The Future of Modern Music A Philosophical Exploration of Modernist Music in the 20th Century and Beyond James L. McHard Copyright© James L. McHard, 2008, 2006, 2001 All rights reserved . Copyright under Berne, Universal and Pan- American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, eletronic, mechanical or by any other information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from Iconic Press. Published by: Iconic Press, Divison of J & A Music Enterprises, Inc. Livonia, Michigan ISBN 978-0-9778195-2-2 Printed in the United States of America First published in the United States of America in 2001 by American Publishing Group Cover Design By: Anthony J. Fisher Attention colleges and universities, corporations, and writing and publishing organizations: For information on discounts contact: Iconic Press at P.O. Box 510355, Livonia, Michigan 48151 Dedication 1 1 1 For my wife, Alice McHard, in eternal gratitude for the many hours of hard work she cheerfully gave, by helping me proofread the original. My gratitude for her love and for her dedication cannot be expressed in mere words. Thus, I cannot express sufficiently my gratitude and love for her. Without her, this book would not be possible. Acknowledgements ~ I gratefully thank the following people for their assistance in the preparation of this book: Professor Karl Boel- ter, Music and Theater, Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan; William Brown, retired school principal, horn player, Detroit Symphony Orchestra; Bert Cooper, pianist, composer and electrical engineer; Dr. Julio Estrada, Pro- fessor of Composition, Universidad National Autónoma de México (UNAM), and member of the Institute of Aesthet- ics; Alice McHard, horn player (my wife); Gerard Pape, Lacanian psychologist, (Ph.D.) and Glen Price, principal horn player, Kansas City Civic Orchestra. Special thanks to Alice, Dr. Estrada, Mr. Pape, Dr. Boelter, and, most gratefully, to a terrific publishing editor, Lorna Lynch, for helping me edit this book. Also, I am indebted to Dr. Estrada for his allowing me to include a score segment from his Ishini’ioni on the cover of this book. Contents Foreword 9 Preface 13 Introduction 21 PART I Leoš Janáček 37 Claude Debussy 45 Gustav Mahler 55 Maurice Ravel 65 Gian-Francesco Malipiero 73 Paul Hindemith 83 Igor Stravinsky 91 Béla Bartók 101 Arnold Schönberg 111 Alban Berg 121 Anton Webern 129 Edgard Varèse 137 PART II Pathways to the New Music 149 Charles Ives 151 Carl Ruggles 155 Darius Milhaud 159 Matthisj Vermeulen 163 The oorwayD to the ‘New Music’ 169 PART III Olivier Messiaen 173 Pierre Boulez 183 Karlheinz Stockhausen 191 John Cage 199 Iannis Xenakis 215 Luigi Nono 235 Witold Lutosławski 249 Giacinto Scelsi 259 Julio Estrada 271 Conclusion 287 Additional Composers for the Future 303 (Karl Hartmann, Luigi Dallapiccola, Goffredo Petrassi, Giorgio Ghedini, Sergei Prokofiev, Albert Roussel, Alfredo Casella, Bohuslav Martinü, Arthur Honegger, Julián Orbón, Jón Leifs, Manuel de Falla, Ernst Toch, Fartein Valen, Harald Saeverud, Allan Pettersson, Aare Merikanto, Vagn Holmboe, Hanns Eisler, Egon Wellesz, Robert Gerhard, Carlos Chávez, Igor Markevitch, Artur Schnabel, Nikos Skalkottas, Silvestre Revueltas, Douglas Lilburn, Ahmed Saygun, Kamran Ince, Alois Hába, Josef Hauer, Henry Cowell, Conlon Nancarrow, Harry Partch, George Antheil, Luigi Russolo, Alexander Mosolov, Gavriil Popov, György Ligeti, György Kurtág, Luciano Berio, Bruno Maderna, Henri Pousseur, Karel Goeyvaerts, Krzysztof Penderecki, Henryk Górecki, George Crumb, Toru Takemitsu, Toshiro Mayuzumi, Toschi Ichyanagi, Yuji Takahashi, Yoritsune Matsudaira, Henri Dutilleux, Jean Barraqué, Pierre Barbaud, Sylvano Bussotti, Dieter Schnebel, Marticio Kagel, Franco Evangelisti, Aldo Clementi, Franco Donatoni, Hans Henze, Bernd Zimmermann, Friedrich Cerha, Gottfried Koenig, Avert Terterian, Galina Ustvolskaya, Wolgang Rihm, Gérard Grisey, Tristan Murail, Hugues Dufourt, Kaija Saariaho, Olga Neuwirth, Helmut Lachenmann, Salvatore Sciarrino, Stefano Scodanibbio, Heinz Hoffman-Richter, Chou Wen-Chung, Isang Yun, Morton Feldman, Earle Brown, Christian Wolff, David Tudor, La Monte Young, Pauline Oliveros, Donald Scavarda, George Cacioppo, Bruce Wise, Robert Sheff, Roger Reynolds, Robert Ashley, Gordon Mumma, Alvin Lucier, David Behrman, Yasunao Tone, Toshiya Tsunoda, Otomo Yoshihide) Appendix A - Re-Considerations on Klangbarbenmelodie 347 Appendix B - Perceptual Transformations 355 in Modern Music Appendix C - ONCE A Caldron of Progressive Music 375 Works Cited 387 Complete Bibliography 395 Index 401 About the Author 415 Foreword he Future of Modern Music is more than just a his- Ttory or a who’s who of early to mid-20th century art music--that which is most commonly called by musicolo- gists and other art historians “the modernist era”. McHard shows us that the “modern” in “modern music” refers not to just one specific historical era in the 20th century that is now over; it is, as he develops it, a compositional atti- tude that transcends any given era in music. For exam- ple, one might argue that, in the most general sense, the best music of any given historical era is always “modern” in that it is always experimental and groundbreaking; that is, of its time, as were the masterworks of Bach, Mozart, Berlioz, etc. in their time. It is only in retrospect, after a radically new work has become accepted by the critics and by the public, that one can say that it has become a “clas- sic”. It frequently can take, in our time, up to fifty years or more after a work has been composed for that to occur. For McHard, any type of “post” music is decadent; a “post” music being one that looks back to previous eras, attempting to recover the lost listening satisfactions embod- ied in those beloved older musics by imitating, parodying, or collaging them. This may be due to nostalgia on the part of the composer, or possibly, in some cases, a cynical at- tempt to pander to the public’s nostalgia. Another possible cause might be due to a failure of imagination on the part of the composer to get beyond his personal musical impasse. In any case, it would seem that McHard’s point is that the only “authentic” attitude possible (in the existential sense) 9 10 - The Future of Modern Music for the composer of any era to adopt is “modernist”. We may define this “modernist” attitude, in the most general sense, to be that intransigent, uncompromisingly tough stance of the composer who says to himself and to his public: “On, ever on . .” In other words, no turning back. No “post- music”. If a musical impasse is reached, one must find the courage and imagination to compose one’s way out of it; no return is possible to the halcyon days of past musics. The Future of Modern Music is also a unique overview of music in the 20th century in that it focuses on composers who are either unjustly neglected (i.e., Malipiero, Ruggles, Varèse, etc.), or who have simply not yet been recognized for their great radical genius (i.e. Scelsi, Xenakis, Estrada, etc.). Mr. McHard’s book gives us a very different picture of the 20th century’s contribution to art music. This book does not emphasize sterile historical debates such as Schoenberg vs. Stravinsky, or, more recently, the blind alleys of neo-ro- manticism, post-modernism, or other pastiche-ridden mu- sics that all seem to scream out that sincerity and originality are dead, no longer possible, or even relevant. Instead, the book focuses on those composers who are the very antith- esis of all that musical decadence. What links all these figures, despite the heteroge- neously sounding qualities of their musics, is that they all adopted that tough, uncompromising attitude of “On, ever on...”, often to their immediate personal and economic det- riment. Each composer studied in this book took the hard route, making music that was uniquely his own. Thus, not only is this book a lesson in musical history; it is also a study of artistic integrity and ethical courage. The heart of this book, that which shows that “mod- ern music” is not dead today, is that part which describes the work of those composers who have contributed to the new paradigm of working with sound itself as the primary 11 - Foreword material to be developed in a musical composition. From Cage’s admonition of “Let the sounds be themselves” to the Scelsian voyage into the “heart of sound”, we find in these “sound-oriented” composers very unique contributions to a new kind of “modern music”. It is a music which is the true music of our time, where a personal sound world is forged out of the very stuff of the inner musical imagination of the individual composer, as Julio Estrada so rightly emphasizes, both in his work as composer and composition professor. McHard, himself, is also a composer of the very type of “modern music” of which he writes. He, quite modestly, never mentions his own music in his book. Having heard his music, however, I know that he knows, from his own direct personal compositional experience, what it means to attempt to translate personal sound fantasy into rigorous musical form. Such works as his Tremors for ensemble and tape and Virtuals for tape, attest to McHard’s own experi- ences of composing, with the sound, itself, as the privileged vehicle for the transcription of inner personal experience. McHard’s book not only tells the story of some of the most interesting musical compositions of the early to mid- 20th century; it also describes what is happening in the present, and what might happen in the future with “mod- ern music”. Beyond describing the rich and interesting past of the historical “modern music” era, James McHard shows us the great potential benefit for the future of art music, which continuing to maintain a “modernist” attitude would give to the musical compositions of the future.