Quarter-Tones and Progress

Author(s): Albert Wellek and Theodore Baker

Source: The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 12, No. 2 (Apr., 1926), pp. 231-237
Published by: Oxford University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/738459
Accessed: 31/01/2010 04:30

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless
you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you
may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=oup.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed
page of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Oxford University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Musical
Quarterly.

http://www.jstor.org
 QUARTER-TONES AND PROGRESS
By ALBERT WELLEK
EVERY art begins with a survey of its sphere, with a delimi-
tation of its elements. Words, as the elements of Poetry,
are necessarily limited in number by the nature of every
human language. No one, probably, will conceive the notion
that a writer in dialect who mingles his local idiom with the
standard language, or some scribe who intermingles several
languages, is in any way superior, as a poet, to one who maintains
his language in its purity. In any painting one finds only a com-
paratively limited number of colors; no painter would think of
applying all the colors of his palette in any one picture; and even
these colors are always methodically arranged and limited in
number.
What applies here, applies still more stringently to music.
Not until, out of the vast number of indeterminate natural sounds,
some fixed pitches have been selected and the rest discarded on
principle (considered merely as variants), do we have Music.
Such a selection is called a System. Among all European nations,
and therefore similarly in America, the so-called Semitonic System
has been established for centuries. It derives from the selectivity
inherent in our ear, that recognizes seven different tones, forming
the octave, which repeat themselves at various pitches; these
tones constitute the familiar diatonic scales, major and minor.
Of these seven tones, two show an essentially smaller difference
in pitch above the tones next below than the others, the interval
being approximately one-half as wide. These two intervals,
therefore, are called semitones, the others being whole tones. To
increase the number of tones at our command, "derivative"
semitones were set between the whole tones, indicated either by
a lowering of the higher whole tone in each pair, or by a raising of
the lower one, by a semitone. But, as such a semitone is not
precisely half a whole tone, the semitones thus obtained (e.g.,
c# and db between c and d) do not exactly coincide in pitch; and
the difference in pitch between them represents precisely the
limit ("threshold") at which the human ear can distinguish
between pitches. This least distinguishable difference in pitch
between two tones is called a comma. By raising or lowering
231
932 The Musical Quarterly
the pitch of such intermediatetones once more (or, in rare cases,
twice more) we obtain still furthervariants of the scale-tones. By
this means (and through transposition) our musical system gains
a considerablevariety of fixed, determinate pitches. In opposi-
tion to this there was soon felt (early in the eighteenth century)
the necessity for simplification,for a positive limitation within the
system. The difference between the two derivative semitones
(from above and below) was adjusted by abolishing the comma;
between each pair of consecutive whole tones only one interme-
diate semitone was recognized,and thus, by means of a general
compromise(the so-called Equal Temperament),the Octave was
divided into twelve tones exactly equidistant. So we now have a
"tempered" system instead of a pure system of tuning. This
tempered system is at present generally received; it is employed
for the piano, the organ, the harp, etc., and in essentials for the
orchestraalso. Yet the differencebetween the two kinds of semi-
tones is not, in point of fact, totally abolished; it is merely con-
fined to the conceptive faculty, the ideation, of the hearer. For
the tones of the tempered system are susceptibleof variousinter-
pretation, and the ear involuntarily interprets them according
to their connection with other tones; though their quantity
(numberof vibrations)be identical,their quality differs(psycholo-
gically). Thus, whilethe actual tone-materialis greatly simplified,
an approximation of the original diversity is psychologically
retained. This material identity and ideal diversity of the tones
is called the enharmonicrelation. This mere statement makes it
obvious that we do not, in fact, hear what is actually sounding,
but what we ought or wish to hear-what it is logical to hear.
And so, even on a piano out of tune, we can get the right idea of a
composition, although wrong tones are actually sounding. Our
ear, therefore, possesses an instinctive faculty of correction; it
converts wrong tones into correct ones, albeit distressfully.-
Moreover,let us not lose sight of the fact that our given materialof
only twelve tones is enormously diversified by the vast variety
of the several instrumentsand by their differentregisters,touches,
dynamics, and so forth.
Since the beginning of this century, however, scattered pro-
tests have been heard against the narrowconfinesof our semitonic
system, with hints that an exhaustion of its combinationalpossi-
bilities is only a matter of time. The technical resourcesof music
having been enriched more than sufficiently in the course of the
last century by the number, kind, and efficiency of the instru-
ments, the next step "forward"is now viewed as consisting in a
 Quarter-Tones and Progress 233

broadening of the foundations of musical art itself. Still, no one

really thinks seriously (like the great physicist Helmholtz some
seventy years ago) of reinstating the pure system of tuning in
preference to the tempered system. Instead of this, the idea has
been conceived of dividing up the octave within the tempered
system into narrower and more numerous intervals. The late
Ferruccio Busoni, for example, in 1906 proposed a system having
quarter-tones and sixth-tones. Others took Gypsy music and
certain exotic types as their pattern, and chose the quarter-tone.
They would halve the twelve equal intervals of our octave, thus
doubling the number of tones. For a long time this remained a
merely theoretical matter, or the subject of a few insignificant
experiments. Since its first emergence the idea has lost much of
its attractiveness and interest. Not until quite recently has the
young Czech composer Alois Haba won notable distinction in its
practical realization. He applied the harmony method for the
twelve (semi-) tones to his twenty-four, and invented new chro-
matic signs for the quarter- and three-quarter-tones. He also
ventured on serious composition according to this system, at first
for string-quartet and a cappella chorus, and had his compositions
performed in Germany (Berlin, Frankfort-on-the-Main, Donau-
eschingen). He has also tried a successful experiment with sixth-
tones. However, the resulting difficulties in intonation could not
be permanently overcome. On the violin, for example, there are
certain mechanical hindrances which appear to be wholly insuper-
able. When playing in the higher positions (say from the sixth
upwards) the fingers, even in the semitonic system, are brought as
close together as possible; if an attempt is made to halve the dis-
tance, the fingers get in each other's way. It is clear that the
interpretation of Haba's string-quartet (played also in Prague by
his Berlin players) was necessarily very imperfect, as is likewise
shown by the fact that these same players, in a performance of
ordinary semitone music, went slightly off the pitch. It would
seem that the certainty of fingering in general suffers, even for
the semitones, from playing the quarter-tones. Haba's endeavors
won their chief success last year when the Germano-Bohemian
firm of Forster, piano-makers, constructed a quarter-tone piano-
forte, which was introduced to the public at the International
Music Festival in Prague on June 3, 1924, by the composer him-
self. This instrument is a two-story piano (with two sets of
strings, one over the other), one set in normal tuning, the other
tuned a quarter-tone higher. There are three keyboards, ar-
ranged like the manuals of an organ; the front (lowest) and rear
234 The Musical Quarterly

(highest) keyboards control the semitonic set of strings, while

the middle keyboard plays the quarter-toneset. The transition
from this middle keyboard to the other two, and vice versa, is
always possiblefor hands and fingers,though difficult. A professor
in the Czech Conservatoryat Prague, Jan Herman, is occupied in
solving the problemsin piano technique arisingfrom this novelty.
On June 3, 1924, he played a piano suite by Haba and some small
pieces of his own composition. On account of excessive technical
difficulties, however, this virtuoso was unable to finish Haba's
suite, although all these compositions of Haba's are noticeably
simple in construction-they might be termed archaic. They
seem like instructive, pedagogical, pieces, in which one seeks in
vain for the free play of fancy or invention; they are less worksof
art than specimen pieces. One could not fail to recognize that
the novel resources had not succeeded in bringing to light any
novel emotional appeal whatsoever.
And, first of all, H&ba'sachievementslabor under a marked
psychologicaldefect. The quarter-tonesystem totally suppresses
the "pure"system of tuning, so that in this one point it displays
itself as poorer than the earlier (semitonic) system by a priceless
possibility. Pure tuning in quarter-tonesis unthinkable in the
nature of the case, because (as stated above) for our perceptive
faculty the differencebetween the semitone from below and the
semitone from above is indivisible. A half-commarepresents,for
any human ear, an indistinguishable difference in pitch. It
follows, that the quarter-toneis lacking in enharmonicdiversity
whenbroughtinto the temperedsystem; that is to say, the quarter-
tone between two semitonescannot be felt as derived either from
its higher neighboror its lower neighbor. Equal temperamentis,
in fact, only an abstraction from the "pure" system; and where
no pure system is possible, a tempered system, as its substitute,
is sheer nonsense. It follows, again, that the quarter-tonesystem
has no logical basis; for by ignoringthe pure system one does not
get rid of the difficulty, and this difficultyhas the most surprising
practicalresults. We mean, that the musician'ssense for absolute
pitch invariably conceives the interpolated quarter-tonesas vari-
ants of the next-higher semitones. The composer Haba seems
either to have missed this point, or at least to have regardedit as
unimportant. It is, nevertheless, a striking phenomenon. The
individuality of the several tones of our system is clearly percepti-
ble by the sense for absolute pitch, which is rightly comparableto
the color-sense of the eye. For instance, if a musician hears
(figuratively speaking) F as yellow and F# (Gb) as green, he
 Quarter-Tones and Progress 935
hears the interpolated quarter-toneas a drab green, a dirty green,
not at all as verging towards yellow. In spite of this, Haba calls
this tone "high F," so it seems that his entire theory and method
of harmony are built upon sand. For example, in consideration
of the peculiar tendency of the quarter-toneto resolve upwards,
a triad containingthe intermediatetone between major and minor
third must necessarily have a major character:

- ...not

Furthermore,a triad with its major third raised by a quarter-

tone can no longer be conceived as a major triad; the new tone
has, rather,the significanceof a suspendedfourth, with a tendency
to fall to the major third:

Another practical result of this state of affairs is, that in Haba's

quarter-tone piano the placement of the middle keyboard in
relation to the others is at fault;-the keys correspondingto the
keys of the ordinary piano strike a quarter-toneabove the latter
instead of a quarter-tonebelow. The quarter-toneset of strings
should not be tuned a quarter-tone higher, but a quarter-tone
lower. The fact that the tendency of quarter-tonesis upwards,
rather than the reverse, is probably due to the circumstancethat
the earlier-notedcorrectivefaculty of our ear must, in most cases,
operate in an upward direction, because almost every deviation
from pitch is caused by relaxation of tension, with consequent
loweringof pitch. Our ear strives to restore the tension, to raise
the pitch-this is the rule. Now, the quarter-tone has no life
of its own, as proved by the foregoing; it is dependent, and must
so remain. Consequently, Haba's system must naturally appear
illogical, heterogeneous,incoherent, for the semitones in it might
well be interpreted enharmonically, whereas the quarter-tones
can not, so that the latter wholly debar the former. There are,
in this system, tones with a life of their own, but also just as many
without, and these latter vitiate the entire system. This is in line
with the surprisinglyslight effect of the novel system, calculated
to disillusion even the skeptical. True, the effect is not "gray,"
236 The Musical Quarterly

or "colorless,"as the composer assumes of the first impression,

but vague, characterless,inexpressive. All in all, it adds an unac-
customed tang, dims the tone-color, and heightens the dragging
effect of the chromatics. Once the charm of novelty is worn off,
the inferiorityof the new system as contrasted with the old must
be clear to all. One is obliged to sacrificemuch in order to gain
little. Indeed, the quarter-tone, and still finer gradations, are
by no means unknown in our semitonic system, but are welcome
guests; they are the nuances, the shades of tone, employed by
singers, violinists and other performingartists in conformity with
the peculiaritiesof their instrumentsand their own musical sensi-
bility, at first unconsciouslyand then as a matter of habit, without
directions from the composer. It would be equally difficult and
useless to prescribe such delicate nuances and transitions; for,
owing to shortcomingsin our instrumentsand in their technique,
these nuances arise unbidden, changeable, and indeterminate.
Contrastedwith them, the quarter-toneseemsinflexibleand pedan-
tic; it hinders the free play of the nuances without rising to an
equality with the semitones and living its own life.
In this entire experiment,therefore,we recognizea fundamen-
tal aestheticmisconception. Not without reasondid Music pursue
the path from More to Less, and choose the system of equal tem-
peramentratherthan that of pure tuning; not without reason did
she retain the capability of returningat will to the pure system and
refreshingherself at the fount. From 12 to 24 is not an advance,
but an aberration,a loss. For what is the diversity of the quarter-
tones in comparisonwith the puresemitonicsystem? It is nothing
more than a loosening and diffusion of the voluntarylimitation of
Music-hence, a compromise,a contradiction. After all, strength
resides in limitation, not in multiplication, which is found every-
where. But for Haba and his fellowship,even though they believe
that they have, in very truth, fructifiedmusic, it is not a question
of More, but of Differentiation. And yet, this striving after
originality rests, as proved by the outcome, on one more funda-
mental misconception. In art the idea, the concept, is the vital
matter, and it is apart from and independentof the formal means.
The musicianis no more dependenton the tones than the sculptor
on the marble. And just as one sees, in a piece of sculpture, not
the marblebut the idea, one hearsin a compositionnot the pitches,
but the conception. No art is simply a permutationor combina-
tion of its basic elements. Therefore,the conceptive fancy alone
can reformart, not speculative experimentingwith technical pos-
sibilities; not scientific calculation, but creative genius. If an
 Quarter-Tones and Progress 237
idea be new, it will invest even the old resources with new meaning
and new modes of association;-just as language, moulded by the
creative spirit of the poet, expands in natural growth, without his
having first to invent some new and unheard-of twist of syntax.
Neither is there any musical thought that can be expressed in the
quarter-tone system exclusively, and not in any other way. While
it may first occur to one in quarter-tones, it might just as well
emerge in third-tones, or sixth-tones, or eighth-tones-or (and
most probably) within the semitonic system. Where shall we
draw the line?-and where, after all, is the difference? He is the
true artist, who can mould the given material at will; should we
not have our doubts concerning a poet who claimed to have ideas
not susceptible of expression in any known tongue? Such a
spectacle has of late been presented for our derision by the Dadaists.
True talent, in fact, recognizes the value of limitation and
learns to love it. Such talent sees no hindrance in limitation, but
rather that voluntary dependence that Goethe, in his maturity,
called the most pleasurable of all conditions. It is, at all events,
the sole condition wherefrom the Beautiful can arise.
The speech of the quarter-tone enthusiasts, however, is not
that of artists, but of dilettanti-of those who, lacking inward
capacity for individual expression, seek forcibly to enlist an exter-
nal agency. Hereby, of course, the floodgates of dilettantism are
thrown wide, for in this newly discovered region all who list can
wander at will; whatever they do will be "new"-at first. But
not everything that is "new" is good, or even original. And all
the quarter-tones in the world will not raise a commonplace con-
ception to significance.
Thus the whole question is reduced to a pure technicality, of
much the same importance as the question whether Wagner tubas
or xylophones are admissible in the orchestra. And after all!-
it depends on the given case; but it has nothing to do with a reform
or a renovation of Art. Either of these can be brought about by
intuition alone. We do not, however, wish to rob Herr Haba of
the credit due for a valuable psychological experiment!

(Translated by Theodore Baker.)