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十九世紀未的學術思想對當代藝術的影響

前言: 這也是一篇資料相當充實的文章。討論範圍相當廣泛。文體不太艱深。可是，我也不期望現在的學生哥會仔細閱讀。他們怕看文字的態度，垣白說，已到了無可救藥的地步。可是，對於喜歡藝術的朋友，我相信他們會喜歡，因為，通過這短短的文章裡，他們可以略略明白某種藝術風格，不限音樂，是如何在二十世紀與起。這是歷史學，也是社會文化學的一篇文章。

正文:

The Influence of the 19^thCentury Intellectual Thoughts on the Modern Arts

The end of the 19^th century was a time of relative peace and optimistic faith in technological progress and human productivity. Industrialism provided the economic and military basis for the west’s rise to a position of dominance over the rest of the world and at the same time, took certain impact to the modern arts.

Sigmund Freud’s theories concerning the nature of the human psyche, the significance of dreams, and the dominating role of human sexuality had a revolutionary effect on the beliefs, attitudes, and morals of modern society. They were equally influential upon the arts. In literature, Proust, Kafka and Joyce are representative of the modern novelist’s preoccupation with the subconscious life and with the role of memory in shaping reality. Their fiction reflects a fascination with methods and principles of Freudian psychoanalysis. Stream of consciousness narrative and the interior monologue are among the literary techniques used by modern authors to develop plot and character. In the visual arts, Freud’s impact generated a wide variety of styles that gave free play to fantasy and dreams.

The expressionism of Munch and Kirchner, the metaphysical art of de Chirico, and the fantasies of Chagall examined the mysteries of repressed fears and desires. The dada movement spread the gospel of irrationality in randomly organized words and images. Duchamp, the most outrageous of the dada cultists, championed a nihilistic, antiart spirit that had far-reaching effects in the second half of the century. In 1924, Andre Breton launched surrealism, an international movement to liberate the life of the subconscious from the bonds of reason.

Strongly influenced by Freud, the surrealists viewed the human subconscious as a battleground of conflicting forces dominated by instincts. Miro, and Klee explored the terrain of the interior life in abstract paintings filled with playful and ominous images.

Dali, Magritte, Kahlo, and O’Keeffe manipulated illusions of the real world in ways that evoked the visionary incoherence of the dream life. In motion pictures, Dali, Bunuel, and others devised cinematic techniques that exposed the dark and unpredictable passions of the mind.

In music, Satie embraced mundane sounds with the same enthusiasm that E.E. Cummings showed for slang in poetry and Dumchamp exercised in his glorification of found objects. It was in the expressionistic monodramas of Schoenberg and the sexually charged operas of Strauss, Bartok, and Berg that Freud’s impact was most powerfully realized.

During the second half of the 19^th century, as the social consequences of the western industrialism became increasingly visible, realism came to rival romanticism both as a style and as an attitude of mind. The ideologies of 19^th century of liberalism, conservatism, Utilitarianism, socialism and communism offered varying solutions to contemporary problems of social injustice and inequity.

In the arts, realism emerged as a style concerned with recording contemporary subject matter in true-to-life terms. Such novelists as Dickens in England, Zola in France, and Twain in America, they described contemporary social conditions sympathetically and fidelity to detail.

Photography and lithography were invented during the 19^th century; both medium encouraged artists to produce objective records of their surroundings. By the mid nineteenth century the camera was used to document all aspects of contemporary life as their compositions. In painting, Courbet led the realist movement with canvases depicting the activities of humble and commonplace men and women. Daumier employed the new technique of lithography to show his deep concern for political and social conditions in rapidly modernizing France. Manet shocked art critics by recasting traditional subjects in contemporary terms.

America

’s realist painters, including Thomas Eakins and Winslow Homer, recorded typically American pastimes in an unembellished, forthright manner. In music, Puccini wrote operas that captured the lives of 19^th century Europeans.

On the whole, the varieties of realism in 19^th century cultural expression reflect a profound concern reassessment of traditional western values.

Art for art’s sake was neither a movement nor a style but rather a prevailing spirit in European and especially French culture of the last quarter of the nineteenth century.

Of all forms of art, there was a new attention to sensory experience rather than to moral and didactic purpose.

At the same time, advances in optics, electricity, and other areas of science and technology brought attention to matters of motions and light. Theses affected the French impressionists, led by Monet, were equally representative of the late 19^th century interest in sensation and sensory experience. These artists tried to record an instantaneous vision of their world, sacrificing the details of perceived objects in order to capture the effects of light and atmosphere.

Paralleling the radical changes in technology and art, the German iconoclast Nietzsche questioned the moral value of art and rallied superior individuals to topple old gods, that is, to reject whatever was sentimental and stale in Western tradition.

Amidst new theories of sensation and perception, the French philosopher Bergson stressed the role of intuition in grasping the true nature of durational reality. He claimed that time is the continuous progress of the past, which gnaws into the future and which swells as it advance. Time cannot be measured in such a quantitative way, it is a quality, not a substance. The application of Bergson’s theory of time to the arts of the late 19^th century can be very illuminating. The philosopher often cited the motion picture as an example of what he meant by the perception of duration. The separate frames in a motion picture film are still; but when the series is run through the projector, the mind melds them together in a continuous flow, and they appear to be animated and alive. So also are the separate colors on an impressionistic canvas, the separate scenes in a Maeterlinck play, the separate chords in a Debussy progression-all are molded by the mind into a continuum of time.

In visual impressionism, the eye mixes the colors and in a symbolist poem, the symbolist poets devised a language of sensation that evoke feeling rather than describing experience and let the mind supplies the connecting verbs for the so-called fragments. In Maeterlinck play, the imagination gives the irrelevancies speech and action a dramatic meaning and in Debussy’s music, the ear bridges over the pregnant silences. In sculpture, the works of Degas and Rodin reflect a common concern for figural gesture and movement and left parts of the stone uncut. The postimpressionists van Gogh, Gauguin, Seurat and Cezanne moved beyond the impressionist infatuation with fleeting effects. Van Gogh and Gauguin used color not as an atmospheric envelope but as a tool for personal and visionary expression. Seurat and Cezanne reacted against the formlessness of impressionism by creating styles that featured architectural stability and solid, simplified forms.

In all arts, this ceaseless flux leads toward the improvisatory, the consciously incomplete. Each work tries to be a product of inspiration rather than calculation. With visual impressionists, all pictorial substance is broken down into an airy mixture of color sprays, fleeting shadows, and momentary moods.

With industrialization came a specialization in which people were concerned more with fragments than with wholes. Industrial workers were rapidly forfeiting to the machine their place as the primary productive unit. In Mallarme’s ‘Afternoon Faune’, images unfold as sensuous, discontinuous fragments. Similar effects occur in the music of Debussy, where delicately shaded harmonies gently drift without resolution.

During the late 19^th century, atomic physicists provided a model of the universe that was both more dynamic and more complex than any previously conceived, e.g. Newton. Einstein produced his special theory of relativity, a radically new approach to the concepts of time, space and motion. Heisenberg’s principle of uncertainty stated that since the act of measuring subatomic phenomena would alter those phenomena, the position and the velocity of a particle could not be measured simultaneously with any accuracy.

Therefore, at the onset of the twentieth-century, modern physics had replaced the absolute and rationalist model of the universe with one that seemed chaotic and uncertain.

Paralleling the advancement of atomic physics, Nietzsche’s new philosophical concepts also had a certain impact on the artists. He asked: ‘Is man merely a mistake of God’s? Or God merely a mistake of man’s?’ Agreeing with Nietzsche’s remark that history was the process by which the dead bury the living, Marinetti declared in his manifesto in 1909 that futurism was being founded to ‘deliver Italy from its plague of professors, archeologists, tourist guides and antique dealers.’ All these new intellectual points of view are also mirrored in abstract art.

In the arts, new ways of seeing and listening were being worked out. In painting, for example, the cubist system of multiple visual viewpoints was explored, whereby several sides of an object could be presented at the same time in 2-dimenional space. In sculpture, a new theory of volume was developed, whereby open holes or gaps in the surface suggested the interpenetration of several planes, and the interpenetration of several planes, and the existence of other sides and surfaces not immediately in view. In architecture, the international style used the vocabulary of steel and glass to incorporate in structure of outer and inner space.

Similar developments occurred in literature and music, which found new ways of presenting materials in time dimension. In music, the so-called atonal method of composition was formulated. Such novel organizations of space and time demanded new ways of thinking about the world, new ways of looking at it, listening to it, and reading about it. Abstraction includes such various developments as cubism, futurism, the mechanical style, non-objectivism, the twelve-tone method and the international style of architecture.

From the above brief discussion, one can understand how a form of art is developed through historical course under the influences of sociol and intellectual thoughts. The emergence of Modernism in the 20th century was not a coincidence. It deeply stemmed from human life and thoughts. If one wants to uncover the veil of this artistic process, one should not avoid examinating the history of socio-culture and science in relation to that of the humanity.

David Leung (theorydavid)

2011-03-25 (published)

微模音樂風格探討 — 分析華納序曲–萊茵河上的黃金作曲素材之運用

前言: 看來不少讀者都希望我略談一下作曲技巧的問題。我想，作曲技巧，在大多數音樂理論書都有廣泛討論，分門別類地引列出來。我也不便在這裡重覆。對我來說，最佳的作曲參巧書，就是實制的作品本身。一首 mp3，加一本總譜，就可以學習學習。不少作曲天書都有說過現代音樂裡的 Minimalism 微模風格的作品，如 Philip Glass, Terry Rily 等。可是死讀書的就只會想到這些近代作曲家和作品，如果你肯消化 Minimalism 的音樂特點，就是用最少的才料去發展最長的音樂，你可以不再盡信書中所記，反過來自己探索一下，你會發覺，遠至 Baroque，到鄰近的十九世紀浪漫風格，你也可以找到在不同時代的大師們的一些音樂處理，也是很 minimal 的，可說是 minimal 主義的先驅者。其作品的精巧程度，叫聽眾拍案叫絕。我們學寫曲的，就是要學會怎樣以最少的材料去完成最大的作品。
華格納以下這段樂曲的處理，你聽得出，看得出其功架嗎?

朋友們，學啦!

正文:

The “Minimalistic Setting” in Wagner’s Prelude of Das Rheingold

The musical extract typically shows three significant Romantic traits: sublime orchestral sonority, kaleidoscopic timbres and prolonging melodic line. The overall mood portrayed in this grand passage is extensively dramatic, profoundly poetic and sensationally moving, rather than elegantly classical or well proportionally symmetrical. Apart from the apparent Romantic appearances, however, this inspiring passage is not without having other novel features that invite further scrutiny.

Although the entire passage lasts nearly four minutes, the musical motion merely depends on the projection of one single element, the Eb major triad. The thematic melody, the sustaining pedal and the orchestral accompaniment are all derived from this Eb major tonic triad and are continuously repeated throughout the passage. Here the monothematic nature is obvious. The minimal use of materials probably reminds us of Bolero by Maurice Ravel in 1928, which could be regarded as one of the precursors of the Postmodern Minimalism in the years sixty. Bolero only consists of a single Spanish dance theme and a repeated snare drum rhythmic pattern projecting throughout the whole piece. Similarly, this extract exactly reflects such conspicuous feature.

Another significant characteristic worthy of considering is the continuous small-scale changes within the repetitions. By adding different instruments to the texture and changing the accompanimental pattern in the inner parts, the musical tension is built up gradually. These changes not only enhance manifold timbres to avoid monotonous, but also thicken the orchestral sonority step by step, providing a gradual growth of dynamic from soft to the climatic loud tutti near the ending, as well as holding the musical tension for the entire passage. As a result, neither a single repetition of the melody nor a harmonic pattern generates the same sonic sound. This characteristic is very similar to the art painting of Minimal style, the Coca Cola, by Andy Warhol in 1962. In Coca Cola, a matrix of many coca cola bottles of the same size is arranged, but in fact no single bottle is exactly identical. Doubtless the small-scale change within a repeated similarity is one of the most salient attributes of Minimal Arts. The listening extract, to a certain extent, also possesses such element alike.

In short, this musical passage comprises much novelty and innovation, despite its apparent Romantic outlook. The single Eb tonic triad successfully maintains the entire musical motion and tension. In order to keep the perceptive interest within a monothematic background, the orchestration, timbre, dynamic, harmonic pattern and texture are changing incessantly. This restless small-scale change is the key factor for the gradual growth of musical tension, building up a more complex texture and sonority until the climatic conclusion. The musical extract, therefore, can be regarded as an extraordinary example of hybridization of Romanticism and somewhat nascent Minimalism.

……Complete…..全文完。

David Leung (theorydavid)

2011-03-22 (published)

和聲寫作是靠 feel 還是靠 rules ?

前言: 朋友 KM 看過拙作四部和聲寫作要訣後，留言說這大件事了，因她寫作音樂完全是靠 feel。這裡，對懂音樂的朋友，就不期然產生了一個問題，究竟寫作音樂是靠 feel，還是熟練 rules 就可以。坦白說，只要我們肯面對一個很基本的問題，就是凡是任何一種學問，必需學的人付出個人的努力，才能得著這個基本原則，那麼，問題就迎刃而解了。因寫靠 feel 做事的人，大都只希望找得一個藉口去逃避付出努力鍛鍊這一個費時費力的過程，喜歡怎做就怎做嘛，又不是專業! 我覺得成就行啦! 不過話得說回頭，音樂是很抽象，一大堆 rules 又怎可能令音樂變成藝術呢? 我們聽起來 work 就可以吧。所以，KM 所說的情況，又值得深思一下。

正文:

有很多強調音樂寫作靠 feel 的人總喜歡拿 Mozart 作例子。這位三百年才一遇的天才，被喻為靈感一到，feel 一來，音樂就能如泉湧的湧出來。可是，朋友們，不如我們看看 Mozart 自己怎樣看別人視自己為天才這個看法。從 Mozart 的書信裡，我們看到他這樣評論自己: 如果別人認為我是天才，寫作音樂毫不費力，請想想，他們能一音不漏的背練 Palestrina 那五十多首 Mass 嗎? 從 Mozart 自己的評論，你可以看出，Mozart是以能熟背 Palestrina 的又長又悶的Mass 為榮。為何 Palestrina 的 Mass 跟寫作 Mozart 時代的 Classical style 的主音音樂 Homonphony 有關呢? 原來當時代的作曲家，皆要學習對位法，這是寫作音樂，寫作和聲的基本技術。大師如Bach, Handel, Haydn ，以及貝多芬等無不精通十六世紀的古對位法。而這對位法就是從 Palestrina 的那五十多首 Mass 由 Zarlino 這位十六世紀的理論兼作曲家整合出來的，再由十八世紀的 Alfred Mann 改良整理成為今天名為 strict counterpoint 的對位法理論。今天，很可惜，已經很少人再肯花時間去學習這種 strict counterpoint 了。由此可見，我們所熟知的 Tonal Harmony，就是對位音樂和其法則演變而成的。無怪乎 Mozart 聲稱他曾付出極大的努力去熟習這很深很難的 Palestrina Mass，熟習對位技巧。可是，他的天賦才華背後所付出努力卻常為人所忽視。

因此，我們現在學習和聲，又怎能不理會和聲背後的法則 (rules) 呢。所以，我們稱和聲學習是 Harmony and Voice Leading。我們不單要學和絃和和絃之間這縱的關係，還要學和絃間進行這橫的 voice leading 關係。和聲法則，很多是從對位法則伸延變化出來的。如果你今天要學好。Schenkerian Analysis，你如果不懂 counterpoint，是很難明白這種分析法是如何運作的。

和聲法則，在樂曲中的作用，就好比語文的文法。你會寫文章不理會文法嗎? 你能只靠 feel ，美其名是靈感，來寫作嗎? 請想想，就算你只靠 feel 寫了一篇文章出來，卻文法不通，雖然你自己明白，但你的讀者會明白嗎? 所以，就算我們在初學和聲寫作時，要死背一些規則 rules，也是無可避免的。就如在英語的文法裡，你寫: If I were you ，I would kill you，而不是 If I was you, I would kill you. 這文法我們是要背的。但寫多了，不就記得嗎? 為何音樂上的 rules 就找藉口去逃避，說 : “我寫音樂是靠 feel 的，我覺得 work 就得了。” 坦白說，如果是這樣寫出來的東西，不懂的人就給你寫的嚇死，若是行家嘛，就給你笑死。所以在我的圈之裡，朋友還是朋友，身為行內人的我通常不會對朋友的寫作說些甚麼，但如是學生嗎? 我就會指出問題來。跟我學音樂理論的學生，都知我的教學風格。KM 是我認識多年的朋友，也知她的性格和其音樂造詣，不便多說。

因此，歸根結底，我們看不見有任何一個作家是不懂文法的，因為你那偉大的意念也不能與人分享了。可是，反過來說，精通文法的人就不一定是好的作家，充其量能用寫作來表達自己意思而矣。
同樣地，音樂創作，又或和聲的寫作，我們也不能光靠 rules。就算你是熟習所有 rules，也充其量能寫出合乎法度，考試合格的音樂，但不能算是含有個人靈氣，神采的作品。所以我們也要靠 feel。嚴格來說，音樂不是拿來看的，而是拿來聽的，所以有時有些對音樂 sensitive 的朋友，就算不大記得 rules，當寫作時，他們也憑慣性將在記憶中曾聽過的音響，合乎法則的音響寫了出來，所以，也偶有遵守了和聲的法規，可是，這並不可靠。這好比，小孩子學講話，他聽過了，就能摹彷出來，與人成功溝通，但你總不會期望小孩子能寫出如 紅樓夢 這種偉大的作品吧。

我們要鍛鍊音樂的 feel，和聲運用的 feel，我們必需從 practical training 出發，多作 play by ear 的訓練。所以，大多學 composition 的人都識彈樂器，如鋼琴，雖然他們不是專業的表演者。可是他們也不能忽略多做音樂分析 — score anlaysis，學習了解前輩大師的作曲技巧，這也牽涉到學習音樂理論和音樂進行的 “文法” ，rules。如果你逃避不肯花時間去鍛鍊寫作技巧，又就能明白這些偉大作品背後的含義呢?

因此，總的來說，我們寫作和聲，寫作音樂，是有 rules，也同時要有 feel，即靈感的。創作很重神來之筆，所以學生皆要接受以上兩方面提及的學習和培養，這是屬於不同的訓練和學習的範疇。如果學生能掌握音樂的文法技巧，又同時具有創意和靈巧，他們的音樂與和聲的寫作才算是被視為真正的 composition。

David leung (theorydavid)

2011-03-18 (published)

Beethoven’s Influences of Symphony – 2

前言: 這篇文章接續上一篇探討貝多芬對後世交響樂發展的影響。

我已經常常說，香港的現代教育，簡直是混賬到極，不知所謂到不能忍受的地步。香港那所訓練未來老師的最高學府裡頭的 “教授” 們給了 assignment 同學，又驚同學們沒有時間做，又驚他們不識做，又驚題目出得深，就說叫他們抄書就可以了。我有一位私人學生急急 call 我，並告訴我看完 Palisca 那本 History textbook 天書，都沒有直接答案談及有 Beethoven 對後世音樂和音樂家的影響。現在是江湖告急。嗚呼! 連那些修音樂為主科的學位學生，隨口也不能 present 十分鐘有關貝多芬對音樂的貢獻和影響，還敢說自己是讀音樂，懂音樂的嗎? 看著書本也不懂 “抄”，(應該是偷)，怎辦? 我們常說，熟讀唐書三百首，不會吟詩也會 “抄” 嘛。坦白說，平時我指導這些私人學生，也常常提及不同作曲家和作品的風格特色和對後世的貢獻。些個同學是學 AMusTCL 考試研習的，Set piece 是 Schubert 的第五交響曲，我也談及過這首作品和 Beethoven 的交響作品的相同和不同的關係。我也曾教過同學，舒氏一生以 Beethoven 這位同期的前輩大師為學習對象，連死前也想學習 Counterpoint (這是Beethoven 最精，但 Schubert 最弱的技巧)，皆因要寫偉大的交響曲，沒有精練的對位技巧是不行的。可是同學們就當私人老師是補鑊助理，”求其” 要他們改改 past paper 就算是跟他們學了。他們就只關心學校是否給他們一張證書，所以對校內的課就比較認真，私人嘛….嘿嘿….

正文:

5. The whole symphony could be unified through thematic links or a program:

What is program music? This is a slippery term indeed. The definition of such musical genre is different from people to people. If we think of symphony with a programmatic title in a rather loose way, it is quite easy to remind us of Beethoven’s first program symphony. He marked the literal description about the music on the score with a clear title. What is this symphony? Yes, it is symphony 6 in F major entitled ‘Pastoral’. Listeners can understand the work through reading the descriptions. Indeed, no one would denies that Beethoven also used a title to referencing his renowned symphony no. 3 with a title: dedicated to a anonymous Hero after he tore the front page of the manuscript of this symphony when he heard the new of the self-coronation of Napoleon. That is why we called Beethoven’s third symphony in Eb major as Eroica. Apart from using a program to cohere the work, Beethoven also favored to used short motive to structure his lenghy symphonies. He used cyclic form to link the separate movements. For example, the third and finale movements of symphony no.5 are connected together without break, in order to push the music to the climatic triumphant closing moment, glorifying the victory of fighting against ones’ destiny. All these innovative settings in symphonies provide an exemplar to the forthcoming composers in the nineteenth century. Not only Mendelosshn wrote program symphony, but also Mahler, Tchaikovsky, Dvorak liked to employ title for their symphonic works. Wagner, a self-claimed follower of Beethoven, invented the use of leit motive, an adaptation of an unifying motive used in symphonic work, for his musical drama, inauguarte a new chapter for the late coming compositional writing of Hollywood film music to follow.

6. Use of dynamic scherzo and the sublime hymn-like slow movement:

Beethoven liked to use scherzo to replace the conventional third movement of Minuet and Trio in the symphony. This is a widely known fact. While Haydn employed the courty dance of Minuet and Trio to please his patrons, Beethoven changed the elegance and grace of this court dance to a more vigorous and energetic movement to serve his extended form of symphony. We still remember that Beethoven’s symphonies are heard as a pschological journey. Scherzo is more suitable to be placed in the third movement, since the third movement, in the hands of Beethoven, is now becoming a storage pool to provide sufficient energy and motions for the outcoming of the triumphant finale. Minuet and trio, quite obviously, is not energetic enough to propel the forthcoming of the glorious finale. Therefore, to replace dynamic scherzo and solemn slow movement are a reflection of Beethoven’s pschological journey of a figurative hero. In the other words, his symphonies are embedded with rich extra-musical meanings that forced Beethoven to change the form and structure of the conventional design of the classical symphony.

7. Large Orchestra: If you think of Beethoven’s use of three horns in symphony no. 3, trombones in symphony no. 5 and four horns in no. 9 with a Turkish March Band, you will not surprised top see why the late coming symphonic composers tended to use a large orchestra for their symphonic works. Whether Wagner, Bruckner, Brahms, Tchaikovsky or Mahler, employing large orchestra not only for serving their expressive means through a gigantic symphonic works, but also for delineating a sense of sublimity to the audience. This was indubitably a reflection of the nineteenth century German Romanticism.

8. Beethvoen move the center of gravity of the symphony more towards the last movements: In the hands of Haydn and Mozart, the last two movements of a symphony are only a suffix of the main chapter. The most important part of a symphony is the first Allegro movement and its counterpart, the slow second movement. The last two are only additional, in order to enhance the so-called classical perfection of balance and well-control. However, after Beethoven’s triumph of the triumphant ending setting of a symphony, Romantic symphonies could be categorized according to the success or failure of their finales.

9. Symphony became a more earnes, more ‘self-conscious’ compositional exercise than before, one that had to be undertaken with considerable caution and preparation:

Of course, this point may link to the rise of the individualism in the 19th century Romanticism. When ‘genius’, a composer with talent gift, created an art work, originality was the most important than anything. He/she put forth all his/her emotions and reasons to the artistic creations. It is a chance to bring himself/herself out that is different from the others. Brahms, for example, spent almost twenty years to wrote his first symphony, which was regarded as the symphony of Beethoven Tenth. Mahler, furthermore, spent almost his life time to wrote his nine symphonies, and through symphony, Mahler seeked his understanding of universal truth, as well as the meanings of life and death. To him, symphony is a transcendental medium to attain a new level of immortality and eternality.

As such, almost every composer after Beethoven could hardly write more than nine symphonies throughout his life, since they treated symphony writing carefully and cautiously.

Therefore, many music scholars agreed that the symphony is the most important musical genre in the19th century European community. Since symphony is so important and must be carefully to deal with, almost no major absolute symphony were composed between 1850 and 1870. Not until 1870 did the emergence of a “second age of the symphony” arrive. With the works of Bruckner, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Bordoin, Dvorak and Frank, in the 1870s and 1880s, the symphony once again dominated a large part of the concert repertoire till to this day.

Completed

David Leung (theorydavid)

2011-03-16 (published)

貝多芬的英雄，英雄的貝多芬

前言: 無論是愛好音樂的聽眾，又或是研究音樂的學者，說到貝多芬，總有說不盡的話題。我也不例外，也很想發表我對貝多芬第三交響曲，英雄，的音樂評論。在還沒有接續上一篇未完成的文章，討論貝多芬對後世交響曲和作曲家的影響前，多補充一下對貝多芬的樂曲的個人解讀，對看我文章的朋友，也是好的。說不定看過我的樂評後，真會買一張貝氏的第三交響曲的鐳射唱片來聽。這就是我發表以下評論的第一個原意。第二個原意，當然就是希望同學們通過我這篇樂評，掌握怎樣寫一篇好的音樂分析，又或是音樂評論的文章。我相信參巧以下文章的寫作風格，遺詞造句，同學們應該可以學會怎樣以樂音的角度去形容音樂，而不是只單純地引用一大堆如屬七和絃，又或 G 大調一類的專業音樂名詞去描寫音樂，就像很多音樂教科書一樣。第三個原意，不用多說，是幫助我上一篇文章曾談及學音樂的同學們，學會以專業的角度去了解貝多芬的樂曲，就算做功課也好，出來當老師也好，做學術簡介也好，好歹也可以有一些實質才料發表給聽眾知道，不用常常江湖救急了。

正文:

Beethoven’s Eroica

“It represents not only one of the most incredible achievements in the history of symphony, but also the most important step on the progression of the whole western music history,” Paul Henry Lang, the renowned musicologist and critic, once stated it when he commented on Beethoven symphony no. 3 in Eb major, Eroica (1803). Although Eroica was written more than two hundred years ago, its impact on today’s listeners remains tremendous.

It has already been widely known about Beethoven’s admiration for Napoleon Bonaparte and he dedicated this symphony for him. But after Napoleon’s self-coronation as the French Emperor, Beethoven gave up the idea. In fact, this legend has nothing related to the magnificent power of Eroica. Compared to the stormy impact Eroica brought to the audience of different times and nations, the political turbulence caused by Napoleon was but a slight summer breeze. In no more than a few decades did Europe recover from Napoleon’s devastation. Eroica, on the contrary, had changed the entire concept of symphony and effectively brought the genre to a new stage.

Before Eroica was premiered to his main patron Prince Lobkowitz in 1804, Beethoven had built up his fame as a composer-performer by writing several instrumental pieces, including at least two symphonies, three piano concertos, in the classical style of Haydn. If Beethoven were merely satisfied with these achievements and continued working in a similar style, he might still had his name appeared in history with those contemporaries, such as Johann Nepomuk Hummel or Lugwig Sphor, but he certainly would not have become a revolutionary hero standing uniquely in the history of music.

Beethoven’s revolutionary spirit has already been unleashed in the slow movements of both the piano sonata no. 13, Pathetique and Piano Concerto no. 3. But it is still difficult to envisage the later development of Beethoven’s musical style from these movements. Doubtless Eroica has a particular attribute that no previous works of his possess. From the first note to the last, the music seems to narrate the life of a dramatic hero struggling from a tragic opening to a triumphant ending. In fact, this narrative character enhanced by pure instrumental music is pioneering. Neither Mozart’s mature symphonies nor those of Haydn can exert such expressive power. In Beethoven’s hands, the classical ideal of balance of emotions and intellects is no longer maintained. The fact that Beethoven boldly gave up the classicism of Haydn and Mozart proved to be far-reaching. Eroica becomes the first symphonic work stepping into the terrain of Romanticism.

In the outer appearance, Beethoven basically maintains the principles of what his predecessors did to classical symphony for Eroica. For example, it is a symphony of four movements, which is a typical classical style developed by Joseph Haydn. Also, Beethoven uses different keys to express various contrasting moods in all movements and let the home key returned after modulations, in order to keep unity. However, Beethoven makes a great change in the design of structure. This change not only makes an unavoidable expansion of the length, but also destroys the classical balance between movements, and replaces it with the unceasing dramatic impulses. Both the length and complexity of the first movement has gone beyond all past instrumental works. The first theme appears only in a brief glimpse in the opening few bars, and thus, tonal unity has been broken just after the first ten seconds. Not until the music reaching the coda can a comparably stable theme be heard. This completeness makes the ending theme looks like an opening theme, as if it should have appeared in the exposition. In retrospect, Beethoven seems to have raised a thirteen-minute whirling storm over the first movement.

Beethoven’s revolutionary “storm” commences with two Eb tonic chords playing in tutti. The “heroic” theme, which is based on the arpeggiation of this Eb triad, is then heard. Putting tonic materials in the very beginning of a movement are the most direct and effective ways to establish the stability of a work. But it is only a fleeting stability because of the sudden intrusion of a C# note. According to the principle of harmony, this dissonant C# must be resolved. This unpleasant intrusion disappears shortly afterwards by resolving to another unstable dominant seventh chord. Music is said to go back to its stable “home” again. But this “home” only reflects a temporary placidity. A terrible storm is forthcoming.

For today’s ears, the chromatic C# note is only a piece of black cloud in the sky. Twentieth century music has been notorious for consisting notes of what the principles of classical harmony regard as “wrong.” To understand the disturbance caused by this C#, we need only to recall the audience of the late eighteenth-century Vienna.

Just before the private premiere of Eroica to Prince Lobkowitz, the revolutionary spirit has already pervaded the entire Continent. The success of American Revolution in 1776 and French Revolution in 1789 brought a chain of impacts to the socio-political structure of Europe. One of the results was the rise of the social status of bourgeoisie and layman. But this rise simultaneously denotes the fall of the aristocracy. Doubtless the late 18^th century is a time for the blossom of humanity and equity, but it is also a time for the growth of anxiety and frustration. When the princes and nobles listened to symphonic works, they have already accustomed to the so-called Haydnian elegance and nobility for years. This fading classical style was still a highly revered beauty. The aristocratic Viennese did not need anything brutal to raise their anxieties, or to increase their worries. Thus, when Beethoven “Eroica” stood before them in the concert, this inflected C# was seen as a loss of social balance, or even a symbol of brutal invasion.

But even greater anxieties were bought to those Viennese laymen. Just a few days before Eroica’s first public performance in the concert hall (1805), Vienna was occupied by Napoleon’s army. The nobles fled the city. The audiences in the concert were the ones threatened by military invasion. Thus it is not hard to understand why they easily link the music of the first movement to a sonic description of a battlefield, where they can think of general, soldiers, horse rearing, sabre shining or column of men streaming through the mountain. The awed sounds of war, being fused with the stirring music, were hovering among listeners. This inflected C#, therefore, was certainly seen as a symbol of brutal invasion.

Instead of the unstable C# note in the heroic theme, the other stormy feature embedded in Eroica is the scalic running passages. These passages can always arouse listeners a feeling of spirited forward motions. It is essential for an overwhelming musical storm. Although Beethoven begins his heroic theme with triple time, he makes use of syncopation and shift of dynamics to enhance a sense of two-beat march style of rhythm after the short opening. In addition, using the fragmented heroic theme as the main developing cell is another important source for generating motions. The turbulent storm first starts blowing in the low strings by the heroic theme. The high strings then answer. Every time when repeating, the theme is raised a tone until it reaches the climax. Only the first four notes of the main theme can survive after the climax, and are taken gradually by the woodwinds and brasses. This is not a moment for rest, but the anticipation for another flow. Shortly afterwards, the four-note heroic fragment reoccurs with increasing frequency, arresting every listener in a moment of high tension.

Another example of Beethoven’s whirling storm happens in the second movement, the Funeral March. After two-third of the music, the opening theme returns softly in the first violin, hovering along the high register without any support. The whole orchestra then roars with an Ab. The brass at the same time repeats the C, then the F over the agitated string triplet-tremolo. The music now is like a whirling storm, seeming to engulf everything without any intention to stop. What the orchestra playing is no longer the Mozartian slow movement of elegant singing, but a hysteric growl of extreme pain that goes beyond any listener’s imagination. Never has such thing happened in previous symphonies. Never such thing has happened in the previous symphonies. Furthermore, Beethoven seems to let his hero added with a little tragic, dark color. He fragments the funeral theme and let it dissolves in the quietness at the end of this movement, symbolizing the death and getting buried of the hero. Is this tragic hero Beethoven himself or other? Perhaps, no one knows the answer, even Beethoven himself.

The replacement of minuet and trio with scherzo in the third movement also reflects Beethoven’s another innovative character. In order to maintain the stormy motion of this movement, Beethoven gives up his predecessors’ favorite, the courtly dance of minuet and trio. The music is no more “lofty” enough to please the Viennese upper classes, or to extend their vanishing noble dreams. It is reformed to a spirited and energetic chapter, seeming to mock at the hypocrisy of the Viennese upper class. In fact, the use of a scherzo to replace the Minuet and Trio in the third movement of a symphony becomes one of the major characteristics of Beethoven’s symphonies.

If Beethoven were asked why he made such reformation, he might answer like this: “Why not!” A storm is still a storm. There is no reason why the finale of Eroica is not a storm. If the finale of Haydn and Mozart’s symphony is only the dessert, without any question, Beethoven’s finale will be the main course, or in the other words, the most powerful part of the storm. Usually, the classical symphony focuses on the first two movements in which all important ideas are displayed. The classical finale, thus, will be lighter and more relax in mood. But Eroica is absolutely different. The overwhelming power of the revolutionary storm can be easily felt in this triumphant ending. Beethoven must have known that a light and vivid finale could not counterbalance the gigantic and complex preceding movements. Therefore, Beethoven not only uses the duple meter, a March design for this spirited movement, but he also increases the complexity of the music and makes the length two times longer than the usual classical finale.

Furthermore, the structure of this movement does not follow any classical model. Sometimes, the music flows in form of a variation suite. But in another time, it freely appears as a fugato. The heroic theme propels forward like a fierce storm, seeming to use one man’s strength to break all bondages of the old social hierarchy and set all the people of any class free to a land of liberty, equity, and fraternity. This is why Sir George Grove has once commented: “Eroica is a portrait of Napoleon, but it is Beethoven who paints himself on it.”

In short, from no. 1 to no. 9 (Choral Symphony), Beethoven’s symphonies can always enter into a new terrain that no one has discovered. In fact, Eroica was Beethoven’s most favorite symphony throughout his life. But not many Viennese contemporary listeners showed the same appreciation. Some critics fiercely attacked it by saying that it is the most difficult symphony to understand. They criticized that Beethoven could not control many parts of the music, letting them flowing illogically. If Beethoven cut off some unmanageable parts, the music could be more bright, fluent, and understandable. As such, the Viennese mass seems being unready to accept Beethoven’s revolutionary storm.

However, no matter how 18^th century Viennese aristocratic listeners disliked this symphony, the old epoch has passed. Eroica was just like a short gleam from dawn after a long deep night, anticipating a splendid coming of a new and dazzling era.

David Leung (theorydavid)

2011-03-12 (published)