar, William 206, 237, 240 Toch, Ernst 432 Southwell, Robert 14 Todorov, Tzvetan 20, 21, 22, 27 Spears, M. K. 76, 79, 104-107, 416 Tolstoi, Lev Nikolaevich 382 Spenser, Edmund 155 Tottel, Richard 150 Spice, Nicholas 125 Tsurayuki, Ki no 134 Springer, Sally P. 131 Turner, Frederick 130, 131, 135 Stanzel, Franz K. 196 Ullmann, Stephen 27 Steinberg, Michal P. 457 Van Doren, Mark 23 Steiner, Peter 191 Verdi, Giuseppe 111, 175, Sterne, Lawrence 198, 199 176, 262, 308, 311, 385, 388, 420, 450 Sternfeld, Frederick W. 214 Vickers, Jon 288 Stevens, John 369, 370, 372, 373, Wagner, Cosima 49 Stevenson, R. L. 382 Wagner, Katharina 47, 450-457 Stifter, Adalbert 382 Wagner, Nike 303, 304 Stoneman, Patsy 393, 395, 396, 397 Wagner, Richard 47, 49, 50, 110, 111, Stradella, Alessandro 302 175, 205, 215, 251, 255, 256, 257, 293, Strauss, Richard 226, 227, 262, 296, 299, 301, 303, 362, 382, 383, 388, 299-302, 304, 309, 364, 432, 448, 476 416, 431, 439, 444, 451, 452, 453, 455 Index 503

Walker, Sarah 87 Zarlino, Gioseffo 463 Walton, Kendall 483, 485 Zehme, Albertine 227-233 Walton, William 183, 186, Zeller, Gerhard 67 187, 231, 345 Zelter, Carl Friedrich 59, Ward, David 120, 123 60, 64, 71, 348, 350, 351, 374 Webbe, William 166 Zeilinger, Franz 118 Weber, Carl Maria von 176 278, Zeynek, Theodor von 232 309, 324, 348, 413 Zuckerkandl, Viktor 53 Webern, Anton von 375, 376 Weir, Judith 278 Weill, Kurt 75, 77, 80-84, 87, 88, 89, 432, 439 Weininger, Otto 436 Weißmann, Adolf 433, 438, 439 Weisstein, Ulrich ix, 100, 101, 102, 106, 110, 111, 171, 174, 211, 275, 276, 297, 358 Weitz, Morris 456 White, Hayden 279, 407-408 White, Patrick 355 Wildenbruch, Ernst von 226 Williams, Jeffrey 318, 330, 334, 335 Williams, Ralph Vaughan 308 Williams, Simon 302, 303 Wilpert, Gero von 400, 401 Wimsatt, W. K. 347 Wolf, Hugo 36, 41, 50, 85 Wolf, Werner 181, 278, 317, 320, 334, 335, 336, 339, 340, 444, 448, 455, 475, 477, 479, 482, 483, 484, 485, 486 Woodward, Ralph 239, 245 Wordsworth, William 65, 130, 202, 206, 330, 382 Wyatt, Thomas 150, 468 Wyler, William 396 Yeats, William Butler 208, 261, 262, 263, 348, 349, 415, 471