648
PARTISAN REVIEW
tinuity had been replaced by a more closely interwoven, a more multi–
farious internal interest. To the casual listener there is a sameness
in
externals, a recurrence of seemingly typical patterns, a spasmodic rising
and disappearance of melodies and themes, in Bartok as in Mozart; what
is not typical seems the more obscure. These external mannerisms do
not hide from the more intent listener the constant recurrence of aston–
ishing, delightful, uniquely memorable, and often deeply moving events.
In the works of his last years the acceptance of the twelve-tone
technic as a central principle of development added to these great art–
istic powers a new organic integration, a final maturity of the whole
art.
Bartok's use of the tone-row differs from that of Schoenberg and oc–
casionally rebels against it. Like Berg in the Violin Concerto he mingles
types of harmonies in various ranges of dissonance and, like Stravinsky,
binds the whole together by an organization of successive tonal centers.
These tonal relationships are clarified by recurring varied scale-figures,
as in Mozart and the later Busoni. A similar more melodious extension
of the twelve-tone process is also evident in recent works by Schoenberg
and by such other exponents as Adolph Weiss.
The later works of both Schoenberg and Bartok show increasingly
the influence of Brahms and his proto-classical devices, as well as many
technics drawn from the ornamental practices of instrumental music
since the seventeenth century. This eclectic fructifying of a style already
fully formed, mature, and self-sustaining occurred in the same way
in
the later music of Bach, Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven.
The art of Schoenberg is dialectical, concerned with the various
presentations and expressively tactical variations of the main theme, the
particular tone-row of the composition. To this is added a corolla of
ornamental variants, by which the abstract working out is given an
affective, emotionally directive application. Schoenberg's later music is
essentially a sound-structure dimensionally elaborated in heard space.
The art of Bartok is more directly expressive of its musical subject,
the melodic theme or tone-row variant which provides its organic spine.
To this is added a variety of contrasting subjects, often related to but
not necessarily derived from the tone-row, which combine in lyrical or
dramatic groupings.
It
is essentially a sound-texture heard in progressive
rhythmic overlays.
These two styles, more nearly akin in reality than they seem to us
in uninstructed hearing, with that of Stravinsky, which always suggests
the stage, comprise the mainstream of abstract contemporary music as it
enters the second half of the twentieth century.
Peter Yates
