Mark DeVoto

Theory of Harmony

There is a new critical foreword by Walter Frisch, H. Harold Gumm/Harry and Albert von Tilzer Professor of Music at Columbia University, that expands this centennial edition. Frisch puts Schoenbergs masterpiece into historical and ideological context, delineating the connections between music, theory, art, science, and architecture in turn-of-the century Austro-German culture.

The Debussy sound: colour, texture, gesture

Everyone who knows Debussys music recognises a distinctive ‘Debussy sound’ that is not a single quality but many; the sound of Debussys style in most of his works is harmony, instrumentation, texture, timbre, all to a greater or lesser extent. Even such wide-ranging elements as melody, rhythm, and microform affect Debussys quality of sound. The composer Jean Barraque, an astute analyst, spoke of Debussys habit of repeating phrases and phrase fragments in immediate succession as ‘the sole weakness that one might find in Debussys scores’, without suggesting that this kind of repetition is a fundamental aspect of Debussys sense of form; paired repetition, like breathing (which as a marker of time it somewhat resembles), is a trait of many composers from Vivaldi to Mozart to Rossini to Debussy; but in combination with others that we think of as characteristically sonorous, it is a trait that makes Debussys style instantly recognisable even on first hearing. Here we will discuss the sonorous rather than the temporal aspects of Debussys music, focusing particularly on orchestral and piano style, texture, and colour, recognising that these aspects often penetrate each other as much as they are components of overall form. Debussys earliest instrumental style Debussys earliest piano pieces and songs include a variety of different piano styles and textures, but nothing that is markedly different from those of his French contemporaries or from his Parisian predecessor Chopin, for whose music he always had a special understanding and regard. Accompanimental textures in Debussys songs of his Conservatoire years are more economical than in Faures of the same time, and for that reason they are often more effective. The Piano Trio of 1880, which Debussy did not publish, is the first of his works in which we can glimpse an instrumental style in addition to that already developing for the piano, but even though the ensemble always works well, again there is no notably original pianism.

Berg the Composer of Songs

‘Two things emerged clearly even from Berg’s earliest compositions, however awkward they may have been: first, that music was to him a language, and that he really expressed himself in that language; and secondly: overflowing warmth of feeling.’ Thus wrote Arnold Schoenberg in 1936 in a memoir intended for, but not printed in, Willi Reich’s 1937 memorial volume for Alban Berg.1 And later, in 1949: ‘when I saw the compositions he showed me—songs in a style between Hugo Wolf and Brahms—I recognized at once that he was a real talent.’2

Ravel by Roger Nichols (review)

Publications about Maurice Ravel and his music, especially those from British and American scholars, have increased in quantity and quality in recent years. Claude Debussy, whose sesquicentennial is celebrated this year, has been similarly favored, and once more the public has the opportunity to compare these two great French how it has functioned in several movies, and he celebrates a few classic recordings of it. Along the way, this includes a heartfelt appreciation of Chet Baker. The book’s fifty-page opening chapter traces effects of music in drama all the way back to Plato. Holbrook cites so much literature in just that one chapter that we could easily construct a course in film music from his research. For our convenience, he offers numerous examples to illustrate basic principles. For example, using the background music in the film Heart Beat (1979), he explains how a melodic theme exemplifies a particular character and is transformed across scenes according to how the roles played by that character are transformed in the story. In a later chapter Holbrook shows a loving appreciation for the musical style of Art Pepper, one of his favorite saxophonists, whose improvisations were put to good use on the sound track of Heart Beat. For fans of American literature Holbrook presents a sixty-five-page chapter that brings us through the history and works of Horatio Alger and then applies Alger’s American Dream theme to its recurrence in jazz biopics. He provides in-depth commentaries on movies about Glenn Miller, Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, Benny Good man, Gene Krupa, and Red Nichols. He continues with reference to Alger, but departs from movies, and delves into the life and writings of Artie Shaw. In doing this Holbrook is launching much of his final commentary from Shaw’s autobiography The Trouble with Cinderella. Using Shaw’s real-life preoccupations, Holbrook returns to illustrating the tension between art and commerce that he had touched previously in his analysis of Paris Blues. Much of the beauty in Holbrook’s writing is contained in characterizations regarding the effectiveness of ways in which background music underscores events on the screen. For example, “wherever the heroine approaches, we may hear a haunting love ballad associated with her sweet innocence, her virginal purity, and her tremulous sensitivity. Or an appearance of the villain may prompt the rehearsal of a nasty electronic wail that serves to represent his evil intent, his callous scurrility, and his maleficent machinations” (p. 5). Throughout his book, Holbrook acts as a film critic, not just as a psychologicallyminded musicologist. He gives us in-depth critiques of the acting and the scripts for several of the movies in his purview. Paris Blues and High Society, in particular, benefit from such attentions. He also critiques the critics. For example, he exposes the puzzling emphases that characterize Krin Gabbard’s interpretations of movie plots and characters. Gabbard has often imposed a strange preoccupation with racism and gender identity in his writings on music where such issues are not warranted. Another of the book’s virtues is its exceedingly flexible format. For example, because most of the chapters are selfcontained adventures, the book lends itself to movie and jazz buffs who wish merely to browse. Many of the chapters stand alone, with Holbrook as the generously forthcoming guide to excursions into the world of jazz and the movies. Exhaustive lists of citations pervade many discussions in the book. Non-scholars can skip them without doing any damage to the thrust of the text, whereas scholars may find the same literature reviews quite useful.

The Art of French Piano Music: Debussy, Ravel, Fauré, Chabrier (review)

ploring the modern concept of tonic and domi nant forms of a motive. Another of these practical suggestions involves the replacement in certain situations of octatonic 2̂ and 3̂ with the semitone that separates them: Scale A’s C C D E F G A B C becomes C D E F G A B C. The result is a rotation of what Polignac referred to as the “major-minor” scale (D E F G A B C D), which itself is a rotation of the ascending melodic minor scale, here starting on G. The “major-minor” scale appears in the full title of Polignac’s treatise, although it is not explored as extensively as the “chromaticodiatonic” scale. It was yet another rotation of this former scale that Polignac used in one of his early works mentioned above, and one he continued to explore in later works, sometimes in counterpoint with the octatonic scale. It is difficult to find fault with any aspect of Kahan’s study, although there are a few points to note: her interpretation of Polignac’s modulating octatonic cadences may overreach with its reference to a quote from Henri Reber (p. 187; the Reber work is his Traité d’harmonie [Paris: Colombier, E. Gallet, 1862]); the remark that “one senses Polignac’s frustration with the limitations of the octatonic collection” (p. 243) is undercut by the surfeit of other examples that seem to revel in sequential rotations by minor third; and the “uncanny parallel” (p. 122) between the Rimsky school’s association between the octatonic and the supernatural and Polignac’s association between this scale and the Oriental/Semitic might best be expressed by their shared interest in Leit-harmony. But in the end, these and other similar points are but minor quibbles. Kahan has found in Polig nac’s treatise a historical link between nineteenthand twentieth-century octatonicism as well as the first octatonic treatise in existence, and in his works of 1879 the first pervasively octatonic compositions. Finally, her study will force scholars to rethink the current understanding of the octatonic and its dissemination in France. As both Debussy and Ravel knew Polignac personally and attended his salon, the presumed Russian octatonic influence on them may in fact have come instead from a domestic source. Mark McFarland Georgia State University The Art of French Piano Music: Debussy, Ravel, Fauré, Chabrier. By Roy Howat. New Haven, CT: Yale Uni versity Press, 2009. [xvi, 400 p. ISBN 9780300145472.

Debussy and the Veil of Tonality: Essays on His Music

45.] Music examples, illustrations, appendices, bibliography, index.