U UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI Date: I, , hereby submit this original work as part of the requirements for the degree of: in It is entitled: Student Signature: This work and its defense approved by: Committee Chair: Approval of the electronic document: I have reviewed the Thesis/Dissertation in its final electronic format and certify that it is an accurate copy of the document reviewed and approved by the committee. Committee Chair signature: Structure and Meaning in Schnittke Analysis: Oppositional Functions in the Viola Concerto A thesis submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Cincinnati in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Music in the Division of Composition, Musicology, and Theory of the College-Conservatory of Music 2009 by Christa Marie Emerson B.A. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1999 Committee Chair: Robert Zierolf, Ph.D. ABSTRACT This thesis looks at Schnittke’s Viola Concerto from a narrative perspective, using the concepts of agents and oppositional functions, which are expounded in Gregory Karl’s analytical work. Thematic and harmonic materials used throughout the concerto are defined, then their various occurrences and transformations are interpreted in relation to the structure of the work using this narrative method. Chapter one provides an overview of the piece and key aspects of Karl’s analytical terminology and method. In chapter two, key thematic and harmonic elements that form the foundation of the music’s materials are identified. Chapters three through five look individually at each movement. Although Schnittke used materials including a serial row, completion of the aggregate, and traditional harmonic gestures throughout the composition, their placements within the structure is best understood in terms of the composition’s narrative. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I thank my advisor, Dr. Robert Zierolf, for his guidance and support throughout my program at the University of Cincinnati, especially with my thesis project. I also am grateful to Dr. David Carson Berry and Dr. Jeongwon Joe for their inspirational teaching, which led to the formation of this project. All three have been invaluable throughout my studies in developing my research interests and ideas. I also sincerely appreciate Richard Adams and his editorial assistance and advice during many late nights of writing. Most of all I thank my late grandmother, Beatrice Bernice Evanski. Her encouragement in my educational and musical pursuits, as well as her unfailing belief in my abilities, continues to motivate me in everything I accomplish. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1: Introduction...………………………….………………………………………1 Chapter 2: Musical and Analytical Elements………….…………………………………11 Chapter 3: Analysis of Movement I………………………………………………….…..25 Chapter 4: Analysis of Movement II...……………………………………………….….34 Chapter 5: Analysis of Movement III….…………………………………………….…..58 Conclusions………………………………………………………………………………73 Bibliography…………..…………………………………………………………………74 Appendix...…………………………………………………………………………….....82 v CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION One aspect of a great work of music that has always fascinated me is its ability to retain and even increase interest and expressive capabilities after numerous listenings. Alfred Schnittke’s Concerto for Viola and Orchestra (1985) is one of these pieces. Every time I hear the succession B-flat–A–E-flat repeated by the harp in the final moments, I believe any attentive listener must feel they have just witnessed some great wrongdoing or tragedy. Just what elements in a musical work give rise to this kind of effect? Schnittke (1934-98) is considered one of the greatest Russian composers of the twentieth century, although relatively little scholarly attention has been given to his music and to developing appropriate analytical techniques for its study. Most analytical writings focus on the polystylistic, but few grapple with the entirety of the works. I believe the methodology proposed for this thesis will illuminate what processes are at work in Schnittke’s Viola Concerto and prove useful in explaining the dramatic unfolding of opposing forces at work in the music. Any composition that has the ability to move a human profoundly must derive its power from some perceived relation between the work and human existence. Humans tend to understand the world and the things in it by thinking in terms of causation and agency. Perhaps with music the listener may be projecting vast metaphors to make sense of a world of sounds, with no real correlation between the listener’s subjective interpretation and the music. Or maybe music does have the capacity to narrate, much in the way a story does. Consequently, some have asserted that a distinction must be made and maintained between meaning and structure, while others see them as two elements 1 that should be examined simultaneously.1 I find the latter approach especially appropriate for this concerto, as there is much evidence that Schnittke conceived his music in terms of narrative.2 Schnittke was very concerned with the juxtaposition of opposing forces or ideas such as good and evil, the individual and the collective, reason and intuition, and the rational and the irrational.3 Not surprisingly, one of his favorite genres was the concerto, in which he pitted the individual soloist against the immensity of the orchestra.4 These juxtapositions are evident in much of his music. (It is not difficult to see a parallel between them and his experience as a composer in the Soviet regime.) His music is often outwardly emotional or expressive much like that of Alban Berg and Gustav Mahler, but like these predecessors there is also careful attention to logic and reason always underlying this expression. Schnittke stated: I need to start from the assumption that the world of the spirit is ordered, structured by its very nature, that everything which causes disharmony in the world, all that is monstrous, inexplicable and dreadful . is also part of this order. And the formula for world harmony is most likely linked not to the blurring of evil but to the fact that when drawn into a harmonious picture of the whole, even evil changes its function. By complementary interaction the negative elements cancel each other out, and as a result something harmonious and beautiful is born.5 1 Gregory Karl, “Structuralism and Musical Plot,” Music Theory Spectrum 19 (spring 1997): 13- 14. 2 Alexander Ivashkin, Alfred Schnittke (London: Phaidon Press, 1996), Chapters 5-8. 3 Maria Kostakeva, “Artistic Individuality in Schnittke’s Overture and his New Political Mythology,” in Seeking the Soul: The Music of Alfred Schnittke, comp. George Odam (London: Guildhall School of Music and Drama, 2002), 18-22. 4 Ivashkin, 61, 65, 168. 5 Ibid., 155-56. 2 Schnittke frequently associated the idea of evil with popular culture.6 His biographer attributes the following ideas to Schnittke: Popular culture in a totalitarian regime is an instrument intended to destroy individuality and manipulate the tastes of the masses. Trivial music is a sign of provincialism, or narrow-mindedness. It is dangerous not only because it is a symbol of stereotypes, of clichés, but also because it can reproduce itself again and again.7 Oppositions of good and evil are expressed through his orchestrational choices. Often a musical theme or gesture becomes consumed by its surroundings and returns irreparably altered, if not completely destroyed. Another dimension is often evoked through the use of instruments that represent “shadow-sounds” such as harp, vibraphone, celesta, flexatone, bells, and piano.8 These shadow instruments seem often to have a role separate from that of the conflict and are commenting on the course of events, reemphasizing musical features or even foretelling what is to come. Many of his pieces also conclude with a sort of ambiguity or circularity in which there is a sense of being lost and unaware of where the music has come from or where it is going.9 In addition to his career as a prolific composer, Schnittke wrote many analytical articles concerning his contemporaries and musical-theoretical issues. He discusses polystylism in the works of several composers in an article written in 1971.10 In it he 6 Kostakeva, 19. 7 Ibid. 8 Ronald Weitzman, “Schnittke and Shadow-Sounds,” in Seeking the Soul: The Music of Alfred Schnittke, comp. George Odam (London: Guildhall School of Music and Drama, 2002), 9; Kostakeva, 21. 9 Kostakeva, 22. 10 Alfred Schnittke, “Polystylistic Tendencies in Modern Music,” in A Schnittke Reader, ed. Alexander Ivashkin, trans. John Goodliffe (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2002), 87-90. 3 states, “The polystylistic tendency has always existed in concealed form in music, and continues to do so, because music that is stylistically sterile would be dead.”11 The importance of discussing it now is that the “polystylistic method has become a conscious device.”12 He summarized its capabilities: It widens the range of expressive possibilities, it allows for the integration of “low” and “high” styles, of the “banal” and the “recherché”—that is, it creates a wider musical world and a general democratization of style. In it we find the documentary objective of musical reality, presented not just as something reflected individually but as an actual quotation (in the third part of Berio’s symphony we hear an ominous apocalyptical reminder of our generation’s responsibility for the fate of the world, expressed by means of a collage of quotations, of musical “documents” from various ages—reminding