Oxford University Press The Musical Quarterly
Oxford University Press The Musical Quarterly
Oxford University Press The Musical Quarterly
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to The Musical Quarterly
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THE IDEA OF EVOLUTION IN THE
MUSIC OF THE 20TH CENTURY
By WILLIAM AUSTIN
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The Idea of Evolution in the Music of the 20th Century 27
We know very little about these actual events. In the future psy-
chologists may enable us to find out more about them than we know
how to find out now (provided they do not teach us first to lose interest
in such events as musical composition). Now we can only guess how
much of a composer's act is the outcome of conscious choice, how much
is habit, and how much intuition; we can make only the wildest kind
of guess as to what sources the intuition may arise from, how the habits
are formed and how they are shared among the individuals of a group,
and how the choice is exercised. It is very tempting to speculate, for
example, that conformity to a norm is habitual and unconscious while
divergence is the outcome of individual creative choice; or that con-
formity is conscious craftsmanship, more or less well-developed, while
divergence is capricious individual intuition; that divergence in a cer-
tain direction is provoked, or even determined, by the inherent nature
of an unstable norm; or that some particular divergence is elicited, or
even caused, by a changed social environment. Speculation on these
questions is futile until the application of our psychological and socio
logical disciplines to the theory of art is more advanced. At present
there is no way of testing any hypothetical answer. We need not
despair of ever finding verifiable answers to these tantalizing questions,
but for the present they are no more promising than the older questions
of philosophers, "What is beauty?" and "What does music mean?"
Such questions have often served to stimulate and exercise imagination
even though no proposed answers have won wide agreement. Mean-
while, musical scholarship can make its own advances by clarifying its
descriptive terms and improving its technique of analysis. For musical
research is focused on music. If some day we want to know more about
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28 The Musical Quarterly
the historical process, we cannot be content ultima
study of the chief documents only, the complet
rather we shall need to consider all the relevant ev
ways of thinking and feeling. We cannot hope to u
process that led to Faurd's peculiar practice of harm
out probing many aspects of his personality, includ
the music of other composers both older and young
including his attitudes towards social and political t
vations as well as traditions and innovations in the
It should be obvious that we lack sufficient
thorough understanding of the process. Our knowle
to justify our metaphor. But it is enough for that,
rect some mistaken interpretations of the proce
the relations among the events in the minds of com
to relations among species of plants and animals ob
and interpreted in their theory of evolution.
This view is by no means new, but it is not yet w
consistently maintained. A presentation of the v
study by every musician is Charles Koechlin's essay
monie: periode contemporaine, in the Lavignac Ency
proves the validity of the evolutionary view by traci
opment of new harmonic practices from the comm
music, and sharply defining the varieties of practice
musical examples. Further evidence to support th
may be found in the present author's study of Har
2o-Century Music.2 Indeed, any study that star
analysis and critical evaluation of many specific pie
lend support to the evolutionary view; the idea of a
can be maintained only as long as we deal with abst
typical works. Yet in our writing, speaking, and th
century music it is often the case that we limit our
favorites, and even if we are ready to grant some v
lutionary view we are slow to reject other views inco
A different view at least as common as ours is
Willi Apel in the article on "New Music" in the H
Approximately the same view is held by many o
recently Roger Sessions has restated it, with many
chapter on "Music in the World Today" in his v
I Paris, 1923, II, 1 :591-76o.
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The Idea of Evolution in the Music of the 20th Century 29
Musical Experience (Princeton, 1950). We direct our argument spe-
cifically against Apel's article because it is a responsible statement by a
respected scholar and because it is likely to have far-reaching influence,
whereas much of the writing on new music is relatively ephemeral and
either condescends to its readers or else addresses an esoteric circle.
Apel speaks repeatedly of (i) a general "break with tradition," of
"negation," "destruction," "rejection" of both technical and esthetic
inheritance from the period of common practice. (2) He describes the
years from about 1918 to 1925 as an "anarchic" period in which all
kinds of new systems were proposed to "fill the vacuum" left by the
rejection of the past. (3) He interprets the relative quiet of the years
since 1925 as a restoration of order, a synthesis of the best results of the
free experimentation of the chaotic period with certain principles revived
from the I8th century and earlier periods. Into this framework he fits
the names of prominent composers, titles and dates of important com-
positions, and the host of "isms" encountered in discussions of new music.
We may make allowances for the brevity of the article: we assume that
its author and most of its readers would recognize that no neat division
into periods can correspond exactly to the real course of events, that
anticipations, lags, and intricate cross-currents necessitate qualifications
of such a broad outline. But qualifications are not enough to make this
scheme fit the facts.
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30 The Musical Quarterly
mand. The influence of Schoenberg on Stravin
and even Hindemith has surely been far less t
determine just what this influence has been wou
investigation of each composer, for no one of
Schoenberg's fundamental rejection.'
More plausible than such arbitrary experiments as these are the theo-
ries of a "supradiatonic" scale destined to replace the diatonic, which
have been elaborated by Joseph Yasser, in A Theory of Evolving Tonality
(New York, 1932), and A. S. Ogolevets, in Osnovy Garmonicheskogo
Yazyka (Moscow, I941 ). But these theories have found no practical
application.
Perhaps the basis of the idea of a break with tradition is not any
actual musical practice or technical theory, but rather the verbal
pronouncements and the associated fisticuffs of the Futurists and
Dadaists. The manifestos of these movements do call for rejection,
negation, destruction. These manifestos have been quoted at second
or third hand by Apel, as by other writers on 20oth-century music.
Slonimsky, by including them in his indispensable reference book Music
Since 1900oo, has made them known to a wide audience without giving
any adequate commentary on them. For a hasty reader of Slonimsky,
the violence that the Futurists and Dadaists revelled in is easily con-
nected with the violence accompanying the first performance of Op. II
and the Rite of Spring. Hence a digression to consider these movements
with care may prove helpful.
The Futurist movement in literature and the visual arts was inaugu-
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The Idea of Evolution in the Music of the 20th Century 31
7 See Slonimsky, Music Since 19oo, New York, 1938, pp. 556-57.
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32 The Musical Quarterly
The Futurist "art of noises," invented by Luigi
approached more nearly to Marinetti's vision. Ru
painter; he specifically disclaimed any standing
ever, he too had an interpretation of the "evolution
"a tendency towards the most complex dissonanc
satisfied only by the supplementary use of noise and
musical sounds." To call him a "real composer" an
between his art of noises and the so-called "machine
and Bart6k, as Apel does,9 is far-fetched.
The insignificance of musical Futurism was perce
appeared on the scene in Italy,'o and in i915 W.
its limitations calmly and precisely, distinguishing i
attitude on the one hand, and from the more evolut
ously represented by Sibelius, Ravel, Scriabin, an
other."
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The Idea of Evolution in the Music of the 20th Century 33
15 H. Strobel, Paul Hindemith, 2nd ed., Mainz, 1931, traces the development
very convincingly. Strobel's introductory survey of new music presents a scheme
almost the same as Apel's, but since it is designed as a background for Hindemith
rather than a comprehensive dictionary-article it has somewhat more justification.
Note that Apel has recently protested against the blatant pro-Hindemith anti-Schoen-
berg stand of Albert Wellek in his article on atonality in Musik in Geschichte und
Gegenwart (review in Journal of the American Musicological Society, IV [1951] 163).
Certainly the article of Apel's under attack here is far more fair-minded and more
subtle than Wellek's, but in principle we maintain that Apel's criticism of Wellek
is applicable to his own article.
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34 The Musical Quarterly
norm from which practices now diverge in so ma
possibly see in Apel's interpretation of the history
an unconscious reflection of this hope of Hindemi
But Hindemith's practice is still only one amon
Bart6k, Milhaud, Prokofiev, Copland, Walton,
as little in common with Hindemith as they have
with each other. And Hindemith's theory is less
these composers than is the theory based on t
practice.
Each of these men, to be sure, has written some music in recent
years that seems "milder" than some of their products of the early
'twenties. Also we have learned, to a greater or lesser extent, what to
expect from each of them. But they have no more in common than
they ever had. Each has followed his own line of development; the lines
may not continue to diverge at the same rate as before, but they show
no sign of converging either; they seem to be running roughly parallel.
Apel's article aims to comprehend the development of 2oth-century
music in relation to a single line, as if it were one organism. Apel quali-
fies his scheme with the note that Schoenberg and his immediate fol-
lowers have remained aloof from the "neo-Classic synthesis" (although,
as a matter of fact, Schoenberg was among the first to exemplify the
intense interest in counterpoint, in chamber music, and in I8th-century
forms that distinguish neo-Classicism, along with tonal cadences). Apel
concludes: "In twenty years we shall know who pursued the right path."
He implies that Schoenberg suffers an arrested development, that the
main line has now passed him by, that there cannot be more than one
right path, that all composers are seeking the same ideal destination.
Advocates of atonality like Krenekl" and Leibowitz" welcome such a
challenge. They too interpret the development of 20oth-century music in
relation to a single line: not a straight line, but a single "dialectical"
process; for them, every "tonal" composer is a reactionary, engaged in
futile resistance to an inevitable progress. They too claim to see a shift
from a negative to a positive emphasis about 1925, but for them of
course the new positive element is the twelve-tone technique rather than
a return to the past. At the same time, they prize the freedom and
diversity possible within the twelve-tone technique and defer somewhat
the hope of a new synthesis.
leMusic Here and Now, New York, 1939.
17 Numerous books and articles, especially L'Evolution de la musique de Bach
a Schoenberg, Paris, 1951.
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The Idea of Evolution in the Music of the 20th Century 35
These two opposed attitudes are strikingly similar. Both are too
simple. Perhaps the root of our difficulty is our metaphorical language.
Our phrase, "the evolution of 2oth-century music," tends to make us
think of individual works or individual composers as specimens of a
race, or as various races of one species. We search for an image of the
norm of the species, and for an indication of the direction of future
evolution. These are chimeras. If we like our metaphor, we should say
that what happened to music in the first two decades of the 20oth century
was an explosive evolution, a multiple forking or branching out of one
species into many new species and sub-species, together with one remark-
able mutation which reached a hitherto unoccupied zone of the adaptive
grid, and that happily almost all the species, sub-species, and varieties
are still flourishing, only a few of the more grotesque individual sports
having died without issue."
This makes it obvious that the evolution of music is no more than a
metaphor, but as a metaphor its meaning is rich and remarkably precise.
This kind of metaphor has led to many hypotheses fruitful for the
study of social institutions, of literature, fine arts, and music.19 The ideas
of evolving styles and evolving forms have helped us gain acquaintance
with many unjustly neglected works of the past; they have helped us
understand many works better. It is doubtful whether they have helped
us to understand the actual psycho-social process of artistic creation. It
is regrettable that they have sometimes led us to futile inquiries, and
even to distorted interpretations of works that we might have understood
better without the metaphorical frame.20
After all, our interest in the historical process is a secondary interest.
We are concerned with it chiefly as a means to understanding works of
art themselves. When a metaphor gets in the way of our esthetic enjoy-
ment, we should not hesitate to forget the metaphor. If a metaphor can
be made to help, we should make the most of it. The criterion for judg-
ing an interpretation of musical history is how it illumines music and
18 Cf. G. G. Simpson, Tempo and Mode in Evolution, New York, 1944.
19 Cf. Glen Haydon, Introduction to Musicology, New York, 1941, pp. 247-64.
so Cf. Warren D. Allen, Philosophies of Music History, New York, 1939. This
is an interesting expos6 of the confusions and distortions resulting from the metaphors
of evolution and growth in general histories of music. Allen wants musicologists to
do away with analogies altogether. This seems too severe a prescription. To avoid
analogies would be to avoid constructive thinking. Allen does not deny the essential
meaning of the evolution-analogy: that new styles, like new species, are intimately
connected with their predecessors, not produced by a "special creation." He prefers
to emphasize the relation between new styles and new environmental conditions,
new functional needs.
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36 The Musical Quarterly
enhances its inherent interest. An interpretation t
music to pigeonholes is worse than no interpret
of a manifold evolution should encourage us to
achievements of 20oth-century composers, and to
own merits.
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