October 13, 1964 I had intended to write to you this morning, as the second in the series of letters outlined , last week, on the "theory of rhythm," and music as a "time-art." However, I think it would be better to save that until next week, since matters of text and language arose during last night's rehearsal -- some intentional, some inadvertent ; and irretrievable -- and since, from here, it appears that these ought to be the focus of next week's rehearsal. In the main, last night's rehearsal was concerned with aspects of phrasing: in particular, the use of loudening and quieting -- of crescendo and diminuendo -- as the principle techniques of forming "phrases" out of consecutive notes; and, in two cases at least, the suggestion that time need not always march rachet-like on -- which must have confounded a singer or two after the assembly-line metric premises (?f the week previous. ("Phrasing" should be the subject of a letter two weeks away.) The rehearsal of eight days ago was substantially a basic and bruising rhythdrill -- not directed primarily at learning the rhythmic and metric matters of the Mozart Requiem (though that was one result), but even more stringently and pertinently, I feel, using the metric motives of the Requiem to sharpen and rlrill our basic rhythmic sensibilities.
~
Therefore, since it is one of the legs of the choral stool, the emphasis of the next rehearsal ought to be text: words, language, enunciation, meaning, poetry and associated phenomena. It occurs to me at this pondering that language as related to music has four meanings. In the first place language almost always has a reasonably decipherable, dictionary-, "literal-" meaning. One can usually find near-equivalents -- even from one language to another. "Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine" at the very least means, "Rest eternal give them, Lord." (From here on out we may wish that we knew a little bit more about "meaning" -- and its meanings; but le t 's go ahead, and see if we still can accomplish something with the commongarden variet y of meaning.) I said above "almost always" because there are texts, of course, which are so obscure as to resist paraphrase or translation. Such a text, in part, is that of Christopher Smart, used by Benjamin Britten in Rejoice in th e Lamb: For For For For For For For For For For For For For For For
His K is Lis Mis
a spirit and therefore he is God. king and therefore he is God.• love and therefore he is God. musick and therefore he is God.
the instruments are by their rhimes, the shawm rhimes are lawn fawn and the like. the shawm rhimes are moon boon and the l ike. the harp rhimes are sing ring string and the like. the cymbal rhimes are bell well toll soul and the li ke. the flute rhimes are tooth youth suit mute and the l ike. the bassoon rhimes are pass class and the like. the dulcimer rhimes are grace place beat heat and t he like. the clarinet rhimes are clean seen and the li ke. the trumpet rhimes are sound bound soar more and t he l i ke . the trumpet of God is a blessed intelligence and so are all the instruments in Heav1 n.
-2-
Nowthis, at least in terms of "the boy throws the ball," is relatively obscure. All the words are certifiable; all of them possess dictionary equivalents; the grammar is uncluttered and precise -- but the meaning is obscure. Still, it is not so obscure as out-and-out "nonsense" -- which plays a considerable part, as anyone can attest, in folk-music: There was a wee cooper wha1 lived in Fife. Nickety nackety noo noo noo An' he has takenagentle wife. Hey willy wallacky Ho John dougal alain Quorashety roo roo roo. Still, in that first place, except for occasional nonsense or intended surrealistic obscurity, most of music's texts have a definable and paraphrasable meaning. The second meaning that language bears in music is one that has accrued to it through tradition and association. In essence this is a social and institutional tradition: that is, it belongs to a number of people, both past and present, who have shared a given body of understandings, rituals, beliefs -- and communications. Names obviously have this sort of association: Jim Thorpe, Sergeant York, Yankee Doodle, T.R., FDR, JFK, Whirlaway, Big Red, Han o 1 War; consider, for instance, the difference in flavor, patina and eventual meaning between "Honest Abe" and "A. Lincoln" -- same person, different emphases. --But also consider what happened to Edgar Guest's Motherhood on the way to meet Philip Wylies's Momism; consider how loaded a word "extremism" can become in a few weeks, or how unfunny a word like "vigah" became in a few moments last November. The member of the Optimist Club does not find his motto fatuous; the horror of "Babyland" in Forest Lawn Cernetary is not apparent to all anguished Southern California parents; the Boy Scout oath to the twelve-year old is not initially a covenant to be "honest, trustworthy, obedient" etc. etc., but a magic formula that makes him a member of a troop -- world-wide, and uniformed. Similarly but positively, "Requiem aeternam ••• " is by no means limited to "Rest eternal give them, Lord," but is centuries-full of the meanings of death. In Rejoice in~~ Christopher Smart talks about the "language of flowers." Well, there is also a language of dying; and since 1250 (surmised date for the writing of the Dies Irae sequence) for most of Western Civilization a "requeim" text has been the source, center or formalization ,of the language of death. It carries, I feel sure, not only the commitments of those who at present share its literal religious formula, but since it is a formalization familiar to governments, societies, sects and celebrants outside its specific institutional domain it carries also the accumulations, adhesions, qualifications and addenda of the entire family of man, including, I should think, lines on an eighteenth century gravestone on Nantucket My days in infancy were spent While to rrr:,parents I was lent. One fleeting look to them I gave And then descended to the grave.
-or four days in November, or the diary of Anne Frank x 10,000,000o
-3The third of language's meanings to be dealt with in music is even less open to measurement ~nd analysis, because it is not subject to the evidence of incident or history. It is the proposition that, just as there is a language of death, so also is there a language of language. In its most primitive form we know this as onomatopoeia, "the formation of words in imitation of natural sounds -- hiss •••• buzz •••• plop •••• bob-white. 11 However, all the elements which give langua'gea greater intensity of communication give it also greater value and greater meaning. Rhyme, rhythm, meter, assonance, alliteration -- are warp and woof not merely of style, but also of meaning. Lewis Carroll's
"non-sense"
is not necessarily
without
all meaning;
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabs: All mimsy were the borogoves And the mome raths outgrabe •••• : Dylan Thomas1 .fern Hill appoints simple words to unique, oblique functions, but their rhythm and intonation is part of their meaning; and one who has heard the sound of Dylan's voice, reads more richly: · Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green, The night above the dingle starry, Time let me hail and climb Golden in the heydays of his eyes, And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves Trail with daisies and barley Down the rivers of the windfall light~ And as I was green and carefree, famous About the happy yard and singing as the In the sun that is young once only, Time let me play and be Golden in the mercy of his means, And green and golden I was huntsman and Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills And the sabbath rang slowly In the pebbles of the holy streamsg
among the barns farm was home,
herdsman, the calves barked clear and cold,
All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, tt e hay Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air And playing, lovely and watery And fire green as grass~ And nightly under the simple stars As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing t he farm away, All the moon long I heard, blessed among st ables, the nightjars Flying with the ricks, and the horses Flashing into the dark.
-4And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all Shining, it was Adam and maiden, The sky gathered again And the sun grew round that very day. So it must have been after the birth of the simple light In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm Out of the whinnying green stable On to the fields of praise. And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long, In the sun born over and over, I ran my heedless ways, My wishes raced through the house high hay And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that tim ~3 a.:Uows In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs Before the children green and golden Follow him out of grace, Noth:l-ng I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand, In the moon that is alw~ys rising, Nor that riding to sleep I should hear him fly with the high fields And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land~ Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means, Time held me green and dying Though I sang in my chains like the sea. Who is to say how much of the intensity of the Dies irae text comes · from sense, and how much from sensation: the lopsided eccentric swing of three-line rhymings; the hammering, riveting strokes of alliteration and assonance which begin stanza two -- "Quant us ••• ~ quando ••• ~ cuncta •• e ~11 Dies irae, dies illa Solvet saeclum in favilla Teste David cum Sybilla. Quantus tremor est futurus Quando judex est venturus Cuncta stricte discussurus. Certainly "association". in tongues.
there is a meaning in language which is independent of "sense" or It inheres (in) sound itself, -- a babble of ecstacy, a speaking
All these meanings of language -- sense, association and sound -- could be in text, of course, independent of a collaborative composer. Therefore, the fourth and perhaps most important meaning of language as related to music is the contribution of the composer -- his intent and his meaning. This is at the essence of our interpretative problem.
-5Let us admit at the beginning that almost without exception the composer begins with the text. "In the beginning is the word," and the composer assumes responsibility for making it flesh -- or, at least, appearance. -But if we should begin our interpretative procedures with the text, then we are in great danger of denying ourselves the composer's commentary. Should we take the position that because the Requiems of Mozart, Verdi and Faure have substantially the same text they also have the same meaning, we are in a prime posture of artistic insolence and human emaciation. There is, of course, a more apparent tie between words and music in the song literature than in the choral complex. The art-song, the folk-song a..~dthe popsong more frequently will effect between tone and text an expressivity and shape which is parallel, Analogous and occasionally nearly identical. -But even within their fieids there is an independence of musical and textual symbols. Perhaps the most primitive of song-forms is the strophic-, verse- or stanzaic- lyric or narrative. Within this form, since the same short tune must serve several verses and a multiplicity and variety of texts, if we grant the song's communication we must admit that the tune has a structure and meaning of its own. "Structure" is a key-word here; squiggles called "letters" a meaning, ing numerical symbols, then there is a formula -- a structure -- in sound
for if we grant to an assemblage of little or if we grant meaning to a formula involvno reason why we should not grant meaning to and time.
The great composer, then, beginning under the inspiration of text, atte mpts to fashion a musical structure that will match his text not syllable by syllable, accent for accent, duration for duration or intonation for intonation, but rather will match it spirit for spirit and structural soundness and expressivity for structural soundness and expressivity -- even though one structure be of the symbols we call words and the other a structure in tone and time which we call music. That this is so, recall Mozart's opening measures of the Rex Tremendae: three incredible tonal explosions of "Rex-hood" which certainly are unprescribed by the letter of the literal law. Recall what energy Beethoven, in the Missa Solemnis manages to implode into his several isolated shouts of et~ It is the fervor of the early evangelist or campaign orator, 11Moreover~ ••• - Absolut ely unbelievable ~ --But I promise you that ••• 1 Moment by moment the composer is writing his commentary upon the text. It is written in musical terms with musical symbols: pitch, duration, accent, tone. To find his meaning we must first reproduce these symbols. (This is one of the reasons I feel the choral art begins not with voice lessons but with music lessons.) I wondered when I -started this four-stage missile in to the air where it would fall to earth, and I now find a remarkable coincidence of theory and function. Our responsibilities as choral artists engaged with musical text are precise and four-fold: One: to deliver the sounds of the text so that th ey at least make sense available, or so that the text could be understood if one isolated it f rom compli cating and competitive factors, like five words at once, or three brass bands over "let me whisper to you once more , 'darling, I lo ve you. 111 Two: to deli ver the text with the fervor standing of its contemporary inferences.
of its historical
seed and an under-
-6Three: to deliver with energy and ecstacy the fantastic vocal kaliedoscope of language, the microcosmic babble and bauble of man's conu~unication, sound for sound's sheer delight. Four: to deliver the composer's scribed in his musical language. The know-how here is not nearly would makeafurther letter.
intent,
understanding
so difficult
and passion
as the want-to
as pre-
-- but these
R
ANNOUNCEMENTS: GUESTS: We should like to make our Monda.ynight rehearsals open to all who would like to attend, but unfortunately this is not possible. Space and fire laws make it necessary to limit the number of guests attending each rehearsal. Please arrange in advance for any guests that you would like to bring with you. Too many gaests on a given night can mean that everyone might be asked to leave. We ask that
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guests to the Sunday sectional
to the rehearsals
"with orchestra"
rehearsals. without
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SUNDAY TICKETS: The Sunday Afternoon Concert tickets you have received represent the complimentary ticket, to which you are entitled, for each of the performances in which you participate, plus a bonus of four concerts. third
An exception is the performance of the Beethoven Ninth, which will have no performance because of the Carnegie Hall concert on February 8. The first
concert
on the Sunday Afternoon
series
will be:
LOUISLANEConducting EUNICEPODIS, Piano RAFAELDRUIAN,Violin Concerto for Violin and String No. 1 in A minor, BVW1041
Orchestra
J .s. Bach
Concerto for Piano and String Orchestra No. 1, Op. 35, with Solo Trumpet
Shostakovich
Concerto for Violin, Orchestra, Op. 21
Chausson
Piano and String
IJEWYORKCONCERT: The Musical Arts Association will provide transportation, hotel accommodations and meals for all of you who participate in th e Car negie Hall concert. This is true from the time we leave Severance Hall, in bus es, for the airport, until we return to Severance Hall, in buses. Sunday Monday
October October
18 19
5: 00 p.m.
8:00 p.m.
Women All