Expressionism and American Music

Author(s): Elliott Carter

Source: Perspectives of New Music, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Autumn - Winter, 1965), pp. 1-13
Published by: Perspectives of New Music
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EXPRESSIONISM AND AMERICAN MUSIC
ELLIOTT CARTER

T HE TEN D E N C Y foreach generationin America to wipe away the

memoryof the previousone, and the generalneglectof our own recent
past, which we treatas a curiosityusefulforyoungscholarsin exercis-
ing theirresearchtechniques-so characteristicof Americantreatment
of the workof its importantartists-is partlyresponsibleforthe general
neglect of the rathersizable number of composerswho in their day
were called "ultramodern,"and who wrotein thiscountryduringthe
early decades of our century.And it is also partofthisunfortunate pat-
tern that interestin these composersis being awakened now because
their music fitsinto a new frameof referenceimportedfromEurope
since the war, thus confirmingthe disturbingfact that the world of
serious music here is still thoughtof as an outpost of that European
world which Americanshave so oftenfound more attractivethan the
realityof what theyhave at home. In fact,it oftenseemsas ifwe have
no genuine interestin looking at our own situationrealistically-at
least in music-and developingourselvesforwhat we reallyare, but are
always tryingto gain admission into the European musical world
(which, at present,is rapidlylosingits innerimpetusand is fadinginto
a lifelessshadow ofwhat it was).
When interestin Schoenbergand his circlebegan to be importedinto
America some years afterthe war and various of our agencies sent
Americans abroad to learn what Europeans were doing and invited
Europeans over here to reveal theirsecretsto us, those who had been
close to this music all along began to be treatedwith a littlemorere-
spect,while previouslytheirefforts (includingthoseof Schoenbergand
his followerslivingin thiscountry)had been dismissedas meaningless.
Thus with the introductionof the post-Webernmusic and aesthetic
here,it was only natural that we should begin to take moreinterestin
our early ultramodernswhose techniques and outlook had much in
commonwiththe Vienneseschool of about the same time.
The long neglectof theseAmericancomposershas resultedin a lack
of information about them,an unfamiliarity withtheirideas and music
and oftena falsificationof facts,so that it now is importantto recon-
siderour attitudeabout themin the lightofactual information in order
to understandour own musical situationmore clearly.The purposeof
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 PERSPECTIVES OF NEW MUSIC

the series of articles which PERSPECTIVESOF NEW MUSIC is devoting to

variouscomposersofthattimeis not a nationalisticone in the European
sense at all. It is undertakenin the attemptto clarifythe special atti-
tudes thesecreatorsdeveloped in relationto the unusual musicalsitua-
tion ofAmerica,whichgave an entirelydifferent directionto thisgroup
than that of itscounterpartsin Europe. For theycame at a timewhen
ideas that were to change the face of each of the arts werewidespread,
and the same sort of thinkingwhich formedthe backgroundof the
Central European Expressionistmovementalso informedthe thinking
of artistsboth in Russia (which does not concern us here) and in the
United States.
Because of many similaritiesof outlook,the greatamountofanalyt-
ical and philosophicalthoughtwhich has been recentlylavished on
German Expressionismby European and even Americanscholarscan
perhaps be helpfulin fillingthe large empty gap of serious criticism
which surroundsthe workunder consideration,and can be helpfulin
understandingwhat wenton in thiscountryalmostindependently. The
worksproduced at that timehere,some of clearlygreatinterest, others
simply curiosities,have the special traits of the artisticmilieu out
of which theycame, which has not changed much in the intervening
years. Verylittleseriousthoughtand criticismis devoted to our music
even today except by composersthemselves,and thiscan be laid par-
tially to the conflictbetween the American realityand the American
dream of Europe which patrons of music try to perpetuate in our
musical institutions.
During the periodwithwhichwe are concerneda greatdeal ofcon-
temporarymusic was performedin New York,Chicago, Boston,and
San Francisco. The Metropolitan Opera House kept Petrouchka, Le
Rossignol, de Falla's VidaBreve,Gruenberg'sEmperor Jones, and Carpen-
ter'sSkyscrapers in itsrepertory.
The InternationalComposers'Guild and
the League of Composersorganized many importantperformances in-
cluding Wozzeck, Schoenberg's Gluckliche
Hand, and Ives' Prelude and
second movementfromhis FourthSymphony.There was an interestin
microtonalmusic,1and besidesthe concertof Hans Barthand Ives dis-
cussed by Howard Boatwright,2the League of Composerspresenteda
Sonatacasi Fantasiain quarter,eighthand sixteenthtonesby the Mexi-
can composerJulian Carillo for guitar, octavina, arpa-citeraand a
1 F. Busoni,Entwurfeiner neuenAesthetik
derTonkunst,Leipzig, 1907. References
to English
translationby T. Baker: TheNewAesthetic ofMusic,New York,1911. On pp. 31-33, Busoni
makes out a case forthe divisionof the whole tone into sixthsand refersto an American
acoustician,Thaddeus Cahill, whoseDynamophonecould produceany divisionofpitchre-
quired of it. Also see D. Rudhyar,"The Relativityof our Musical Conceptions,"Musical
Quarterly(January,1922) fora discussionofmicrotones.
2 PERSPECTIVESOF NEW
MUSIC,Spring-Summer,1965,pp. 22-31.

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 EXPRESSIONISM AND AMERICAN MUSIC

French horn made in New York that could play sixteenthtones, in

1926, on the same programas the firstU. S. performanceof Schoen-
berg's Wind Quintet. In the next year Carillo appeared witha larger
ensembleof microtonalinstruments and recordedhis Preludio a Cristobal
ColonforColumbia Records. But the two importantrivalsin presenting
modernmusicto the large musical public were Leopold Stokowski-an
irrepressibleexperimenter,in those days, who played Schoenberg,
Varese and Ruggles,and was a supporterof the more extreme"ultra-
modernists,"-and Serge Koussevitzky,also dedicated to the new,but
really mostinterestedin the Franco-Russian schoolsand in launching
the (then) youngergenerationof Americancomposers,givingthemthe
kind of enthusiasticsupporthe had previouslygivento youngRussians
in Europe. At that timetheseinstitutions feltit theirobligationto keep
theiraudience abreast of new developments-especially thosecoming
fromabroad, and in the case of Koussevitzkyof the Americancom-
posershe sponsored,just as art museumsstilldo today.Few good scores
(given,ofcourse,the particulartastesofthe conductors)had to wait for
any lengthof time to be heard. Each new workof Stravinsky,forin-
stance,was heard withina year afterit was composed,performed with
seriousdevotionby one ofthe outstandingorchestras, quite contraryto
the situationtoday. In the end Koussevitzky'senergyand persistence
won a larger audience for the new American neoclassical,folk-loric,
and populist school and adherentsof other aestheticswere moreand
more bypassedand forgotten.3
It was in the early, more advanced stages of this period that the
American ultramodernschool was especially active, but when the
Boston Symphonycomposersbegan to dominatethe scene in the mid-
thirtiesmostof thisactivitycame to a standstill.If therehad not been
such a drasticchange,it is possiblethatIves, Varese,Ruggles,Rudhyar,
Cowell, Riegger,Ornstein,Becker,Tremblayand those a bit younger
like Crawford,Strang,and Weiss among many otherswho are begin-
ning to be heard again, would have had an entirelydifferent develop-
ment.In any case, Cowell's New MusicEditioncarriedon valiantlyfrom
1927 to the present,keepingthe scoresof thisgroup in circulationand
thus enlivenedthe sometimesverypessimisticoutlookforthe "ultras."
It is at firstsurprisingthat the American group seems to have been
but dimly aware of its counterpartsin Vienna and Russia, but on
closer familiaritywith the period, it becomes clear that the general
opinionhereof the Vienneseschool,particularlyas regardsSchoenberg
3 Ives was a subscriberto a box at the
Saturdayafternoonconcertsofthe BostonSym-
phonyat CarnegieHall, and the authorofthisarticleremembersbeinginvitedtojoin him
and Mrs. Ives at concertswhereScriabin'sPoemedel'Extase,Promithee, Sacre,and
Stravinsky's
Ravel's Daphniswereperformed.

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 PERSPECTIVES OF NEW MUSIC

and Webern,was of a kind that would lead fewto become deeplyin-

volved in theirmusic. Paul Rosenfeld,forinstance,whose enthusiastic
and sympatheticcriticismwas influentialeven among musicians in
thetwentiesfoundthatSchoenberg'sworks"bafflewiththeirapparently
willfulugliness,and bewilderwiththeirgeometriccrueltyand coldness.
... It is only in regardinghim as primarilyan experimenterthatthe
later Schoenberg loses his incomprehensibility."24 When one realizes
that Rosenfeldknew the early tonal worksand Opp. 11, 16, and 19
when he wrotethis,it is easy to see how the appearance oftwelve-tone
worksmusthave strengthened thisopinion whichis stillwidelyheld in
America, despite the evidentfactrevealed by a numberof recordings
that quite the oppositeis true.This attitudepersistedto the veryend of
Schoenberg'slife in this countryand succeeded in restricting his in-
fluenceto a much smallercirclethan he deserved,and keptmostofthe
composersdiscussedfromcomingto gripswithhis music.Cowell, how-
ever,did publishthe second of Webern'sDrei Volkstexte, Op. 17, in 1930
(in a slightlydifferentversionfromthe one now publishedby Universal
Edition) and Schoenberg'sOp. 33b in 1932 in NewMusicEdition, yetin
his book, New Musical Resources,5he mentionsa new systemof tonal
organization used by Schoenberg but shows no understandingof it,
perhaps because the book had been written,so the authorexplainsin a
preface,in 1919. Until around 1930, and even after,it is hard to escape
the impressionthat the Viennese music leftverylittleimpressionon
mostof the ultramoderns. Riegger,it is true,did startto use a verysim-
plifiedversionof the twelve-tonesystemthen and wrotehis Dichotomy
(published 1932) incorporatingthismethodbut in a way utterlydiffer-
ent fromthe Viennese.
The reverseinfluenceis interestingto speculate about. We do know
that Weberndirectedworksof Cowell, Ruggles,and Ives in Vienna in
1932, that Slonimskyconductedworksof thisschoolin variousplaces in
Europe and that Schoenbergleftamong his posthumouspapers an oft-
quoted statementabout Ives. Certainlyan Americanis temptedto be
remindedof the tone-cluster writingof Ives and Cowell whenit appears
so baldly on the piano in Berg's Lulu (mm. 16, 79, and in a numberof
other places particularly during Rodrigo, the athlete's, recitative,
mm. 722-768-perhaps to characterize and develop the idea of"Das
wahre Tier," which is introducedby the tone-clusterin the Prologue.
There may even be a reminiscenceof Henry Cowell's Tigerhere).
To clarifycertainaesthetic,artistic,and technicalmatterscentralto

4 P. Rosenfeld,Musical New York,1920, pp. 233ff,but comparehispraisea few

Portraits,
yearslater: MusicalChronicle,
New York,1923,pp. 300-314.
5 H. Cowell,NewMusicalResources, New York,1930.

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 EXPRESSIONISM AND AMERICAN MUSIC

this group,it is usefulto compare them withthosecentralto the com-

posersassociatedwithGerman Expressionism. A numberof paperspre-
sented at the Convegno Internazionale di Studi sull'Espressionismo of
the Maggio Fiorentinoof 1964 are particularlyrelevant.6The problem
of tryingto defineand delineatethe special featuresofthismovementis
troublesome,naturally,and there has been a tendencyby German
musical scholarsand Luigi Rognoni to insistthat it be limitedonlyto
the works of the Viennese-and to all of theirworks,although the
paper of Dr. Stuckenschmidt was inclinedto includesome Russian and
a few of the American composersto be discussedin thisseries.In any
case, the basic manifestoofthe movement, Der blaueReiter,7
was the first
attemptto clarifyitsaims.In thispamphlet,musicholdsa centralposi-
tion since by its verynature music is not a representationalart but an
expressiveart8(a point of view derivedfromthe typeof thinkingthat
put music at the top of the hierarchyof the arts,as in WalterPater,in
Busoni, and in Ives). Der blaueReitercontained fourimportantarticles
on music: Schoenberg's Das Verhaltnis
zum Text;Sabanieff's "Prometheus"
vonSkrjabin;von Hartmann's Uberdie Anarchiein derMusik; and Kulbin's
Die FreieMusik.Other statementsabout expressionism
and musicare to
be found in Kandinsky's iber die Geistigein derKunst,9in Schoenberg's
Aphorismen10and his Harmonielehrel and more peripherally in Busoni's
EntwurfeinerNeuen Aesthetikder Tonkunst.Comparison with the general
tenorof statementsin theseworksand thosemade in Ives' EssaysBefore
a Sonata,12as well as the criticalwritingsofJames Huneker and Paul
Rosenfeldrevealsmany similarities.
The main difference, as always,is that the stateofAmericanmusical
lifewas so inchoate that a revolutionarymovementin this art would
necessarilybe less well thoughtout, less focusedand more of an affair
of individualsonlyagreeingin a generalway,hence less corrosiveofthe
fundamentalaspects of what seemed to all a moribundmusical tradi-
6 L.
Rognoni,II Significato comeFenomenologia
dell'Espressionismo delLinguaggioMusicale.J.
Rufer,Das ErbedesExpressionismus inderZwolftonmusik.H. H. Stuckenschmidt,Expressionismus
in derMusik. L. Mittner,L'Espressionismo e la Neue Sachlickeit:
fra l'Impressionismo Fratture
e Continuita.
7 Der BlaueReiter, Munich,1912. Englishtranslation of Schoenberg's"Das Verhaltnis zum
Text" in StyleandIdea,New York,PhilosophicalLibrary,1950.
8 W. Sokel, The Writer in Extremis in German
(Expressionism Stanford,
Literature), California,
StanfordUniversityPress,1959 (McGraw-Hill Paperback, 1964) devotesa wholechapter,
"Music and Existence,"to thissubject.
9 W. Kandinsky,UberdieGeistige inderKunst,Munich, 1911. Englishtransl.,Concerning the
Spiritual inArt,New York,1947.
10A. Schoenberg,Aphorismen, "Die Musik," Berlin, 1909-1910. Italian transl.in L.
Rognoni,Espressionismo e Dodecaphonia, Milan, 1954.
11A. Schoenberg,Harmonielehre, thirded., Vienna, 1922.
12 C. Ives, EssaysBeforea SonataandotherWritings, ed. by Howard Boatwright, New York:
W. W. Norton& Co., Inc., 1962.

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 PERSPECTIVES OF NEW MUSIC

tion since the situationwas not seen with any clarity-and for that
reason tended to dissipateitselfin superficialities
and absurdities,as so
oftenhappens even today.
The basic point of agreementis Hegel's statement(quoted partially
by Ives)13that "The universalneed forexpressionin art lies,therefore,
in man's rational impulse to exalt the inner and outer world into
a spiritualconsciousnessforhimself,as an objectin whichhe recognizes
his own self."This statementas quoted by Ives omitsthe words"and
outer" and the last phrase "as an object . . ." Both of these omissions
are verysignificant,fortheyreveal how close Ives' thinkingwas to that
oftheexpressionists,forwhomtheinnerworldwas ofprimeimportance,
and forwhom art was not an object but a meansofembodyinghis own
spiritualvision,forhimself,and, in view of otherstatements, forothers
to share,throughwhatwas latercalled an "intersubjective relationship."14
Rufer'sexcellentpaper attemptsto give a generaldefinition:15
There is also (both in paintingand music) an irruptionintochaos,a
state of complete anarchy (that is, formlessness), intoxicationand
ecstasyunderminethe veryfoundationsof representative art. "There
are no 'objects' or 'colors' in art, only expression" (Franz Marc,
1911).... Intenselyromanticmusic that one mightrathercall "ex-
pressionistictonal destruction"in which the tendenciestowarddisso-
lution of tonality,toward apparent destructionof musicalcoherence
and accepted formalschematabecome increasingly clear.... Every-
thingwas called intoquestionand alwaysseemedto lead back to chaos
again. In retrospect,it is easy to understandthat many finetalents
were destroyedby this.Only a chosen few,throughthe forceoftheir
geniusand thestrengthening effectofconstanttrialsfoundthemselves
again. And here I can do no better than quote GottfriedBenn: "The
expressionistexperienced directlythe profoundobjective necessity
which craftsmanship in art, its professionalethosand itsmoralityof
formdemands."
The actual textsofthe periodstresstruthfulness ofexpressionand the
inner necessityof the artistto expresshis transcendentexperiences,as
Kandinskywrites:16
Subjective beauty resultsfromthe pressureof subjectivenecessity
13Ibid., 81 and editor'snote, 141.
p. p.
14 L. II 9. "As
Rognoni, Significato, p. expressionis possiblein spokenlanguageonlyifan
'intersubjectiverelationship'is established,
so in musicallanguagethisis truein an evenmore
directand immediateway."
15
Rufer,op.cit.,pp. 3-4.
16Kandinsky,op.cit.(Frenchtransl.,
pp. 31-32).

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 EXPRESSIONISM AND AMERICAN MUSIC

once one has renouncedthe conventionalformsofthe beautiful.The

laietycall it ugliness.Man is always drawn to externalthings,today
more than ever and he does not willinglyrecognizesubjectiveneces-
sity.The refusalto employthe habitual formsof the beautifulleads
one to admit as sacred all the procedureswhich permitthe artistto
manifesthis personality.The Viennesecomposer,ArnoldSchoenberg,
alone followsthisdirection,scarcelyrecognizedby a fewrare and en-
thusiasticadmirers.
Schoenberghimselfwrites:17
Beauty beginsto appear at that momentwhenthe noncreativebe-
come aware of its absence. It does not existearlierbecause the artist
has no need ofit. For him,truthsuffices. It is enoughforhim to have
to
expressedhimself, say what had to be said accordingto the laws of
his nature.The laws ofthe natureof men ofgenius,however,are the
laws of futurehumanity.. . . Nevertheless,beauty gives itselfto the
artistwithouthis having sought it, for he has only aspired to the
truth.
Ives, in an elaborate discussionof formversuscontentand manner
versussubstance-a discussionwhich identifiesformand mannerswith
the generallyaccepted traditionalformsand stylesof music language
and contentand substancewith the artist'sfeelingsand visionseeking
expression:18
Beauty in its common conceptionhas nothingto do withit (sub-
stance).... Substancecan be expressedin music,and thatis the only
valuable thingin it; and, moreover,that in two separate pieces of
music in which the notes are almost identical, one can be of sub-
stance withlittlemannerand the othercan be of mannerwithlittle
substance.... The substanceof a tune comes fromsomewherenear
the soul, and the mannercomesfrom-God knowswhere.
Curiously enough although the expressionistswere very aware in
theirwritingsthat an inner vision was the drivingforcebehind their
search fornew artisticmeans,Ives and Cowell, who werethe onlyones
who wroteextensivelyabout this music did not state thisidea directly
in words.It mustalso be pointedout that the influenceofmysticism-
in Kandinsky,19the theosophyof Blavatsky(whichis also partiallyevi-
dent in certainideas of the Viennese composers)and in Ives, the trans-

17Schoenberg,Harmonielehre,
p. 393.
18 Ives,
op.cit.,p. 77.
19Kandinsky,op.cit.

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 PERSPECTIVES OF NEW MUSIC

cendentalism of Emerson20-formed the basis for this sense of the

importanceofthe innervisionand the disdainforthe "material"world.
Ruggles, to judge by the titlesof his works,and Rudhyar also were
deeply influencedby mysticalthought.The power of the innerexperi-
ence to forcethesecomposersto finda new means of expressionled in
two apparentlyoppositedirections,called by Benn, "chaos and geom-
etry" (recalling,oddly, Pascal's l'espritde sagesseet l'espritde geometrie).
The formerwas the directiontowardthe basic,elementalaspectsofhu-
man experience(and the elementalmaterialsof art): Whitman's"bar-
baric yawp"-the baby's firstcryat birth-what was sometimescalled
the Urschreior the Urlaut(Busoni also discusses,in another sense,
Urmusik)21-the primevalimmediateexpressionofbasichumanemotion.
Mittner'spaper is valuable on thispoint:22
The two main artisticproceduresof expressionismare the primitive
cry(Urschrei,or in the terminology of Edschmid,geballte Schrei,almost
urlocondensato)and the impositionof an abstractstructure, oftenspe-
cificallygeometric,on reality.These two proceduresseem,and often
are, diametricallyopposed,since the 'cry' originatesin the soul of the
seer who foreseesor witnessesthe destructionof his world, while
'abstraction'is, primarily,the workof an ideal architectwho strives
to reconstructthe world or constructa completelynew one. The
relationship,however,is reversible,since geometrycan deformand
also disintegrate,whilethe 'cry'can turnintoan ecstaticshoutofjubi-
lation whichinvokesor createsa new world,an ideal world.... The
Urschrei of German expressionismalmost never realizes the "We,"
and thus revealsthe tragicpositionof uncertaintyof the bewildered
bourgeoisie.It is rarely the much praised shout of rebellionand
liberation,but primarilya cryof anguishand ofhorror.The parallel
with atonal music is significant.The Urschrei is especiallyevokedin
the monodrama Erwartung, which records with the precisionof a
psychographthe variousmomentsofspasmodicexpectationindicated
by the titleand thena seriesof criesof horrorand desperation.
Mittneralso pointsout the relationof the Urschrei to silence:23
In contrastto thisconcernforthe lacerating,primitive'cry,'a new
power is foundin silence considered,paradoxically,as itsmetamor-
20 Ives,
op. cit.,p. 36.
21 Busoni,
op. cit.,p. 8.
22 Mittner, cit.,
op. pp. 43ff.On thispointMittnerhas a footnotereferring
anotherinter-
pretationofthedichotomyby Sokel (op.cit.)who traces,as he calls it,"Pure Formand Pure
Formlessness"back throughGermanliteraryhistoryin an attemptto showthatit is a spe-
cial productofthe Germanculturalsituation.
23
Mittner, op. cit.,p. 36.

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 EXPRESSIONISM AND AMERICAN MUSIC

phosis,since a tragicsituationis foreseenor experiencedin a silence

which correspondsto an internal'cry' of the soul.

Among the Americanultramoderns,the urgeforsuch intensification

of expressionis particularlyin evidence in Ruggles,in Rudhyarand to
a certain extentin Ives. Certainlyhis song, Walt Whitman, whichhas
somethingof a caricatureabout it, perhaps, strikesa characterofex-
pressionisticintensityin its firstmeasures,thatis similarto the opening
pages of the "Emerson" movementof the Concord Sonata and to the
firstmovementof Ruggles' Men andMountains.
The opposingexpressionist tendency,as Mittnerpointsout,is thatof
constructivism, familiarto Americans as an attitudethroughtheaesthe-
tic commentsof Poe. In the Americanperiodunderconsiderationmany
kinds of "geometrical"schemata were applied to music,as theywere
also in Europe and Russia. The rhythmicexperimentsof Ives partly
come out of this thinking,as do those of Varese, while Ruggles, Ives,
Varese, seem to have experimentedwith pitch organization. Ruth
Crawford,in particular,developed all kindsofpatternsofthissort.Her
Piano Studyin Mixed Accents(1930) uses variable metersand a retro-
grade pitchplan that remindsone of similarmethodsof BorisBlacher,
while her StringQuartet (1931), especiallythe last movement,juggles
with quite a number of different "geometric" systems,one governing
pitch, another dynamics, and still another the number of consecutive
notes beforea restin any given passage, besides,the whole movement
is divided into two parts,the second a retrogradeofthe firsta semitone
higher.Cowell's book, New Musical Resources,24 has a chapter dealing
with the associationof pitch-intervalratios withspeed ratiosafterthe
manner"discovered"laterby certainEuropeans.During the late twen-
ties and thirties,Joseph Schillinger,who had come to America from
Russia, bringingwith him the fruitsof similar thinkingthere,taught
here; and afterhis death,his TheSchillinger System ofMusicalComposition
was published(1946) withan introductionby Cowell, whichalthough
attemptingto be an all-embracingmethodof explainingthe technique
ofmusicofall typesis,ultimately,simplyanotherexampleofthisaspect
of expressionist"geometry"in that it applies "extrinsic"patternsde-
rived fromotherfieldsofsystematization and theoreticaldescriptionto
music, often without taking into account the "intrinsic"patternsof
musical discoursesufficiently. As Mittner points out in this connec-
tion, "geometry"can be a way of building an entirelynew worldor a
way of deformingor dissolvingthe old. It is possiblethat an illogical,
disorganizedgeometryor a totallyirrelevantone can be just as much

24
Cowell, op. cit.

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 PERSPECTIVES OF NEW MUSIC

of a deformingor even constructive patternas one moreobviouslyrele-

vant and logical (although the chances are obviouslyhigherthatthe
latterwill be more fruitful)in the hands of an imaginativecomposer.
The historyofthecanon in all itsphases is a clear demonstration ofthis.
To get down to actual musical practice,the mostobvious similarity
is that of the "emancipation of dissonance."Justwhen thisbegan has
not yet been explored and hence it is difficultto say as is oftensaid,
that Ives workedindependentlyand beforeSchoenberg at this,since
there may have been a priorobscure source, as thereis to microtonal
music.CertainlyRene Lenormand'sEtudesurl'Harmonie Moderne25 gives
examplesfromFanelli's TableauxSymphoniques of 1883 containingwhole-
tone progressions,Erik Satie's chords constructedon fourthsin 1891,
and a twelve-tonechordused byJean Hure in 1910. It is truethat Ives
seems to have tried a tremendousvarietyof harmonicmethodsfrom
about 1900 on. With his point of view, he experimentednot onlywith
passagesofconsistent harmonicstructure(suchas is commonin Scriabin)
in workssuch as the songsEvening,TwoLittleFlowers, Harpalus,Walking,
Soliloquy,and with very great diversityof harmonicstructure,as in
Majority, as well as polyphonictexturesderivedfromtheseoppos-
Lincoln,
ing attitudestowardharmony.Ruggles,Ornstein,Rudhyarmaintained
a verymuchmoreconsistent harmonicapproach. Ruggles,in particular,
shows a great sensitivity to the handling of major seventhsand minor
ninths,and their interrelationships with other intervals.The fourth
Evocationis a particularlyfine example of this. Tone-clusterswhich
mightbe considereda reductionof harmonyto its mostprimitiveand
undifferentiated state, may have been firstused by Ives in his First
Piano Sonata of 1902 and then by Cowell in 1917. By 1912, Ives was
writinglarge tone-clustersfor divided stringsin his orchestramusic,
especially in the FourthofJulyin which several streamsof tone clusters
rush up and down scales in contrarymotionsimultaneously.Berg uses
clustersin the men's chorusin the firsttavernscene in Wozzeck. Indeed
both tavern scenes in thisopera have a strikingly similarcharacterto
those worksof Ives that suggestcrowd scenes, as the one mentioned
above, and the second movementof the FourthSymphony.The strings
divided into tone-clusters,which seems to have been one of Ives' dis-
coveries,did not come into wide usage untilveryrecentlyin the works
of Xenakis, Ligeti, Penderecki,and Cerha. Ives' attitudetowarddis-
sonance is summedup:26

Many soundswe are used to do not botherus, and forthatreason

we are inclined to call them beautiful.Possiblythe fondnessforin-
25 R. Lenormand,Etude sur1'HarmonieModerne,
Paris, 1912.
26Ives,op.cit.,p. 98.

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 EXPRESSIONISM AND AMERICAN MUSIC

dividual utterancemay throwout a skin-deeparrangementwhichis

readily accepted as beautiful-formulae that weaken ratherthan
toughenup the musical muscles.
Although Cowell wrote a number of piano worksexploringpoly-
rhythms(and using a notation devised by him forthe purpose) and
Ornsteinused irregularbar lengths-and Rudhyar and Rugglesused
irrationalnote divisionsin orderto give the impressionof rubato and
rhythmicfreedom-it was again Ives who exploredthe fieldof rhythm
mostextensively, usingprecompositional patternsofnotevalues,all types
of polyrhythms, of approximatelycoordinatedinstrumentalgroups,of
passages more or less improvisedrhythmically, carryingsuch explora-
tion much furtherthan any composerof his time. In a desireto make
the performancesituationvivid,Ives sometimeswroteremarksin the
score directedto the performer to encouragehim to givefreereinto his
fantasy. His remark: "Perhaps music is the art of speaking extrava-
gantly,"27gives some clue to his general approach and linkshim once
again to the expressionists.
One of Ives' most puzzling aspects is his extremeheterogeneity, a
characteristicof some of Cowell's and Ornstein'smusic,not sharedby
the otherAmericanswho resemblemuch morecloselythe moreaccept-
able attitudeSchoenbergstatedin his earlyessay,indicatingthe kindof
thinkingwhich would eventuallylead him to adopt the twelve-tone
method:28

Inspired by the firstwords of the text,I had composed manyof

my songsstraightthroughto the end. It turnedout thatI had never
done greaterjustice to the poet than when,guided by my firstdirect
contact with the sound of the beginning,I divined everythingthat
obviouslyhad to followthe firstsound withinevitability.
Thence it became clear to me that the work of art is like every
othercompleteorganism.It is so homogeneousin itscompositionthat
in everydetail it revealsits truest,inmostessence.
Such a senseofinnercohesionis closelyallied withthe generaltendency
among expressioniststoward "reduction" in technique,to findingthe
basic materialof any given work.This methodbecame acutelyimpor-
tant to musiciansas the form-buildingfunctionof tonalitywas elimi-
nated, obviously,and also as various familiarmethodsof beginning,
stating,developing,and ending began to seem outwornbecause they
weakened the intensityand vibrant immediacyof individual musical
moments.As in literature,much concernand inventionwas lavishedon
27 Ives,
op.cit.,p. 52.
28
Schoenberg,StyleandIdea,p. 4.

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 PERSPECTIVES OF NEW MUSIC

new methodsof fragmentary presentation,such as startingin mediasres

or ending withan incompletedphrase. Closely allied withthiswas the
tendencytowardveryshort,concentratedtotalitiesafterthe analogyof
a Chinese characteror a hieroglyph.The worksof Schoenbergand
Webern of this type are well known. It is interestingthat among the
Americans only Ives attemptedthis in workssuch as the songs,Anne
Street,Maple Leaves,1,2,3,and Soliloquy.
But not only this type of fragmentationwas common among ex-
pressionistsbut also the fragmentation of the materialsof the work.In
this respectthe music of Varese is particularlysignificantin that its
material is made up of small fragmentsforthe most part and these
fragmentsare generally reduced to very basic, elemental shapes-
melodic materialmade of repeated notes,repeatedchordal soundsde-
pendingfortheirtellingeffecton theirinstrumentation, verticalspacing,
and timing.Varese'smusiccorrespondsverycloselyto Mittner'sdeline-
ation of several stages in the developmentof the expressionistic vision
as seen in poetryand painting:29
The visionaryqualityofexpressionism did notresultat once in a turn-
ing away from the observation ofreality,but reachedthisgoal through
a seriesofsteps.The firstwas a reductionofsensedata. Barlach took
a mostimportantstepin thisdirectionin 1901 ... he began to reduce
the linesofhis figuredrawingsto thosewhichseemedto himthemost
importantand so achieved a new, vigorous,and veryplasticpresen-
tation of the essence of his subject. The second step consistedin the
use of each of the aspects of sense perceptionas a thingin itself,
detachingit fromthe object to which it belongswiththeconsequent
deformation of realitytaken as an entity.Such a hypostatization took
place also in poetry with means specificallyderived from painting,
which produced a revolutionin the fieldof color. . . . Color was no
longeradded to figure,but figureto color.Fromsuchan unnaturalistic
joining of color and figure,it is but a shortstep to the unnaturalistic
combiningof any of the otherelementsof reality.
The dissociationof the various elementsof realityand theirreassem-
bling in new ways,isolating,as Kandinskydid, colorfromshape, etc. is
paralleled by the dissociation,first,of the variousso-called "elements"
of music-melody, harmony,rhythm.The next step was the more
subtle one of dissociatingcertain qualities fromothers,such as tone-
color fromthe above three,and finallythe dissociationof all the pres-
entlycalled "parameters"fromeach other.All ofthesetendenciesalong
withthe "reductive"methodare evidentin Varese.
29
Mittner, op. cit.,pp. 32ff.

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 EXPRESSIONISM AND AMERICAN MUSIC

In passing it is interestingto point out that the developmentof the

resourcesof instrumentaltechniques, which was not so common in
Europe untilrecently,had duringthisperiod an importantexponentin
America. Carlos Salzedo's ModernStudyoftheHarp (New York, 1921)
presentsa whole new repertoryof effectsforthat instrumentthatare
stillnot incorporatedinto our composers'vocabulary as are the latest
tapping and scrapingof the violin fromFrance and Poland.
Perhaps the otherstrikingfeatureof resemblancebetweenthesetwo
groupsis the avoidance of repetitionand the senseof continuousvaria-
tion. Ives' statementsabout thisare veryindicative:

Unity is too generallyconceived of, or too easily accepted, as

analogous to form,and formas analogous to custom,and customto
habit.30
Coherence,to a certainextent,must bear some relationto the lis-
tener'ssubconsciousperspective.But is thisits only function?Has it
not anotherofbringingouter or new thingsinto widercoherence?31
There may be an analogy-and on firstsightthereseemsto be-
between the state and power of artisticperceptionsand the law of
perpetual change, that ever-flowing
stream,partlybiological,partly
cosmic, ever going on in ourselves, in nature, in all life . .. Perhaps
thisis whyconformity in art (a conformitywhichwe seem naturally
to look for)appears so unrealizable,ifnot impossible.32

30 Ives,
op.cit.,p. 98.
31Ibid.,p. 98.
32Ibid.,p. 71.

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