Korngold Talk

It is generally accepted as fact that the Bard Music Festival audience is the most rugged, intrepid, knowledgible, and resiliant assemblage of listeners in the larger music world. But even this fearless bunch may have trouble with Schoenberg’s Op. 47. This is because we don’t often get, these days, to experience a work that adheres pretty strictly to the twelve-tone method that Schoenberg himself formulated in the 1920s and which has been—even in its heyday—more talked about (generally in negative terms) than listened to. Op. 47, for violin with piano accompaniment, his last instrumental work, dates from 1949, when the composer was 75.

Many a pre-concert lecturer would tell you that the technical details of such a work should be of no importance to the listener. There is some merit to that opinion. My sense is that our group has at least some curiosity—a modicum of curiosity-- as to what it means to adopt a serial approach to music composition. In this instance Schoenberg began by choosing an ordering of the twelve notes of the chromatic scale. His intention was to treat the pitches equally, avoiding the hierarchy usual in tonal music, where especially the tonic and dominant notes—first and fifth of the scale-- were always privileged. For Schoenberg, each pitch would not come back until the other eleven were sounded. An exception is made for an immediate echoing. Compressed within one octave, this ordering sounds like this. [Demonstrate at the piano]. But he felt no obligation to restrict the notes to one octave. When the row first sounds, he placed these notes at various distances from each other. [Demonstrate at piano] He also felt free, on occasion, to reverse the ordering—instead of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 etc 12, 11, 10, 9, 8 etc. (the retrograde version) or even to invert the intervals, as though placing a mirror under the row, so that a leap of a third up would become a leap of a third down—resulting in a new succession of pitches. [Demonstate] That inverted row could then be used in reverse—the retrograde inversion. These four forms of the row (the original ordering, its retrograde, the inversion and its retrograde) could be begun on any of the twelve notes of the chromatic scale resulting in a variety of transpositions. So plenty of material can be derived from the starting point of the row. We will hear two excerpts from the work, which illustrate the row and its inversion. First the opening phrase. The violin intones the row but with the notes given rhythm and spaced, as I showed before, quite far apart, which has the effect of the performer staking out the musical space. [Illustrate at piano] Against this, the piano bases its punctuating chords on the inversion of the row but starting at a new pitch level. [Illustrate] Clustering notes together to make chords gives, obviously, a very different impression than stringing them out linearly. Now let’s hear that opening phrase [Example 1] About three minutes into this 9-minute piece the violin appears in the high register against a tinkling piano accompaniment. The violin’s line is the inversion of the row and the piano’s figuration is derived from the original form of the row—the reverse of the opening. [Example 2].

Now comes the moment when I say: fascinating though it all is, feel free to ignore everything I’ve said about the row and its derivatives so as to listen to the piece freshly, without complicating technicalities. If an architect were to rely on the Golden Section Ratio in the construction of a building, that information is neither apparent nor relevant to a person living within the building. Something similar may obtain here. But could we hear that second bit again? It’s my favorite passage in the piece. [Example 3].

You will read that Schoenberg composed the violin part in its entirety before adding the piano—a most unusual procedure reminiscent of the medieval period, when voices were added successively to a chant melody. I suspect that he originally planned it to be a piece for violin alone—then changed his mind. This does not minimize the importance of the piano part, which Schoenberg actually considered orchestrating near the end of his life.

One thing clear about twelve-tone music: the idiom is necessarily chromatic—densely chromatic. Tonality is created by leaving out notes of the chromatic scale. But it is surely possible to be chromatic (less than densely) and tonal at the same time, as the first movement of Korngold’s String Quartet No. 3 reminds us. The opening theme is restless and slithering. [Example 4]. A contrasting theme is beseeching [Example 5]. A third idea, lighter in tone, makes a clear cadence in C major [Example 6].

According to the critic Dorothy Crawford, the second movement, a scherzo with trio, was inspired—at least at its opening—by the composer’s fascination with the lights at night of aircraft workers’ cars streaming into the parking lot of the Lockheed factory. To Korngold their efforts would lead to “Hitler’s end.” The first theme emphasizes off-the-string playing--the bouncing bows. [Ex. 7] The trio could hardly be more contrasting. Legato (bows glued to the string), lyrical and memorable. [Play first on piano] Then, with a little intro: [Ex. 8] This melody comes with some baggage. In the 1944 film “Between Two Worlds”, score by Korngold, the story of which involves a mix of individuals most of whom perished in a bomb attack (two suicides were also involved). These people find themselves on a mysterious ship. In due course, they learn that they have died, are in limbo, and will be ‘examined’ to decide their fate. One of these, a timid minister nicknamed Bunny, is heard wistfully regretting his isolated life, his lack of worldly experience. We hear a version of our melody in the distant background. [Ex. 9] Somewhat later, the steward confirms to the passengers their situation. Again, Bunny speaks, and the melody in minor key can be heard (just barely). [Ex. 10]. Luckily, Bunny recognizes The Examiner, Thompson (chubby Sydney Greenstreet) as someone he knew in the past. Thompson decides to give him the opportunity to become an examiner in training. The melody comes back, now in the major mode. [Ex. 11]

The third movement of our string quartet consists of variations on a theme marked “Like a folk tune.” [Play first on the piano] Then: [Ex. 12] This melody comes from the “The Sea Wolf.” Most of Korngold’s music for this 1941 film is stormy and violent, as appropriate for Edward G. Robinson’s sadistic ship’s captain, Wolf Larsen. John Garfield is licking his wounds when Ida Lupino offers help. They are huddled in some deep recess in the ship. It’s the first and only gentle music in the score. (Ida’s words are a little hard to hear—“Your friend Mr. Johnson told me where you were…what they’d done to you—how they beat you. I came to see if there was anything I could do to help.”) [Ex. 13]. He softens, accepts her offer of a cigarette, and then something interesting happens. The music we alone have been hearing is suddently audible to them. He recognizes the harmonica that the youngest crew member plays when he is sad—in this case because the ship doctor, Louie, has just killed himself. A diegetic moment—if you know what I mean. [Ex. 14.]

The fourth and final movement of the string quartet begins, after a short intro, with a vigorous repeated-note theme. [Ex. 15]. But it’s the second theme, jaunty in spirit, that relates to film music—but in the opposite direction. It was written first and then employed the following year in a movie score—“Devotion” about the Brontë family. This is the jaunty theme: [Ex. 16] We hear it in the film as father Brontë converses uneasily with Aunt Elizabeth Branwell. [Ex. 17] The sound of the celeste should not surprise us if we attended the opera Das Wunder der Heliane, which one wag described as a celeste concerto.

Just as I invited you to ignore everything I said about twelve-tone technique, you are welcome to set aside my relating of the string quartet themes to film useage. The work is fully able to stand on its own. I merely wanted to illustrate that thematic material could, in Korngold’s case, move from concert hall to film as well as from film to concert hall.

I hate to neglect many fine works on this program. Let me just point out a couple of favorite moments. Eisler’s songs often begin with the voice alone, with the piano entering on unexpected harmony. Such as L’automne californien. [Demonstate] Or Die Stadt ist nach den Engeln genannt. [Demonstrate] Also, I’d point out the extraordinary contrast between the fifth and sixth of Toch’s Profiles. Here is the very expressive 5^th piece; [Demonstrate] then the 6th, marked “Vigorous, hammered”. [Demonstrate] Note “hammered”. I have a vivid memory, as a ten-year-old (non-prodigy) piano student, of my mother’s voice in my ear: “Don’t Pound!” If only I had known about Toch’s 6^th Profile! “The composer has told me to pound!”

I know you will enjoy this fascinating program.

Works disussed:

Schoenberg Duo Op. 47

Korngold String Quartet No. 3

Korngold score from Between Two Worlds

Korngold score from The Sea Wolf

Eisler L’automne californien

Eisler Dis Stadt ist nach den Engeln genannt

Ernst Toch Profiles