a sketch of the man and his music

7/30/2019 A Sketch of the Man and His Music

1/24

Varse: A Sketch of the Man and His MusicAuthor(s): Chou Wen-ChungSource: The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 52, No. 2 (Apr., 1966), pp. 151-170Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/741034

Accessed: 27/01/2010 11:49

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless

you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you

may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=oup.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed

page of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of

content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms

of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Oxford University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Musical

Quarterly.

http://www.jstor.org
http://www.jstor.org/stable/741034?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ouphttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ouphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/741034?origin=JSTOR-pdf


2/24

VOL. LII, No. 2

VARESE:A SKETCHOFTHE MANAND HIS MUSICBy CHOU WEN-CHUNG

Edgard Varese was born in Paris on December 22, 1883. He spenthis childhood in Paris as well as in Villars, a village in Burgundy,where the Cortots, his mother's family, lived. When he was nine, hisfather, Henri Varese,1 an engineer, moved the family to Turin, Italy.Varese fought to study music against the wishes of his father, whowas preparing him for an engineering career. So he studied musicand composed on his own until he was seventeen, when GiovanniBolzoni, director of the Turin Conservatory, took an interest in himand gave him private lessons. Through Bolzoni, Varese became apercussionist in the Turin Opera and had the opportunity of suddenlysubstituting for the conductor, who fell ill before a performance ofRigoletto. At nineteen, after the death of his mother, Varese decidedto leave his family to pursue his musical studies without interference.He returned to Paris and studied first with Vincent d'Indy and AlbertRoussel at the Schola Cantorum and then with Charles Widor at theConservatoire. Having parted ways with his tyrannical father, he now

'Born in Pignerol(Pinerolo), a city near Turin, in the Piedmont,sometimes French.?oCopyright, 1966, by G. Schirmer, Inc.

151

APRIL, 1966


3/24

Copyright ( 1966 by Thomas BouchardEdgard Varese, 1965


4/24

The Musical Quarterlyresented the unyielding conservatism of d'Indy and Faure, then di-rector of the Conservatoire, and fought against it. Again to pursue hisown development without interference, he left both schools in quicksuccession. Although Varese received the "Premiere Bourse artistiquede la ville de Paris" in 1907 at the recommendation of Massenet andWidor, during the four years as a student in Paris only his studies ofthe music of medieval, Renaissance, and early Baroque masters withCharles Bordes at the Schola made an impact on him. He foundedand trained choruses for the performance of this music almost through-out his life. While still a student at the Conservatoire, he founded in1906 the Choeur de l'Universite Populaire. Later in Berlin, in 1909,he founded the Symphonischer Chor, with which he took part in someof Max Reinhardt's productions.A young rebel in Paris, Varese struck Romain Rolland as a proto-type of Jean-Christophe. Writing to a friend about Varese with greatenthusiasm, he said: "But I have not yet told you the fact that is mostamusing in my acquaintance with this Varese: he is writing a Gar-gantua (symphonic poem). And, at this very moment, Jean-Christopheis writing one! To say, then, that my book is a 'novel'! My book isnot a novel. Jean-Christophe actually exists."2 Varese was befriendedby poets, artists, and composers, particularly Debussy, who said tohim: "You have a right to compose what you want to, in the wayyou want to, if the music comes out and is your own. Your musicdoes come out and is yours."3 Disappointed with the musical climatein Paris, Varese left for Berlin in the winter of 1907. There he becamea protege of Richard Strauss, Karl Muck, Hugo von Hofmannsthal,and especially Ferruccio Busoni, whose stimulating mind helped tocrystallize his own revolutionary ideas. Varese's first major perform-ance came at Strauss's insistence when Josef Stransky conducted hisBourgogne with the Bliithner Orchestra in Berlin on December 15,1910. His initial success as a conductor took place on January 4,1914, when he gave the first performance in concert form of Le Martyrede Saint-Sebastien with the Czech Philharmonic in Prague. This pro-gram, consisting entirely of contemporary French music, was to be thefirst of a concert tour in the principal cities of Europe, introducingVarese as a conductor of new music. But the outbreak of World War Iobliterated in one stroke his rising career in Europe.

2Lettero Sofia Bertholini,Jan. 24, 1909.3EdgardVarese, TheDebussy IKnew, in FM Listener'sGuidc,November 1962.

152


5/24

Variese:A Sketch of the Man and His MusicOn the eve of 1916, having served in the French Army and been

discharged because of ill health, Varese arrived in America. The veryword, America, had meant to him since childhood "all discoveries, alladventures. . .the Unknown." And in this symbolical sense, "newworlds on this planet, in outer space, and in the minds of man,"4Varese gave the first work hewroteinthe New World the title Ameriques.In New York, at the Hippodrome, on the night of Palm Sunday,April 1, 1917, Varese conducted a performance of Berlioz's Requiem,"as a memorial for the fallen of all nations," with 300 voices of the

Scranton Oratorio Society and an orchestra of 150. This event, whichbrought him immediate recognition as a conductor in this country,was sponsored by such names as the Guggenheims, the Lewisohns,the Morgenthaus, the Pulitzers, the Vanderbilts, the Whitneys, as wellas prominent names from the musical establishment. He was then thelionized young maestro, who could have had continued success if hehad only been willing to accede to the taste and whims of the time. ButVarese had come to the New World to seek a new world of music.Instead of catering to old habits, he chose to champion new music. Inthe spring of 1919, the New Symphony Orchestra was founded es-pecially for Varese. On the program for the opening concerts at Car-negie Hall, on April 11 and 12, only one familiar composer was rep-resented-Bach.5 The rest of the program was devoted to first NewYork performances of Bart6k's Deux Images, Alfredo Casella's Vottedi Maggio, Debussy's Gigue, and Gabriel Dupont's Le Chant de laDestinee-works of less than a decade's vintage, except the last, whichwas somewhat older. Though the orchestra was founded for the ex-press purpose of introducing new music, this obviously was more thancould be tolerated. The program, incomprehensible to most of thecritics and the audience, brought Varese the first barrage of the ridi-cule and insult that were to become a constant accompaniment to hislifelong endeavor in behalf of new music. Refusing the request of theboard to change his announced programs for the season, Varese re-signed. Artur Bodanzky took over and finished the season with theaccepted formula of the time: Berlioz, Brahms, and Wagner. The

4Notes on Am riques.5The "sonata" from the cantata Der Himmel lac/zt,die Erdejuhiliret. It was the orchestra'spolicy, as established by Varese, to present in each program an unfamiliar old score alongwithpreviouslyunheardnewworks.

153


6/24

The Musical Quarterlyorchestra soon died a natural death, being the third orchestra in NewYork presenting the same repertory.

Two years later, on May 31, 1921, Varese founded the InternationalComposers' Guild with a manifesto stating:The composer is the only one of the creators of today who is denied direct contactwith the public. When his work is done he is thrust aside, and the interpreter nters,not to try to understandthecompositionbut impertinently o judge it. Not finding init any trace of the conventions to which he is accustomed,he banishes it from hisprograms, denouncingit as incoherentand unintelligible...It is true that in responseto public demand, our official organizations occasionally place on their programs anewworksurroundedby establishednames. Butsucha work is carefullychosen fromthe most timid and anaemic of contemporaryproduction, eaving absolutely unheardthe composerswho represent he truespiritof our time . .The aim of the InternationalComposers' Guild is to centralizethe works of the day, to group them in programsintelligentlyand organically constructed, and, with the disinterestedhelp of singersand instrumentalists, o presentthese works in such a way as to reveal their funda-mentalspirit...During the Guild's six years of existence, Varese, as its chairman,with the active assistance of Carlos Salzedo, was responsible for theworld or American premieres of works by such composers as Bartok,

Berg, Casella, Chavez, Cowell, Honegger, Hindemith, Kodaly, Krenek,Malipiero, Miaskovsky, Milhaud, McPhee, Ornstein, Poulenc, Ravel,Respighi, Rieti, Rudhyar, Ruggles, Satie, Florent Schmitt, Schoenberg,Still, Stravinsky, Szymanowski, Vaughan Williams, Webern, and Wel-lesz.6 Many of these also served on the Guild's advisory committee dur-ing various seasons. Performances were given by such conductors andperformers as Claudio Arrau, Georges Enesco, Eva Gautier, EugeneGoossens, Arthur Hartmann, Otto Klemperer, Nina Koshetz, FritzReiner, Artur Rodzinski, E. Robert Schmitz, Leopold Stokowski, andthe LetzQuartet.Not satisfied with a Guild in America alone, Varese formed withBusoni the Internationale Komponisten-Gilde in Berlin in 1922. Anaffiliation was also established with the Collective of Composers inMoscow in the same year through Arthur Lourie. The next year, Ca-sella's Corporazione delle nuove Musiche was also affiliated with theGuild. Efforts were made to organize branches in other Europeancountries as well. But such idealistic and far-sighted activities as the

6Among the world premiires were Ruggles's Angels, Men and Mountains, Portals, and VoxClamans in Deserto; and Varese's own Offrandes,Hyperprism, Octandre,and Integrales. TheAmericanpremieres ncludedBart6k'sStringQuartetNo. 2; Berg's Kammerkonzert,Hindemith'sKammermusik No. 3; Schoenberg's Pierrot lunaire and Serenade;Stravinsky'sLes Noces andRenard;and Webern'sFMinfatzefor stringquartetand Fanf GeistlicheLieder.

154


7/24

Varese: A Sketch of the Man and His MusicGuild's could not endure, certainly not in the twenties. The rising trendin the "official. organizations" towards focusing attention on works"carefully chosen from the most timid and anaemic of contemporaryproduction" brought the Guild to a halt in 1927. Undaunted, the verynext year Varese founded another organization, the Pan-AmericanAssociation of Composers, to promote performances of works by com-posers of North, South, and Central America. With the collaborationof Carlos Chavez, Charles Ives, Colin McPhee, Wallingford Riegger,Carlos Salzedo, Adolph Weiss, and particularly Henry Cowell andNicolas Slonimsky, the Association gave concerts not only in theUnited States and Latin America but also in Europe throughout thethirties.

It should be noted here that Varese was not only vitally involvedwith new music of his own time but also actively interested in reviving"new music" of past eras. In 1937 Varese founded a Schola Cantorumin Santa Fe. In 1941 he founded the New Chorus in New York, laterre-named the Greater New York Chorus. All were devoted to com-posers unfamiliar to the public at that time, such as Marc-AntoineCharpentier, Alessandro Grandi, Andreas Hammerschmidt, Monte-verdi, Perotin, Pierre de la Rue, Heinrich Schiitz, and Lodovico Via-dana. It was not until the early fifties, when he finally could devotehimself to electronic music, that Varese stopped giving these choralperformances.

That Varese's beliefs transcended all boundaries, that he was astaunch champion for the individual, was further evinced by statementshe made shortly after his arrival in the New World. Two years beforehe put his ideas into practice, he wrote the New York Times on March20, 1919:I should ike o propose League f Nations n Art.It needsno covenants,no drafts,no high court of arbitration, o machinery o causedebateamongpoliticians. twouldexist solely in thementalattitude f theworld.. .Onlyby a freeexchangeofart-music, literature, ainting-can one peoplebe interpretedo another...In art,as well as in politics,we havebeen arredout of our traditionalsolation.Andtheresultwill begood.Thecontact,heemulation,hecompetition ill spurus to greateraccomplishment..What a combinationhe freerminglingof nationalcharacteristicsinartwouldgive!Whatbeautyandstrength!

And in the Guild's manifesto, he set forth a credo to which he remainedfaithful till the very end of his life, in declaring that it "disapproves ofall 'isms'; denies the existence of schools; recognizes only the individ-ual."

155


8/24

The Musical QuarterlyBecause of his interest in percussion and his acquaintance withMarinetti and Russolo, Varise was referred to on occasion as a

Futurist; but his ideas on the use of sounds and noises in music areentirely opposed to those of the Futurists. He once said: "The Futuristsbelieved in reproducing sounds literally; I believe in the metamorphosisof sounds into music." Again, because of his friendship with Duchamp,Picabia, and Tzara, Varese was regarded on other occasions as aDadaist. His answer was: "I was not interested in tearing-down but infinding new means.. .Unlike the Dadaists I was not an iconoclast."7He called neo-Classicism "one of the most deplorable trends of mu-sic today-the impotent return to the formulas of the past."8 As forthe twelve-tone system, he once commented:It is important in the same way that Cubism is important in the history of the finearts. Both came at a moment when the need for a strict discipline was felt in the twoarts...Even if one disagrees with the premises of Schoenberg's new method, onemust admit that there was a pressing need for a discipline that would bring musicback to its own domain, the domain of sound.. .But we must not forget that neitherCubism nor Schoenberg's liberating system is supposed to limit art or to replace oneacademic formula with another...[They] are media and not finalities.. .Good worksare not the result of favorable circumstances, new devices, exploitation of new formu-las; they are produced often in spite of them.9

On the other hand, in the application of the system by Webern-onecomposer of our time he truly admired-he found "remarkable pos-sibilities of expansion, new points of departure."1'Speaking of electronic music, he said recently: "[We] must not ex-pect our electronic devices to compose for us. Good music and badmusic will be composed by electronic means, just as good and bad

music have been composed for instruments. The computing machineis a marvelous invention and seems almost superhuman. But, inreality, it is as limited as the mind of the individual who feeds it ma-terial."" Asked about improvisation and aleatory music, he answered:"[It]is so accidental that I can't see the necessity for a composer!"12

7Letter to Thomas H. Greer,Aug. 14, 1965.8 Lecture iven at Universityof SouthernCalifornia,Ios Angeles, 1939.

Lecture iven at ColuliibiaUniversity, 1948."Ibhid.Lecture iven at YaleUniversity, 1962.

" GuntherSchuller, Conversationwith Varcse, in Perspectivesol'New Music, Spring-Summer,1965.

156


9/24

Varise: A Sketch of the Man and His MusicThroughout his career of over half a century, Varese was steadfastin recognizing only the individual and disapproving of all systems.

While Varise never seemed to have hesitated to employ any knownstructural means - from a triad to serial technique - if they happenedto serve his purpose, his music is essentially "not based on any fixedset of intervals such as a scale, a series, or any existing principle ofmusical measurement."13 His lifelong struggle for the "liberation ofsound" and for the recognition of"sound as living matter" led him tocall his music "organized sound" and himself "a worker in rhythms,frequencies, and intensities." In a lecture given in 1936, he predicted:When new instruments will allow me to write music as I conceive it.. .the movementof sound-masses, of shifting planes, will be clearly perceived. When these sound-masses collide the phenomena of penetration or repulsion will seem to occur. Certaintransmutations taking place on certain planes will seem to be projected onto otherplanes, moving at different speeds and at different angles...In the moving massesyou will be conscious of their transmutations when they pass over different layers,when they penetrate certain opacities, or are dilated in certain rarefactions.14

These are not merely words of prophecy but could and should be usedin discussing Varese's extant compositions for conventional instruments:Ameriques (1918-22), Offrandes (1921), Hyperprism (1922), Octandre(1923), Integrales (1924), Arcana (1925-27), lonisation (1930-31),Ecuatorial (1933-34), Density 21.5 (1936), and the instrumental sec-tions of Deserts (1949-54 ).15As for how these sound-masses emerge and are organized, Varesewas fond of citing the phenomenon of crystallization16as an analogy,explaining: "There is an idea, the basis of an internal structure, ex-panded and split into different shapes or groups of sound constantlychanging in shape, direction, and speed, attracted and repulsed byvarious forces. The form of the work is the consequence of this inter-

13Programnotes for Deserts.'4 ecturegiven at Mary AustinHouse, Santa Fe, 1936.5For the scores whose dates of completionare not known, only the year (or years) duringwhich they were begunand most likely completed s assigned.

'6Varise quoted Nathaniel Arbiter,professor of minerology at Columbia University, as say-ing: "The internal structure s based on the unit of crystal which is the smallestgrouping of theatoms that has the order and compositionof the substance. The extension of the unit into spaceforms the whole crystal. ..Crystal form is the consequence of the interaction of attractiveandrepulsiveforcesand theorderedpackingof the atom."

157


10/24

158 The Musical Quarterlyaction.""7 Skepticism usually followed such remarks by Varese. But letus briefly examine his music in the light of his terminology.ls

In Integrales, for example, the idea, stated in its entirety for the firsttime by the C trumpet in measure 10 (Ex. la), represents the expand-ing plane throughout the first section marked Andantino. This idea isfirst split into two groups of intervallic content (Ex. lb: I, II) whichEx. la.

( J = 72)10

ff avec sourd.

b. Idea GroupsI II III IV V

(Cf. measure 18) (In each group the intervallic content as defined by the pitches given isstatable in any vertical permutation or linear ordering.)form the two distinct layers of sound-masses- not counting the inde-pendent but coordinated sound-masses of the percussion instruments -heard repeatedly throughout this section. These two sound-masses(Ex. 2), at a distance of two octaves and a major second and with

Ex. 2(J = 72)JPicc.

5P Cl. _icc. 6v t~~~~ f rmorendo

9(f) _ _ sc sSfTrbs.(avec sourd.),g-^r, I-, .-

f morendo(Percussion parts omitted)

7Lecture given at Princeton University, 1959."8Thefollowing paragraphs are only intended to demonstrate the meaning of Varese's termin-ology as applied to the specific examples cited. They do not purport to be an exposition of his

compositional procedure.The examples from Integrales are ? 1926, those from Deserts ? 1959, by Franco Colombo,Inc., New York, and are reprinted by permission of the publisher.


11/24

Varese: A Sketch of the Man and His Musicindependent dynamic organizations, are stated by the two piccolosand the Bb clarinet (A-B-Eb), and by the three trombones (C-Ct-E).At measure 25, a transmutation (an inversion in this case) of thesecond group, statedby the Ebclarinetand the two trumpets(Db-E-F),suddenly activates threeversions of a thirdgroup (Ex. lb: III), whichemerge and collide with each otherin quicksuccession, in mm. 26-29,encompassing almost the entire available instrumentalrange (Ex. 3).

Ex. 3(J= 72) 8va - --- ---Picc. - -- -SfP1ccj^O. III > PicC

25 . 26 Pic 27(ae- so__.

p b s IIIOb. I

Tpts. ^ j/^ L^o- b '(avec so.l fHn.(bouchd) f SfIuB.Trb.,

8f (avec sourd.) f

The middle one, stated by the Eb clarinet, the oboe, and the horn(Db-D-Eb), emerges out of the transmuted second group and is theninterlockedwith it (Db being the pivot), whilethe two outer layers, rep-resented as before by the two piccolos and the Bb clarinet(F$-G-G~)and by the three trombones (A-Bb-B), expand upwards and down-wards respectively. Sound-masses shaped out of a fourth and a fifthgroup19 (Ex. lb: IV, V) as well as the third group then collide re-peatedly throughoutthe next section, markedModerato, creatingcon-stant phenomena of penetrationand repulsionwith a varying degreein tension. This sensation of changing tension is caused by the factthat the same pitches emerge from the collisions each time with adifferentspeed,thusforminga different ngle in the time-spacerelation-ship(Ex. 4).

Each of these new groups also represents a semitonal expansion or contraction of a pre-vious group. As Ex. lb shows, the th in IV is an expansion of the major 3rd in I; the major2nd in V is a contraction of the minor 3rd in II and an expansion of the minor 2nd in III.

159


12/24

The Musical Quarterly(J = 60) Piccs.r

,36 1 . A? if1 -__- , 37 381 . D'- ?---- {' r

C S Ofif L,3 ,,Jcu avecou' i '

',,lTpts'. 4- t(,ouvert" '(avecour)..'.'. ' - ' r

?f"^^- -^, ^^^j'^^ --^A:Ptsr44 kSOUrd?)JC~jf~te~t~f~c_

B.Trb 'e-. 4Cb.Trb. f)(sans omV nesourd.) - M(Percussion parts omitted)

VP- - p

Again, at the opening of Deserts the major ninths (F-G, D-E), sep-arated by a minor ninth, represent the contours of the two layers ofsound-masses. At measure 7 both ninths are split open by the insertionof the middle pitches (C, A), causing each to form a pair of super-imposed fifths (Ex. 5). Then, by expanding the cycles of fifths towards

Ex. 5 -=FIs. >, C4

(fp)

160Ex. 4


13/24

Variese:A Sketch of the Man and His Musiceach other, penetration occurs for the first time in m. 14. By exchang-ing the two new pitches (Bb, B), a transmuted organization of thesound-masses gradually emerges as the superimposition of a fifth anda tritone, becoming manifest by m. 21 (Ex. 6). This new organization

Ex. 6 22( J = 92) F1 3- Picc. >

Cl.iff[^ - (sorj b)

Pf.ifTrbs. (sord.)

Tb .continues to expand, bringing about new pitches and new permutationsof itself through m. 40. The same process takes place again in the nexttwo measures, when two pairs of superimposed fourths interact witheach other, causing another transmutation20 to emerge as tlle super-imposition of a fourth and a minor sixth. Further interaction thenbrings about a merging of the two sound-masses through symmetricalexpansion bexpand,and tritones (Ex. 7). This continual process ofexpansion, penetration, interaction, and transmutation accounts for theimmense sense of growing organism in the entire score, and illustratesVarese's concept of "sound as living matter." Of course, this growth ofsound in space is by no means the result of pitch organization alone,the only aspect discussed here, but the consequence of interactionamong all properties of sound, as Varese stated. A close examinationof both scores with particular attention to timbre, spacing, dynamics,attack and release will bear out this point.In this light, we should realize that Ionisation is a classic not forthe commonly held reason-the first serious work for percussion only-but because it demonstrates that Varese's concept is successfully

20As in the case of Integrales, these transmutations again possess the quality of being a semi-tonal expansion or contraction of each other: 5th + 5th, tritone + 5th, 4th + minor 6th, andlater major 3rd + major 6th (see m. 54).

161


14/24

Ex. 7J= 92Piccs. C-


15/24

Copyright '( 19bb by 'lhomas BouchardVarese's studio as he left it

Iouise andEdgard Varese.1965Copyright ? 1966 byDiane Bouchard


16/24

Varese's diagram for Poeme electroniqule


17/24

Varese: A Sketch of the Man and His Musicapplicable even when no definite pitches are present, the supreme testfor his goal of liberating sound. In the same light, we should alsorealize that sound-masses, projection, and interaction occur in Density21.5 for flute alone, even though it may appear to be linear on theprinted page.

Clearly then, Varese opened up new horizons not in the fifties withhis electronic works but in the twenties with his works for conventionalinstruments, anticipating today's new developments by over a quarterof a century. These instrumental works of his are not merely "elec-tronic" in sound, as has been pointed out, but more significantly,"electronic" in concept. Yet, until it became fashionable to "discover"him again in recent years, this feat won for him only abuse and ridi-cule, culminating in almost total neglect for over ten years. Ironically,it was the death of a critic that brought back his music to the attentionof the public, when Hyperprism was performed at a concert in memoryof Paul Rosenfeld, an early admirer, on January 23, 1949.Still today Varese is accorded such dubious honors as being called"pioneer" and "precursor," to which he used to retort that "while givinga man credit for a past, they minimize his present and deny him afuture." To the many critics who branded his works "experiments"he said:Of course, like all composers who have something new to say, I experiment,andhave always experimented.But when I finally presenta work it is not an experiment- it is a finished product. My experimentsgo into the wastepaperbasket. People aretoo apt to forget that in the long chain of tradition each link has been forged by arevolutionary,a pioneer,an experimenter f a previousperiod.21A glaring example of the fact that a lack of comprehension still per-sists can be found in the Sunday article on Varese, shortly after hisdeath on November 6, 1965, by the New York Times's music critic,summing him up as "a sort of latter-day Satie."22

Varese's output is said to be small and seemingly out of proportionto his importance. But should we not pause to ponder the reasons:loss of all his early works; his uncompromising commitment to qual-ity; the quest for new media? When World War I broke out, he hadpractically completed his opera, Oedipus und die Sphynx, in collabora-

21LetteroJohnEdmunds,May3, 1957.22Harold C. Schonberg,Maverick, Revolutionary, and Father to a Generation, n New YorkTimes,Nov. 14, 1965.

163


18/24

The Musical Quarterlytion with Hugo von Hofmannsthal. By that time, he had already com-posed eight works for orchestra: Trois pieces, La Chanson des jeuneshormmes,Prelude a la fin d'un jour, Rhapsodie romane,23Bourgogne,Gargantua (incomplete), Mehr Lic/t,24 and Les Cycles du Nord.25 Allbut two were lost in a warehouse fire in Berlin shortly after the war.The manuscript of the Prelude it la fin d'un jour was in the hands ofLeon Deubel, whose poem inspired the composition, and was lostafter Deubel's suicide. The manuscript of Bourgogne was destroyednot too many years ago by Varese himself in a fit of rage and de-pression. He said: "With Ameriques I began to write my own music,and I wish to live (or die) by my later works."26Varese was said to have stopped composing for over ten years afterDensity 21.5 of 1936. On the contrary, he continued to work, but sopreoccupied was he with the need for new media that could keep upwith his musical ideas that he never completed any of the projects heworked on. Such compositions as Espace, for orchestra and chorus,and Astronomer, a stage work, reflected Varese's prophetic mind andfertile imagination in their conception, and required yet unknown elec-tronic means for their realization. When his dream of half a centuryfinally became a reality, he triumphantly brought forth Deserts, Verges,and Poeme electronique, fruits of those eloquent years of silence. Butwhat cruelly tortured times Varese endured! It is to his wife, LouiseVarese,27 in every way a magnificent partner, without whom Varesewould not have had the strength to survive those years, that we owethe existence of these works.

Varese's need for new media was first aroused when he was hardlyfifteen. Having learned about the great Zambezi River, he imagined itsturbulent crosscurrents, drifting debris, and pulsating life, and dreamedof transplanting such interpenetrating movements into the realm ofsound. Later he was stimulated by Hoene Wronsky's28 definition of

2 Inspired by Romanesquearchitecture;Varese wanted to project n this work the conceptofcontrolledgravitationand the use of opposing butmutually stabilizing stresses.24Thesonority in thisworkgrows more and more luminous as it progresses.25Inspiredby thephenomenonof the auroraborealis.26Notes on Ameriques.27Adistinguished ranslatorof Frenchpoetry.28HoeneWronsky (1778-1853), also known as Joseph Marie Wronsky, was a Polish philo-sopher and mathematician,known for his system of Messianism.Camille Durutte(1803-81),in his TechnieHarmonique (1876), a treatise on "musical mathematics,"quoted extensivelyfrom the writingsof Wronsky.

164


19/24

Varese: A Sketch of the Man and His Musicmusic as "the corporealization of the intelligence that is in sounds."He studied Helmholtz's Lehre von den Tonenmpfindungen,and experi-mented with sirens and whistles. He began to think of music "as spatial-as bodies of intelligent sounds moving freely in space," and "theidea of liberating music from the tempered system, from the limitationsof musical instruments and from years of bad habits."29 Another mile-stone was Busoni's remarkable book, Entwurf einer neuen Asthetikder Tonkunst. Varese was struck with the statement, "Music is bornfree; and to win freedom is its destiny," which to him was like anecho of his own thought.In the late spring of 1913, Varese met Rene Bertrand, inventor ofthe Dynaphone, with whom he later learned about the possibilities ofelectronics as a musical medium. As early as 1916, Varese was quotedin the New York Morning Telegraph as saying: "Our musical alphabetmust be enriched. We also need new instruments very badly...In myown works I have always felttheneed of new mediums of expression...which can lend themselves to every expression of thought and can keepup with thought." And in the Christian Science Monitor, in 1922:"The composer and the electrician will have to labor together to getit." In 1927, Varese began seriously discussing with Harvey Fletcher,then Acoustical Research Director of the Bell Telephone Laboratories,the possibilities of developing an electronic instrument for composing.From 1932 through 1936, with Fletcher's recommendation Varese re-peatedly applied for a Guggenheim Fellowship for the following pro-posed studies:With Rene Bertrand, to pursue work on an instrumentfor the producing of newsounds. To inspect other new inventions in certain laboratories in order to discoverif any of them could serve my new sound conceptions. To submit to the techniciansof differentorganizations my ideas in regard to the contributionwhich music- mineat least-looks for from science,and to prove to them the necessity of closer collabo-ration between omposerand scientist.He was rejected each time. He then tried in vain to work at the soundstudios in Hollywood. But a deaf ear was turned to him everywhere.He could only make some very modest experiments with phonographturntables by using motors of different speeds that could be operatedsimultaneously, as well as by running the records backward. AndTheremin built two instruments to his specifications for Ecuatorial3?

29Lecture iven at Sarah LawrenceCollege, Bronxville, 1959.30In hepublishedscore,two Martinots are specified nstead of the Theremins.

165


20/24

The Musical Quarterlywith fingerboard control and an upward range to an octave and afifth above the highest C of the piano.In spite of the apathy shown him during those years, Varese tookanother step towards the future by working, on and off, on what maybe called a sound montage in space, Espace, to be simultaneously broad-cast from various points of the world-"Voices in the sky, filling allspace, crisscrossing, overlapping, penetrating each other, splitting up,superimposing, repulsing each other, colliding, crashing together"-and then re-synthesized for the audience. Some of his ideas for Espacefinally found their way into Deserts and Poeme electronique.

When at last Varese was given a chance to compose electronically,it came from friends. Through the good offices of the painter Alcopley,an Ampex model 401A tape recorder and accessories were presentedanonymously to Varese, making it possible for him to start on thethree interpolations of "electronically organized sound" that alternatewith the instrumental sections of Deserts. The idea was broached in thefall of 1952, and the equipment was installed on March 22, 1953. Itwas not until a year later that an institution approached him, whenPierre Schaeffer invited him to complete his work at the Studio d'Essaiof the Radiodiffusion Franqaise. Again, itwas solely due to the insistenceof an admirer, Le Corbusier, that Varese was able to compose Poemeelectronique at the Philips Laboratories in Eindhoven, Holland. Poemeelectronique (1957-58) is the musical part of a "spectacle of sound andlight," presented during the Brussels World's Fair of 1958 in thepavilion designed for Philips by Le Corbusier. The third Varese elec-tronic work is still generally unknown. Again it owes its existence toan old friend, Thomas Bouchard, for whose film, Around and AboutJoan Mird, Varese composed this music in 1956, to accompany thesequence on the Good Friday procession in Verges.After Deserts and Poeme electronique, tributes and awards came hisway. While it was gratifying for a septuagenarian to know that timehad finally caught up with him, such honors were meaningless-toolittle and too late. By then, Varese was more than ever in need of alaboratory, to be equipped to his own specifications, in order to realizehis still-unexplored ideas. His renown notwithstanding, Varese againhad to turn from one institution to another. No laboratory or equip-ment ever materialized.31 This writer remembers vividly the words

31At he invitation of Vladimir Ussachevsky, Varise revised the first and the last of the inter-polations for Deserts at the Columbia-PrincetonElectronicMusic Center n 1961, with the tech-nical assistanceof BiilentArel.

166


21/24

Varese: A Sketch of the Man and His MusicVarese said often in the last few years: "I don't want to die withouta laboratory!"

Once during a lecture given towards the end of the last war, inspeaking about the effects of the Thirty Years'War on German musicof that time, Varese said: "I only hope that out of a similar infernonow raging in Europe will come a spiritual and esthetic Renaissanceso much needed today. I dare believe it will. I look forward to a com-plete revision of values and a restoration of the things of quality tothe now usurped high place that is rightfully theirs."32 This has come topass. And one of the "things of quality" restored to their rightfulplace is Varese himself. His own "renaissance" came after the end ofWorld War II.

The 1949 performance of Hyperprism, with Frederic Waldman con-ducting, was followed immediately by a rising number of performanceshere and abroad. A year later, Jack Skurnick33made an EMS record-ing of Octandre, Integrales, Ionisation, and Density 21.5, again withWaldman conducting. This was the first record to focus attention onVarese. In the summer of 1948 Otto Luening had invited him to givea seminar in composition at Columbia University during its summersession. This brief tenure at an academic institution, Varese's only one,was followed by an increasing contact with new generations of com-posers. Two summers later, in 1950, Wolfgang Steinecke invited himto lecture at the Kranichsteiner Musikinstitut's Internationale Ferien-kurse fiir Neue Alusik in Darmstadt. This brought about a profoundinfluence of Varese on the post-war generation of European composers.In the spring of 1949 this writer, soon after his arrival in New York,became a pupil of Varese.34 Thereafter more and more young com-posers from all over the world sought him and paid homage to him.Ever true to his credo, Varese never formulated an "ism" or found-ed a school. But more than anyone else in our time, his influence on

32Lectureiven at Piux X School of LiturgicalMusic, ManhattanvilleCollege, Purchase, N.Y.,1944( ?).33Skurnickbecame an admirer of Varese's music through ArthurSzathmary, professor ofphilosophy at PrincetonUniversityand a friend of Thomas Bouchard.34From1949 to 1953. In addition to waiving tuition, he offeredfriendshipand hospitality,saying that he was only passing on a tradition from which he himself benefitedas a youngman. Other composers who studied with him at any length are: AndreJolivet, Colin McPhee,Ernst Schoen, William Grant Still, Marc Wilkinson. In the past decade and a half, of course,numerous young composers showed their scores to Varese and received his ever warm andunderstanding ncouragement.

167


22/24

The Musical Quarterlythe younger generations of composers is a fundamental one. It is sovast that many of us are not even conscious of it while others stillrefuse to admit or are reluctant to acknowledge it. The true impact ofhis influence is yet to be felt. Varese loved the young, and generouslygave of his enthusiasm and encouragement. Practically to the verylast day of his life, even while worrying about not having enough timeto compose, he was going to performances of one fledgling composerafter another, serving on the advisory board of one new group afteranother. Remembering his own fight for the "right to make musicwith any sound and all sounds,"35 he lent his name and gave histime to nearly all who came to him. But this by no means impliedindiscriminate approval for all. He was only helping the young togain the same "right" that he himself fought for all his life. It wasperhaps not without significance that when discussing Debussy andSchoenberg as "the two great revolutionaries of the beginning of ourcentury, breaking away from the peremptory formulas of the 19thcentury and producing works which have fundamentally influencedWestern music," Varese said: "Debussy even deplored his influenceand, irritated by his fanatical copyists, once said to me: 'The Debussy-ists disgust me with my own music.' Schoenberg on the other hand,being a born pedagogue, enjoyed his mission as teacher and chefd'ecole."36 A chef d'ecole Varese was not. At the age of eighty-one, inone of his last interviews he was still saying: "To me, working withelectronic music is composing with living sounds.. .I think of musicalspace as open rather than bounded."37 To think of sound as "living"and musical space as "open" was all that he taught.It was half a century ago that Varese wrote:

Music which should pulsate with life, needs new means of expression, and sciencealone can infuseit withyouthful vigor.I dream of instrumentsobedient to my thought and which with their contributionof a whole new world of unsuspectedsounds, will lend themselves to the exigenciesof my innerrhythm.38

His dream is now our reality.35Lecture iven at PrincetonUniversity, 1959.36 Lecture iven at StedelijkMuseum,Amsterdam,1957.3'Gunther Schuller, oc. cit.3391, No. 5, June 1917, New York;translated rom the Frenchby LouiseVarese.

168


23/24

Varese: A Sketch of the Man and His MusicCHRONOLOGICALIST OF WORKS

Lost WorksTroispieces for orchestra,1905(?).La Chanson desjeunes hommes for orchestra,1905.LePrlude a lafin d'unjour for orchestra, 1905.Rhapsodie romane for orchestra, 1906. A piano version was performedat a Reno-vation esthetique oncert n Paris in 1906( ?).Bourgogne for orchestra, 1907-08. FirstperformanceDec. 15, 1910, Berlin; BliithnerOrchestra, ond. Josef Stransky.Gargantuafor orchestra(incomplete), 1909.MehrLicht or orchestra,1911(?).Les Cyclesdu Nord for orchestra,1912(?).Oedipus und die Sphynx, opera (incomplete), text by Hugo von Hofmannsthal,1908-14.

PublishedWorksAmeriques for orchestra, 1918-22. First performance April 9, 1926, Philadelphia;PhiladelphiaOrchestra,cond. LeopoldStokowski.Offrandesfor soprano voice, piccolo, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, trumpet,trombone, strings, harp, and percussion; text: Chanson de La-hautby Vincente

Huidobro and La Croix du sud by Jose Juan Tablada; 1921. First performanceApril 23, 1922, New York; International Composers' Guild, Nina Koshetz, so-prano, cond. Carlos Salzedo.Hyperprism for flute (piccolo), Eb clarinet, 3 horns, 2 trumpets,tenor trombone,bass trombone, and percussion, 1922. First performance March 4, 1923, NewYork;InternationalComposers'Guild,cond. thecomposer.Octandre or flute(piccolo), clarinet(Eb clarinet),oboe, bassoon, horn, trumpet,trom-bone, double bass, 1923. First performanceJan. 13, 1924, New York; Interna-tional Composers'Guild,cond. E. Robert Schmitz.Integralesfor 2 piccolos, oboe, Ebclarinet, clarinet, horn, 2 trumpets,tenor trombone,bass trombone, contrabass trombone, and percussion (4 players), 1924. FirstperformanceMarch 1, 1925, New York; InternationalComposers'Guild, cond.LeopoldStokowski.Arcana for orchestra, 1925-27. First performanceApril 8, 1927, Philadelphia;Phil-adelphia Orchestra, ond. LeopoldStokowski.Ionisation for percussionensembleof 13 players, 1930-31. FirstperformanceMarch 6,1933, New York;Pan-AmericanAssociationofComposers,cond. Nicolas Slonimsky.Ecuatorial for bass voice (chorus of bass voices in revised version), 4 trumpets,4trombones, piano, organ, 2 Theremins(2 Martinots in revised version), percus-sion (6 players); text from the sacred book of the Maya Quiche, the Popul Vuh(Spanish transl. by Father Jimines); 1933-34. First performanceApril 15, 1934,New York; Pan-AmericanAssociation of Composers, ChaseBaromeo, bass, cond.Nicolas Slonimsky.Density 21.5 for flute alone, 1936. First performanceFeb. 16, 1936, New York;GeorgesBarrere.

169


24/24

The MusicalQuarterlyEtudepour Espace for chorus,2 pianos, and percussion(6 players); text chosen frompoems in various languages by the composer; 1947. First performanceApril 20,

1947, New York;The New Music Society,cond. the composer.Deserts for 2 flutes (piccolos), 2 clarinets (Eb clarinetand bass clarinet), 2 horns,3 trumpets, 3 trombones, bass tuba, contrabass tuba, piano, percussion(5 play-ers), and 3 interpolations of electronically organized sound, 1949-54. First per-formance Dec. 2, 1954, Paris; OrchestreNational, cond. Hermann Scherchen.Good Friday Procession in Verges,electronicallyorganizedsound composed in 1956for Thomas Bouchard'sfilm,Aroundand About Joan Mirb.Poeme lectronique,recorded on 3 magnetic tapes, distributedby 425 loudspeakerswith 20 amplifiercombinations, 1957-58. FirstperformancePhilipsPavilion, Brus-sels World'sFair, May-October,1958.Nocturnal for soprano, chorus of bass voices, piccolo, flute (piccolo), oboe, Eb clari-net, clarinet, bassoon, horn, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, strings, piano, and per-cussion (5 players);textfromHouse of Incestby Anais Nin; 1960-61 (unfinished).FirstperformanceMay 1, 1961, New York;Composers'Showcase, Donna Precht,soprano, cond. RobertCraft.

Works ProjectedAfter he Completionof DesertsDans la nuit, poem by Henri Michaux.Nuit (Nocturnal II), words by Anais Nin.

170

a sketch of the man and his music

Documents