Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2002 Alban Berg's filmic music: intentions and extensions of the Film Music Interlude in the Opera Lula Melissa Ursula Dawn Goldsmith Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the Music Commons Recommended Citation Goldsmith, Melissa Ursula Dawn, "Alban Berg's filmic music: intentions and extensions of the Film Music Interlude in the Opera Lula" (2002). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 2351. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/2351 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. ALBAN BERG’S FILMIC MUSIC: INTENTIONS AND EXTENSIONS OF THE FILM MUSIC INTERLUDE IN THE OPERA LULU A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The College of Music and Dramatic Arts by Melissa Ursula Dawn Goldsmith A.B., Smith College, 1993 A.M., Smith College, 1995 M.L.I.S., Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, 1999 May 2002 ©Copyright 2002 Melissa Ursula Dawn Goldsmith All rights reserved ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS It is my pleasure to express gratitude to my wonderful committee for working so well together and for their suggestions and encouragement. I am especially grateful to Jan Herlinger, my dissertation advisor, for his insightful guidance, care and precision in editing my written prose and translations, and open mindedness. His dedication to his students, to teaching and research, and to musicology has provided an inspiring example for me. I am greatly indebted to Jeffrey Perry and Kevin Bongiorni, members of my reading subcommittee, for their help from the very beginning of this study as well as for their kind words. Special thanks are also due to Bert Boyce, my minor advisor, and to Alison McFarland and Robert Peck, for their questions and comments; to Andreas Giger, for his corrections of first drafts of my translations and meticulous reading of the final examination draft; and to Robert Perlis, Dean’s representative from the Graduate School, for sharing his perceptions as well as his enthusiasm. Other Louisiana State University faculty also contributed to the resilience of my intellectual curiosity and thus to my ongoing interest in the topic: many thanks to Irene DiMaio, Dexter Edge, Richard Kaplan, Wallace McKenzie, John Pizer, David Robins, Lee Shiflett, David Smyth, Cornelia Yarbrough, and Robert Ward. Lois Kuyper-Rushing, Glen Walden, and the staff at the Carter Center for Music Resources and the Interlibrary Loan Borrowing Department in Middleton Library were extremely helpful during the research stages of this study. During the summers of 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2001, I was able to receive assistance for research at Smith College. I owe a great deal to my former undergraduate and graduate advisor, John Sessions, for kindly reading critically several drafts of chapters and for his invaluable suggestions. I also wish to thank Marlene Wong, Katherine Burnett, and the staff at the Werner Josten Music Library, for their help in gathering materials; to Randy Shannon for his help with accommodations; and to David Bickar, Cathy Noess, Ronald Perera, and Margaret Sarkissian for their advice and for listening. iii My thanks to Jennifer Williams Brown and Matthew Brown for having me stay with them and for introducing me to the Sibley Library of the University of Rochester and the George Eastman House and International Museum of Photography and Film. Jennifer Williams Brown has played a pivotal role in my education in musicology; I am grateful for her willingness and generosity in sharing her knowledge of teaching, presenting, and writing with me. I have also benefited considerably from Matthew Brown’s teaching as well as his advice concerning academia. Thanks to Dave Headlam for conversing with me on Berg research and music analysis and for reading the final draft of the dissertation. Thanks also to the staff at the Sibley Music Library for their assistance. A number of curators, archivists, librarians, and staff helped me find information at the George Eastman House and International Museum of Photography and Film: thanks to Paolo Cherchi Usai (senior curator, motion pictures), Rachel Stuhlman (librarian at the Richard and Ronay Menschel Library), and Todd Gustavson (curator, technology collection). This dissertation would not have come to fruition without the overseas correspondence (via mail and the Internet) from many archivists and librarians. Thanks to Dr. Anna Pia Maissen (Zurich Stadtarchiv), who provided me with important information about Zurich and the Zurich Opera House during the 1937 world premiere of Lulu, for helping me to obtain pictures of stills from the film used at the premiere, and for pointing me in the right direction for learning about Tempo, the Zurich company that made the film. For their efforts, I also wish to recognize Mark Schulze Steinen (Dramaturgical Department of the Zurich Opera House), The Zurich Zentralbibliothek, Office of the Trade Register of the canton of Zurich, Berlin National Library, Austrian National Library, Lower Saxony Federal State Library of Hannover, and the Archive of the National Theatre in Brno. I am also grateful to Christoph Hinterberger, Elisabeth Knessl, and Aygün Lausch at Universal Edition, who sent me Universal Edition’s copies of reviews of the premiere, along with other copies of archival materials, and for permitting me to reproduce musical examples in this dissertation. iv In addition to scholars already mentioned, other scholars offered their advice and shared their experiences with me. I was honored to receive a letter from Rudolf Arnheim, who answered my questions about living in Berlin during the 1920s and 1930s and about people he might have known while writing his essays on film. Regina Busch, Camille Crittenden, and Ulrich Krämer made suggestions that saved me a lot of time in the long run. I thank my family and friends for fortifying my confidence to do what I love and for believing in me. I am grateful to have an eccentric mother, Ursula Goldsmith, who pursued graduate degrees at the same time I did and instilled in me a love for learning and creativity. Strange as it might seem, I thank my cats Jade, Fetish, Mewzette, Mackie, Sassafrass, Beamer, Roses, Fritz, Raven, Iris, Bear, and Mer Mau, and my beta fish Sid Fischious (who resides next to my computer), for their company while I was able to write and do research at home. Finally, I express my gratitude to Kelly Davidson (my best friend from Smith College), Michael Brooks, Marcia Brown, Heather Cohen, Linda Page Cummins, Aaminah Durrani, Jennifer Finkle, Susan Fischer, Amy Francis, Elbridge Hathaway, Aaron Hillman, Chandra Holloway, Isaac Jenkins, Reginald Jones, Kheng Keow Koay, Edward Komara, Valerie Lavender, Andrea and Guy Letourneau, Aram Lief, Susan Malde, Horace Joey Maxile, Joshua McCloud, Allison McCubbin, Sarah Ngola, Robin Pierce, Heather Pinson, Michelle Pucci, Champika Ranasinghe, Noah Rosen, Jamie Ruf, JoAnn Sabatini, Rebecca Savoy, Lois Smith, Sarah Casey Smith, Patrick Tuck, Astrida Valigorsky, Nancy Washer, Lavinia Yokum, and Thomas Zirkle for their friendship in addition to engaging conversations--as well as innumerable acts of kindness--related directly or indirectly to this study and to the happiness I have found in my academic career. * * * Permission to reprint musical examples in the dissertation is acknowledged from the following source: Alban Berg “Lulu”/UE 13640 A/B © 1964 by Universal Edition A.G., Wien Revision © 1985 by Universal Edition A.G., Wien v TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS................................................................................................iii LIST OF TABLES.......................................................................................................... viii LIST OF FIGURES..........................................................................................................ix LIST OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES.....................................................................................x LIST OF PICTURES........................................................................................................xi ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................xii INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................ 1 Aims and Directions of this Study ........................................................... 1 Characters, Plot, and Narrative: The FMI in the Opera Lulu.................... 3 The History of the FMI........................................................................... 7 Berg’s Intellectual Mileu and the Motion Picture ...................................... 9 PART ONE: ANALYSIS OF THE FILM MUSIC INTERLUDE AND FILMIC ASPECTS CHAPTER 1 THE MUSICAL STRUCTURE AND BERG’S COMPOSITIONAL TECHNIQUES...................................................................................... 12 The Palindromic Structure...................................................................