jwilzewske: Neo-Neo Look: Avant-Garde in the Eye (Ear) of Once-and-Future Beholders

D uring the 17th century there was great interest amongst scholars and performers in the question of temperament and use of more ‘extreme’ keys. Old quarter-comma meantone tunings were gradually giving way to circulating temperaments (called ‘unequal’ temperaments today) where there was freedom of modulation. In meantone, pure major thirds are on C, D, E-flat, E, F, G, A, B-flat, whilst unusable thirds are on C#, F#, G# (A-flat does not exist!) and B; the ‘wolf’ fifth is from G# to E-flat. As the century progressed, there were increasing signs of dissatisfaction with the old tunings, and in the F-sharp minor Praeludia we see Buxtehude making a clear avant-garde statement to the world, for here is a piece which is totally unplayable in the old tunings.”
— Douglas Hollick.

The term ‘avant-garde’ usually means contemporary new music. But consider the premise that ‘contemporary’ is context-dependent—‘new’ is always new in the eye of the then-current beholder. Each age has its avant-garde, its innovators, anarchists. ‘Avant-garde’ can be accurately applied to innovative works of any era. Douglas Hollick notes that the avant-garde tends in each era to be linked to and critically dependent upon technology: the great organs of North Germany in the first half of the 17th Century were pushing the technology ‘envelope’ with the architectural requirements arising from their size and geometry; with the mechanics and mechanical engineering requirements associated with their pneumatics; and with metallurgical and 17th-Century machine-shop requirements in the production and machining of metal for the pipes. Electroacoustic music of the 1950s was comparably dependent upon then-current developments in electronics.

Dieterich Buxtehude (1637-1707) lived his whole life near the Baltic. Buxtehude grew up in Helsingør, Skåne, where his father was organist, tinkerer, and amateur metallurgist. The young Buxtehude served as organist at Helsingborg St. Mariae (1658 - 60) and Helsingør St. Mariae (1660 - 68). In 1668 he was appointed to St. Marien in Lübeck. Sadly, not much of Lübeck survived the WWII bombing of 1942. Although St. Marien was rebuilt, none of the original interior or Buxtehude-era pipe organs survives. We can therefore only make educated guesses about the sounds that Buxtehude composed and created there. But some of the most inspired and convincing conjectures imaginable come from Hollick.

M ost of Buxtehude’s Praeludia are for organ with pedals. But BuxWV 162 is for manuals only, and it can be played either on the organ or the harpsichord. Perhaps one of the least obviously ‘avant-garde’ works in the programme, it does show the desire in the later 17th Century for the freedom to modulate beyond the confines of the old meantone tuning, here moving to E minor, and desperately needing the dominant of that key, B major with its D-sharp. With the luxury of recording, it has been possible to use a variant of the normal meantone for this work and the Weckmann, with E-flat replaced by D-sharp. The final harpsichord work by Johann Christoph Bach probably dates from near the end of the century, and is in the (then) ‘very modern’ key of E-flat major. This is a key that is completely impossible in meantone, and clearly demonstrates the move towards greater tonal freedom in keyboard tunings by the end of the 17th Century.”
— Douglas Hollick, liner notes, Baroque Avant-garde.

Hollick’s performances reveal how Buxtehude’s improvisational works—toccatas, praeludia, chaconnes, passacaglia, canzonas, and so on—had to depart from then-conventional quarter-comma meantone tuning. There would’ve been horrific wolf-tones in meantone temperament. Do you hear the interval of C#-F as a diminished fourth, or as a major third? It depends on how the scale is tempered. Have a look at Bill Sethares’s excellent book for lots of examples and clear illustrations on the CD that comes with the book.

S ince, through the grace of God, music has so progressed and changed, it would be absurd if we had not tried to improve the keyboard, so that well-composed modern pieces should not be ruined, and a howl come out of them … Some would like to say that one should not compose in every key, such as C-sharp, F-sharp and G-sharp. But I say that if one does not do it, another will …”
— Andreas Werckmeister, Orgel-Probe, 1698.

The intense chromaticism in much of Buxtehude’s writing is the locus of much of his envelope-pushing. But there’s ample rhythmic iconoclasm in Buxtehude as well. For example, the insistent, repeated bass line is varied but lends an avant-garde Baltic / North German ‘straight-ahead’ quality to many of the pieces. Eighteenth-century Baltic Lutheran avant-garde, that is.

T hat’s a lotta ‘look’! [so extreme or excessive, in fact, that I really recommend that you reconsider what you’ve composed, and reflect on whether it will suit the client for whom the piece is intended]”
— Tim Gunn, Parsons New School for Design, ProjectRunway (BravoTV television series), 2007.

Toward the audience, this music maintains a ‘missionary’, ‘therapeutic’ intentional stance. As such, Buxtehude should be considered ‘avant-garde-proper’ instead of ‘neo-avant-garde’. In other words, Buxtehude didn’t compose in this way as a matter of personal cliché or throw-down creative novelty or cultural conquest or as a gesture of ironical fashion-conscious ‘lookism’. This music is ‘precarious’ but not narcissistically so. And that is part of Buxtehude’s enduring, sempervirens ever-green charm—part of the excitement and authenticity and power to captivate our ears and minds as Buxtehude’s music can do, even today. That is part of the ‘newness’ that Hollick so ably recreates for us. Baroque avant-garde!

Dieterich Buxtehude: Fantasizing? Inebriated? Mad?

H ollick’s wide repertoire includes major works like the Goldberg Variations and Clavierübung III of Bach, and also works by lesser known composers such as Kuhnau, Benda, Moyreau and Séjan. His programmes often have a particular theme (such as ‘Fantasy, Inebriation and Madness’ [!!] ), and his mixed harpsichord-and-organ programmes can be particularly interesting.”

jwilzewske

Saturday, January 12, 2008

Neo-Neo Look: Avant-Garde in the Eye (Ear) of Once-and-Future Beholders

No comments:

Post a Comment