Josi oan Dam (lWozzech) and Hdmann Winhler (Captain), Cooent Garden, 1984 (photo:Clh;e Barda)

This Opera Guide is sponsored by

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SilozzeckAlban Berg

Opera Guide Series Editor: Nicholas John

.John Calder I-ondonRiverrun Press New York

Published in association with English National Opera

COPYRIGHT DATA

First published in Great Britain, 1990, by First published in the USA, 1990, byJohn Calder (Publishers) I-td, Riverrun Press Inc., 1170 Broadway,9-15 Neal Street, l-ondon \ilC2H 9TU New York, NY 10001

Copyright @ English National Opera, 1990Wozzeck in Context @ Mark DeVoto, 1990Georg Biichner's Woyzech: an Interpretation @ Kenneth Segar, 1990

Musical Fbrm and Dramatic F,xpression in Wozzcck @ Theo Hirsbrunner' 1990

On the Characteristics of lVozzech by Theodor Adorno @ Verlag Elisabeth Lafite,Vienna 1968, 6sterreichischer Bundesverlag fiir Unterricht, Vissenschaft und Kunst,Vienna, 1968. Translation O English National Opera, 190WozzechatCovent Garden, 1952, reproducedftomT'ht Musical'limcs,March' May,Julvand August, 1952by permission of the authors and their IlstateslVozzech original libretto copyright @ 1931 Universal Edition A.G., Vienna. Copyrightrenewed, 1958, by Universal Edition A.G., Viennatffozzech translation by Eric Blackall and Vida Harford, reproduced by permission ofUniversal Edition A.G., Vienna, copyright o 1955

lVoyech additional material @ Stewart Spencer, 1990

ALI- RIGH'I'S RESERVT,]I)

BRITISH I,II]RARY CAIAI-OGUING IN PUtsI,ICAI'ION I)A1ABerg, Alban 1885-l,935

\ilozzeck. -(Opera guide series, 42).1. Opera in German. Berg, Alban, 1885-1935L Title II. Series780.92

rsBN 0-7145-4201-6

I.IBRARY OF CONGRT-.SS CATALOGIN(; NUI'IBI:R 90-44450

LIBRARY OF CON(;RIISS (lAlAl.O(ilnv(i IN I')LIBt.l(lAl'lON i)AIA tJ a/so aoailablc

ltnglish National Opera receives financial assistance from the Arts Council of GreatBritain.No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, ortransmitted, by any lbrm or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying orottrerwise, except briefextracts lor the purpose ofreview, without the prior writtenpermission ofthe copyright owner and publisher.

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CONTENZS

List of Illustrations

'Wozzeck'in Context Marh DeVoto

Georg Biichner's 'Woyzeck': an lnterpretation Kenneth Segar

The Musico-Dramatic Structure of 'Wozzeck'

Musical Form and Dramatic Expression in 'lWozzeck'Theo Hinbrunner

On the Characteristics of 'Wozzeck' Theodor lV. Adorno

''Wozzeck' at Covent Garden, 1952 John Amis, EiclJ(/aher White, Arthur Jacobs, William Mann, Joan Chissell,Geffiey Bush, Derych Coohe, Robert L. Jacobs

Thematic Guide

'Voyzeck' Georg Biichner, edited b! Franzos and Landata 1909'$ilozzeck' performing tanslation of Berg\ libretto bit VidaHarford and Eric BlachallAdditional material from Buchner translated by

Stewart Spencer

A comparative structure of the play and the opera

Act One

Act Two

Act Three

Discography Daoid Nrce

Bibliography, Contributors and Acknowledgements

53

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81

100

1iltt2

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Cover design by Anita BoycFrontispiece: Josd van Dam and Hermann \Vinkler, Covent Garden, 1984

Page9 Set design by Panos Aravantinos for the world premiere, Berlin, 192510 The first production in Darmstadt, 193111 The first production in Frankfurt, 193113 Set design by Robert Edmund Jones for the US premidre, Philadelphia, 193114 One ofthe sets ofthe first production in Prague, 192616 Scene from the 1942 Rome production19 Valter Berry as rJgozzeck, Vienna, 19552l Valter Berry as \Wozzeck, Vienna, 195522 Hermann Uhde and Paul Franke in the Metropolitan Opera premidre, 195924 Karl D<inch and Hermann Uhde, Metropolitan Opera, 195926 Geraint Evans as Vozzeck, Covent Garden, 196032 Christa Ludwig as Marie, Vienna, 196334 \Uilliam Dooley and Donald Gramm, Metropolitan Opera, 196536 Christel Goltz and Thorsteinn Hannesson, Covent Garden, 1952$ Marko Rothmtiller and Christel Goltz, Covent Garden, 195245 Frederick Dalberg and Marko Rothmriller, Covent Garden 195247 Frederick Dalberg Marko Rothmilller and Parry Jonesr Covent Garden, 195249 Christel Goltz as Marie. Covent Garden. 195250 David Tree and Jess Valters, Covent Garden, 195252 Christel Goltz and Marko Rothmtiller, Covent Garden, 195255 Evelyne kar as Marie, San Francisco Opera, 196856 Metropolitan Opera sets designed by Caspar Neher65 Bodo Schwanbeck and Richard van Vrooman, Zurich, 196870 Above: Benjamin Luxon and Roderick Kennedy, Scottish Opera, 1983.

Below: Donald Mclntyre as the Doctor, Covent Garden, 19847l Above: Jiirgen Freier as Wozzeck, I*ipzig 1985. Below: 'Vozzeck', Velsh

National Opera, 198678 Anja Silja and James King Covent Garden, 198497 Above: Hermann Vinkler and Valter Berry, Cologne, 1975. Below: \ililliam

kwis and Benjamin Luxon, Scottish Opera, 1983101 Hildegard Behrens as Marie, Metropolitan Opera, 1989

Picture research: Tennifer Batchelor

'Wozzeck'in ContextMark DeVoto

For four years after the Great Var broke out in August 1914, composers, likeeveryone else, were affected by rapidly developing events. As empirescollapsed and new orders arose all over Europe, so did new musical languagesand styles, aesthetic movements, and personal destinies. Igor Stravinsky, onlya few weeks belore the shooting began, had enioyed the spectacular premidreof his opera The Nightingale and, as his neoclassical language formed in thenext three years, he would not write a work as chromatic or as complex intexture for four decades. Bela Bartok would begin his longest orchestral work,the ballet The W'ooden Pince, in 1914, finishing it two years later. ArnoldSchrinberg in 1914 was grappling simultaneously with the most diflicultproblems of musical form and personal theology in a huge symphony, whichwould be overshadowed by his oratorio Die Jakobsleitel; it would have been hislargest and longest work, but it remained unfinished, a casualty oFthe war' andnot until the 1920s would a new technique emerge in new works. ClaudeDebussy, for a decade the most illustrious composer in western Europe, wasseverely ill, and depressed by the suffering ofhis country; not until 1915 wouldhe begin to write music again, in one final burst of creativity before his earlydeath. Younger than any ofthese was Alban Berg, whose experience ofthe warhelped him work out the musical expression ofa debased human condition inhis opera lVozzech, a work which, nearly seventy years after its firstperformance, must still be considered the most remarkable opera of thetwentieth century.

Berg had begun his studies with Arnold Schtinberg in 1904 at the age ofnineteen. Aside from a few elementary piano lessons, this was Berg's firstformal instruction in music, and his extraordinary development in the nextseven years, exclusively under Schdnberg's guidance, is unique in the historyof musical pedagogy. Beginning as a musically naive and inexperiencedadolescent, Berg emerged in 1911 as one ofthe most mature composers ofhistime. This transformation came about as a result ofboth Berg's natural talentand Schrinberg's great skills as a teacher; but f ust as important was Berg'sopportunity to witness and to share in the environment of Schdnberg's ownintensive growth and development as a composer. Berg's works of theseapprentice years include what he later called Seven Early Songs, songs in alate tonal idiom of great lyric and expressive intensity as well as formalmastery; the Piano Sonata, Opus 1, of 1908, which in its dense harmony andcomplex formal design, is clearly influenced by Schcinberg's ChamberSymphony, Opus 9, of 1907; and the even more chromatic Four Songs, Opus2, of 1909, in the last ofwhich Berg experimented with atonal harmony for thefirst time. Berg's String Quartet, Opus 3 (1911), shows all ofthe Schcinbergianlessons of thematic compression and development worked out in chromatic(and still partial tonal) contrapuntal texture ofgreat power and conviction -the last work he was to write directly under Sch<inberg's supervision beforethe latter moved to Berlin.

The next three years marked Berg's first full independence before the Great\War. Fresh from the premiere performance of Mahler's Das Lied oon der Erde(November 1911), Berg began writing his first orchestral work, completed in1912 under the title of Fioe Orchestral Songs on Picture-Postcard Tbxts of PeterAhenberg, Opus 4. To Berg's dismay, it failed to please Schdnberg, and the firstpartial performance, on March 31, 1913, in Vienna, touched offa scandal

which wirs rcporrcd all ovcr lruropc; these unpleasant circumstances causedIlcrg to pul thc songs on rhe shell, denying one ofhis best works to the worldfbr several decadcs. Neither did Schcinberg much like Berg's nexr composirion,the short Four Pieces for clarinet and piano, Opus 5, urging him instead towrite longer and more developed works. The result was Berg's Three piecesfor Orches-tra, Opus 6, begun in the spring of 1914 and completed during thesummer of 1915. The beginning ofBerg's intensive effort on the Three piecescoincided with his attendance at an historic performance -the Vienna stagepremiere of Georg Brichner's play lYoyzeck with Alben Steinriick in the titlerole.

The author of Wojtzech, Georg Brichner, a narive of Darmstadt, had been amedical student in Zurich before his death in 1837 at the age of twenty-three.He left to posterity only a small corpus ofworks, but enough to convince latergenerations ofhis literary genius. Among his works are a novella, a play aboutthe French Revolution, Danton's Death, a comedv, Leonce and l.ena, vafioussocialist tracts which made him a lugitive from the Hessian authoriries and,among his unpublished manuscripts and fragments, various drafts of a play,lVoyzech. The difference in spelling the title role is due to a misreading by thefirst editor of the play, Karl Emil von Franzos, who publishea it ln iAZg;Btichner's manuscript was so poorly legible that even today scholars disagreeon many readings of the text. The structural problem is complicated by thelack ofpage numbers or scene numbers in the manuscript, and by the presenceofmany revisions ofdifferent scenes. Berg saw and used an edition bylandau,published in 1909, ofFranzos's reading ofBUchner.

It must have been immediately apparent to those who read Franzos'sedition of Woyzeck that rhe play would be a conrroversial work to stage. Thatthe dialogue is filled with slang and indecent expressions was the least of theproblems. It was Btichner's dramatic conception which was so radical - thelarge number ofscenes barely connected or completely unconnected by anynarrative continuity, many ofthem extremely short; the disordered, oftendreamlike, soliloquizing in fragmentary senrences; the intense and rapid paceofthe thought process. Today we recognize all ofthese as characteristiis ofcinematography, with stream-oiconsciousness narration, flashbacks, andrapid cutting from scene to scene and from viewpoint to viewpoint. Beyondthis is BUchner's uncanny vision of an oppressive world populated byirrational and predatory people, in which only the simple soldier Vozzeck andhis faithless wife Marie stand out with a measure of human sanity.

Regardless ofthe edition used,Woyzeck,the correct name ofthe protagonistnow long since restored, has been a permanent part ofthe twentieth-centurystage repertory and it has been recognized as one of the milesrones in thehistory of literary and dramatic arr. As the critic George Steiner haswrrnen,

Woyzech is the first real tragedy of low life. It repudiates an assumptionimplicit in Greek, Elizabethan, and neo-classic drama: the assumptionthat tragic suffering is the sombre privilege of those who are in highplaces.

Nor do we need to be reminded how depressingly authenric rhe subject soundsin our own century of violence and dehumanization.

Ve do not know much about what parricularly musical reasons attractedBerg to the play. But the documentary basis is intriguing. In Berg's notebookscan be found a tabular layout of short scenes, side by side with a comparablelayout of scenes for Debussy's opera Pelldas and Milisande, a work about asdifferent from lVozzeck as could be imagined but which shares with it one

Set design by Panas Araoantinos for the world premiire at the Staatsoper, Berlin, 1925 (photo:Archir Unioersal Edition)

important characteristic - the break-up of each Act into short scenesseparated by orchestral interludes while the curtain is lowered. (The structureofDebussy's opera had been regarded as radical in its day, and he too hadchosen a pre-existing stage play, by Maurice Maeterlinck, as the basis of hislibretto.) Beyond this, we have the resrimony of Berg's student GottfriedKassowitz, who states that Berg began sketching two scenes for the musicright afier seeing the play - in other words, while he was working on theMarch in the Three Pieces for Orchesrra, Opus 6; this is borne out by one ofBerg's sketchbooks conraining fifty pages ofsketches for the March, and anumber of miscellaneous sketches for the Fantasy in Act Two, scene two (theCaptain and the Doctor) and for Act One, scene two (tVozzeck and Andres), aswell as Berg's verbal notes about the kinds ofcharacters he envisioned for hisopera. Thus it is not at all surprising rhar parr of the music which wasultimately included in Act One, scene two (bars274-278) is derived from bars81-90 of the March, which he was working on in rhe spring of 1914.

The surviving sketches seem ro be in the form of musical ideas, quicklyjotted down - shorr melodic or rhythmic fragments associated with specificlines of text, a lew rudimentary harmonies that could have originated fromexperimenting at the piano, and an occasional bit ofa more concentrated orworked-out texture. \(hat is most striking about Berg's manner of sketching,as seen in the lVozzeck sketches and in earlier works, is his habit of writingdown first a generalized rhythmic and melodic shape, a conroured line ofstems and beams sprawled over the stall; without notes. In other words, Berg'schoice ofpitches is not an initial but an intermediate stage ofcomposition, notdecided until the writing olthe short score, itselfthe lasr stage before the fullorchestral score.

llclg's lilst tirsk, in tlrc sttttttttct ol'1914, was to linish the Three Pieces,which hc intcrrclcd tu dcdicatc to Sch<inbcrg. 'l'he Priiludium and March werecomplcted in timc lbr Schtinbcrg's birthday on September 13 but the secondpiece, Reigen, was not finished until the summer of 1915. And on August l5'1915, Berg reported for infantry training; two months later he was sent to areserve officers'school at Bruck-an-der-Leitha in what is now Hungary.

Berg's experience as a soldier, even without seeing combat, was no differentfrom that of millions of others.'From seven in the morning till one in theafternoon we were marching, running, charging across hill and dale, throughthe swamps and marshes, down to the ground, up again, and so on', he wrote tohis wife. 'I've got a crust of mud all over me. Afternoon out again, but at leastwithout pack or rifle.' He once remarked to Kassowitz, 'Have you ever heard alot of people all snoring at the same time? The polyphonic breathing, gaspingand groaning makes the strangest chorus I have ever heard.' He rememberedthis when he wrote the snoring chorus in Act Two, scene five ol lVozzech. Hisphysical constitution, however, was not up to much rough activity, and inNovember, following an aggravation of his bronchial asthma, he wasreassigned to guard duty in Vienna, and eventually to a job in the VarMinistry, where he remained till the end of the war. In 1919, defending his'fierce antimilitarism'in a letter to his pupil Erwin Schulhofl he recalled histime in the rWar Ministry: 'Two and a half YEARS of daily duty from eight

The fim protluction in Darmstadt, 1931, conducted by Karl &ihm, with Albert I'ohmannOVozzech) and Johannes Schoehe (Andra); producer, Renato Mordo, duignet, I-othat Schenchaon Trapp (phon: Archiz, Unioenal Edition)

10

The first production in Franhfun, I 93 t, with J ean Stem (llozzech) and Eraa Recha (MaiQ ;produter, Haben Graf, designer, Ludwig Sinm (photo: Archio Uniaosal Edition)

o'clock in the morning to six or seven in the evening of onerous paperworkunder a lrightlul superior (a drunken imbecile!). All these years of suffering asa corporal) humiliated, not a single note composed . . .'.

In fact he had taken up serious work again on lYozzech in the summer of7917 , and his degrading experiences as a soldier had a timely influcncc on hiswork. A year after that he wrote to his wife: 'There is a bit ofme in [Vozzeck's]character, since I have been spending these war years just as dependent onpeople I hate, have been in chains, sick, captive, resigned, humiliated.'He didnot need to add that there is no mention of a war in the twenty-five scenes ofBrichner's play, let alone in the fifteen which he adapted for the libretto of hisown opera: for Btichner and Berg alike, \Wozzeck's daily existence is that ofEveryman under arms, at the mercy of a world gone mad.

In the summer of 1918, Berg wrote to his close friend Anton \Webern that hewas beginning to plan the formal organization of the opera, an organizationthat would later be seen as one ofits most revolutionary aspects. At the time ofthe Armistice, in November, Schcinberg, who had been demobilized the yearbefore, was in Vienna with a fascinating proiect which became the lamousSociety for Private Musical Performances. In December, Berg was appointedmusical director ofthis society, and put in charge ofconcert planning andbusiness affairs. These activities, plus some private teaching, took up most ofhis time, and work on Wozzech was slowed. (In any case, he did not consultSchcinberg aboutWozzech, after Schdnberg had told him that it was unsuitablelor operatic treatment, and that the name '\Wozzeck' was unsingablel)

Berg worked steadily on the opera, and in October 1921 the short score wascomplete. By the spring of 1922, he had finished the orchestral score, and hispupil, Fritz Heinrich Klein, was working on the piano reduction. Berg hadsufficient confidence in his accomplishment to take the considerable financial

ll

rr',lrrl lr:rvrrrl',tlrtrorrrplrr;q1111 ,){( )l):tlt( l)i:ur() \'rxlrl sc()rceltgfavcdathisownr'\pr'n',r',lrorto\\rrl', lr:rtlol llt( r1olt('\'lo(()\'ct lhCcost,andinvitinginterestedln'{}|l('t.l)ur(lr:r,,( tlrr'storr'lrorrrlritttbvstrbscription.(lnthespringofl923lrrtlr lll, ',,/,';urrl tlrr' llrrr't l'icccslirr()rchcstraweretakcnoverbyUniversallrtlitiorr.I Alrrrrr ,\lrrhlcr', the widow o1'(]ustav Mahler, gave Berg the money torcl)iry rllL' dctrt, and in gratitude he dedicated the opera to her.'l'hc ncw publication soon gained an underground circulation but Berg'srcputation was stili that of a composer in the orbit of Schdnberg, thedangerous radical. Nevertheless, alter \Webern conducted the lirst per-formance, in 7923, of two of Berg's -I'hree Pieces, Opus 6, curiosity about theopera increased. The conductor Llcrmann Scherchen, who had heard theperformance, asked Berg to prepare a set ofexcerpts lrom the opera fbr concertuse, and the performance ol-these ''l-hree Bxcerpts lrom lYozzech'in Frankfurtin 1924 was successful. Meanwhile Erich Kleiber, the newly-appointeddirector ofthe Berlin Opera, had listened to the opera playcd on the piano.According to Willi Reich, after hearing just two scenes Kleiber was soimpressed that he exclaimed: 'l am going to do the opera in Berlin even if itcosts me my job!'

It almost did cost Kleiber his f ob, not only because of the novelty of themusical language and its unprecedented technical difliculty, but also becauseof political machinations within the Berlin Opera managcmcnt. -fhirty-lburfull orchestral rehearsals were necessary - a nearly unthinkable numberthen, and absolutely unthinkable now - but on l)ecember 14,1925, the operawas produced at last, the first of seven perfbrmances in the season. All were aninstant success with the public, just as they were vociferously denounced bymost o1'the critical establishrnent. Paul Zschorlich's review in the DeutschcZeitung was typical:

As I was leaving the State Opera, I had the sensation ofhaving been notin a public theatre but in an insane asylum. On the stage, in theorchestra, in the stalls - plain madmen. . . .Wozzcch might have beenthe work of a Viennese Cl.rinaman. Fbr all these mass attacks andinstrumental assaults havc nothing to do with liuropean music andmusical evolution. . . . C)ne may ask oneself seriously to what degreemusic may be a criminal occupation. We deal here, fiom a musicalviewpoint, with a capital offence.

'fhe success of Wozzech in Berlin was widely reported in the world press.Vithin a year the opera was produced in Prague under the direction ofOtakarOstriil, interrupted by a riot which curtailed the number of performances; athird production fbllowed in 1927 in Leningrad. During thc next few years theopera was taken up by many other companies throughout Europe, ir.rcludingBerg's own Vienna in 1930 under Clemens Kraus, and in New York andPhiladelphia in 1931 directed by lropold Stokowski. As the tlrst popularsuccess ofa substantially atonal work by a composer ofthe Schclnberg circle,lVozzeck brought to Berg a worldwide recognition and even a decent incomefrom royalties and perlormance lees. Ilerg's standard ofliving, which had beenmodest and sometimes precarious ever since his youth, now improved to theextent that he could buy an Iinglish Ford car and a summer house inCalifornia, the'\Waldhaus'on the lWcirthersee; above all, he could afford moretime to compose.

During the 1930s Berg was preoccupied with the composition ofhis secondopera, Lulu, based on two plays of Frank Wedekind. At the same time, Berg'srelatively aftluent situation began to deteriorate with the advent of'world-wideeconomic depression and increasing political unrest in Central Europe. \When

12 IJ

Sa daign by Robert Edmund Jones for Act One, scene lout (the Docnr\ study), for the USpremiire, Philadelphia, 1931 (photo: Archio Unioersal Edition)

the Nazis came to power in Germany, Berg's works, like those of most of hiscontemporaries, were banned there as 'degenerate music', and his royaltiesbegan to dwindle. Berg was already in severely strained financial circum-stances when he accepted the commission fiom the American violinist huisKrasner lor his Violin Concerto in the spring of 1935. Afier cornpleting this,his last work, in only a few months, Ilerg died ol-septicacmia on l)ecember 23,1935, at the age offifty, leaving the final Act of Lulu fully composed but notcompletely written out in orchestral score.

'I-he annexation of Austria to the Third Reich in the spring of 1938eflectively put a stop to performances of any of Berg's maior works until afterVorld Var II. There were few exceptions, notably the politically courageousproduction of 'lVozzech in 1942 in Rome under the direction of'I-ullio Serafin,with 'I'ito Gobbi in the title role. Vithin a lew years after the end of the war,however, Berg's works were again being widely performed in liurope andAmerica, and the significance of his achievement, not only in relation toSchcinberg's and Webern's music but fbr twentieth-century music generally,was recognised by professionals and public alike. tsy 1952 lVozzech wasavailable on a commercial recording, superlatively directed by DmitriMitropoulos, and five other recordings have appeared since. -l'he opera hasbeen the subfect olhundreds ofscholarly and popular articles and halfa dozenbook-length studies, of which the volume by George Perle is outstanding.

As a challenge to the enquiring musical intellect, lVozzech has exerted alascination among professional musicians ever since the score was published.Berg's own Lulu, the onlv other opera that might be compared with Wozzechfiom the lormal standpoint, has not generated a comparable interest untilrelatively recently, especially since the availability ofthe third Act; nor doesI-ulu make the same kind of dramatic impression as its hard-bittenpredecessor. It is fbir to say that Wozzrch has been a monumcnt of operatic

Irrsfory irr ()ur (('ntrrlv, lrs rrrrrtlr irs Wirgncr's'li.stan and Iso/de was in thenln('tc('ntlr ( ('lrtilrv, :rrrrl lliichlrcr's spccial and visionary dramaturgy bearsrcsporrsihility lirl this, lrrrlrlly lcss than llerg's uniquely appropriate musicalrcrf izrrtiorr. lhc rrlrst obvious influences of Wozzeck are to be felt in the( icrrlan-spcrking opcratic world, especially in the postwar works of suchconrposcrs as Hcnze and von Einem, but also in the operas ofShostakovich,l)allapiccola, and Britten. Even Igor Stravinsky, whose own operaThe Rahe'sProgress of 1951 was completely unaffected by the example of lVozzech,acknowledged the central importance of Berg's accomplishment in theevolution oftwentieth-century opera, and his own last stage work, The Flood of1962, is indirectly a compliment to Berg.

Yet most composers of today would agree that the liberating force ofWozzech in sound and substance has been felt just as much in non-operaticmusic as it has been in opera. This rigorous and abstractly conceived operaticstructure has nurtured some of the most uninhibited music of all time.

Onc ol tht sets of thc first producrion in Praguq I 926, tltsigncd by l'lastislaz, I Iofnan (photoNational Thtatrt,4rchiacs, Pragut)

I4 l5

Georg Biichner's 6Woyzeck': an InterpretationKenneth Segar

Vhen Brichner died on February 19, 1837, the manuscript of lVoyzech layuncompleted and in some confusion. It is a moot point whether that confusionhas been eliminated from any of the printed versions oF the text availabletoday. Most problematic of all is whether the play would have been extendedto include the trial and execution of\Woyzeck, that is to say, follow the destinyofthe historical Johann Christian \(oyzeck who was executed on August 27,1824, for the murder ofhis mistress, Johanna Christiane Voost. And here it isimportant to note that in the first published version, that of 1879, Karl EmilFranzos added the stage direction 'drowns', for which there is no manuscriptevidence. Even if \Woyzeck does not drown, however, there is no need tosuppose that the Dissecting Room scene, where a judge and a doctor commenton the murder ('A good murder, a real murder, a beautiful murder . . .') was toform the basis of a potentially anti-climactic continuation of the drama. Itcould easily be seen as the ultimate expression ofsociety's heartlessness, and afitting ending to a play that has shown the suffering of a downtrodden misfit atthe hands ofthe privileged class here reacting with brutal indifference to hisdead victim. Buchner uses the two executioners finishing a day's work at theguillotine at the end of Danton's Death to express indifference to tragic destiny,whose significance the contrast can only heighten.

There is a similar problem about the beginning of the play. The editions ofFritz Bergemann (1949) and Margaret Jacobs (1954) start the play with thescene in which Voyzeck is shaving the Captain, thus laying emphasis on thesocial context. V.R. khmann (1967) and again Margaret Jacobs (1971)choose the scene 'Open country. The town in the distance', in whichVoyzeck's hallucinations and apocalyptic visions place in the foreground bothhis psychological state and his implied questions about the human condition.But, in fact, neither our doubts about the beginning and end ofthe play nor thedisconnectedness ofits scenes (ofwhich more later) create any problem ofmeaning. And this is for the simple reason that the conception ofthe work isnot so much one of linear ;$evelopment as of strands of significancecontinuously woven together. In whatever order the scenes are placed, noversion ofthe work can avoid creating this texture. Ofwhat do these strandsconsist? Three are clearly observable: (1) a psychological study raisingquestions about how we understand personality; (2) a social documentcontaining a satirical critique; (3) a symbolic representation of existentialquestions - our relationship to the world we inhabit, free will anddeterminism, idealism and realism.

The psychological study is rooted in the debate sqrrounding two reports(182111823) made on Johann Christian \iVoyzeck by the psychiatrist HofratDr Clarus at the request of the Leipzig Court. This later interested BUchner,who was a medical student at Giessen, then a lecturer in natural sciences atZririch University, and whose doctoral dissertation was in the field ofcomparative anatomy. The issue is whether Woyzeck acted with diminishedresponsibility, which Clarus declined to accept and so became the instrumentof Voyzeck's execution. The polemic in which the psychiatric worldthereupon engaged offers a fascinating picture ofthe state ofpsychology in the1820s. But our particular concern here must be with what it was that causedBiichner so to take exception to Clarus' method that he chose to satirise it withcomic brutality in his dramalVoyzecft. For although there is in that satire an

Scme from the 1942 Rome production in which Tito Gobbi appeared as lVozzech (photo: ArchioUnioenal Edition)

allusion to his own anatomy profbssor at Giessen, \flilbrand, it is clearly themethodological position of Clarus which the Doctor figure articulares. Quiresimply, Btichner obiects to any attempt to understand the complexity of apersonalityy'om the outside, in terms of scientific and moral caregories of theday. He satirises the way Clarus lists aspecrs of anatomy and physiology -build, hair, eyes, pulse, breathing, posture, constiturion - by making theDoctor note rWoyzeck's reactions to his torment at the hands ofthe Captain as:'Vatch your pulse-rate, Voyzeckl Fast, heavy beat, irregular.' Or: 'Facemuscles taut, rigid. Eye vacant.' Equally anathema is Clarus' listing ofmentalcapacities which are tantamount to a moral sense - selFcontrol, attention,grasp, iudgement - and his consequent rejection of rWoyzeck, whom hedescribes as 'morally derelict, all natural leeling blunted, indiflbrent to thepresent and the future, lacking religious sense . . . nothing inner or outer rohold him in check.' This disjunction between crude physicality and high-minded morality reflects the poles of scientific materialism and an olderphilosophical idealism warring for hegemony in contemporary culture. VhilstBrichner insists that we must never overlook our physical reality and shouldstop talking the cant ofldealism (his character [rnz cries: 'This Idealism is themost shameful contempt for human nature'), it is the way medical scienceunreflectingly conflates the two perspectives which his best lampoon of the

t6 t7

Doctor turns into grotesque comedy: 'Haven't I proved that the musculusconstrictor vesicae is controlled by willpower? Nature indeed! Human beings,'Woyzeck, have freedom. Human beings are where individuality is trans-figured into freedom. Not control your bladder indeedl'

Biichner counters what he sees as an empty approach by asking us to enterimaginatively into the mind and existence of\Woyzeck, for only then shall wehave any understanding of his condition. Again to quote the words of hisfictional knz: 'You have to love human beings so that you can get inside thepeculiar personality of each and every one, and none must be thought tooinsignificant or too ugly; it is the only way to understand them.'Thus Biichnershows us \Woyzeck's condition from the inside'. \Woyzeck is tormented by hisimperfect relationships, flightened of lreemasons and strange mushrooms'seared by sounds and colours of appalling intensity, haunted by visions ofdeath and destruction, plagued by voices. But what Btichner also shows us isthat a mentally aberrant person does not cease to be firlly human, and indeedthat such a person is in one sense more profbundly human, since he or shereveals greater sensitivity, greater capacity to be wounded and ultimatelydestroyed by an intensely experienced but unanswerable reality. Thisempathy is a radical challenge to the theory and practice of psychologicalinvestigation and understanding in Buchner's time and will have to await thetwentieth century to be taken up by phenomenological and existentialpsychology.

As social document and satirical critique the work looks at Voyzeck as poor,downtrodden, and exploited by his social superiors. There is no doubt that weare meant to recognise the world of privilege in the Captain, the Doctor andthe Drum Major, all of'whom show their contempt for Voyzeck. The Captaintalks down to Woyzeck with his pseudo-morality, philosophical nonsense andmocking allusions to Marie's infidelity; the Doctor is able to misuse \Woyzeckfbr his foolish experiments, and ridicule him into the bargain, because the manneeds the pittance to support his mistress and child; the Drum Maior has thewealth to tempt Marie with ear-rings, and the status publicly to humiliateVoyzeck. J'he latter makes the point to the Captain that 'morality' costsmoney and he is a'poor devil'. Ve know that Biichner's sympathies were withthe Fourth Estate and that, as a letter to his family reveals, contempt for thelower orders always brought out his hatred for those showing such contempt.He had already produced his revolutionary pamphlet The Hessian Messenger(March 1834), and on New Year's Day 1836 he had written to his family aboutthe ragged, freezing children at the Strasbourg Christmas Fair. He concluded:'The thought that for the majority ofpeople even the humblest pleasures anddelights are riches beyond their wildest dreams made me feel very bitter.'Atall events, the 'poor little worm', \Woyzeck's son, has little that is different tolook forward to. The orphaned child at the close (in one manuscript) will haveto learn his father's'Yes, yes, Captain' if he is to achieve even that miserablepurchase on material existence. \We have, then, in a satirical handling of the6lite and the patient suffering of Voyzeck at their hands, writing in themoralist tradition. Yet there is equally a strong Realist depiction. Biichnershows himself to be both a forerunner of the German Naturalist dramatists ofthe 1880s and 1890s with their insistence on the degrading power ofenvironment and, as the scene where Voyzeck is shaving the Captainmetaphorically suggests (the poor man with his knife at the throat of the well-to-do!), an exponent of the idea of scrciety as riven by potential classconflict.

The text is, however, not exhausted by its psychological and social levels. Italso tells us what it is to be human in the larqest sense, and that means for

Btichner that we are vulnerable, suffering creatures, helpless in the face ofourown nature and the chaos that is the cosmos. This statement is made through apatterning of language and imagery which permeates the entire text and isdrawn from four main sources.

The first of these is the language of increasing materialism in the earlynineteenth century. True, as we have seen, the anatomical and physiologicalterminology ofthe Doctor, like the Fairground Barker's'Man, be natural. Youwere created of dust, sand, muck. Do you want to be more than dust, sand,muck?'r, are caricature exaggerations in their inability to do justice to thecomplexity of our humanity, but they nonetheless point to the inescapablebedrock ofour physical being. Voyzeck's 'Vhen nature calls', in answer to theDoctor's complaint that he has urinated against a wall and not into hisspecimen bottle, pays tribute to biological necessity. Biichner may well regretthe inadequacy of applying the scientific methods of his day to the humanspecies but, as one schooled in physiology and neurology, he does not hesitateto magrify biological necessity in order to attack the empty phrases ofGermanIdealism. This is underlined in the scene with the Booth-Owner's horse, whichis, 'with its tail hanging down and standing on four legs, a member of everylearned sociery . . . this is no brutish individual, this is a person, a humanbeing, a bestial human being - and yet still a beast, a "b6te".'

Secondly, there is the language offolksong and fairytale to universalise thecharacters' experiences into aspects of the human condition. Marie sings ofsensuality and childbirth out ofwedlock ('Close up shop, my girl, a gypsy boyis coming round' and '\What are you up to, my girl?'); Andres sings ofpromiscuity ('The landlady's got a good serving wench'); Voyzeck sings ofman's lot as one ofpain ('Suffering shall be my only gain'), which is not folk-song but a popular hymn ofthe 1730s; the old man's song at the opening of 'Anopen place. Booths' ('There's no stay in the world') speaks oftransience; and,finally, the grandmother's ghastly fairytale to the'little mites'shows the smallboy crying over the utter desolation of the world and utter isolation ofhumankind; all hope ofan eternal, paradisial order is revealed as delusion; acruel, crushing emptiness and meaninglessness are what remain.

Thirdly, the language and imagery of the Bible powerfully pose questionsabout the spiritual life. Marie is found leafing through the Bible and falteringover the story of the woman taken in adultery (fohn VIII, vv.3-11); with hercry of'My God, my God, I cannot. My God, only give me the strength to pray',she senses her inability to 'go, and sin no more.' \Woyzeck, in the scene'Street',where the Captain jokes at his expense, speaks ofan earth that is'hot as hellitself or, in the uncanny scene'Open fields. The town in the distance', it is anapocalyptic vision - Sodom and Gomorrah, I-astJudgement trumpets. Thisimagery, pointing beyond the personal and social dimensions of the work,embraces humankind's spiritual condition as one ofhelplessness in the face ofthings, terror before the strangeness and threatening nature of the cosmos.The pervasive sense is one of damnation rather than redemption. And thismetaphysical questioning assumes the authorial voice in the Apprentice'smock sermon 'Why are there human beings?'. Biichner here parodies theprophetic style and, by talking of the human condition in terms of supply/demand/decay, produces a gospel of human misery and anti-faith. Thesignificance of human existence szD sp ecie aeternitatis is at stake lor Buchner inthis comic but fierce interrosation of received truth.

1. All the references to characters and text are to the edition ofBiichner's play by VernerR. l-ehmann (Hamburg, 1967), and not to the Franzos/Landau edition reprintedhere.

l8 19

W'aher Berry as W'ozzeck, Vinna, 1955 (photo: Archit Uniomal Edition)

Finally, the language ofShakespeare elevares the dark side ofthe humancondition into tragic destiny. Bilchner idolised the young Goethe and theJ.M.R. Lenz of The Piaate Tutor and Soldiers. Both these wrirers, along withtheir co-militants of the German Storm and Stress movement of the 1770s,had in their turn idolised Shakespeare. Buchner followed them willingly. Mostpafticularly it is through allusion to King Lear and Othello that Brichner raises\(oyzeck and Marie on to the highest plane of human carasrrophe, rhar oftragic destiny. 'They're doing it in daylight, doing it on your hands like gnats',weeps the betrayed \Woyzeck at the sight of Marie and the Drum Majordancing in erotic excitement, an utterance ironically recalling the merciful

response oflear's own broken heart: "I'hou shalt not die! die for adulteryl No:/ The wren goes to't, and the small gilded lly / l)oes lecher in my sight. / t*tcopulation thrive.' But, ofcourse, it is Ol&r/io which lully articulates the fate ofour two protagonists as tragedy. ''fhe woman is hot, hot', says Woyzeck('Inn'), recalling Othello's 'hot, hot and moist'. Or in the scene'By the pool',\Woyzeck's '\What hot lips you have, hot like your whore's breath. And yet I'dgive up heaven to kiss them one more time' echoes Othelkr as he kisscsDesdemona: 'O balmy breath that does almost persuade /Justice to break hersword! . . . One more and this the last / So sweet was ne'er so fatal.' A finalexample ofVoyzeck-C)thello: 'Can't you die? So! Sol Ha, she's still breathing;still not dead? still not?' and Othello's 'Not dcad? not yet quite dead? / I thatam cruel am yet merciful;/ I would not have thee linger in thy pain:-- / So, so.'And, ofcourse, in Marie's bible-reading and praycr there is an obvious parallelto Desdemona's willow song. 'Silhat is remarkable about all this is thatBtichner has found a way (without doubt a tribute to Goethe's Ciretchen) tomake unschooled, barely articulate people give tbrm to attitudes beyond theirmental and linguistic grasp. It is no detraction liom the psychological andsocial realism of the work when these characters use biblical utterance,hymns, folksongs and lairytales to articulate lifb's problems: in life people dcr

lust that. Here, the method conjoins with Buchner's allusion to Shakespeareantragic diction to create a web of language and image that, whilst skillullyadapted to the characters'own mode ol-speech and so avoiding any stylisticbreak, lyrically elevates these humble protagonists and through them asks thelargest questions about our human condition.

So: we have a text in which psychological, social and existential matters areaddressed. But these matters do not, ofcourse, appear on discrete levels: theindividual is at the same time social being and all humankind; the particular issubsumed into increasingly more general concerns. The genius of the worklies in the way these diflbrent facets are presented as interwoven strands, allcontinuously present throughout. 'I'he technique lor organising the material isthe same disjointed progression found in certain dramas ofthe German Stormand Stress movement, which leap without transition liom one essentially self:contained scene to the next. Vith those writers, the main preoccupation, apartfrom breaking with neoclassical fbrm, had been to employ these abrupt shiftsas a formal counterpart to the energy and vitality of the protagonists. InlVoyzech, however, they are used to create lyrically concentrated substance.(Readers of Woyzech are almost always surprised how little text there is toproduce such richness ofsubstance. This concentration ofall the dirnensionsof the work is not progressively created by the drama but is present inmicrocosm in the multi-valency of almost every scene. -lb take iust twoexamples: The Grandmother's lairytale mirrors Voyzeck's psychologicaldesolation, his child's social deprivation, and the existential judgement thathumankind appears as lost children, without ibther and moihcr, without hope.Or take the briefbst possible scene'Barrack Square'(fiom one ofthe drafis'?),where Woyzeck (here called t,ouis) anticipates the murder of his mistress,already speaking of'her in the past tense: '. . . llut, Andres, 1br all that she wasstill a marvellous girl.' 'fhe protagonisr-'s pslthologtcal state is there in his beingtorn between vengeance and deepest love; his soczai prcdicament is there inthat he has been robtred ofhis woman by the richer and more privileged [)rumMafor; the existential condition is there because lilb is unfbir - how couldMarie resist sexual attraction to a man like a 'tree', a 'lion'? -and cruel *misery occurs because, as Btichner's l)anton says, our sullbring results lrom

2. The Franzos/Landau text conflates thrs scene, see lbotnote on page 96.

20 21

Waher Berry as Wozzech, Vimna, I9-J5 (photo: Archiz, Unirtrsa.l Edition)

the fact thar 'a mistake was made when we were created', pain is existential.Such is Brichner's craft that he can reveal to us in the minutest components ofhis work that tragedy is not set apart lrom individual character and socialrealitY' * * 4

That the work is moving is beyond question. But readers frequently askwhether Btichner is a nihilist, who simply states that life is chaos andsuffering, and that there is no positive value or indeed meaning in existence.The answer is a resounding 'no'. Buchner, true to his scientific training, isobiective in the sense that he does not fudge unpalatable reality but sees issuesthrough to the bitter end, to their ultimate painfulness. Yet this degree ofrealism and intellectual honesty is itselfa value. And I should like to add twomore palpable values. Firstly, there is \Woyzeck's love, which is given suchintensity in the text. 'Ihis is why, whatever scholarship decrees, the'BarrackSquare' scene with Andres should not be omitted from any reading or actingtext - the utterance'But, Andres, fbr all that she was still a marvellous girl'tells us that \Woyzeck, like Othello, is being driven to kill what he most loves,that this is tragedy, and that tragedy is both terrible and positive, for in thedestruction of what we most value we are aware of it as at no other moment.Secondly, there is value in Bi.ichner's compassion. His creed was to behumane. In his literary realism, as we have seen, he spurns the philosophicalIdealism ofhis age to show life as harsh, cruel, unjust. The tenor ofBiichner'sattitudes, whether social, political or metaphysical, often appears negative ornihilistic but rarely expresses anything other than his moral indignation orbitterness that things should be so. Btichner is precisely of his historicalmoment) caught between the loss of a spiritual metaphysic and the incapacityofmaterialism and its burgeoning sciences to explain suffering. Again to quotehis figure knz, who resents the destruction and pain in the world: 'If I were

all-powerful, ifl were that, you know, I couldn't bear there to be suffering, I'dsave people, I'd save them!'And ofall the people whom Btichner's art'saves'through his compassion, his 'pitying gaze' , it is unquestionably the poor, thedowntrodden, the outcasts ofsociety who are at the heart ofhis concern.

Nowhere is this clearer than in his choice, in the 1830s, of a man from thelowest order ofsociety, desperately poor, without hope ofbetterment, barelyarticulate, mentally disturbed, as tragic hero. Compared to the other radicaltransformations which Btichner achieved in the three years before he died atthe age oftwenty-three - wresting the sixteenth-century religious broadsheetto pre-Marxist needs (The Hessian Messenger); rethinking the genre ofhistoricaltragedy to make the historical process itselfthe protagonist (Danton's Death);enlarging the scope ofpsychological narrative to embrace, with brutal realismand passionate empathy, the collapse ofa personality into insanity (Lenz);mingling Gozzi, Shakespearean and Romantic comedy to create a precursorof absurdist drama (Leonce and l*na) - compared to all these radicaltransformations of traditional literary modes, it is with lVoyzech that he surelywent furthest in visionary power. The insignificant historical subject of afaitdioers, the impoverished, brutish, drunken, violent Johann ChristianrWoyzeck, who savagely killed his mistress in a doorway, became transfiguredin a work that is - an unheard-ofhybrid genre - at once humanitarian satireand proletarian lyric tragedy. Contemplating the supreme originality of thiscreative act, of discovering so much human resonance in the 'lowest of thelow', Elias Canetti, in accepting the Buchner Prize in I972, said:'withlVoyzechBrichner achieved the most complete revolution in the whole of literature.'

Hermann Ufule (lilozzech) and Paul Franhe (Captain) in the Metropolitan Opera premiire byHerbet Graf, designed by Caspar Neher, conducted by Karl Biihm, 1959 (photo: lnuisMdlancon)

22

'Wozzeck': The Musico-Dramatic Structure

This chart of the musico-dramatic structure of the opera was prepared byFritz Mahler, a pupil of Berg, who approved of it and made sure it wasincluded in all copies of the 1923 vocal score sent to critics.

Drama acr oNE Music

ExpositionslVozzech in relation to hisenL,lronment\Wozzeck and the Captain\Wozzeck and Andres\Wozzeck and Marie

The Captain and the Doctor,later \iflozzeck

Marie and Wozzeck

Garden of an inn

ACT THREECatastrophe and epilogue

Five character pieces

Scene One Suite

Scene Two Rhapsody

Scene Three Military March and t-ullaby

Wozzeck and the Doctor Scene Four Passacaglia

Marie and the Drum Maior Scene Five Andante aflbttuoso (quasiRondo)

ACT TWODramatic development Symphony in five

movementsMarie and her child, later Scene One Sonata movement

\Wozzeck

Scene Two Fantasia and fugue

Scene Three Largo

Scene Four Scherzo

Guard room in the barracks Scene Five Rondo con introduzione

Marie and her childMarie and \Wozzeck

A low bar

Death of \Wozzeck

Children playing

Scene OneScene TwoScene ThreeScene Four

Orchestral interlude: Invention on a kev

Scene Five

Six inventionsInvention on a theme

Invention on a note

Invention on a rhythmInvention on a hexachord

Invention on a regularquaver movemcnt

z)

Karl Diinch (Doctor) and Homann Uhde (tVozzuh), Metropolitan Opera, i,959 (photo: InuisMilangon)

24 25

Musical Form and Dramatic Expressionin Alban Berg's'Wozzeck'

'fheo Hircbrunner

Alban Berg first saw Georg }3tichner's Wolpzech (then entitled lVozzcckl onMay 5, 1914, and was deeply irnpressed.'llhar text, based on the edition byKarl Emil Franzos, included onlv some ofthe tiagments that Btichner had lefiunfinished at the time of his death. Berg actually saw only the liagment of afiagment, in which the original order ol-the scenes could not be establishedwith any certainty. From the outset, there was a problem of what tbrrnalstructure the opera should have.

This was not a new problem fbr a composer. Wagner had not constructcd hismature music dramas lrom arias and ensembles divided bv recitatives. FromThe Ring onwards, he ensured musical coherency through a dense system ot'leitmotifs, although he did not altogether abandcn perioJic stru.tu.. with itsregular divisions ofvocal lines in four or eight bar groups (Siegmund's SpringSong, for example). He wrore his alliterative texrs in poetically heightenedprose rather than in metrically regular lines with end-rhyme; and becausethey were conceived to be set to music, there could be a tirndamentalinteraction between the dramatic poem and the score. Indccd, the result owedmore to Beethoven's symphonic style than to earlier operatic music. \What wasimportant to \Wagner in the fbrmal structure was the developmcnt of shortmusical ideas rather than the iuxtaposition ol-casilv rctainable melodies. Hiscontemporaries complained about thc lack ol' lirrnr in his nrusic dramasbecause they lailed to recognise what was rhcre as irscll'l ncw fbrm.

Vagner's achievements posed a signilicant problern tbr subsequent operacomposers: neither Claude Dcbussy, tbr instuncc, nor Richard Strauss wrotehis own texts. Both instead sct plays that had bccn wrirren in prose lbr thespoken theatrc: f)ebussy chose Alauricc Iluercllinek's /11l,a.s u),1 Mr'lisun,lt,Strauss chose Oscar Vilde's Salonc. Yet ncithcr playwright abandoned thelolty style which they considered indispcnsable to tragedy. In rhis, as much asin the choice of subject martcr, they dillbre-d fiom lhichner, who had usedeveryday speech patterns in lVozzrck and allowc'd his characters to speak thelanguage of the underprivileged. 'l'his prompted tserg's reacher, ArnoldSchcinberg, to comment, when he heard of-Berg's plan to base an opera on theplay, that music should concern itselfwith angels rather than orderlies. Music,at least the kind of music being written by Schrinberg and Berg in the wake of-late Romanticism, seemed ill-suited to setting a text with realistic dialosue.Rhetoric is totally absent lrom lilozzcck, whcre the dominanr mood is one ol'speechlessness, and where the characters are unable to articulare at alladequately. They never step back and reflect on the siruarions in which theyare embroiled. They know only ignorance, cynicism and sensual appetite,expressing themselves in protests of indignation and quotations fiom theBible.

Berg nonetheless succeeded in dividing the play into three groups offivescenes each and in giving them a relatively clear-cut musical lbrm. Sonataform, fugue, rondo, suite, passacaglia and so on give a bone-structure toBrichner's fragmentary play. Working very slowly, Berg rearranged the text,combining scenes and abridging the dialogue, but adding very little of his own.Perhaps he resembles Wbzzeck himselfin this, fbr rVozzeck believes he can see'circular lines' and 'figures' between the mushrooms growing in the fbrest. But

for.poor \Wozzeck'these fantasies are attempts to bring some.sense oforder toan already troubled mind, whereas for Berg they evolved into a system otassociatio;s of unprecedented complexity. He made up what amounts to a

,..."t .usi.ul coie. Anyone studying the score in detail will discover a

network ofesoteric allusions of a kind that recurs in the l-yric Suite for stringquarret and in his second opera Lulu.Buteven an audience not initiated intoi'h.r. u.."n. mysteries will appreciate the music's dramatic appeal,

immediately convincing and moving. It never- seems to be cerebral' By a

f.o""r, ofo.-osis the niusic me.ges with th.e action, and the briefscenes oftheirama stand out from one an;ther, while forming a dense and unifiedwhole.

Although Berg began the opera immediately afrcr seeing the play.in 1S11' lt:did not colmpletJ the score until the early 1920s. Just before he took his initial

:

:

;

Geraint Eaans as Wozzech" Cooent Garden, 1960 (photo: Houston Rogers/Rqtal Opera House

Archiztes)

:

g

26 27

steps he experienced a compositional crisis provoked by Schtinberg's violentcriticism of his pupil's tendency towards aphoristic urterances (most notablyin the Altenberg Lieder and the Four Pieces for clarinet and piano). Schcinbergbelieved that each ofhis students ought to write at least one symphony, andBerg did, in fact, start to do so but got no lurther than a handful ofsketcheswhich are strongly influenced by Mahler. Wozzech, however, allowed Berg toincorporate marches and folksongs into a large-scale form; if only in thisinclination to mix high and low styles, he may be seen as Mahler's successor.'{/ith both composers, however, their 'popular' music is never merelysuperficial because they introduced dissonances which raise it ro the level of'serious' music. Even in the nineteenth century, opera drew on differentstylistic registers to express dramatic action. By contrast with the Classicalsonata form or the Baroque fugue, such music was 'impure', and yet it isprecisely these forms of 'pure' music which Berg incorporated in Wozzech.These structures are not immediately audible but emerge only lrom a readingof the score. Yet their characteristics are astonishingly appropriate to thedrama. Even in instrumental works musical lorms are not just shells to befilled with random content; they have the characterisrics of identifiablepsychological states. For example, the fugue and passacaglia forms arecerebral and erudite, the scherzo is dance-like, and the slow movement ofasymphony or sonata lends itself to the deepest and most intense emorions.Aware of this, Berg wrote a score in which the lormal structures arethemselves m usi c a I ly expressive.

*\When the curtain rises on Act One \Vozzeck is shaving the Captain. The

Captain talks to himself, indulges in a spot of amareur philosophising,comments on the weather and lectures Wozzeck on the larter's illegitimatechild. Wozzeck justifies himself by reminding the Captain that he hasinsufficient money to marry. This scene is written in the form ofa Suite, whichsince the seventeenth century has been a sequence ofthe most disparate dancemovements or vocal numbers. The opening is a Prelude and the finat section aPostlude, which is an exact retrograde ofthe Prelude, that is to say it is thesame note for note but played backwards. Vithin this framework the dances- a Sarabande, a Gigue and a Gavotte - unfold, culminating in an Air. Thesections are linked by bridge passages, just as the whole scene is held togetherby Vozzeck's taciturn answer, Jawohl, Herr Hauptmann'('Yes, Sir. Quite so,Sir!'), which is always arriculated on rhe same nore and in the samerhythm:

WOZZECKSehr miillige Viertel

Ja - wohl.Yes. Sir.

Herr Haupt - mannl

Quite so, Sir!

The form as a whole is thus recognisable. The rhythm and the nore areendlessly repeated, in greatly inten--sified form, rhroughout the music thatfollows, until the curtain goes up on the next scene. \We are now outside thetown, at the edge of the wood, where \Wozzeck and his friend Andres arecutting sticks for the Captain. A Rhapsody on three chords is interrupted fromtime to time by Andres' hunting song. There is a marked contrast between

\Wozzeck's fbarful imaginings and Andres'carefree attitude' Wozzeck speaksof the threat of the fieemasons and of the glow of the setting sun, while hiscompanion sings to dispel his anxieties. Because ofBerg's tendency to mediatebetween opposites, their emotional states are not wholly unrelated. At-thebeginningbf the song about the huntsman's carefree lile we hear two of thechords from the Rhapsody which echo \Wozzeck's sombre mood. Andres singspitifully offkev, lailing to find the folk-song's simple melody and setting upresonances with Mahler's symphonies and with Des Knaben Wunderhom'.

ANDRESNeues flotteres Tempo

Das

1heJii--gcone 1or

lstnunts

clic schdrnan s life

rclmc

Schieshool

Jc

alllJen stehling lbr

dem frci!is lrccl

The transition to the following scene is a masterpiece of what Vagner calledthe 'art of transition': the three chords of the Rhapsody areoverlaid by trumpet signals from the barracks in the town, and already we see

the Drum Major marching past with his bandsmen. Marie nods a friendlygreeting to him, ioining in the march and singing the words, 'Soldaten,Soldaten sind schdne Burschenl' ('The soldiers, the soldiers are handsomefellows!'). These words are an inexact quotation from Mahler's song'Revelge',where the same melody is first sung to the words, 'Ach, Bruder, ach Bruder'ich kann dich nicht tragen' ('My brother, my brother, I cannot bear youaway'). In the Mahler, too, we are dealing with the clichd of popu'lar musictransformed into something more 'serious'by changes in its form' 'fhe secondsection ofthis scene takes place inside Marie's room, where she has withdrawnto escape her neighbour's abuse. \Wozzeck enters; the chords which announcehim will later accompany Marie's death in Act Three, scene two:

It is vozzeck himselfwho will kill her. Even here, during their first meeting inthe opera, he inspires fear. Not even the lullaby that Marie sings shortlybefbrehand to the child (whom she describes as having an 'unehrliches

28 29

Gesicht', lit. dishonest face) can conceal her panic, and she rushes fi"om theroom.

The next scene takes place at the Doctor's. The Doctor hopes to enhance hisscientific reputation by carrying out medical experiments on Vozzeck. Thismusic is therefore written in the strict form of a Passacaglia with twenty-oneVariations. An elaborate network of associations between different musicalideas is developed over a bass line made up ofthe twelve notes ofthe chromaticscale, and this passacaglia outdoes anything that earlier composers such asPurcell and Bach had done with the form. And yet the music followsBuchner's text very closely. For example, \Xbzzeck attempts to describe hisvisions in order to make them credible to the l)octor, even though he cannotreally believe in them himself, As he sings the words, 'wenn was is und dochnicht is'('when it's there and is not there!'), the twelve notes of the theme arerapidly recapitulated; it can no longer strictly be described as the originaltheme, since what the notes now form is a variation upon it. On the otherhand, they scarcely make a full variation since it is the merest hint, just aphantom. Text and music mirror one another perfectly.

\When Vozzeck tells the Doctor about the mysterious mushrooms in theforest and when he tries to read a message into the'circular lines'and'figures'that they form, the orchestra indulges in symmetrical circular movements,while the following theme is heard on the first trumpet:

Berg has compressed this twelfth variation into a single bar in order toemphasise its central importance for the work. In a sense this is music for theeye rather than the ear, yet it is not without a sensual appeal thatcommunicates itself directly to the listener.

'I'he fifth and final scene of this opening Act is anAndante ffituoso in rondoform, its constant repetitions implying the Drum Major's insistent approachesto Marie. The music is much simpler, much more direct; lyrical sectionsalternate with trumpet fanfares expressing his military arrogance. He appealsto the instinctive, weak-willed Marie and, at the moment ofhis conquest, theorchestra unfurls its whole tremendous force, a force which indicates notredemption through love and transfiguring death, but cruel annihilation in aworld without pity. That Marie no less than rffozzeck will come to such an endis anticipated in the music that ends the first Act.

The second Act is written in the form of a five-movement symphony:Sonata, Fugue, Adagio, Scherzo and Rondo succeed each other without abreak as in Schonberg's Chamber Symphony, Opus 9. This way the linksbetween the movements become even closer than in Beethoven's Classicalsymphonic model.

The first scene corresponds more or less exactly to the popular conceptionofsonata form. The opening theme consists ofbriefmotifs, while the second ismore overtly tuneful as Marie sings a simple song to her inlant son. Herconfrontation with Wozzeck coincides with the development section, which ischaracteristically lull of musical conflicts. It culminates unexpectedly in a C-major chord when \Wozzeck mentions the money that he has earned from theCaptain and Doctor. Through the works of other composers this chord isassociated with the shining luminosity of gold - in Haydn's Creation, for

example, on the word 'light', when the chorus sings, 'and there was light', or inVagnir's Rliz egokl when the sun's rays catch the gold on the bed of the Rhineand cause it to glow. For Berg, this chord has lost its divine and magicalsignificance, and symbolises only filthy lucre. It will reappear in lzlz when DrSchdn announces that he has to go to the stock-exchange.

The second scene is a Triple Fugue - triple because it involves threecharacters, the Captain, the Doctor and Vozzeck, meeting in the street. At thebeginning of the scene the two themes that had been associated with theCaptain and the Doctor are heard simultaneously in the orchestra. TheCaptain's theme, pretentious in character, is in the upper part' while theDoctor's theme, calm and dignified, proceeds in the lower line:

MaBige Vienel

Later Vozzeck's gloomy and sluggish theme is added:

Schwer

Highly complex structures develop as \Wozzeck deduces fiom their cynicalreriarks thaf Marie has been unfaithful. The dense confusion ofthe orchestralwriting has something disturbing about it which, far from being an end initself; mirrors the tension that runs through the dialogue.

The third scene shows \Wozzeck returning to Marie's house. Provocatively,insisting on her right to love whomever she likes, she rouses \Wozzeck's

jealousy, causing him to threaten her, even though he is still besotted with her.It is mainly accompanied by a chamber orchestra using the same distributionas Schrinberg's Chamber Symphony, Opus 9. 'Silhen Vozzeck, in his despair,

30 31

sings the words, 'Der Mensch ist ein Abgrund' ('Man is a chasm'), rheinstrumental lines plunge to their lowest register, evoking the sensc ol'bcingcursed and lost that weighs so heavily on all the characters:

WOZZECKNoch langsamer

The fourth scene takes place in a beer-garden where people are dancing,drinking and speechilying wildly. \(ozzeck sees Marie dancing with theDrum Major, who holds her tightly in his arms. He stops himself lromrushing headlong after them, waiting to kill her later. Waltzes, Ldndler andlolksongs alternate with recitative-like sections. The on-stage band containsbetween two and four fiddles (violins strung with steel strings and tuned awhole tone higher than normal), an accordion and a bombardon. Mahler hadalso used the thin, attenuated sound offiddles in his symphonies but there areallusions to other composers in this Scherzo. One ofthe waltz melodies recallsthe one in Strauss's Der Rosenhaoalier when Ochs tries to woo Sophie, 'Mitmir, mit mir keine Kammer dir zu klein . . .'('\(lith me, with me no chambertoo small for you . . .'), and later we hear the first bar of the Minuet from theAct One finale of Mozart's Don Giovanni. These two references to operaticseductions are transplanted lrom the aristocratic world to a vulgar beer-garden in much the same way that the C-mafor chord in Act Two, scene one,has lost the sublime quality that it had for Haydn and \Wagner.

Frenzied dance music leads into the next scene, which takes place in thesoldiers'dormitory. Vozzeck is unable to sleep and is beaten and humiliatedby the drunken Drum Major, who boasts of his latest conquest. In their sleepthe other soldiers can be heard humming the three chords from the Rhapsodyin Act One, scene two. As the Act ends, the l)rum Major's brutal lnusic givesway to total silence, a silence which seems to say more about 'Wozzeck'shopelessness than any notes ever could.

The orchestra is also silent as the curtain rises on the third and flnal Actwhich, from a lormal point of view, is the most original of the three. Bergsimply calls the scenes 'Inventions' * inventions on a theme, a single note, arhythm, a chord, a key (as an interlude before the final scene) and on acontinuous quaver movement. In the flrst scene we find Marie reading apassage from the Bible about the woman taken in adultery whom Christ

Dcr Mensch isl cin AbAh! Man is a chas

Chista Ludwig as Maie, Vienna, 1963 (photo: Archn UntT)c^al Ldttrcn)

foreives her sins. She also tells her child a story to lull him to sleep.'l-hesepas."sages are ofthe greatest simplicity and written in the tonal style which Bergirad aiready rrp..r.d.d.'I'his gives them a certain archaic character, whereasMarie's ouibuists ofdespair and her guilty conscience are portrayed in atonalmusic.

The second scene is the lreest in terms oflbrm: only the note of B natural,repeated at different octaves, stabilises the music, which reacts withseismographic accuracy to evcry fluctuation in the text - to the night dew as itfalls on"thi grass, to Marie's sense of unease and to the moon which seems to'i/ozzeck liki a piece of blood-stained iron. As he stabs Marie, the orchestraonce again ."p.rt, all her musical thcmes, lollowed by the chords which_hadbeen hlard in Act One, scene threc, when she was waiting lor him. In a_

postlude to the scene the single note ofB natural is subiected to a ffescendo olunbearable intensity until finally all we hear is this single note'-.

It is impossible to think of a more glaring.contrast between this and thefollowing scene, in the inn.'fhere is, none the less, an esoteric link with the Bnatural ii-rat has just died away in that the entries of the various instrumentshad echoed the rhythnr ofa polka which is now taken up on an out-of-tunepianino:

SCHNELLPOLKA

1963 (photo: Archir Unitcnal Etlition)

(on outlt-llttt( Piuilo t)tt \!dg( )

int\L ff unt t,'h \r\t)t(tl

12 33

This rhythm remains audible in the orchestra and in the vocal line throughoutthe scene, sometimes slow, sometimes fast. Berg invented this kind ofstructure. Vhile Schrinberg always set out from particular pitches, investingthem with a sense ofrhythm only as the work developed, Berg adopted theopposite course in certain sections of Lulu and in the whole of his ViolinConcerto: he placed rhythm before all else and only later devised the melodiesand chords to go with it. In this way he became one of the precursors ofserialism in which pitch and rhythm are granted equal status. But no onewould guess that the same polka rhythm could be adapted in the course ofthescene to suit \Wozzeck's insane ramblings, Margret's simple folk-song and theshouts and screams ofthe crowd. A certain artificiality seems to lend the vocallines the quality of caricature, a distortion well suited to rVozzeck'sdespair.

No less exceptional is the fourth scene, consisting entirely of a six-partchord which, initially, is not even transposed. In other words, Berg imposednarrow constraints on himselfwithin which he develops a great variety. Thechord is capable, lor example, ofexpressing the croaking ofthe toads in thepond:

At another point it accompanies the appearance of the moon:

tVilliam Dooley (IVozzech) and Donald Gramm (Doctor), Metropoliran Opera, 1965 (photo:Metropolitan Opera House Archit;es)

And when the mist rises over the pond in which \Wozzeck has drowned, thesame chord gradually glides upwards in long ascending lines. -fhe passage isreminiscent of Debussy but it differs lrom Impressionistic writing in that thestructure is prescribed down to the last detail. It is clear from many of his stillunpublished works that Berg, as a young man, was deeply influenced byDebussy. Under Schtinberg's influence, however, he opted lor a rigorous

-).+ 35

thematic approach to composition, although he never abandoned the tonalsensuality that had attracted him to the French composer.

Berg's prelace to the flnal scene brings together most ofthe opera's rhemesin an Invention on the key of D minor. The music sounds like a farewell, athrenody for \Wozzeck. For once, compassion and consternation at the terriblefbte suffered by these 'poor people' seems to break through. Free ofany trace ofsentimentality, however, Berg closes with a scene in which the childrencontinue to play games, treating Marie's murder just as an exciting incident.Finally her son remains alone on stage with his hobby-horse; he understandsnothingofwhat has happened, and he is perhaps doomed ro as wrerched anexistence as his parents.

The quaver configuration in the orchestra admits of no accelerando, nooescendo in these closing moments ol- the work, but this reticence is lar morepowerful than any dramatic outcry could have been. After the lnvention onthe key ofD minor, there is nothing left lbr the final scene to convey exceptthat sense of emptiness and numbness with which the opera ends:

tm s. ntDr. i n:d L t L'sr'L nJtt L'

Berg's music is atonal. In the main it is unrelated to any specific key, unlikecontemporary works by Debussy, Strauss and Mahler. To give his audiencesomething to hold on to, he had recourse in lVozzech to all these lormal musicalstructures. He even went as far as to end the flrst Act with the same chord asthe final Act. l'he second Act begins more or less as the flrst one ends, whereasthere is silence between the second and third Acts, during which the curtainremains up. Many other allusions and correspondences in the score could bepointed out. ls lVozzecA therefore a work that exists only to be read? Thesuccess ofthe piece in the theatre proves that even music structured alongstrictly formal lines can be understood by audiences. 13crg himselfonce said ina lecture than if he identified his lorms on that occasion, it was so that theaudience could ignore them when they listened to the music. Yet it isimpossible to ignore them altogether, since their dramatic expressivity is sodirect in its appeal.

Chistel Gohz (Maie) and Thorsteinn Hannesson (Drun Major) in the firsr production atCoxent Garden, by Sumner Austin with designs by Caspar Neher, conducted by Eich Kleiber,1952 (photo: Angus McBean @ Ilaruard Theatre Collection)

36 )/

On the Characteristics of 'Wozzeck'Theodor W. Adomo

Because both the play and the opera olWozzech have comparable claims to beconsidered as important . rrks, the relationship between them is worthconsidering. Music might be thought to be superfluous to such a poetic text'and merely to replicate its hidden content and the very quality that makes it apoem. The lact that they were written a century apart helps one to understandwhat Berg's infinitely complex opera has in common with Btjchner'sintentionally sketchlike {iagment and what they share in terms ol'aestheticeconomy. Berg in effect composed what had germinated in the text during allthose decades ofneglect. That germ gives the music its secret polemic. lt seemsto be saying that what you, as listeners, have forgotten, indeed what you havenever learned, is as strange, as true and as human as I am mysell, and that byintroducing it to you I am also commending it to you. As an opera Wozzechaims to revise history: it is a process in which history, too, is included; themodernity of the music underlines the modernity of the book preciselybecause the latter is old and was not recognised in its own day. Just as Bijchnerdid justice to the tortured, conlused soldier Woyzeck, who in his dehumanisedhumanity is exemplary beyond all the accidentals ofhis person, so in the sameway the composer intends to do justice to the play. The passionate carelavished on the minutest detail of its texture reveals the extent to which whatone thought was diffuse is fbrmally coherent, how what seemed unlinished isactually a finished piece. This is the lunction of the music - not to producepsychological effect, to create a mood or impression, although it does nothesitate to do so in order to reveal what lies buried beneath the surface ofthework. Hofmannsthal once said ofthe text olDer Rosenhaxalrer that his'comedyfor music' was precisely that since music was appropriate lor showing notwhat is in people but between them.

This is even truer of Wozzeck in that Berg seems to oflbr an interlinearversion of the text. The opera does not merely interpret the characters'leelings but attempts to communicate what a hundred years have done toBuchner's scenes: it transforms a realist sketch into a text that teems withhidden significance; what the words do not express ensures an increase incontent. 'I'he music exists to reveal this increase, to reveal what has beenomitted. It glides over the fragment with an infinitely gentle touch, soothingand smoothing whatever obtrudes, seeking to comfort the play out of itsdespair. Everything fits together perfectly. 'I-he art of transition is handledwith lbr greater skill than anything \Wagner ever imagined by the term, evento the point where everything in the world seems to connect. It is not alraidof extremes: the dark sadness of its South-German-cum-Auslrian toneassimilates Btichner's tragedy entirely, but also invests it with a self-containedand immanent lorm which allows expression and suffering to take on visibleshape. In doing so it becomes, as it were, a transcendental court ofappeal. Thedovetailing and interlocking of the music, its seamlessness, is decisive. If thisbreaks down in perfbrmance, ifthe labric is torn even for a second, the soundpicture collapses into chaos. \fhat emerges is ofcourse an aspect ofthe workitself; that stunned espressioo which needs the most extreme discipline ofconstruction and sound if it is not to become diftuse. Berg's score existsentirely in a state of tension between the surging unconscious and an almostoptically architectonic {beling for enclosed surlhces. He himself describedlVozzech as a'piano opera' that erupts from time to time in wild emotion. Only

now rhat the printed score is generally accessible is it possible to iudge howtrue this is.

Whole stretches, including the Suite with which the first Act opens, aregenuinely chamber-like, scoied for solo instruments; only occasionally is a

irrr.g. iet in a highly complex manner, the tuui sections being reserved^!nti..iy for ttre feur"dramatii turning-points in the work. Such economy, ofsound supports the density ofthe teiture to the utmost through the perfectclarity and unambiguity of every musical _event. without being undulyparadoxical, the worf may be said to be simple,.even though it has. remainedilfficutt and requires so many rehearsals: and this is because not a single note'not a single instrumental voite, is included that is not indispensable to realiseits music,"al meaning, that is, how it all connects. The truly functional style ofthe writing gives the lie to all rhose commentators who prate about post-Tristanesq-uJlate Romanticism, thus relegating the music to the past becausethey have not been able to keep abreast ofit.

Th. firrt thing to be learned from lvozzech is the meaning of the termausinstrumentiere,r-(to work out the score to its finest detail). Even.today theideas that continue to dominate any discussion about orchestration wouldmake a painter, lor example, for whom colour is so self-evidently an integralpart of his work, shake'his head in disbelief That ghastly concept of a

ao.pot.t', 'brilliant treatment of the orchestra' has, on the one hand, comeback into fashion; as rhough this musical practice (borrowed from horse-trading in that it is designed to dress up the music as colourfully an-d gaudilyaspossibie in order to coiceal its utrer feebleness) had not been reluted by theieading exponenrs of New Music once and lor all. On the other hand, thosewho d6 ,,oi .ur" lor falsc riches cultivate an asceticism which they hope willbanish the ioy ofcolour lrom music and thus reverse the advance ofthe tonaldimension aJ an essential compositional element. The Wozzech score acts as a

corrective to both these tendencies. The orchestra'realises' the music in thesense that cezanne uses the verb 'r6aliser'. The entire compositionalstructure, from its overall organisation to the finest tracery o1'the motivicwriting, is revealed in colour values. Conversely, no colour is used unless it hasa precise function in depicting the musical context. The lormal structurecoiresponds at every pbint io the orchestral disposition: -co_ncertino-likeensemble combinations andmrri effects are carelully balanced. It is a primeexample ofthe art oftonal rransirion, imperceptibly gliding from one.colour toanorh;r. But the atmosphere evoked by this orchestration, as it immersesitself, self-forgetful, in the hollow spaces behind Brichner's words, is not mereconjuration oTmood. It derives lrom Berg's capacity for nuance, which is atone with his art ofscoring, so thar even the tiniest compositional impulse findsa sensory equivalent.

The simpiicity of the score is best illustrated, perhaps, by reference tostrauss. In'Ein Heldenleben and Salome, far more happens on the written page

than can actually be heard in the orchestra; much ofwhat is written remainsornamental, mere padding. In the case of Berg - because the role of theorchestra is totally subordinate to the musical construction - everythingseems almosr geometrically clear, as though in some architectural drawing,and rhe richneis ofthe scori is only fully revealed in performance. The score isnever superfluous nor fussy, and it provides subtly differentiated soundswhich turn out to be the-surprisingly obvious solution - such as theimpressions ofthe water in wozzrck's death scene. \what has not been writtenattests to as grear a creative power as what has been written, and it is thiseconomy alJne which givei Berg's exuberant musical substance thepersuasive power of form. Many scenes which appear particularly com-

38 39

plicated in the vocal score, such as the Fantasia and Triple Fugue in the secondscene of Act Two, assume a plasticity and transparency in the full score thathave not usually been realised in theatrical performance; they were in fact firstrealised by Boulez.

The closed nature ofthe structure, which achieves dramatic expressivenesswhile avoiding crass and primitive contrasts, is obtained through its musica-method. Wozzech is the first stage work ofany length in which the language offree atonality was spoken. Having abandoned tonality, Berg was obliged todevelop other means to produce clear relationships in his music. The meanswere a motivic and thematic style, derived from the tradition of VienneseClassicism, and transfbrred to the stage more substantially than everbefore. This is the lunction ofa compositional style which is Mahlerian in itsclarity. Ve should underestimate this construction if we were to confuse itwith the much-discussed forms ofabsolute music in lVozzech. Although theseare used to organise the score over a relatively broad time-span, they neitherneed nor ought to be perceived as absolute lorms: rather they are invisible, likethe rows of a good serial composition in later music. Moreover, the formallinks are underlined by a series of graphic leitmotifs altogether typical of\(agnerian music drama; the triple fugue in the street scene in the second Act,for example, combines three ofthe most important ofthese motifs, those oftheCaptain and Doctor, and the faltering triplets of \Wozzeck's helplessness. Farmore important, however, is the inner composition of the music, its fabric ortexture. At the time when lVozzech was written, numerous composers,especially Stravinsky and Hindemith, were striving lor a new autonomy inoperatic music. 'fhey wanted to lree it from dependence on the poetic word. InlYozzech, too, the music announces a new claim to autonomy. But Berg'smethod is the exact opposite ofthat ofthe neoclassicists, since it involves anunquestioning absorption in the text. The music of Wozzech is like anextremely rich, diversely structured curve on a graph representing the opera'soverall internal development: it is Expressionistic insofar as every musicalevent relers to an internalised, psychological world. In reproducing everydramatic emotion, the music reaches the point of utter selieffacement. Andyet it is developed in as structured, articulate and varied a way as only greatmusic can be, such as the instrumental movements of Brahms or Schrinberg.Its autonomy is achieved by unfolding a constant stream of selisustainingmusic, whereas those op€ratic composers who distance themselves from thestage and press relentlessly on in that direction, will find that their worksthreaten to become for that very reason monotonous and boring. Perhaps it isthe deepest paradox of the lVozzech score that it attains to musical autonomynot by offering opposition to the word but by rescuing it and lollowing it withthe utmost fidelity. Wagner's demand that the orchestra should reflect everylast detail of the drama, and thus become symphonic, is one which lVozzechrealises; and this is what finally eradicates a sense that music-drama lacksmusical form. The second Act is literally a symphony, with all the tension andself-contained unity of symphonic form, and yet it is also so much an opera atthis moment that the listener who does not know otherwise will not even thinkof a symphony.

It is by no means pointless, especially today, to remind ourselves thatlVozzech is an opera and that Berg described it as such. Music written fortoday's opera houses tends increasingly to be incidental music ofa cinematicnature, or more suited to radio plays and mere background music. In lVozzeck,by contrast, where the music completely absorbs the text, the music is themain point of interest and it ought to be the focus of artention both inperformance and when we listen to the score. Vith an utterly sure instinct

Berg the avant-garde composer demanded a 'realistic' staging' - so that

atte"ntion should-not be diverted from the music. The score is thematic,expounding graphic motifs or themes in every scene, transforming them andgiving them u hirto.y. It also demands to be played thematically, above all so

itt.t ttt. musical characters are absolutely recognisable and thrown into sharprelief, The rhemes and their development must be followed in detail, whetherthey be those ofthe jewelry scene, which is derived, sonata-like, from thetiniisr motifs, or the Scherzo which consritutes the long inn scene, or thetransformations ofthe variations on a theme in Marie's Bible scene, where thetheme is boldly assembled lrom a tonality appropriate to biblical style andourbursts of aionality. In spite of Berg's imaginative use of tonal colour, inspite ofsuch striking orchestral effects as the B that increases in volume tobreaking-point afteiMarie's death or the ripples on the pond's surface as

Vozzecf drowns - the sound is always secondary, the result of purelymusico-thematic events and produced by them alone.

If one concentrates on these musical events as one would, for example, onthe melodies of a traditional opera, everything else will become clear ofits ownaccord, including the mood rhar typifies Berg: the paralysing fear in the scene

in the open field, the oFstage march - both strident and sombre - and thelullaby as an echo ofNature which, though suppressed, breaks out in song; theineffa6le melancholy ofthe Liindler in the inn scene, \wozzeck's dark question-abour rime, and his disturbed sleep in the barracks scene. The alien quality of'popular music, the wretched stunted happiness ofserving-girls an-d soldiers, isiteard by Berg and given full compositional trea_tment, not with Stravinskianmockery bur with ihe expressive gentleness of boundless compassion. Hisdramatic imagination so strongly extends the techniques ofcompositiol tt^tat

he anticipates'much that was n-oi to be written for thirty years: one thinks_, forexample, ofthe way he includes rhythm in the art ofthematic variation, whichwas rfien rediscovered in serial music - the quick and brutal piano polka inthe opening bars of the second tavern scene provides the rhythmic model-for.u.ryihingih.r rhen races past us in this scene. Soperfect is the work that all itdemands is attentive readiness ro receive what it gives in profligateabundance. The listener should not shy away from a love which unreservedlyseeks out human beings where they are most in need'

This article is reproduced by permission of Volag Elisabeth Lafite, Vienna; jsmteichischer

Bundesonlag fiir lJnter'richt, lVissenschaft und Kunst, Vienna' 1968'

40

'Wozzeck' at Covent GardenThese impressions and letters appeared in 'The Musical Times' afterthe first l.ondon staging of 'LVozzeck', et Cooent Garden in 1952.

March, 1952

By giving us tilozzech, the largest but one ofour operatic arrears) the CoventGarden management has earned a credit that outweighs half-a-dozen failures.The thing was done handsomely. First place to Erich Kleiber (who conductedthe first performance of the work, at Berlin in 1925); no score of likemodernism has been played to us with such intimacy, such fine grading andmoulding, and such vibrant feeling. Throughout the evening the musicallistener was confronted with beauty, and it was rhrough this screen that hebeheld the sordid drama on rhe stage. To one observer it was as if thecharacters were living their life under compulsion o{'that intense, dominatingmusic in the orchestra. The scenery by Caspar Neher was effective,unassertive (none ofyour cheap surrealism here), and individual enough to setup a challenge to other setrings. Some ofthese serrings are illustrared in theJanuary issue of that excellent periodical Opera.In the face of these samplesfrom Philadelphia in 1931, Rome in 1942 and Berne in 1951, we may bethankful that Neher's departures from realism went no further than aninterior without ceiling or roof. No doubt this was for the benefit ofthe scene-shifters, who performed miracles in getting twelve of the fifteen scenes readyin time. Next, Sumner Austin as producer: a happy choice, for the stage workshowed the hand ofexperience in its naturalness and smooth operation. Therewere two casts - a further mark of thoroughness. The principals were thefollowing (those of the second casr in brackets); Wozzeck, Marko Rothmtller(fess \Walters); Captain, Parry Jones (Max Vorthley); Doctor, FrederickDalberg (Otakar Kraus); Drum Major, Thorsteinn Hannesson @rank Sale);Marie, Christel Goltz. The firsr-nighr casr, on Janu ary 22,was never less rhancompetent, and in RothmUller it had aVozzeck of whom only one criticismhas been made - that he seemed at times to be the most intelligent person onthe stage. (Indeed, give him a smirk, and he might have been Good SoldierSchweik himself,) The casting ofthe Captain and the Doctor served ro point acriticism ofthe opera in one ofits aspecrs. Although Parry Jones and Dalbergplayed their parts well, as dramatic figures they seemed hardly sinister andpotent enough to be the agents ofa man's desrruction. Added together theywere less formidable than the malign Claggartof Billy Budd.,ille refrain fromfurther critical remarks since the field is sufficientlv covered bv the fivepersonal impressions that now follow.

Thoughts on'Tfozzeck''You and your critical brood have been clamouring for lYozzech for a longtime. Now that you've got it I hope you're satisfied.' I mumbled someappreciative words to the speaker, who was a member of the Covent Gardenstaff I felt strongly that this much-criticized opera company had shown that itcould behave in a thoroughly adult manner in carrying through such adifflcult work with conspicuous success.

But 'satisfied'? No. In the first place, quite physically, so far from beingsatisfied, I felt as though I had lost abour a quart of blood. lVozzech isimmensely lowering to the spirir without having the cleansing quality ofcatharsis. Should great art be lowering? I say no: even the darkest tragedy

41

should have its ethos, its power to uplift and to edify the mind. If a work of artttrr,ttir quality, then oni can experience it again and aFain. But after^twoui.*ing, of th. op..r, anorher twb hearings and an unTimesley study of thescore, idon,t wani to undergo tilozzeck again for a decade or two. I do not care

for the subjective quality of so much of Berg's music. I don't want my.,,,otlon, diagged througir the sink and the gutter. Berg's music. deals withsuch a subjeciioo thoroirghly, roo inclusively. Everything_is written in thescore and everything in-ari is too much. There's nothing left to theimaei.ration, noihing'teft for the singer to act. (Perhaps this is due to theS.hEnU..g group's fiar o6being'interpreted', which also leads them to issue

."ofi.i, in"siiuction. for the peiformance of each note and even, in tilozzech'

;;:h ,1.* ;.use.) And theri is precious little to sing, so that the actor is leftstanding on the siage like a puppet with the orchestra working overtime: inthis respect Berg is \i(agner to the zth degree'

perhaps t shoild say now, in order to prevent my assassination by - nevermind whom - that in spite of all this I cannot avoid conceding th9 w91d

-uri..pl.... lVozzech.Hire is the most intensely emotional music bridled by

" .nor, -"r,..Iy brain. Nothing else in this century has produced quite such.an

overwhelming impression. lVizzech has an effect on us belonging to our.dayand to our tirie that it cannot have on anybody else in any much later time.

Just in the way thatTiisran,however strongly it may hit us nowadays ifwe hearit for the first iime, cannot make the sameimpression as it did in the latter halfof the nineteenth century. The shock-tactics of Tiistan have become commonknowledge even before we see it. The musical langoage of lvozzecA is not.yet.o-.ori.u..ency, though some of the more advanced American bands, likethat of Stan Kenton, are approaching Berg's harmonic idiom'

To sum up: emotionally lVizzcch is as much a dead-end as Delius: in mattersott..t nlqu. and the intellect it will remain an important work; a lascinatingand beautiful/eur du mal.

John Amis

The Character of Wozzeck

The character of lWozzeck, both in Georg Btichner's original dtamalVoyzeckand in the operatic adaptation made by Alban Berg' is ofconsiderable interest'it or. *t o rp.ak of him as a half-wit or a dumb ox are wide of the mark. HeJo*, -"ny'of the characteristics of the Slav temperament. He is slow to.o".' y.a ie feels deeply. He accepts unquestioningly the necessity.of,rrr..l"'g. .I am a simple'soul. Folk like us are always unfortunate - in thisworta aia in any other world.' He finds difficulty in expressing himself;.andiftir Ir p"ni.utariy frusrrating, for he is a visionary. He sees the sunset with allitr. lnti,n.ity of an expressioiist painter like Vincent Van Gogtr' 'A fire! A firethere! It rises from iarth into h"auen, and with a tumult falling'-just^likeil;p;., His senses pierce the outward mask. Beneath the grass ofthe fieldhe hiars the sinister rumour of a separate life. Vhen he identifies thismysterious underground movement wiih the Freemasons he is as convincedas villiam Blake was in identifoing his spiritual visitants with the Man whobuilt the Pyramids, or wat Tyler, or the Ghost of a Flea. But lwozzeck

,"f..*r",i' is noiblessed wiih the artist's capacity of freeing himself froman obsession'by expressing it through his art. Instead, he becomes giddy as he

sees the gtound quaking and the precipice opening at his feet'In his need to ea.n more than his bare private's pay in order to keep hrs

misrress Marie and their illegitimate child, he is forced to undertake odd jobs

,uitr .. serving as the Capta-in's batman. But it is with a touch of horror that

42 43

one finds him lending himself as a subject for the Docror's dieteticexperiments. The Doctor treats him as a human guinea-pig and does notscruple to tamper with the delicate mechanism of his will-power.

To delineate the tragedy of Wozzeck, Berg has to show him as a man who isat once an ordinary poor soldier and also a visionary who has:

Known panic and the fisted fear that knocksBy marsh, moor and grey meadow.

It is the essence ofhis tragedy that circumstances make it impossible for him tointegrate the different parts of his split personality. Berg's musical idiom withits distorted harmonic structure is wonderfully well adapted lor this purpose.The effect is heightened by the abnormal tension caused by the excessivelydisciplined form ofthe scoie as related to the simple episodii character ofthidrama.

The Slav temperament does not change quickly; and many of \Wozzeck'squalities are characteristic of the Slav today. The German Captain andDoctor signally failed to understand him in Biichner's play - so did Marie.Vould the Germans - or the Western Europeans for that matter - be morelikely to understand and sympathize today? At a time when the personality ofEurope is split in two by the shadow of a curtain, it is particularly fortunatethat Berg has seen the true nature of \Wozzeck's tragedy and given it immortalexpression and universal currency in operatic form'

Eic rvarter white

Marho Rothmiiller (IVozzech) and Christel Gohz (Maie), Coztent Garden, 1952 (photo:Aneus McBean @ Harard Theatre Collection)

An Expectation FulfilledNo doubt it was unwise to come to lVozzech with as high an expectation as Ihad. So ofien one is disappointed when looking lorward not merely to hearinga pcrformance, but to re-living or intcnsifying a previous experience. I hadbeen prolbundly moved by a concert performance olthis opera - not theBBC's performance ol-two years ago, which stands with somewhat uncertainoutlines in my memory, but that given in New York under DimitriMitropoulos only ten months since. I had felt then not only the power of theindividual sections ofthe opera, but the cogency ofits dramatic shape. Now Iwas to see this shape realized in a stage presentation.

I was not disappointed. The settings and the visual characterization -despite certain shortcomings, for instance in the l)rum Maior - alike he_lped

to heighten the experience of the music. The division into as many as fifteensceneJdid not give the effect offiagmentation: rather the efiect was that ofamoving-picture camera, picking up the story now lrom a new angle, now.eturning to an old one. Caspar Neher's settings admirably preserved thisunity, though the basis ofthe unity lies in the music itsell Even those part-s o1-

the score most striking in themselves seem to gain by their theatrical settingThke, for instance, the stupendous uescerulo lor the whole orchestra on thesingle note ts (after the death of Marie), building up a tension which suddenlycoliapses as the out-o{:tune piano starts the wild polka on a distorted chord ofC maior. How much is added by the lact that the crescendo takes place in thedarkened thcatre, with the curtain down, and that thc piano's entry coincideswith the raising of the curtain on the populated interior of the shabbily-littavernl

The most vividly realized ofthe characters, to my mind, was the Captain of'Parry Jones. The most unexpected characterization was provided by ChristelGoltz. She was not the dull, almost uncomprehending Marie one hadimagined, but something active and sensual. Yet her characterization 'cameoff, rising to true pathos in the Bible-reading scene. Perhaps, indeed, the'active'aspect of this Marie made for a better total balance of this opera, inwhich so many ofthe characters are mere rollers for Fate's wheel. At any rate,nothing marred my impression that I was undergoing one of the maioroperatic experiences of mY life.

Arthur Jacobs

A Great Operatic ExperienceThere are a number ofparadoxical features aVtutlVozzech. Being a real opera,it needs the stage to make its full impact; but the greater part of that impactemerses from the orchestra. It is a drama of low life, hallucination andsordidness, yet over the whole work hovers an aura ofnobility. Btichner's playwas written in 1837 but breathes thc same air as the Doctors Caligari andMabuse: Berg's music was written between 1914 and 1921, but its climate hasnothing to do with time or period. And yet the collaboration of the two artistsis as close as any in the history of opera, a history rich in successfulcollaborations.

The tonal climate again is peculiar. Only two passages, Marie's fairy taleand the last interlude, are 'in'a key with attendant key-signatures, and a fewmore, such as Margret's Schwabenland number and the Liindler in Act Two,inhabit a tonally stable atmosphere; elsewhere common chords and chordswith key-implications are used, but not often with particular reference to a

prevailing tonality. Vhat is peculiar is that an anchorage is nearly always to beielt; and yet people still rcler to Woznch as an atonal opera; it is of course

44 45

wrong to call it a twelve-note opera, when Berg made no eflbrt to employ themethod systematically, lor the simple reason that Schrinberg had not thenlormulated his Method of Composition.

In the end, tonal and historical climates, morality, balance of power andform are beguiling but not really important; as l3erg pointed out, the impact ofthe drama upon the emotions, which goes further than the fate of oneindividual, is what counts. At Covent Garden onJanuary 22,that impact wasfelt, despite some weaknesses in casting, decor and production. MarkoRothmiiller's portrayal of \Wozzeck, as a great mind manqui through nobody'sthult but nature's, and destroyed bv human blindness and selfishness,commanded the stage at every turn. Berg's music, which fbr most of the timemeans what goes on in the pit, was superbly served by lrrich Kleiber. Wozzcchcannot lail to dumblound a listener susceptible to the Viennese tradition inmusic. 'I'hese two contributions made sure that people like me, who are rhussusceptible and who had not seenlVozzech in the theatre belbre, will rememberthat perfbrmance as one ofthe great operatic experiences of-their lives.

rt.''r&,:l'\ -i'7

Frederich Dalberg (Doctor) and Marho Rothmiiller (l)(ozzech), Cotcnt Gardm 1952 (photo.Angus McBean @ Haruanl Theatre Collection)

{.,,t'

W.S. Mann

A Reflection Prompted by the Second Cast

Dr Kleiber's handling of the eloquent orchestral score of Wozztch wonuniversal praise; the singers, too' put up a brave show in view of theirinexperience with music of this for-the-most-part keyless kind requiringSpreihstimme as well as Gesangstimme. \Why, then, was it that the performanceundertaken by the second cast on February 5 gripped and fascinated withoutrousing in the spectator that profound sense of compassion which promptedfirst Btichner and later Berg to immortalize the barber, Voyzeck, executed inthe Market Square of Leipzig in the prcsence of a large crowd on August 27'1824? (For simplicity let us call him \Wozzeck, the name adopted by l3erg.)

It is pertinent to recall that belore the execution took place, a court ofinquiry was set up under Hofrat Dr Clarus to ascertain whether or notVozzeck was mad. Every producer of the opera should do something of thesame kind. The original \il/ozzeck had suffered in earlier life liom occasionalepileptic fits, he was known to have had a persecution mania (thinking theFleemasons were after him), and he was adiudged to be morally depraved. Butthere was no evidence that he was mad. In the play, there is overwhelmingevidence that the \Wozzeck created by Btichner was neither mad nor morallydepraved. Admittedly he had'toadstool'hallucinations as well as Freemasonson-his mind; but no one knew better than Btichner, as the son ofa doctor and a

medical student himself, that little is more likely to cause hallucinations thanmalnutrition - that is, the prolonged diet ofbeans enlorced on \Wozzeck, forexperimental purposes, by the Doctor. Why did Wozzeck endure this guinea-pigging, it may be asked, if he was lundamentally in his rigtrt mind? Theinswei is to eain a lew extra pence to alleviate the poverty ofMarie, whom hegenuinely loved. In his own words to the Doctor: 'I need this moncy lor mywlfe. tttat is why I'm here.'Further examination of Buchner's text revealsthat although, as a result of the Doctor's experiments, Vozzeck was a sickman, and moreover a man who acted always by instinct rather than by reason'he was by no means the idiot that Mr Jess \il/alters made him on February 5.

How can we feel for a \Wozzeck who is too sub-human even to be capable of-experiencing a dumb animal's sense of right and wrong, and capacity foraffection and suffering?

Characterization is scarcely less important in Marie's case' 'fhere isabsolutely nothing in common between Frau \Woost, the widow and'amateurprostituta, with a special pe nchant for soldiers' murdered by Wozzeck in June1821 and Btichner's Marie, who is weak, admittedly' but not a wanton.BUchner's Marie has no physical desire for the Drum Major; in this resp-ecther own resigned words 'Have your way' then. It is all the same' afterabandoning her struggle with him are far more significant than the earlier_remark ofa catty neiglibour,'everyone knows thatyoz can't keep your eyes otfany man'. In her life of unrelieved, grey poverty and drabness, his splendidappearance, gifts ofear-rings and invitations to the gay tavern gardens werethe fundamental cause of her acquiescence. And of the genuineness of herremorse Btichner gives a striking instance in each of the two scenes in herroom. Christel Goliz, though musically confident and vivacious, must be heldresponsible for alienating our sympathies still further by translorming Marieinto little less than a harlot.

But there are two characters who must at all costs be shown in their worstpossible light - one is the Doctor, and the other the Captain' The Doctor weknow to have been a caricature of Biichner's particular b€te-noir, Vilbrand'crack-pot professor of anatomy at Giessen University, and it is by no m911sover-fanciiul to suggest that Berg, who experienced military lifb himself in1914-18, had no affection for the Captain when portraying him musically. The

46 47

Frederich Dalberg (Doctor), Marho Rothmiiller (llozzech) and Parry Jones (Captain), CountGarden, 1952 (photo: Angus McBean @ Haruard Theatre Collection)

captain's moral worth is proved once and for all when afier continuouslvtaunting \Xlozz.eck, he breaks down like a child (though far more foolishly) onbeing told by the Doctor of an approaching 'apoplexia cerebri'. The DoCtor,however, is little short of a criminal lunatic, lor his experiments with diet aredangerous enough to be held responsible for \x/ozzeck's ultimate inability toresist the temptation ofthe 'knife-blade'. His obsession (brilliantly depicted byBerg by means of a passacaglia) with the idea of fame and immortal^itv brinihim to all sense ofmoral responsibility. otakar Kraus went a littre furthir thanhis predecessor, Frederick Dalberg, in suggesting the sinister implications ofthe part, and Max \Worthley was certainly more foolish than parryJones as theCaptain. But neither pair went nearly far enough away from harmless comedytowards a suggesrion of the malevolent powers against which wozzeck aniMarie were pirted.

The smaller parts are less important. But it would be no exaggeration to

claim that the four principals have a greater responsibility as interpreters tnwozzeck than in anyother opera. Unless the spectator can take wozzeck andMarie to his heart, as much for their own sakes as for the forces which seek todestroy them, there can be no feeling of escape from the particular

^to the

universal - no sharing with Berg of that overwhelming sense of pity for theweak and oppressed that is told to us as much in that last great D minorinterlude aJ by the unforgettable expression on the composer's sensitiveface'

Joan Chisselt

Letters to the EditorMay, 1952rrlay t ue permitted to rush in where your five _critics of v(/ozzech feared tot.."d? I h"u. reluctantly come to the conclusion that the work is a failure, andthat the blame must be laid firmly on the shoulders of Berg the librettist andBerg the composer.

The fundamental weakness is a dramatic one. You cannot have blackwithout white, or darkness without light; yet Berg attempts to portray insanitywithout any reference to sanity itself All the major characters are abnormal;none are iympathetic. Moreover, there is a complete lack of .dramaticdevelopment. \Wozzeck's mania is already apparent in the very first Act; thereis no growth of character, but simply a sequence of depressing events.Consequently the climax is merely sensational' not truly dramatic.

ThiJweakness is paralleled by a similar lack of growth in the music. In thewood-cutting scene in Act One Berg is already using the lull range -ofdissonance and orchestral fortissimo;by the time we reach the denouement theear is wearied and even the famous D minor adagio loses much of its impact.A good example of this loss ofpower can be found in the scene in the Doctor'ssuig.ry. Ernest Newman tells us (in Opera Nights) that as the Doctor reachesthe"word,immortal' - 'his vocal line becomes more and more extravagantlyabsurd, rill his megalomania culminates in a crazy trill'. Here, as elsewhere,the listener has no sense ofculmination whatever, because the vocal line hasbeen crazy from the very beginning.

Admireis of lVozzech point to rhe many beautiful and novel sonoritiesrevealed in the orchestraiscore. But sonorities by themselves are not enough;the musical thought expressed through those sonorities must be sound, ifthevalue of the work is to rimain after the actual novelty has worn off They alsoexplain away Berg,s rejection of normal dramatic procedures by_describingthi opera as a fantasy or nightmare, subfect only to the irrational logic oftheworld of dreams. If ihis isirue, it would certainly account for much of thetedium ofthe work; lor in the whole range of human experience there are fewordeals more boring than being subiected to a lengthy recitation of otherpeople's dreams.' This is not to deny that there are fine moments in the work. It is significantthat in the finest - the orchestral prelude to the final scene - Berg returns totonality, and it is also significant that it was conceived, as Newman tells us,independently of the actual opera. Even in his finest moments, however, it isquesiionable-whether Berg adds anything' apart from technique, to whatoiher Romantic composers have wrirren before him. As Cecil Gray puts it inhis essay 'Contingencies': 'It is probably the chief flaw in Berg as.an a.rtist'.infact, that he so oftin seems to employ a new rechnique and vocabulary in orderto achieve what can be achieved, and has already been achieved, by simplerand more orthodox means.'

48 49

How then can I explain the enthusiasm with which the work has beenreceived, and the statement that fbr two ofyour critics it has been one ofthemajor artistic experiences of their lives? Some listeners undoubtedly are insympathy with Berg's outlook and are genuinely moved by his music. But Ican't help feeling that the majority are impressed only because they feel theyougfu n De. Since genius has in the past been occasionally allied to obscurity,they have come to believe that obscurity is ipso facto a proof olgenius.Theyhave been told so often by Superior Persons that Wozzech is a masterpiece thatthey no longer have the courage to disagree. In short, the chorus ofpraise forBerg's opera reminds one irresistibly of the applause for the Emperor's NewClothes which greeted him as he appeared stark naked on the balcony ofhisPalace' Geoffrelt Bush

[As the result ofseeing the 1960 production o1'the opera at Covent Gardensung in English, Geoffrey Ilush came round to the belief that Wozzech, thoughflawed - like Fidelio - was nevertheless a masterpiece.l

Chistel Gohz as Maie, Count ()arden, I9-52 (photo: Angus McBun @ Hatzard T'heatrtCollection)

Daoid Tree (The ldiot) and Jess Wahrs (Wozzth),McBean @ Ilanard Theatre Collrction)

50

Coz,ent Gardtn, 1952 (Photo: Angus

JuLy,1952As one who regards Berg's lVozzech as an unqualified masterpiece, I would bethe last to deny that there is an arguable case against the work on aestheticgrounds; but I feel that Dr Geoffrey Bush's letter in the May Musical Times canonly obscure the issue by its misconception ofthe intention ofthe opera and itsdisregard for demonstrable fact. His flat statement that lVozzech portraysinsanity without reference to sanity itsell; and that all the main characters areabnormal, is incorrect: Marie and the Drum Major are familiar, normal types,to be met at any time in the vicinity ofan army barracks, and \Wozzeck behaveslike a normal private soldier most of the time, his occasional hallucinationsbeing clearly marked offfrom his normal state, dramatically and musically. Inany case, the opera is not a portrayal ofinsanity, but a representation ofthemisery of the pitiable dregs of human civilization, built round a straight-lorward central plot of a woman's unfaithfulness, a man's jealousy, and aresultant cime passionel.

It is quite untrue to say that there is neither dramatic development norgrowth ofcharacter. \Wozzeck's character develops from simple faith in Marie,through realization ofher unfaithfulness, to jealousy and the desire to kill her;and her character develops lrom pity and affection for Wozzeck, through herunfaithfulness, to defiance ofhim, and later, bitter remorse. In consequence,the climax (her death) is truly dramatic, in that it is brought about by theinteraction of these motives.

To find none of the characters sympathetic is to lay oneself open to thecharge oflack ofheart, or lack ofunderstanding: surely \Wozzeck's defence ofhis illegitimate child and his prayer not to be led into temptation, and Marie'slove for the child and her remorse lor her sin, not to mention the actual sins ofboth, bear witness to their essential humanity, and awake a response in anyfeeling person.

To impute lack of growth to the music is to confess ignorance of the score,which proceeds from the simplest oftextures through an increasingly complexcontrapuntal web of leading motifs to culminate in the well-known summing-up in D minor. The statement that Berg reached the full range of dissonanceand orchestral fortissimo as early as the second scene (which is not true withregard to dissonance) proves nothing; the texture is still simple compared withthe later complexities of the score. The particular case of the Doctor's scene,mentioned by Dr Bush, is an admirable example ofthe cumulative effect ofthemusic: the vocal line begins quietly in perfectly normal speech-rhythmrecitative over the passacaglia bass alone, becoming'extravagantly absurd'only in the last two or three variations.

As for Cecil Gray's remark that Berg employed a new technique andvocabulary to achieve what can be achieved, and has been achieved, bysimpler and more orthodox means, surely no one can take it seriously? It isimpossible to imagine a lVozzech by Vagner or Richard Strauss that wouldhave had the same kind of impact as Berg's has.

Ifwe are to continue arguing about lVozzech,let us at least be fair, and admitthat it is a realistic opera, with a story that can be read daily in the papers, andcharacters that one may find oneself sitting next to on the bus; that the dramais well-constructed, and the plot logical and inevitable; and that the music is amasterly hammering-home of the dreadful implications of the drama. Afterthis, those who find such a vivid representation ofa certain aspect ofrealityrepugnant to their tastes are entitled to say, ifthey wish, that art should notconcern itselfwith such things, and that therefore they have no place on theoperatic stage. This is an aesthetic question which may be argued atlength.

51

One last word: if one cannot understand a work of'art, and has not theparience to study it in detail, the easiest way out is to'reluctantly'consider it a

irilu.", to label it.obscure', to accuse those who do understand it ofbeing.superior persons', and to conclude that lesser mortals who admire it arc guiltyof inobbi.sm. Wozzech itself is pertbctly clear; the obscurity is in Dr Bush'smind.

Derych Coohc

August,1952Heartily though I sympathized with l)r Ilush's attack onlvozzech, it seems tome thai he missed'the main charge against thc.pcra and thercby exposedhimself to Mr l)eryck cooke's eflbctive rejoinder in your last month's issue.As I see it, the main charge is not thar the libretto is not dramatic, or that themusic lacks structural 'development" but that it exprcsses an almost unilormreztulsion towards the events it illustrates. 'l'his is a pity, in the l-irst placebecause, as Mr Cooke says,'Maric and the Drum Maior are familiar, normaltypes, to be met at any time in thc vicinity ol- an army -barracks', .wh.osebeiaviour by no meani merirs the appalling avalanchc ol- discord which itevokes, and in the second place because revulsion, even if continuouslyfustified, is not an emotion capable ol'sustaining a wholc evening's drama,iro*eu.t 'realistic'. A one-act 'shocker' perhaps; but a full-length operapurporting to oflbr a serious comment on 'Lilb' surcly must express a.rangc .ol-ieeling. liozzeck, for all the skill and lbrcefulness ol- the music, givcs theirnpreision ofbeing merely the product ofa disturbed mind, of'an artist unablcto measure and master his chosen subiect-matter.

Rohcrt L. Jarcbs

Chistel Goltz (Maie) and Marho Rothmiillrr (Wozzrh),Royal OPera Houv Arthiz,es)

52

Cotnnt Garden, 19-52 (Photo

53

Thematic GuideMany of the themes from lVozzech have been identified in the articles bynumbers in square brackets, which refer to the themes set out in these pages.The themes are also identilled by the numbers in square brackets at thecorresponding points in the libretto, so that the words can be related to themusical themes.

Poor lirllillc l.cu{ l

likc uslSchn SicMo - ncv

llcrr llaupl-nlunn.you scc Sir.

[4] MARCH

SolThc

ldt srnddicrs drc

scho - nc...hand - sonrc.

[1] CAPTATN

POOR FOLK LIKE USI'

[6] LULLABY

[8] DOCTOR

t[9] 'SEDUCT|ON MUSIC'

I)l nra.ff-

ffil12l wozzECK

|-_-J_------------r r--j_,,___,=r

[13] KNrFE

54 55

Eoelyne Lear as Maie, San Francisco Opoa, 1968 (photo: Carolyn Mason Jones)

Tbp: Act One, scene three (Maie's rmm); ccntre: Act Tuq scenefour (taxern garden) and belou:Act Three, scenefour (Forest path by the pool), in the Metopoliran Opna sos designed b1 CasparNeher; Herben ()rafs production rnixed by Daoid AIdn, 1989 (photos: Winnie Klotz)

WozzeckOpera in Three Acts (Fifteen Scenes) by Alban BergText by Alban Berg after Woyzeck by Georg Bilchner

The opera is dedicated to Alma Maia Mahler.

English translation by Eric Blackall and Vida Harford

The first performance of Wozzech was at the Berlin Staatsoper onDecember 14,1925. The first performance in the United States was inPhiladelphia on March 19, 1931. The first performance in Britain wasin concert form, at the Queen's Hall, I-ondon, on March 14, 1934. Thefirst British stage production was at the Royal Opera House, CoventGarden on January 22,1952.This English text is a performing translation of the opera, madeoriginally for the Covent Garden premidre in 1952, and substantiallyrevised for later productions. It is set out against the full text of theFranzos/Landau edition of Btichner's play, which was the basis forBerg's libretto. All the scenes, phrases and words of the play whichwere not incorporated into the libretto are given, either in squarebrackets or footnotes; where complete scenes were omitted, they areincluded in the sequence with a headnote to that effect. Thetranslations of these passages have been made especially for thisGuide by Stewart Spencer, and obviously form no part ofthe Harford/Blackall translation of the libretto. German spellings follow the Bergtext for the libretto and the idiosyncratic Franzos spellings for theplay.

The Act and scene divisions follow those of the libretto (there is nodefinitive sequence for Buchner's play, and so the play scenes are notnumbered), and a table showing how the two relate is given on the nextpage. Since the Franzos/Landau edition, Buchner research hasidentified different readings and additional material which are notincluded in this Guide. The stage directions are rhose of the opera.

57

'Wozzeck' and 'Woyzeck': a list of scenes

Wozzeck' the oPera libreuo b9 Berg

ACT ONEScene OneThe Captain's room

Scene TwoOpen fields. The town in thedistance. Late afternoon.

Scene ThreeMarie's room. Evening

Scene FourThe Doctor's study. A sunnyafternoon

Scene FiveStreet before Marie's dwelling.Evening twilight.

ACT TWOScene OneMarie's room. Morning, sunshine

Scene TwoStreet. Day

Scene lhreeStreet before Marie's dwelling.Dull day

Scene FourTavern garden. l-ate evening

\Yoyzeck'the play fut Biichner, editedby Franzos and Landau

A roomWoyzeck shaves the Captain

Open fields. The town in thedistance\Yy'oyzeck and Andres cut sticks.

The townMarie watches the military band.She sings to the child. Voyzeck visits.

The Doctor's studyThe Doctor examines \Woyzeck.

An open place. BoothsMarie and \Woyzeck go to the

In one of the boothsMarie and \ifloyzeck watch aperforming donkey.

fair.

StreetThe Drum Major seduces Marie.

RoomMarie admires the earrings.Voyzeck discovers her.

StreetThe Doctor and the Captain tauntVoyzeck

Marie's room\Woyzeck confronts Marie.

Guard roomVoyzeck and Andres

TavernVoyzeck watches Marie dance withthe Drum Major. He is approachedby the idiot.

Open country. NightVoyzeck hears voices and music.

Scene FiveA guardroom in the barracks. Night

ACT THREEScene OneMarie's room. Night. Candlelight.

(The fairy tale is incorporated intothe previous scene.)

Scene TwoA forest path by a pool. TwilightScene ThreeA low tavern. Night. Dimly litScene FourThe forest path by the pool. Moonlitnight as before

Scene FiveIn front of Marie's dwelling. Brightmorning sunshine.

Barracks. NightUnable to sleep, \Woyzeck wakesAndres

The banacks yardThe Drum Major taunts and fights\Woyzeck.

Marie's roomMarie reads the Bible.

Junk shopVoyzeck buys the knife.

Street. Sunday afternoonMarie watches the children playing.An old woman tells a lairv storv.

BamacksVoyzeck gives his coat to Andres.

A forest path by a pool. TwilightVoyzeck murders Marie

A low tavernVoyzeck tries to get drunkA forest path by the pool. NightVoyzeck drowns.

In front of Marie's dwelling.Early morningThe children play.

Dissecting roomA doctor and a judge comment onthe murder.

59