“When you write and draw in pencil, your eraser is your best
friend.”
― Anthony
T. Hincks
There are several
different versions of this quote, “two ends to a pencil and the rubber is most
useful” I seem to recall is attributed to Schoenberg. When I first came across
the sentiment I took it to mean that we make errors and need to remove them,
later on it evolved into a process of reconsidering the direction of the music
and sometimes a retracing of our musical intentions or lines of thought. I had
never given time to the notion that to lose whole sections of music (sacrifice
hours, days, and weeks of work) to get to the core of an idea might be
appropriate.
Before getting into
why the action of performing surgery on a well-known symphony has been
considered and executed a short diversion is required regarding our views on
disregarding a composer’s written plan in relation to the overall form and
structure of his or her music.
Making formal
adjustments in one’s own works is one thing but doing so in another composer’s
music is another matter altogether. Repetitions which may have been appropriate
in works before the advent of recorded sound may or may not be vital to the
delivery of a satisfactory performance, such a conundrum played through Glen
Gould’s mind in his different recordings of the Goldberg Variations. Why would
one slavishly follow the design of repeats in the variations – to assist the
listener with problems of insomnia hardly seems a convincing musical answer. Even
when accepting the notion that no repeated passages are played exactly the same
(though in the recording studio they are frequently very similar), some repeats add little to the music. In some
recordings of Baroque works we introduce more elaborate ornamentation on
repeating, sometimes played to the point of submerging the original. Each
period requires a different argument for repetition of sections, but let us not
labour that particular point, it has been touched on in previous blogs.
The advent of
classical music stations has resulted in many listeners having a “pick and mix”
view of art music and if they are satisfied with that format one cannot deny
them the right to their enjoyment. Even the more discerning listener may think
twice about listening to the complete cycle of Bach’s Preludes and Fugues from
book 1 or two (even more so in combination). Pick and mix is not new, operatic
arias lifted out of context are common, arrangers select favoured bits, the
Ring cycle has its bleeding chunks, and ballets similarly have their concert
versions. So we cut and reassemble our
listening experiences to suit our pleasure, but there are times when the
discerning listener may question the composer’s intentions to explore, follow a
connection or simply isolate a particular feature which attracts the attention.
Let us return to the matter of surgery on an old friend.
The origins of the
desire to run the first movement into the fourth in the 9th symphony
has its roots in my great admiration of two symphonies by Sibelius, the 5th
and the 7th. In both questions regarding structure concern the
composer, and the nature of the questions concern reviewing the conventional
multi movement symphony and how the movements can be forged into a continuous
composition. Reading through a number of analytical papers on the matter
certain phrases constantly reappear, continual development, 2 movements in one,
combined development and recapitulation, cohesion through rhythm, contour and
detailed articulations. On the matter of rhythm I particularly like Tom
Service’s commentary in the Guardian:
…the Seventh Symphony
crystallises a conspectus of a compositional technique that later composers
like Elliott Carter, George Benjamin, and countless others, would employ:
so–called ”metric modulation”, in which you use a common unit of musical time
to elide from one speed to another. …the effect is even more subtle than simply
shifting through the gears: the final appearance of the trombone theme, whose
three-fold appearances are the symphony’s most obvious landmark, is achieved by
a musical time-warp. What I mean is
that Sibelius has sped up the music so much that time slows down … so that the
hectic crotchets of the symphony’s last scherzoid music become the undulating
accompanying bed of sound for the trombone’s theme. That’s a moment of musical
magic; a truly Sibelian sleight of symphonic structure.
In my two piano
version of the first and fourth movements of Ralph Vaughan Williams 9th
symphony I deliberately reduced the symphony from four movements to two to
explore a question of design, are the two movements connected to the point where
they can function as one, and might RVW have been influenced by the Sibelius
model? I could have been satisfied by leaping through the tracks on a CD or
ripping the appropriate parts into an MP3 file, but I wanted to spend time
working through the details and hearing the parts at the sort of speed the
composer might have worked to catch at least some of the relationships between
themes, rhythms and scales. Furthermore I had a strong sense of affinity
between the two movements but I needed to see if the intuition had basis in
fact.
There is no lack of
respect in this action, and I admire RVW’s symphonies, the regard for his work
dates back to my school days where the Wasps and Sea Symphony were studied for
examination purposes (enough said). For me one movement stood out from the
others, the final movement of the sixth which paired well with the final
section of Holst’s Planets, the reason for the link did not become apparent for
a number of years until I examined both pieces in respect to modes of limited
transposition. This style of this subdued, unearthly music was not returned to
in later symphonic movements and I felt that the 7th, 8th
and 9th symphonies had great character but were less musically fascinating.
This view may have been partly informed from reading others who describe the 7th
as an inferior symphony (being an adaptation of film music), and the 8th
and 9th as a late revisit of his earlier style – including
quotations in the 9th - and technique, as “appropriate” to an older
man.
The argument for the
four movement symphony seems based in literature, reflecting RVW’s lifelong
admiration of Hardy’s landscape and its characters, and in the case of the 9thTess
in particular. I understand that Michael Kennedy and Alain Frogley both expound
on the literary and geographic imagery, the latter writer particularly
expounding connections in the second movement with Tess at Stonehenge. While
mentioning Frogley there is a lengthy account on the working methods of RVW and
the 9th, in general terms it seems that the four movements were
composed in sequential order, the first almost certainly followed by the
second.
As the transcription
to two pianos evolved is was aware of the loss of musical colour, it seems that
more has been written about the orchestration of the 9th than
anything regarding its structure. However the reduction to two pianos reveals
just how astringent the harmony can be. The musical spellings show that the key
structures have bitonal elements and the chords are at times as shocking in
their starkness as those in “Job”. Another aspect of the 2 piano arrangement is
an opportunity to place the focus directly onto the thematic and rhythmic
changes, I certainly heard the two movements as consisting of a large number of
related paragraphs in a continual evolution, whether this view is shared is a
matter for the reader and listener.
In the blog on age
and creativity the phases of artistic endeavour were presented, and given RVW’s
age we must assume that he was at the time of composing the 9th
either in transition between the two final phases or in the final phase. Here
they are again:
“Summing-up” phase. Looking
at the events of one’s past and creating a narrative from these
events.
“Encore” phase: reaffirming beliefs and opinions
and exploring variations on those opinions.
Both have their possibilities in the composer’s approach to
the last two symphonies, (their composition overlaps) but in my opinion there
are new elements or at least progressions from previous composing interests
that demonstrate fresh approaches.
If we are going to compare the ideas of a formal unification
of parts with Sibelius let us remind ourselves that Sibelius’s 7th symphony was
a product of the mid 1920’s and RVW’s 9th the 1950’s. Thirty years
is a long time in musical history of the 20th century but the effect
of Sibelius’s symphonic music has been profoundly influential, even on
composers of the 21st century (e.g. Maxwell Davies and Per Norgard).
Earlier it was stated that in his 7th symphony Sibelius gives equal
weight to the variation of material with tempo, rhythmic design and
articulations alongside key relationships, (albeit in a different and more
chromatic manner to earlier symphonies). RVW’s 9th also shows these
characteristics but retains frequent key signature changes, and with the arrival
of these changes of key we consistently get new variants on thematic and
rhythmic characters. Williams’ use of tempo change is less adventurous than
Sibelius but the outcomes are similar with gradual alterations to the rhythmic
cells over the course of the music. (One may note the feature of a distinct
musical figure being followed by a string of successive running quavers,
triplets or semiquavers then a new distinctive figure as the various paragraphs
are worked through).
The following
examples trace through the evolution of the main rhythmic motifs of the first
movement.
While the
thematic relationships within the first movement are strong in the final
movement the rhythmic design is less dramatic, a 6/8 pulse dominates with
forays in 4/4, but there is still an evolution of rhythmic ideas, and the
closing figures bring us back to the most characteristic figure of the symphony
the rise and fall three note figure on saxophones. We must also recall the long
triplet sections (e.g. after the contrapuntal opening) in which the ambiguity
of being in 4 beats or 6 is played out and now hear it as a precursor of the
final movement.
At the bottom
of the blog is the thematic comparisons between the movements used on an
earlier blog, the black ink refers to the first movement and the blue the
final.
I have not
spent a great deal of time on a close harmonic analysis and key structure of
the two movements, this task would take far more space and time than a blog
permits. However, as I came to finish writing this account I came across a thesis
covering this topic and I include the link:
In this (very
informative) document David Manning makes reference to an article by Alain Frogley which I have not read where the idea is proposed that the
final movement of the 9th is two movements in one! However we read
the score we must realise that the harmonic design is complex, there are 10
changes of key signature in the first movement, with the music becoming a
little more stable in relation to the key signatures from the D minor section
(bar 112). The last movement has 15 key signature changes and presents us
towards the close with a movement towards major tonality, (C and E). These key
signatures are not the conventional signals provided in symphonic music of
earlier periods and the degree of ambiguity is high.
How do I now read the
symphony? I take it as a win – win situation, we have one and a half
symphonies, one full somewhat conventional 4 movement work, and half a symphony
that poses as a single movement work that is far more radical. I post the link
to the 2 piano arrangement
