M US IC CHRONICLE
many ways, not only figuratively. A little over a year ago Schonberg
was very sick, so sick that he actually
died
for a few hours and could
only be brought back to life by means of a series of injections in the
heart. Before that his eyes had already troubled him, and, since his
illness, his sight has become so weak that he has to have special, extra–
large manuscript paper made for him, with the lines of the staves about
half an inch apart. What is more, he can read or write for only ten
to fifteen minutes at a time. The result has been that he has begun
to write at a speed which perhaps only Mozart ever achieved before.
Though his latest works are as perfectly organized, as carefully
planned as his older ones, they show entirely new preoccupations. What
distinguishes the
String Trio
(written in 1946) or the recently finished
Survivor of Wanaw
for reciter, male chorus, and orchestra, from earlier
scores is the use of extensive, manifold contrasting elements. It is an
incredible sight to watch a composer who for fifty years has been the
exponent of musical economy, now unfold an amazing abundance of
ideas without ever falling into chaos and disorder. Every new work has
an absolute novelty of its own. The wild and utterly fresh features of
the
Survivor of Warsaw
(this complex score was composed in a week),
demonstrate a vitality and creative strength which are almost incon–
ceivable: it is frankly a masterpiece.
About two years ago a well-known "commercial" musician, Nat
Shilkret, undertook a curious, and perhaps typically "Hollywoodian"
enterprise. He commissioned all the best-known composers living here
to write an orchestral piece illustrating a chapter from Genesis-Schon–
berg, Stravinsky, Milhaud, Toch, Tansman, Castelnuovo-Tedesco (and
he also wrote one himself) . It is interesting to notice that Stravinsky
chose the Tower of Babel, and Schonberg the Prelude before the Creation.
Stravinsky's piece is based on a good many of the rhythmic devices which
we know from the
Sacre du Printemps
(where they were applied to
much more daring harmonies) and the
Symphony of Psalms;
Schon–
berg's starts out with a grandiose vision of chaos, with a contrabass
tuba bringing in the main motive in the deepest possible register, and
proceeds to a middle part (built as an eight-part canon) which is
probably not only one of his greatest contrapuntal achievements, but
which may well become one of the greatest examples of polyphonic
writing. All seven pieces were recorded and sold in one big album.
Not one of the other participants betrays the slightest ability to write
a coherent piece of music.
Rene Leibowitz
365
