Review: Head First

Author(s): Arnold Whittall

Source: The Musical Times, Vol. 147, No. 1894 (Spring, 2006), pp. 103-104
Published by: Musical Times Publications Ltd.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25434367 .
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more

than outline
on

commentary,

intense operas
history,

Of

that

the kind of detailed analysis and

some

the most

of

and symphonic

the argument

elaborate

and

in musical

works

requires.

six chapters, the third ('Conver

and the visual arts') is particularly
and informative, including a fasci

the book's

gences: music
well-researched

nating account of Kandinsky's charcoal sketches for

what became Impression III. There is also genuine
even

substance,

one

when

longs

for more

in

detail,

the discussions of Reger, Mahler and Strauss. Frisch's

analysis of possible allusions toMozart andWagner
inAriadne auf Naxos is interesting, even though the
that the 'multiple perspectives'
created by
a
Hofmannsthal
and Strauss 'yield kind of aesthetic
'
coherence ? amodernist coherence might be dispu
ted. Don't themusic's roots in tonality give classical,
claim

or

romantic

perspectives

role

stronger

than mo

dernist ones? Similarly, the suggestion

that 'for
Gustav Mahler, as for Thomas Mann, irony provi
ded both an escape hatch from German romanticism
and a lens through which it views it in sharp focus' is
difficult to use as the basis for the argument that
is a truly modernist
Mahler's Fourth Symphony
work. Frisch's concludes that Mahler 'is acknowled
ging for the listeners and critics [...] an unbridgeable
distance between them and the musical past. The
of that distance is the condition of
and itmust be reflected inmusic that is to

consciousness
modernity,
be

true

overall

to

its

effect

age'.

one

of

such

Fourth

periods

condition

of

in other

works

from

all

to define Mahler's

terms.

in the first and last chapters are particu

to
larly open
question. Frisch claims that 'Wagner's
conservative
[political and social] thought did not
match up with themodern style of his music', and he
boldly declares that the fact that Parsifal can be de
scribed as a 'feat of modernism
in the service of a
modern

message

that

his

an

Yet

achievement'.

wide

analysis

to

ranging enough
properly test this very sweeping
to the outlining of critical
is
sacrificed
hypothesis
perspectives, derived primarily
Adorno, which are themselves

from Nietzsche

and
in the

idiosyncratic
extreme. As for the final
chapter, to call Pfitzner's
an

Palestrina

of

example

modernism'

'regressive

seems to stretch the usefulness

of the noun to break

(as op
ing point. Is that opera genuinely modernist
if that term is still applied to any
posed to modern,
work created after 1900)? For
example, what Frisch
calls a 'charged opposition of old and new' in scenes
5 and 6 of Act 1,might better be heard as aspiring
towards the kind of synthesis - unstable, no doubt,
but not completely beyond reach ? of modern clas
sicism. But that introduces yet another category into
a critical debate that shows few
signs of settling
a
on
down into discussion based
universally agreed
criteria.

ARNOLD

WHITTALL

Head first
Le Marteau

sans ma?tre:

and thefirst fair

Pierre Boulez

facsimile of the draft score

copy of thefull score

Edited by Pascal Decroupet

A Publication
Schott

of

the Paul

(Mainz & London,

Sacher
2005);

psb

Foundation
2i5pp;

1015

154.

ISBN 3 7957 0453 7.

distance'.

Elements

social-cultural

of

old and new is such a

musical

that it seems necessary

distinctiveness

the

is a clear and

'unbridgeable

Here again, the play between

common

whether

questions

of Mahler's

sense

irresistible

Yet

heart

is so

regressive

points up the ambivalence

and

anti

that lies at the

fter

more

than

half

century,

Le Marteau

sans ma?tre retains itswell-founded

f\
reputation
.A- as archetypally
Jin its formal
Boulezian
multiplicity, and the apparent ease with which febrile
expressive volatility is drawn from systematic serial
roots. Moreover, its
supremely supple, delicately col
oured soundworld derives from a serial system that
baffles - even if it also fascinates - analysts schooled
in the 12-note
techniques of Schoenberg and We
bern.

So

publication

it's

appropriate

that

tomark Boulez's

the most

substantial

80th birthday, after the

THE MUSICAL TIMES

Spring

2006

IO3

reviews

I04 Book

edition of his writings (Paris:

new, comprehensive
should
deal in depth with this nine
Bourgois, 2005),
movement
response to three poems by Ren? Char.
The book - which covers a good deal more
? is in two
ground than its official title indicates
a
principal parts. In 69-page Introduction (printed,
as are all annotations, in both French and English)
Pascal Ducroupet provides an efficient and inform
ative sketch of matters pertaining to genesis and
process, based on the full range of
compositional
sources available at the Sacher Stiftung and else
where, and therefore, for all its brevity, more author
itative than the inspired but partial analysis worked
out from the score alone by Lev Koblyakov {Pierre
?
a world
1990)
of harmony, Harwood,
Bouley
hitherto the most detailed and penetrating technical
study of the work. The second part of the book,
a
and reproduces
describes
called Documents,
as
to
two
of
facsimiles
of
sketches,
sequence
prelude
complete versions of the score, the pencil draft and
the first fair copy in ink. Finally, the book repro
duces the second fair copy in ink of the work's first
'avant

movement,

"l'artisanat

furieux"',

score

includes various markings by both Boulez and

first conductor, Hans Rosbaud.
As noted above, the Introduction (despite a few
serves its
passing oddities in the English version)
on
mean
that
restrictions
space
purpose well, though

which

the work's

a full decoding

of serial processes

vided.

the

Rather,

cannot be pro
is

Introduction

strongest

on

are to the fore in

background: documentary values
the painstaking description of the work's chrono
a useful survey of 'Boulez's
logy, and there is also
serial thinking between
1952 and 1954', when the
was delineated,
technique
composer's multiplication
to the kind of
attracted
and he became increasingly
sound spectra that Le Marteau
This

narrative

on what

deploys.

to a considerable

from Boulez's

quotations
focusing

relies

Ducroupet

essays
sees

extent

of

on

the period,

as a concern

'to

recover the strength of the "specific" relationships

to thematicism without
returning to the
peculiar
"anecdote"

Ducroupet's

that

is

theme

concluding

itself.

quotation

Here,

as with

from one of

most

Boulez's

main

'Recherches

essays,

important

tenant' (1954) ? 'Let us claim for music the right to

a
parentheses and italics [...] concept of discontinu
ous

time made up of structures which

interlock
instead of remaining in airtight compartments; and
finally, a sort of development where the closed cir
cuit is not the only possible answer' - there is a clear
sense of concerns which have remained central to
thinking into much more
compositional
recent times. After this, the Introduction concludes
with a relatively brief survey of the issues involved
Boulez's

the music', which is useful as an

to
outline, serving
encourage further analytical work
on the music's
sophisticated negotiation between
in 'constructing

It also provides

fixity and choice.

recent

important

in par

serieller Musik:

Unter

publications

H?ren

ticular Musikalisches

to other

pointers

on Le
Marteau,
'

am

suchungen

sans ma?tre

"

von Pierre

Beispiel

(Saarbr?cken,

Documents

The

section

"LeMarteau

Boule?

2004) by Ulrich Mosch.

of

the volume

me

leaves

sketches
feelings. The reproduced
and
are, on the whole,
clearly
fully de
are
not
all
of
them
but
scribed,
actually transcribed,
faint pencil and notoriously
and the composer's
mixed

with

selected

their details
script make scanning
one
to be
even
in
what
presumes
extremely difficult,

miniaturised
'state

the

of

art'

to maxi

intended

reproductions,

no less of a problem with

legibility. Legibility is
is likely to persuade
which
the full pencil draft,

mise

serious

that

researchers

trip to Basel to consult

end,

this proves

no

easier

there

is no

substitute

for

the original ? even if, in the

to read.

For

celebratory

volume of this kind, the much more legible first fair

scored for vibra
copy in ink (the first movement
and guitar only), followed by the different
the second fair copy, might have been a
of
layout
more attractive proposition.
But it's probably no
bad thing if one puts this weighty, meticulously
phone

produced
pression
creator,

publication
that Le Marteau
remain

Arnold Whittall

as elusive

aside with
sans
and

im

the distinct

ma?tre,
enigmatic

as well

as

its

as ever.

is writing an introduction to serialism

Press.
for Cambridge University