modernist, beautiful genius, or both?

Having just finished D.H. Lawrence's Twilight in Italy, I am completely enraptured. Sometimes I allow myself to forget the importance of art and spirit for the late-nineteenth century cognoscenti: in a world experiencing the death of God, the idea of Art and of the Mind (with a capital A and M, respectively), really meant something. Especially now, looking back at some of the texts I studied in the throes of my fin-de-siecle research, I can't help but compare Lawrence to people like Bahr, Klimt, even the ostensibly disparate Schoenberg and Stravinsky. To all these men, a nostalgia for the past prevailed--although expressed in a wide spectrum of references form the Greeks, to Byzantium, to baroque dance forms, and to ancient rituals--and was indeed, a major force of motion in their intellectual and artistic outputs. They were seeking an answer (or more aptly, the answer) and an antidote for nineteenth century material excess. In any event, if you want a break from theory, spend some time with D.H. Lawrence in Italy...just another piece of the 1890-1914 puzzle. Below are a couple of my favorite passages.

"The twilight deepened, though there was still the strange, glassy translucency of the snow-lit air. A fragment of moon was in the sky. A carriage-load of French tourists passed me. There was the loud noise of water, as ever, something eternal and maddening in its sound, like the sound of Time itself, rustling and rushing and wavering, but never for a second ceasing. The rushing of Time that continues throughout eternity, this is the sound of the icy streams of Switzerland, something that mocks and destroys our warm being." (155)

Another favorite:
"It is as if the whole social form were breaking down, and the human element swarmed within the disintegration, like maggots in cheese. The roads, the railways are built, the mines and quarries are excavated, but the whole organism of life, the social organism, is slowly crumbling and caving in, in a kind of process of dry rot, most terrifying to see. So that it seems as though we should be left at last with a great system of roads and railways and industries, and a world of utter chaos seething upon these fabrications: as if we had created a steep framework, and the whole body of society were crumbling and rotting in between." (165)

the cmm reading list + a chilling look at things to come

Oh, hello there, CMM blog, didn't see you there. I've read so many things since last we spoke; thus begins the CMM reading list. I recommend: Weimar Culture/Gay; Fin-de-Siecle Vienna/Schorske (a perennial favorite, always useful); History of Sexuality/Foucault (more like a history on the discourse surrounding sexuality); Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud/Lacquer; Discipline and Punish/Foucault; Feminine Endings/McClary (did I already mention this one?); Craft Objects, Aesthetic Contexts: Kant, Heidegger, and Adorno on Craft/Corse; Queer Mother for the Nation/Fiol-Matta; Telling Stories/Maynes; How Our Lives Become Stories: Making Selves/Eakin; Secret Historian/Spring; The Book of Questions/Jabès; "John Cage's Queer Silence or How to Avoid Making Matters Worse"/Katz (read it in its entirety here); The Gutai Manifesto/Yoshihara (available here). And "Death of the Author" again. Why isn't Barthes required reading for musicians?!

With all these things swimming around in my mind, what does the future hold?
1. Cage as Modernist. We like to believe that Cage's iconic 4'33'' is all about the expression of post-modern plurality and his aleatroric oeuvre an ode to absent authors a la Barthes. But what if, by reducing music to its essential elements (as in 4'33"), Cage offers a musical analogue to a Greenbergian (yes, Greenbergian) concept of art? I am referencing that which Greenberg would refer to as "post-painterly abstraction" and that all-too-loaded descriptor "modern."

2. Hindemith as Author: Conflicting Temporalities, Conflicting Epistemologies. There is a passage from "Death..." that surfaces in my mind with alarming frequency:

The Author...is always conceived of as the past of his own book: book and author stand automatically on a single line divided into a before and after. The Author is thought to nourish the book, which is to say that he exists before it, thinks, suffers, lives for it, is in the same relation of antecedence to his work as a father to his child. In complete contrast, the modern scriptor is born simultaneously with the text, is in no way equipped with a being preceding or exceeding the writing, is not the subject with the book as predicate; there is no other time than that of the annunciation and every text is eternally written here and now. [1]

Most recently, these words appeared (figuratively speaking of course) as I practiced this concerto's introductory soliloquy. So much of Hindemith's musical material aligns him with a modern (ascetic) compositional style: an organicism indebted to Bach, Beethoven, Brahms and (papa) Schoenberg, an interest in structural austerity (Adolf Loos, anyone?), and aesthetic aims ostensibly opposed to nineteenth century decadence. In the case of Der Schwan, however, Hindemith's reference to storytelling in a musical space creates a paradox of temporalities: at once the performer acts as Author reconstituting that which has already occurred through his/her performing body while also engaging in a performative act, the "here and now."

3. Ornament, Asceticism and The Modern. As intimated in the preceding text, for the Moderns (that is to say, the fin-de-siecle Vienna intelligentsia), art ought to be imbued with both austerity and spirituality resulting in an asceticism that traces its progenitor to--surprisingly enough--Kantian aesthetics. Through explications on excerpts from Schoenberg's Style and Idea, Hermann Bahr's essay The Modern, and Weininger's Sex and Character I will elucidate the bondage of modernity to a intrinsically masculine spirituality that seeks to humiliate artistic "flesh" as a means to achieve aesthetic purity.

4. Anna Morandi Manzolini's Oeuvre in the "Century of Looking." A wax anatomist devalued by her contemporaries and subsequently the art historical canon, Morandi Manzolini provides, in her life and work, a lens through which to view a culture obsessed with looking. Although numerous feminist scholars have sought to reclaim and subsequently valorize Morandi Manzolini as a scientist and artist, more efficacious is the utilization of her work as a means by which to illuminate the eighteenth century urge to order, observe and control the body.

5. Performing Bodies, Objects in Motion. I read this passage from Feminine Endings and couldn't help but formulate a few thoughts. McClary writes:

For women’s bodies in Western culture have almost always been viewed as objects of display. Women have rarely been permitted agency in art, but instead have been restricted to enacting—upon and through their bodies—the theatrical, musical, cinematic, and dance scenarios concocted by male artists. Centuries of this traditional sexual division of cultural labor bear down upon…any woman performer…when she performs, always threatening to convert her once again into yet another body set in motion for the pleasure of the masculine gaze. It may be possible for men in the music profession to forget these issues, but no woman who has ever been on a stage, or even in front of a classroom, can escape them. [2]

The performing musician confronts the aforesaid crisis daily. Western art music is inextricably bound not only to a culture of insidiously subtle oppression but also within a web of Foucauldian force relations. As performers, listeners and scholars we participate in musical systems of inequity wherein our own bodies and those of our colleagues, students and teachers move perilously (and sadly, often aimlessly) through a minefield of subjugating gazes, historically conditioned responses, and unwittingly discriminatory discourses.

Excited?

1. Roland Barthes, Image, music, text (New York: Hill and Wang, 1977). 145
2. Susan McClary, Feminine endings : music, gender, and sexuality (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1991). 138

papa schoenberg's ca-razy cohort

Some time ago--when I was young, stupid, and arrogant--I had the opportunity to take a seminar on fin-de-siecle Vienna. At the time the readings were difficult, the concepts fresh and the names relatively unknown. Although at present, my thoughts are mostly tied up with eighteenth century anatomical wax models (yes, you heard me), I recently had occasion to return to the world of Loos, Schoenberg, Wieninger and Bahr. Below are a few excerpts from my most recent draft. I really encourage you to think about this, this, and this in the context outlined below.

An Overview: Characterized by an excessive anxiety, Vienna at the fin-de-siecle provided a locale ripe for artistic and cultural turmoil. In the political sphere, the immediate government opposed the values of the bourgeois and intelligentsia: Karl Lueger and his anti-Semitic Christian Socialist coterie offered an ideological foil for Vienna’s cosmopolitan citizens. Such political disparity likely contributed to “secessionist” tendencies among artists and intellectuals. Indeed, a desperate advocacy of cultural re-nascence, famously articulated by literary critic and dramatist Hermann Bahr in his 1890 essay The Modern, permeated the Viennese firmament. Bahr’s battle-cry further foregrounds the intensely spiritual, often delusional (even delirious), narratives ascribed to artistic creation at the fin-de-siecle.

Weininger's Sex and Character: Overt in its misogyny, pristine in its logic, Sex and Character gives a particularly eloquent voice to the deeply troubled fin-de-siecle man. When considering the text one must negotiate one’s own disgust: looking beyond the urge to apply myriad derogatory “isms” affords the reader opportunities to experience—through Weininger—the fin-de-siecle masculine psyche in all its anxieties, fears, and indeed, perversions.

Loos, Wagner & Ornament: Adolf Loos’ biography, written oeuvre and architectural output suggest an ideological dissonance. Seeking to resurrect and, if I may be so bold, purify architecture, Loos famously declared that ornamentation was indeed a crime. In his essay, Ornament and Crime, Loos evangelizes for an austere style liberated from filigree, devoted to formal unity. While performing this identity of modernist apostle, Loos simultaneously advocated an almost excessive use of craft and ornament within the home. Such a negotiation of modernist aesthetic propriety illuminates not only Loos’ inextricable links to nineteenth century thought, but also his insidious application of Victorian feminine containment to architecture and interior decorating.

In general, there exists an obsession with ornament in fin-de-siecle art and theory. Furthermore, Loos equation of applied art with degeneracy operates within and validates the gendered confines of genius.

Schoenberg: If one accepts the condition that Schoenberg’s atonal and dodecaphonic music asserts the composer’s masculinity, one can also postulate the existence of what Foucault would call “aims and objectives” intrinsic to Schoenberg’s textual and musical oeuvre. Given what we now know regarding the composer’s cultural context, I would argue that not only does Schoenberg’s modern style express fin-de-siecle aesthetic ideology but also operates within the context of artistic and cultural misogyny.

As an end note, I'd like to briefly evangelize for this book. Go. Read it.

jottings, chiefly on visual + musical egalitarianism*

So I'm working on a short little flurry of a paper about what I'm calling "visual egalitarianism" in Jackson Pollock and his Abstract Expressionist colleagues. Thinking critically about the lack of a focal point or any sort of representation** in their work brings me back to this idea of equality and absolutism expressed in artistic forms. Considering the former, a few examples come to mind: Schoenberg and the Second Viennese School, Kandinsky, the AbEx'ists, Boulez, and Cage. With regards to the latter, I'm thinking of the First Viennese School, and the general "academic" style of Western Europe (anyone from Michelangelo to Titian to David, even Gerome).

Indeed, before we get to Kandinsky and the Second Viennese School [of Rock] and their descendants (Boulez/Pollock et al), we have to first look at their predecessors: the First Viennese School [of Rock]. The musical forms and aesthetic of the eighteenth century really offer a fantastic aural analogue to the socio-political milieu of the era. I'm specifically thinking about the disparity between the aristocracy/ruling class and everyone else. Essentially, musical hierarchies in the form of tonality (ie the tonic, dominant, and leading tone are the "important" scale degrees. An oversimplification, but you get the idea) mirror social structures (class). I'd really like to know a whole lot more about the French Revolution, but for now I'll just say that it is completely compelling the way that strict musical forms and harmonic structure begin to erode around the beginning of the nineteenth century, following various political upheavals (the French Revolution being just one example). Beethoven's Eroica is actually a great example of this in that the sonata form of the first movement is, well, jumbled. By reorganizing a then-familiar form, the composer challenges our expectations, thus subtly implying social change. Maybe. This is all pretty speculative.

So with this in mind, Schoenberg's Pan-Tonality (that is what he said) takes on a new social meaning. When he literally refers to it as an emancipation--how can we not read a kind of "liberation narrative" into the work? Considering also what we know about fin-de-siecle Vienna, Schoenberg's musical freedom-fight gains more complexity. At once, the composer is a member of the political minority (Christian socialist Lueger is in power) while also participating in a (sometimes violent) patriarchy. That is not to say that he was a misogynist (as far as I know, he wasn't), only to note the often complex relationship of minority to majority(ies). In a very real sense, the emancipation represents not only a break from the musical past, but also implies a kind of Utopian ideal--not surprising given Schoenberg's own biography and what I can imagine would be a hell of a time living in Vienna around 1900.

With regards to the visual arts, I'd like to discuss Kandinsky and the AbEx'ists. Taking the example of Kandinsky, we can notice a break down of visual hierarchy, something like Composition IV (1911) is tottering on the brink of non-representational art.

Figure non-representational: Kandinsky's Composition IV

Although that is a sort of "well, duh" analysis, the aforesaid connection between abstraction and equality is what makes this sort of thing compelling. Recently, I was speaking with one of my mum's friends (a visual artist) about Schoenberg and this idea of pantonality as a representation of equality; being an awfully sharp tac, she brought up Kandinsky's work--for her, the musical analogue in that when art is non-representational, all shapes, colors and lines are equal. This conversation still fresh in my mind, I began to mull over the notion of representation as being inherently unequal with regards to the AbEx'ists.

These guys were, in my mind, both ideological and stylistic descendants of Kandinsky. Similarities abound, the most obvious being the non-representational style and a sort of spiritual relationship between artist, canvas, and material (the material being much more important for the AbEx'ists). However, more intriguing is the American public's reaction to Pollock and his pals. Upheld as arbiters of a quintessential American art, their works and personae were used as a cultural weapon in the cold war: they were celebrated as visual symbols of democracy. Certainly, you can discuss the movement of the avant-garde from Paris to New York; the American adoration of the "new," but from my perspective the notion of visual egalitarianism is the most "American" aspect of their work.

Figure visual egalitarianism: Pollock's Autumn Rhythm

*that is a little Aristotle jokey-joke(!) Yay Poetics!
**I'm thinking here about formal hierarchy: there is an inherent value judgment in notions of foreground versus background. Indeed, one might argue that a line that implicates contour is more important (valuable) than one that participates in say, a cross hatch. The main idea being that in representational art, one line can have more meaning than another.

program notes: the art of song

Alban Berg | Jugendlieder
Prior to beginning his studies with Arnold Schoenberg, Berg composed numerous works of juvenilia between the years 1901 and 1904 (when he began his studies with Schoenberg). The Jugendlieder betray the young composer’s allegiance to late romantic composers such as Hugo Wolf.

Arnold Schoenberg | Phantasy, op. 47 + Brettl Lieder
Where the Phantasy represents the Schoenberg we’ve all come to know and love (or hate, depending upon your tastes), the Brettl Lieder offers a glimpse into the composer’s formative years. Brettl Lieder—and its tonal, theatrical aesthetic—is contrasted sharply by the 1949 dodecaphonic Phantasty.

schorske's fin de siecle vienna

Addendum: check this out. Thanks, Google Books!

papa schoenberg

Like a true champ, I left all of my Schoenberg-related texts at home: Schorske's Fin-de-Siecle Vienna, Alex Ross' The Rest is Noise, Janik's Wittengenstein's Vienna, Tuchman's Proud Tower, even the big-bad Morgan Twentieth Century Music. I'll do my best. Though for anyone curious about the cultural history surrounding Schoenberg and his circle, I would highly recommend the Schorske. If you want something broader, Tuchman is great as well. But I digress.


There are (clearly) quite a few things to say about "Papa" Schoenberg. Since I'm featuring works very early (Brettl Lieder, 1901) and very late (Phantasy 1949) in his oeuvre, in the program notes I will discuss his formative influences and their subsequent culmination in his twelve-tone compositions.

Before discussing the music, there are quite a few cultural influences (even though I truly hate that word) that need to be addressed. One cannot deny that Vienna around 1900 was a hot-bed of clashing socio-political, artistic, and philosophical mores (if memory serves, Schorske describes these things as the "forces of movement"). Let's take a brief inventory of these aforesaid conflicts, shall we? Karl Lueger and the Christian Socialists (think pre-Nazis) governs a largely Jewish bourgeois. Visual artists trained in the ways of the academie attempt to find a fitting aesthetic to rebel against it. The burgeoning mid-nineteenth century feminist movement continues to gain steam thus causing reactions both subtle and violent. In conjunction with these conflicts, you also have the culmination of nineteenth century idealism, especially in art. This creates an interesting synthesis in that the artists of the era were perpetually trying to start anew (things like Ver Sacrum and Barr's The Modern), yet their attitudes were inextricably linked to nineteenth century attitudes and ideas. The most clear examples are in visual art and music.

In the visual arts, the early nineteenth century notions of artistic genius become so over-blown that you get things like this (alluding to him), this (quoting this), and this. More than merely a vessel for divine inspiration, the artist has become divine. Furthermore, there is the (overt) intimation of martyrdom. It is no coincidence that the term "avant garde" comes into use in the second half of the nineteenth century.

With respect to music, the relationship between past and then-present is more subtle, less violent, even (to use an analogy popular in nineteenth century criticism) biological: Schoenberg's twelve tone music is the "grown-up" version of Bach--or at least that was how he saw it. Indeed, the composer viewed himself as a member of a noble lineage. But, in keeping with the attitudes of his artistic comrades-in-arms Schoenberg certainly viewed himself as an arbiter of the "new." Musically, this sort of attitude can be seen in the combination of a decidedly novel harmonic/melodic idiom (twelve tone/pantonal) with archaic rhythmic structures (the waltz, the baroque dance etc). Below is a great youtube find of Menuhin and Gould discussing this combination. I think Menuhin has a nice analogy to describe the relationship of underlying form and outward aesthetic.

Pretty good, eh? I really do think Menuhin's analogy is apt: like in the Shakespeare example, the underlying forms in Schoenberg are at times extremely subtle and you really need to have a knowledge of, shall we say, musical iconography. The music gains completely new meaning when you can not only identify a waltz, but recognize that in the context of twelve tone music it signifies the Vienna of days gone by. Furthermore, in post-WWI Europe the mutilated waltz could be interpreted as a symbol of a scarred, disfigured countryside strewn with corpses, punctured by warfare (images of Under Fire are still lingering in my mind, apologies).

Menuhin also points out that when all tones are equal (the musical reflection of the ever-growing egalitarian spirit of the twentieth century, but that is a separate entry...), all you have are tone-colors and silence, and I would add, rhythm. To make the music interesting, the performer must exploit the variety and range of the violin in addition to truly understanding the tradition from which Schoenberg emerged.

There is indeed, much more to say. The issue of dodecaphonic music as an expression of egalitarianism is really quite fascinating. It become even more captivating when you contrast it with say, the musical language of Mozart. Where Schoenberg celebrates musical equality, Mozart (whether intentionally or not) enables rigid class structure with rigid tonal hierarchies. Indeed, much, much more to say.

brettl lieder

Soon enough I'll be writing copious notes on Schoenberg and his fin-de-siecle compatriots, but for now here is the great Jessye Norman singing Brettl Lieder.