Trois chants sacrés. Per voce di soprano, violino, viola, e violoncello by Henri Pousseur;Improvisation sur Mallarmé. "Une dentelle s'abolit," pour soprano et 9 instrumentistes byPierre Boulez; Du-Song Cycle for Soprano &Piano by Milton Babbitt; August Stramm; FünfLieder, nach Worten von Franz Kafka, Op. 82 by Ernst Krenek; Nachstücke und Arien, nachGedichten von Ingeborg Bachmann, für Sopran und grosses Orchester by ...Review by: Hans NathanNotes, Second Series, Vol. 17, No. 2 (Mar., 1960), pp. 321-323Published by: Music Library AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/893263 .

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The remaining three scores, not par- ticularly "smitten with the love of the impossible," are, perhaps for that reason, the longest in clock-time and closest in spirit and form to that prehistoric new music that used to be written, say, five years ago. The Cello Concerto is "classic" twelve-tone music with an ex- pressive cast that should attract many, although I personally respond uncom- fortably to a work thaft comfortably re- solves in a set of variations on the Prelude from Tristan und Isolde. Still, cellos and cello concerti are very peculiar things under the present circumstances. And speaking of peculiar things, Ritor- nello strikes up a great deal of conven- tional noise in conventional ways, for purposes that escape me as completely as

does the reason for its title. Much cleaner in all respects, Drei Dithyramben is a beautifully made and exceptionally ele- gant piece. It is the one work in which filigree is truly crystallized Gestalt, so that terms from the older glossary- "motif' and "theme," for example-may apply to the content without demanding very special qualifications of meaning. In a way, this very fine score is in its own aesthhetic milieu what Piston's Serenata represents on the other side of the coin.

But every one of the scores, without exception, bears the stamp of conscience, faithfully reflecting the creative mind of our time. That, in my opinion, should prove recommendation enough.

MEL POWELL

VOCAL MUSIC

Henri Pousseur: Trois chants sacres. Per voce di soprano, violino, viola, e violoncello. Milano: Suvini Zer- boni; U. S. A.: Associated Music Publishers, New York, 1958. [Min. score, 16 p., $2.25] Pierre Boulez: Improvisation sur Mallarme. "Une dentelle s'abolit," pour soprano et 9 instrumentistes. (UE 12857.) Wien: Universal; U. S. A.: Associated Music Publish- ers, New York, 1958. [Score, 64 p., $2.50] Milton Babbitt: Du-Song Cycle for Soprano & Piano. Text by August Stramm. Hillsdale, N. Y.: Boelke- Bomart, 1957. [10 p., $2.00] Ernst Krenek: Fuinf Lieder, nach Worten von Franz Kafka, Op. 82. Mainz: B. Schott; Wien: Universal; U. S. A.: Associated Music Publish- ers, New York, 1958. [10 p., $1.50] Hans Werner Henze: Nachstiucke und Arien, nach Gedichten von Inge- borg Bachmann, fur Sopran und grosses Orchester. [3.3.3.(1 alto sax). 3.-4.3.2.1.-Timp. Perc.-2 Harps, Piano-Str.] (Ed. Schott, 4586.) Mainz: B. Schott; U. S. A.: Asso- ciated Music Publishers, New York, 1958. [Min. score, 92 p., $3.75]

All of these works, written in the 'fifties (with the exception of one), re- veal to what extent Schonberg's heritage has been adapted to the taste, ttempera- ment, and tradition of individual com- posers.

Henri Pousseur's Trois chants sacre's of 1951, based on the words of the antiphons "Veni et Dominus," "O vos omnes," and "Salve Regina," comprise three short movements. They are derived from a single tone-row which, according to dodecaphonic usage, appears co- herently in the vocal part; additional continuity is attained by making the last tone of a statement the beginning of the next. The line is Webernian but its cantability is greater. Not only are its nin-ths and sevenths filled in (usually at the bottom) with a third or a sixth; these two intervals also add fluency to other passages. Each phrase then has a wide but well rounded, even elegant sweep, and its rhythm (because of many equal note values, often organized into triplets) is tranquil. The over-all rhythm, bowever, is more complex than this, particularly so in movements II and III. Here the instrumental parts, though not entirely unrelated to the comparatively sinuous style of the voice, are broken up into brief, widely-spread fragments

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which avoid simultaneous motion and progression on the beats and their tra- ditional subdivisions within the measure. Nevertheless the meter remains discern- ible. It is chiefly maintained by the voice, which predominates not only in movement I, but also in the two other more polypnonic movements, where the instrumental parts are tied into cohesive vertical sonorities. The c o m poser strengthens the unity within a movement as well as the relation between one move- ment and another by occasionally using the row with identical pitch levels, some- times even in association with identical note values.

The vocal part of Pierre Boulez's Improvisation sur Mallarme' is accom- panied by harp, bells, vibraphone, piano, and celesta, with occasional punctuations by a group of percussion instruments of indefinite pitch. This group becomes active (against sustained sonorities) in what turns out to be a kind of Ritornello. Here four maracas stand out with vigorous rhythmic patterns, the only ones of their kind in the entire score, intensi- fied by quickly increasing crescendos and accelerating tempos. There is noth- ing of the feverish, melodic filigree style of Le Marteau sans maitre. The instru- ments go slowly from one tone, interval, or chord-each usually isolated by rests -to another, often beginning or ending a sound with a number of lightly and quickly touched tones, some widely apart, that act like grace-notes. Melodic co- herence is found only in the vocal part. It has itwo sharply differentiated styles. One, related to movement III of Le Marteau, is replete with large intervals such as ninths and sevenths and with "ornamental" notes. The other is characterized by unadorned, long tones sustained by fermatas (the "senza tempo" sections). In order to learn how Boulez has applied his serial techniques to harmony, dynamics, and note values would be as formidable a job as a read- ing of A la Recherche du temps perdu at one sitting-neither absolutely neces- sary. But the work is no doubt most systematically planned in all details, al- though it has the appearance (as the title emphasizes) of an improvisation.

That the vocal part does not follow an initial set of intervals is already evident from the fact that it repeats many tones intermittently.

Since the interval in Boulez has lost a ,good deal of its significance, it is the novel and highly intriguing timbres that represent the main aspect of the work. In order to realize them one must be conscious of all their nuances such as the subtle differentiation in volume and speed, "the super-position of several over- tones . . . , the attack, the appearance or disappearance of certain overtones, the proportion of their intensity" (Boulez in Die Reihe, No. 1), and this is for one who lacks the daily contact with this type of music, which is impossible with- out a heard performance.

Milton Babbitt's song cycle Du, of 1951, is a strictly dodecaphonic work. Its tone-rows (one for each song) are constructed in a way that their second half is the mirror of the first. The vocal part consists of many brief phrases, prac- tically tonal by themselves, which are almost unrelated to each other. Support- ing the declamation, they parallel an ex- pressionistically di sjo in ted sentence structure. This kind of pointillism, if it may be called that, appears also in the piano accompaniment. Here we find numerous rests and tones that constantly and unpredictably change their duration and register. Harmony is chiefly defined in terms of density (close together, far apart, etc.). The work has style; it is a noteworthy contribution to a genre that is not sufficiently cultivated by the more talented among contemporary composers in America.

While Boulez's and Pousseur's music represents an avant-garde definition of the atonal and dodecaphonic trends of the Viennese school, Ernst Krenek's Funf Lieder, written in 1937-38, actually confirms them. Their vocal line (in great part built up from serial frag- ments on the same pitch) still has the post-romantic melody of earlier Sch6n- berg, first surging forward with small intervals (including minor seconds) and then swinging out into an arched canti- lena. Sevenths and ninths, frequently at phrase endings, serve to single out and

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emphasize words. Since the declamation has verisimilitude, the placing of an ac- cent on an otherwise unaccented final syllable by way of an upward motion is one of the very few deliberate distor- tions. Also the monochrome character of the harmony and its acerbity, relieved by patches of late-19th-century chords, refer back to Sch5nberg. What holds these songs together seems to be less the distinction of itheir musical elements than a contemporary poetic quality (added to or derived from Kafka's text) that ema- nates from the piano accompaniment with its sudden trills, rests, staccato and legato passages, and its capricious (though organic in association with the voice) rhythmic patterns.

The Nachtstiicke itnd Arien by Hans Werner Henze, performed for the first time in 1957, include three pieces for orchestra alone and two accompanied vocal movements. The work is far re- moved from the idiom of both early and recent adherents of Sch5nberg's or

Webern's vocabulary. At times it oper- ates with a few serial devices and a measure of atonality but otherwise it preserves many elements of the past, though without losing its contempora- neity. The score, revealing a large or- chestra displayed with much transpar- ency, is sometimes reminiscent of late- 19th-century French music, especially in its treatment of the wind instruments and in the finesse of its string section. Its vocal part is imbued with a Mendelssohn- ian lyricism and generally with features of early romantic music (appoggiaturas, repeated and at once modified and inten- sified phrases, thirds). But the free use of tones outside traditional tonality lend it a stamp all its own. This is also true of the harmony which resorts to triads, though in novel, closely blended super- positions. Among the composers that have shaped Henze's style is Stravinsky, particularly in the rhythmically ani- mated sections of the work.

HANS NATHAN

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