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Cabaret Songs by Classical Composers During the First Half of the Twentieth Century: Satie, Schoenberg, Weill, and Britten

A document submitted to the

Graduate School of the University of Cincinnati

in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of

DOCTOR OF MUSIC ARTS

in the Division of Performance Studies of the College-Conservatory of Music

May 31, 2010

by

Colleen Brooks

Cincinnati, OH

M.M., Indiana University, 2005 B.S., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2002

Committee Chair: Jeongwon Joe, Ph.D.

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ABSTRACT

One of the most viable trends in the compositional practice of the twentieth and twenty- first centuries is the blurring and breaking of boundaries between classical and popular styles.

Toward the end of the nineteenth century this blurring of boundaries resulted in the genre of cabaret. My document demonstrates that classical composers of various nationalities and compositional styles experimented in this new genre of cabaret. It traces the history of the cabaret movement from its origins through World War II and provides a detailed history of the cabaret songs of four classical composers: Erik Satie’s cabaret songs for Vincent Hyspa, Arnold

Schoenberg’s Brettl-Lieder, Kurt Weill’s cabaret songs from his Paris years, and Benjamin

Britten’s Cabaret Songs. Through musical analysis this document shows that their cabaret songs reflect the influence of popular idioms as well as each composer’s own classical style.

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© 2010 by COLLEEN BROOKS

All right reserved.

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For Dad, Mom, and Larry

In addition, I would like to specially thank the following:

Dr. Jeongwon Joe, Professor Kenneth Griffiths, and Dr. bruce d. mcclung

Shelly Cash, Margaret Ozaki-Graves, Christina Gill, Barbara Honn, k. Jenny Jones, Amy Olipra, Allen Perriello, and Donald Wilson

Belmont Music Publishers, Boosey & Hawkes, Éditions Salabert, European American Music Corporation, and Faber Music Ltd

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. Introduction ...... 1

II. Chapter 1: Satie’s Cabaret Songs: Satie, Hyspa, and Beginnings in Cabaret ...... 7 Background: a brief history of the Parisian origins of cabaret ...... 8 History of Satie’s cabaret songs for Vincent Hyspa ...... 9 Musical analysis of Satie’s cabaret songs for Hyspa ...... 13

III. Chapter 2: Schoenberg’s Brettl-Lieder: An Elusive Excursion into Popular Song ...... 38 Background: a brief history of cabaret’s rise in turn-of-the-century Berlin ...... 38 History of Schoenberg’s Brettl-Lieder ...... 39 Musical analysis of Brettl-Lieder ...... 41

IV. Chapter 3: Weill’s Cabaret Songs: Berlin, No. Paris, Yes! ...... 56 Background: a brief history of the peak of the cabaret movement in 1920s Berlin ...... 57 History of Weill’s cabaret songs for Lys Gauty and his two songs for Marlene Dietrich ...... 58 Musical Analysis of Weill’s songs for Gauty and Dietrich ...... 61

V. Chapter 4: Britten’s Cabaret Songs: A “Light” Auden Endeavor ...... 84 History of Britten’s Cabaret Songs ...... 84 Background: a brief history of cabaret in England ...... 88 Musical analysis of Cabaret Songs ...... 90

VI. Conclusion ...... 122

VII. Bibliography ...... 126

1

INTRODUCTION

Throughout the twentieth century and now into the twenty-first, the boundaries between classical and popular music have been blurred and broken by certain composers. William

Bolcom’s opera A View from the Bridge reflects a strong jazz influence in Catherine’s aria, “But

You Do not Know this Man,” and even asks that the lead tenor, Rodolpho, sing the popular song

“Paper Doll.” Philip Glass’s Low Symphony (1992) is based on themes from David Bowie’s

1977 rock album Low. A more recent, and perhaps more radical, example is Jerry Springer: The

Opera, written by Richard Thomas and Stewart Lee and based on the television show The Jerry

Springer Show, which premiered in London in 2003. It opens with an episode of the infamous talk show portrayed in a mixture of music theater and operatic singing styles, and has stirred a lot of controversy and protest because of its sacrilegious treatment of Judeo-Christian themes and its radical visual components, such as tap-dancing Ku Klux Klan members.

In works of certain composers this blending of musical styles has become a consistent characteristic of their musical output. Kurt Weill explains:

I have never acknowledged the difference between “serious” music and “light” music. There is only good music and bad music.1

In an interview, composer William Bolcom responds:

To answer your question, “What does one mean by the serious music scene,” that is, I assure you, not my own original term; in fact I hate it, as it implies that everyone not in it is not serious . . . ; it’s almost racist. . . . Your other question: “shouldn’t ‘classical, serious’ composers learn from the ‘opposition’” is one my whole life has addressed.2

1 Quoted in bruce d. mcclung, “From Myth to Monograph: Weill Scholarship, Fifty Years After,” Theater 30, no. 3 (2000): 109.

2 William Bolcom, “Something about the Music,” in Contemporary Composers on Contemporary Music, ed. Elliott Schwartz and Barney Childs (New York: Da Capo Press, 1998), 482.

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Contrary to Weill and Bolcom there are classical composers who feel strongly that popular and “serious” music are and should remain separate entities. Virgil Thomson had the following reaction to the mixed style of George Gershwin’s opera Porgy and Bess:

It was always certain that [Gershwin] was a gifted composer, a charming composer, an exciting and sympathetic composer. . . . I think, however, that it is clear by now that Gershwin hasn’t learned his business. At least he hasn’t learned the business of being a serious composer, which one has always gathered to be the business he wanted to learn. . . . I . . . resent Gershwin’s shortcomings. I don’t mind his being a light composer and I don’t mind his trying to be a serious one. But I do mind his falling between two stools.3

Arnold Schoenberg is usually associated with the latter position. Although he respected artists who can identify with popular sentiment, such as Johann Strauss, George Gershwin,

Jacques Offenbach, and Johann Nestroy,4 Schoenberg, like Thomson, maintained that

. . . the idea to combine serious writing with popular writing is entirely out of the way. . . . Why should there not be music for the ordinary man, for the mediocre, for the un- understanding, for the uninitiated on the one hand, and on the other hand, such music for the few who understand? Is it necessary that a composer who can write for the few, just this same composer must also write for all? Is it not better if there are specialists, one writes for all, and the other writes for the few?5

Yet, while the blurring of classical and popular styles is prevalent in the compositions of several current classical composers, it is by no means a new event in music history. For example, folk songs have influenced classical composers for centuries as evidenced by the song output of

Johannes Brahms and Modest Musorgsky. Additionally, references to folk music frequently recur in the operas of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, ranging from the strophic, peasant arias of

Papageno to the lyrical, Spanish serenade of Don Giovanni, complete with mandolin. Another example of this blurring of popular and classical styles can be found in cabaret songs. In 1881,

3 Quoted in Richard Crawford, “It Ain’t Necessarily Soul: Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess as a Symbol,” Yearbook for Inter-American Musical Research 8 (1972): 25.

4 Christian Meyer and Therese Muxeneder, eds., Arnold Schönberg: Catalogue raisonné (Los Angeles: Belmont Music Publishers, 2005), 24.

5 Quoted in ibid., 25.

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with the opening of the Chat Noir (Black Cat) in Paris, a new genre was born, cabaret. While this genre still exists today, the height of the movement lasted from 1881 up until World War II.

During this time several classical composers tried their hand at the new genre, and this study will focus on the resulting cabaret works of four such composers: Erik Satie, Arnold Schoenberg,

Kurt Weill, and Benjamin Britten.

While these four composers are not an exhaustive list of the classical composers who composed in this genre, their cabaret pieces represent the most prominent examples from the height of the cabaret movement, the 1880s through the 1930s. In addition these composers demonstrate diversity in nationality and classical style. For the purpose of this study, cabaret songs are considered songs composed for a well-known cabaret singer, for a particular cabaret theater, or which include “cabaret” in some form in the title of the piece. Also it should be noted that some prolific composers of cabaret songs, such as Friedrich Holländer and Misha

Spoliansky, are not addressed in this study because they are not widely regarded as classical composers.

It was not until the 1980s that scholarly publications on the cabaret works of classical composers began to appear. Steven Moore Whiting, a musicology professor at the University of

Michigan, is a leading scholar of cabaret works, in particular those of Satie. Whiting has written several relevant works on the subject, most notably the biography Satie the Bohemian: From

Cabaret to Concert Hall.6 This biography gives particular attention and detail to Satie’s time in and works for the cabaret, including an entire chapter with a musical discussion of his songs for cabaret singer Vincent Hyspa. Whiting is also involved in the most recent publication of cabaret

6 Steven Moore Whiting, Satie the Bohemian: From Cabaret to Concert Hall (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).

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and café-concert songs by Satie entitled Neuf chansons de cabaret et caf’ conc,’ which includes descriptive notes on each song.7

Alan M. Gillmor’s biography Erik Satie provides significant insight into Satie’s early popular endeavors and influences as well as a thorough discography. Allen Shawn’s Arnold

Schoenberg’s Journey and H. H. Stuckenschmidt’s Schoenberg: His Life, World and Work each devote a chapter to Schoenberg’s employment at the Überbrettl, “Berlin Cabaret” and

“Schoenberg at the Überbrettl,” respectively. David Drew’s Kurt Weill: A Handbook includes a chronological listing of Weill’s compositions, including his cabaret songs, with historical notes on each piece. Alan Carpenter’s biography Benjamin Britten: A Biography and Donald

Mitchell’s Britten and Auden in the Thirties: The Year 1936 provide detailed historical information of the composition and performances of Britten’s Cabaret Songs.8

Often the most detailed and relevant information about cabaret songs can be found in the liner notes to CD and LP recordings of the works and in the forewords to the musical scores.

These articles often include some musical discussion of the pieces in addition to detailed historical information. In addition to Whiting’s Neuf chansons de cabaret et caf’ conc,’ the following resources are particularly useful: Leonard Stein’s foreword in the score of

Schoenberg’s Brettl-Lieder, Stein’s liner notes in the LP The Cabaret Songs of Arnold

7 Steven Moore Whiting, preface to Erik Satie’s Neuf chansons de cabaret et de caf’conc’ pour voix et piano (Paris: Éditions Salabert, 1995).

8 Alan M. Gillmor, Erik Satie (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1988); Allen Shawn, “Berlin Cabaret,” in Arnold Schoenberg’s Journey, 36–42 (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002); H. H. Stuckenschmidt, “Schoenberg at the Überbrettl,” in Schoenberg: His Life, World and Work, 47–60, trans. Humphrey Searle (New York: Schirmer Books, 1977); David Drew, Kurt Weill: A Handbook (London: Faber and Faber, 1987); Humphrey Carpenter, Benjamin Britten: A Biography (London: Faber and Faber, 1992); Donald Mitchell, Britten and Auden in the Thirties: The Year 1936 (London: Faber and Faber, 1981).

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Schoenberg, the LP The Unknown Songs of Kurt Weill with liner notes by Kim H. Kowalke, and

Donald Mitchell’s foreword to Britten’s Cabaret Songs.9

The Cabaret by Lisa Appignanesi is a detailed description of the cabaret movement, tracing its origins and development from Paris, France, throughout Europe, and even to forms of cabaret in the United States. While much attention is given to the poets and chansonniers featured in the cabarets, there is little discussion of the cabaret composers and their songs. Satie,

Schoenberg, and Weill are all mentioned but just briefly. Other historical descriptions of specific time periods of the cabaret movement and its theaters can be found in Harold B. Segel’s Turn-of- the century Cabaret and Peter Jelavich’s Berlin Cabaret.10 Another good source is Erik

Bronner’s “Cabaret for the Classical Singer: A History of the Genre and a Survey of Its Vocal

Music,” which provides an excellent summary of the history of the cabaret movement and short biographies of some composers. It also includes a list of works for classical singers that are perhaps cabaret in style or influence. However, Bronner’s article does not go into a musical analysis or provide historical context for any of the works mentioned.11

9 Leonard Stein, foreword to Arnold Schoenberg’s Brettl-Lieder (Cabaret Songs) (Los Angeles: Belmont Music Publishers, 1970); Leonard Stein, “Schoenberg: Brettl-Lieder & Early Songs” accompanying essay in liner notes in The Cabaret Songs of Arnold Schoenberg (Brettl-Lieder, 1901) performed by Marni Nixon and Leonard Stein, RCA ARL1-1231, recorded 1975, LP; Kim H. Kowalke, “Recollections of Forgotten Songs,” essay in accompanying booklet in The Unknown Kurt Weill performed by Teresa Stratas and Richard Woitach, D-79019 Nonesuch, recorded 1981, LP; Donald Mitchell, foreword to Benjamin Britten and W. H. Auden, Cabaret Songs (London: Faber Music Limited, 1980).

10 Lisa Appignanesi, The Cabaret (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004); Harold B. Segel, “Berlin and Munich: From Superstage to Executioner’s Block,” in Turn-of-the-century Cabaret, 119-82 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987); Peter Jelavich, Berlin Cabaret (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993).

11 Eric Bronner, “Cabaret for the Classical Singer: A History of the Genre and a Survey of Its Vocal Music,” NATS Journal of Singing 60 (2004): 453–65.

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My document will contribute to the existing scholarship on the cabaret songs of Satie,

Weill, Schoenberg, and Britten by adding my own ideas and analyses to show which musical elements of the songs reflect the influences of popular style and which are characteristics of each composer’s own classical style. I will also provide a historical context for the songs by relating them to the events of the cabaret movement at their time of composition. The goals of this study are

(1) To briefly trace the cabaret movement from its origins through World War II, highlighting

years, locations, and theaters relevant to the careers and cabaret songs of Satie, Schoenberg,

Weill, and Britten;

(2) To provide a detailed history of the cabaret songs of these four composers, including, as

applicable, dates of composition, dates of publications, intended singer, origins of the text,

and possible reasons for composition; and

(3) To discern aspects of these cabaret songs influenced by both popular idioms and the

composer’s own classical style through a musical analysis of form, harmony,

accompanimental style, vocal style, vocal range and tessitura, motivic development and

variation, and rhythmic complexity.

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CHAPTER 1

Satie’s Cabaret Songs: Satie, Hyspa, and Beginnings in Cabaret

Arcueil, the 14th of the month of March of 99 . . . as a result of being offered work of extreme lowliness (accompaniment), I have wasted valuable time but earned some money from this trade. It’s old Hyspa I’ve been accompanying during several evening performances. Your coat, your good old shirts made this little game possible for me . . . . –Erik Satie to Conrad Satie1

While accompanying cabaret chansonnier Vincent Hyspa was clearly not Erik Satie’s dream job, this collaboration, which spanned nearly a decade, influenced his “serious” musical career in several ways. First, Steven Moore Whiting argues that as a result of his collaborations with Hyspa, Satie became “a seasoned musical professional for the first time in his life.”2

Whiting adds that from Hyspa and the cabaret Satie learned to parody a wide variety of styles from café-concert to opera, and Satie later quoted from this vast repertoire in his humorist works.

In his cabaret chansons for Hyspa, Satie was free to experiment as a composer, particularly with regard to harmony.3 This work also provided Satie with income during an extremely dire financial time while keeping him in the musical scene.4 And perhaps, if nothing else, working as an accompanist, a position of “extreme lowliness,” may have been Satie’s inspiration for returning to school at the age of thirty-nine in order to study counterpoint and eventually receive his first diploma.

1 Ornella Volta, Satie: Seen through His Letters, trans. Michael Bullock (London: Marion Boyars, 1989), 78. Conrad Satie was Erik Satie’s brother.

2 Whiting, Satie the Bohemian, 244.

3 Ibid., 25.

4 James Harding, Erik Satie (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1975), 39.

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It is now believed that between the years of 1899 and 1908 Satie composed at least twelve songs for the cabaret singer Vincent Hyspa.5 All of the texts are Hyspa’s own. While

Satie was writing other songs during the years of his collaboration with Hyspa, including several popular chansons for café-concert singer Paulette Darty,6 he only wrote one “serious” song between the years of 1899 and 1908. Satie composed “Chanson médiévale,” a song for voice and piano to a text of Catulle Mendès, as a school exercise.7 He had enrolled at the Schola Cantorum in 1905 as he was dissatisfied with his compositions and the state of his career.8 “Chanson médiévale” was later grouped with two songs that Satie had composed earlier, “Chanson” and

“Les fleurs,” and the entire group was titled Trois autres mélodies.9 This chapter will explore the similarities and differences between Satie’s “serious” “Chanson médiévale” and his cabaret songs for Vincent Hyspa.

The birth of cabaret is associated with the opening of the Chat Noir in Paris on 18

November 1881. Rodolphe Salis, a member of Le Club des Hydropathes, founded the Chat Noir

(Black Cat) in Montmartre. The Hydropathes, a group of artists, mostly poets, began meeting in

October of 1878 to declaim their poetry and perform their songs in a more private and free setting than the current cafés could provide. The group dissolved toward the end of 1881. Yet,

5Whiting, Satie the Bohemian, 244. Whiting states that this number counts singly both settings of “Le veuf” and the four songs of the Petit recueil des fêtes.

6Graham Johnson and Richard Stokes, A French Song Companion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 462. Satie’s caf’ conc’ songs for Darty include “Je te veux,” “La diva de l’empire,” and “Allons-y chochotte.”

7Gillmor, Satie, 139.

8Volta, Satie, 27–8. See Satie’s letter of January 17, 1911 to his brother, Conrad.

9Erik Satie, Mélodies et chansons: Piano & chant (Paris: Éditions Salabert, 1988), 3. Gillmor writes that “Les fleurs” was written in 1886 and originally published with “Les anges” and “Sylvie” as Trois mélodie in 1887. “Elégie,” written in 1886, and “Chanson,” written in 1887, were originally published separately. See Gillmor, Satie, 29.

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with the opening of Salis’s Chat Noir, decorated with medieval décor and the artwork of his clientele, informal gatherings of former members of the club resumed in the small back room.

However, soon these meetings became improvised performances for which the public was charged inflated beer prices to view, and thus, cabaret began. The cabaret movement caught on rapidly in Paris as rival establishments, such as the Auberge du Clou (Inn of the Nail), opened shortly after the Chat Noir and spurred a movement throughout Europe, which soon led to the opening of cabaret theaters in locations such as Barcelona, Berlin, Munich, Vienna, Moscow, and London.10

Both Satie and Hyspa began their careers in cabaret at the Chat Noir. Vincent Hyspa arrived in Paris in the fall of 1887 upon his family’s desire that he study law. He introduced himself at the Chat Noir on his very first night in the city. He was already known at the cabaret as he had been submitting poetry for Le Chat Noir, the publication of the Chat Noir, well before he had actually set foot in the famous establishment. While he continued to publish his own poetry in Le Chat Noir, Hyspa’s initial performances at the Chat Noir were not his own repertoire but that of Chat Noir humorist Maruice Mac-Nab. Hyspa was originally from the

Mediterranean town of Narbonne. Because of his thick southern accent, Salis introduced Hyspa as a Belgian, “le bon belge.”11 Salis recognized the comic effect Mac-Nab’s repertoire would have with Hyspa’s accent and asked him to fill in when Mac-Nab’s tuberculosis necessitated his move to a warmer climate in 1888.12 After a falling out with Salis in March of 1889, Hyspa

10 Harold B. Segel, Turn-of-the-century Cabaret (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987), xiii–xiv, 5–6, and 18. Whiting, Satie the Bohemian, 39–40.

11 Whiting, Satie the Bohemian, 85–87.

12 Steven Moore Whiting, “Music on Montmartre,” in The Spirit of Montmartre: Cabarets, Humor, and the Avant-Garde, 1875–1905, ed. Phillip Dennis Cate and Mary Shaw (New Bruswick, NJ: Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, 1996), 183.

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began frequenting the Auberge du Clou.13 When finally able to perform his own repertoire at the

Chat Noir in February 1892 after a three-year hiatus, Hyspa was known for his satire of current and political events, his parody of sentimental chanson, and his deadpan presentation.14

Satie moved to Paris late in the year 1887 after a brief stint of military duty. It is believed that Satie first entered the Chat Noir in late December of 1887 to view one of its famous shadow plays, possibly already having hopes of performing there. Shortly thereafter Satie was employed by Salis as a second pianist at the Chat Noir.15 Satie was responsible for accompanying the musical numbers such as chansonniers’ songs and shadow plays, as well as improvising accompaniments for the verbal improvisations of Salis. As a result of a dispute with Salis,16 Satie left the Chat Noir in 1890.17 James Harding claims that Salis fired Satie because he had a drinking problem, which was affecting his performance as a pianist.18 In any case, Satie followed in the footsteps of chansonnier Vincent Hyspa and pianist Albert Tinchant, and left the Chat

Noir for employment at a rival cabaret, the Auberge du Clou.19

13 Whiting, Satie the Bohemian, 87.

14 Harding, Satie, 38.

15 Whiting, Satie the Bohemian, 69 and 75. Shadow plays originated at the Chat Noir and an elaborate production of La Tentation de Saint Antoine (The Temptation of Saint Anthony) was first performed there on 28 December 1887. See Whiting, “Music on Montmartre,” 184. Cut out zinc figures and landscaping elements were back-lit and moved by hand in order to create moving shadows on a white screen. The visual story was accompanied with music and narration. See Scott Krafft, “Shadow Theater of Montmartre,” Library Briefings: A Faculty Newsletter from Northwestern University Library (Spring 2005), accessed on 7 March 2010; available from http://www.library.northwestern.edu/librarybriefings/archives/000830.html; Internet.

16 Appignanesi, The Cabaret, 20.

17 Whiting, Satie the Bohemian. 108.

18 Harding, Satie, 39.

19 Whiting, Satie the Bohemian, 108.

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While collaborations between Satie and Hyspa had probably arisen sooner due to the fact that they frequented the same cabaret establishments, Hyspa officially hired Satie as his accompanist in late 1898.20 The pair performed in well-known cabarets, such as the Tréteau de

Tabarin (Trestle of Tabarin), the Boîte à Fursy (Box to Fursy), and the Cabaret des Quat’z-Arts

(Cabaret of the Four Arts) as well as for private parties in town.21 Initially Satie’s responsibilities were accompanying the existing chansons in Hyspa’s repertory, arranging pieces to new melodies and lyrics of Hyspa, and making any transpositions necessary to adjust pieces to suit

Hyspa’s limited vocal range. However, over the course of their long term collaboration, Satie did compose at least twelve new songs to texts of the chansonnier.22

Satie’s first original cabaret chanson for Hyspa is thought to be “Un diner à l’Élysée,” composed in 1899. In that same year he wrote two settings of “Le veuf.” It is unknown which version Hyspa would have performed, but Satie later arranged the first version for piano, four hands, and incorporated it into his Trois morceaux en forme de poire, [II].23 Satie composed the sentimental waltz “Tendrement” for Hyspa in 1902. Paulette Darty confirmed that she, too, performed this piece, and Whiting suggests that this song may have been performed successfully

“‘straight’ by Darty or with poker-faced irony by Hyspa.”24 On 16 January 1904 Hyspa and Satie declared authorship of a set entitled Petit recueil des fêtes, which includes four songs: “Le picador est mort,” “Sorcière,” “Enfant-martyre,” and “Air fantôme.” The published version of the set has been reconstructed based on Satie’s rough drafts and sketches as a complete version

20 Ibid., 187.

21Mary E. Davis, Erik Satie (London: Reaktion Books, 2007), 66.

22 Whiting, Satie the Bohemian, 244.

23 Whiting, preface to Neuf chansons, 6 and 13.

24 Whiting, Satie the Bohemian, 220 and 224.

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has not yet been found. In addition, no text has been located for the third song, “Enfant- martyre.”25

Salabert’s publication of Mélodies et chansons dates Satie’s next two songs for Hyspa,

“L’omnibus-automobile” and “Chez le docteur,” as ca. 1903. Les Quat’z-Arts, the publication of the Cabaret de Quat’z-Arts, documents that Hyspa was performing these two songs as early as

October 1905 and January 1906, respectively.26 Last, Satie’s final songs for Hyspa are likely the

Trois mélodies san paroles, “Rambouillet,” “Les oiseaux,” and “Marienbad.” Based on their location in Satie’s sketchbooks, he likely composed them in November of 1907. In January 1908 performances have been documented by Hyspa of songs titled “Une Réception à Rambouillet” and “Clemenceau à Marienbad,” though no reference has yet been found to link Hyspa to “Les oiseaux.”27 Unfortunately, none of these three songs has yet been published with text.28 Some text is available though for “Les oiseaux” and “Marienbad” in Whiting’s Satie the Bohemian:

From Cabaret to Concert Hall.29

Of Satie’s cabaret chansons “Tendrement,” “L’omnibus automobile,” and “Chez le docteur” were each published separately by Salabert.30 They are currently also available in

Mélodies et chansons: Piano & Chant, which also includes Satie’s Trois mélodies sans

25 Whiting, Neuf chansons, 21.

26 Whiting, Satie the Bohemian, 235 and 237.

27 Ibid., 238 and 243–44.

28 Satie, Mélodies et chansons, 62–64.

29 Whiting, Satie the Bohemian, 238–43.

30Steven Moore Whiting, “Musical Parody and Two Oeuvres Posthumes of Erik Satie: The ‘Reverie du pauvre’ and the ‘Petite musique de clown triste,’” Revue de Musicologie 81 (1995): 216. The copyright dates are 1992, 1976, and 1976, respectively.

13

paroles.31 Neuf chansons de cabaret et de caf’ conc,’ also printed by Salabert, includes “Un dîner

à l’Élysèe,” both settings of “Le veuf,” and the Petit recueil des fêtes.32

2 Satie’s “Chanson médiévale” is a through-composed piece in /4 meter with a tempo marking of Allegretto moderato. The vocal line is simple, mostly characterized by eighth notes in stepwise motion. Yet, the vocal range is substantial, requiring the singer to negotiate an octave and a major sixth. While for the most part independent of the accompaniment, the vocal line is doubled in the piano from mm. 19–20 and 31–32. In addition, the upper voice of the piano often caries the note of the vocal line in its chordal accompaniment on each beat. The piano accompaniment is chordal in nature, and the left hand maintains an octave configuration for nearly the entire song (see Example 1.1). Rhythmically there is nothing complex about this song.

While for the most part simple, Satie’s “Chanson médiévale” does include elements of interest with regard to harmony, phrasing, and motivic development. The piece opens with harmonic ambivalence as the right hand of the first measure alternates between chords on Bb minor, C minor, and Ab major over an Eb pedal in the bass. The tenor movement creates 7–6 suspensions over the bass. In m. 3 the bass line moves by step from scale degree two to five in a quarter, eighth, eighth, quarter-note pattern. Despite scale degree four in the bass, there is no IV chord. The harmonies move from ii, to iii, and then directly to V (see Example 1.2).

31Satie, Mélodies et chansons.

32 Satie, Neuf chansons.

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Example 1.1: Satie, Trois autres mélodies, “Chanson médiévale,” mm. 4–8. 33

Used by permission of Éditions Salabert.

Example 1.2: Satie, Trois autres mélodies, “Chanson médiévale,” mm. 1–4. 34

Used by permission of Éditions Salabert.

After the opening four-measure piano introduction, the phrase structure shifts to six- measure phrases. The first six-measure phrase divides into a four plus two-measure structure while the second is three plus three. The cadences at the end of each phrase are again highlighted with the cadential figure introduced in m. 3 of the piano introduction. At the end of the first six- measure phrase in m. 10, the music reaches Ab major at the end of the voice part, but through the same cadential movement of m. 3, this time in a quarter, dotted eighth, sixteenth, eighth-note pattern, it continues past Ab major to reach C minor on the downbeat of the next phrase (see

33 Satie, Mélodies et chansons, 12.

34 Ibid.

15

Example 1.3). In m. 15, at the end of the second six-measure phrase, the music again finds Ab major only to continue on through F minor to reach C minor once more. The bass movement in mm. 14–15 is reminiscent of the original cadential movement in mm. 3–4, but this configuration is only three notes long and there is a third between the first two notes instead of a second (see

Example 1.4).

At this point four-measure phrases return for the duration of the piece. The cadence at m.

20 uses the cadential motive to cadence in F minor (see Example 1.5). The cadence in m. 24 again appears to be in Ab major, but quickly moves, using the three note cadential motive, to C minor (see Example 1.6). A half cadence in Eb major, including movement from iii-iii7-vi-IV-V, occurs in mm. 27–28 (see Example 1.7). This time there is no cadential motive. In the last vocal phrase, the music reaches an entire stable measure of Ab major in m. 30, but the cadential motive returns in m. 31, this time in two sixteenth notes, and the music again cadences in C minor (see

Example 1.8). The piano concludes with an exact repetition of the four-measure phrase that opened the piece with the exception that the final chord has now been extended into a fifth measure. The piece again stops short of the anticipated resolution to Ab major, the final chord lingering on Eb major.

Example 1.3: Satie, Trois autres mélodies, “Chanson médiévale,” mm. 10–11. 35

Used by permission of Éditions Salabert.

35 Ibid.

16

Example 1.4: Satie, Trois autres mélodies, “Chanson médiévale,” mm. 12–16. 36

Used by permission of Éditions Salabert.

Example 1.5: Satie, Trois autres mélodies, “Chanson médiévale,” mm. 17–20. 37

Used by permission of Éditions Salabert.

Example 1.6: Satie, Trois autres mélodies, “Chanson médiévale,” mm. 22–25. 38

Used by permission of Éditions Salabert.

36 Ibid.

37 Ibid., 13.

38 Ibid.

17

Example 1.7: Satie, Trois autres mélodies, “Chanson médiévale,” mm. 27–28. 39

Used by permission of Éditions Salabert. Example 1.8: Satie, Trois autres mélodies, “Chanson médiévale,” mm. 29–32. 40

Used by permission of Éditions Salabert.

“Chanson médiévale” contains several chromatic alterations, which vary in function.

Alan M. Gillmor references Satie’s tendency in this song to borrow the modal lowered leading tone.41 In preparation for movement to Ab major in m. 10 and mm. 22–23, Satie uses Gb instead of G-natural (see Examples 1.3 and 1.6, respectively). This lowered leading tone approach is also evidenced in the recurring cadential motive, which when employed approaches each cadence from below by whole step. In m. 19, Eb is raised to E-natural to tonicize the approaching F

39 Ibid.

40 Ibid.

41 Gillmor, Satie, 139.

18

minor; however, the cadential figure immediately preceding the F-minor chord again uses the lowered leading tone of Eb (see Example 1.5). Ab is replaced by A-natural in m. 25, thus, borrowing an F-major chord (see Example 1.6). Last, Satie employs a chromatic non-chord tone on the first beat of m. 18, and this F# appoggiatura creates a tritone with the upper voice of the accompaniment on its way to the note G (see Example 1.5).

Finally, non-traditional chords appear in mm. 13, 18, and 19. The chord on the first beat of m. 13 consists of the pitches Db, Eb, F, G, and Bb (see Example 1.4). This chord can be accurately described as a ninth chord built on Eb. The chord on the second beat of m. 18 is more difficult to explain. Since the F of the previous beat was raised to F#, the pitches of the chord are

Db, Eb, F#, Ab, and Bb (see Example 1.5). The Eb of the voice part can be deemed a suspension and left out. If the F# in the second half of this measure was possibly an editor’s mistake, then the

Eb of the voice part could simply be termed a 4-3 suspension over a seventh chord on Bb.

However, as it is written, the only possible chord composed of triads is a ninth chord on Gb, the enharmonic equivalent of F#, which is missing the seventh. Perhaps the best explanation for this chord is a modal one, a construction based on pitches of a pentatonic scale. The last chord of m.

19 consists of the pitches C, Db, Eb, G (see Example 1.5). Again, this chord could be described as a ninth chord missing the seventh. In this case the chord would be built on C.

Satie’s cabaret songs represent a wide variety of song types. “Un dîner à l’Élysée” is a march; “Tendrement,” a slow waltz; the “Le veuf” settings, sentimental ballads; and “Sorcière” and “Chez le docteur,” patter songs.42 Therefore, several stylistic aspects vary greatly in Satie’s cabaret songs. For example, the tempo and time signature of the pieces range from “valse lente”

43 2 3 4 6 to “plus vite” and include /4, /4, /4, and /8, respectively. “Les oiseaux” actually changes time

42 Whiting, Satie the Bohemian, 237 and 244.

19

4 3 signatures as the first part is in /4 time and the second is /4. The vocal range also varies. Half of the songs clearly demonstrate the limited vocal range of Hyspa as they span exactly one octave in the voice part (“Un dîner à l’Élysée,” “Sorcière,” “Enfant-martyre,” “Chez le docteur,”

“Rambouillet,” and “Marienbad”). Yet, in the cases of two of the songs, “Tendrement,” and “Les oiseaux,” the range is as much as an octave and a major sixth, matching that of “Chanson médiévale.”

While most of the songs are characterized by regular phrasing, there are exceptions.

Regular two- and four-measure phrasing occurs in the first and last song of the Petit recueil de fêtes, “Tendrement,” “Chez le docteur,” “L’omnibus automobile,” and the Trois mélodies sans paroles. The middle two songs from the Petit recueil de fêtes exhibit nearly all four-measure phrases with the exception that each contains one four-measure phrase that has been extended to five measures. Whiting purports that “Un dîner à l’Élysée” is a “march out of kilter” because instead of the usual sixteen-measure march, Satie’s consists of five four-measure vocal phrases and one two-measure phrase.44 To further confuse matters the final piano tag is only three measures. The two settings of “Le veuf” contain mostly six-measure phrases. The first setting of

“Le veuf” actually opens with two seven-measure phrases due to a one-measure cadential extension in the piano introduction and an additional measure of piano introduction to the first vocal phrase.

Like the “Chanson médiévale,” Satie’s cabaret songs are chordal in accompanimental style and frequently employ the use of octaves in the bass. They are also similar in vocal style.

While there is some doubling in the piano, the vocal line is for the most part independent.

Exceptions occur in the first setting of “Le veuf” and the first song of the Petit recueil de fêtes,

43 Several songs bear no tempo indication whatsoever.

44 Whiting, Satie the Bohemian, 203.

20

“Le picador est mort,” where the piano accompaniment doubles the voice throughout the entire piece. In most of Satie’s cabaret songs, as in his “Chanson médiévale,” the notes on the beat of the voice part are often supported in the upper voice of the accompaniment.

While the harmonic complexity of Satie’s cabaret songs also varies greatly from song to song, several harmonic traits of his “Chanson médiévale” recur in his cabaret songs. The first setting of “Le veuf” contains ninth chords in mm. 11, 15, 20, 21, and 26. In addition, eleventh chords, both missing the third, occur on the downbeats of mm. 18 and 25 (see Example 1.9). As a result of chromatic alterations, this setting of “Le veuf” actually includes all twelve chromatic pitches. In addition to the diatonic pitches in Ab major, Satie introduces all of the non-diatonic pitches over the course the song, including scale degrees #1, #2/b3, #4, #5, and #6 (see Table 1.1).

Like “Chanson médiévale,” chromatic non-chord tones occasionally create tritones as in mm. 28 and 35 (see Example 1.10). In mm. 18 and 29, the chromatic passing tones B-natural and E- natural, respectively, create augmented triads (see Examples 1.9a and 1.10a). Last, Satie employs an Eb pedal tone in the bass in mm. 30–32 to prepare the final cadence of the vocal line in Ab major in m. 33.

Example 1.9: Satie, “Le veuf” (first setting), mm. 18 and 25.45

(a)

Used by permission of Éditions Salabert.

45 Satie, Neuf chansons, 14–15.

21

(b)

Used by permission of Éditions Salabert.

Table 1.1: Non-diatonic pitches in Satie, “Le veuf” (first setting)

Pitch Scale degree Measure(s) A-natural #1 35 B-natural #2 18, 28 Cb b3 4, 22 D-natural #4 20, 28 E-natural #5 29 F# #6 26

Example 1.10: Satie, “Le veuf” (first setting), mm. 28–29 and mm. 34–35.46

(a)

Used by permission of Éditions Salabert.

46 Ibid., 15.

22

(b)

Used by permission of Éditions Salabert.

The second setting of “Le veuf” contains fewer non-chord tones and more conventional harmonies than the first setting; however, the second setting surpasses the first with regard to motivic material, modulation, and rhythmic complexity. Six-measure vocal phrases, divided consistently into four plus two-measure configurations, are consistent throughout the piece.

Cadences occur at both the end of the first four measures and the end of the entire six measures

(see Table 1.2). A cadential triplet motive creates two-against-three rhythmic juxtaposition before the cadence at the end of each six-measure phrase. The first vocal phrase yields two half cadences in A major. The second phrase initially stops on an imperfect authentic cadence in D major but concludes with a deceptive cadence in B major (VI) as the E-major chord (V/V) does not resolve as anticipated (see Example 1.11).

The next modulation is the most interesting. In m. 19, the A# of B major resolves to B in the right hand, while A-natural returns in the bass. By the second half of the second beat A major has returned (V). The following beat tonicizes A major with an E-major chord (V/V), but then

V/V deceptively gives way to vi/V (iii), concluding the first four measures of the phrase in F# minor (see Example 1.13). Satie does not employ the triplet motive for the final vocal phrase; therefore, two D-major authentic cadences finally result, the first imperfect and the second perfect. The piano accompaniment frames the pieces with a six-measure phrase, also divided into

23

four plus two, with a four-measure introduction and a two-measure postlude. The two-measure piano postlude simply moves in octaves through scale degrees three, two, six, seven, and two again to ultimately rest on a D-major perfect authentic cadence.

Table 1.2: Cadences in Satie, “Le veuf” (second setting)

Phrase Length 6 6 6 6 (in measures) 4 4 2 4 2 4 2 4 2 2 Cadence PAC HC HC IAC DC DC HC IAC PAC PAC Harmony I V V I VI Iii (vi/V) V I I I Quality DM AM AM DM BM f#m AM DM DM DM Measure No. 4 8 10 14 16 20 22 26 28 30

Example 1.11: Satie, “Le veuf” (second setting), mm. 12–23.47

Used by permission of Éditions Salabert.

47 Ibid., 16–17.

24

Also of interest for its harmonic aspects is Satie’s Petit recueil des fêtes. While “Le picador est mort” clearly opens in D major, chromatic alterations are immediately introduced, causing the piano introduction to maneuver through E#°7 and D#°7 chords before resting on A major. With the entrance of the voice in the following measure, a pedal tone on D is introduced to help stabilize the tonality under the continuing chromatic alterations of the inner voices (see

Example 1.12). Pedal tones appear on tonic or dominant throughout the remainder of the piece in mm. 9–10, 11–12, and 19–21. The final vocal cadence of this piece is quite interesting. With the guidance of the A pedal, the music finally returns to a V7 chord via an augmented IV chord in m.

20. However, the harmony in the next measure is F# minor with the A pedal remaining in the bass and an A in voice part. Despite this surprise, a perfect authentic cadence in D major directly results in m. 22 (see Example 1.13).

Example 1.12: Satie, Petit recueil des fêtes, “Le picador est mort,” mm. 1–4.48

Used by permission of Éditions Salabert.

48 Ibid., 22.

25

Example 1.13: Satie, Petit recueil des fêtes, “Le picador est mort,” mm. 19–22.49

Used by permission of Éditions Salabert.

Of “Sorcière,” the second song in the group, Whiting writes that “the accompaniment is rife with ninth chords and chromatic alterations.”50 A 9–8–9 suspension over the bass occurs in m. 2, and ninth chords are found in mm. 4, 8, 12, and 15 (see Example 1.14). As in the first setting of “Le veuf,” “Sorcière” also includes all twelve chromatic pitches. In this case, Satie includes scale degrees #1, #2/b3, #4/b5, #5/ b6, and b7 with the diatonic pitches of F major (see

Table 1.3). Despite abundant chromatic alterations, the only accidental introduced into the simple melody is Eb, a lowered leading tone. In mm. 13–14, complex harmonies create tritones on three successive beats (see Example 1.15). On route to a V4/3 chord, the downbeat of m. 9 contains an augmented chord on C, scale degree 5, and a chromatic passing tone on B-natural, scale degree #4 (see Example 1.16). Last, in m. 21 Satie constructs the penultimate chord with notes separated by a fourth, instead of employing the traditional building block of the third (see

Example 1.17).

49 Ibid., 23.

50 Whiting, Satie the Bohemian, 231.

26

Example 1.14: Satie, Petit recueil des fêtes, “Sorcière,” mm. 1–4.51

Used by permission of Éditions Salabert.

Table 1.3: Non-diatonic pitches in Satie, Petit recueil des fêtes, “Sorcière”

Pitch Scale degree Measure(s) F# #1 4, 14, 16, 18 G# #2 9 Ab b3 11, 13–14 B-natural #4 9, 13, 17–18 Cb b5 C# #5 2, 6, 12, 19 Db b6 13 Eb b7 1, 10–11, 14–16, 18

Example 1.15: Satie, Petit recueil des fêtes, “Sorcière,” mm. 13–15.52

Used by permission of Éditions Salabert.

51 Satie, Neuf chansons, 24.

52 Ibid.

27

Example 1.16: Satie, Petit recueil des fêtes, “Sorcière,” mm. 8–10.53

Used by permission of Éditions Salabert.

Example 1.17: Satie, Petit recueil des fêtes, “Sorcière,” mm. 20–21.54

Used by permission of Éditions Salabert.

In “Enfant-martyre,” Satie again employs the lowered leading tone in mm. 6 and 8, leading to iii-half°7 and bVII4/2, instead of the diatonically occurring iii7 and vii-half°4/2, respectively (see Example 1.18). This bVII7 chord (G7) returns in mm. 17, 21, and 22. After the

V7 chord is initially reached on the downbeat of m. 10, the bass and inner voices deceptively slip to vi7 (see Example 1.19). A French augmented sixth chord is present in m. 13, which resolves in

53 Ibid.

54 Ibid.

28

the traditional outward fashion to the dominant (see Example 1.20). The piano postlude includes a string of seventh chords, beginning with a major-minor seventh chord on A (I7). The bass line descends by step until a dominant seventh chord on E arrives (V7), which is followed by I6/4, a

V9 chord, and, ultimately, a perfect authentic cadence in A major (see Example 1.21).

Example 1.18: Satie, Petit recueil des fêtes, “Enfant-martyre,” mm. 6–8.55

Used by permission of Éditions Salabert.

Example 1.19: Satie, Petit recueil des fêtes, “Enfant-martyre,” mm. 9–10.56

Used by permission of Éditions Salabert.

55 Ibid., 25.

56 Ibid.

29

Example 1.20: Satie, Petit recueil des fêtes, “Enfant-martyre,” mm. 12–14.57

Used by permission of Éditions Salabert.

Example 1.21: Satie, Petit recueil des fêtes, “Enfant-martyre,” mm. 20–24.58

Used by permission of Éditions Salabert.

The harmonies of “Air fantôme” are quite traditional and straight forward, and compared to the other songs of the set the chromatic alterations are minimal. However, one unusual harmonic element is introduced immediately in the first measure. Because of chromatic passing tones on scale degrees #2 and #4, a VII4/3 chord results on the second beat. This chord reappears

57 Ibid.

58 Ibid.

30

in mm. 3, 13, and 23. However, in m. 1, it is followed by a V7 chord. In subsequent repetitions of this chord, the melody moves to the pitch F without resolving the passing tones to a V7 harmony.

Therefore, a broken augmented chord emerges clearly with the pitches C#, A, and F (see

Example 1.22). The piece is characterized by four-measure phrases, which alternate between half and full cadences. The only other chromatic alteration of the piece is the inclusion of scale degree #4, E-natural, to tonicize the dominant, F Major, before each half cadence. The downbeats of mm. 6, 16, and 26 are characterized by a V9/V chord. The ninth, D, resolves up by step to E- natural, and a half cadence in F major follows on the next beat (see Example 1.23). Last, pedal tones on F are found in mm. 11–12 and 16–17, as well as the final cadence in mm. 31–34.

Example 1.22: Satie, Petit recueil des fêtes, “Air fantôme,” mm. 1–4.59

Used by permission of Éditions Salabert.

59 Ibid., 26.

31

Example 1.23: Satie, Petit recueil des fêtes, “Air fantôme,” mm. 5–6.60

Used by permission of Éditions Salabert.

Whiting cites the settings of “Le veuf” and the Petit recueil de fêtes as the most harmonically interesting of Satie’s cabaret songs.61 I agree, yet aspects of harmonic interest are found in Satie’s other cabaret songs as well, albeit to a lesser extent. Chromatic alterations occur in all of Satie’s cabaret songs. Tritones via chromatic alteration, one of the characteristics of

“Chanson médiévale,” also occur in all of Satie’s cabaret songs, except the second setting of “Le veuf.” In addition, another augmented chord appears in m. 18 of “Chez le docteur” (see Example

1.24). “Les oiseaux” and “Marienbad” contain both pedal tones and ninth chords, and “Les oiseaux” even exhibits eleventh chords (see Example 1.25).

Like “Chanson médiévale,” “Les oiseaux” also opens harmonically unstable and includes a pedal on scale degree five, in this case Bb, to keep the tonality centered. The ambiguity of these first two measures is due in large part to the major-major seventh chords on the pitch Eb (I7).

Unlike “Chanson médiévale,” however, “Les oiseaux” does ultimately cadence on the tonic at the end of the piano introduction with the eventual emergence of Eb major (see Example 1.26).

Last, an interesting construction occurs as the penultimate chord in each strophe of “Chez le

60 Ibid.

61 Whiting, Satie the Bohemian, 227, 234, and 244.

32

docteur.” Two tritones a major second apart compose the chord which occurs in mm. 20 and 22.

The pitches are C, D, F#, and Ab. In the following measure, the notes F# and Ab converge on G and the D of the bass moves back down by step to C, thus, returning at the end of each strophe to

C major (see Example 1.27).

Example 1.24: Satie, “Chez le docteur,” m. 18.62

Used by permission of Éditions Salabert.

Example 1.25: Satie, Trois mélodies sans paroles, “Les oiseaux,” mm. 3–4.63

Used by permission of Éditions Salabert.

62 Satie, Mélodies et chansons, 52.

63 Ibid., 63.

33

Example 1.26: Satie, Trois mélodies sans paroles, “Les oiseaux,” mm. 1–2.64

Used by permission of Éditions Salabert.

Example 1.27: Satie, “Chez le docteur,” mm. 22–23.65

Used by permission of Éditions Salabert.

While in general the rhythms of Satie’s cabaret songs are not complex, three of the songs exhibit greater rhythmic complexity than his “Chanson médiévale.” As mentioned above, Satie includes a recurring three-against-two passage in the second setting of “Le veuf.” In addition,

“Tendrement” includes several passages of hemiola.66 It occurs in the A section of the piece in mm. 33–34 as well as the B section in mm. 79–80 and 111–112 (see Example 1.28). Last,

64 Ibid.

65 Ibid., 52.

66 Whiting, Satie the Bohemian, 220.

34

Whiting cites the use of syncopation in “Un dîner à l’Élysée” and suggests that it recollects a cake-walk of popular American song (see Example 1.29).67

Example 1.28: Satie, “Tendrement,” mm. 33–36 and 79–82.68

(a)

Used by permission of Éditions Salabert.

(b)

Used by permission of Éditions Salabert.

67 Ibid., 244.

68 Satie, Mélodies et chansons, 46 and 48.

35

Example 1.29: Satie, “Un dîner à l’Élysée,” mm. 17–18.69

Used by permission of Éditions Salabert.

In addition to this cake-walk rhythm, Satie’s cabaret songs are also characterized by several other popular features. Satie’s manuscripts state that Hyspa spoke the refrain of “Un dîner à l’Élysée” (“Ça sentait bon”), while Satie accompanied with an excerpt of “La

Marseillaise.” Satie actually took the time to copy the chorus out in order to coordinate his accompaniment with Hyspa’s declamation.70 Rolled chords are present in the first version of “Le veuf,” “Enfant-martyre,” “Air fantôme,” “L’omnibus automobile,” and “Les oiseaux.” Finally, all of Satie’s cabaret songs are strophic, despite the fact that some strophes have been lost.

In conclusion, it is somewhat difficult to make a strong comparison of Satie’s cabaret songs to his “serious” songs for the years 1889–1908, as only one song exists that can possibly be labeled “serious.” Nonetheless, several stylistic characteristics of Satie’s “Chanson médiévale” do appear in his cabaret songs for Hyspa. Both show similarities in vocal and accompanimental style, frequently include non-traditional harmonies and chromatic alterations, employ a borrowed lowered leading tone, and use recurring motivic material at cadences. Certain

69 Satie, Neuf chansons, 8.

70 Whiting, Satie the Bohemian, 203.

36

aspects of Satie’s cabaret songs actually show greater complexity than his “Chanson médiévale.”

For example, the first setting of “Le veuf” contains all twelve chromatic pitches, eleventh chords, and augmented chords, and greater rhythmic complexity is found in the second setting of “Le veuf,” “Tendrement,” and “Un dîner à l’Élysée.” Finally, unlike “Chanson médiévale,” Satie’s cabaret songs contain popular song characteristics, such as rolled chords, strophic form, spoken text, and references to the American cake-walk and the French national anthem.

Interestingly enough, Satie’s most complex cabaret settings, the two settings of “Le veuf” and the Petit recueil des fêtes, actually are some of his earlier cabaret settings. It is likely that these cabaret songs provided him with a much needed outlet for compositional experimentation before his return to school in 1905. They may, in fact, even have encouraged this decision.

In 1911 in a letter to his brother, Satie was quite clear on his feeling toward his previous popular songs for the café-concert:

You know that I have composed café-concert music. I gave this sort of music up long ago. That was no field for me to be working in. It is more stupid and dirty than anything.71

As he does not specifically reference his works for the cabaret, he may or may not have felt similarly. He was certainly clear about his lack of enthusiasm for accompanying as quoted above. Regardless, as with any experiences in one’s life, Satie’s collaborations with Hyspa affected and influenced his resulting compositional journey and should, therefore, be taken

“seriously.” In his biography of Satie, Robert Orledge writes the following: “Satie managed to convert popular music into a serious art and break down the barriers between the two.”72 Whiting concurs, summarizing the relevance of Satie’s cabaret songs as follows:

71 Volta, Satie, 27.

72 Quoted in Whiting, Satie the Bohemian, 5.

37

To be sure, his workaday arrangements for Hyspa prompted him to let popular idioms into his serious compositions of the time, from Jack in the Box to the Trois morceaux en forme de poire. But the reverse was also true: Satie’s personal style enriched and complicated the generally formulaic procedures of cabaret song, if only because such music constituted his principal creative outlet during these years.73

73 Ibid., 234.

38

CHAPTER 2

Schoenberg’s Brettl-Lieder: An Elusive Excursion into Popular Song

. . . the idea to combine serious writing with popular writing is entirely out of the way. . . . Why should there not be music for the ordinary man, for the mediocre, for the un-understanding, for the uninitiated on the one hand, and on the other hand, such music for the few who understand? Is it necessary that a composer who can write for the few, just this same composer must also write for all? Is it not better if there are specialists, one writes for all, and the other writes for the few? –Arnold Schoenberg1

In 1901 Schoenberg composed a set of eight cabaret songs, entitled Brettl-Lieder. What is one to make of Arnold Schoenberg, a composer “for the few,” writing songs “for all” with regard to his previous statement? In this chapter I will discuss the origins of the cabaret movement in Germany, the history of Schoenberg’s Brettl-Lieder, and possible reasons that

Schoenberg may have taken interest in this new genre. In addition, I will analyze Schoenberg’s

Brettl-Lieder with regard to classical and popular stylistic traits.

The cabaret movement spread rapidly through Paris, and soon German poets desired their own national version of the popular genre. While literary novels by Holger Drachmann and Otto

Julius Bierbaum may have initiated the German cabaret movement, it was not until Bierbaum compiled his Deutsche Chansons, subtitled Brettl-Lieder,2 that the German cabaret movement actually began. Bierbaum published Deutsche Chansons, the first collection of German cabaret texts, in 1900. This collection includes texts by Bierbaum, Richard Dehmel, Gustav Falke, Frank

1 Quoted in Meyer and Muxeneder, Schönberg, 25.

2 Otto Julius Bierbaum, Deutsche Chansons: Brettl-Lieder (Leipzig: Insel-Verlag, 1911).

39

Wedekind, Ernst von Wolzogen, and others3 in the style of turn-of-the-century French chansons and poems. It was Wolzogen who established the first German cabaret.

Wolzogen’s Überbrettl Theater opened to great acclaim in Berlin on 18 January 1901.

Überbrettl literally means “‘over’ or ‘across’ the boards.”4 Though, Wolzogen additionally probably intended the name as a spin on Nietzsche’s Übermensch or super man concept to describe a theater that would surpass all those which came before. Wolzogen had specific goals in mind to improve the art form of cabaret beyond that which he had experienced in Paris. He desired that his cabaret be performed in a “regular theater,” that the content be “neither prude nor obscene,” and that the material be provided by “real artists,” specifically German musicians not obsessed in sacrificing melody and creativity for “That-Which-Has-Not-Yet-Been.”5 In spite of

Wolzogen’s attempts, cabarets, including both French and German, fostered avant-garde movements such as Symbolism, Expressionism, and Dadaism through World War I.

Schoenberg obtained a copy of Deutsche Chansons around Christmas in 1900, and he composed his Brettl-Lieder between April and September 1901. There were originally seven songs. Three of these texts, “Galathea,” “Gigerlette,” and “Nachtwandler,” were taken from

Bierbaum’s Deutsche Chansons: Brettl-Lieder. Their poets are Frank Wedekind, Otto Julius

Bierbaum, and Gustav Falke, respectively. He set two songs, “Der genügsame Liebhaber” and

“Einfältiges Lied,” to texts by Hugo Salus. The poets of the remaining two songs, “Mahnung” and “Jedem das Seine,” are by Gustav Hochstetter and Colly, respectively. Schoenberg later added an eighth song to the set, an aria written for Emanuel Schikaneder’s Spiegel von Arcadien.

3 Deutsche Chansons also includes texts by Ludwig Finckh, Alfred Walter Heymel, Arno Holz, Detlev von Liliencron, and Rudolf Alexander Schröder. Stuckenschmidt, Schoenberg, 48.

4 Harold B. Segel, Turn-of-the-century Cabaret, 123.

5 Ibid., 122–25.

40

Schoenberg composed all of the songs for voice and piano with the exception of

“Nachtwandler,” which includes additional parts for piccolo, trumpet, and snare drum.6

It is unknown how Schoenberg and Oscar Strauss, conductor at the Überbrettl, first met, but when the Überbrettl made its second tour to Vienna in September 1901, Strauss was unavailable for one of the performances and enlisted Schoenberg to conduct.7 At this time

Schoenberg met Wolzogen for the first time and played for him his Brettl-Lieder. Wolzogen loved Schoenberg’s setting of “Nachtwandler” and offered him a contract at his Überbrettl spanning from 16 December 1901 to 31 July 1902. “Nachtwandler” is the only song that is known to have been performed at the theater during this time. Its performance, however, was unsuccessful, which Schoenberg ascribed to the difficulty of the trumpet part. Wolzogen left the

Überbrettl in 1902 upon meeting with financial difficulty, and Schoenberg’s contract was not renewed.8

Schoenberg’s Brettl-Lieder were not published during his lifetime.9 Schoenberg brought the manuscripts for the eight songs, including several versions of some, with him when he emigrated to the United States.10 Leonard Stein edited the manuscripts and published

Schoenberg’s Brettl-Lieder with the composer’s own Belmont Music Publishers.11

“Nachtwandler,” the only song of the Brettl-Lieder that is known to have been performed at the

6 Stein, foreword to Brettl-Lieder.

7One of the performances fell on the Jewish holiday, Yom-Kippur, and Strauss’s rich uncle ordered him not to conduct. Stuckenschmidt, Schoenberg, 49.

8 Ibid., 49–60.

9 Schoenberg, Brettl-Lieder.

10 Stein, “Schoenberg,” LP Liner Notes.

11As Dr. bruce d. mcclung has brought to my attention, “Schoenberg” means “beautiful mountain” in German, and “Belmont” is “beautiful mountain” in Italian.

41

Überbrettl, was published in 1969.12 The remaining seven Brettl-Lieder, accompanied by piano only, were released the following year.13

The Brettl-Lieder were composed during what is commonly referred to as Schoenberg’s

“late Romantic period,” 1893–1908. With regard to character and style these songs fall somewhere between his “serious” vocal works of this period and popular music of the time. Like popular song of the time and unlike Schoenberg’s other Lieder, the songs of his Brettl-Lieder are quite regular in phrase structure, usually consisting of two-measure phrases but occasionally three- or four-measure phrases. “Arie aus dem Spiegel von Arcadien” and “Nachtwandler,” for example, are composed entirely of two-measure phrases.

The Brettl-Lieder also reflects the influence of the waltzes of Johann Strauss, whom

Schoenberg openly admired.14 The opening of “Mahnung” as well as the end of “Jedem das

Seine,” beginning in m. 94, are both reminiscent of a Viennese waltz (see Examples 2.1 and 2.2).

This same waltz feeling accompanies the flowing melody of the opening of “Arie aus dem

Spiegel von Arcadien” (see Example 2.3). The piccolo, trumpet, and snare drum parts of

“Nachtwandler” relate in function and style to a small military band. This is particularly exemplified by the trumpet fanfare motive, which opens the piece in the piano part and is eventually heard by the trumpet in m. 92. Last, these songs, like German cabaret of this time, were not performed in the speech-like, diseuse style of Parisian cabaret but were, instead, sung as written.

12 Arnold Schoenberg, Nachtwandler (1901) (Los Angeles: Belmont Music Publishers, 1969).

13 1970 is marked as the copyright date in the musical score of Schoenberg’s Brettl-Lieder; however, there are discrepancies with this date. New Grove Online states that the publication date of Brettl-Lieder was 1975. In addition, an accompanying essay by an unknown author in the Liner Notes of the LP The Cabaret Songs of Arnold Schoenberg (Brettl-Lieder, 1901), entitled “About the Music and the Artists,” states, “Of the 17 songs recorded here [including all eight of the Brettl-Lieder], only one (“Gedenken”) appeared in print before 1974 . . . .”

14 Severine Neff, “Schoenberg as Theorist: Three Forms of Presentation,” in Schoenberg and His World, ed. Walter Frisch (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), 67; Stückenschmidt, Schoenberg, 53.

42

Example 2.1: Schoenberg, Brettl-Lieder, “Mahnung,” mm. 1–10.15

Used by permission of Belmont Music Publishers.

15 Schoenberg, Brettl-Lieder, 18.

43

Example 2.2: Schoenberg, Brettl-Lieder, “Jedem das Seine,” mm. 92–100.16

Used by permission of Belmont Music Publishers.

Example 2.3: Schoenberg, Brettl-Lieder, “Arie aus dem Spiegel von Arcadien,” mm. 5–12.17

Used by permission of Belmont Music Publishers.

16 Ibid., 29.

17 Ibid., 31.

44

Compared to popular song of the time, however, Schoenberg’s Brettl-Lieder are more sophisticated in the details of harmony and texture. In addition, the instrumental transitions between strophes exhibit more variety and complexity, and the writing is more virtuosic than is characteristic of popular song.18 “Nachtwandler” exemplifies all of these traits. Allen Shawn argues that in m. 13 the piano accompaniment on the word “tuut” contains seven pitches when

Schoenberg could have just written a simple triad. He proposes that the resulting harmony imitates the toneless sound of a drum (see Example 2.4).19 As this seven-note chord colors the word “tuut,” not “trumm,” I propose that Schoenberg is trying to tell us something about the quality or state of the trumpet player. Perhaps he is sounding a bit “toneless” as well. When one compares this same piano part to the other instruments of this section, it becomes clear that this section is bitonal. Schoenberg wrote the piano and voice parts in the key of G major while the piccolo and trumpet parts are written in B major (see Example 2.5). Again this supports the theory that Schoenberg feels that the instrumentalists described in the text are either not very good or they have had a few too many nightcaps, quite possibly both.

Though the same motives and transitions return several times over the course of the piece, Schoenberg avoids literal repetitions through changes in instrumentation or motivic material. The opening A section is introduced by the trumpet fanfare motive in the piano part, but when this same section reappears later in the piece the piano introduces it with a double- glissando like figure (see Examples 2.6 and 2.7). Virtuosity is required by all instruments in

Schoenberg’s Brettl-Lieder. In “Nachtwandler” the vocal part requires transversing into and

18 Carol Kimball, Song: A Guide to Style and Literature (Redmond, WA: Pst . . ., 2000), 144.

19 Shawn, Schoenberg’s Journey, 38.

45

through the passaggio, the piccolo has difficult obbligato passages, the trumpet is quite low in register, and the snare drum has unusual variations on the typical drum roll.20

Example 2.4: Schoenberg, Brettl-Lieder, “Nachtwandler,” m. 14.21

Used by permission of Belmont Music Publishers.

Example 2.5: Schoenberg, Brettl-Lieder, “Nachtwandler,” mm. 106–8.22

Used by permission of Belmont Music Publishers.

20 Stein, “Schoenberg,” LP liner notes.

21 Shawn, Schoenberg’s Journey, 39.

22 Schoenberg, Nachtwandler, 15.

46

Example 2.6: Schoenberg, Brettl-Lieder, “Nachtwandler,” mm. 1–3.23

Used by permission of Belmont Music Publishers.

Example 2.7: Schoenberg, Brettl-Lieder, “Nachtwandler,” mm. 92–95.24

Used by permission of Belmont Music Publishers.

23 Ibid., 1.

24 Ibid., 13.

47

In his article “Arnold Schoenberg’s Songs with Piano Accompaniment: A Survey of

Style Characteristics,” Richard Lee Bunting discusses six style characteristics of Schoenberg’s early Lieder.25 Although Bunting does not include Brettl-Lieder in the works analyzed and discussed, I found that the Brettl-Lieder do exhibit, to some extent, all six of the categories he presents. First, Bunting argues that Schoenberg structures his compositions to convey the text by emphasizing specific words through use of dynamics, accent, duration, or separation. 26 In his first song of the Brettl-Lieder, Schoenberg consistently sets the flattering descriptions of

Galathea, “schönes,” “entzückend,” and “verlockend” (beautiful, enchanting, and alluring, respectively), at the peak of the recurring, arched, chromatic phrase (see Example 2.8). Second, both Schoenberg’s early Lieder and his cabaret songs utilize typical accompanimental figures of the nineteenth-century Romantic Lied.27 In the Brettl-Lieder, these figures range from the simple waltz-like accompaniment of “Mahnung” and steady eighth-note accompaniment of

“Gigerlette” to the more chromatic, triplet patterns of “Galathea” and “Einfältiges Lied” (see

Examples 2.9 – 2.12).

25 Richard Lee Bunting, “Arnold Schoenberg’s Songs with Piano Accompaniment: A Survey of Style Characteristics,” The NATS Bulletin 27 (Oct 1970): 26–31.

26 Ibid., 27–28.

27 Ibid., 28.

48

Example 2.8: Schoenberg, Brettl-Lieder, “Galathea,” mm. 11–13.28

Used by permission of Belmont Music Publishers.

Example 2.9: Schoenberg, Brettl-Lieder, “Mahnung,” mm. 1–4.29

Used by permission of Belmont Music Publishers.

Example 2.10: Schoenberg, Brettl-Lieder, “Gigerlette,” mm. 5–9. 30

Used by permission of Belmont Music Publishers.

28 Schoenberg, Brettl-Lieder, 1.

29 Ibid., 18.

30 Ibid., 6.

49

Example 2.11: Schoenberg, Brettl-Lieder, “Galathea,” mm. 11–13.31

Used by permission of Belmont Music Publishers.

Example 2.12: Schoenberg, Brettl-Lieder, “Einfältiges Lied,” mm. 13–14.32

Used by permission of Belmont Music Publishers.

Development of motivic material is an important characteristic of Schoenberg’s early songs. For example Bunting states that in “Erwartung,” a setting of a Richard Dehmel poem from Opus 2, Schoenberg crafts the motives and harmony of the entire piece from the opening

31 Ibid., 1.

32 Ibid., 14.

50

three chords.33 Schoenberg by no means develops motivic ideas to this extent in his Brettl-

Lieder, but he does draw on and develop motivic material to a much greater extent than in popular song of the time. In “Jedem das Seine,” Schoenberg uses the opening vocal motive of the A section in diminution in the accompaniment during the opening vocal motive of the B section. Later a variation on the opening vocal motive of the B section is used to accompany the second vocal theme of the B section in m. 72 (see Examples 2.13 and 2.14). 34

Example 2.13: Schoenberg, Brettl-Lieder, “Jedem das Seine,” mm. 8–11 and 41–43.35

Used by permission of Belmont Music Publishers.

33 Bunting, “Schoenberg’s Songs,” 28.

34 Shawn, Schoenberg’s Journey, 39–40. The difference in the amount of thematic development in Brettl- Lieder is probably due to Schoenberg’s belief that there exists less development in popular song. Schoenberg believed that in popular music the presentation of melodic ideas occurs at a much slower rate, literal repetition of motives appears frequently, and unrelated motives are often juxtaposed against one another. See Neff, “Schoenberg as Theorist.”

35 Shawn, Schoenberg’s Journey, 39.

51

Example 2.14: Schoenberg, Brettl-Lieder, “Jedem das Seine,” mm. 73–75.36

Used by permission of Belmont Music Publishers.

Bunting also discusses Schoenberg’s tendencies in early song toward avoidance of a tonal center and rhythmic complexity.37 In “Galathea” the vocal part of the first page could stand alone as an antecedent-consequent. The first phrase ends on scale degree three suggesting an imperfect authentic cadence, and the second phrase ends on scale degree one suggesting a perfect cadence. The piano harmony does support an imperfect authentic cadence in G major at the end of the first phrase; however, it does not support the perfect authentic cadence in G major at the end of the section. In fact, the piano harmonies leave the key of G completely. It is not until the final vocal cadence in m. 67 that the music settles in G major for the remainder of the piece.

Here the voice part cadences with an imperfect authentic cadence. The lack of finality in the conclusion on the third instead of the root in the voice part reflects the lingering “Phantasie” that the singer has just described and a reluctance to return to reality (see Examples 2.15 and 2.16).

36 Ibid., 40.

37 Bunting, “Schoenberg’s Songs,” 28–29.

52

Example 2.15: Schoenberg, Brettl-Lieder, “Galathea,” mm. 5–13.38

Used by permission of Belmont Music Publishers.

Example 2.16: Schoenberg, Brettl-Lieder, “Galathea,” mm. 64–67.39

Used by permission of Belmont Music Publishers.

38 Schoenberg, Brettl-Lieder, 1.

39 Ibid., 5.

53

Schoenberg uses cross-rhythms and hemiola in his Brettl-Lieder, which give these pieces a greater rhythmic complexity than one would encounter in popular song. In “Galathea” he juxtaposes quintuplets and triplets against sixteenth notes resulting in a five against four or three against four feeling (see Example 2.17). In “Der genügsame Liebhaber,” Schoenberg uses hemiola to create a three against two feeling in a broader sense (see Example 2.18).

Example 2.17: Schoenberg, Brettl-Lieder, “Galathea,” mm. 14–20.40

Used by permission of Belmont Music Publishers.

40 Ibid., 2.

54

Example 2.18: Schoenberg, Brettl-Lieder, “Der genügsame Liebhaber,” mm. 7–9 and 16–18.41

Used by permission of Belmont Music Publishers.

Finally, Schoenberg determines the form of a piece based on its text. In his early

“serious” songs, he uses a variety of structural forms, often in a somewhat free manner, avoiding exact repetitions and allowing the music to conform to the subtleties of each strophe of text.42

This is the same in his Brettl-Lieder. “Gigerlette” is in a modified strophic form, “Der genügsame Liebhaber” is ABAB, “Einfältiges Lied” is through composed, “Jedem das Seine” is

41 Ibid., 10–11.

42 Ibid., 29.

55

roughly ABA, and the others are a variation on one of these forms. Even in the nearly exact repetitions of the strophic “Arie aus dem Spiegel von Arcadien,” Schoenberg composed out the third strophe separately to communicate subtle rhythmic changes of the text.

Some scholars attribute Schoenberg’s brief foray into popular music solely to his financial situation.43 It is true that his unstable financial situation was a concern, particularly because he had just married Mathilde Zemlinsky in October of 1901, and they were expecting their first child in January.44 Therefore, it is probable that he saw potential for financial gain in the composition of cabaret songs. Yet, Leonard Stein proposes that in addition to the prospect of small financial gain, Schoenberg was probably genuinely interested in the new cabaret movement.45 Perhaps Schoenberg’s occasional attraction to “light” music may explain part of his motivation for composing the Brettl-Lieder:

[I] do not see why, when other people are entertained, I, too, should not sometimes be entertained; I know indeed that I really ought at every single moment to behave like my own monument; but it would be hypocritical of me to conceal the fact that I occasionally step down from my pedestal and enjoy light music. . . . [But] light music could not entertain me unless something interested me about its substance and its working out.46

Perhaps while intrigued by the genre of cabaret song, Schoenberg did not desire to publish his

Brettl-Lieder, because he did not feel these songs were composed according to his “own monument.” As we may never know the composer’s true motivations for the composition of these pieces, Schoenberg’s Brettl-Lieder remain a fascinating example of the blurring of classical and popular styles within his works.

43 Shawn, Schoenberg’s Journey, 37; Watler B. Bailey, ed., The Arnold Schoenberg Companion (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1998), 15.

44 Bailey, Schoenberg Companion, 15.

45 Stein, “Schoenberg,” LP Liner Notes.

46 Quoted in Neff, “Schoenberg as Theorist,” 67–68.

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CHAPTER 3

Weill’s Cabaret Songs: Berlin, No. Paris, Yes!

“I have never acknowledged the difference between ‘serious’ and ‘light’ music. There is only good music and bad music.” –Kurt Weill1

Unlike Arnold Schoenberg, Kurt Weill did not advocate the distinction and separation of

“serious” and “light” music. In fact, he is well-known for the inclusion of popular stylistic traits in his compositional style. Weill lived in Berlin during the height of the cabaret movement. Yet, contrary to widespread belief, Weill did not write music for the cabaret while in Germany. It was not until Weill fled to Paris that he became directly linked with the genre. While there, his

Paris publisher encouraged him to write two French chansons for cabaret diseuse Lys Gauty.

“Complainte de la Seine” and “Je ne t’aime pas” were the result. In addition Marlene Dietrich, popular singer and actress, asked that Weill write two songs for her. While Dietrich was not specifically a cabaret singer, she was often associated with the cabaret due to her portrayal of cabaret singer Lola-Lola in Josef von Sternberg’s well-known film The Blue Angel (1929).2

Therefore, Weill’s songs for her, “Der Abschiedsbrief” and “Es regnet,” will also be included in this chapter’s discussion. This chapter will address possible reasons why Weill is constantly linked with Berlin cabaret as well as provide a history and analysis of his cabaret songs of Paris.

1 Quoted in mcclung, “From Myth to Monograph,” 109.

2 Appignanesi, The Cabaret, 164–65.

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After World War I, cabaret flourished with Berlin now at the forefront of the movement.3

Previously in Imperial Germany, all stage material had to be approved by the police. However, the new Weimar Republic abolished censorship, and Berlin cabarets quickly adapted.4 As a result of greater social and moral freedom a new type of cabaret emerged, Amüsierkabarett, which focused solely on entertainment and quite often involved nudity. Therefore, artistic cabarets, or Kabaretts, renewed the fight with even greater vigor to close the ever-expanding cultural and artistic gap and raise social awareness through the use of satire, humor, and popular forms.5 As the Nazis strengthened their hold on Germany, Kabaretts became more specific in their political message, and most were forced to close as punishment for their political mockery.

Those who did not close willingly were closed forcibly, and many cabaret artists ultimately fled the country or were sent to concentration camps. Thus, the golden age of cabaret ended.6 Yet, cabaret did not die, and after the war many former cabaret artists turned to the art form once again in order to cope with the devastation war left behind.7

While Weill did not write any songs directly for the Berlin cabaret, cabaret singers excerpted and performed several of his songs from his theatrical works of the time in particular

Die Dreigroschenoper, Mahagonny Songspiel, and Happy End.8 bruce d. mcclung cites this as one possible reason for the myth that Weill was a great exponent of Berlin cabaret. He purports that another source of confusion is the fact that Weill’s wife, Lotte Lenya, premiered the role of

3 Ibid.

4 Jelavich, Berlin Cabaret, 5.

5 Appignanesi, The Cabaret, 125–28.

6 Bronner, “Cabaret for the Classical Singer,” 458.

7 Appignanesi, The Cabaret, 218.

8 Per F. Broman, essay in accompanying booklet in Cabaret Songs performed by Marlena Ernman and Bengt-Åke Lundin, CD-1154 BIS, recorded 2001, CD.

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Fraulein Schneider in the Kander and Ebb musical Cabaret in 1966.9 In addition, confusion may have arisen as a result of Bertolt Brecht’s ties to the cabaret and the close collaboration between

Brecht and Weill during this time. Brecht began his career performing as a balladeer in various venues including cabarets around Munich, and in 1922 he opened his own cabaret, Die Rote

Zibebe (The Red Raisin). The theater’s lifespan was quite short though, as its provisional license was quickly withdrawn by police.10 Yet, ties can be made to the cabaret movement for four of

Weill’s songs written during his time of exile in Paris.

On 24 February 1933, two days after a Nazi demonstration in Magdeburg at the second performance of Der Silbersee, Hans Heinsheimer of Universal Edition, Weill’s publisher, encouraged him to emigrate to Paris on account of anti-Semitic attacks against his music. On 21

March Weill heeded Heinsheimer’s advice and left Berlin for Paris, accompanied by two collaborators of Die Bürgschaft, Caspar Neher and Carl Ebert. The following month Universal

Edition reduced his monthly stipend by half, and in autumn Weill and Universal Edition negotiated the termination of his contract.11

Weill met Marlene Dietrich in the summer of 1933. She had been a fan of Die

Dreigroschenoper for some time and asked him to write a song or two for her to use as revue and recording material. In September he wrote “Der Abschiedsbrief” and presumably also “Es regnet” for her.12 Weill set “Der Abschiedsbrief” to a poem of Erich Kästner.13 Lenya has

9 mcclung, “From Myth to Monograph,” 109.

10 Appignanesi, The Cabaret, 169–70.

11 Mario R. Mercado, ed., Kurt Weill: A Guide to his Works, 2nd ed. (New York: Kurt Weill Foundation for Music, 1994), 78–79.

12 Drew, Weill, 249. Lotte Lenya claimed that “Der Abschiedsbrief” was not written until 1936 when Dietrich was in Hollywood. The original manuscript was not dated, but a page of the draft also includes portions of the Second Symphony and The Seven Deadly Sins, favoring the compositional date of 1933. Kowalke, “Recollections.”

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attributed the text of “Es regnet” to Cocteau. According to her Cocteau invited Weill and her to dinner one evening and gave Weill the opening lines to “Es regnet” in German. Weill encouraged him to finish the poem. When Cocteau had completed it, Weill corrected some of the German and set it to music.14 However, the published score, edited by Lys Symonette, states,

“Words by Kurt Weill based on a suggestion by Jean Cocteau.”15 In Weill’s manuscript the ending of “Es regnet” was only sketched, but it has since been realized by Symonette.16

Ultimately Weill’s songs were not performed by Dietrich. They were apparently not what she had in mind as she did not accept them.17 David Drew mentions that Dietrich claimed “Der

Abschiedsbrief” did not suit her voice, but he also cites that she may have been unhappy with the texts that Weill chose for the songs.18

In October 1933 Weill signed a publishing agreement with Heugel publishers of Paris.19

In May 1934, upon the suggestion of Heugel, Weill wrote the French chanson “Complainte de la

Seine” for cabaret diseuse Lys Gauty. The song was published under Heugel’s popular music sector, Editions Coda, with Gauty’s picture on the cover.20 According to Kim H. Kowalke, Weill composed the song “undoubtedly because of his fiscal pressures.”21 Nonetheless, the song was so

13 Erich Kästner was the pseudonym for the German poet, novelist, and journalist Robert Neuner. Kowalke “Recollections.”

14 Ibid.

15 Kurt Weill, The Unknown Kurt Weill: A Collection of 14 Songs (New York: European American Music Corporations, 1982), 38.

16 Kowalke, “Recollections.”

17 Ronald Taylor, Kurt Weill: A Composer in a Divided World (London: Simon & Schuster, 1991), 202.

18 Drew, Weill, 249

19 Mercado, Weill, 79.

20 Drew, Weill, 261.

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successful that Gauty requested a companion piece, so that she could commercially record both.

Weill met her request in the summer of the same year with the song “Je ne t’aime pas.” Editions

Coda published this song as well, which again portrayed Gauty’s picture on the cover. Both songs are composed to texts of Maurice Magre.22 Gauty gave numerous performances of the pieces, and the public received them quite favorably. Weill recycled the music of “Je ne t’aime pas” almost verbatim in his song “Wie lange noch?” of 1944.23

While “Complainte de la Seine” and “Je ne t’aime pas” were published during Weill’s lifetime, “Der Abschiedsbrief” and “Es regnet” did not receive their first publication until 1982, thirty-two years after Weill’s death. Teresa Stratas performed the role of Jenny in a 1979

Metropolitan Opera revival of the Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny. After the performance, Lotte Lenya wrote to Stratas that “nobody can sing Weill’s music better than you do.” She offered Stratas several Weill songs, nearly all previously unpublished, that she had been guarding since Weill’s death. Stratas performed the songs in concert on 4 January 1980 at the

Whitney Museum in New York.24 The Unknown Kurt Weill, consisting of fourteen songs

21 Kowalke, “Recollections.”

22 Drew, Weill, 261.

23 Ibid., 249. Kowalke describes “Wie lange noch?” as a torch song. Weill collaborated with former Berlin cabaret writer Walter Mehring to fit a new German text to the previously composed music of “Je ne t’aime pas.” The only difference between the two musical versions is that the latter piece includes a new ending in D minor. “Wie lange noch?” was intended as a companion piece to Weill’s song “Und was bekam des Soldaten Weib,” both composed for a recording by the War Department. See Kowalke, “Recollections.”

24 Kowalke, “Recollections.”

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composed by Weill between 1925 and 1944, is now available in score (1982), LP (1981), and

CD (1991).25

In his book Kurt Weill in Europe, Kim H. Kowalke traces the development of Weill’s compositional style during his time in Europe. Chapter six, “Weill’s Music, 1926-1933:

Synthesis,” focuses on the years in which Weill reached, according to Kowalke, his “mature style.” In the first part of the chapter, Kowalke states that Weill’s vocal style from this period occurs independently from doubling in the orchestra, exhibits a large vocal range, and places technical demands on the singer.

In the second part of this chapter Kowalke provides general characteristics of Weill’s works from this period using examples from his opera Der Silbersee. These characteristics, all of which are exemplified in his cabaret songs, are summarized below.

1. Prevalence of modern dance idioms, sometimes explicitly labeled as such, sometimes not.

2. Repetition of an un-changing rhythmic pattern.

3. Accompanimental patterns based on a repeated rhythmic cell or ostinato.

4. Bass movement via a sequence of descending fifths.

5. Regular binary phrase grouping punctuated by unambiguous cadences.

6. Juxtaposition of and vacillation between major and minor for modal ambiguity.

7. Use of double tonic sonorities, usually combining a major and a minor triad.

8. Harmonic progressions using stepwise movement by semitone.

25 Weill, Unknown Weill, score; Weill, Unknown Weill, LP; Kurt Weill, The Unknown Kurt Weill performed by Teresa Stratas and Richard Woitach, B000005IX0 Nonesuch, recorded 1981, digitally re-mastered for CD 1991, CD. There are several songs included in this publication, which were written by Weill in Berlin during the height of the cabaret movement, including “Berlin im Licht,” “Klops Lied,” and “Die Muschel von Margate.” However, as I could find no ties between these songs and a particular cabaret theater or singer, and they in no way reference cabaret in their titles, thus, I am not considering them cabaret songs for the purpose of this study.

62

9. Repetition of remote harmonic progressions, at same pitch or in sequence, so that the ear

accepts the non-traditional construction.

10. Avoidance of the third in final chords, preferring unisons, octaves, or fifths for modal

ambiguity.

11. Prevalence of tritones, often approached by semitone movement.

12. Use of fifth relationships in the base that do not function as tonic-dominant relationships.

13. Occurrence of conflicting tonal implications which often remain until final cadence.

14. Use of pedal tones to maintain tonal framework with non-tonal harmonic constructions.

15. Prevalence of constructions generated by perfect fifth; constructions are seldom triadic.26

“Complainte de la Seine” exhibits all of the general characteristics of Weill’s mature style listed above. Kowalke states that “Complainte de la Seine” opens with a “weary march motive” similar to that of “Envy” (Die Sieben Todsünden) and “Le grand Lustucru” (Marie

Galante).27 Through the presentation of this repeated rhythmic march-motive the alternation between major and minor is instantly heard. The opening E-major chord quickly gives way via stepwise motion to G minor. However, the bass enters under the right hand’s G-minor chord with

E’s in octave before it to moves to G minor. The bass then moves back to octave E’s on the fourth beat of the measure, thus bringing the return of E major in the right hand on the downbeat of the second measure. This interesting two-measure phrase is repeated immediately almost

26 Kim H. Kowalke, Kurt Weill in Europe (Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research Press, 1979), 281 and 299–307. Kowalke also mentions the following characteristics that are not applicable to an analysis of songs for piano and voice: an orchestration preference for primary colors set against the rest of the orchestra and the repetition of a rhythmic cell by percussion.

27 Kowalke, “Recollections.”

63

verbatim in rhythm and harmony to allow the progression to become more familiar to the listener

(see Example 3.1).28

The voice enters in m. 5. It exhibits a vocal range of just slightly more than an octave.

There is no doubling of the voice line in the piano accompaniment, but the vocal writing is not virtuosic. The vocal line strictly maintains two-measure phrases for the duration of the piece.

Under the vocal line, the piano accompanies in a steady, quarter-note rhythm with an open fifth on E in the left hand and the alternation between E major and E minor in one measure intervals in the right. The E remains in the bass while the tenor and treble parts explore F# major, F# minor, F# diminished, and F major chords via chromatic semitone movement, again in one measure increments. In m. 12 the right hand moves via semitone movement in the inner voices to

A major above an open fifth on A in the left hand. The bass line might suggest an authentic cadence as it descends a perfect fifth from scale degree five to scale degree one. However, the harmony of the upper voices is not E major (V), but, instead, F major (bVI). The bass E serves as a pedal, keeping track of the harmonic goal despite an unusual harmonic excursion (see Example

3.1).

28 I thank Professor Kenneth Griffiths for pointing out an alternative harmonic analysis for these songs. Many of the passages discussed in this chapter could also be described as being constructed of 7th and 9th chords in various inversions, which Weill was not in the habit of resolving.

64

Example 3.1: Weill, “Complainte de la Seine,” mm. 1–12. 29

Weill COMPLAINTE DE LA SEINE © 1933 by Éditions Coda and Heugel Éditeur, Paris - France © Renewed Assigned to European American Music Corporation All Rights Reserved Used by Permission

In m. 28 Weill repeats m. 27 verbatim with the exception that one note is raised a semitone, the C in the bass becomes C#. In m. 29 the right-hand part is slightly varied, but the left-hand part is again verbatim with the exception of one note, the Eb becomes a Db (see

29 Weill, Unknown Weill, score, 5–6.

65

Example 3.2). When a similar passage occurs in mm. 53–55, it is exactly verbatim all three times with the exception that the right hand is again varied in the third measure (see Example

3.3).

In mm. 30–36 a tritone occurs in each measure. While the bass moves in the traditional motion from scale degree one to five to one in m. 30, the inner voices of the treble part move by step through passing tones Eb and G to a re-voicing of the D-minor chord. This movement results in the dissonant intervals of a tritone and a minor seventh above the A in the bass, which ultimately both resolve down by step as the A in the bass returns up to D. In m. 31 the left-hand part creates a tritone with the interval from B to F while a new rhythmic motive of a half note, dotted quarter, and eighth is introduced in the right hand. In the next measure the tritone is found in the right-hand part in the suspension formed between C# and G. These two measures repeat almost verbatim, and, therefore, the tritones repeat in their respective positions.

In m. 35 a new tritone occurs in the left-hand part in the interval from A to Eb under the open fifth and octave on C in the right hand. Last, the G in the right hand moves via semitone to

Gb in m. 36, thus, creating another dissonant suspension which resolves to F in the following measure, leaving double tonic chords in open perfect fifths on G (bass) and F (treble). The chords remain in perfect fifths and octave configurations and move by semitone until they reach

B major on beat three of m. 38, thus, preparing for the return of E major as well as the opening material and harmonies of the first vocal entrance. This time, however, the vocal line is ornamented, and the right hand of the piano part has rolled chords (see Example 3.2). This is the only use of rolled chords in any of the songs in The Unknown Kurt Weill. The next section is marked “(spoken)” and the following four measures of the voice part are notated on the same

66

pitch (see Example 3.4).30 This is undoubtedly a reference to the diseuse singing style of Parisian cabarets, and the rolled chords are also likely a reference to cabaret and/or popular song.

Example 3.2: Weill, “Complainte de la Seine,” mm. 26–39. 31

Weill COMPLAINTE DE LA SEINE © 1933 by Éditions Coda and Heugel Éditeur, Paris - France © Renewed Assigned to European American Music Corporation All Rights Reserved Used by Permission

30 Ibid., 8.

31 Ibid.

67

Example 3.3: Weill, “Complainte de la Seine,” mm. 51–56.32

Weill COMPLAINTE DE LA SEINE © 1933 by Éditions Coda and Heugel Éditeur, Paris - France © Renewed Assigned to European American Music Corporation All Rights Reserved Used by Permission

Example 3.4: Weill, “Complainte de la Seine,” mm. 47–50.33

Weill COMPLAINTE DE LA SEINE © 1933 by Éditions Coda and Heugel Éditeur, Paris - France © Renewed Assigned to European American Music Corporation All Rights Reserved Used by Permission

32 Ibid., 8–9.

33 Ibid., 8.

68

The end of the piece is a verbatim repetition of the first strophe of text and music, mm. 5–

11. Despite the presence of C-naturals in m. 64, as in previous strophes the music cadences in A major. The final cadence of the piano part in m. 68 is a double-tonic construction. It is characterized by open fifth constructions from A to E and from F# to C#. Yet, when these notes combine, they yield two familiar sonorities: A major and F# minor (see Example 3.5).

Example 3.5: Weill, “Complainte de la Seine,” mm. 64–68. 34

Weill COMPLAINTE DE LA SEINE © 1933 by Éditions Coda and Heugel Éditeur, Paris - France © Renewed Assigned to European American Music Corporation All Rights Reserved Used by Permission

With regard to Weill’s second song for Gauty, Kowalke writes that “while remaining unmistakably ‘Weillian,’” “Je ne t’aime pas” is stylistically quite reminiscent of the Parisian cabaret chanson.35 In this piece the voice is consistently doubled by the piano throughout the entire song, and four-measure phrases are consistent throughout. The vocal range is an octave and a perfect fourth, slightly larger than that of “Complainte de la Seine.” Yet, with the

34 Ibid., 9.

35 Kowalke, “Recollections.”

69

exception of a couple passages that sit in the passaggio (see Example 3.6), the vocal writing is not virtuosic. The entire voice part is created from one repetitive rhythmic cell. Initially it is a two-measure pattern: quarter rest, quarter note, eighth note, quarter note, eighth note, dotted half, quarter rest (see Figure 3.1a). However soon, the pattern just begins repeating after the first measure to yield measures of two quarter notes, eighth note, quarter note, eighth note (see Figure

3.1b).

Example 3.6: Weill, “Je ne t’aime pas,” mm. 28–31.36

Weill JE NE T’AIME PAS © 1946 by Heugel Éditeur © Renewed Assigned to European American Music Corporation All Rights Reserved Used by Permission

36 Weill, Unknown Weill, score, 48.

70

Figure 3.1: Recurring rhythmic patterns in the voice part of Weill’s “Je ne t’aime pas.”

(a)

(b)

The song opens with a stride accompanimental pattern of consistent quarter notes, which alternate between a single note in the bass and a chord in both hands. A perfect fifth and octave configuration is initially apparent in the left hand, but the third of the chord is present in the right hand, and after the first two measures, the third of the chord is present in the left hand as well.

The song is quite clearly in F minor throughout the first fifteen measures. The stepwise semitone movement of the inner voices creates several tritones along the way such as G to Db in m. 7 and

Eb to A in m. 8 (see Example 3.7).

71

Example 3.7: Weill, “Je ne t’aime pas,” mm. 1–9.37

Weill JE NE T’AIME PAS © 1946 by Heugel Éditeur © Renewed Assigned to European American Music Corporation All Rights Reserved Used by Permission

The bass movement beginning in m. 10 outlines a clear, traditional cadence, moving through scale degrees one, four, three, two, five, and cadencing back on scale degree one, F, in m. 16. The change in key signature along with notes and clear movement in the left hand would lead one to believe that the new key area is F major. However, the voice and the right hand of the piano part seem to have settled in D minor. Weill reinforces this ambiguity in m. 17 with a double-tonic configuration. The left-hand part now has open fifth and octave chords on F and the right hand contains a D-minor triad. This F pedal remains in the bass until it moves to E in m. 21 to prepare the cadence in F major on the downbeat of m. 22. The cadence is actually quite traditional. After the tritone in m. 21 gives way to a perfect fifth, a V6/5 chord remains, which moves smoothly to F major in the following measure (see Example 3.8).

37 Ibid, 47.

72

Example 3.8: Weill, “Je ne t’aime pas,” mm. 10–22.38

Weill JE NE T’AIME PAS © 1946 by Heugel Éditeur © Renewed Assigned to European American Music Corporation All Rights Reserved Used by Permission

At this point, the bass utilizes a new rhythmic pattern of half notes as it descends via perfect fifths through D, A, C, and F. Then it leaps up a tritone to B, moves down the semitone to

Bb, continues down by semitone to A, and then again leaps down a perfect fifth to return to D.

This D-minor cadence is again approached via the traditional, V7 chord. An augmented French sixth chord actually precedes the dominant seventh, but the sharp scale degree four is not in the upper outer voice nor does it resolve up as tradition encourages. Instead, it resolves down as it

38 Ibid., 47–48.

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continues on its descending semitone path. Tritones occur on every beat in this measure, and this is the only measure in which the voice and piano melody deviate from the rhythmic cell which created them (see Example 3.9).

Example 3.9: Weill, “Je ne t’aime pas,” mm. 22–26.39

Weill JE NE T’AIME PAS © 1946 by Heugel Éditeur © Renewed Assigned to European American Music Corporation All Rights Reserved Used by Permission

A D pedal in the bass characterizes the next section, mm. 25–32. A double-tonic construction appears in m. 26 with G major and E minor (see Example 3.10a). In m. 28 the double tonic construction employs E major and G# diminished chords (see Example 3.10b). F major and then C#°4/2 are juxtaposed over the D pedal in mm. 31–32, respectively, before D minor returns in m. 33. The melody and rhythm of m. 25, the measure in which the voice deviated from its rhythmic pattern, are picked up by the bass in mm. 33–34 to lead into a four- measure vocal phrase marked “Spoken” and written with pitch-less notation. The left hand begins a new rhythmic pattern for these measures characterized by a quarter-note anacrusis followed by a dotted half note (see Example 3.11).

39 Ibid., 48.

74

Example 3.10: Weill, “Je ne t’aime pas,” mm. 27 and 29.40

(a)

(b)

Weill JE NE T’AIME PAS © 1946 by Heugel Éditeur © Renewed Assigned to European American Music Corporation All Rights Reserved Used by Permission

40 Ibid.

75

Example 3.11: Weill, “Je ne t’aime pas,” mm. 30–37.41

Weill JE NE T’AIME PAS © 1946 by Heugel Éditeur © Renewed Assigned to European American Music Corporation All Rights Reserved Used by Permission

41 Ibid., 48–49.

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The first ending yields a repeat of the entire song thus far with new text. After the second ending, the voice and piano melody again return to F minor. The voice part sings the opening two-measure motive with the opening text “Retire ta main.” Then it tries to start up again with the text “Je ne t’aime pas.” Both times it can not muster enough strength and trails off. Last, the singer resorts to speaking the text “Je ne t’aime pas!” At this point, she is completely broken down and utterly speechless, and cannot sing or speak anything for the second half of her final four-measure phrase.

Under the singer’s F-minor mode, the bass line fights desperately to keep the tonality centered on D. Continuing the quarter note dotted half note rhythmic pattern, it continually makes the traditional cadential motion of scale degree five to scale degree one from A to D, despite the fact that the upper voices are securely rooted in F minor. Yet, when the voice part breaks down and is forced again to resort to speech, the bass line finally yields and moves to a C pedal via semitone movement through Db. During this struggle, the movement of the inner voices creates a tritone in every measure leading up to the cadence. In m. 50, the final measure before the piano cadences, a hint of the key area of D returns as the right hand moves in octaves through

C, D, F, and back to D. It is only a glimpse though as the bass makes a strong cadential gesture down a perfect fifth to rest on F. This time the cadence is unambiguous, as the piece ultimately comes to rest in F major (see Example 3.12). It feels quite unexpected to conclude in a major key as the voice part was not in a major key anywhere in the entire song. However, F major was introduced by the key signature and bass notes of m. 17. Simultaneously though, the treble and voice part insisted on D minor. Therefore, the conclusion of the piece on F major actually serves to resolve a previous tonal issue that began in m. 17.

77

Example 3.12: Weill, “Je ne t’aime pas,” mm. 44–52.42

Weill JE NE T’AIME PAS © 1946 by Heugel Éditeur © Renewed Assigned to European American Music Corporation All Rights Reserved Used by Permission

Though somewhat simpler than his French cabaret songs, Weill’s pieces for Dietrich also reflect the characteristics of Weill’s mature style. Kowalke states that both pieces reference popular styles. He claims “Der Abschiedsbrief” is in the style of a “slightly smarmy English waltz,” while “Es regnet” is one of Weill’s “slow tangos.”43 In both songs, the piano frequently doubles the voice part. In “Es regnet” this doubling occurs throughout the entire piece; whereas, in “Der Abschiedsbrief” the doubling is throughout with the exception of the middle section. The ranges of “Der Abschiedsbrief” and “Es regnet” are an octave and a perfect fourth and an octave and a perfect fifth, respectively, and “Es regnet” is set just slightly higher than the other three songs, including the note G5. The texture of “Der Abschiedsbrief” is much simpler than the other

42 Ibid., 49.

43 Kowalke, “Recollections.”

78

three songs, and like Weill’s cabaret songs for Gauty, it also includes a spoken section in the style of the cabaret diseuse at the end, written with pitch-less notation (see Example 3.13). Both songs maintain for the most part a regular phrase structure of four-measure phrases.

Example 3.13: Weill, “Der Abschiedsbrief,” mm. 98–105. 44

Weill ABSCHIEDSBRIEF © 1977, 1981 by European American Music Corporation Text used by permission of the Estate of Erich Kästner All Rights Reserved Used by Permission

“Der Abschiedsbrief” opens with descending perfect fifth movement in the bass from D#, through G# and C#, to Gb (F#). Then through chromatic semi-tone movement the pitch rises to G- natural and A at which point it descends a final perfect fifth to D. Weill also utilizes semitone movement in the inner voices of this passage, in particular in mm. 5–8. In addition, double-tonic

44 Weill, Unknown Weill, score, 36.

79

constructions occur in these measures. For example in m. 3 Weill juxtaposes C# minor in the left hand against the right-hand part’s E major, and in m. 7 he sets D minor against Bb major. Modal mixture, including both D major and minor, characterizes the left-hand part in mm. 6–8 (see

Example 3.14). The left hand consistently maintains a quarter-note waltz motive throughout, and when the right-hand part breaks from doubling the singer in m. 45, it, too, consistently partakes in its own waltz motive (see Example 3.15).

Example 3.14: Weill, “Der Abschiedsbrief,” mm. 1–10.45

Weill ABSCHIEDSBRIEF © 1977, 1981 by European American Music Corporation Text used by permission of the Estate of Erich Kästner All Rights Reserved Used by Permission

45 Ibid., 30.

80

Example 3.15: Weill, “Der Abschiedsbrief,” mm. 44–47. 46

Weill ABSCHIEDSBRIEF © 1977, 1981 by European American Music Corporation Text used by permission of the Estate of Erich Kästner All Rights Reserved Used by Permission

Two recurring rhythmic motives occur in the left-hand part of “Es regnet.” The first consists of a dotted quarter note, eighth note, and two quarter notes, and the second is a syncopated pattern of an eighth note, quarter note, and eighth note followed by two quarter notes

(see Figure 3.2). The opening rhythmic motive opens the piece in a sequence of descending perfect fifths beginning on A and moving through D, G, C, F to Bb (see Example 3.16). In mm.

44–53, the bass line descends chromatically from G# to E, while the inner voices move via semitone movement. Open constructions of minor sevenths, fifths, and octaves characterize the left-hand part in mm. 46–57. Last, mm. 58–64 are stabilized by an F pedal and framed on either side by a double-tonic construction. In m. 58 the chords are F minor and D diminished; whereas, in mm. 64–65 the chords are F major and D minor. A tritone occurs in every measure from mm.

42–61 (see Example 3.17).

46 Ibid., 32.

81

Figure 3.2: Recurring rhythmic motives in the left hand piano part of Weill’s “Es regnet.”

(a)

(b)

Example 3.16: Weill, “Es regnet,” mm. 1–14.47

Weill ES REGNET © 1977, 1981 by European American Music Corporation All Rights Reserved Used by Permission

47 Ibid., 38.

82

48 Example 3.17: Weill, “Es regnet,” mm. 41–66.

Weill ES REGNET © 1977, 1981 by European American Music Corporation All Rights Reserved Used by Permission

48 Ibid., 40–41.

83

In conclusion, while the common association of Weill with Berlin cabaret is false, Weill did write at least two cabaret songs, “Complainte de la Seine” and “Je ne t’aime pas.” In addition, while in Paris he wrote two songs for popular singer and actress Marlene Dietrich, “Der

Abschiedsbrief” and “Es regnet.” All four songs reflect the characteristics of his mature style.

These songs exhibit only a few references to cabaret and popular song that are atypical of Weill’s mature style. First, three of the four songs allude to the cabaret diseuse style of declamation. In addition, three of the songs include frequent piano doubling of the voice part. The songs are not virtuosic in vocal style, but most require a substantial range and some negotiation of the passaggio.

It is not surprising that Weill’s path did eventually lead him to the composition of cabaret song. During his career Weill never advocated a distinction between “light” and

“serious” music. mcclung argues that Weill already began a search for a wider audience with his play with music Die Dreigroschenoper, and a mediation between high and low culture characterizes most of the compositions of his career.49 So Weill’s cabaret songs are much easier to explain than those of Schoenberg, who maintained such a rigid opposition to the combining of serious and popular forms. Interestingly enough, Weill actually wrote fewer cabaret songs than Schoenberg. Yet, despite great philosophical differences, both composers’ cabaret songs were probably motivated in large part by financial pressures. With regard to Schoenberg, Weill concluded:

I’m convinced that many modern composers have a feeling of superiority toward their audiences. Schoenberg, for example, has said he is writing for a time fifty years after his death. . . . As for myself, I write for today. I don’t give a damn about writing for posterity.50

49 mcclung, “Myth to Monograph,” 109–10.

50 Quoted in ibid., 107.

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CHAPTER 4

Britten’s Cabaret Songs: A “Light” Auden Endeavor

A successful day with the “muse.” In the morning I set a serious poem of Wystan’s (from Dog-Skin)—Nocturne, & in the afternoon a light one for Hedli Anderson—Johnny. –Benjamin Britten1

In 1937 Britten set several Auden poems. Both “Nocturne” and “Johnny” are vocal songs with piano accompaniment, written by Benjamin Britten and set to texts by poet Wystan Hugh

(W. H.) Auden. Yet Britten designates the former as “serious” and the latter as “light.” Thus, designations such as “serious” or “straight” and “light” appear in his diary in order to differentiate those songs which he intended for soprano Sophie Wyss and his song cycle On This

Island from his cabaret songs for popular singer Hedli Anderson.2 In this chapter, I will provide a short history of the cabaret movement in England and examine how Britten’s musical styles in these serious and cabaret songs intersect with one another.

Britten and Auden first met on 4 July 1935, to discuss collaborations for the General Post

Office Unit with whom they were both employed.3 In addition to several projects for the GPO

Unit, their collaboration at this time also resulted in the orchestral song cycle Our Hunting

1 Diary Entry May 5, 1937, quoted in Mitchell, Britten and Auden in the Thirties, 145.

2 Britten’s diary states: “Wystan is terribly pleased with my straight songs for Sophie,” quoted in ibid., 156.

3 Christopher Headington, Britten: The Composer as Contemporary (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1981), 33.

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Fathers, which Britten referred to as his Opus. 1.4 The cycle was dedicated to soprano Sophie

Wyss, who premiered it on 26 September 1936.5

Later that year Faber & Faber published a collection of Auden texts entitled “Look,

Stranger!”6 Auden was actually extremely displeased with the title the publishers chose, and he insisted that the collection be titled On This Island when Random House published the collection in the United States.7 Britten set several Auden texts from this collection. Four of these settings combined with Britten’s song “Nocturne,” from The Dog Beneath the Skin, a collaboration between Auden and Christopher Isherwood, resulted in the song cycle On This Island. The remaining songs are titled “Let the Florid Music Praise!,” “Now the Leaves Are Falling Fast,”

“Seascape,” and “As It Is, Plenty.” The original Auden titles were “III. Song of the Beggars,”

“IV. Autumn Song,” “On This Island,” and “His Excellency,” respectively. As mentioned above, according to Britten’s diary he composed “Nocturne” on 5 May 1937; he wrote “Now the Leaves

Are Falling Fast” on 27 May; and he finished the remaining three songs of the cycle in October of that same year.8

Britten conceived the cycle for Swiss soprano Sophie Wyss and dedicated it to

Christopher Isherwood, a poet, collaborator, and friend of Britten and Auden. Peter Pears first

4 In a letter Britten writes: “I am awfully pleased with it too, I’m afraid. Some things don’t satisfy me at the moment—but it’s my Op. 1 alright,” quoted in Mitchell, Britten and Auden in the Thirties, 19.

5 Ibid.

6 “Look, stranger!” is the opening line to the Auden poem (originally entitled “On This Island”), which Britten set as the third song, renamed “Seaside,” in On this Island; Benjamin Britten, On This Island (London: Boosey and Hawkes), 10.

7 Virginia Lile Boaz, “A Performer’s Guide to Benjamin Britten’s On this Island, Opus 11” (D.M.A. thesis, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2000), 83–84.

8 Gregory J. Slowik, “Benjamin Britten’s Song Cycles for Voice and Piano: Performance Considerations for On this Island, The Holy Sonnets of John Donne, and Songs and Proverbs of William Blake” (D.M.A. thesis, Boston University, 2000), 24–25.

86

sang the songs at a private performance for Isherwood and Lennox Berkeley on 15 October

1937. However, on 19 November 1937, Wyss publically premiered the cycle on BBC radio.9

Britten’s original title was On This Island, vol. 1, suggesting that he had intentions of a second volume, but no such volume is known.10

According to Benjamin Britten’s diary, he composed at least seven cabaret songs between the years 1937 and 1939; however, only four are known and published. Britten met the popular singer Hedli Anderson through his collaboration on Auden and Isherwood’s play The

Ascent of F6, which premiered with the Group Theatre on 26 February 1937. The Ascent of F6 included an early version of one of Britten’s cabaret songs, “Stop All the Clocks,” which was later renamed “Funeral Blues.” Anderson made a considerable impression on the composer, and on the afternoon of 5 May, Britten wrote “Johnny” for her. 11 According to Britten’s diary he completed another cabaret song on each of the three days that followed, 6–8 May. However, of these four cabaret songs, only “Johnny” was referred to by name and remains today. Anderson and her accompanist performed these four songs along with a new solo version of the “F6 Blues” for Britten on 10 May. Britten’s diary entry responded, “They are going to be hits, I feel!”12

Britten did not compose his next known cabaret song, “Tell Me the Truth about Love,” until early January of 1938. It was written for the send off party before Auden and Isherwood left

9 Headington, Britten, 39–40.

10 Mitchell, Britten and Auden in the Thirties, 145. Britten did set three other Auden poems this year, “Fish in the Unruffled Lakes” for high voice and piano, and two ballads, “Mother Comfort” and “Underneath the Abject Willow,” for two sopranos and piano. See Donald Mitchell and Hans Keller, eds., Benjamin Britten: A Commentary on His Works from a Group of Specialists (New York: Philosophical Library, 1953), 363.

11 “Nocturne” was written in the morning, Britten ate lunch, quickly wrote “Johnny,” and then played a game of tennis. Carpenter, Britten, 105.

12 Mitchell, foreword to Cabaret Songs.

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for travels to the Far East on 18 January.13 Britten received the lyrics for his final known cabaret song, “Calypso,” in a letter from Auden in May 1939. At the time Auden was in the United

States and Britten and Pears were in Canada. Auden’s text resulted from his recent falling in love with an eighteen-year-old young man from New York, Chester Kallman. The song describes the singer’s anticipation to meet a lover at the train station in New York. Britten was quite pleased with the lyrics and responded “Calypso is grand for Hedli.” It is quite possible that Auden sent lyrics for an additional cabaret song, as Britten’s letter in response suggests a couplet of text for the piece.14

There were three known performances of Britten’s cabaret songs during his lifetime. On

17 June 1937, Britten and Anderson performed at least one of the cabaret songs, the new version of the “F6 Blues,” for the boys of the Downs school where Auden was teaching at the time.15 At the send off party for Auden and Isherwood on 19 January 1938, Britten and Anderson also performed cabaret songs, very likely including the “F6 Blues” and “Tell Me the Truth about

Love.”16 The final known performance during Britten’s lifetime occurred on 23 October 1976.

Pears performed three of Britten’s cabaret songs with Graham Johnson at the piano. The concert performance was entitled “Cabaret: 30 Years On’” and was intended to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of the Aldeburgh Festival. However, it followed the twenty-ninth season and was probably held early due to Britten’s failing health. It is known that one of the cabaret songs was

13 Carpenter, Britten, 115. There is a discrepancy as to when Auden wrote the text and, therefore, when Britten composed the song. Mitchell also claims it was written for the party but he states that Professor Mendelson feels the poem was not written until after Auden left for China. See Britten and Auden in the Thirties, 128. The Britten Companion, ed. Christopher Palmer (London: Faber & Faber, 1984), dates the song 18 January 1938.

14 “Most shout the names they think are fine; But I daren’t mutter the name of mine.” Ibid., 130.

15 Mitchell, Britten and Auden in the Thirties, 108.

16 Carpenter, Britten, 115.

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“Tell Me the Truth about Love.” Britten observed the performance in his weakened state from the director’s box. It was Britten’s final public appearance.17 Britten did not assign his cabaret songs an opus number nor did he publish them during his lifetime. It was in 1980, four years after his death, that Faber & Faber published Cabaret Songs, a collection of Britten’s four known cabaret songs.18

While the cabaret movement of Paris and Berlin did reach as far as London before the outbreak of World War I, it did not last long. In fact, the entire London cabaret movement can be tied to the opening and closing of one cabaret, The Cave of the Golden Calf. Austrian heiress

Frida Strindberg intended that her cabaret exist “for the promotion of the arts and for the association together of artists and other persons who are interested in literature and the arts.”19

She situated her cabaret on Heddon Street in a sordid basement underneath a cloth merchant’s warehouse. She transformed the dingy setting into a vibrantly decorated cabaret with the work of young British artists. The Cave of the Golden Calf successfully opened on 26 June 1912.

Strindberg billed the evening’s performance as a mix of “the picturesque dances of the South, its fervid melodies, Parisian wit, English humour.”20 Unfortunately, due to financial problems and dissension between Strindberg and her artists, the Cave of the Golden Calf closed its doors in just over a year and sold any remaining contents on 13 February 1914.21 Perhaps the reserved character of British society mixed with the democratic, political stability of England did not provide the right audience for the movement. However, the movement did draw the attention of

17 In addition Pears sang Noël Coward’s “I’ll See You Again” quite probably as a farewell to Britten. See ibid., 581.

18 Donald Mitchell, foreword in Cabaret Songs.

19 Appignanesi, The Cabaret, 89.

20 Ibid., 93.

21 Ibid., 89–95.

89

young British artists, many of whom were quite familiar with the current trends of Paris and

Berlin.22

As cabaret was a short lived movement in England, Britten’s reasons for exploring the genre of cabaret are unclear. However, they may include one or several of the following possibilities. Donald Mitchell assigns Britten’s cabaret songs to his “entertainment” endeavors of the thirties and early forties. In the group Mitchell includes several works from the GPO Film

Unit, collaborations with the Group Theater, his cabaret songs, the operetta Paul Bunyan, and possibly even the final song of On This Island as they reflect the influence of jazz, cabaret, Cole

Porter, and/or other popular musical trends.23

The singer Hedli Anderson had made a striking impression on Britten during their collaboration on The Ascent of F6. Anderson was known to “specialize in the singing of intelligent, witty, high-quality ‘light’ music.”24 Since it is well known that Britten often composed pieces specifically for particular singers whom he respected and knew intimately, these songs may have been the result of Britten’s respect and admiration for Anderson. Mitchell adds that she may have even invited Britten to write pieces for her.25 Mitchell claims that she wrote to Britten when he was overseas to request another cabaret song, and he and Auden answered her request with “Calypso.”26

22 Bronner, “Cabaret for the Classical Singer,” 459.

23 Donald Mitchell, “Britten’s Blues and Cabaret Songs,” accompanying essay in liner notes in Britten’s Blues and Cabaret Songs & Songs by Cole Porter performed by Jill Gomez and Martin Jones, Unicorn B000001PD3, recorded 16 April 1995, CD.

24 Mitchell, Britten and Auden in the Thirties, 108.

25 Ibid.

26 Mitchell, “Britten’s Blues and Cabaret Songs,” 3.

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It is also well known that Auden exercised a very strong influence on all aspects of

Britten’s life during this period. Therefore, it is plausible that these pieces were originally his idea, and Britten merely complied with Auden’s will. Eric Bonner claims that the songs may have been inspired by Christopher Isherwood’s visit earlier that year for work on The Ascent of

F6. It was Isherwood’s stories of cabaret from his time in Berlin that provided the basis for

Cabaret, the Broadway musical of Kander and Ebb. 27 Auden also lived in Berlin from October

1928 to July 1929, during Isherwood’s time there,28 so it is plausible that Isherwood’s visit inspired Auden to write the texts. Finally, upon hearing Anderson sing some of the cabaret songs for the first time, Britten wrote, “They are going to be hits I feel!”29 Therefore, one cannot overlook the possibility that Britten, too, may have foreseen some financial gain from these works. After all, this was still quite early in the young composer’s career.

An analysis of musical elements in Britten’s cabaret songs through comparison with his song cycle On This Island shows that many aspects of Britten’s cultivated style of the time are also prevalent in his cabaret songs. Yet the cabaret songs also reflect many aspects of popular song that did not materialize in his classical style of the first four songs of On This Island. The fifth song of On This Island is quite different in style from the first four songs in the cycle. It has met with harsh criticism and limited favor by music scholars. Since it is possibly not accurately representative of Britten’s classical style, it will be left out of the initial discussion and addressed separately.

27 Bronner, “Cabaret for the Classical Singer,” 459.

28 Boaz, “Performer’s Guide to On This Island,” 75.

29 Quoted in Carpenter, Britten, 105

91

Several aspects of Britten’s classical style in On This Island are clearly demonstrated in his cabaret songs. In his dissertation, “Benjamin Britten’s Song Cycles for Voice and Piano,”30

Gregory Slowik writes that On This Island contains the widest vocal range of any of Britten’s song cycles for voice and piano.31 Both extremes of range for the cycle are found in “Now the

Leaves Are Falling Fast,” which extends from a low A3 in m. 28 to Bb5 in m. 22; thus, the range for the cycle is two octaves and a semitone (see Example 4.1). While the tessitura of Britten’s cabaret songs stays within a narrow vocal range, Britten includes occasional excursions in both directions which actually require a virtuosic range. For example, both extremes in register are found in “Johnny,” which extends from F3 in m. 82 to C6 in m. 45. Therefore, the range required for the cabaret songs spans two octaves and a perfect fifth, which even surpasses that of On This

Island (see Example 4.2).32

30 The full title of Slowik’s dissertation is “Benjamin Britten’s Songs for Voice and Piano: Performance Considerations for On This Island, The Holy Sonnets of John Donne, Songs and Proverbs of William Blake.”

31 Ibid., 25.

32 In addition, Britten wrote optional notes for both of the register extremes in On This Island, and no optional notes are included in the cabaret songs. It is possible that this is because Britten did not intend that the cabaret songs be published, and he knew Anderson was capable of the range as written.

92

Example 4.1: Britten, On This Island, “Now the Leaves Are Falling Fast,” mm. 28–29 and 22– 23.33 (a)

On This Island, Op. 11 by Benjamin Britten, words by Wystan Hugh Auden © Copyright 1938 by Boosey & Co. Reprinted by Permission.

(b)

On This Island, Op. 11 by Benjamin Britten, words by Wystan Hugh Auden © Copyright 1938 by Boosey & Co. Reprinted by Permission.

33 Britten, On This Island, 8–9.

93

Example 4.2: Britten, Cabaret Songs, “Johnny,” mm. 81–82 and 45.34 (a)

CABARET SONGS Music by Benjamin Britten Words by W. H. Auden Music © 1980 by Faber Music Ltd

(b)

CABARET SONGS Music by Benjamin Britten Words by W. H. Auden Music © 1980 by Faber Music Ltd

In both On This Island, as well as his cabaret songs, Britten uses text painting extensively. “Let the Florid Music Praise!” opens with a fanfare flourish in the piano accompaniment, which recurs in various forms throughout the rest of the piece, even in the somber second half (see Example 4.3).35 In addition, the grace note preceding the final syllable of “imperial” colors the word with a stately, dignified character (see Example 4.4). In her

34 Britten, Cabaret Songs, 15 and 18.

35I would like to express my special thanks to Professor Kenneth Griffiths for bringing to my attention that this entire piece is a parody of baroque vocal music, and this fanfare flourish is just one example. Other examples include the baroque coloratura on the word “shine” and the ground base of the poco più lento section.

94

dissertation, “A Performer’s Guide to Benjamin Britten’s On this Island, Op. 1,” Virginia Lile

Boaz describes Britten’s use of text painting in mm. 36–37 to highlight the words “weeping” and

“striking.” She claims that the Neapolitan chord in the piano enhances the anticipation of the

“weeping” described by the singer. The falling fifth which leads to “weeping” and “striking” in the vocal line as well as the falling tear-like motive of the right-hand part of the piano accompaniment, both of which land on the dissonant seventh of the chord, characterize the overwhelming grief described by the singer.36 In addition Britten’s articulation markings ask for a messa di voce on “weeping” and an accent on the first syllable of “striking” in order to differentiate the two ideas (see Example 4.3).

Example 4.3: Britten, On This Island, “Let the Florid Music Praise!,” mm. 36–38.37

On This Island, Op. 11 by Benjamin Britten, words by Wystan Hugh Auden © Copyright 1938 by Boosey & Co. Reprinted by Permission.

36 Boaz, “Performer’s Guide to On This Island,” 109.

37 Britten, On This Island, 3–4.

95

Example 4.4: Britten, On This Island, “Let the Florid Music Praise!,” mm. 17–18.38

On This Island, Op. 11 by Benjamin Britten, words by Wystan Hugh Auden © Copyright 1938 by Boosey & Co. Reprinted by Permission.

The contour of the piano accompaniment of the first measure of “Seascape” imitates the flowing tide as it rises up by step in both hands from the note G to A to B and then falls down to

Bb. Peter Evans states that the harmonic shape of this wave motive also occurs in the voice, but only at corresponding moments in the text.39 The motive first returns in m. 15 to accompany the singer’s text “The swaying sound of the sea,” and the singer’s part also tracks the stepwise movement up and down even continuing downward to an A in the next measure. A variation of this motive appears in voice and piano in m. 48 to the text “And move in memory as now these clouds do.” The original motive appears almost verbatim to the first measure in m. 56 with the singer’s final words “through the water saunter” (see Example 4.5). In m. 5 Britten sets the text

“leaping” on an octave leap upward from the previous note (see Example 4.6). The onomatopoeic words “pluck” and “knock” appear in mm. 25 and 26, respectively, on staccato eighth notes with tenudo markings, and each is followed by an eighth rest. Britten highlights these words with separation and attention, so that the crisp consonants are able to sound (see

Example 4.7).

38 Ibid., 2.

39 Peter Evans, The Music of Benjamin Britten (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1979), 75.

96

Example 4.5: Britten, On This Island, “Seascape,” mm. 1–2, 15–16, 47–48, and 55–58.40 (a)

On This Island, Op. 11 by Benjamin Britten, words by Wystan Hugh Auden © Copyright 1938 by Boosey & Co. Reprinted by Permission.

(b)

On This Island, Op. 11 by Benjamin Britten, words by Wystan Hugh Auden © Copyright 1938 by Boosey & Co. Reprinted by Permission.

(c)

On This Island, Op. 11 by Benjamin Britten, words by Wystan Hugh Auden © Copyright 1938 by Boosey & Co. Reprinted by Permission.

40 Britten, On This Island, 10–11 and 15–16.

97

(d)

On This Island, Op. 11 by Benjamin Britten, words by Wystan Hugh Auden © Copyright 1938 by Boosey & Co. Reprinted by Permission.

Example 4.6: Britten, On This Island, “Seascape,” mm. 4–5.41

On This Island, Op. 11 by Benjamin Britten, words by Wystan Hugh Auden © Copyright 1938 by Boosey & Co. Reprinted by Permission.

Example 4.7: Britten, On This Island, “Seascape,” mm. 24–26.42

On This Island, Op. 11 by Benjamin Britten, words by Wystan Hugh Auden © Copyright 1938 by Boosey & Co. Reprinted by Permission.

41 Ibid., 10.

42 Ibid., 12.

98

Britten’s cabaret song “Tell Me the Truth about Love” opens with the singer speaking the word “love” in four different languages. Christopher Palmer notes that when the singer begins singing the text of the song proper the first chord in the piano accompaniment outline the famous love chord from Wagner’s Tristan.43 Britten’s chord is an enharmonic equivalent to the original spelling of the chord: augmented fourth, augmented sixth, and augmented second, respectively, from the root of the chord (see Example 4.8). In “Funeral Blues” the “muffled drum” requested by the singer in m. 8 can be heard in the drum-roll figure with which the piano accompanies her with in mm. 3–9 (see Example 4.9). While, the honking horns of irritated New York City drivers appear throughout “Calypso” in major seconds and enharmonic equivalent diminished thirds as the singer encourages her driver to speed through the city (see Example 4.10).

Example 4.8: Britten, Cabaret Songs, “Tell Me the Truth about Love,” mm. 1–4.44

CABARET SONGS Music by Benjamin Britten Words by W. H. Auden Music © 1980 by Faber Music Ltd

43 Mitchell, “Britten’s Blues and Cabaret Songs,” 3.

44 Britten, Cabaret Songs, 2.

99

Example 4.9: Britten, Cabaret Songs, “Funeral Blues,” mm. 8–9.45

CABARET SONGS Music by Benjamin Britten Words by W. H. Auden Music © 1980 by Faber Music Ltd

Example 4.10: Britten, Cabaret Songs, “Calypso,” mm. 24–26.46

CABARET SONGS Music by Benjamin Britten Words by W. H. Auden Music © 1980 by Faber Music Ltd

“Johnny” abounds with text painting as the singer describes various events in the relationship with her lover. Some examples follow. The grace note in the “went” motive, first occurring in m. 14, characterizes sobbing every time the singer repeats “and he went away” (see

Example 4.11). In mm. 88–89, a glissando in the right-hand part precedes the text “ev’ry star rattled a round tambourine,” which travels to the upper register of the piano to approximate the stars. Three half note trills follow to portray the rattling tambourine (see Example 4.12). Britten

45 Ibid., 8.

46 Ibid., 21.

100

requests “Lento: quasi recit” for the portion of the song describing the lovers’ outing to the opera. He sets the text of the first two phrases as a recitative; however, on the final note the vocal line dramatically leaps up an octave and is sustained with a fermata. The second phrase, “When music poured out of each wonderful star?,” concludes with a bel canto-like cadenza, first overflowing upward from Ab to C, and then spilling downward in an Ab staccato arpeggio (see

Example 4.13).

Example 4.11: Britten, Cabaret Songs, “Johnny,” mm. 13–14.47

CABARET SONGS Music by Benjamin Britten Words by W. H. Auden Music © 1980 by Faber Music Ltd

Example 4.12: Britten, Cabaret Songs, “Johnny,” mm. 87–89.48

CABARET SONGS Music by Benjamin Britten Words by W. H. Auden Music © 1980 by Faber Music Ltd

47 Ibid., 13.

48 Ibid., 19.

101

Example 4.13: Britten, Cabaret Songs, “Johnny,” mm. 42–46.49

CABARET SONGS Music by Benjamin Britten Words by W. H. Auden Music © 1980 by Faber Music Ltd

While there are no vocal slides or glissandi in the first four songs of On this Island,

Britten does use a rolled chord in m. 24 of “Now the Leaves Are Falling Fast” (see Example

4.14). This accompanimental technique is also observed in Britten’s cabaret songs, especially

“Johnny.” In addition Britten uses trills in “Let the Florid Music Praise!” and “Johnny.” All four of Britten’s cabaret songs contain pedal markings. Britten uses grace notes for effect in the vocal lines of “Let the Florid Music Praise!,” “Now the Leaves Are Falling Fast,” and “Johnny.” He uses grace notes in the accompaniment in “Let the Florid Music Praise!,” “Funeral Blues,” and

49 Ibid., 15.

102

“Johnny.” The use of grace notes ceases to be a part of Britten’s classical style in his song cycles after Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo (1940).50

Example 4.14: Britten, On This Island, “Now the Leaves are Falling Fast,” m. 24.51

On This Island, Op. 11 by Benjamin Britten, words by Wystan Hugh Auden © Copyright 1938 by Boosey & Co. Reprinted by Permission.

All of the songs in Britten’s On This Island modulate.52 Three of four cabaret songs modulate. In all cases Britten uses motivic material to assist in modulation. Peter Evans writes that in “Nocturne” two identical strophes of text precede the modulation and development. Then the original arpeggio motive starts again, but it is slightly altered and raised successively. This modulation ultimately yields the remote key area of the distinto (parlante) section (see Example

4.15).53 In “Let the Florid Music Praise!,” Britten uses the fanfare motive to simply and instantly modulate via a pivot chord from a I6 chord in D Major to a V6 chord in the new G minor (see

Example 4.16).54

50 Boaz, “Performer’s Guide to On This Island,” 114 .

51 Britten, On This Island, 9.

52 Boaz, “Performer’s Guide to On This Island,” 104.

53 Evans, The Music of Benjamin Britten, 75.

103

Example 4.15: Britten, On This Island, “Nocturne,” mm. 38–46.55

On This Island, Op. 11 by Benjamin Britten, words by Wystan Hugh Auden © Copyright 1938 by Boosey & Co. Reprinted by Permission.

Example 4.16: Britten, On This Island, “Let the Florid Music Praise!,” mm. 31–35.56

On This Island, Op. 11 by Benjamin Britten, words by Wystan Hugh Auden © Copyright 1938 by Boosey & Co. Reprinted by Permission.

54 Boaz, “Performer’s Guide to On This Island,” 106.

55 Britten, On This Island, 19.

56 Ibid., 3.

104

The modulation of “Tell Me the Truth about Love” is similar to that of “Nocturne.” After two identical repetitions of the melody, ending each time in “Tell Me the Truth about Love,”

Britten uses a variation of the two-measure “Tell Me the Truth about Love” motive three times successively higher to modulate up by step to the remote key of A# major (#V). The bass assists in the modulation through a one-measure repeated sequence, which moves down a minor third to a dominant seventh or ninth chord and then resolves up a perfect fourth to the new key area.

Unlike “Nocturne” there is no development in the new key area. The modulation to A# major lasts for two measures, and then the entire chord is transposed up a semi-tone to a D-major I6/4 chord, preparing the official return to D major in the next measure (see Example 4.17). In the successive strophes, Britten alters the text where necessary for proper word stress. There is an altered third ending for the final strophe, but it merely remains in the upper register an octave higher after the return to D major, and then repeats the phrase in the its original octave. No alteration is made to the final “Tell Me the Truth about Love” motive, so the singer concludes the piece on the third in an imperfect cadence.

105

Example 4.17: Britten, Cabaret Songs, “Tell Me the Truth about Love,” mm. 28–36.57

CABARET SONGS Music by Benjamin Britten Words by W. H. Auden Music © 1980 by Faber Music Ltd

In “Johnny,” each section of the ballad story has its own unique key area or areas. The piece opens in F major. It remains through the refrain “But he frowned like thunder and went away.” Here Britten uses a simple common-tone modulation as the third scale degree in F major,

A, becomes scale degree five in D major. This technique is nearly identical to the one shown in

“Let the Florid Music Praise!” with the exception that Britten just uses a single note in “Johnny” instead of a chord (see Example 4.18). The modulations each time after the refrain are not unprepared. The refrain returns each time in its original key of F major through a common-tone modulation on the note C, and then Britten simply starts the new section in the chosen key. The

“grand opera” section actually moves through several key areas: G major, Ab major, D major, Eb major, and A minor. At this point another common tone modulation leads back into the refrain,

57 Britten, Cabaret Songs, 5–6.

106

which is nearly identical to the first. The pitch C in A minor, scale degree three, becomes the starting pitch and scale degree five of the refrain in F major. The “waltz” section is in Db major and again leads back to the F major refrain through a common-tone modulation on C, scale degree seven in the previous key. The final section is in F minor, which is smoothly connected to the final F-major chorus. This time the pianist alone has the first half of the refrain, and the singer enters only for “but you went away.”

Example 4.18: Britten, Cabaret Songs, “Johnny,” mm. 13–23.58

CABARET SONGS Music by Benjamin Britten Words by W. H. Auden Music © 1980 by Faber Music Ltd

58 Ibid., 13.

107

The final cabaret song that contains modulation is “Calypso.” Peter Evans cites Britten’s use of pedal tones, specifically in “Let the Florid Music Praise!” (see Example 4.19).59

“Calypso” opens with a D pedal in the bass, present more or less for the first thirty-three measures, which functions to stabilize the key of G throughout the dissonant “car horn” clusters

(see Example 4.20). The vocal melody of mm. 17–34 is in the key of G major with the inclusion of occasional F-naturals. In m. 37, F-natural transitions to the new key area of F major. In mm.

34–37, Britten blurs the tonality with the “car horn” clusters, and then confirms the new key with an F-major scale in the left-hand part of the piano in mm. 38 and 39 (see Example 4.21). The F- major vocal melody begins in m. 40. The inclusion of an Ab in m. 46 creates a modulation to F minor. This new Ab ultimately leads to a common tone modulation to Db in m. 54. This modulation is again reminiscent of that in “Let the Florid Music Praise!” as Ab, the third scale degree of F minor becomes the fifth scale degree of Db major.

In m. 63, Britten re-writes Ab as G#, and, thus, through another common-tone modulation,

B major is achieved in m. 64. This modulation is confirmed by the B-major chromatic scale in the piano in mm. 64. The B-major vocal melody beginning in m. 66 is accompanied by simple one-measure harmonic movement in the bass from IV-I-V-I (see Example 4.22). The D pedal returns in m. 76, which prepares for the return of G major in m. 80. G major remains until the end of the piece; however, there is never resolution of the D pedal or the cluster chords. The voice continues on D and the cluster chords remain as the piece fades away.

59 Evans, The Music of Benjamin Britten, 74.

108

Example 4.19: Britten, On This Island, “Let the Florid Music Praise!,” mm. 48–49.60

On This Island, Op. 11 by Benjamin Britten, words by Wystan Hugh Auden © Copyright 1938 by Boosey & Co. Reprinted by Permission.

Example 4.20: Britten, Cabaret Songs, “Calypso,” mm. 1–8.61

CABARET SONGS Music by Benjamin Britten Words by W. H. Auden Music © 1980 by Faber Music Ltd

60 Britten, On This Island, 5.

61 Britten, Cabaret Songs, 20.

109

Example 4.21: Britten, Cabaret Songs, “Calypso,” mm. 36–41.62

CABARET SONGS Music by Benjamin Britten Words by W. H. Auden Music © 1980 by Faber Music Ltd

Example 4.22: Britten, Cabaret Songs, “Calypso,” mm. 64–71.63

CABARET SONGS Music by Benjamin Britten Words by W. H. Auden Music © 1980 by Faber Music Ltd

62 Ibid., 22–23.

63 Ibid., 25.

110

Boaz writes that in “Seascape” Britten incorporates every pitch of the twelve-tone chromatic scale into the “wave” motive. This is also the case in “Calypso.” Over the course of the piece, all twelve notes appear in the major second “car horn” cluster (see Table 4.1). In fact, each note even appears as both the top and bottom note of the cluster, with the exception of the B and C# cluster. We do hear the B and C# cluster indirectly in mm. 66–67 and 70–71 as the right- hand part has repeated B’s over the C#’s in the sustained chords of the left hand (see Example

4.22). Upon closer look at the key areas Britten visits during this piece, G, F, Db and B, it becomes apparent that the keys chosen are symbolic of the major second “car horn” motive on a larger scale. When G and F are paired as well as Db and B, the key areas spell out two major second clusters that are a tritone apart. This, therefore, offers reassurance that the B and C# (Db) cluster was, in fact, not overlooked.

Table 4.1: Major Second Clusters in Britten, Cabaret Songs, “Calypso.”

Cluster Measure(s) C - D 18, 20, 28–30, 87, 91 C# - D#/Eb 5–16, 24–26, 34–36, 39, 76–79, 92–94 D - E 17, 19, 24–27, 34–36, 80, 92–94 Eb - F 23, 33 E - F#/Gb 37, 46–51, 83 F - G 22, 32 F# - G#/Ab 15–16, 38–39 G - A 21, 31, 52–61 G# - A# 38 A - B 40–45 A# - C 62–63 B - C# 66–67, 70–71 (indirectly)

111

Britten’s cabaret songs contain many reflections of popular song that are not evidenced in his classical compositional style of the time. The opening of “Tell Me the Truth about Love” specifically pays homage to cabaret. Britten writes “spoken” and notates the text not on pitches but, instead, with the symbol “x” (see Example 4.8). Britten does mark a section of “Nocturne” distinto (parlante) and notates the entire eight measures on one note, middle C. However, the pitch-less notation and spoken nature of “Tell Me the Truth about Love” are undoubtedly different from his treatment of “Nocturne,” and they directly reference the diseuse style associated with Parisian and Berlin cabarets. Donald Mitchell argues that “Tell Me the Truth about Love” was “clearly conceived in the manner of Cole Porter,” as evidenced by “the obligatory-8-bar intro” as well as the song’s unforgettable melody.64

With regard to “Johnny” Humphrey Carpenter writes:

The song was certainly light in verbal and musical style – the piano accompaniment slips through various pastiches (folk-song, polka, grand opera, Viennese waltz) . . . .”65

The folk-song reference occurs in m. 3, with the simple, lilting melody of the voice. The piano accompanies the voice with simple harmonies played in rolled chords. This section is quite reminiscent of a troubadour or minstrel, self-accompanied on a stringed instrument. The grace- note flourish in m. 4 certainly accentuates this image (see Example 4.23a). The “Matinee Ball” section of the ballad begins in m. 15. In m. 16 the piano enters with the accompaniment figure commonly associated with a polka consisting of two staccato eighths followed by an accented chord on the weak second beat (see Example 4.23b). The following references to opera in the third section of the piece, beginning m. 42 have already been discussed previously: tempo

64 Mitchell, “Britten’s Blues and Cabaret Songs,” 3.

65 Carpenter, Britten, 105.

112

marking Lento: quasi recit., recitative-like style of voice and accompaniment, and the dramatic vocal leaps and cadenza (see Example 4.13). Last, Britten invokes a Viennese waltz in m. 55.

The tempo marking, Tempo di Valse, certainly supports this claim. The accompaniment, complete with pedal markings, contains a chord on the downbeat in the left hand and alternates between groups of legato eighth and quarter-notes or two staccato quarters in the right hand.

Above the accompaniment Britten writes a sweeping vocal line (see Example 4.23c).

Example 4.23: Britten, Cabaret Songs, “Johnny,” mm. 3–4, 15–19, and 60–64.66

(a)

CABARET SONGS Music by Benjamin Britten Words by W. H. Auden Music © 1980 by Faber Music Ltd

(b)

CABARET SONGS Music by Benjamin Britten Words by W. H. Auden Music © 1980 by Faber Music Ltd

66 Britten, Cabaret Songs, 12–13 and 17.

113

(c)

CABARET SONGS Music by Benjamin Britten Words by W. H. Auden Music © 1980 by Faber Music Ltd

The vocal and accompanimental styles of Britten’s cabaret songs are much simpler and lighter in texture than that those of On This Island. The difference is evident simply from glancing through the pages of the scores. For example in “Tell Me the Truth about Love,” the singer sings straight F#’s for an entire page while the pianist just rolls and holds chords. In the recurring refrain of “Johnny,” the pianist even plays in unison octaves and doubles the voice part

(see Example 4.11). Typical standard accompanimental figures such as the stride pattern and waltz are common in the cabaret songs. In addition, when listening to Britten’s two-measure accompaniment to “Tell Me the Truth about Love,” a listener can not help but be reminded of

Hoagy Carmichael’s popular song of 1938 “Heart and Soul” (see Example 4.24). Popular figures such as slides, glissandi, and tremoli appear in all of the cabaret songs except “Tell Me the Truth about Love.” Vocal slides and glissandi abound in “Funeral Blues” and “Johnny” (see Examples

4.25 and 4.26). There is one vocal slide in “Calypso,” and there are tremoli in “Calypso” and

“Johnny.”

114

Example 4.24: Britten, Cabaret Songs, “Tell Me the Truth about Love,” mm. 11–13.67

CABARET SONGS Music by Benjamin Britten Words by W. H. Auden Music © 1980 by Faber Music Ltd

Example 4.25: Britten, Cabaret Songs, “Funeral Blues,” mm. 30–31.68

CABARET SONGS Music by Benjamin Britten Words by W. H. Auden Music © 1980 by Faber Music Ltd

Example 4.26: Britten, Cabaret Songs, “Johnny,” mm. 51–53.69

CABARET SONGS Music by Benjamin Britten Words by W. H. Auden Music © 1980 by Faber Music Ltd

67 Britten, Cabaret Songs, 3.

68 Ibid., 11.

69 Ibid., 16.

115

Unlike On This Island, a very regular phrase structure characterizes Britten’s cabaret songs. “Tell Me the Truth about Love” and “Funeral Blues” are both composed entirely of two- measure phrases. “Johnny” alternates between two- and four-measure phrases throughout.

“Calypso” is a bit more adventurous in that it includes one six-measure phrase and two three- measure phrases, beginning in mm. 11 and 40, respectively. All of the rest are two- or four- measure phrases, the majority being four measures.

Finally, several additional features not typical of Britten’s classical style are apparent in

“Calypso.” In this piece Britten includes a part for “whistle,” beginning in m. 79, which is to be played by the singer as the piece reaches the Presstisimo of the last page. Following the whistle, the singer’s next two phrases are sung on neutral syllables, “ah” and “la,” respectively. While

Britten’s On This Island does include melismatic writing in the first song, those instances all occur on words from the poem not neutral syllables. “Calypso” ends indeterminately as Britten notates that both singer and pianist should fade away at their discretion (see Example 4.27).

Finally, in order to portray the frantic nature of the singer and the chaos of the ride, Britten syncopates the rhythm and calls for a poco a poco accelerando throughout the song.

116

Example 4.27: Britten, Cabaret Songs, “Calypso,” mm. 76–94.70

CABARET SONGS Music by Benjamin Britten Words by W. H. Auden Music © 1980 by Faber Music Ltd

70 Ibid., 25–26.

117

Britten’s cabaret songs are, in fact, quite similar in musical style to the final song of On

This Island, “As It Is, Plenty.” Like his cabaret songs, its texture is much sparser and simpler than that of the other songs of On This Island. The song opens with a piano vamp, which continues under the vocal line, repeating a one-measure broken chord pattern for the first seven measures. Boaz sites the recurrence of cluster chords throughout the accompaniment of this piece. She states they reflect the influence of jazz71 and suggests that they represent car horns from the vehicles discussed in the first strophe of text (see Example 4.28).72 These cluster chords are extremely similar to the major seconds that Britten later used in “Calypso” for the same purpose. The chords change in m. 8, but the vamp continues for another four measures. In m. 13, the accompaniment simply plays the melody of the voice part doubled at the octave. This doubling occurs again at the end of the piece in mm. 45–47; this time under the voice part singing the exact same notes (see Example 4.29).

71 Boaz, “Performer’s Guide to On this Island,” 182.

72 Ibid., 191.

118

Example 4.28: Britten, On This Island, “As It Is, Plenty,” mm. 1–8.73

On This Island, Op. 11 by Benjamin Britten, words by Wystan Hugh Auden © Copyright 1938 by Boosey & Co. Reprinted by Permission.

Example 4.29: Britten, On This Island, “As It Is, Plenty,” mm. 45–47.74

On This Island, Op. 11 by Benjamin Britten, words by Wystan Hugh Auden © Copyright 1938 by Boosey & Co. Reprinted by Permission.

73 Britten, On This Island, 21.

74Ibid., 25.

119

Peter Evans notes that “As It Is, Plenty” exemplifies the “monotonously clipped rhythms and the effete dissonance of sophisticated pre-ward dance music.”75 In m. 29, there is a vocal slide and as well as a glissando in the piano part. Britten originally wrote a descending glissando in the first measure of “Let the Florid Music Praise!” but changed it after consulting with Frank

Bridge. Britten elaborates: “He [Bridge] hated that, and said I was trying to make a slide-drum or something non-tonal out of the instrument: on the piano, the gesture ought to be a musical one.

So, I rewrote it as a downward D-major arpeggio;”76 however, Britten did not change the glissando in this final piece before publication. There are also several examples of rolled chords in “As It Is, Plenty.” While one rolled chord appeared previously in “Now the Leaves Are

Falling Fast,” here there are a total of seventeen. The text is less intelligible than in the previous songs of the cycle. This is due to the frequent repetition of words, the monotony and jaunty rhythm of the repetitive vocal line, and the running together of several ideas without pause for clarity (see Example 4.28). Unlike Britten’s cabaret songs, “As It Is, Plenty” does not follow a regular phrase structure. Similar to the previous songs in its cycle, the number of measures in a phrase is rarely consistent from phrase to phrase.

Peter Pears notes that the final song “rounds off the volume amusingly enough.”77 Donald

Mitchell favors the song, greatly praising the piece for its satire:

. . . in the last song, “As it is plenty,” we have one of Britten’s wittiest, sharpest and most elegant songs in this mode [the “cabaret” style], the only cabaret-like song to be published during his lifetime. . . . clearly it belongs to the same genre [as the cabaret songs composed previously in 1937]; but the manipulation of the style is different and new. A popular song idiom is used to damn the false virtues the poet recites, while itself escaping triviality.78

75 Evans, The Music of Benjamin Britten, 75.

76 Quoted in Boaz, “Performance Guide to On This Island,” 103.

77 Peter Pears, “The Vocal Music” in Mitchell and Keller, Benjamin Britten, 64.

78 Mitchell, Britten and Auden in the Thirties, 146 and 148.

120

Unlike Mitchell, other critics were not convinced that this final song “escaped triviality.”

Recognizing the use of satire, Peter Evans still argues that “As It Is, Plenty” is “markedly the weakest in the set”79 and that “in a work that offers so much . . . the finale may appear a disappointment.”80 Arnold Whittall, who complimented the cycle as a whole, claims, “as for the attempt at a popular style in the last song, this may now seem like one of the miscalculations of immaturity.”81 Christopher Mark concurs:

. . . when contrasted with the rest of the set, it reminds us that despite his [Britten’s] considerable technique and expressive achievements, the Britten of the years immediately preceding his departure for North America was still unsure of his musical identity and prone to lapses of judgment.82

Despite criticism of the final song, the variety of On This Island did not go unappreciated. Graham Johnson notes:

The whole cycle is a fascinating compendium of different styles; it is rather like a young man trying on five different suits and looking good in all of them. From the florid opening song it is a long journey to the cabaret-style “As it is, plenty” . . . .83

Mitchell feels quite similarly about Britten’s cabaret songs as he writes that these songs are evidence of the diversity of styles in which Anderson excelled. He maintains the cabaret songs cover a full range of popular styles including the Cole Porter-like “Tell Me the Truth about

79 Evans, The Music of Benjamin Britten, 73.

80 Ibid., 75.

81 Quoted in Boaz, “Performer’s Guide to On This Island,” 181.

82 Ibid., 178. Professor Kenneth Griffiths sides with Mitchell and would argue with those who criticize the piece. He adds, however, that in his experience the piece is frequently performed much too fast, and, therefore, audiences are not capable of grasping the true meaning of the poetry and music. The true meaning of the text according to Graham Johnson is that “Love itself is now parodied because it is no longer real;” quoted in Graham Johnson, Britten, Voice, & Piano: Lectures on the Vocal Music of Benjamin Britten, ed. George Odam (Aldershot: Ashgate 2003), 155.

83 Graham Johnson, “Voice and Piano,” in The Britten Companion, ed. Christopher Palmer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 288.

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Love,” the dramatic, “nihilistic” march “Funeral Blues,” “Johnny” the extended ballad, and finally the “bravura” patter song “Calypso.”84

Mitchell purports that Britten continued his “excursion into the ‘entertainment’ world” through the early forties. He attributes Britten & Auden’s operetta Paul Bunyan to this period and describes it as “a summation and consummation of Britten’s preceding collaborations with

Auden in film, theater, and radio.”85

In conclusion, several characteristics of Britten’s “serious” style are fully present in

Britten’s cabaret songs. Yet, his cabaret songs also largely reflect the influence of “light” or popular music. There are several plausible reasons that Britten may have turned to cabaret pieces at this time, and it is impossible to know which, if any, may be accurate. However, as was often the case with Britten, his motivations were probably closely tied to the people in his life; thus, for these pieces the likely catalysts were W. H. Auden, Hedli Anderson, and Christopher

Isherwood. Finally, while the purpose of this chapter was to examine On This Island to discern its “serious” influences on musical aspects of the cabaret songs, it has become clear that Britten’s cabaret songs were also most likely an influence on his On This Island, regarding the final song at the very least. While some critics were quite displeased with this, perhaps it is just evidence of

Britten’s musical philosophy:

. . . we shouldn’t worry too much about the so-called “permanent” value of our occasional music. A lot of it cannot make sense after its first performance, and it is quite a good thing to please people even if only for today. That is what we should aim at— pleasing people today as seriously as we can and letting the future look after itself.86

84 Mitchell, “Britten’s Blues and Cabaret Songs,” 2–3.

85 Mitchell, Britten and Auden in the Thirties, 157.

86 Quoted in Boaz, “Performer’s Guide to On This Island,” 57.

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CONCLUSION

The purpose of this document has been to contextualize the cabaret songs of Satie,

Schoenberg, Weill, and Britten in the historical development of the genre and to analyze these works to discern popular and “serious” musical characteristics in a comparison to the composers’ classical stylistic traits of the time. The cabaret works of Satie and Britten were compared to

“serious” songs written by the composers during the same time period of their cabaret songs,

“Chanson médiévale” and On This Island, respectively. Schoenberg’s and Weill’s cabaret songs were compared to the composers’ own classical styles of that time. My study showed that the cabaret songs of these four composers blend elements of the composers’ classical style of the time with additional popular music elements. While, in general, the cabaret songs of these four composers are not as complex as their classical works of the time, I have demonstrated that some musical aspects of Satie and Britten’s cabaret songs are actually more complex than the “serious” songs to which they were compared. For example, Satie’s second setting of “Le veuf” and

“Tendrement” show greater rhythmic complexity than “Chanson médiévale,” and the vocal range of Britten’s “Johnny” even surpasses that of On This Island.

Satie, Schoenberg, and Britten all composed their cabaret songs at the beginning of their compositional careers. Weill came to write cabaret songs during a very transitional time in the middle of his career, a time of exile and financial distress in France between periods of compositional success in Germany and the United States. Of the four composers only Weill is known to have published cabaret songs during his lifetime. The prospect of financial gain has already been mentioned as a motivating factor for the composition of cabaret songs for all four composers addressed in this study. In addition, it is possible that these classical composers were more open to experimenting with cabaret song at an earlier stage in their careers, or during a

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transitional stage in the case of Weill. In any case, the general lack of publication of these composers’ cabaret songs suggests that while several classical composers were intrigued by the genre of cabaret, they did not desire to be remembered for their encounters with it.

Over the course of this study arose several topics, which could be explored in future studies of cabaret songs. First, Friedrich Holländer and Misha Spoliansky, both major exponents of cabaret song, were not included in my document as they are not widely regarded as classical composers. But, it would make an interesting study to analyze their cabaret songs according to the criteria I set up for this study in order to discern if they include any classical or more complex stylistic traits, such as those found in the works of the classical composers of this study.

Second, it is clear how Satie and Weill came to cabaret song, and Britten’s cabaret songs were likely written upon the suggestion of influential artists and close friends with whom he collaborated, most likely Auden and Anderson. Yet, with his disdain of the blurring of popular and classical styles, Schoenberg’s Brettl-Lieder remain quite puzzling. Are there any other examples of this blending of styles in Schoenberg’s compositional output? Since the majority of current literature on Schoenberg completely ignores his Brettl-Lieder, is it possible that he may have had other experimentations with popular music that are just not widely known?

Alternatively, perhaps at this early stage in his career Schoenberg had not yet formed his beliefs with regard to popular music and the blending of popular and “serious” styles. Might there be any evidence that these beliefs developed later in life or gradually over the course of his career?

Although, this study focused on cabaret songs by classical composers from the first half of the twentieth century, the genre has attracted later classical composers as well. William

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Bolcom has written four volumes of Cabaret Songs in addition to a set entitled Ancient Cabaret.1

This past year, composer and pianist Jake Heggie, mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, and musicologist James M. Keller presented a recital on an Alaskan cruise billed as “‘Cabaret,’ a celebration of American song that touches upon Copland, Gershwin, Kern, Sondheim, and Jake

Heggie.”2 So, what characterizes cabaret today? Which classical composers are exploring the genre, what inspires them to do so, how do they choose their texts, and what are their thoughts on performance practice? Do these pieces include both elements of popular and “serious” styles, and if popular elements are present, are they included intentionally by the composer?

In closing, despite the fact that the composers I studied in my document may not have wanted to be remembered for their endeavors into cabaret, their cabaret songs should not be ignored. They should no longer be excluded from scholarly research because they have “light” or

“popular” characteristics, or because they were unpublished or not highly regarded by their composers. As was discussed earlier with regard to Satie, any piece a composer writes influences his future musical career, even if the composer may have intended the piece as a compositional experiment or a means for financial gain. Perhaps without these sources of income, some of these four composers would have been forced to turn away from music in order to make enough money for survival. Furthermore, cabaret was a socio-political factor of the first half of the twentieth century, and, thus, greatly influenced society in general beyond its influence on the musical and artistic world. I, therefore, find it likely that in addition to the prospect of financial gain, these composers had a genuine interest in this new art form. Lisa Appignanesi concludes

1 William Bolcom and Arnold Weinstein, Cabaret Songs Complete: Volumes 1–4, for Medium Voice and Piano (Milwaukee, WI: E. B. Marks Music Company, 2009); William Bolcom and Arnold Weinstein, Ancient Cabaret: Art Songs, That Is, Songs about Art (Milwaukee, WI: E. B. Marks Music Company, 2001).

2 Insight Cruises, “Opera Odyssey 2,” Opera News 73 (Dec. 2008): 33.

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her book The Cabaret with the following description of the social impact of the cabaret movement:

History has all too clearly shown that art and satire cannot stem the tides of terror or disaster. But if the artist’s metaphorical gun is no particularly potent weapon, it can still instigate shifts of awareness. It can indicate that other potential reality which is the home of hope and a vision of justice. Brecht’s wry smile hovers over the cabaret’s domain: “I could do but little, but the rulers would have sat safer had I not existed. I hope.”3

3 Appinanesi, The Cabaret, 251.

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