{"id":1456,"date":"2019-08-29T00:27:17","date_gmt":"2019-08-29T04:27:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/?p=1456"},"modified":"2019-08-31T12:09:54","modified_gmt":"2019-08-31T16:09:54","slug":"busoni-kandinsky-schoenberg-instinct-at-the-cusp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/2019\/08\/busoni-kandinsky-schoenberg-instinct-at-the-cusp.html","title":{"rendered":"Busoni, Kandinsky, Schoenberg — Instinct at the Cusp"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a truism that, as aesthetic movements go, the visual arts get there first. Think of Impressionism, which didn\u2019t begin to inflect music until Debussy and Ravel \u2013 decades after Monet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Expressionism is another matter: the synchrony is amazing. I am thinking of 1910: the year of Wassily Kandinsky\u2019s first non-representational painting. Non-tonal music was simultaneously conceived by Arnold Schoenberg and with the same goal: capturing instinct at the cusp. What is more, Kandinsky and Schoenberg recognized their kinship. And they corresponded about it: an imperishable sequence of letters. (Schoenberg singled out Kandinsky’s “Romantic Landscape” [1911], reproduced above, as a personal favorite.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is also a third participant: Ferruccio Buson<\/strong>i<\/a>, one of the most magical figures in the history of Western music. Busoni and Schoenberg also<\/em> corresponded: an even more amazing written exchange. The moment I discovered it I knew it had to be animated in performance. The opportunity materialized two weeks ago in the form of a PostClassical Ensemble<\/a><\/strong> Concert at The Phillips Collection in DC: \u201cThe Re-Invention of Arnold Schoenberg.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Busoni\/Schoenberg correspondence is not only acute; it\nis hilarious \u2013 and at our concert William Sharp, enacting both parts, had the\naudience in stitches. Schoenberg\u2019s impassioned self-exhortations to \u201cexpress\nmyself directly,<\/em>\u201d to renounce\nacquired knowledge in favor of \u201cthat which is inborn, instinctive<\/em>\u201d can sound like a tangled Monty Python script:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is my vision which I am unable to force upon myself:\nto wait until a piece comes out of its<\/em>\nown accord<\/em> in the way I have\nenvisaged. My only intention is to have no intentions!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Busoni is the adult in this exchange. But he is also a\nserene provocateur. When Schoenberg sends him a pair of non-tonal piano pieces\n(Op. 11 \u2013 composed in 1909), he is full of admiration. He then imperturbably\nadds:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy impression as a pianist<\/em>,\nwhich I cannot overlook, is otherwise. My first qualification of your music \u2018as\na piano piece\u2019 is the limited range of the textures. As I fear I might be\nmisunderstood, I am taking the liberty, in my own defense, of appending a small\nillustration.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Busoni here takes a measure of Schoenbeg\u2019s piano writing,\nand \u201cenhances\u201d it. He continues:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut this is neither intended as judgment nor as criticism \u2013\nto neither of which I would presume, but simply a record of the impression made\nand of my opinion as a pianist.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Schoenberg:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI have considered your reservations about my piano style at\nlength. It seems to me that particularly these two pieces, whose somber,\ncompressed colors are a constituent feature, would not stand a texture whose\neffect on one\u2019s tonal palate was all too flattering.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Busoni:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI have occupied myself further with your pieces, and the one in 12\/8 time [No. 2] appealed to me more and more. I believe I have grasped it completely — although the form of expressing it on the piano has remained inadequate to me. To complete my confession, let me tell you that I have (with total lack of modesty) rescored your piece. Although this remains my own business, I should not fail to inform you, even at the risk of your being annoyed with me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Schoenberg was a connoisseur at taking offense. My favorite\nSchoenberg sentence was written to the conductor Otto Klemperer. They were\ncolleagues in Los Angeles. Klemperer performed Schoenberg with his LA\nPhilharmonic \u2013 but would not broach his non-tonal works. Schoenberg wrote: \u201cThe\nfact that you have become estranged from my music has not caused me to feel\ninsulted, though it has certainly estranged me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And here is Schoenberg\u2019s response to Busoni in 1909:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAbove all, you are certainly doing me an injustice. But my\ntrust absolutely cannot be shaken by this divergence. On the contrary, it has\nincreased since I personally came in contact with you. The intuition I already\nhad about the nature of your personality has been confirmed. And now I have\nformed a fairly clear picture. I can perceive a facet of your personality that\nis infinitely valuable to me: the endeavor to be just! And I value this\nendeavor higher than justice itself. Therefore, even if you are in fact doing\nme an injustice, nothing in the world could give me greater pleasure than the\nway in which you do so. But, as I said: I believe in actual fact that you are wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Busoni:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYour last letter is an interesting document, which I value very highly<\/em>. . . . Happily we have\nstruck an attitude of frankness to one another, and I would ask: to what extent\nto you realize these intentions? And how much is instinctive, and how much is\ndeliberate?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Busoni thereupon proposed that both versions of Op. 11, No.\n2, be published in tandem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Schoenberg:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou must consider the following : it is impossible for me\nto publish my piece together with a transcription which shows how I could have\ndone it better<\/em>. Which thus indicates\nthat my piece is imperfect. And it is impossible to try to make the public\nbelieve that my piece is good<\/em>, if I\nsimultaneously indicate that it is not\ngood<\/em>.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Busoni closed the exchange:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor various reasons, I am unable to give my formal assent\nto play your pieces, but I shall always be on your side.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At our concert, Alexander Shtarkman illustrated at the piano\nhow Busoni made Schoenberg\u2019s keyboard writing more \u201cpianistic.\u201d And he\nperformed Op. 11, No. 2 (as Schoenberg composed it). We also sampled the\nSchoenberg\/Kandinsky exchange accompanied by paintings by both  Kandinsky and . . . Schoenberg (\u201cPerhaps you\ndo not know that I also paint\u201d). But the evening\u2019s main events were a pair of\ntorrential musical compositions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1907 \u2013 one year before Schoenberg\u2019s first non-tonal compositions; two years before his Op. 11; three years before Kandinsky\u2019s canvases turned wholly abstract \u2013 Busoni published a prophetic manifesto: Sketch for a New Aesthetic of Music. <\/em>Schoenberg read it with admiration. He also recommended it to Kandinsky. A key passage explicates the notion of \u201cUr-Musik\u201d \u2013 a primal \u201cabsolute music\u201d or \u201cinfinite music\u201d privileging spontaneity and instinct:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIs it not singular, to demand of a composer originality in\nall things, and to forbid it as regards form? No wonder that, once he becomes\noriginal, he is accused of \u201cformlessness.\u2019 . . . Such lust for liberation\nfilled Beethoven<\/em> that he ascended one\nshort step on the way leading music back to its loftier self \u2013 He did not quite\nreach absolute music; but in certain moments he divined it, as in the\nintroduction to the fugue of the Hammerklavier<\/em>\nSonata. Indeed all composers have drawn nearest the true nature of music in\npreparatory and intermediary passages, where they felt at liberty to disregard\nsymmetrical proportions, and unconsciously drew free breath.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The famous notes-in-a-void Hammerklavier<\/em> passage — which Shtarkman performed for us at our concert \u2013 says it all. Next to Beethoven, Busoni continues, Bach comes closest to \u201cinfinite music.\u201d He also cites examples in Brahms and Schumann. In Busoni\u2019s own solo piano output, a prime specimen of Ur-Musik is his Sonatina seconda<\/em> from 1912. This ten-minute, one-movement musical tornado, in which motivic shards ride the storm or recede into ghostly clouds, is known (if at all) by reputation rather than experience. So I asked Alexander Shtarkman to learn it and play it for us. He magnificently obliged; here<\/a><\/strong> <\/a>it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the horrors of World War I, the moment for unrestrained Expressionism was over. Busoni opted for a \u201cNew Classicism.\u201d Schoenberg opted for an insane 12-tone theory that would organize his non-tonal onslaughts. He also fled Hitler\u2019s Germany for \u2013 an incongruous destination \u2013 Los Angeles (he liked the weather). There his output included a twentieth century patriotic masterpiece: the Ode to Napoleon<\/em> \u2013 a work I have long presented and written<\/a><\/strong> about. It closed our concert in a blaze of exaltation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In William Sharp\u2019s electrifying performance, with Angel Gil-Ordonez conducting and Alexander Shtarkman at the piano, Schoenberg\u2019s closing apostrophe to Franklin Delano Roosevelt (here symbolized by Lord Byron\u2019s George Washington) sounded like this.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kandinsky, Busoni, and Schoenberg followed a demanding muse. Schoenberg even said: \u201cI do not think about the public.\u201d But the Ode to Napoleon<\/em> invariably ignites an ovation \u2013 and so it did at the Phillips Collection.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a truism that, as aesthetic movements go, the visual arts get there first. Think of Impressionism, which didn\u2019t begin to inflect music until Debussy and Ravel \u2013 decades after Monet. Expressionism is another matter: the synchrony is amazing. I am thinking of 1910: the year of Wassily Kandinsky\u2019s first non-representational painting. Non-tonal music was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1456","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2QLHN-nu","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1456"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1456\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1487,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1456\/revisions\/1487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}