MUSIC CHRONICLE
the music slavishly. follows. And, of course, in order to make the text un–
derstood clearly he must insist on melodic supremacy, the only guaranty
of literal clarity.
Another regressive tendency finds its outlet in a sort of neo-classi–
cism. Here the composer reaches back to the structural and textural ele–
ments of a style that precedes even the sources of his techniques. The
forms and mannerisms of the polyphonic baroque masters are taken
over wholesale, but so are the basic harmonic tenets of the romantic
school. Obviously, this is merely an artificial attempt to reconcile the con–
tradictions between harmonic and polyphonic music. The result is a
grotesque incongruity in which Bach is made to sound like Mendelssohn
and vice versa. It is this incongruity again which lends a work its aspect
of modernity. Ap.d even this may not be enough; frequently the whole
thing is seasoned with some turns taken from the Schoenberg school.
(Samuel Barber's
Capricorn Concerto.)
An escapist-also regressive-tendency finds expression in a re–
version to Oriental techniques such as, in the music of John Cage, the
unchanged repetition of one and the same motif in an incantational
manner.
Tllis is the state of American music. But whether characterized by
folk tunes, pre-classical styles, or a flight to the East, such music has
in common an incapacity or unwillingness to face the problems left by
the western tradition of music. It is trapped in a romantic style, the
simple tonality of which by now sounds primitive. It moves along like
the story-telling of a child: its total structure is not compelling. (Elie
Siegmeister claims that he wrote his
First Symphony
by just sitting down
to write music and, at the end, was surprised to find he had written
a whole symphony.) Most compositions have such a fragmentary char–
acter that they can be adapted from symphony to ballet, from ballet to
piano suite, etc. (Copland's movie music for
Our Town
may be heard
in three versions: as a movie score, as a symphonic suite, as piano
pieces.)
The public finds in this music a welcome escape from the con–
temporary problems not only of aesthetics, but, also, of society. Neo–
classicism may, as likely as not, form a background to a neo-religious
movement (the associ;tion with Bach) ; folk symphonies are idyllic re–
treats to a rural life; the exotic speaks in the soothing accents of the
travelogue.
A pseudo-aesthetic effect is achieved by grafting special shoots
onto conventional music: such is the composer's imaginative effort. Each
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