Book Review: Keith Waters, Rhythmic and Contrapuntal Structures in The Music of Arthur Honegger & Honegger, Nicolas de Flue (CD)

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Book review: Keith Waters, Rhythmic and Contrapuntal

Structures in the Music of Arthur Honegger; & Honegger,
Nicolas de Flue (CD)
Article · October 2003

DOI: 10.1017/S0040298203230370
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Anthony Gritten
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Rhythmic and Contrapuntal Structures in the Music of

Arthur Honegger by Keith Waters. Ashgate, £40.00.
HONEGGER: Nicolas de Flue. Oers Kisfaludy (Nicolas de
Flue), Jean Bruno (narrator), College de Cuivres de Suisse
Romande, Choeur Pro Arte de Lausanne – Choir de
Chambre Romand, Voix de femmes du Choeur de Chambre
de l'Universite de Fribourg, Choeur d'enfants ‘Les Copains
d'abord’ c. Andre Charlet. Cascavelle VEL 1021.
Anthony Gritten
Tempo / Volume 57 / Issue 226 / October 2003, pp 76 - 79

DOI: 10.1017/S0040298203230370, Published online: 13 October 2004
Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0040298203230370
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72 Tempo 57 (226) 72–90 © 2003 Cambridge University Press
DOI: 10.1017/S0040298203000378 Printed in the United Kingdom
 
Cinquante Ans de Modernité Musicale: De Darmstadt à Célestin Deliège will be familiar to Tempo
IRCAM. Contribution historiographique à une musicologie readers as the interviewer in Conversations with
critique by Célestin Deliège. Sprimont: Mardaga, Pierre Boulez (Eulenberg: 1977), and a contributor
Collection Musique/Musicologie, dir. Malou Haine. to William Glock’s Pierre Boulez: A symposium a
E65.00. decade later (Eulenberg: 1986). Though a loyal
Adornist, he is only too conscious of the latter’s
failure to impose discipline and coherence on
Serialism’s decline as a guiding principle of modern music in general and serialism in partic-
modern music is the somewhat lugubrious ular. He is also dismayed at what he interprets as
underlying theme of this impressively large and a loss of faith among composers; late in the
useful survey covering more than 50 years of book, with Adorno as his witness, he even attacks
sometimes intense speculation, theory, and the public for its lack of cultural awareness – so
debate. For such a protracted collective effort at everyone, in the long run, is to blame. The
elucidating the fundamental building blocks of present volume is offered as a personal testament
music to have achieved so little, is a matter for in the hope that the message of serialism may be
earnest reflection. With analogous researches in preserved, and eventually understood.
particle physics and the human genome prom-
ising not just to transform our understanding of The book is conceived as a documentary report of a
life and the universe, but also the possibility of history that I feel is now critically at risk in an era of
creating new forms of life and matter, one might post-modernism, and under attack by composers in
have hoped for more from a music predicated on denial of theories they once explicitly defended. . . .
newly isolated first principles. That serialism has For us, the interest is in reliving history at the level of
actual discourse that constitutes the most vivid record
lasted so long is, all the same, testimony of its of the times.
latent power and influence; that it led to the
establishment of a research centre such as As a study text the book (which is 1,024 pages
IRCAM is further proof of its enduring intellec- long) makes available a vast range of source mate-
tual appeal. rials, many unavailable in English, in one conven-
As a compositional method, serialism is sure ient and inexpensive package. An additional
to survive as long as figures of the stature of attraction for researchers is the book’s undis-
Boulez and Stockhausen continue to compose. guised personality and distinctively European
Only recently, however, has it begun to emerge take on the period and its rivalries, expressed in a
from the shadows as a subject of historiographic French that is fluent and easy to read.
research, a good example being Morag Grant’s A young music student in 1946, Deliège was
concise and illuminating Serial Music, Serial caught up in the turbulent upheavals in
Aesthetics: Compositional Theory in Post-War Europe European musical culture that followed the
(Cambridge: 2001), a study of die Reihe, which 1939–45 war, and his account from those early
makes the point that to understand modernism days, through a long professional career as a
one needs a sense of what life was actually like at modern music specialist for Belgian RTB, and
the time: subsequently as a teacher, is designed to be read
as material for discussion drawn from a lifetime’s
World War II ended in 1945: this much can be accepted
as fact; but the question of what happened next, of personal file of reports on ideas and concepts
how Europeans approached life in the aftermath, is that composers have laboured for half a century
harder to answer. Dates, places, and events, at least to put into words. There is also a message in the
when separated from their consequences, are relatively author’s time-frame, a moment of history
easy to quantify; aesthetic attitudes, emotional states defined not by individuals but by institutions of
are, however, not only created of subjectivity but are international co-operation: Darmstadt, founded
almost dependent on it for their interpretation.
in 1946 by Everett Helm and Wolfgang
Steinecke, and IRCAM, a monument to
The present volume asks to be considered in European culture and US software expertise.
precisely that spirit. Serialism appeared in the midst of the postwar
http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 28 Mar 2014 IP address: 193.61.65.100

  73
uproar as the spontaneous manifestation of a to Lutoslawski’s ‘low art’ appropriation (for Trois
Geist: evoked in the image of Cage, Boulez, and Poèmes) of Henri Michaux, a poet Boulez had
Babbitt ‘plongés, à leur insu, de part et d’autre de reserved for his own use in Poésie pour pouvoir.
l’Atlantique, dans un type de recherche proche, Earle Brown’s claimed US influence on European
et qui pourtant ne se rejoindrent jamais.’ The serialism (via Gertrude Stein), and mobile form
notion of a serial spirit manifesting itself in (via Available Forms) is ‘unhelpfully chauvinistic’
human actions is central to the author’s thesis and ‘ignores the pervasive influence of Mallarmé
and a token of his attachment to the critical tradi- on European culture’. As one might expect,
tion of Theodor Adorno. Boulez’s published writings and pronounce-
The defenders of tonality were always able to ments are discussed at length. To read them in
claim that their theory was coherent and easily isolation and in English is one thing, but there is
verifiable, derived as it was from actual music. a special poignancy to see them located here in
For serialism, an artificial theory, to have the context of his ambitions. It is sobering, even
emerged seemingly from nowhere to dominate tragic, to see the energy and daring of his early
Western musical thought for so long without years wearing away to a point where, apparently
reference to a coherent body of literature – given without irony, Boulez can refer to his own apoca-
that the Webern Concerto and Variations, lyptic rejection of history as ‘a necessary histor-
Messiaen’s Mode de valeurs, Boulez’s Structures I ical denial.’
and Le Marteau sans maître, and the Gesang der There are huge gaps as well: no Hindemith,
Jünglinge and Gruppen of mid-1950s Stockhausen whose theory of harmony was at least grounded
hardly constitute a repertoire and are more in Helmholtz; no Harry Partch (ditto), no
remarkable for their theoretical differences than Gerhard, no Krenek, no writings of Scherchen,
for their similarities – seems paradoxical in the nothing of consequence from Scherchen’s
extreme, and yet the sheer weight of evidence Gravesano Review, a publication arguably as
presented here, nearly all of it from composers, consequential as die Reihe and certainly more
speaks of a purpose that, however ill-defined in grounded technically. No late Stravinsky, a scan-
practice, was palpably real and motivated.‘Only dalous omission. And no discography. Such
after 1945, Schoenberg excepted, do musicians absences, it has to be said, are part of the author’s
begin to define themselves in relation to the message: they reflect a narrowness of focus
evolution of music.’ implicit in serialist doctrine, not to mention
Part of the book’s fascination lies in a marked lingering aesthetic and philosophical priorities of
inconsistency and unevenness of tone and an essentially bourgeois European mindset.
language that, in defiance of scholarly tradition, What does emerge very clearly is serialism’s
speak to its readers as real people. Patient and involvement with a number of competing
sympathetic discussions of the theories of strands of language theory: the dominant liter-
Leibowitz and Schaeffer, Pousseur and Kagel, alism of a value system based on l’écriture, versus
through the anti-theories of a younger genera- the pragmatism of the Abbé Rousselot’s motor
tion of Lachenmann and Ferneyhough, to the phonetics, based on the recorded sounds of
terminal banality of Hugues Dufourt’s ‘il n’y a speech. In locking out the tradition of
pas de composition sans organisation ni struc- Schoenberg and Stravinsky, the postwar genera-
ture’ are offset, sometimes incongruously, by tion also threw away the key to serialism and its
sudden bons mots of distinctly Boulezian concen- future; in embracing Adorno, the culture found
tration and flair. Of René Leibowitz, that ‘after a itself unable to respond to a vibrant intellectual
few lessons at his Quai Voltaire address, a reason- heritage that was briefly to surface in Bonn and
ably gifted musician had learned all there was to Gravesano, and in the Meyer-Eppler inspired
know’ – of Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern, no theories and music of Stockhausen, but that
less! Of Barraqué, the charming if backhanded never really took hold among the laity. The
compliment that ‘he wrote nothing to be evidence of that heritage is scattered throughout
ashamed of ’. Or this, about 4’33”, Cage’s tribute Deliège’s vast apologia, not just in a uniquely
to degré zéro: ‘His saving grace is in having 20th-century preoccupation with the idea of
contained a time in which anything can happen music as a language, but in a flotsam of vague
within a chronologically measured duration’. and apologetic allusions: to Shannon and
Kagel is quoted: ‘Je compose rigoureusement Weaver’s communication theory, Heisenberg’s
avec de la merde’ – a quip worthy of Père Ubu – uncertainty theory, the structural anthropology
and Lutoslawski excoriated: ‘In Poland, what of Lévi-Strauss, the syllabic matrices of Roman
passes for radical literature, in France is seen as Jakobson, and the set theory of Babbitt and Allen
poetry du divertissement noir’, a dismissive allusion Forte, to name just a few. Every obstacle in the

74 
way of a comprehensive serial theory: chance,

indeterminacy, graphics, mobile form, group Vaughan Williams and the Symphony by Lionel Pike.
theory, formant theory, noise, even the authori- Toccata Press, £45.00.
tarian presence of Adorno himself, is anticipated Vaughan Williams Essays edited by Byron Adams &
in the teachings of Ferdinand de Saussure. Robin Wells. Ashgate, £49.50.
It is the defining characteristic of linguistic
philosophy to elevate language as a social system The arrival of two serious studies of Vaughan
over the individual speech act or item of litera- Williams – one British, the other American – is
ture. In an essentially bourgeois reversal of good news for all those who not only love this
history and classical values, la langue, expressing composer’s music, but feel that its technical inge-
the collective will, is invested with the authority nuity and originality is not taken seriously
to validate an act of self-expression, defined as la enough. It is also good news for those who
parole. ‘Language exists in the form of a sum of deplore the still-fashionable equation of ‘origi-
impressions deposited almost like a dictionary in nality’ with ‘novelty’. Vaughan Williams was
the brain of each member of a community … rarely novel, at least not when it came to superfi-
Language is purely social and independent of the cial features of style. But his solution to the
individual; speaking is not a collective instru- problem of writing convincing tonal symphonies
ment, its manifestations are individual and in a harmonically agnostic age may come to be
momentary.’ The same logic underpins widely seen as one of the most original in the
Durkheim and Hegel, and licenses Adorno and 20th-century. So one of the things one hopes for
others like him to embrace the contradiction of a in a book like Vaughan Williams and the Symphony
theory of musical values independent of any is a thorough investigation – and in the process,
evidence of creative sensibility and administered vindication – of that originality. And if the
by a mandarin autocracy. There are other, more language is occasionally combative, so much the
practical value implications. In elevating l’écriture better.
above speech, linguistics discards, as invincibly First signs are encouraging. Lionel Pike is not
subjective, the implications for meaning of how afraid to declare his belief in sonata form as ‘one
words and music actually sound. And since music of the greatest inventions of the human mind’ –
is an art of sounds, the implications of a no timid cultural relativism there. At the same
linguistic model of serialism are that considera- time he acknowledges a significant tension in
tions of acoustic quality and aesthetic nuance no Vaughan Williams’s symphonic thinking. This
longer mean anything. was a composer who balanced, or tried to
For many composers, however, issues of balance uneasy respect (at times veering towards
musical significance are embodied in literature: downright hostility) for Beethoven, master of
Mallarmé, Joyce, Beckett, e e cummings. The sonata dialectic, with an unqualified love of
book is very good on Pousseur and Butor, and Bach, in whose fugues Vaughan Williams intrigu-
the controversy attending Votre Faust, an opera ingly saw a potential formal model for
with more than one ending, a conceptual novelty programme music. Apparently the working out
that along with Mallarmé’s hypothetical ‘Livre’ of a fugue subject and the drawing out of a
has since become commonplace as today’s programmatic ‘mood’ ran parallel in VW’s mind.
website and computer game. Of particular value (The notion seems less bizarre when one begins
is the account of Berio’s 1956 essay ‘Aspetti di to look closely at the first movement of the
artigianato formale’, an acutely insightful piece Pastoral Symphony.)
on the relation of music and text that includes But Pike’s devotion to sonata form, and partic-
the wonderfully apt citation from Mallarmé that ularly to traditional means of understanding and
could almost stand as an epigraph for this entire describing it – ie mostly in terms of classical
music and its imaginative goal: ‘le vers qui, de motivic-tonal argument – is like an imaginative
plusieurs vocables, refait un mot total, neuf, ball-and-chain dragging through page after page
étranger à la langue’. That image of a new of this book. There is a great deal of dense verbal
language forming spontaneously out of a cloud harmonic analysis, of the kind that can usually be
of letters is a powerful antidote to The Bomb; a effectively and concisely expressed in diagrams. I
sudden reminder, too, that Stockhausen’s imagine a great deal of this would only be
Kreuzspiel, Kontra-Punkte, and Gesang are them- convincing if the listener were more than half
selves images of convergence and condensation convinced of Pike’s theses in advance. Take his
of meaning from initially scattered fragments. analysis of the processes allegedly at work in the
Robin Maconie Andante sostenuto second movement of Vaughan

  75
Williams’s Ninth Symphony. My own reaction to Granted, there are flashes of insight, not least
the final C major chord is that there is something Pike’s comments on the influence of Bachian
magical but rather enigmatic about it, – an fugal writing on the first movement of the
impression enhanced by the ethereal scoring Pastoral Symphony mentioned above – though I
(high strings and harp harmonic) which has the would have welcomed a more penetrating, less
effect of seperating it from the sound-world of discursive investigation of how it operates, and
the rest of the movement, as though VW had set how it interacts with those all-important sonata
it in quotation marks. When I heard the principles. But when it comes to the originality of
symphony for the first time I remember more VW’s long-term thought-processes there’s
than half expecting this C to resolve plagally onto nothing in Vaughan Williams and the Symphony
G (major perhaps, or preferably minor). And after that is as far-reaching and thought-provoking as
listening to the movement again, probing the Murray Dineen’s chapter ‘The Fifth Symphony:
score and reading through it at the piano, I still Ideology and Aural Tradition’ in Vaughan
can’t follow how, according to Pike, the move- Williams Essays. Dineen shows – in well-
ment ‘has progressed logically from the domi- presented table-form – how Vaughan Williams
nant (G) to the C tonic’. To me this C major doesn’t so much develop his themes (classically
sounds more like modal ‘final’ than a conven- speaking) in the first movement of the Fifth
tional ‘tonic’. But Dr Pike has his axe to grind: Symphony, but rather composes variants of
Vaughan Williams is a modern master of classical them. This is preceded by a paragraph which is
sonata thinking; so that possibility is not even worth quoting in full:
considered.
By this late stage in the book, however, the One of Vaughan Williams’s constant inspirations was
reader should have become accustomed to the the folk-song; hence it seems natural that his treatment
of theme in the Fifth Symphony’s first and second
sound of grinding axes. One suspects that – as so movements should recall the instability – the flux and
often with traditional-style analysts – the concept change – that he took to be characteristic of folk tradi-
of structural ambiguity is one that simply cannot tions where songs pass aurally from singer to singer. In
be tolerated. There has to be one true formal these aural traditions, without written records, the
‘background’ which ultimately explains every- original version of a song is lost in antiquity, along
thing. It isn’t enough to identify elements of vari- with any record of its development or evolution. In
similar terms, Vaughan Williams presents various
ation form in the first movement of the Sinfonia passages that share common motivic content, seem-
Antartica; the whole movement must be rational- ingly the offspring of some original theme antedating
ized and safely pigeon-holed as a set of varia- the symphony proper (and indeed its sketches), a
tions. Something similar happens in Pike’s theme never presented definitively.
analysis of the first movement of the Sixth
Symphony. This time the organizing principle is For me, that one insight is worth all the argu-
emphatically not one of variation. The critic ment of Vaughan Williams and the Symphony.
Frank Howes’s suggestion that the ‘development Then in Julian Onderdonk’s chapter ‘Hymn
section does not occur in the middle of the Tunes from Folk-songs: Vaughan Williams and
movement but between the first and second English Hymnody’, there is a detailed and fasci-
subjects in the exposition’ is likewise dismissed as nating examination of how that same folk-
‘misleading’. The simple fact that a commentator derived originality of thinking is reflected in
who knew Vaughan Williams’s music as well as Vaughan Williams’s adaptations of traditional
Howes could find something so non-classical – tunes for The English Hymnal. In doing so,
one might even say anti-classical – at work in this Onderdonk helps us understand how Vaughan
movement must surely have something to tell us Williams could have concluded that ‘there is no
about its processes. But Pike clearly doesn’t think difference in kind but only in degree between
so. He follows the movement through, bar by Beethoven and the humblest singer of folk-song.’
bar, categorically identifying first and second Granted, not all the chapters in Vaughan
subjects, development and recapitulation. But in Williams Essays are as stimulating as these two. I
doing so he has to introduce so many caveats and would have liked more detailed probing into how
let-out clauses that I find myself becoming less Vaughan Williams’s film music works with cine-
and less convinced. Doesn’t Vaughan Williams’s matic images (‘Music Film and Vaughan
remark that he included enough recapitulation Williams’), but Daniel Goldmark’s central thrust –
‘just to show that this is a symphony, not a that the film music is worth taking at least as seri-
symphonic poem’ indicate that he too realized ously as the concert works that grew from it – is
that there was something subtler, more multi- well made. Walter Aaron Clark’s examination of
layered, simply more original going on here? the clash and cross-fertilization of modes – espe-

76 
cially the octatonic mode – in the still-undervalued The Parisian première of Nicolas de Flue took
Riders to the Sea also sheds light, if sporadically. place much later in 1952, and the work received a
‘Octatonic’ is not a word you’ll find Lionel Pike lukewarm welcome. This is hardly surprising,
using, by the way. In Vaughan Williams and the considering what must have seemed to the
Symphony modes are almost invariably pigeon- Parisian audience to be the overwhelming
holed according to the old church nomenclature. parochialism of the story, or at least its anchoring
The second subject of the Fourth Symphony’s in a particular locale of Swiss history, and, more
Finale for example is identified simply as ‘B flat forcefully, considering what had gone on in Paris
Lydian’, despite the persistence of the flattened in the decade or so since it was conceived. It is
seventh in the accompaniment, and its appearance relatively diatonic throughout its 75 minutes, and
in the melody itself (fourth bar) – which helps its two choruses (mixed and children), whose
explain the subsequent tendency of the music to parts were originally intended for amateurs, sing
move, in Pike’s words, ‘gradually flatter’. Up to a almost constantly in a series of short numbers
point this kind of labelling is a convenience, but in and Handelian choruses which are only inter-
the end it narrows the field of argument instead of rupted by a narrator who propels the drama
broadening it as Clark does, however hard you along crisply and efficiently.
may have to work to follow him. Vaughan Williams Nicolas de Flue has not really entered the reper-
Essays may not exactly follow the VW-Whitman tory and is rarely performed. It is overpowered
injunction to ‘steer for the deep waters only’, but by, on the one hand, more moving works like Le
at least it provides a few pointers in that direction, Roi David and Jeanne d’Arc, and, on the other
rather than sentencing the reader to a long dull hand, by more aggressively post-tonal works like
canal-cruise. Antigone, Horace Victorieux, and the Symphonie
Stephen Johnson pour Cordes – all three of which Boulez praised
[sic] in his obituary for Honegger (quoted pp. 1,
184) – and of course by the infamous Pacific 231.
Rhythmic and Contrapuntal Structures in the
Music of Arthur Honegger is centred on two works
Rhythmic and Contrapuntal Structures in the Music of
which have managed to attain more success than
Arthur Honegger by Keith Waters. Ashgate, £40.00.
Nicolas de Flue in performance and reception:
HONEGGER: Nicolas de Flue. Oers Kisfaludy (Nicolas Mouvement Symphonique (Rugby) (the sequel to
de Flue), Jean Bruno (narrator), College de Cuivres de Pacific 231), premièred by Ernest Ansermet and
Suisse Romande, Choeur Pro Arte de Lausanne – Choir the Orchestre Symphonique de Paris at the
de Chambre Romand, Voix de femmes du Choeur de Théâtre des Champs-Elysées 19 October 1928;
Chambre de l’Universite de Fribourg, Choeur d’enfants and the Symphonie pour Cordes, premièred in
‘Les Copains d’abord’ c. Andre Charlet. Cascavelle VEL Zurich on 18 May 1942 by the Collegium
1021. Musicum and their director Paul Sacher, the
work’s dedicatee and one of the composer’s
Arthur Honegger’s relatively unknown Festspiel, staunch supporters. The book doesn’t offer a
Nicolas de Flue, was commissioned by the Canton unified field theory of Honegger’s music (if
of Neuchâtel for the 1939 Swiss National indeed one were possible, let alone desirable),
Exhibition in Zurich. Denis de Rougemount despite its plentiful and welcome supply of
agreed to write the libretto, based on the life of examples, but instead a selection of the ways
the Swiss national saint and set in the 15th- in which Honegger’s music is structured by the
century, on the condition that Honegger compose relations between the rhythmic content of its
the music. Honegger finished orchestrating the gestures and the nominally ‘underlying’ metrical
three-act, 30-number score for large wind and framework.
brass ensemble on 4 May 1939 (this recording, Chapter 1 contains a brief catalogue of the
though, is of – but does not explain the rationale influences on Honegger’s compositional style,
for – a new more conventional orchestration by each one a virus infecting and absorbed by the
André Besançon which seems to tame Honegger composer (p. 3). Bartók makes only a suggestive
somewhat). Like the Symphonie pour Cordes a year appearance (pp. 8–9), despite Honegger’s admi-
or so later, it was performed only after delays ration for his music, though he does reappear
consequent upon the general call up, first in subliminally in the interval cycles used later on to
concert on 26 October 1940, and finally staged on elucidate the surface articulations of the music.
31 May 1941. Honegger himself could not attend Stravinsky gets a one-sentence paragraph
either performance, having chosen to remain in regarding his influence on Honegger (p. 8) and a
Paris, his musical home, and unable to leave. fleeting mention with regard to the ‘juxtaposition

  77
and interruption of short compositional ideas’ in tion. Rhythmic / metric consonance quarantines
Rugby (p. 97). Perhaps this is inevitable, given the subdivisional and metric layers that are in an exponen-
relative dearth of writings on Honegger in tial relationship away from those that are not,
preserving an uncontaminated duple or triple environ-
English other than Halbreich’s and Spratt’s: many ment. (p. 51).
of Waters’s descriptions present themselves as
forging new and individual territory for This leads Waters to the concept of a ‘consonance
Honegger Studies. All the same, on more than quotient’, (p. 58), a statistical measure of the rela-
one occasion I found myself expecting to come tive stability of the passage in question.
across an invocation of octatonicism, especially Aside from the slightly disconcerting rhetoric of
during discussions of ic-3 cycles, but it only ‘purity’, this formulation is important to Waters’s
makes an explicit appearance quite late on in the presentation of the linear structures in Honegger’s
book (p. 156); it would certainly have been appro- music. I began a little sceptically, but I have to
priate to invoke it in the chapter on the Symphonie admit that evidence for not just the structural but
pour Cordes, since that work’s harmonic texture the (pre-)compositional importance of certain
(and hence the ‘pitch symmetries and directed kinds of rhythmic and metric structuring in
motions’ which Waters discusses) contains Honegger’s music does gradually pile up. Part of
numerous octatonic segments, especially in the my initial doubt, I think, arose from nothing more
introduction and in the chordal material first than the language used to describe the rhythmic
heard at [6]. Chapter 1 also provides a short expo- and metric structures. The notion, for example,
sition of ‘Honegger as Author’ (pp. 27–31) which that ‘dissonant’ rhythmic textures ‘resolve’ (p. 45)
contains some interesting quotations from the to (more) ‘consonant’ textures does not seem to
composer’s extensive writings. transfer particularly smoothly from the domain of
One of the interesting finds of chapter 2, pitch to those of rhythm and meter, largely
‘Rhythmic Structures’, is a discussion of because of the baggage associated with the terms.
Honegger’s sketch materials for Pacific 231 One might make a similar observation about
(housed in Basle, along with the rest of the 20th- Waters’s use of terms like ‘composing out’ (p. 51)
century), which include sketches for rhythmic and ‘symmetry’ (p. 70), which seem to construct a
profile without pitch content (pp. 35–44); indeed, scenario somewhat too static to model the mobile
the implication of Waters’s description seems to and fluid emergence of rhythmic and metric
be that such a distinction between the ‘profile’ processes. When he describes a succession of
and ‘content’ of a gesture could well be aban- interval cycles in the middle of Rugby, for example,
doned. Certainly, his discussion of this point (p. by saying that one is ‘replaced by’ the next (p. 114),
42) recalls Van den Toorn’s classic discussion of what he really seems to mean is that the first is
Stravinsky’s double innovation in rhythmic and ‘shortened to’ the second. Waters has much to say,
metric accentuation. At one point I felt that for example, about the ‘projection’ (p. 113),
Waters was going to go the extra mile and ‘transfer’ (p. 114), ‘statement’ (p. 113), and / or (?!)
suggest that the contrapuntal voices in Pacific 231 ‘straddling’ (p. 164) of metric conflicts over several
were truly independent (truly independent, that levels / layers, but it remains unclear whether this
is, of their pitch relations), but he stopped just is how rhythmic / metric processes emerge.
short. Perhaps this suggests a residual reluctance Maybe this is simply a matter of vocabulary, for
to analyse entirely without reference to pitch; or apart from Christopher Hasty’s work, there isn’t
perhaps this issue, concerning the interrelation- really a codified vocabulary yet for describing the
ships between agogic accents, would have temporality of musical processes, particularly in
become an issue more for the orchestral players the complex world of this music.
than for analysts. This cuts both ways, of course, and occasion-
The central thesis of the book regarding ally I pined for an unreconstructed description of,
rhythmic structure is stated formally about say, certain ‘contextually inflected ic-1s’ as
halfway through chapter 2: leading notes (e.g. p. 147). Either way, though,
Waters formulates the relation between the hori-
The relationship of subtactus layer to metric layer may zontal and vertical dimensions by saying that
be described as rhythmic / metric consonance in the Honegger’s counterpoint ‘operates beneath’ (p.
case of a pure duple or triple identity. This may be 61) and / or ‘cuts across’ (p. 93) the eclectic pitch
defined formally: for any rhythmic / metric pair (a)(b), organization (which, just occasionally, Waters
rhythmic / metric consonance exists when, for all a
and b, ax = b or bx = a, and x is an integer. Rhythmic /
seems a touch apologetic about [cf. pp. 13, 33]);
metric consonance therefore requires the same iden- for my money, the second of these better formu-
tity – here either duple or triple – both at the level of lates the relation between counterpoint and pitch
tactus subdivision and at the level of metric organisa- organization, largely because it sits snugly along-

78 
side Waters’s focus on ‘mid- and local-level especially as this particular passage follows and is
melodic relationships’ (p. 155), ‘surface design’ (p. itself followed by texturally quite different
181), and ‘surface voice relationships’ (p. 66). passages. In fact, cases like this and Waters’s
At 42 pages, chapter 5, on the Symphonie pour analysis of the opening seven-bar introduction to
Cordes, is the longest in the book, and again Rugby (pp. 98–9) might have been more literally
makes good use of the sketch materials to eluci- remark-able if they had been couched in simpler
date part of the compositional process; language. The references, for example, to the
Honegger’s own description of the composi- ‘frequency’ of triplet groupings (p. 52) are surely
tional process (quoted pp. 132–3) echoes a similar red herrings: not so much mis-guided as over-
remark in Stravinsky’s Poetics about hunting for formalized. Similarly, when Waters writes that ‘in
truffles. It’s only a shame that Waters didn’t go this composition this intervalic shift coincides [sic]
for broke and discuss the third movement as well and underlines the shift in texture, and the
as the first two, and that the examples from this harmonic climate now becomes diatonic’ (pp.
work discussed in other chapters weren’t 136–7), isn’t this just another way of saying that
included in this chapter instead, in order to the music is sectional and mosaic-like, and not
increase the intensity of focus on the work. After particularly organic in construction? Perhaps all
all, given the entry of a solo trumpet (specified as this is the necessary consequence of the straw-
ad libitum in the score, though usually included in man set up at the beginning of chapter two, the
performances) in the last movement, towards the ‘problem of rhythm’ (pp. 33, 59), which is then
second half of the final presto, with a typically promptly and consistently knocked down there-
Honeggerian chorale melody (possibly derived, after. That said, Waters’s consideration of how
Halbreich has suggested, from the third of rhythmic and contrapuntal structures are actually
Honegger’s Three Psalms of 1941), it is hard not to heard (p. 36) is sensible and pragmatic. Agogic
respond with a narratological reading of the rhythm, being both highly subjective and having
entire three-movement structure, a reading serious implications for performance practice, he
which, alongside the obvious wartime associa- treats carefully (p. 106), allowing space for alterna-
tions which suggest themselves (Waters cites a tive interpretations to breathe. And when he
couple of writers who have interpreted the work comes to discuss the textural embodiment of
as a ‘message’ symphony [pp. 128–9]), might such rhythmic and metric structures, some inter-
well have played into Waters’s rhythmic and esting questions of texture arise, particularly in
metric hands and extended the density and reach his discussion of contour under the headings of
of his remarks on the first two movements. contrary-motion and ‘outer-voice relationships’
There are several rhythmic structures – metric (p. 64). These headings arise out of some of
consonances and dissonances – in the third move- Honegger’s own statements (quoted p. 131), and
ment which would surely have attracted his under them Waters presents a number of inter-
attention. In the episode beginning at [5], for esting observations (e.g. pp. 66 n10, 109 n13).
example, the lower three strings have a regular There’s no real conclusion to Rhythmic and
chordal ostinato five quavers long which cuts Contrapuntal Structures in the style of Halbreich’s
across the 6/8 metre, while the second violins assessment of ‘Honegger in the Twentieth
have a ten-quaver melodic ostinato, and at the Century’. Indeed, the last chapter feels like an
top of the texture, in unwitting anticipation of odd one out, dealing as it does with ‘Problems of
the trumpet, the first violins have a slower Pitch Analysis: Centricity and Tonality’ and
melody which emphasizes the duple subdivision making numerous cross-references to the musics
of the metre; and this whole rhythmic complex of other composers and their associated analyt-
returns in a more developed form at [14], with an ical methods (in this respect, quite unlike the bulk
extra rhythmic stratum repeating every fifth of the book). I found myself wondering whether
quaver with two chords rather than one. it would have been better placed between after
Waters’s discussion of the ‘maximum satura- chapter 1 as a kind of catalyst for the main body
tion of duple subdivisions’ (p. 58) in a passage in of the book, which is, after all, about other ways
the first movement of the Symphonie could do of considering musical structure and process.
with a supplementary – in fact, explanatory – All in all, though, I think that, taking due
remark on the musical texture at that point, since account of the harmonic dimension of
one might argue that the very motoric regularity Honegger’s music, this book provides a solid
of this texture seems to balance out the disso- basis for defending Honegger against the charge
nance quotient, and that the increase in the value of what, with reference to Hindemith and
of the quotient presented in Table 2.2 could be Stravinsky, Willi Apel termed ‘reckless counter-
understood more simply as a climactic stretto, point’ (quoted p. 64 n 9), and which at first glance

  79
seemed to be a potential trajectory which this Without his approval no public musical perform-
book could easily have taken, either explicitly or ance could take place. He did not allow
despite itself. Such a Honegger may indeed have Dohnányi to perform at the Salzburg Festival
‘vanished’, as Boulez put it, but that is not the because of the artist’s ‘war criminal activities’.
Honegger who emerges from this book. Following Dohnányi’s energetic request for
Anthony Gritten proof, the cornered bureaucrat declined to
specify the accusations. Neither he nor anyone
else could produce any evidence: the truth was
that Dohnányi, not wanting to enforce anti-
Jewish regulations, resigned from his position of
Ernst von Dohnányi. A Song of Life by Ilona von President of the Academy of Music and
Dohnányi, edited by James A. Grymes. Bloomington, disbanded the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra.
Indiana University Press, 2002. $34.95. He also signed many petitions and applications
that helped people leave Hungary and escape
Ilona von Dohnányi was the third wife of Ernst from deportation or persecution.
von Dohnányi. Drawing on letters, documents
smuggled out of Hungary, personal experiences, He saved hundreds of people whose names he never
and numerous conversations, she wrote the biog- even cared to know. To act in this way required not
raphy of her celebrated husband. In 1960, shortly only generosity but also immense courage and even
audacity. To express any contrary opinion could easily
after his death, she deposited the first draft of the cost someone’s life. Dohnányi’s principle, however,
book at the Archives of the Florida State was to never be afraid: the greater the danger, the less
University, in Tallahassee. Forty years later, James one should withdraw from it. Dohnányi loved
A. Grymes, founder of the Ernst von Dohnányi standing up to people and telling them his opinion
Collection at the same university, edited and frankly and openly (p. 124).
prepared the manuscript for publication.
A great merit of this biography, the first in Being apolitical, he also stood up for those who
English, is that it sets things straight by invali- later could have been considered as enemies of
dating the unfounded allegations and scurrilous the state by the Russian-Hungarian authorities.
gossip that widely circulated (and still circulates) The help he offered could have made him look
about one of the most versatile musicians of the like an accomplice of the previous government.
20th-century. It comes out at an appropriate He knew it; but he also knew that, with the even-
moment. Today we witness a growing interest in tual Russian occupation of Hungary, his consis-
Dohnányi’s music, as well as in his artistic convic- tent anti-Communist and patriotic attitude
tions and educational achievements. The time would be judged as a crime.
has come to break through the damage caused by Dohnányi, Ilona, and her two children left
false claims and recognize the artist’s true inten- Hungary in November 1944. The account of the
tions and deeds. journey from Hungary to Austria is perhaps the
The most harmful charges were levelled against most captivating chapter of the book. The family
Dohnányi right after the end of the Second World found a temporary home in an enchanting
War. He was accused of collaborating with the village, Neukirchen-am-Walde, where Dohnányi
Nazis and harbouring anti-Semitic feelings. He composed, played the organ in the church, and
was labelled a war criminal by the new regime in organized a choir. But the daily living was far
Hungary. In the eyes of his enemies, his escape from easy. Ilona had to beg from the greedy town
from his native land was eloquent proof of his folk and exchange pieces of clothing for food.
guilt: if he was innocent, why did he, the greatest Dohnányi’s reaction to the peasant’s selfishness
authority in musical matters, have to leave? says much about his humanity in his approach to
His foes used vagueness, never precision in people. He understood and even defended the
their allegations. During the chaotic years after peasants who, hardened by the loss of sons and
the war, when feelings of hatred and revenge husbands, became rough and unkind. It is there
tended, in some circles, to stifle justice, hints and that he learned of his beloved son Matthew’s
rumours could cause someone just as much death in a prison camp. He sought solace for his
harm, if not more, as could unambiguously acute grief by withdrawing into solitude and
spelled-out charges. How unclear and unsubstan- composing one of his most beautiful and sombre
tiated the evil reports were came to fore when, in pieces for piano, the Cloches.
Salzburg, Dohnányi encountered Otto Pasetti, Unable to return to Hungary, Dohnányi
the appointed ‘Music Officer’ for the American wanted to start a new life outside Europe. The
Zone of Austria. Pasetti was a powerful man. family settled first in Argentina and, a year later,

80 
in Tallahassee, Florida. He taught at the Florida cians treated him with malicious envy and hatred.
State University for eleven years. Although his Surely they felt slighted and overlooked by him.
workload was strenuous, Dohnányi, already in They decided to launch an attack and destroy him.
his seventies, attacked this task with enthusiasm The most compelling reason, perhaps, to read
and unflagging dedication. He also performed in this accurate and heartfelt portrait is to learn
several major American cities. But his concert about a personal struggle and triumph when
appearances were, once again, delayed by the faced with the darker side of human nature. We
relentless, often anonymous, tide of accusations. can conclude that the insidious and purposeful
The challenge did not surprise him. He learned attacks were prompted by what psychologists
quite early that life is a struggle and obstacles are call pre-emptive contempt. It consists of tearing
necessities, especially for the creative artist. down a great person to fend off the inevitable
For the reader wanting to know about the root appraisal of lack of talent. The attackers could
of Dohnányi’s serene outlook on life the book not see the tragic blows that fate reserved for
provides an answer. To be sure, Dohnányi Dohnányi. What mattered more to them was
tackled many difficulties with optimism by that he seemed joyful, full of vitality and
virtue of his faith in the rightness of his princi- creativity. Dohnányi understood how such a
ples. He stubbornly stood by them and some- resentful pride is born. When Ilona complained
times acted with sternness. But he was also able about some compatriots’ lack of gratefulness, he
to keep his strong passions in check with remark- replied with wisdom: ‘You seem to forget one
able self-control. More importantly perhaps, his fact: usually those who are bound to be grateful
strength came from his basic attitude that can be feel somehow humiliated by this gratitude. It is
adequately characterized by the expressions of no wonder that they now feel almost triumphant
spontaneity, free fancy, and youthfulness. to get rid of it’ (p. 144). One of the salutary
Dohnányi was a homo ludens, a playful man, in lessons of this biography is that before giving
the Schillerian sense of the word. He was a man credit to hazy allegations, it is worthwhile to
with a congenital gaiety and gracefulness who focus first on the emotional state of the accusers
lived in sympathetic and trustful contact with his and find out to what extent their self-esteem had
surroundings, his past and his future. While been wounded.
being truly aware of the tragic aspects of life, the The Appendices comprise letters and two
tension between its seriousness and jollity, he was insightful lectures by Dohnányi (on Sight-
able to see everything in its true perspective, with Reading and Romanticism in Beethoven
a relaxed manner and a gentle sense of humour. Sonatas), newspaper articles, letters in support of
He was liberated from all exclusive attachments Dohnányi, and an extensive catalogue of compo-
and purely utilitarian concerns. His grave-merry sitions, compiled by James A. Grymes.
disposition entailed an all-absorbing interest in Gabor Csepregi
both artistic and natural beauties.
Someone once asked Dohnányi if he had been in love

when he wrote one of his early compositions. He The Best Years of British Film Music, 1936–1958 by Jan G.
answered with his customary smile, ‘I was, and I Swynnoe, The Boydell Press, £40.00.
always am, in love.’ With these words he did not mean
an attraction for woman only. He meant his love for
art, nature, beauty, and all humanity (p. 14).
I am writing the present review against medical
advice and with a blood-pressure monitor readily
The very same emotion attracted him to certain to hand: there is a real chance that this book will
writers and composers. be responsible for my premature demise. Of
course, experience teaches one to expect that a
book about film music will be a severe disap-
I like Dickens, he would say, because his humor is pure
and filled with goodwill, without malice or irony. This pointment; but it has been quite a few summers
type of humor is also what I value in Haydn’s music. since I have read one that has fallen so desper-
Unfortunately, very few people understand it, and ately, so infuriatingly short of standards which it
therefore few can perform his works well (p. 117). had seemed could safely be taken for granted.
Not that there are many of those: the trouble
Beyond the expression of aesthetic preference, with film music, after all, is that it’s a subject
we also find here, in half a sentence, an intima- which encourages the wrong people to write
tion about Dohnányi’s own hardship. People failed about it in the wrong way. Thus it is that time
to understand his light-hearted, generous, and and time again one has found oneself wrestling
intensely positive temperament. A group of musi- with writers who are barking up the wrong tree –

  81
or just as often, perhaps, are simply barking. And perhaps, why). In this regard, of course, the situa-
thus it is, too, that the ‘literature’ on the topic has tion in Britain differed greatly from that in the
mostly veered between emptily agreeable anec- States, where film composition was far more a
dote, tedious exercises in what might be called semi-industrial specialism in which ‘concert’
‘Herrmann-eutics’, and – in recent years – a composers did not dabble; and it is indeed by
generally hostile ideology criticism. means of comparison with Hollywood that the
Film music deserves better than all that; i.e. book proceeds. At its heart, however, are four
something more musicianly – and, for a moment chapters concerned with more or less detailed
at least, it appeared that it might finally have got discussion of a number of British films and their
it: Jan G. Swynnoe is described on the dust-jacket scores – and the fact that several of these titles
as a ‘pianist, percussionist and composer’. And are so far from any ‘mainstream’ recognition or
from a distance this book – with its imposing prominence that they appear not to have been
black cover, nicely printed music examples, pages examined before is a highly important feature of
of bibliography and ‘filmography’, and a hefty, the book and one for which it deserves some
‘academic’ price-tag on top of it all – certainly credit, whatever else one has to say about it.
looks like a serious and capable study. By which, of course, I mean that while this
Sad to say, the impression does not last long. study is obviously a labour of love (or, at any
The Introduction’s very opening paragraph, in rate, ambivalence: Swynnoe is the kind of writer
fact, provides two unsettling indications of the who cannot praise Caesar unless simultaneously
quality of its author’s thought. The first comes burying him), its inadequacies are so manifold
when we see the arrival of the Hungarian that from its very opening discussions – of the
Alexander Korda in Britain described as an differences between British and American films;
‘unpromising union between two nations [!] of of ‘formulae’ in the classical Hollywood score;
little temperamental affinity’; the second with and of how American and British composers
the gleeful exposure of an act of ‘nepotism’ compare in their approach to film scoring – the
which one is desperately hard put to regard as book undermines itself in every conceivable way.
anything of the sort (p.xi). A few pages later we The most immediately apparent of these inad-
have discovered that this ‘Introduction’, as far as equacies is the presence of the old ‘genetic
its content and function are concerned, simply fallacy’ in a version with which every A-level
isn’t. And then it gradually dawns on one that the examiner will be depressingly familiar: the belief
book is also misleadingly titled: it isn’t really that in order to properly understand what some-
about the ‘years’ in question at all. If it were, we thing is and isn’t, we first need to hear all about
would be reading a far more complete account of where it came from and how it might have come
just what happened in those decades – not least about. Thus we at once encounter a deal of
the (approximately) 60 Alwyn, 62 Arnold, 6 Bliss, ‘historical perspective’ whose sheer irrelevance
52 Frankel, 9 Rawsthorne, 6 Vaughan Williams means that it contributes more to the study’s
and 5 Walton film scores dating from this period length than to its depth. Secondly, it turns out
which the book altogether neglects to mention. that the discussion itself not only rests upon
We would also see Britten’s only feature film historical, sociological and social-psychological
score – for the 1937 Love From a Stranger – receive musings of a distinctly homespun kind, but also
more than a single, passing reference (by telling employs some worryingly stereotypical and
you that the music seems to register the impact monolithic ideas of national character and
of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony I am revealing more culture. In short order, for example, we read that
about it than this book does). And, switching to a ‘Passionate conviction was a quality which Korda
musically less elevated but sociologically more had probably found sadly lacking in the British
informative level, we would also learn something character’ (p.xii); of ‘qualities that are unique to
about the 52 contemporaneous scores by Clifton the British people’ (p.xiii); and of the way ‘Our
Parker (1905–1989), whose name does not even [sic] culture, including our native literature, our
feature in the text save in a quote from another very way of viewing ourselves, is deeply influ-
writer (p.174; reference not indexed). enced by the unconscious recognition that we
What this book actually does is attempt to inhabit a very compact and relatively unthreat-
explain as well as exemplify some distinctive ening terrain’ (this in contrast to something
aspects of British film-musical practice over a called ‘the American psychological inheritance’,
period in which virtually every one of the which apparently results ‘from the background
nation’s outstanding composers had some kind of continuous battling with the unimaginably
of involvement with the industry (one wonders vast and hostile landscape that is the lot of many
where Edmund Rubbra was hiding – though not, Americans’ [p.xiv]). We also learn about ‘The

82 
notorious British reserve’ (p.2); about how it was uneasiness, a mistrust born of inherent reticence,
‘in the nature of the American people to of the horror of emotional display’ (p.2); all this
embrace a new art form with an open acceptance by way of explaining the under-achievement of
and an optimism for its fresh possibilities’ (p.4); British film-makers compared to American. Yet
about something called ‘the American tempera- only a few hundred words later we read of how
ment’ (p.5); and of the way ‘The inwardly easily British audiences developed ‘a taste for
directed impulse of the British’ contrasts with American films’ and became ‘in thrall to
‘the outwardly directed American’ – to the American culture’ (p.3) – inevitably prompting
extent, apparently, that ‘The basic instinct of the one to ask just how deep or widespread all that
British is to stay at home’ (p.18). We even hear – uneasiness, mistrust and horror could possibly
if I may jump ahead somewhat – of the way ‘the have been. Examples of such maddeningly defi-
rousing of nationalist feeling by the use of cient argumentation could be multiplied
martial music’ is something ‘so beloved of the endlessly (and possibly fatally): I confess myself
Germans’ (p.144). Whether one finds such in awe of anyone who can see – as Stephen
wafflings repellent or merely risible, they illumine Banfield apparently can – a ‘well organised and
the topic far less than the author seems to think. extremely tightly argued contribution’ (Musical
Thirdly, underlying all this is what can only be Times, Winter 2002, p.68).
described as an astonishing degree of disorgani- And, fifthly but by no means finally, the book
zation in the text itself. Perhaps some incoher- frequently falls victim to that particular kind of
ence on the widest level of argument was to be selective blindness which occurs when a writer’s
expected, given that one of Swynnoe’s central personal bugaboos are continually employed as
notions (the idea of ‘a unique product – the the foil for whatever is to be upheld as virtuous
British film score’ [p.19]) is ultimately nonsen- and admirable. Like all such demons, the
sical and certainly inartistic. But on top of that despised and rejected (here Hollywood’s ‘blatant
the author frequently appears to be unable to stating of the obvious’, its ‘stereotypical treat-
structure a coherent paragraph (for a characteris- ment of music’, its obsession with ‘the technique
tically dispiriting example see the opening of of the leitmotif ’, its aiming to induce a ‘state of
Chapter 6, which has evidently been written narcosis’, its ‘world of pseudo emotions’, and
either with the help of ‘free association’ tech- more besides) cannot – must not – be brought
nique or by putting sentences on to darts and into the light of day and examined closely or real-
then throwing them at a piece of paper). istically. As for the consequences this entails in
Moreover, it often seems that the closest practice, a single – crushing – instance will
Swynnoe can come to the meaningful develop- suffice. For in search of a knock-down example
ment of a point is to type it out all over again with showing the ‘illustrative Hollywood score’ at its
a few words altered. Concerning melodrama, for most self-evidently absurd, Swynnoe refers in
example, we encounter on p.5 the idea that ‘Its two places to Maurice Jaubert’s famous condem-
sweeping gestures and simplification of char- nation of the ‘roguish little arpeggio’ which in
acter made it easier to understand for a popula- Max Steiner’s score for The Informer (1935)
tion with an increasing proportion of supposedly illustrates ‘the trickling of a glass of
immigrants limited in understanding of the beer down a drinker’s throat’ (see pp.30 and 73).
language’. And then, on p.7: ‘The lack of The trouble is that this example has long been
linguistic complexity also made melodrama an exposed as an utter fiction: no such arpeggio,
ideal vehicle for cinema in a country that was ‘roguish’ or otherwise, is present on the sound-
increasingly made up of immigrants unfamiliar track at that point (for more on this see Michel
with English’. In similar vein, we find (p.136) that Chion’s discussion of the juncture in Audio-
‘The Second World War had a far greater direct Vision1).
impact on the lives of British people than had the Serious as these inadequacies are, many of
First World War’ – and then, just three sentences them could undoubtedly have been diagnosed –
later, that ‘The Second World War touched the and perhaps even rectified – by a good copy editor
lives of every British person in a way that the or publisher’s reader. One wonders, therefore,
Great War had not’. why so well-established a publishing house can
Fourthly, one continually forms the impres- have seen fit to employ neither. For it is clear that
sion that even in its own chosen terms the argu- no such persons ever came near a book which can
ment is not making satisfactory sense. We read, even insist – and here I am leafing at random –
for example, that ‘Certain aspects of the British
character are directly challenged by the intimacy 1
Paris, 1990; English translation by Claudia Gorbman
of the camera’ – an intimacy which ‘arouses an (Columbia, 1994).

Exploring Twentieth-
Century Music
Tradition and Innovation
Arnold Whittall
Explores the music of twentieth-
century composers demonstrating
the continuum between the
progressive and the conservative.
£47.50 | HB | 0 521 81642 4 | 250pp

£16.95 | PB | 0 521 01668 1
Music and Ideology in Cold War Europe

Mark Carroll
Places the radicalisation of art music in early post-war
France in its broader socio-cultural and political context
Music in the Twentieth Century, 18
£45.00 | HB | 0 521 82072 3 | 256pp
Quotation and Cultural Meaning in

Twentieth-Century Music
David Metzer
Examines the way the use of quotation in music both
creates and transforms cultural associations.
New Perspectives in Music History and Criticism, 12
£47.50 | HB | 0 521 82509 1 | 238pp
www.cambridge.org

84 
that ‘Diatonic stepwise melodies were the finger- the sonata-allegro which encapsulates exposi-
print of a Steiner melody [sic]’ (p.92) or that ‘The tion, development, and recapitulation …’
electronic score for Escapement (1958), a science- (pp.47–48).
fiction thriller, is another rare fugitive from the In fairness I should stress that the book’s
orchestral score [sic]’ (p.190). Or in which we find analytical commentaries are by no means wholly
at least three references to a film-maker suppos- worthless. Any discussion is welcome which
edly named ‘D. W. Griffiths’ (see – after sedation – encourages the reader to seek out The Winslow
pp.231 and 232). Or, indeed, in which William Boy (William Alwyn, 1948), Once a Jolly Swagman
Walton’s score for a film erroneously said to be (Bernard Stevens, 1948), or The Sound Barrier
called ‘The [sic] Battle of Britain’ (pp.186, 213, 231, (Malcolm Arnold, 1952) – all of them of interest
238) is incorrectly described as ‘lost’ (p.213), and musically, and none of them likely to be fortu-
its single retained cue wrongly referred to as the itously encountered on TV by any music-lover
‘Battle of [recte: in] the Air’ (p.231). who is not also a career insomniac or singularly
One might, however, have found it possible to under-occupied in the hours before lunch. In
forgive – or, at any rate, to overlook – some of the addition, the commentary generates a vivid
above-described failings had the book’s technical impression both of the constraints within which
and analytical investigations reached a signifi- even the finest composers had to produce and of
cantly higher level. Unfortunately (and greatly as the blatant contempt with which their produc-
I wish I could say this were not so) too much of tions could then be treated. Of Alwyn’s ‘main
the musical discussion and analysis is either titles’ for The Winslow Boy, for example, one is
misguided, superficial, or flawed – far too much, aghast to read that the composer ‘had written
when one considers that this book will be consid- this to the original timing of 1’45”, but the titles
ered a ‘reference work’ for students and others in the film finally ran for only 1’25”, and the last
who are unlikely to have access to obscure and seven bars were simply cut’ (p.43). Even more
unobtainable titles like The Halfway House (Lord shockingly, in the case of Arnold Bax’s highly
Berners, 1944) and Blue Scar (Grace Williams, impressive music for the David Lean Oliver Twist
1949). To be frank, however, the discovery of (1948) we find that
analytical inadequacy hardly comes as ‘news’:
one’s sheerly musical faith in the author has been Eleven of his music cues were omitted altogether from
eroded long before the central chapters are the soundtrack. Six were cut, one of them substan-
tially, and others … were substituted for different cues,
reached. For one thing, there have been simply or repeated in different contexts. One cue was
too many pronouncements that seemed deter- extended by repetition to synchronize with the picture
mined to present one-and-a-half musical (p.69).
untruths in the smallest possible space (‘In the
final analysis, Strauss’s orchestration could never So disrespectful an attitude to the musical
realistically be described as “sweet”, any more thought of a substantial composer – so literally
than Wagner’s music could be called tuneful’ idiotic a disregard for sense and expression at the
[p.24]; ‘The overall sound of a Hollywood score local level as well as for the development and
approximates more to … something like a cross deepening of meaning across larger structural
between Tchaikovsky and early Schoenberg’ [p.24; spans – is a long-standing feature of the film
incredulity added]). For another, the author’s world that is still not as widely known (or
musicianly sensibility seems to have enjoyed a condemned) as it ought to be: every example that
restful slumber during the selection of many a is brought to public attention takes us closer to
would-be supportive or illustrative quotation. In the day when the world of the ‘DVD’ will
need of a statement about ‘Wagner’s conception provide a home not just for the ‘Special Edition’
of the aesthetic possibilities of the leitmotif ’, for and ‘Director’s Cut’ – but for the ‘Composer’s
example, she turns neither to Wagner’s writings Cut’ as well.
nor to anything in his actual music – but instead It should also be acknowledged that Swynnoe’s
quotes three sentences from (of all slanted discussion of Oliver Twist – 25 pages long, with no
things!) Adorno-Eisler (p.27). And requiring a fewer than 23 music examples – is probably the
description of ‘what was considered the appro- most detailed examination of the music yet
priate approach to the composition of music for published, and contains a number of worthwhile
main titles in Hollywood’, she looks no further observations. And yet, sad to say, the investigation
(or deeper) than a discussion by Kathryn Kalinak as a whole has too much wrong with it to achieve
in which Korngold’s non-modulating, second- other than ‘stopgap’ status. Too ramshackle in
subject-less, development-free curtain-raiser to structure to fully succeed in circumstances which
Captain Blood is actually said to be ‘a variation of demandingly require that an appreciation of what

  85
the composer originally did be continually not interrupted by ‘the arrival of the Beadle’
juggled with an account of what was ultimately (p.75; also p.77): it is actually Mrs Corney – the
done with and to it, the text is simultaneously workhouse Matron – who, arriving with the
diluted with inessential reflections where it Beadle, interrupts both the boy and his music by
wanders from the point (we do not even escape shouting his name. This is no trivial matter. At a
hearing about ‘Nature’s method of maintaining later stage (and as Swynnoe correctly observes)
the birth-rate in times of war’ [p.66]) – and some- the same thematic variant accompanies – without
times bizarrely over-subtle where it sticks to it: interruption – the moment when Oliver throws
himself into the arms of Mr Brownlow’s kindly
At this stage in the narrative, the locket is merely a housekeeper, Mrs Bedwin. Of this juncture
static representation of Oliver’s origins. There is no Swynnoe says that Bax ‘successfully shows how
prospect or suggestion that the secret is to be
unlocked, therefore the music represents the locket in
Oliver’s experience of his life as a cruel and
its purely symbolic state [p.72]. lonely existence had been transformed by his
first exposure to love’ (p.77) – an observation
Also to be regretted is the chapter’s neglect of which is fine as far as it goes, but inevitably
much of the sizeable quantity of music (perhaps misses a large part of the point. For the tech-
20 minutes in all) which ultimately was not used nique of using identical material to meaningfully
in the film – and also of occasional questions of associate moments of precisely opposing emotional
origin. For example, the flutes’ presentation of a and psychological significance has an honourable
desolate 2-bar thematic fragment, to which history (think of the ardent Siegmund’s superfi-
Oliver begins his work as a ‘funeral mute’, is cially mysterious appropriation of the
discussed without any mention of the possibility ‘Renunciation of Love’ motif ); and since the
that it was someone other than Bax who put it in ‘moments’ here associated are actually Oliver’s
that place and in that key. Swynnoe may note interactions with Mrs Corney on the one hand
that the music ‘appears to have been added and Mrs Bedwin on the other, the two women
hastily to the score following a change to the are instantly and effortlessly defined as different
sequence of cues’ (p.75); but she fails to remind sides of the same psycho-dynamic coin – as
us that this cue is not written in Bax’s hand 2, and embodiments of utterly opposing, mutually exclusive
neglects to consider that it might thus have been aspects of the ‘split’ mother-image 3.
derived by someone else from the same mate- Interested readers will no doubt wish to carry
rial’s appearance a fifth higher at the start of a out their own investigation of Swynnoe’s evalua-
later cue. And as for the reason (if any) for this or tion-laden analysis in tandem with a few view-
any other idea’s appearing in the key it does, we ings of the film; and in any case a full,
are not enlightened: the book’s persistent neglect point-by-point discussion of it cannot be
of issues of tonal organization is not the least of attempted here. But I must draw attention to one
its inadequacies. further detail which is as regrettable as it is symp-
Nor can it be pretended that everything which is tomatic. For when it comes to the faintly
asserted deserves one’s complete trust. For Elgarian tune that heralds the dawning of the day
example, it is said to be ‘known’ (p.62) that Bax on which the denouement is set (a tune which
failed to appreciate the fact that film footage would appears again in the film’s final cue as we see
not be altered to fit his music; yet this information Oliver finally and happily restored to his ‘rightful’
derives solely from a 1996 television interview in existence), we read that
which the film’s producer, Ronald Neame (b.1911),
then went on to retail an anecdote which, as it By now Bax was running short of time, and he
resorted to a time-honoured trick of film composers
stands, simply cannot be literally true – thereby working under pressure. He lifted the melody from his
causing one to wonder, with very great respect, orchestral work In Memoriam dating back to 1916 …
whether after 48 years this veteran film-maker’s (p.86).
memory might have been less than wholly reliable.
Somewhat distressingly, too, one notes that Indeed he did (I am ignoring the erratic syntax);
quite straightforward features of the diagesis – to and Swynnoe rightly credits Graham Parlett as the
use a trendy synonym for ‘narrative’ much source of the information. But what she does not
beloved by Swynnoe but never at any point
defined or explained – are sometimes misrepre-
sented. Oliver’s floor-scrubbing, for example, is 3
Those of a psycho-analytic bent will note the fact that Dickens,
with due if unconscious Oedipal insight, has seen to it that the
embodiment of the loving, nurturing, physically and emotion-
2
See Graham Parlett, A Catalogue of the Works of Sir Arnold Bax ally receptive aspect of the ‘mother’ here goes by the name of
(Oxford, 1999), pp.259–260. ‘Bed-win’.

86 
provide is any support whatsoever for the infer- Now, to me this loveable film is a treasure
ence – which doesn’t derive from Parlett – that the which more than deserved its Academy Award
decades-old tune was used merely because Bax for ‘Best Writing, Original Story’ (and how could
was ‘running short of time’. He may have been, of such writing not win: *Biff !! ‘That’s for Thomas
course; or he may not (one gathers that the score Mann!’ *Pow!! ‘That’s for Matisse!’ *Sock!! ‘That’s
as written is around 60 minutes in length, thus for Picasso!’… ?). Swynnoe, however, performs
constituting Bax’s longest orchestral work; on the the familiar contortions indicative of a need to
other hand he did have ten weeks to do it in, and keep the simultaneous love and hate safely apart
not all of it is densely written). What is more, we (on p.91 the film, while ‘not a cinematic master-
have no reason to assume that Bax scored the first piece’, is ‘powerful and unusual’; by p.93 it has
scenes first and the last scenes last – and if we are become ‘a heavy piece of anti-Nazi propaganda
expected to believe that he did, Swynnoe really disguised as a feature film’). Greater problems,
ought to have informed the virginal reader that though, result from the evident compulsion to
some of the film’s earliest music was also derived submit criticism in the guise of analysis and to
from a pre-existing score. In short, the text ought practice evaluation in advance of understanding
at the very least to have presented the equally plau- – a tendency which appears to run all the freer in
sible possibility that for the ‘Dawn’ music Bax this discussion of a composer’s ‘first attempt at
utilized an existing tune because he thought it worked feature-film scoring’. On top of all this, the terms
well there (Swynnoe’s worry about ‘questions of of the debate seem again to be dictated by a seri-
stylistic consistency’ [p.86] is not the only manifes- ously misguided aesthetics:
tation in the book of that noisome aesthetic red-
herring) – and unless the author can produce some the real idée fixe [of the film] is that the people of a
actual evidence that was not presented in the book, country like Canada could never be seduced by the
Nazi dream of racial supremacy. This is particularly
her assertion must be viewed as an example of just hard to illuminate in musical terms. … It is almost [!]
the sort of unsupported storying that gives musi- impossible to write a theme that adequately suggests
cology a worse name. the resistance of a free democracy to the fanatical
But then, there seems to be something in the delusions of Nazism (p.91).
very nature of the topic that causes people to see
things as they are not. And as proof I can do no What Vaughan Williams elected to do, of
better than cite Colin Matthews – whose review of course, was produce for his ‘main title’ a
this book (actually less a ‘review’ than a condensed sustained and unbroken melody, inspired and
recapitulation) develops part of its argument with inspiring, whose warmly enfolding nobility can
the help of a rather despairing quotation from Bax be felt, on the one hand, to underline the united
which – apropos the tension between music and purpose of those who (as is immediately
dialogue – reads: ‘It is impossible to pay attention proclaimed) ‘came from all parts of the world’ to
to two things at the same time if they appeal to participate in the film’s making – and, on the
different parts of the intelligence’ (TLS, 16 August other, to highlight the positive human qualities
2002). My regard for one of Britain’s foremost embodied in (and properly elicited by) the film’s
living composers must not prevent me revealing presentation of a liberal, hospitable, racially and
that he has thereby misrepresented the thought of culturally diverse Canada about to be menaced
one of its foremost dead ones – by precisely by the regressive Nazi threat. To Swynnoe,
reversing the meaning of a statement which actu- though, all that happened was that ‘Vaughan
ally proceeds via the significantly more optimistic Williams retreated [!] into the adoption … of a
‘… it is possible to pay attention …’.4 broad extended melody that could have been
No, I don’t know why this sort of thing used to cover any number of eventualities’ (p.91).
happens; but since it plainly does – and since the A little later she does concede that ‘this theme
study of film music is unlikely to come of age could be said to suggest the expansiveness of the
until everyone takes the trouble to ensure that it landscape and people [sic] of Canada’ (p.92) – but
doesn’t happen any more – I propose to examine then immediately goes wrong again: ‘Because
another of Swynnoe’s analyses: her 8-page the theme itself is so expansive, it would be
discussion5 of Vaughan Williams’s contribution extremely difficult to use motivically’. This is
to Michael Powell’s 49th Parallel (1941). nonsense – as VW himself shows at once by his
effortless use of a clarinet presentation of the
4
See Roger Manvell and John Huntley, The Technique of Film theme’s arpeggiated triplet motif to characterize as
Music (rev. 2nd ed., London, 1975), p.219. Swynnoe’s (accurate) peaceable and Canadian the gently swelling sea-
quotation of the passage is found on p.62.
5
Actually 10 pages: further material pops up unexpectedly scape into which the conning tower of the
around 50 pages later. surfacing U-boat then irrupts.

  87
In search of something significant to say about Unsurprisingly for a writer who evidently is
the first music to be heard in the body of the film, apt to confuse and conflate nation, race and indi-
Swynnoe calls it ‘Vaughan Williams’s first vidual, ‘leitmotivic’ references to this material
attempt at musically interpreting a screen image’ tend to cause problems:
(p.93). Such a description would only be accept- To indicate the rapid spread of the news of the attack,
able had we (once again) any reason to assume a montage of Morse code signalling, operation rooms,
that the scenes were scored in ‘running order’ – telegrams and maps is shown, accompanied by urgent
and even the remotest justification for believing music … . In the middle of this cue, the ‘Nazi’ motif is
played fortissimo on trumpets, indicating that it is the
that a composer who habitually began to sketch a might of Germany which has caused all the agitated bustle
film score as soon as he received the script was even (p.94, emphasis added).
working with ‘a screen image’ in mind.
Concerning the fortissimo brass entry which is Au contraire. That motif has previously been
heard as the U-boat surfaces, we are told that the heard only as accompaniment to the surfacing
composer ‘used Luther’s Ein feste Burg ist unser submarine: when next played, a few moments
Gott’ to represent the German characters in the later, it cannot be anything other than a musical
film.’ (p.93). It would be fairer on all concerned, embodiment of the obvious fact that all the
however, to say that he accompanies the emer- ‘agitated bustle’ we see has been caused by the
gence of the Nazi threat with a minatory, twisted submarine. Such distant abstractions as ‘the might
version of Ein feste Burg – thereby characterizing of Germany’ are utterly beside the point.
that threat not merely as something ‘German’ But this is not the end of the matter. Much
but as something which actually constitutes a later on, the two remaining Nazis flee into the
perversion of German culture. Moreover, such mountains. At that moment, another chorale-
(ab)use of a melody with sacred, Christian asso- derived four-note motif
ciations has the effect of subtly ‘signposting’ a is played fortissimo on strings, woodwind and brass as
the men fall exhausted to the ground. This is the only
route by which those drawn into the barbaric time the motif has been played by these three sections
Nazi myth might find their way back to a civi- of the orchestra together, symbolizing the might of
lized humanity – as one of the submarine’s crew, Germany brought under the most intense pressure (p.95,
of course, ultimately does. emphasis added).
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88 
Once again, one has to insist that the ‘might of only is the tune’s orchestral presentation described
Germany’, being neither directly represented nor as ‘a most basic labelling device’, but we are also
indirectly implied, doesn’t enter into it – and, by informed that ‘it seems unnecessary to prime the
the way, only one man is actually seen to ‘fall audience in this way’ (p.96).
exhausted to the ground’: the dramatic need to The truth is, of course, that the use of the
preserve and indeed refine characterization is tune serves several important functions. First,
respected as the other man – the fanatical but since we do not immediately see or hear trapper
nowise weak or unresourceful Hirth – strides on Johnnie (not ‘Johnny’ [p.96]: is it just too much
ahead, oblivious and uncaring. trouble to check a film’s credits?6), it makes good
Equally depressing is to observe that when we dramatic sense to clearly establish the commu-
at last witness unambiguous evidence of the nity’s happily multi-racial profile by musically
aforementioned Christian feeling, Swynnoe representing a French-Canadian presence as soon
fumbles another catch. At the point where Vogel as possible after we have seen Eskimo villagers
crosses himself as he looks down at the body of and a Caucasian Scot. Secondly, there is a visual
the dead Kuhnecke, joke (and a dramatically astute delay) being set
up: in a moment we and the Factor will enter the
An innocuous horn melody suggesting the regret of hut expecting to see who has arrived – and be
[sic] the comrade’s loss is interrupted by a strident brought face to face with another Eskimo. And,
rendering of the [‘Nazi’] motif on trombones as Hirth
stares at Vogel. The use of the motif communicates
thirdly, the part of Johnnie is actually being
the suspicion aroused in Hirth that Vogel is not a true played by an immensely famous Englishman
Nazi, and without its use, the audience would not have (Laurence Olivier) – who will thus benefit from
been made aware of the significance of Vogel’s instinc- whatever means can be found to establish his
tive response (p.94). character’s ‘Frenchness’ prior to the unveiling of
his accent.
This will not do at all. The ‘innocuous horn Space forbids a similarly corrective examina-
melody’ heard as Vogel crosses himself is – and tion of other passages (such as that concerning
how can the author possibly have missed this? – the use of the piano music published as The Lake
nothing other than the incipit of the Credo. Thus in the Mountains) whose suffocating insensitivity
the music, far from dealing in such footling quan- leaves one gasping; nor can I possibly do critical
tities as ‘regret’ and ‘suspicion’, is itself made to justice to the book’s remaining chapters (though
enact the clash of utterly irreconcilable world-views: at least one of these can be fairly summed up in
Vogel’s renascent Christian piety and the word- the slogan ‘no more foreign composers’ [p.157]).
less rebuke of the ‘true believing’ Nazi officer are And it would take me around a thousand words
both given the clearest musical definition in the to deal with the book’s uncomprehending and
shortest imaginable time. misleading engagement with some of Hans
Discussion of one more wholesale missing-of- Keller’s incunabular but important writing on
the-point will bring this (non-exhaustive) critical film music (for the present it must suffice to say
survey to a close. The example concerns the that Keller did not have the straightforwardly
scene in which hostile attitude to leitmotivic technique imputed
to him on p.178). Nor may I count the ways in
The [Factor] of the Hudson Bay trading station,
returning in his canoe, notices that a visiting trapper
which some of the book’s oft-repeated allega-
has arrived in his absence. As he walks up the jetty to tions (e.g. the one about ‘establishment preju-
his cabin to discover who it is, Vaughan Williams very dice’ blighting the careers of serious composers
kindly gives the audience a clue to the trapper’s iden- who involved themselves in film) are not worth
tity in the music cue (p.96). the paper they are drivelled on.
But there is space – and good reason – to
The cue in question is partly an arrangement of examine the Appendices. For concluding the
the tune ‘Allouette’ – thus suggesting to us that the book are interviews with two elderly former
trapper happens to be a French-Canadian (how practitioners of the film composer’s art: one,
characteristic of the author that this is said to be from 1993, with Roy Douglas (b.1907); the other,
his ‘identity’!). Swynnoe considers that the use of from 1997, with Doreen Carwithen (1922–2003).
this traditional song ‘probably results from the fact Douglas, of course, is a figure who has done
that it is used later as a diegetic music cue’ (p.96) – much and seen more, and has a correspondingly
and it is indeed true that a ‘traditional’ song which vast supply of stories to tell. It’s fun to find him
the trapper himself sings on his first appearance
could hardly be led up to by some other tune. 6
We also find that the characters Vogel and Lohrmann are mis-
Clearly, however, she is less than impressed: not called ‘Fogel’ and ‘Lohrman’ (p.146).

  89
identifying himself (p.195) as the player of both

the piano in Things to Come (1936) and the harpsi-
chord in Henry V (1945) – and salutory to be
reminded of just how little familiarity with a film
was oftentimes held to suffice for production of
appropriate music: ‘I saw the film through once,
then they sent me the list of timings’ (p.194). It’s
also good to have confirmation that Vaughan
Williams was among those who ‘did their scores
entirely themselves’ (p.193) – while everyone who
NEW MUSIC 2003-4 AT THE
NORTHERN
has ever struggled with an example of VW’s
‘cacography’ will be amused to read the
following: ‘He wrote me a card, and all I could
read was: “The White Gates, Dorking”, and the
telephone number, so I rang up and asked him
what the card was about’ (p.196). SUBSCRIPTION SERIES: Save up to 30%
In spite of all this, I can’t help but consider the by Booking a Season Ticket
interview (accompanied by Douglas’s ‘The true for this Compelling Series,
story of The Warsaw Concerto’, a not particularly
necessary re-print from what isn’t clearly identi-
which includes:
fied as the International Classical Record Collector) 21 OCTOBER
to be a regrettable inclusion – for the simple PIERRE-LAURENT AIMARD piano
reason that I respected Douglas a whole lot more and NZAMBA LELA
before I’d seen it. Large sections of it, in fact, can (the AKA Pygmies of Central Africa)
only be described as an unattractive mixture of
the unsupported and the insupportable – with an 31 OCTOBER
occasional but definite hint of homophobia, FIFTH QUARTER OF THE GLOBE
whether in the form of a dismissive over-famil- Simon Fisher Turner plus soprano
iarity (‘I never came across Benjy [sic] Britten …’ Melanie Pappenheim: Derek Jarman film scores
[p.212]7), or posing as factual information 5 NOVEMBER
(‘Addinsell was staying in Iffley with one of his DUO MILLÁN
boy friends’ [p.215]8), or discernible in a succes- Contemporary Spanish music
sion of gratuitous attacks on Christopher
Palmer. 21 NOVEMBER
The Carwithen interview, like the Douglas, WHO PUT BELLA IN THE WYCH ELM?
contains some informative snippets – Almeida Opera and BCMG present Simon Holt’s
new opera alongside works by Norgard and Kurtág
Muir [Mathieson] and John Hollingsworth would
discuss [the dramatic situation] with you in great detail 28 NOVEMBER
… [Y]ou’d have a much more lengthy session, reel by PSAPPHA PLAYS ZAPPA
reel, discussing where we’d put music – where we’d
start, where we’d stop, what the ideas should be, and 4 DECEMBER
that bit should tie up with later on when they climb a BRITTEN SINFONIA - THE ART OF FUGUE
mountain or something (p.221); Joanna MacGregor, with the Britten Sinfonia
and Andy Sheppard
and, likewise, there are reminiscences which
bring the era to life in other ways – for example, plus THURSDAY 16 - SATURDAY 18 OCTOBER
the one where Carwithen draws a film-musical HOLLOWAY RESONANCES
employer’s attention to the fact that Malcolm A festival celebrating the 60th birthday of the
Arnold is being paid 90 pounds and she 70. fluent and versatile British composer Robin Holloway
Comes the reply: ‘Don’t you think you’re doing
very well for a woman?’ (p.227–8).
For information and tickets contact: THE RNCM BOX OFFICE,
124 OXFORD ROAD, MANCHESTER M13 9RD.
Tel: 0161 907 5555 E-mail: box.office@rncm.ac.uk
7
or visit www.rncm.ac.uk
I don’t believe anyone besides Auden knew the mature Britten
as ‘Benjy’.
8
A heterosexual like Walton, by contrast, can be merely ‘living
with Lady Wimborne’ (p.196).
Great Music Happens Here

90 
Likewise, too, there is a delightful VW story Stewart Craggs having his name mis-spelled on
(‘We had tea, he cut the cake – “I always cut the four occasions. And it beggars belief that
first piece for my cat”, he said’ [p.225]); and – like- Douglas’s emissions concerning Kubrick’s 2001
wise – one encounters things which one sincerely (p.211) should have been reproduced without any
wishes one had not had to see: ‘I think Benny [sic] hint of either the scepticism or the drastic factual
Frankel wrote some good scores – you know, correction which they variously call for. Finally,
Benny Honkle!’ (p.224). As it happens, I can’t when I contemplate Swynnoe’s declaration
claim to know precisely what is meant by that – concerning the amount of music in Gone With the
but I’m prepared to bet that it isn’t anything nice. Wind (‘3 hours and 20 minutes’ is the inflamma-
Needless to say, the author’s handling of these tory figure quoted [p.206]), I must simply declare
interviews – together with her transcription and that words – together with a couple of minor
editing of them – manifests the same failings arteries – fail me. For that figure is a gross –
seen in the rest of the book. Her need to indeed, given its rhetorical purpose, even a vile –
combine praise and complaint results more than exaggeration: my own stopwatch puts the total at
once in the suppression of sheerly factual infor- not much over 2 1/2 hours – a full 45 minutes less.
mation: while we get to hear what all parties ‘Why don’t you work more in the publishing
think about the Ken Russell Lady Chatterley industry?’, asked a friend of mine on inspecting
(1992), for example, at no point can anyone be the annotations in my review copy: ‘You could
bothered to tell us who it was that actually help to stop things like this happening’. Which,
composed ‘such nice music’ (p.206; if memory of course, would be splendid. As it is, however,
serves, the composer was Jean-Claude Petit). I an imprint of Boydell and Brewer has delivered
can think of no reason why Douglas’s worries unto the world a book whose relentless inepti-
about what musical mischief Christopher Palmer tude makes it a cultural and academic pain in the
might get up to in future (p.214) should have neck: an overwhelming proportion of what it
been presented without an editorial reminder thinks it has done will now have to be re-done –
that Palmer has been dead since 1995. There is properly – by other people.
surely no excuse for so prominent a scholar as Mark Doran

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way of a comprehensive serial theory: chance,

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Someone once asked Dohnányi if he had been in love

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£47.50 | HB | 0 521 81642 4 | 250pp

Music and Ideology in Cold War Europe

Quotation and Cultural Meaning in

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Make the Connection

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identifying himself (p.195) as the player of both

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