Context
New Music, Outmoded Music, Style and Idea, Part II
Arnold Schoenberg
The reader has certainly become aware that it is not merely my intention to attack long-deceased pseudo-historians and the composers who started the movement of New Music. Though I have used with pleasure the opportunity to write about some of the lesser known merits of Bach’s art, and though I have enjoyed the opportunity to list some of the contributions of the Viennese Classicists to the development of compositorial technique, I do not hesitate to admit that the attack upon the propagandists of the New Music is aimed against similar movements in our own time. Except for one difference—that I am no Bach—there is a great similarity between the two epochs.
A superficial judgment might consider composition with twelve tones as an end to the period in which chromaticism evolved, and thus compare it to the climaxing end of the period of contrapuntal composition which Bach set by his unsurpassable mastery. That only lesser values could follow this climax is a kind of justification of his younger contemporaries’ turn towards New Music.
But—also in this respect I am no Bach—I believe that composition with twelve tones and what many erroneously call "atonal music" is not the end of an old period, but the beginning of a new one. Again, as two centuries ago, something is called outmoded; and again it is not one particular work, or several works of one composer; again it is not the greater or lesser ability of one composer in particular; but again it is a style which has become ostracized. Again it calls itself New Music, and this time even more nations participate in the struggle. Aside from nationalistic aims for an exportable music with which even smaller nations hope to conquer the market, there is one common trait observable in all these movements; none of them are occupied with presenting new ideas, but only with presenting a new style. And, again, the principles on which this New Music is to be based present themselves even more negatively than the strictest rules of the strictest old counterpoint. There should be avoided: chromaticism, expressive melodies, Wagnerian harmonies, romanticism, private biographical hints, subjectivity, functional harmonic progressions, illustrations, leitmotivs, concurrence with the mood or action of the scene and characteristic declamation of the text in opera, songs and choruses. In other words, all that was good in the preceding period should not occur now.
Besides these officially authorized "Verbote," I have observed numerous negative merits, such as: pedal points (instead of elaborate bass voices and moving harmony), ostinatos, sequences (instead of developing variation), fugatos (for similar purposes), dissonances (disguising the vulgarity of the thematic material), objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit), and a kind of polyphony, substituting for counterpoint, which, because of its inexact imitations, in former times would have been held in contempt as "Kapellmeistermusik," or what I called "Rhabarber counterpoint." The word "Rhabarber," spoken behind the scenes by only five or six people, sounded to the audience in a theatre like a rioting mob. Thus the counterpoint, thematically meaningless, like the word "rhubarb," sounded as if it had a real meaning.
In my youth, living in the proximity of Brahms, it was customary that a musician, when he heard a composition the first time, observed its construction, was able to follow the elaboration and derivation of its themes and its modulations, and could recognize the number of voices in canons and the presence of the theme in a variation; and there were even laymen who after one hearing could take a melody home in their memory. But I am sure there was not much talk about style. And if a music historian had ventured to participate in an argument, it could only have been one who was able to observe similar qualities by ear alone. That is what music critics like Hanslick, Kalbeck, Heuberger and Speidel and amateurs like the renowned physician Billroth were able to do.
The positive and negative rules may be deduced from a finished work as constituents of its style. Every man has fingerprints of his own, and every craftsman’s hand has its personality; out of such subjectivity grow the traits which comprise the style of the finished product. Every craftsman is limited by the shortcomings of his hands but is furthered by their particular abilities. On his natural conditions depends the style of everything he does, and so it would be wrong to expect a plum tree to bear plums of glass or pears or felt hats. Among all trees it is only the Christmas tree which bears fruits not natural to it, and among animals it is only the Easter rabbit which lays eggs, and even colored ones at that.
Style is the quality of a work and is based on natural conditions, expressing him who produced it. In fact, one who knows his capacities may be able to tell in advance exactly how the finished work will look which he still sees only in his imagination. But he will never start from a preconceived image of a style; he will be ceaselessly occupied with doing justice to the idea. He is sure that, everything done which the idea demands, the external appearance will be adequate.
If I have been fortunate enough to show some views different from those of my adversaries about New Music, Outmoded Music, and Style, I would like to proceed now to my self-appointed task of discussing what seems to me most important in a work of art—the Idea.
I am conscious that entering into this sphere involves some danger. Adversaries have called me a constructor, an engineer, an architect, even a mathematician—not to flatter me—because of my method of composing with twelve tones. In spite of knowing my Verklärte Nacht and Gurre-Lieder, though some people liked these works because of their emotionality, they called my music dry and denied me spontaneity. They pretended that I offered the products of a brain, not of a heart.
I have often wondered whether people who possess a brain would prefer to hide this fact. I have been supported in my own attitude by the example of Beethoven who, having received a letter from his brother Johann signed "land owner," signed his reply "brain owner." One might question why Beethoven just stressed the point of owning a brain. He had so many other merits to be proud of, for instance, being able to compose music which some people considered outstanding, being an accomplished pianist—and, as such, even recognized by the nobility—and being able to satisfy his publishers by giving them something of value for their money. Why did he call himself just "brain owner," when the possession of a brain is considered a danger to the naiveté of an artist by many pseudo-historians?
An experience of mine might illustrate the way in which people think a brain might be dangerous. I have never found it necessary to hide that I am able to think logically, that I distinguish sharply between right and wrong terms, and that I have very exact ideas about what art should be. Thus, in a number of discussions, I may have shown a little too much brain to one of my tennis partners, a writer of lyric poetry. He did not reciprocate in kind, but maliciously told me the story about the toad who asked the centipede whether he was always conscious which of his hundred feet was just about to move, whereupon the centipede, in becoming conscious of the necessary decision, lost his instinctive ability to walk at all.
Indeed, a great danger to a composer! And even hiding his brain might not help; only having none would suffice. But I think this need not discourage anyone who has a brain; because I have observed that if one has not worked hard enough and has not done one’s best, the Lord will refuse to add His blessing. He has given us a brain in order to use it. Of course an idea is not always the product of brain-work. Ideas may invade the mind as unprovoked and perhaps even as undesired as a musical sound reaches the ear or an odor the nose.
Ideas can only be honored by one who has some of his own; but only he can do honor who deserves honor himself.
The difference between style and idea in music has perhaps been clarified by the preceding discussion. This may not be the place to discuss in detail what idea in itself means in music, because almost all musical terminology is vague and most of its terms are used in various meanings. In its most common meaning, the term idea is used as a synonym for theme, melody, phrase or motive. I myself consider the totality of a piece as the idea: the idea which its creator wanted to present. But because of the lack of better terms I am forced to define the term idea in the following manner:
Every tone which is added to a beginning tone makes the meaning of that tone doubtful. If, for instance, G follows after C, the ear may not be sure whether this expresses C major or G major, or even F major or E minor; and the addition of other tones may or may not clarify this problem. In this manner there is produced a state of unrest, of imbalance which grows throughout most of the piece, and is enforced further by similar functions of the rhythm. The method by which balance is restored seems to me the real idea of the composition. Perhaps the frequent repetitions of themes, groups, and even larger sections might be considered as attempts towards an early balance of the inherent tension.
In comparison with all our developments in mechanics, a tool like a pair of pliers might seem simple. I always admired the mind which invented it. In order to understand the problem which this inventor had to overcome one must imagine the state of mechanics before its invention. The idea of fixing the crosspoint of the two crooked arms so that the two smaller segments in front would move in the opposite direction to the larger segments at the back, thus multiplying the power of the man who squeezed them to such an extent that he could cut wire—this idea can only have been conceived by a genius. Certainly more complicated and better tools exist today, and there may come a time when the use of the pliers and other similar tools may become superfluous. The tool itself may fall into disuse, but the idea behind it can never become obsolete. And therein lies the difference between a mere style and a real idea.
An idea can never perish.
It is very regrettable that so many contemporary composers care so much about style and so little about idea. From this came such notions as the attempt to compose in ancient styles, using their mannerisms, limiting oneself to the little that one can thus express and to the insignificance of the musical configurations which can be produced with such equipment.
No one should give in to limitations other than those which are due to the limits of his talent. No violinist would play, even occasionally, with the wrong intonation to please lower musical tastes, no tight-rope walker would take steps in the wrong direction only for pleasure or for popular appeal, no chess master would make moves everyone could anticipate just to be agreeable (and thus allow his opponent to win), no mathematician would invent something new in mathematics just to flatter the masses who do not possess the specific mathematical way of thinking, and in the same manner, no artist, no poet, no philosopher and no musician whose thinking occurs in the highest sphere would degenerate into vulgarity in order to comply with a slogan such as "Art for All." Because if it is art, it is not for all, and if it is for all, it is not art.
Most deplorable is the acting of some artists who arrogantly wish to make believe that they descend from their heights in order to give some of their riches to the masses. This is hypocrisy. But there are a few composers, like Offenbach, Johann Strauss and Gershwin, whose feelings actually coincide with those of the "average man in the street." To them it is no masquerade to express popular feelings in popular terms. They are natural when they talk thus and about that.
He who really uses his brain for thinking can only be possessed of one desire: to resolve his task. He cannot let external conditions exert influence upon the results of his thinking. Two times two is four—whether one likes it or not.
One thinks only for the sake of one’s idea.
And thus art can only be created for its own sake. An idea is born; it must be molded, formulated, developed, elaborated, carried through and pursued to its very end.
Because there is only "l’art pour l’art," art for the sake of art alone.
"New Music, Outmoded Music, Style and Idea" by Arnold Schoenberg is from Style and Idea.
Translated from the German by Dika Newlin
