MUSICAL MODERNISM & GERMAN CINEMA from 1913 to 1933

Francesco Finocchiaro Musical Modernism and German Cinema from 1913 to 1933 Francesco Finocchiaro Musical Modernism and German Cinema from 1913 to 1933 Francesco Finocchiaro University of Vienna Vienna, Austria

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This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland To Gabriella and Aurora Acknowledgements

This monographic study is the main editorial product of a “Lise Meitner” biennial research project (2013–2015), generously fnanced by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), and carried out at the University of Vienna. Among the institutions that have given scientifc and institutional support to my research project I would like to thank the Historical Archive of Universal Edition, Vienna, represented by Katja Kaiser; the Musiksammlung of the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek and its director Thomas Leibnitz; the Deutsche Kinemathek in Berlin, in particular the library director Ines Kolbe and the manager of the periodicals section Cordula Döhrer; the Archive of the Akademie der Künste and the Staatsbibliothek in Berlin, as well as the Österreichische Forschungsgemeinschaft, the Arnold Schönberg Center in Vienna and the Richard Strauss Institut in Garmisch-Partenkirchen; the Library of the Musicology Institute of Vienna University, represented by its director Benedikt Lodes; the Library of the Arts Department of Bologna University and its director Marinella Menetti; the Cineteca di Bologna, in particular the contact for the periodicals and audiovisual section, Marco Persico. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Professor Michele Calella, who encouraged and supported the project since its very incep- tion. But this is not the only reason why I am indebted to Michele Calella: I am also grateful to him for the interest he showed throughout

vii viii Acknowledgements the progress of my research, always offering me his passionate, expert guidance. I also owe a major debt of gratitude to my colleagues Gillian Anderson, Julie Brown, Christy Thomas, Tobias Plebuch, Claus Tieber, Anna Katharina Windisch, Hartmut Krones, Nikolaus Urbanek, Eike Feß, Adele Lyon, Annika Forkert, Maria Fuchs, Roberto Calabretto, Leonardo Quaresima, Federico Celestini, Sergio Miceli, Carlo Piccardi, Maurizio Giani, Graziella Seminara, Anna Ficarella, Mauro Bertola and Ornella Calvano, for the hints and suggestions that they have kindly given me during the inspiring conversations I had with them. Among the friends and colleagues of the Vienna Institute of Musicology I would like to thank Birgit Lodes, Christoph Reuter, Stefan Gasch, Ingrid Schraff, Sonja Tröster, Scott L. Edwards, John D. Wilson, Martina Grempler, Sabine Ladislav, Barbara Babic, Carolin Krahn and Melanie Strumbl, for their precious support, and for the patience and dedication with which they have embraced my project. A special thank-you goes to Julia Bungardt, Henriette Engelke, Zafreen Qureshi, Krzysztof Walewski and Machteld Venken, Daniel and Katja Haberkorn. This book has been translated from Italian by Elisabetta Zoni and Alex Glyde-Bates. I would like to thank them for their support.

Milan Francesco Finocchiaro September 2015 Contents

1 Introduction: The Cinematic Paradigm 1

2 Prologue: Cinema and the Arts 13

3 Cinema and Expressionist Drama 29

4 Paul Hindemith and the Cinematic Universe 45

5 Edmund Meisel: The Cinematic Composer 67

6 Der Rosenkavalier: A Problematic Remediation 85

7 Cinema and Musical Theatre: Kurt Weill and the Filmmusik in Royal Palace 105

8 Alban Berg, Lulu, and Cinema as Artifce 127

9 New Objectivity and Abstract Cinema 149

10 Between Film Music and Chamber Music 195

ix x Contents

11 Epilogue: The Dawn of Sound Cinema 221

Bibliography 239

Index 253 List of Figures

Chapter 4 Fig. 1 Arnold Fanck—Paul Hindemith, Im Kampf mit dem Berge 52 Fig. 2 Arnold Fanck—Paul Hindemith, Im Kampf mit dem Berge 56 Fig. 3 Arnold Fanck—Paul Hindemith, Im Kampf mit dem Berge 57 Fig. 4 Arnold Fanck—Paul Hindemith, Im Kampf mit dem Berge 58 Fig. 5 Arnold Fanck—Paul Hindemith, Im Kampf mit dem Berge 64 Chapter 5 Fig. 1 Edmund Meisel, Suite aus der Originalmusik zu dem Tonflm ‘Panzerkreuzer Potemkin’ 76 Fig. 2 Sergei Eisenstein—Edmund Meisel, Panzerkreuzer Potemkin 78 Chapter 6 Fig. 1 Robert Wiene—Richard Strauss, Der Rosenkavalier 97 Fig. 2 Robert Wiene—Richard Strauss, Der Rosenkavalier 98 Fig. 3 Robert Wiene—Richard Strauss, Der Rosenkavalier 99 Chapter 8 Fig. 1 Alban Berg, Opernplan, F21 Berg 28/III f.39 verso 130 Fig. 2 Alban Berg, Opernplan, F21 Berg 28/III f.39 recto 132 Fig. 3 Alban Berg, Lulu, Act II, Interlude, Szenarium 136 Chapter 9 Fig. 1 Walter Ruttmann—Max Butting, Lichtspiel Opus 1 158 Fig. 2 Walter Ruttmann—Max Butting, Lichtspiel Opus 1 159 Fig. 3 Walter Ruttmann—Max Butting, Lichtspiel Opus 1 161 Fig. 4 Walter Ruttmann—Max Butting, Lichtspiel Opus 1 162

xi xii List of Figures

Fig. 5 Walter Ruttmann—Hanns Eisler, Opus 3 172 Fig. 6 Walter Ruttmann—Hanns Eisler, Opus 3 172 Fig. 7 Walter Ruttmann—Hanns Eisler, Opus 3 173 Fig. 8 Walter Ruttmann—Hanns Eisler, Opus 3 174 Fig. 9 Hans Richter—Walter Gronostay, Alles dreht sich, alles bewegt sich 188 Chapter 10 Fig. 1 Arnold Schönberg, Gefahr—Angst, T59.07.12r and transcription 208 Chapter 11 Fig. 1 Georg Wilhelm Pabst—Kurt Weill, 3Groschenoper 228 Fig. 2 Victor Trivas—Hanns Eisler, Niemandsland 234 Fig. 3 Victor Trivas—Hanns Eisler, Niemandsland 234 List of Music Examples

1. Paul Hindemith, Im Kampf mit dem Berge (1921), Act I, bars 1–8 50 2. Paul Hindemith, Im Kampf mit dem Berge (1921), Act I, bars 18–26 51 3. Paul Hindemith, Im Kampf mit dem Berge (1921), Act I, bars 43–50 51 4. Paul Hindemith, Im Kampf mit dem Berge (1921), Act I, bars 61–64 52 5. Paul Hindemith, Im Kampf mit dem Berge (1921), Act I, bars 75–78 53 6. Paul Hindemith, Im Kampf mit dem Berge (1921), Act I, bars 104–120 54 7. Paul Hindemith, Im Kampf mit dem Berge (1921), Act I, bars 272–280 55 8. Paul Hindemith, Im Kampf mit dem Berge (1921), Act II, bars 131–138 57 9. Paul Hindemith, Im Kampf mit dem Berge (1921), Act II, bars 171–186 59 10. Paul Hindemith, Im Kampf mit dem Berge (1921), Act II, bars 395–402 60 11. Paul Hindemith, Im Kampf mit dem Berge (1921), Act III, bars 1–12 61 12. Paul Hindemith, Im Kampf mit dem Berge (1921), Act III, bars 394–417 62 13. Edmund Meisel, Panzerkreuzer Potemkin (1926), Act I, bars 1–6 75 14. Edmund Meisel, Panzerkreuzer Potemkin (1926), Act I, bars 79–82 75 15. Edmund Meisel, Panzerkreuzer Potemkin (1926), Act I, bars 7–14 77 16. Edmund Meisel, Panzerkreuzer Potemkin (1926), Act III, bars 1–19 79 17. Edmund Meisel, Panzerkreuzer Potemkin (1926), Act IV, bars 140–143 80

xiii xiv List of Music Examples

18. Richard Strauss, Der Rosenkavalier (1926), Act I, no. 11 95 19. Richard Strauss, Der Rosenkavalier (1926), Act I, no. 12 96 20. Richard Strauss, Der Rosenkavalier (1926), Act I, no. 23 97 21. Richard Strauss, Der Rosenkavalier (1926), Act II, no. 352 100 22. Paul Hindemith, Cardillac (1926), Act I, no. 6 Pantomime 110 23. Kurt Weill, Royal Palace (1927), bars 63.11–63.14 120 24. Kurt Weill, Royal Palace (1927), bars 64.8–64.11 120 25. Kurt Weill, Royal Palace (1927), bars 65.6–66.2 121 26. Kurt Weill, Royal Palace (1927), bars 67.2–68.1 121 27. Kurt Weill, Royal Palace (1927), bars 69.2–70.2 121 28. Kurt Weill, Royal Palace (1927), bars 75.1–75.6 122 29. Alban Berg, Lulu (1937), Act II, Interlude, bars 685–689 139 30. Alban Berg, Lulu, Lulu Series 140 31. Alban Berg, Lulu, Trope III and Basic Cell V 140 32. Alban Berg, Lulu (1937), Act II, Interlude, bars 656–657 141 33. Alban Berg, Lulu (1937), Act II, Interlude, bars 674–677 142 34. Max Butting, Lichtspiel Opus 1 (1921), bars 1.1–3.7 160 35. Max Butting, Lichtspiel Opus 1 (1921), bars 5.2, 5.7, 6.1–6.2, 9.1 163 36. Max Butting, Lichtspiel Opus 1 (1921), bars 36a.1–8 164 37. Hanns Eisler, Praeludium in Form einer Passacaglia (1927), bars 1–6 171 38. Hanns Eisler, Praeludium in Form einer Passacaglia (1927), bars 11–14 171 39. Hanns Eisler, Praeludium in Form einer Passacaglia (1927), bars 26–35 173 40. Hanns Eisler, Praeludium in Form einer Passacaglia (1927), bars 41–46 173 41. Hanns Eisler, Praeludium in Form einer Passacaglia (1927), bars 52–55 174 42. Paul Dessau, Episode (1929), bars 1–4 184 43. Walter Gronostay, Alles dreht sich, alles bewegt sich (1929), no. 25 (Athletenkünste) 190 44. Paul Dessau, Alice und der wilde Westen (1928), bars 218–225 199 45. Arnold Schönberg, Begleitungsmusik zu einer Lichtspielszene op. 34 (1930), bars 1–3 205 46. Franz Schreker, Vier kleine Stücke (1929), no. 1 Timoroso, bars 2–3 213 47. Franz Schreker, Vier kleine Stücke (1929), no. 2 Violente, bars 1–8 214 48. Franz Schreker, Vier kleine Stücke (1929), no. 3 Incalzando, bars 1–5 215 49. Franz Schreker, Vier kleine Stücke (1929), no. 4 Gradèvole, bars 3–6 215 50. Franz Schreker, Vier kleine Stücke (1929), no. 4 Gradèvole, bars 48–55 215 List of Music Examples xv

51. Josef Matthias Hauer, Musik-Film op. 51 (1927), no. 1 Erwartung, bars 1–4 217 52. Josef Matthias Hauer, Musik-Film op. 51 (1927), no. 14 Andante, bars 1–4 217 53. Josef Matthias Hauer, Musik-Film op. 51 (1927), no. 12 Sturm, bars 1–16 218 54. Hanns Eisler, Niemandsland (1931), Vorspiel, bars 9–16 232 55. Hanns Eisler, Niemandsland (1931), Act II, Brass call 233 56. Hanns Eisler, Orchestersuite no. 2 op. 24 (Niemandsland) (1931), Andante, bars 2–6 235 List of Movies

Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed (Lotte Reiniger, Comenius-Film, 1926) Alexander Nevsky (Sergei Eisenstein, Mosflm, 1938) Alice und der Selbstmörder (Alice Helps the Romance) (Walt Disney, Walt Disney Productions, 1926) Alice und der wilde Westen (Alice in the Wooly West) (Walt Disney, Walt Disney Productions, 1926) Alice und die Flöhe (Alice’s Monkey Business) (Walt Disney, Walt Disney Productions, 1926) Alice und ihre Feuerwehr (Alice the Fire Fighter) (Walt Disney, Walt Disney Productions, 1926) Alles dreht sich, alles bewegt sich (Hans Richter, Tobis, 1929) Der Andere (Max Mack, Vitascope, 1913) Eine “beinliche” Angelegenheit (Hans Manninger, Ima-Film, 1922) Berlin. Die Sinfonie der Großstadt (Walter Ruttmann, Deutsche Vereinsflm, 1927) Der blaue Engel (Josef von Sternberg, Ufa, 1929-30) Die Büchse der Pandora (Georg Wilhelm Pabst, Nero-Film, 1929) Bronenosec Potëmkin (Sergei Eisenstein, Goskino, 1925 | Prometheus, 1926) Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene, Decla-Film, 1920) Carmen (Ernst Lubitsch, Projektions-AG “Union”, 1918) City Lights (Charlie Chaplin, Charles Chaplin Productions, 1931) La dame aux camélias (Louis Mercanton, Pathé Frères, 1911) Die 3Groschenoper (Georg Wilhelm Pabst, Tobis, 1931) Dreiteilige Farbensonatine (Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack, 1925) Entr’acte (René Clair, Rolf de Maré, 1924)

xvii xviii List of Movies

Episode (Hans Conradi, 1929) Felix der Kater im Zirkus (Pat Sullivan, German premiere 1927) Figaros Hochzeit (Max Mack, Terra-Film, 1919) Film ist Rhythmus (Hans Richter, 1923) Filmstudie (Hans Richter, 1928) Der fiegende Holländer (Hans Neumann, Harmonie-Film, 1918) La forêt enchantée (from L’horloge magique) (Władysław Starewicz, Les Films Louis Nalpas, 1928) Das fremde Mädchen (Mauritz Stiller, Svenska Biografteatern, 1913) Der Golem, wie er in die Welt kam (Paul Wegener, Projektions-AG “Union”, 1920) The Gold Rush (Charlie Chaplin, Charles Chaplin Productions, 1925) The Great Dictator (Charlie Chaplin, Charles Chaplin Productions, 1940) Der heilige Berg (Arnold Fanck, Ufa, 1926) Horizontal-vertical Orchestra (Viking Eggeling, 1924) L’horloge magique (Władysław Starewicz, Les Films Louis Nalpas, 1928) Images mobiles (Fernand Léger, 1924) Im Kampf mit dem Berge (Arnold Fanck, Berg- und Sportflm, 1921) Inferno (Francesco Bertolini et alii, Milano Films, 1911) Die Insel der Seligen (Max Reinhardt, Projektions-AG “Union”, 1913) Kampf um den Berg. Eine Hochtour vor 20 Jahren (Arnold Fanck, Ufa, 1941) Die Kinderfabrik (Charles Mintz, Paramount, German premiere 1928) Kuhle Wampe oder Wem gehört die Welt (Slatan Dudow, Prometheus, 1932) Der letzte Mann (Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, Union Film, 1924) Lichtspiel Opus 1 (Walter Ruttmann, Ruttmann-Film, 1921) Lichtspiel Opus 2 (Walter Ruttmann, Ruttmann-Film, 1922) Liebelei (Elskovleg) (August Blom and Holger-Madsen, Nordisk Film, 1914) M—Eine Stadt such einen Mörder (Fritz Lang, Nero-Film, 1931) Madame Sans-Gêne (André Calmettes and Henri Desfontaines, Pathé Frères, 1911) Mat’ (Vsevolod Pudovkin, Meschrabpom-Rus, 1926) Die Meister des Wassers (Arnold Fanck, Berg- und Sportflm, 1920) Melodie der Welt (Walter Ruttmann, Tobis, 1929) Metropolis (Fritz Lang, Ufa, 1927) Das Mirakel (Michel Carre and Max Reinhardt, Ingeniuer Jos. Menchen, 1912-13) Modern Times (Charlie Chaplin, Charles Chaplin Productions, 1936) Niemandsland (Victor Trivas, Resco Filmproduktion, 1931) Nosferatu. Eine Symphonie des Grauens (Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, Prana-Film 1922) Oktyabr’ (Sergei Eisenstein, Sovkino, 1928) Opus 1-2 see Lichtspiel Opus 1-2 List of Movies xix

Opus 3-4 see Ruttmann Opus 3-4 La p’tite Lilie (Alberto Cavalcanti, Pierre Braunberger, 1927) Rhythmus 21 (Hans Richter, 1921) Rhythmus 23 (Hans Richter, 1923) Rhythmus 25 (Hans Richter, 1925) Der Rosenkavalier (Robert Wiene, Pan-Film, 1926) Ruttmann Opus 3 (Walter Ruttmann, Kunstmaler W. Ruttmann, 1925) Ruttmann Opus 4 (Walter Ruttmann, Kunstmaler W. Ruttmann, 1925 | Tobis, 1927) Der scheintote Chinese (Lotte Reiniger, Deutscher Werkflm, 1928) Der Schimmelreiter (Hans Deppe and Curt Oertel, Rudolf Fritsch-Tonflm, 1934) Simfonija Donbassa (Dziga Vertov, Ukrainflm, 1931) Song. Die Liebe eines armen Menschenkindes (Schmutziges Geld) (Richard Eichberg, Eichberg-Film, 1928) Der Student von Prag (Stellan Rye, Deutsche Bioscop, 1913) Stürme über dem Montblanc (Arnold Fanck, Aafa-Film, 1930) Sumurun (Max Reinhardt, Deutsche Bioscop, 1910) Symphonie diagonale (Viking Eggeling, 1924) Venezianische Nacht (Max Reinhardt, Projektions-AG “Union”, 1913) Vormittagsspuk (Hans Richter, Hans Richter-Gesellschaft Neuer Film, 1928) Das Wunder des Schneeschuhs (Arnold Fanck, Berg- und Sportflm, 1919-20) CHAPTER 1

Introduction: The Cinematic Paradigm

Investigating the relationship between musical Modernism and German cinema means paving the way for a rather unorthodox research path, one which has been little explored up until now. Those who take certain hasty conclusions about the topic at face value—such as “music did not have any apparent structural infuence on the evolution of cinema” (Prox 1995, p. 251), or “the birth of the new cinematic medium did not in effect leave any visible trace in the history of music” (Emons 2014, p. 10)—will be taken aback when they learn that the main fgures of musical Modernism, from Alban Berg to Paul Hindemith, and from Richard Strauss to Kurt Weill, had a signifcant relationship with cinema. True, it was a complex and contradictory relationship in which cinema sometimes emerged more as an aesthetic point of reference than a factual real- ity: while the concrete collaborations with the flm industry were small in number, the reception of the language and aesthetics of cinema had signifcant infuence on the domain of music. This book examines the connections between musical Modernism and German-language cinema between 1913 and 1933. Our survey opens by examining the period of the Autorenflm between 1913 and 1914, a reform movement whose earliest authors were active in the avant-garde intellectual circles of Vienna and Berlin. The Autorenflm caused the end of German cinema’s “pre-literary” phase and laid the foundations for the cinematic medium’s competitive role with respect to the traditional arts. This original alliance between the artistic and literary avant-garde and the German flm industry formed the basis for a series of interrelations

© The Author(s) 2017 1 F. Finocchiaro, Musical Modernism and German Cinema from 1913 to 1933, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-58262-7_1 2 F. Finocchiaro among cinema, literature, and music, which unfolded throughout the 1920s and early 1930s. The rise of Nazism, however, would drastically disrupt the musical and cinematic avant-garde following the exile of pro- tagonists such as Fritz Lang, Hans Richter, Oskar Fischinger among the directors, and Paul Hindemith, Hanns Eisler, Kurt Weill, Paul Dessau among the composers, as well as the physical destruction of countless works. Starting with the Autorenflm period, the cinematic paradigm began to penetrate deep into the aesthetic and compositional horizon of musical Modernism. The cinematic collaborations of art music composers, in the silent flm era and later in the Weimar sound flm period, were never, as we well see, merely face-value experiences. On the contrary, they left deep traces on composers’ artistic activity. It is worth remembering that the notion of musical Modernism has long been at the core of a debate that has exposed some of the artistic movement’s problematic aspects, beginning with what can undoubtedly be described as its “maximalist” character (Taruskin 2005, p. 5). This discussion has adopted a strongly critical tone in recent English-language literature.1 From the point of view of compositional techniques, there are obvious drawbacks to a discussion that insists on setting tonal and post-tonal music against each other in a rigid dichotomy, while twentieth-century music in fact shows extremely diverse stylistic traits. From a national point of view, one feels the need to overcome a restrictive German-centred perspective by also including composers from other European and non-European areas. As for the temporal level, it is signifcant that the historical boundaries of this epoch are still contested. The starting point is usually set at 1889 (the year of Gustav Mahler’s First Symphony and Richard Strauss’s Don Juan, see Dahlhaus 1989, p. 330)—however, Hans Heinz Stuckenschmidt placed the beginning of “Modern music” further on, with Claude Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande (1902) (Stuckenschmidt 1951, p. 6). Some set the ending point of Modernism at 1907, while others at 1923: for Dahlhaus the transition to atonality in the works of Arnold Schönberg in 1907 marks the end of musikalische Moderne and the beginning of Neue Musik (Dahlhaus 1989, p. 391). For Richard Taruskin, however, the premiere performance of

1 See, for example: Doyle-Winkiel (2005), Mao-Walkowitz (2006), Bahun-Purgures (2006), Ross (2009a), Linett (2010), and Wollaeger (2012). 1 INTRODUCTION: THE CINEMATIC PARADIGM 3

Igor Stravinsky’s Octet for wind instruments, in 1923, is to be taken as the beginning of “the ‘real’ Twentieth century” (Taruskin 2005, p. 447). Moreover, other authors would extend the temporal boundaries of Modernism to just before WWII. This is merely a brief summary of the prevalent arguments regarding the precise timeframe for musical Modernism and its defning character- istics, on which there is a wealth of literature.2 What matters here is to reaffrm Dahlhaus’s claim that the choice of criteria for the beginning and the end of an epoch also has implications on the historiographical method used to select and relate the events in that epoch (see Dahlhaus 1989, p. 391). Now, by selecting 1913 and 1933 as the start and end points of our discussion, we rely on the consideration that the new cinematic medium’s infuence on early twentieth-century music can be properly recognized in the profound changes invested not just in the technical elements of composition, but also in the aesthetic sphere and the history of ideas. Modernist composers’ encounters with both flm music and cinema as an art form become more signifcant when considered as part of a process already under way in the frst decades of the twentieth century, and which could be defned as “medial competition” (Mücke 2008, p. 7). This term refers to a true confict of forces between the new media— that is, cinema and radio—and the traditional arts that takes place on several levels: institutional, socio-cultural, and even compositional. In this context, the notion of medium does not simply describe a vehicle for information transmission. As Irina Rajewsky writes, a medium should be understood in the much wider sense of a distinctive semiotic system: a “conventionally distinct means of communication” (Rajewsky 2002, p. 7). If we extend the analysis of medial competition—as Michael Wedel suggests—to include the pragmatic context of production, modes of dis- tribution, and strategies of public presentation, we come to an understanding of why, at the dawn of the Autorenflm, the relationships between theatre, literature, and cinema were viewed in terms of a ferce competition between their respective cultural practices and a vehement institutional rivalry (Wedel 2007, pp. 37, 40). The collapse of the walls between high-brow culture, along with its traditional institutions, and

2 An updated overview on this debate and its main lines can be read in Forkert (2014), pp. 31–70. 4 F. Finocchiaro cinematic mass culture in the second decade of the twentieth century led to a debate on the threat that cinema potentially posed to the very sur- vival of the so-called “old arts”.3 This institutional clash, however, was followed by the gradual reception of cinema as an aesthetic phenomenon between the 1910s and the 1920s. The initial competition gave way to a medial convergence, in other words a growing appropriation of the new media into the system of traditional arts, in the framework of rethinking artistic languages and their means of expression. This trend had enormous repercussions on musical developments in the twentieth century. The years between the two world wars saw a fruitful exchange between the old and the new arts: a huge number of flmic adaptations of literary, theatrical, and oper- atic works were produced, along with the frst operas and instrumental works specifcally written for the radio. New art forms were also created based on medial combination, such as theatrical works that incorporated flm projections and gramophone or radio inserts (cf. Mücke 2008, p. 7). In this cross-pollination of media one can recognize a semiotic phenomenon that Rajewsky terms intermediality (2002, 2005), a term that indicates those art forms that bridge the boundaries between different media and, as a consequence, generate interferences, contami- nate discourses, and hybridize different forms of expression. Rajewsky identifes three main mechanisms that will serve as reference points also in our discussion: remediation (Medienwechsel), medial combination (Medienkombination), and intermedial reference (intermedialer Bezug). Remediation describes the transposition of a proto-text from its original form of presentation into a new semiotic system (Rajewsky 2002, p. 16). An example of this would be the countless flmic adaptations of literary novels, theatrical dramas, and operas that were the initial result of the aspiration to lend artistic and cultural dignity to the new cinematic medium. Medial combination hints at the mixture of linguistic elements and art forms belonging to older and newer media languages (Rajewsky

3 On this subject, readers can mainly refer to Diederichs (2004), and Heller (1984). The confrontation between literary and cinematic critics dates back to the beginning of the twentieth century, and has generated various publications over the past years, including anthologies, such as Kaes (1978) and Schweinitz (1992). The focus on German flm music journalism in the 1910s and 1920s, however, has been established only recently by a small number of pioneering studies: Beiche (2006), Prümm (1999), Siebert (1990), and Krenn (2007). 1 INTRODUCTION: THE CINEMATIC PARADIGM 5

2002, p. 15): in this category are the flmic interludes that invaded the music theatre of the 1920s and 1930s. Finally, intermedial reference alludes to the assimilation of stylistic features peculiar to cinematography into the domain of the traditional arts and their genres (Rajewsky 2002, pp. 16–17). The scope of such references reaches well beyond quotations or allusions to individual cinematic texts, and may also include the evoca- tion, simulation, and partial reproduction of the cinematic medium, as such, as a distinctive semiotic-communicative system. By penetrating deep into the aesthetic and compositional horizon of Modernist composers, cinema produced interesting phenomena in the hybridization of musical language. The results of these interactions between composers and cinema are not all alike. Sometimes there are superfcial thematizations to cinema, as merely exterior signs of modernity (as intended in its etymological meaning of “fashionable” [lat. modus] phenomenon). Along with countless experiments in remediation, more complex forms of medial combination were part of a strategy to modernize traditional genres, musical theatre in particular. As we will see, cinema was often incorporated in the form of vertical montage or scenic collage. More subtle appropriations of cinematic language can be recognized in the technical aspects of musical composition in the form of intermedial references, that is, how art music composers employed compositional techniques inspired by cinematic grammar. Examples include the principle of juxtaposing different parts as an analogon of flmic montage (see Schreker’s Vier Stücke), palindromic construction as a musical correlative of the reverse projection of a flm (in Hin und zurück by Hindemith, as well as in the flm interlude from Berg’s Lulu), and the borrowing of certain musical stylizations of pantomime, which openly refer to the motoric illustration peculiar to flm music of the time (as in Hindemith’s Cardillac). The process of osmosis between Modernist music and German- language cinema also left traces in the actual practice of musical accompaniment for moving pictures, inspiring projects that more or less explicitly called for flm music’s renewal. While an implicit reform of flm music can be seen in Hindemith’s score for Arnold Fanck’s Im Kampf mit dem Berge (1921), or Hanns Eisler’s score for Victor Trivas’s Niemandsland (1931), Edmund Meisel was explicit in his intention to revolutionize the language and aesthetics of flm music through an alliance with the musical avant-garde. This explains the irruption of “progressive” compositional techniques in the Viennese composer’s scores for 6 F. Finocchiaro

Panzerkreuzer Potemkin (dir. Eisenstein, 1926) and Berlin. Die Sinfonie der Großstadt (dir. Ruttmann, 1927), in the context of a revolutionary audiovisual project. It is therefore within this framework of mutual medial interferences and radical aesthetic oppositions that Modernist composers encountered cinema. These encounters are expressed in forms and modes that only on the surface appear external to musical language. Reference to cinema is part of a deep process of rethinking musical language inherited from the Classical-Romantic tradition. Composers’ exploration of the cinematic medium reached such a degree of pervasiveness and consistency as to become a true aesthetic paradigm. Between 1913 and 1933 we can speak of a cinematic paradigm within musical Modernism, in that the confrontation with cinema acted as a catalyst for a series of critical refections on musical language and forms, and even on the traditional theory of artistic creation. In the intermedial reference to certain flmic stylistic principles, such as montage, we can clearly detect an aim to sabotage the principles of musical discursiveness and formal integration upon which the music of the Classical-Romantic tradition rests. Musical montage involves all levels of the composition, from the rhythmic-motivic structure, in which it dis- rupts phraseological unity and suspends motivic-thematic elaboration, down to the harmonic level, where it juxtaposes de-functionalized chord progressions. As such, the principle of montage expresses a radical cri- tique of the theory of organic form derived from the nineteenth century. As Gianmario Borio has written, it gives rise to “a new type of aesthetic experience, whose defning factors are discontinuity, interruption and unpredictability” (Borio 2003, p. 33). Understood within this framework, the aesthetic-musical debate that surrounded cinema (and new media more widely) can be read frst of all as a debate about the directions of musical Modernism. Obviously, the purpose here is not to elevate the cinematic paradigm to a totalizing aesthetic model of Modernism, nor will it be possible to provide an exhaus- tive picture of all possible forms of the relationships between composers and cinema in all European (and non-European) countries. Rather, this book will isolate and examine a spectrum of engagements with cinema, which undoubtedly existed in musical Modernism and constituted an essential part of this artistic movement. If we defne the cinematic paradigm as an essential part of musical Modernism—and not just of twentieth-century music—this is because 1 INTRODUCTION: THE CINEMATIC PARADIGM 7 in the potential for subversion hidden within it we recognize a common trait shared by exponents of the artistic turn-of-the-century avant- garde. Furthermore, considering the cinematic paradigm an essential component of musical Modernism requires an extended defnition of Modernism. Instead of relying on defnitions that claim to look at issues of musical technique in abstracto (not taking into account any larger- scale aesthetic transformation), a broader defnition of Modernism should be used that characterizes it as a “variegated response to a mani- fold modernity” (Ross 2009b, p. 1). In this sense, modernity involves vital aspects of society and culture: consider, for example, the scope of the revolution in the perceptions of time, space, and speed that had already been brought about at the turn of the century by technical progress in transport and communications, and the massive impact of this new sensibility on the arts of the early twentieth century.4 The implications of the relationship between music and cinema in the early twentieth century will come into focus when we examine this dialectical interplay between compositional technique and aesthetic principles, which are in turn connected to ideologies and large-scale cultural changes. Nevertheless, in employing such an inclusive understanding of the Modernist movement, we should not lose sight of a common ele- ment shared by musical works produced from the turn of the century up until at least the frst three decades of the twentieth century. While these works did not represent a single, unifed style, which in fact never existed, they did expose an aesthetic attitude common to their authors, which can be defned as a “consciousness of crisis”: a crisis of nineteenth- century paradigms, such as the aesthetics of genius and the theory of organic form; a crisis of the institutions and genres of bourgeois music; and fnally, a crisis of the idioms and forms of expression of the Classical- Romantic tradition. It is certainly true, as Joseph Straus wrote, that this crisis of Modernist composers and their melancholic feeling of being out of time would not have been felt so strongly had the past not been such an encumbering “presence” at that particular historical moment. As we know, the dawn of the twentieth century saw the culmination of a process of building a canon of classics (Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven), which had begun

4 On this topic readers can fnd a more in-depth discussion in the excellent study of Kern 1983. 8 F. Finocchiaro around the middle of the previous century and whose works survived the death of their authors. For the frst time, the nucleus of the repertory—and hence of musical taste—tended to “ossify and became less and less contemporaneous” (Straus 1990, p. 4). The twentieth century can be said to be “an era dominated by the music of the past, particularly music by a small number of classical masters” (Straus 1990, p. 5). The generation of composers born between the 1860s and 1880s was immersed in the masterpieces of the past, and entertained an ambiguous, tormented feeling toward those works and their authors: a feeling that was certainly of inspiration and even rever- ence, but that, as with every artistic infuence, was at the same time also of anxiety. A sense of irreparable belatedness, as Harold Bloom put it (1973), sprang from the awareness of coming after the masters of the canon, after a golden age that was defnitively over. This sense of belatedness gave the new artists an “anxiety of infuence” toward their great precursors, along with a need to emancipate themselves from them. It would be fair to say that the ultimate defning trait of the Modernist revolution lies precisely in the exhaustion caused by this sense of belatedness, and in the anxiety associated with the infuence of a past whose greatness was almost intimidating. Consider, for example, Schönberg’s fuctuating statements about the weight of Brahms’s and Wagner’s infuence on his work. The young Schönberg, like many of his contemporaries, did not emerge from what Max Reger called the Brahmsnebel, or “Brahms fog”,5 until 1897 (which is, not by chance, Brahms’s year of death), arriving only later at “a more ‘progressive’ way of composing” (Schönberg 1976, p. 410). At the same time, statements such as the following leave no doubts about Schönberg’s intention to relinquish Wagner’s legacy, too:

If you took a look at my orchestral works, you would notice how even in these I have clearly distanced myself from the full sonority, “godlike and superhuman”, of Wagner’s orchestra. […] We are sick and tired of the full, soft sounds of Wagner: «Nun laßt uns andere Töne anstimmen…».6

5 According to Walter Frisch’s account, based on a letter by Max Reger, the expression Brahmsnebel was coined by Wilhelm Tappert, a prominent Wagnerian critic, to describe the powerful attractive power exerted by Brahms’s music on the Austrian-German composers who had ‘come of age’ around the turn of the century. Cf. Frisch (1993), p. 3 sg. 6 Letter from Arnold Schönberg to Ferruccio Busoni, 24 August 1909 (see Busoni 1988, p. 531). This is to be read in the context of the dispute on the Konzertmäßige Interpretation of the second Klavierstück op. 11. Schönberg’s invocation “Nun laßt uns 1 INTRODUCTION: THE CINEMATIC PARADIGM 9

In such statements, we can clearly sense the “anxiety of infuence” we have identifed, adopting Straus’s thesis, as the central feature of the Modernist epoch. The need to strongly assert a principle of otherness clearly emerges in these words. As with others of his generation, what characterizes the young Schönberg’s relationship with the past is some- thing similar to Bloom’s kenosis: an act of emptying and self-denial as a prelude to a “deliberate, willed loss in continuity” (1973, p. 90).7 The Modernist revolution springs exactly from this dialectical tension between aesthetic sensibility and compositional technique: the infuence of the masters is indeed not only a source of anxiety and repression, but manifests itself creatively through a revisionist relationship with the past and the crisis of the accepted paradigms. The Modernist generation drew on new aesthetic approaches and new paradigms for its programme of de-conventionalization of musical language and emancipation from tradition. The cinematic paradigm therefore underpins the Modernist project in its innermost essence. The creative confrontation with the avant-garde medium par excellence perfectly fulflled composers’ desire to establish a relationship of otherness with tradition through an act of creative correc- tion. The confrontation with cinema is, in and of itself, a symptom of the anxiety of infuence, a massive revisionist effort that served to free new space for creative imagination. In other words, in the cinematic paradigm we can recognize a vector of musical Modernism: a new aesthetic paradigm for that process of deliberate misinterpretation, creative revision- ism, and sometimes even intentional subversion of the Classic-Romantic tradition that constituted the historical actualization of the “dream of Otherness” (Bloom 1973, p. 34) of the Modernist generation.

andere Töne anstimmen…” is a clear allusion to Beethoven’s motto preceding Schiller’s ode: “O Freunde, nicht diese Töne! Sondern laßt uns angenehmere anstimmen und freudenvollere” (Oh friends, not these sounds! Let us instead strike up more pleasing and more joyful ones). 7 In an interview for the Neues Wiener Journal, the Viennese composer, then at the threshold of the Expressionist period, declared that he was unable to conceive of his relationship with the past except in the form of an antithetical reaction that originated in a will to rebel against the previous stage: “It is interesting to observe that what prompted evolution almost invariably produces its own antithesis, and this in turn, once it has been digested, is again the frst thing to disgust us: so that evolution is always a reaction against what generated it in the frst place…”. Schönberg (2007), p. 360. 10 F. Finocchiaro

This survey, which unfolds over ten chapters (including a Prologue and an Epilogue), examines a nucleus of scores and flmic works in the framework of contemporaneous aesthetic discourse. The Prologue focuses on the lively debate that the emergence of the cinematic medium prompted in German-language cultural discourse during the second decade of the twentieth century. The discussion sur- rounding cinema’s aesthetic foundation and its relationship with the traditional arts already anticipated the potentialities—as well as the chal- lenges—of cinematic infuence in the musical domain. The next four chapters will reconstruct a spectrum of historically documented cinematic collaborations on the part of the most impor- tant exponents of musical Modernism. The third chapter examines two cinematic projects that emerged in the context of Expressionist theatre: the frst by Arnold Schönberg for a flmic adaptation of Die glückliche Hand and the second by Alban Berg for his unfnished monodrama Nacht (Nokturn). Chapter Four is dedicated to the special collaboration between Paul Hindemith and director Arnold Fanck, while Chapter Five looks at Viennese composer Edmund Meisel’s programme for a flm- music reform and his revolutionary audiovisual project. The subject of the sixth chapter is the flmic adaptation of Strauss’s Rosenkavalier—a remediation that in light of its genesis, its productive process, and its musical conformation is an absolutely exceptional case in the history of silent flm. The remaining chapters are dedicated to cinematic cross-pollinations and hybridizations of traditional music genres. The cinematic references in Kurt Weill and Alban Berg’s music theatre form respectively the sub- jects for Chapter Seven and Eight. The ninth chapter examines the creative relationship established between exponents of the New Objectivity (Max Butting, Hanns Eisler, Paul Hindemith, and Walter Gronostay) and the representatives of abstract cinema (above all, Walter Ruttmann and Hans Richter), against the background of the Baden-Baden Festival. In Chapter Ten we will deal with three creations that interpreted the dialectical tension between chamber music and flm music in a progressive way: Arnold Schönberg’s Begleitungsmusik op. 34, Franz Schreker’s Vier kleine Stücke, and Josef Matthias Hauer’s Musik-Film op. 51. The Epilogue analyses Kurt Weill and Hanns Eisler’s contributions to flm music in Weimar sound cinema and fnally sums up the mutual legacy of the artistic encounter between musical Modernism and cinema. 1 INTRODUCTION: THE CINEMATIC PARADIGM 11

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