RETI RUDOLPH Tonality in Modern Music PDF

 

Digitized by the Internet Archive in

2013

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About Dr. lence,

as

the

Rudolph

Author Reti,

a

musician-critic

was a respected composer and

an important

He was received

par excel-

pianist as well

theorist.

born in Serbia, reared in Vienna, and

his

from

doctorate

University

the

of

Vienna. After undertaking a career as a concert pianist, he turned to composition and music criticism,

and

for

many

years

Society

critic of

1922 he helped found the

a daily newspaper. In International

was chief music

for

Contemporary Music.

In 1939 he came to the United States. At about the same time, he embarked on a fresh study of the creative process, disowning of his earlier compositions

all

and

but two or three

virtually

abandon-

ing composing for the next eleven years. In 1951, he and his wife Jean, a noted concert pianist,

moved

to

Montclair,

until his death in 1959,

New

he was

to

Jersey,

where,

produce a num-

ber of major musical works which he

felt

would

stand the

test of his

concept of pantonality.

 

RUDOLPH RETI

 

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© GJKo:

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LIER

NEW YORK,

BOOKS NLY.

 

Tonality

in

Modern Music

Tonality, Atonality,

Macmillan Company

Books

is

a

title

published by arrangement with

The

Pantonality

This Collier Books edition

Collier

appeared under the

originally

is

division

of

The Crowell-Collier Publishing

Company First

Collier

Books Edition 1962

©

by Jean Reti 1958

First published

1958 by Rockliff Publishing Corporation

Revised edition 1960 published by Barrie

Hecho en

los

&

Rockliff

E.E.U.U.

Printed in the United States of America

 

book is dedicated to the generation of young musicians today; for only through their This

creative

meaning

interpretation

can

it

attain

its

true

 

Author's Preface The following study was But

written within a few months.

content developed as the result of almost a lifetime's search. Thus a few words about the idea which its

motivated the search This book

is

may be

meant

justified.

as a plea

and stimulation for that

part of the contemporary compositional endeavour which is

outspokenly  modern

in style,

perhaps even radically

same time attempts to retain and renew the vitality of expression and human appeal that always characterized great music. In this sense the book may find modern, yet

at the

somewhat

itself

in opposition to compositional manifesta-

from the concept of atonality and some techniques affiliated with it. But it will also, and perhaps even more strongly, be in opposition to those contrary tendentions derived

cies

seek a solution in aesthetic eclecticism, in the

that

necessarily futile attempt to Instead, the

book

will set

neither tied to the rigidity

fill

old shells with artistic

life.

up an artistic goal of its own, of a new structural scheme, nor

directed towards musical formations of the past.

Though,

therefore, the impulse behind the following deductions

an aesthetic and pulse

may

However,

spiritual one, the presentation of this

is

im-

often inevitably assume a technical character. the reader will understand that the technical

terms are merely formulations through which in the musician's vernacular the artistic

and human

the real issue in this study, can be

ideas,

more

which are

accurately de-

scribed.

There

is still

one point which should be stressed from

the outset, in order to avoid any misunderstanding.

though

it is

Al-

the purpose of this study to describe the evolu-

tion of certain principles in

contemporary music, the

fol-

lowing presentation will have to use works of individual composers to demonstrate these principles. Yet it should

be understood that these composers are not introduced and discussed for their

own

sake as

were, that

it

is,

in order to

evaluate their general artistic achievement, but only in so

7  

8

Author's Preface

/

far as their

work

scription of

which

for instance a

winsky

is

points to certain specific trends, the deis

the goal of our explanations. Thus,

composer of the

artistic

if

magnitude of Stra-

discussed only with respect to one compositional

aspect, the rhythmical, this does not imply that his creative significance

Neither

is

is

considered to be limited to this one sphere.

any aesthetic evaluation intended

if

many

widely

acclaimed composers of today are mentioned only in passing or are not mentioned at

all.

port to give a picture of the

merely to demonstrate one of which, moreover, only

now

This book does not pur-

modern musical its

specific trends,

begins to assume

perceptible silhouette.

Only what seemed

be pertinent to

specific

this

aware that even so

—

complete

his

was included

scene, but

some

a trend clearly

to the author to

—and

he is well endeavour must remain very inevolution

in the analysis.

 

Contents

7

Author's Preface

The Problem Summarized

17

PART ONE Tonality

1

Harmonic Tonality

2

Melodic Tonality

3

The Experiment of Twofold Tonality The Tonality of Debussy

25 32 33

36

PART TWO Atonality

New

1

Schoenberg's Search for a

2

Composition with Twelve Tones

3

Twelve-Tone Technique in Evolution

Style

51

60 67

PART THREE Pantonality and Polytonality Fluctuating Harmonies Bitonality

Moving Tonics Specific Facets of Pantonality

Consonance and Dissonance

77 80 84 88

88

Tonality through Pitches

95

A-Rhythm and Pan-Rhythm

98

Pantonality and Form The Evolution of  Colour

108 119

Music

in

The Electronic Wonder

123

 

10

4

Contents

/

The Role of Pantonality as a General Synthesis The Great Structural Dilemma of Contemporary Music

127 131

Aesthetic Epilogue

1

2

Romantic Anti-Romanticism Each Time Engenders its Art the

Time

The Ivory Tower

—Art

143 Generates

147 149

Musical Illustrations

155

Acknowledgments

185

Index

187

 

Musical

Illustrations

155

Melodic Tonality

Ex.

1

Ex.

2 The Tonality of Debussy

156

Ex.

3 Emerging Tonal Complexity

158

Ex.

4 Schoenberg's Twelve-Tone Technique

159

Ex.

5.

The Twelve-Tone Technique

Two

Alban Berg

160

Contrasting Structural Types:

164

Bela Bartok

164

Anton Webern

166 168

Ex.

6

I

Ex.

7

II

Ex.

8

Ex.

9 Hindemith's Polyrhythm

A

of

Rhythmical Pattern from Strawinsky

169

170

Ex.

10 Charles Ives

Ex.

11

Ex.

12 Benjamin Britten's  Tonal Multitonality

Ex.

13

Ex.

14 Andre Jolivet

178

Ex.

15 Rudolph Reti

181

Pierre Boulez'

A-Thematic

Aaron Copland

Serial Structure

174 175 177

 

TWELVE-TONE OR TWELVE-NOTE The term  Twelve-note

was used

in

Orpheus

in

New

Guises by Erwin Stein (Rockliff, 1953) in the passages

by Hans Keller and in Composition with Twelve Notes by Josef Rufer translated by Humphrey Searle translated

(Rockliff, 1954).

 Twelve-tone the late

is

used in

this

Rudolph Reti wrote

it

book because and an

that

is

how

alteration through-

out without the knowledge of the author might in some instances

have implied shades of meaning which were not the author's, particularly in view of the main title of this work, which

is

being published simultaneously on both

sides of the Atlantic.

—The

Publisher

 

Tonality in

Modern Music

 

The Problem Summarized Around the turn of the century as

is

generally

the physical sciences,

known, underwent an extraordinary change.

Alfred North Whitehead, for instance, speaks repeatedly of the tremendous impression this great and almost sudden

change made on his mind and views. About 1880 the laws of physics, as they were

known

then,

seemed to represent

something like an eternal truth, definitely established for time.

all

What remained

to

be done, said Whitehead,

seemed to be merely the co-ordinating of a few newly discovered phenomena with the basic Newtonian principles.

Then  by ors,

the middle of the 1890's there were a few trem-

a slight shiver as of

all

not being quite secure, but no

one sensed what was coming. By 1900 the Newtonian

However, even if the actual force of the old laws seemed to have vanished, their usefulness and validity within their own realm did not by any means disappear entirely. In fact, one main physics were demolished, done for

goal of

modern

x

physics seems to be centred

on the en-

deavour to comprise and unify the old and new principles in one all-comprehensive law or formula.

The whole

process,

which

is

especially conspicuous in

physics due to the paramount importance physical dis-

assumed with regard to our material way of life, can also be observed in many other spheres, for instance in the psychological, the social and the political domain, and even in the arts, and particularly in music. It is well known, not only to the musician but to every coveries have

musical listener, that the whole set of principles which lay, consciously or instinctively, at the basis of

all

music from

the so-called classic and romantic period (roughly speak-

ing the period from

Bach

to

Brahms and Wagner) began

to crumble, as far as the compositional practice

was con-

cerned, in the 1880's or 90's. Consequently, the music of x

Lucien Price,

Dialogues with Alfred North

Whitehead,

Little

Brown, 1954.

17

 

18

/

Modern Music

Tonality in

modern music, is in its not only different from but in some

the twentieth century, the so-called

whole concept of

style

respects fundamentally

opposed

to that of the preceding

fundamental change was

centuries. This

felt in

almost

all

the various spheres through which the composer expresses

and rhythmic shaping, the

himself, such as the melodic

thematic construction, the architectural patterns, even the instrumentation. But the most conspicuous, the most in-

change took place in the realm of harmony

cisive

harmony may term (and we

in this connection

slightly inaccurate

shall return to this later), in

comprehensive technical term Tonality,

be a

during

its

is

or, since

what by a more

referred to as tonality.

undisputed reign of several cen-

was so taken for granted and became so entrenched the musician's mind as the natural, the  eternal con-

turies,

in

cept of musical construction that when, because of

overlong use (and finally abuse)

inevitable, the first slight signs

abandonment became of such an abandonment its

shocked the musical world to the core.

misnomer

peculiar

From

in terminology resulted

—a

this fact

a

misnomer

of fairly far-reaching

consequences; namely that to

music that did not

into the customary

fit

its

and

all

sanctified

concept of tonality, the term atonality was applied. This term, however, was

And

at least at that

time

—

a gross exag-

we would

certainly not call atonal the

of, for instance, Strauss,

Reger or Mahler, for which

geration.

music

—

today

the term was originally often used, nor that of their French contemporaries, Debussy or Satie. Yet the term became generally accepted and although

criminate

more

carefully

we would

in

our time

between atonality in a

dis-

specific,

concrete sense and atonality as a general and vague idea, there

is,

even today,

much

confusion prevalent regarding

this subject.

But there were more serious consequences involved than merely in inac accu cura rate te te term rmin inol olog ogy. y.

The abandonment was but a

of tonality, which in the beginning

slight deviation,

became stronger and more

vi-

olent year

by year

until in the so-called twelve-tone

music

even a learnable technique seemed to have been provided through which pure atonality,

if

one so wished, could be

 

The Problem Summarized maintained in music. 2 The adherents of

this trend

19

/

towards

outright atonality soon proclaimed their principles as the

only valid ones, by setting up a kind of doctrine, a formula

 Harmonic concepts in our epoch gradually progress from a governed and conditioned state, that is tonality, to a free and unconditioned of evolution

somewhat

state, that is atonality,

like this:

while

that

all

sents merely a timid attempt to goal,

is

in

between repre-

approach the beckoning

which can only be pure and genuine atonality.

Strangely enough, the composers

— and

the atonal lure

they

still

who

did not submit to

constitute the majority

nevertheless were swayed by this doctrine of the atonalists.

Although from an aesthetic point of view they naturally rejected the idea that music of rank

had

to

be in the ex-

treme atonal vein, they nevertheless, misled perhaps by the prevailing terminology, accepted tonality

and atonality

the only contrasting possibilities of musical formation.

as

The

no room for any further alternative: tonality stands at one end of the road, atonality at the other all other states are more or less stages between the two extremes. Yet and this is the decisive situation, they thought, left

—

— only scheme—however, musical

point of that theory

An

alluring

—

there

is

one, single road. reality is

not as

abandonment of and liberation from traditional concepts, was only the one, the negative side of the development. But beside this liberation, something far more vital, something far more radical was in the making: a third concept, as different from tonality as it is from atonality, but no less different from the simple as

this.

For

atonality, that

is,

intermediary states, such as extended tonality, modality, polytonality

and the

development of the

2

Indeed, looking at the musical

last half

we realize, as it were time when tonality began

century

from the very be loosened and was finally abandoned, the evolution

in retrospect, that

to

like.

That

was the innermost idea and purpose of the twelve-tone technique is uncontradictably proved through numerous remarks and directions of its inventor (notwithstanding that he avoided the term atonality) even though later adherents of the technique, this

—

significantly,

 licences,

to this

compromise by allowing tonal back into the atonal scheme. (We

features,

to

tried

to slip

as

shall return

later.)

 

20

Modern Music

Tonality in

/

worked in two opposite directions. One trend worked away from tonality towards atonality, as indicated above. But another trend, which also left classical tonality behind, tended towards another goal, different from and almost opposite to atonality. No specific name has as yet been introduced for the state towards which this trend pointed.

we can

All

say in trying to give a rough indication of the

idea in

question

cretely)

is

new

that

we

(later

it

is

hitherto undefined nature in the musician's

understood.

—although

mind

hesitation,

for

treatises

in using these terms,

are connected with certain risk initially of being mis-

we suggest pantonality 3 as a linnew concept, we do it with some

moreover,

symbol for

guistic

some

If,

more con-

it

a higher cycle, tonalities of a

phenomena, we run the

specific

describe

an endeavor to develop patterns of

tonalities belonging to

which

shall

this

pantonality has as

a term,

appeared sporadically in

even though used there in a

vague, casual way, without any concrete meaning attached to

it.

In

fact, it

has sometimes been confused with

its

out-

right opposite:  atonality.

Neve Ne vert rthe hele less ss, , pant panton onal alit ity y in the specific sense as intro-

duced here seems the only fitting designation, considering the three great categories which are to be presented in the following

pages

as

the

successive

of

states

harmonic-

structural expression during the last centuries. First tonality,

in

which music was

rigidly tied to relationships derived

from the natural phenomenon of the overtone series. From here, over extended tonality and related intermediary stages, the evolution moved in two opposite directions: one road leading to atonality, which cut these ties and thus, when carried to fulfilment, produced a state of outright non-relationship;

the

other

road aiming

at

pantonality,

which on a higher plane and with a new type of compositional formation develops the idea inherent in tonality, in the

wake

cept of 3

new

technical

indeed, even a

new con-

of which a whole complex of

devices will be seen to emerge

harmony

itself.

and

—

Pan

of course, the ancient Greek

is,

word

meaning of universality, of somewhat beyond that of  all.

But there

is

a

for  all

totality,

or  whole.

attached to pan,

 

The Problem Summarized

To

/

21

describe these stages and, in particular, the twofold,

which made the music of our age strive towards two contrasting goals, and to suggest how tonality and atonality may finally perhaps be led to a syndivergent

thesis

directions

through the rallying power of pantonality

pose of

this study.

is

the pur-

 

PART ONE

TONALITY The purpose

of this study, as indicated in

the foregoing pages, oretically

for

is

an inquiry

into a the-

explored structural concept ,i pantonality has been chosen as

little

which