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46
BookReviews
Instruction
in
Coherence,
Instrumentation,
Counterpoint,
Form(Zusammenhang,
Instrumentation,
Kontrapunkt,
by Arnold Schoenberg, Translated
Formenlehre)
by Charlotte M. Cross & Severine Neff. Edited
and with an Introduction by Severine Neff.
University of Nebraska Press: Lincoln and
London.
FormenInstrumentation,
Zusammenhang,
Kontrapunkt,
lehre('ZKIF') was Schoenberg'sfirst majorpiece
of theoretical writing since the Harmonielehre
of
1911. The manuscript consists essentially of
Schoenberg's notes, intended for his own use,
towards four projected text-books, which were,
however, never written. It mainly dates from
1917, but Schoenberg used it when working on
other, later, projects, and added two kinds of
materialto it in later years:firstlyaround1926, in
the section on counterpoint,some musicexamples
of 12-note hexachordalcombinatoriality(as well
as some of diatonic counterpoint),and of the first
sketches for the theme of the Orchestral
Variations,op.31; secondly - in order to facilitate
his use of the notes - his own indexes.
This is the first publication of ZKIF, and as
such is obviously of importance to anyone
interested in the development of Schoenberg's
aesthetic and didactic ideas. As Professor Neff
says in her introduction,
The sketchy,incompleteenunciationof Schoenberg's
can be
theory of coherencein "Zusammenhang"
in theHarmonielehre
fleshedoutfromideaspropounded
andlaterworks,andparticularly
by lookingcloselyat
notionof a musicaltheoryandhis ideas
Schoenberg's
"Zusammenof musicalform.Evenwithitsdeficiencies,
hang" is uniquely rich among Schoenberg'stheoretical
works in its many speculative comments on musical
In this work also he discusses the
perception...
principle of developing variation for the first time,
illustratingthat principle with an analysis of Mozart's
"Dissonant" Quartet, K.465.
(In view of my later comments about the
translation, it is noteworthy, incidentally, that
she only refers to the 'Coherence' part of
Schoenberg's text.)
It has at once to be said, though, that it is hard
going. Notes that trigger something in the mind
and memory of their author do not always yield
up their meaning easily to another reader. This is
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Book Reviews 47
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Book Reviews 49
for the most part barred tetrachordally (and
dodecaphonic);only the later examples, in which
four-voiced canons are derived from pairs of
hexachordally-combinatorialrows, could be said
to be triadic - or, less misleadingly, trichordal.
The third summarizesand explicates the contents
and philosophical implications of the notebooks
that make up ZKIF.
Despite the book's luxurious production,
errors in English ('become' instead of 'became'
on p.liv; 'principle' instead of 'principal' on
p.lviii); a musical one ('tritone' - augmented
fourth - instead of 'diminished fifth' on p.lxvii;)
and a caption printed twice in two different
places in a musical example ('d.i: The first
appearance ...' in Example 7, p.xlviii), have
slipped through the proof reading. (These are
only mentioned here because, ironically, Dr.
Cross and ProfessorNeff three times in the main
text wrongly 'correct' Schoenberg's admittedly
elsewhere often slap-dash and misspelt German
where it happens to be right: on p.16, 'bekannt'
refers to the singular noun 'Beziehung', and
Schoenberg correctly writes 'ist', not 'sind'; on
p.2 Schoenberg's 'fur einen ..., der sich
freiwillig, selbst verbannt hat' deliberately
emphasizes 'selbst': '. . . for one who has
voluntarily exiled himself, as againstthe blander
editorially-changed word-order, translated as
'. . . for someone who voluntarily has gone into
exile'; footnote 10 on p.66 creates a similar
situation: Schoenberg's sentence means 'It is
wrong for already such a voice to be called
melodic; it is merely not unmelodic', implying a
threefold gradation between unmelodic and
melodic; the revised word-order leads to a quite
wrong 'quite' in the translation. On the other
hand, on p.104, the translators miss a golden
opportunity to correct Schoenberg's repeated
misspelling: 'Symetric', etc.!)
It is the translation of Schoenberg's text,
though, that is the real problem. It is claimed to
be almost literal and word-for-word. As an
excuse for its inelegance, this might do if it were
true. Unfortunately, often as a result of attaching
an adjective or adverb to the wrong word or
phrase within a sentence, it frequently modifies,
and in some importantpassagesactually reverses
or makes nonsense of Schoenberg's meaning.
(The title itself gives warning of this; whereas
'Lehren' does indeed mean 'To teach' or 'To
instruct', '. .. lehre' - compare 'lore' - means a
body of knowledge: 'science of . . .' in the old
sense; the word-ending '.. .logy'; sometimes
'theory of . It is not till Note 35 on p.li thatwe are
given a rationale for divergent - but not even
then consistently used - translations of '. .
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50
BookReviews
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Book Reviews 51
be seen not as a 'penny plain, tuppence coloured'
addition, but an integral part of the composition
process that begins with considerationsof types
of texture and goes on to questionsof balanceand
clarity. It is, therefore, a pity that at this point the
translatorsseem to have lost interest in trying to
understandwhat Schoenbergis saying, or at least
to ensure that their versions make corresponding
(or any) sense.
Thus, paragraph 3) on p.78 specifically
complains of the old methods that they are
- the knowledgeof
mainly 'Instrumentenkunde'
- which the translatorsrender on p.29
instruments
as 'instrumentation',
thus making nonsense of
Schoenberg'scentral point: that it is necessaryto
teach the art of instrumentation
(as a branch of
composition) and not just the knowledge of
instrumentsas such. And in the next sentence, 'II.
The main defect of the old method: the truebasis
is composition
itself . . .', we
for all instrumentation
fall foul of the multiple meanings of 'Satz':
'setzen'means'to set'; 'Satz'can mean 'movement'
(as in 'second movement'), 'texture' (as in
'polyphonic texture'), or 'composition'itself, and
the following table of kinds of texture makes it
clear that here it means 'texture' and not
'composition'. The same is true of the next
sentence, which in any case has lost the crucial
subject of the second clause and therefore makes
no sense, right or wrong: 'Therefore the student
must first choose: what is the nature of a
composition, so that [?] may be suitablefor this or
that instrumental combination' (my questionmark) should read 'Therefore the student must
first choose: what should the character of
a texture that is suitable for this or that
instrumentalcombination be'. Yet again, in the
second line of the following list, and on much of
p.81, 'texture' should replace 'composition'. At
last, on p.81, footnote 51 addressesthe possibility
of an alternative translationof 'Satz', but offers
'Setting' rather than 'Texture'.
A marginalnote on pp.84/85, the lines running
vertically along the margin, has been completely
corrupted in the translation. It refers to a very
long list of conditions under the heading 'What
conditions
doinstruments
imposeon a setting?'and, in
the translators'version, reads 'It is not necessary
to considerthese conditions [!]. Often one choice
suffices because the instrument is not exposed,
often because it is supported by other (more
capable) linstruments}'.What the original says is
'Not all these conditions need to be considered.
Often a selection[of conditions!]suffices, because
...' (the italics and the parentheses in square
brackets are mine).
It is the succinctenunciationon pp.98/99-100/
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