Paul Hindemith A Composers World Horizons and Limitations.pdf

A COMPOSERÔS WORLD

HORIZONS AND LIMITATIONS

PAUL HINDEMITH

SCHOTT

¤ Mainz ¤ London ¤ Madrid ¤ New York ¤

¤ Paris ¤ Tokyo ¤ Toronto¤

A COMPOSERÔS WORLD

HORIZONS AND LIMITATIONS

PAUL HINDEMITH

SCHOTT

Mainz ¤ London ¤ Madrid ¤ New York ¤ Paris ¤

Tokyo ¤ Toronto

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ED 9293

¨ 1952, Schott Musik International, Mainz

¨ renewed 2000 Printed in Germany ISBN 3-7957-0024-8

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PREFACE

In Thomas MorleyÔs Plaine and Easie Introduction (1597), among the important books dealing

with the technique of musical composition an exceptionally pleasant one, there appears in the dialogue

between the Master and his disciple Philomates a sentence of which I am particularly fond. It reads: ÑIt is

no maruayle to see a Snayle after a Rayne to creep out of his shell, and wander all about, seeking the

moysture.Ò We all know how sometimes such sentences cling to our memory, annoying and uninvited,

sticking all the harder the more we try to remove them. MorleyÔs molluscoid creeper proved to be of this

insistent quality. During the period of my writing the present book it hunted me Ð if this expression may

be used with regard to a snail Ð incessantly and without any reason. Can one be blamed if after many

attempts to neglect or outstrip the persecutor, one not only tolerates it but actually feels it to be a part of

the present circumstances of creation and construction? Something would be missing if suddenly we were

left without such companionship.

Eventually the importunate sentence led me to ask: Is a composer writing a book not like that

Snayle, creeping out of his abode of settled professionalism and solid experience, seeking what corresponds

to the moysture, looking for readers instead of listeners and forfeiting musical security for doubtful

successes in a field through which he can only roam unsupported by professional know-how but at the

same time free of professional inhibitions?

After the Snayle and the moysture there still remains the Rayne to be accounted for in our sequence

of equalizations. Its equivalent which lured this writer out of his shelter was his being honored with the

appointment to the Charles Eliot Norton professorship at Harvard University for the academic year 1949-

1950. The series of lectures given under the auspices of that illustrious Chair of Poetry provided the subject

matter for the present book, although the book form demanded varied modifications and elaborations in

content and structure.

Neither the lectures nor the book was intended to be a musicianÔs professional report to his fellow

musicians. Thus the ever menacing temptation to write a disguised form of textbook had to be fought. On

the other hand there was no intention to add to the vast stock of lectures and books on the appreciation of

some phase of musical production or reproduction, all those glimpses into Workshops, those opinions on

composers and compositions, those noncommital aestheticisms, popularizations, and sugarcoated

banalities. Musicians producing words instead of notes are too easily apt to fall into this sometimes

enticing but mostly insipid kind of gossip with its strictly egotistic or pseudoprofound attitude.

The book aims to be a guide through the little universe which is the working place of the man who

writes music. As such it talks predominantly to the layman, although the expert composer may also find

some stimulation in it. The core of all the problems puzzling the composer Ð namely, the theoretical

considerations concerning the nature and technical potentialities of chordal and tonal progressions which

are his material of construction Ð is demonstrated in a general way, so as to acquaint the reader with the

gist of the matter without bothering him with the subtleties of technique. Even so, the versed musician

may find in that demonstration opinions somewhat different from our scholastic theory. (He may be

interested to know that I am preparing an elaborate textbook on the technique of composition, based on

the theories presented in this book.) From the center of basic theory our discussion will spread out into all

the realms of experience which border the technical aspect of composing, such as aesthetics, sociology,

philosophy, and so on. This will be done without the faintest pretension of saying anything new. Every

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fact given is derived from somewhereÐeven some ideas which I cherished as the unique results of my own

speculation turned out to have come from predecessors, parallels, or similar formulations elsewhere. Thus

the only merit of this survey seems to be its tendency to focus everything surrounding us on the one point:

the composerÔs work. This approach to a problem is magnanimously comprehensive; it is at the same time

stubbornly one-track. In short, it is the typical artistic way of understanding the world. It is entirely

opposed to the approach of a scientific mind. To the scientist our method Ð or, in his eyes, nonmethod Ð

of looking at everything without ever fundamentally comprehending it must seem utterly amateurish. In

fact, the artistic approach is essentially and inevitably amateurish, its distinction from the amateurÔs point

of view being merely a considerably wider panorama. We must be grateful that with our art we have been

placed halfway between science and religion, enjoying equally the advantages of exactitude in thinking Ð

so far as the technical aspects in music are concerned Ð and of the unlimited world of faith.

The tendency of maintaining, nay defending this position against any nonartistic, nonscientific,

and nonreligious attack by the forces of brutal personal ambition, commercialism, low-grade

entertainment, and the like must inevitably lead to severe criticism of certain prevailing conditions in the

musical producerÔs orbit. The reader, once convinced of the authorÔs honest intentions, will doubtless take

this criticism not as an acid outpour of an ill-tempered mind, but as a contribution towards the betterment

of untenable and regrettable facts in our musical life, written by one who has had the privilege of

becoming an active factor in it and by his inclination and vocation is profoundly devoted to the task of

making music maintain a State of integrity in the cultural development of this continent.

A musician writing a nontechnical book is in an odd situation compared with the real man of

letters. Unless he wants to make writing books a major part of his activities (which means neglecting

composition, a necessity not aspired to by the present writer), he will hardly ever have an opportunity of

amending his statements, of showing further developments, of correcting his mistakes, or of defending

himself against misinterpretation, all of which the professional writer can do in his future books. The

musician-writer simply has to put up with this fact. Let me show you how harassing a situation may arise

out of this ostensible incorrigibility of former statements. A quarter of a century ago, in a discussion with

German choral conductors, I pointed out the danger of an esoteric isolationism in music by using the term

Gebrauchsmusik. Apart from the ugliness of the word Ð in German it is as hideous as its English

equivalents workaday music, music for use, utility music, and similar verbal beauties Ð nobody found

anything remarkable in it, since quite obviously music for which no use can be found, that is to say, useless

music, is not entitled to public consideration anyway and consequently the Gebrauch is taken for granted.

Whatever else I had written or said at that time remained deservedly unknown, and of my music very few

pieces had reached this country; but that ugly term showed a power of penetration and a vigor that would

be desirable for worthier formulations. Some busybody had written a report on that totally unimportant

discussion, and when, years after, I first came to this country, I felt like the sorcererÔs apprentice who had

become the victim of his own conjurations: the slogan Gebrauchsmusik hit me wherever I went, it had

grown to be as abundant, useless, and disturbing as thousands of dandelions in a lawn. Apparently it met

perfectly the common desire for a verbal label which classifies objects, persons, and problems, thus

exempting anyone from opinions based on knowledge. Up to this day it has been impossible to kill the silly

term and the unscrupulous classification that goes with it. However, this book might accomplish what a

lifelong devotion to serious music could not, although one may assume that again some clever classifier

will deposit it in the Gebrauchsmusik drawer without really knowing what he has stored away. Doubtless

the book aims to be useful, but certainly not in the sense that has become synonymous with our term, that

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