7. Rapprochement or
Friendly Takeover?
In the fifties the two leading camps in the world of contemporary composition, the followers of Schoenberg and those of Stravinsky, who had inhabited opposite sides of the barricades for well nigh half a century, finallymade peace. The eventuality was sometimes referred to as a “rapprochement,” but for some composers, Stravinsky among them, it was actuallymore like a friendly takeover on the part of the serialists. Or perhaps itwould be fairer to say that for Stravinsky and the others it started as a rapprochement (for example, in a work like Agon, completed 1957, in which twelve-tone canons remarkably coexist without any clash at all alongsidea great deal of dissonant diatonic writing) and culminated in 1959 as afriendly takeover. One could view works like Movements for Piano and Orchestra, given the affinity of its idiom to that of the Second Viennese School, especially of Anton Webern, as exemplifying such a process—notwithstanding, at the same time, Stravinsky's unmistakable signature particularly in rhythm. For other composers it never got beyond the stage of rapprochement (Copland, for example). Though the point at which Stravinsky finally abandoned diatonism seemed sudden and ever so surprising, he was no stranger to nondodecaphonic serialism which he had practicedat least since Symphony of Psalms but with ideas usually consisting offewer than twelve tones. Significant examples are the Interlude in Orpheus (1947), pp. 45–46 of the orchestra score, and the Concerto per due piano-forti soli (1935), from the middle of p. 10. So it was not a case of a suddenvolte-face on Stravinsky's part. Yet it seemed like one, since, though it wasunderstood he would adopt the systematic processes of serialism, it was asurprise to some that the result as manifested in Movements would be soclose in manner to the traditional serialists.
Around the time of his conversion Stravinsky engaged in a bit of deconstruction
All of this fits in with the claim of Boulez, as quoted in an interview, that Schoenberg and Stravinsky “both went wrong by the late twenties, whenthey tried to adapt their post-tonal harmonic languages to neoclassical forms.”[3] Now it seems to me there is a serious misconception here—a confusion between the superficial textbook formula of, say, sonata, fugue, orminuet, and the essential structure of an individual's concrete creativemusical production in using these formulae. The choice of one or another conventional form, especially without the functional tonal procedures soessential to them, is a bit like choosing a jacket. The person donning itscarcely changes at all, and what is essential to him or her is not in the jacket but in the nature of the individual wearing it. What I'm trying to sayis that sometimes the Classicism was quite superficial and the music thatflowed from Schoenberg's pen was essentially modern. Too much is madeof the use of the traditional forms which are really surface phenomena tobe found in a textbook. The relation to the original music composed underthe same titles in the Classical or Baroque eras is either one of name only, or at most an attribute on the outermost plane.
It makes for a neat historical picture to assume that Schoenberg's death in 1951 should have served as the symbolic occasion for Stravinsky's conversion
It may very well be that Schoenberg's death was not what provided the impetus for Stravinsky's surprising reversal since he never gave us anyreason to believe it was so, though it was scarcely the kind of informationhe would be inclined to divulge. There were other probable causes and there are those who cannot be dissuaded from the firm conviction that Robert Craft, as his amanuensis and adviser, took advantage of his position toindoctrinate Stravinsky into the wonders of serialism and prod him intoadvancing to what at that time seemed a more contemporary position. Inthe sixth and last of his books of conversation with Stravinsky, Craftglosses over the matter with a show of wit: “Clearly I am thought of as aplenipotentiary (rather than as a famulus, which is more often the case, orsatellite, or jester), as well as a gray eminence who ‘operates’ I.S. and is responsible for shanghaiing him into the ‘la-tone system’ (as if anyone couldeven lead that horse to water, if it didn't want to go, let alone make itdrink).”[4]
Very likely there was no single reason. It could have been a tide change, and one of the things that could have brought that about is a certain metamorphosis that twelve-tone composition had undergone since the thirtiesand early forties when it had been thoroughly imbued with the national character of its origin. It had exuded, in the view of some hostile observers, what was construed to be the airless aroma of dimly illuminated Vienneseattics and seemed adapted only to the expression of the gloomiest sentiments. In the course of the forties it began to liberate itself from these associations and developed into an international technique suitable foranyone anywhere and adaptable to a variety of national characters, as wellas a variety of moods. We had Luigi Dallapiccola in Italy, Pierre Boulezin France, Milton Babbitt in the United States, and in Britain, not quite a twelve-tone composer, Peter Maxwell Davies who used magic squares in asomewhat serialist fashion. At the same time the limited expressive range that had adhered to atonality and serialism since their inception was noticeably
Of no little significance in this regard was the circumstance that Aaron Copland, whose accession to serialism was every bit as surprising as Stravinsky's, should have undergone somewhat the same development ashis fellow composer and at the same time, but just falling short of crossingthe line into an echt serialist camp. Around 1930, notwithstanding his palpable individuality, his debt to the Russian master had been generally acknowledged and he was dubbed “Brooklyn Stravinsky.” But by 1950 hewas very much on his own and in complete command of his destiny. I amquite sure that his development at that time had nothing to do with Stravinsky's. Copland's profile, as I have said, fits the description of rapprochement more than Stravinsky's. Copland had also dealt with short nondo-decaphonic serial elements in the thirties, notably in his Piano Variations. But when he became a twelve-tone composer he never quite let go of hisdiatonic, tonal indoctrination. Even in those works written around 1960, when he came closest to serialism, for example in the Piano Fantasy (1957) and Connotations for orchestra (1962), there was still a residue of the “good old” major and minor triads. He never went as far as Stravinsky didin the direction of chromatic serialism. To those of his followers who felthe had let them down, he explained, “As I see it, twelve-tonism is nothingmore than an angle of vision. Like fugal treatment, it is a stimulus that enlivens musical thinking. …it is a method, not a style.”[5] Discussing the work on one occasion, he said that his aim was to combine “elements ableto be associated with twelve-tone music and with music tonally conceived.” As for the row he employed in the Fantasy (ten rather than twelve tones: Et-Bt-F-Dl-B-Flt-A-G-D-C), “a good case,” he told me, “could be made forthe view that the over-all tonal orientation is that of E major.”
Curiously enough, about a year after Schoenberg died, an interviewerfor the New York Herald Tribune confronted Stravinsky with the question “…there has been much talk recently about the possibility of your embracing twelve-tone atonal principles?” And Stravinsky replied: “Talk istalk and cheap. Certain twelve-tone things I like, certain I don't. For instance, I have tremendous respect for the discipline imposed upon the twelve-tone man. It is a discipline that you find nowhere else.…Twelvetone
I cannot vouch for the fact that my fellow composers among the Harvard Stravinskians, who still maintained their identity as a group in the fifties, joined the ranks of the serialists without being provoked by Stravinsky's example: Louise Talma, Irving Fine, and Ingolf Dahl, for instance, could quite conceivably have been following the master's example. In myown case I do not think it was Stravinsky who, for the most part, was responsible for my change of direction or, more precisely, my return to anearlier stage of my development. My first compositions that were not exercises in Classical style for credit in my college courses were twelve-tone or what I thought around 1930 was twelve-tone—compositions I wroteimmediately after being stunned by my first hearing of any Schoenberg. Later, in my diatonic music I preserved a certain fragmentation and the angularity and wide skips characteristic of Webern (though these characteristics, it should be noted, are not of the essence of serialism), to the extent that Babbitt was motivated to give credence to the locution “diatonic Webern” which was being used with increasing frequency in the fifties to characterize my music of that period.[7]
When I did return to serialism, notably in my String Quartet (1958), farfrom being accused of emulating Stravinsky in this development, I wasonce embarrassed by the suggestion that I might have influenced him!Chamber Music for Thirteen Players was a work I wrote in 1956 close tomy arrival at serialism, and tongue-in-cheek I described it as “neoclassic twelve-tone.” Reviewing this work in the New York Times, Eric Salzmanwrote, “This is just the sort of thing that Stravinsky has done recently only Berger did it first. Come to think of it, the work was first performed at aconcert series in Los Angeles which Stravinsky often attends. Wonder if hewas there?”[8] Knowing how sensitive Stravinsky was to criticism I wasterrified that he might see the review. My concern intensified when I heardthe story that was circulating by word of mouth about Stravinsky beingsummoned before the pope during the period in which he was rehearsingthe Rake in Rome. The specific time proposed was right after a rehearsal, and Stravinsky told the pope he would like some time to wash and clean up. “Come as you are,” said the pope. In the course of their conversation the pope asked him what bothered him most of all things. “I'm ashamed to admit it,” he answered, “but I cannot bear adverse criticism,” at which the
I had been reverting gradually at that period to my incipient serialismof the early thirties. The British composer Peggy Glanville-Hicks wroteabout me as follows in 1953: “Twenty years ago it was said of the Atonalists and Neo-Classicists that ‘never the twain would meet.’ Nowadays, particularly in America, one sees blends of various kinds taking place betweenatonal contrapuntal and neo-classic vertical or harmonic composition, and Arthur Berger is one of the most successful, most delicate results of the hybridisation.”[9] Notice that she avoids the epithets “serial” and “twelve-tone.” The experts may be able to identify a strict twelve-tone serial work. But for most listeners what is heard is a certain style that strictly serialworks share with a variety of atonal practices. Counting notes to determineif all twelve are there and participate in a constant rollover is a naive and unreliable approach. Discussing his Composition for Four Instruments Babbitt observed, “Not incidentally, I was not aware—either during itscomposition or well after it—that the twelve pitch class series underlyingthe work never appears as a totality in any explicit representation. As a referential norm, it is pervasively and persistently influential, acting at constantly varying distances from the work's surface.”[10]
An exchange in Partisan Review in 1948, when that periodical was in itsheyday, between a spokesman for Schoenberg (Rene Leibowitz) and aspokesman for Stravinsky (Nicolas Nabokov) left the impression of a desperation on the part of the Stravinskians in their last-minute struggle tosurvive. It was patently an augury of their defeat. Leibowitz, whose pro-Schoenberg forces were on the rise, could be sufficiently confident of success in this matter to indulge in some humor, and he remarked on the ironyof the two antagonists having settled down close to each other in Southern California and having both come “as far as a European can ‘go west.’ It isstrange that two men so different in every respect should have chosen thisplace to live and work in. For even though they are both living in a city thatis dominated by the motion picture industry, neither one has anything todo with motion pictures.”[11] For Nabokov serialism had the “earmarks of a Messianic cult,” and far from being innovative it was the last stage in a harmonic development that could be traced back to 1600, whereas Stravinsky, on the other hand, had proclaimed a new domain that would start a newcycle—the domain of rhythm.[12]