Introduction  |  Playing Lieder from 1908/09 - Contextualisation III

Introduction

In my third concert, I decided to oppose Opus 15 with other Lieder that were composed in 1908 and 1909 and performed works by Pfitzner, Reger and Berg. While the first two contextualisations appeared to be logical points of departure in my exploration of Opus 15, as they were related to aspects that seemed more or less directly accessible through the score and offered the opportunity to potentially discover internal similarities between Opus 15 and the other repertoire in the form of a certain “performative feel” pertinent to the style or language of the poet and the composer respectively, the third contextualisation appeared to have less obvious benefits. Nevertheless, it seemed logical to continue the project by familiarising myself with different ways of writing and different performance ideals of the time. I hoped to get closer to the spirit of the age and to find out what occupied the composers about their works, about performance in general and performance of their own music specifically.I was aware of the impossibility to gain a sense of the different styles from just a few examples and had learned through my experiences with the second contextualisation that it takes time to immerse oneself completely in the musical language of a composer, but I thought that reflecting on these topics and feeling and playing these songs might nevertheless inform my understanding of Opus 15 in a new way and thus enrich my playing. The frame I gave the concert also made sense with regard to the audience that I thought might find it interesting to hear compositions of different styles from around the same time and to be introduced to less-known repertoire. Apart from the three songs from Berg’s “Sieben frühe Lieder”, none of the works are often performed.

Playing Lieder from 1908/09 - Contextualisation III

Each of the works we presented in the third concert had a different background and posed different challenges: Hans Pfitzner believed that Schönberg’s modernism was a foreign influence on German culture.1 His anti-modernist writings from 1917 and onward led to tensions between him and Schönberg’s circle. Pfitzner and Schönberg developed different ideas in reaction to the cultural phenomena of their time. The musical culture around the turn of the century was characterised by a false nostalgia and social hypocrisy, especially in Vienna. In his thesis on the performance practice of Schönberg’s circle, Alfred Cramer wrote: “Music became a vehicle for assimilation, having arisen not spontaneously but out of a desire for social prestige. […] Because of this ulterior motive, the music of the turn of the century was overloaded with extra-artistic connotations, mainly connected with its function as a stand-in for the social high life. […] The famous virtuoso, the successful composer, or the player in the Vienna Philharmonic was a distinguished citizen; but the average musician or the slovenly one was almost an outcast. Concerned above all to rank musicians, people scrutinized every technical detail of execution and paid little attention to aesthetic features.”2 Schönberg and his circle tried to change the audience’s attitude and the common way of performing that they found overly dramatic, emotional and self-publicising by organising the Society concerts. Pfitzner was also concerned with performance. He was a conductor himself and often complained about distinguished conductors’ “offences against works of music and their unwillingness to be corrected”.3 He was against irreverent and wilful approaches to performance and staging and wanted to establish universally applicable guidelines on how a work should be interpreted.4 He argued that fidelity to the written word was tantamount to devotion,5 yet he did not always practice Werktreue himself and improvised, for example, interludes in Schumann’s song cycles, also in public performances.6

Pfitzner’s works show a large variety of styles, as he embraced both advanced post-Wagnerian harmonies, diatonic melodic writing inspired by Schumann, or grandiose effects similar to Strauss.7 He was concerned with the preservation of the Romantic tradition. The variety in style might be explained by his main aesthetic view that great music was inspired by an idea (Einfall) and not constructed intellectually.8 Pfitzner’s stylistic variety is also evident in his songs Op. 24 and was perhaps the primary challenge for us performers. The songs were even intended for different types of voices. For practical reasons, I decided to perform all of them with one singer nevertheless, and we worked a lot on the expression and balance in each song. Grieg9 set a slightly different translation of the poem that Pfitzner chose for the first song of Opus 24. Both for the performers and the audience, Grieg’s setting is perhaps easier accessible as it has a more folksong-like feel to it. Although Pfitzner’s song also uses easily recognisable elements, like the rhythmical motive of the triplet upbeat followed by two quarter notes and the nightingale-motive, there is a certain brittleness and transparency in this setting that I found very intriguing. In the third song of Opus 24, which Pfitzner confessed was his preparation for “Palestrina”, the only of his works that is widely performed,10 the long, expressive contrapuntal lines feel very different to the first song. For us, one of the main challenges was to both keep the tension and to find the right flow and way of breathing for each voice, so they fit together. In both the second and the fourth song, which according to the title of the original edition were intended for baritone and alto respectively,11 balance was an issue, particularly in the reverberant acoustics of the concert hall. At the early stages of rehearsing with the singer, I realised that I tended to pay most attention to balance, but should instead focus on the intensity and expressiveness of the songs first and then if necessary reduce the dynamics.

By performing duets by Max Reger, we presented works by another composer who is little performed today. Also during his lifetime, his music was little appreciated outside Germany.12 Schönberg, however, thought very highly of Reger and encouraged the performances of his works. Reger was one of the most-played composers in the concerts of Schönberg’s Society for Private Musical Performances, so much that Steuermann remarked in a letter to Schönberg in October 1920: “Our programs suffer already a little from Reger-hypertrophy, but it is often difficult to get by without the saving ‘50 minutes’”.13 Yet, Schönberg continued to promote Reger. In a letter to Zemlinsky two years later, he still wrote: “Reger must in my view be done often; 1, because he has written a lot; 2, because he is already dead and people are still not clear about him. (I consider him a genius.)”14 Schönberg saw Reger as one of his precursors. In Folk-music and Nationalism, he stated “I also learned much from Schubert and Mahler, Strauss and Reger too.”15 and in Criteria for the Evaluation of Music, he argued that Reger together with Mahler and himself played a role in creating the new technique of developing variation16 turning against four-bar phrasing and sequences. In Brahms the Progressive, Schönberg quotes the first phrase of Reger’s Violin Concerto as an example for an “indivisible five-measure unit”.17

Although I perceived Reger’s closeness to Brahms – in fact, the duets reminded us of Brahms – the connection to Schönberg seemed less obvious in a physical sense. Despite similar tendencies against four-bar phrases, for example in “Frühlingsfeier”, Reger’s music had a very different feel to me as a performer than Schönberg’s works. Reger’s dense harmonic style seemed in my view far away from the often thin and brittle sonority of Opus 15. While Reger asks for a lot of pedal in his scores of the duets, according to Steuermann “Schoenberg always insisted that his music be played almost without pedal”.18 Reger was a pianist and organist himself, and although he did not manage to maintain his technique after 1894 and was thus unable to play his most ambitious organ works that were composed later,19 he still performed and premiered, for example, the third of the duets Opus 111a in 1908.20 This might explain why these duets had a very pianistic and almost improvised feel to me. I could imagine Reger sitting in front of the piano and writing down what he plays. Reger was an expert in modulation, as his treatise “Beitrage zur Modulationslehre” (Supplement to the Theory of Modulation) illustrates. The sometimes surprising harmonies of the duets caused some difficulties for the singers in the initial learning stage, but once we were acquainted with them, the music felt rather natural and easy-going. Thus, the primary challenge that remained for me was that I had to relate to two singers in a concert otherwise consisting of solo Lieder, which required adjustments in balance and a different kind of flexibility in the ensemble.

Alban Berg began to write lieder in 1901 but first in 1904 he started taking lessons with Schönberg, first in counterpoint and harmony, and since 1907 in composition. In 1910, Schönberg wrote in a letter to his publisher about Berg’s talent: “One (Alban Berg) is an extraordinarily gifted composer. But the state he was in when he came to me was such that his imagination apparently could not work on anything but Lieder. Even the piano accompaniments to them were song-like in style.”21 As the correspondence between them shows, Berg was committed to Schönberg’s ideas: “Advocacy for Schoenberg’s doctrines and beliefs is the single most important leitmotif in the correspondence. Almost everyone mentioned, however prominent in his or her own right, is seen as a believer or a detractor. Even Webern appears less as an individual than as a protagonist for Schoenberg’s ideas.”22  

Although it might have been equally interesting to play Berg’s Songs Op. 2 from 1909 and early 1910, where he crossed the line to atonality in the last song, I decided instead to perform his Jugendlieder from 1908 as they are usually not heard in this combination. I mentioned the orchestral feel of “Sieben frühe Lieder” and elaborated on the challenge of studying them in different keys in the previous section on collaboration. Another challenge we encountered was the integration of the two songs that were not published in “Sieben frühe Lieder”. They were the two shortest songs we performed in the first half of the concert, and as they were never intended for publishing, they contain much sparser performance indications. Although Berg never wanted them published, he must have seen some value in a few of his early songs. He gave, for example, a copy of ten of his songs, including “An Leukon” and what would later become “Sieben frühe Lieder” to his wife as a present on occasion of the tenth anniversary of their meeting.23 “An Leukon” is also the only song that was published after Berg’s death during the lifetime of his widow.24

While it was interesting to study different performance ideologies of the time, they did not influence our performance decisions as much as the text, sound and feel of each Lied. Each work posed specific challenges, but these challenges seemed to have little to do with the fact that all of them were composed in 1908 and 1909. My perception of the contextualisation, the sound and feel of the different Lieder and the tension and energy of their performance probably influenced how I played Opus 15, but my collaboration with a new singer made it impossible for me to trace the influences of the contextualisation itself in my playing. My work with a new singer and my growing awareness of the different roles I can have as a collaborative pianist in different contexts led to my reflections on collaboration, which had a decisive influence on my playing as I elaborated on in the previous section. As the topic of the contextualisation was less tangible than that of the two previous concerts and because most of the artistic inspiration and challenges were unrelated to the frame I gave the third concert when I planned the project, this contextualisation in itself seemed to have had the least influence on my playing and understanding of Opus 15 compared to the other two.

This might also partly have to do with the fact that I had gathered much of the information previously to my work on the third concert and the corresponding lecture-recital. For example, I had already started to study Schönberg’s performance ideals when I prepared the second concert. I also had held a lecture in connection with the Lied-class I taught together with my main supervisor, in which I introduced the students to the historical and cultural background of Schönberg and his school and the different literary styles of the time. 

Schönberg’s controlling attitude towards performance felt at times very constricting to me. He remarked for example in a letter to Paul Cronheim from the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam that Steuermann in 1923 was the only pianist who played “the authentic interpretation” of his piano music.25 Even as late as 1949, Schönberg preferred Steuermann as the performer of his music. In an interview with the singer Rose Bampton, he called Itor Kahn a good pianist but added: “This I know but I never heard him play my music. Maybe he's very good but I don't want to take a chance as I have such an excellent singer as Mrs. Pelletier--Miss Rose Bampton. I would like to have also such a good accompanist as Mr. Steuermann.”26 

The contextualisation had perhaps the clearest impact through its contribution to my growing realisation of the need to understand Schönberg’s view on performance as a reaction to his time that also made me more secure in going against him when I felt performing for an audience of today required it. Although Schönberg kept to his performers of choice, some of his later remarks also hint at a more tolerant view on performance. For example, in 1935 he recommended the pianist Erwin Nyregyhazy to Otto Klemperer. Although Nyregyhazy’s way of performing did not correspond to Schönberg’s artistic ideals as he played “only expression in the older sense”27 with tempi Schönberg did not agree with, sharp contrasts and a rich sound that was too much for Schönberg, his persuasive and expressive power convinced him.

During my studies for the third contextualisation, I became also fascinated with the practices of the “Verein für musikalische Privataufführungen”, the Society for Private Musical Performances, which was founded by Schönberg in 1918 and which was one of the major endeavours of his circle until the end of 1921. Dissatisfied with the usual level of performance and the audience’s lacking understanding of modern music, the Society aimed at giving “artists and art-lovers a real and accurate knowledge of modern music.”28 Alban Berg’s prospectus for the Society underlined that its goal was not to promote the composers and that no style would be favoured in the choice of repertoire.29 Although works by Berg and Webern appeared already in the programs of early 1919, Schönberg’s music was first performed in the autumn of 1920. Reger was one of the most frequently performed composers30 and even works by Pfitzner were played in 1919.

To reach their goal of giving an accurate understanding of the music, the Society followed three main principles: clear, precise performances that were prepared in as many rehearsals as necessary, frequent repetitions of the works in different concerts, occasionally even in the same concert, and withdrawal from the “corrupting influence of publicity”.31 Steuermann, who premiered almost all of Schönberg’s works for piano solo and chamber music with piano, and who was one of the leading performers at the Society’s concerts, reported: “The programs were never announced in advance either, because Schoenberg didn’t want people to be able to “pick the candies from the cakes.” Applause was forbidden; the audience was not supposed to create “success” or “no success,” but only to accept what was offered.”32 Cramer points out that most of the Society’s ideals build on ideas that are already apparent in the Schönberg-Busoni correspondence from 1909.33 The concerts presented Lieder, solo and chamber music, and bigger orchestra works that were performed in arrangements for piano four-hand or small ensembles, as it was difficult to find and pay performers. Despite the emphasis on preparation and a correct and clear way of performing, these were not concerns that were shared in detail with the public, although the idea to the Society was sparked by a successful series of open rehearsals of Schönberg’s Chamber Symphony and although there were oral introductions to the concerts.34

My fascination with the Society, particularly with their concept of the repetition of repertoire, inspired my original ideas for the final concert of the project. As I discussed when I elaborated on my approach to the score and my role as a performer, I often find that I have only one choice of how I play at a given moment. Even though I am aware of other possible decisions, I have preferences at the moment of the performance, and I believe that my preferred interpretation is always more convincing than the alternatives I could show the audience. Nevertheless, it can be interesting for them to experience multiple manifestations of the same work. My project afforded the audience the opportunity to hear different versions of Opus 15 that were prompted by particular contextualisations and developed over time, but the time span between the concerts made it difficult for the audience to compare them. 

While it is possible to show small examples of another way of playing to an audience as is suitable to do in a lecture-recital, it would be difficult to perform two very different interpretations of the complete work convincingly shortly after each other. Although practice does not fix a performance entirely, it sets certain frames for it and helps the performers to learn and know when it “feels right”, to shape the moment out of an idea of the whole. I believe, however, that I might be able to feel conviction in two different interpretations if they were connected to two different singers and thus to two distinct voices and musical personalities with whom I would negotiate the performance. My original idea for the final concert was, therefore, to perform opus 15 twice with two different singers. For practical reasons, it was unfortunately not possible to put this idea into action. I would have needed to find a third singer with whom I could play Opus 15, and although a new collaboration partner would have made it easier to consciously develop a different interpretation, for example with a male singer, there was too little time between the concerts to find a suitable partner and gain the necessary trust and security in the ensemble to make the performance convincing.