Review by Ken Blacklock

All three composers are somewhat tedious writers. Debussy and Ives, however, can be occasionally forgiven thanks to their sense of humor. Busoni and Ives’ works, in particular, exhibit a tendency to ramble and seem to lack any guiding form. Perhaps this is suitable for two composers who were critical of the traditional, symmetrical approach to form in music.

The revelation of Debussy’s wit is the highlight of these articles for the reader of today. One may be able to listen to his music with new ears. The first two articles recall meetings with a strongly opinionated man referred to as "Monsieur Croche the Dilettante Hater." Debussy is amazed at how much Monsieur Croche’s opinions mirror his own and goes on to "attribute to him a large share in the following pages." (p. 16) Many of Monsieur Croche’s ideas form themes central to the discussions that follow, allowing Debussy to put some distance between his listeners, and his opinions.

Debussy, like every great artist, reserves his sharpest remarks for the critics and other writers on music. Debussy’s refrain is, do not listen to these empty airbags known as music critics, listen to the music! The article on The Symphony, begins, "A fog of verbiage and criticism surrounds the Choral Symphony," (p.16) referring, of course, to Beethoven’s 9^th, and continues later, "There was not an ounce of literature in Beethoven, not at any rate in the accepted sense of the word." (p.16)

Debussy is critical of composers who appeal to popular taste by writing catchy melodies. "It is most noticeable that no one was ever known to whistle Bach. Such lip service has not been denied to Wagner...." (p.23) His argument is not so much against melody, but against writing for popular taste, or even writing for anyone’s taste at all. Great music is written from the depths of the soul. The great artist attempts to recreate beauty by transforming his feelings into music. Music is weakened by concerns about how others may feel about it. "In art the struggle is more often against oneself alone and victories so achieved are perhaps the finest." (p.30)

As a result, Debussy suggests that composers "shake off the ancient dust of tradition." (p.8) Tradition in art stands in the way of pure expression. Adherence to tradition leads to dull, worn-out music. Those who cast off tradition are labeled as "symbolists or impressionists—convenient terms for pouring scorn on one’s fellows." (p.8) Criticism received from the masses, of course, can be worn as a badge of honor.

Busoni suggests that art-works consist of spirit, emotion, humanity, form, manner, and "the flavor of the epoch." The spirit, emotion, and humanity remain "unchanged in value through changing years," whereas the form, manner, and "flavor of the epoch which gave them birth, are transient, and age rapidly." (p.75) Thus, according to Busoni, "there is nothing properly modern." "The Modern and the Old have always been." (p.76) Form, manner, and the flavor of the epoch constantly change with the fashions of an age. Spirit, emotion, and humanity are human constants. When a composer creates a successful artwork it endures beyond changing fashions because it has successfully imitated nature and interpreted human feelings.

Busoni is critical of so-called "absolute music" as well as "program-music." Program music is lacks freedom because it is restricted to a preconceived program. Busoni claims that absolute music also lacks freedom because it is confined to preconceived symmetrical forms. "This sort of music ought rather to be called the ‘architectonic,’ or ‘symmetric,’ or ‘sectional,’ and derives from the circumstance that certain composers poured their spirit and their emotion into just this mould as lying nearest them or their time." (p.78) In others words, the original creators of the standard forms, such as the symphonic form, used the forms as a loose guide for freely created music. Modern composers, however, are held back by the restrictive forms, which have hardened over time. "Is it not singular, to demand of a composer originality in all things, and to forbid it as regards form?" (p.79)

Busoni’s critique is not aimed at composers in the tradition, only the tradition itself. He eulogizes the great masters, Bach and Beethoven as bearing an "affinity to ‘infinite music’" (p.79)

Busoni’s ideas on musical composition and interpretation are closely related to his reverence of improvisation. When a musician improvises he is attempting to capture musical inspiration as he envisions it. Thus, improvisation is closer to the original source of inspiration than a written composition, which is removed by both time and notation.

"Notation, the writing out of compositions, is primarily an ingenious expedient for catching an inspiration, with the purpose of exploiting it later. But notation is to improvisation as the portrait to the living model. It is for the interpreter to resolve the rigidity of the signs into primitive emotion." (p.84)

In other words, music composition is a kind of improvisation on paper. Musical performance is a recreation of this improvisation and thus the performer must enter deeply into the original inspiration to recreate it for the listener. The composer, the improviser, and the performing artist all make their own laws as required to recreate the inspiration.

Busoni envisions a music of the future freed from the restraints of the scale system used traditionally by "classical" composers. The problem is not so much one of tonality, but one of limited scope, which in turn limits the possibilities of expression. Our octave is arbitrarily divided into twelve equidistant degrees. We "strictly we divide ‘consonances from ‘dissonances’—in a sphere where no dissonances can possibly exist!" (p.89) We teach twenty-four keys, but in reality there are only two, major and minor. And, even these two are in reality two aspects of a single scale system. "Strange, that one should feel major and minor as opposites. They both present the same face, now more joyous, now more serious; and a mere touch of the brush suffices to turn the one into the other." (p.91) This is perhaps also the great strength of the system that had developed over a period of 400 years or so. But, why limit musical expression to this? Busoni points out that Liszt, Debussy, and even Richard Strauss have experimented with different arrangements.

Charles Ives wrote Essays Before a Sonata as a "preface or reason" for his second Pianoforte Sonata—"Concord, Mass., 1824," with the original intention of publishing them together as a single volume. (p.104) The four movements of the sonata are named after Emerson, Hawthorne, the Alcotts, and Thoreau, respectively. The essays delve into the question of what might be the source of inspiration for musical compositions in general, then discusses the specific ideas that inspired each movement of the sonata. In Ives own words, "The whole is an attempt to present [one person’s] impression of the spirit of transcendentalism that is associated in the minds of many with Concord, Mass., of over a half century ago." (p.104) The essays conclude with an epilogue that once again takes up the discussion of the possible source of musical inspiration started in the prologue.

The prologue can be summarized as a single question: What is music by itself capable of expressing? The answer is hinted at in the verbal descriptions of Emerson, Hawthorne, the Alcotts, and Thoreau that follow. The implication is that we should listen for the musical expression of these ideas in the sonata itself. But, this also indicates that Ives felt the need to intellectually explain the music, perhaps out of fear that the musical ideas would be misunderstood by the listener.

"How far is anyone justified, be he an authority or a layman, in expressing or trying to express in terms of music (in sounds, if you like) the value of anything, material, moral, intellectual, or spiritual, which is usually expressed in terms other than music?" (p.105)

Or in other words, how could Ives have dared to subtitle his sonata, Concord, Mass., 1824. A related question is: Can music express something timeless that will mean something to all men at all places and all times, or is it restricted to the current moods of the current time and place? Ives attempts to answer this second section in the epilogue.

Along the way, Ives eliminates a few of the standard answers regarding art.

"The ‘Separateness of Art’ theory—that art is not life but a reflection of it—‘that art is not vital to life but that life is vital to it,’ does not help us. Nor does Thoreau who says not that ‘life is art,’ but that ‘life is an art,’ which of course is a different thing than the foregoing." (p.106)

And, on the topic of critics, Ives gets his punches in.

"A critic may say that a certain movement is not inspired. But that may be a matter of taste—perhaps the most inspired music sounds the least so—to the critic." (p.107)

This idea that there may be "a matter of taste" at issue, where does that take us? We learn later that taste can be developed and refined, and thus the "critic’s" taste may be hampered by being overly concerned with manner, not substance.

And, finally Ives tells us why he needs to tell us about his sonata.

"But we would rather believe that music is beyond any analogy to word language and that the time is coming, but not in our lifetime, when it will develop possibilities unconceivable now,—a language, so transcendent, that its heights and depths will be common to all mankind." (p.109)

Emerson, as the leading transcendentalist, receives the first movement of the sonata and the longest stretch of writing about his vision in the essays. The essays on Emerson and Thoreau are particularly important to understanding Ives sense of his own music and his mission as a composer. It becomes gradually clear that Ives envisions a music that transcends time and place; a prophetic music that transcends words. Many of Ives’ musical ideas are contained in these discussions.

"Though a great poet and prophet, he [Emerson] is greater, possibly, as an invader of the unknown,—America’s deepest explorer of the spiritual immensities...." (p.110) Ives sees himself as another "invader of the unknown." For Ives, laws stand in the way of transcendent music. "Emerson wrings the neck of any law, that would become exclusive and arrogant, whether a definite one of metaphysics or and indefinite one of mechanics." (p.112) And, Beauty is something discovered, not created. "Like Petrarch he seems more a discoverer of Beauty than an imparter of it." (p.119)

After discussing the individual sources of inspiration for each movement of his sonata, Ives admits "the futility of attempting to trace the source or primal impulse of an art-inspiration," (pp.155-6) and suggests that as music continues to develop it will become more capable of expression. "In some century to come, when the school children will whistle popular tunes in quarter-tones—when the diatonic scale will be as obsolete as the pentatonic is now." (p.156)

A substantial part of the epilogue is devoted to a discussion of "substance" and "manner" in music. "Substance has something to do with character. Manner has nothing to do with it. The ‘substance’ of a tune comes from somewhere near the soul, and the ‘manner’ comes from—God knows where." (p.162) Manner is the aspect of music that normally attracts the attention of the masses, hence popular music largely consists of manner. So-called nationalistic music is overly concerned with manner and is thus ridiculous unless it somehow captures "a true pigment of the universal color," (p.165) in which case it has substance.

For Ives, "Debussy’s attitude toward Nature seems to have a kind of sensual sensuousness underlying it, while Thoreau’s is a kind of spiritual sensuousness," (p.167) and thus, Thoreau was on the side of substance and Debussy on the side of manner. It is because of the difference between manner and substance that "Beethoven is always modern and Strauss always medieval." (p.178)