Title Memory, aesthetics and musical quotation : four casestudies in 20th century music

Author(s) Leung, Tai-wai, David;

Citation

Issue Date 2008

URL http://hdl.handle.net/10722/53143

Rights Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License

Memory, Aesthetics and Musical Quotation: Four Case Studies in 20th Century Music

by

LEUNG Tai-wai David

B.Mus. (Hon) H.K.A.P.A.; M.Phil. C.U.H.K.

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Philosophy

at The University of Hong Kong

March 2008

Abstract

Memory, Aesthetics and Musical Quotation:

Four Case Studies in 20th Century Music

Submitted by

LEUNG Tai-wai David

for the Degree of Master of Philosophy

at The University of Hong Kong in March 2008

Throughout Western music history, pre-existing material has long been the

aesthetic core of a new composition. From the parodic masses of Dufays to the

symphonic works of Mahler, incorporating pre-existing music as a compositional

procedure constantly presented itself as a challenge to the composers innovation.

Yet there has never been such an epoch as our time in which using pre-existing

material, quotation in particular, features so extensively in works of many of the

composers. And it is in some of these works that one may discover, perhaps for the

first time in history, some hidden artistry or unrealized potential of a quotation in

music.

While recent scholars have paid great attention to identifying quotations in

relation to their provenance and their role in compositional technique, few regard

quotation as a form of manipulation of time and space. In fact, quotation can be very

evocative. Since quoted materials are usually stylistically diverse and cross-culturally

referential, a collage assemblage of quotes, even a glimpse of appearance, therefore,

is capable to evoke fleetingly a memory of a distant time, create an imaginary space,

or elicit the sense of a particular milieu and historical period in the listeners.

Given this approach, one of the aims of this thesis is to investigate how the use

of pre-existing music operates in an interwoven complex where time and space are of

the essence. A quote is able to oscillate perpetually between ones mental worlds of

the memorable past and the imaginative present when it is highlighted enough to be

recognizable from its surrounding context. Upon interpreting the use of quotation in

various contexts, the aesthetic object, I argue, is not so much the quoted material

itself but the shift from original to quoted music, and vice versa. The clash of evoked

styles or genres engendered by these shifts provides a clue as to the content of this

imaginary world. That is why listeners can respond aesthetically to the quotation

itself even without knowledge of its provenance and textual or referential content.

The thesis illustrates this approach to quotation by reference to the works of

Charles Ives, George Crumb, Tan Dun and Tung Lai-shing, exploring how they

skillfully highlight quoted material in some of their most representative works.

Although their ways of manipulating the quoted materials may be quite different, the

aesthetic responses elicited in listeners are equally compelling, making these works

worth considering.

(Exactly 396 Words)

i

Declaration I declare that this thesis represents my own work, except where due acknowledgement is made, and that it has not been previously included in a thesis, dissertation or report submitted to this University or to any other institution for a degree, diploma or other qualifications. Signed . LEUNG Tai-wai David

ii

Acknowledgements

My own experience as a composer for more than twenty years convinced that

even a small, single musical gesture is inextricably linked to an aesthetic experience.

Using pre-existing musical material in the form of quotation in a self-contained piece,

I believe, is a way of manipulating time and space, both essential triggers of a

persons aesthetic response. Musical quotation therefore, is more than just a

compositional procedure. In the present thesis, I referenced to four contemporary

works, all of which contain quotations, and attempted to explore the parallel aesthetic

significance of technique and interpretation.

I am indebted to many people for helping me develop the ideas for the

thesis. I should, first of all, thank Dr. Giorgio Biancorosso, my principal supervisor,

for his relentless supervision. Dr. Biancorosso is a learned scholar with plenty of

experiences in my research area. Despite his heavy workload, Dr. Biancorosso has

made great efforts in reviewing my thesis and providing valuable guidance. His

comments always came at the right moment, releasing me from a tangle of unclear

thoughts, and guiding me to fresher and more imaginative realm. Dr. Chan Hing-yan,

my secondary supervisor, has given me the most needed sympathetic support. His

encouragement never failed to lift me up when I was frustrated with the daunting

task and in the most difficult times. My sincerest gratitude should also go to him.

Special thanks are due to Dr. Tung Lai-shing whose work is one of my

investigated samples in the thesis. He has generously shared with me his insightful

iii

views on the contemporary musical scene in Hong Kong, and given me permission to

reproduce excerpts from his score in the present thesis.

Many friends and colleagues as well as my students, whom I am not able to

thank one by one here, also deserve mentioning. One of them, Dr. Mak Su-yin of the

Hong Kong Academy For Performing Arts has zealously encouraged me to insist on

my research. His ideas have inspired me in many ways. Mark King, a colleague in

The University of Hong Kong, and Jean Bunton, an English ethnomusicologist and

composer working in Australia, helped edit my writing. Their high efficiency proved

to be a great help in the final stage of my work.

Last but not least, I owe the greatest thanks to my wife, Freda. Without the

peaceful and comfortable environment, and the never-ending patience and emotional

support that she has so selflessly provided, I would not have accomplished this

project. Hence, with my deepest gratitude, I dedicate the dissertation to her.

iv

Contents

Declaration . i

Acknowledgements ...................... ii

Contents .......................................................................................... iv

List of Examples ............. v Introduction .......

1

Chapter 1 History of Using Pre-existing Music ..........

12

Chapter 2 The Imaginary Worlds of Charles Ives and George Crumb .......

67

Chapter 3 The Recollected Worlds of Tan Dun and Tung Lai-shing ......

103

Conclusion .. 131

Bibliography ... 134

v

List of Musical Examples

Example 1.1

The Antiphonal Sections of Resurrexi, Posuisti, Alleluia 13

Example 1.2 The Ending of the First Trope in Quem queritis in sepulchro.

14

Example 1.3a The Ending of the First Trope in Ecce pater cunctis.

15

Example 1.3b The Ending of the Second Trope in Ecce pater cunctis.

15

Example 1.3c The Ending of the Third Trope in Ecce pater cunctis

16

Example 1.4 The Original Alleluia Plainchant...

19

Example 1.5 Lonins Duplum Setting of Alleluia Organum.

19

Example 1.6 The Original Plainchant of Pascha Nostrum.

24

Example 1.7 Lonins Duplum Setting of Pascha Nostrum Organum..

24

Example 1.8 Gaudeat devtio fidelium Motet and Nostrum Clausula

24

Example 1.9 The Opening Passage of Dufays L homme arm Kyrie..

30

Example 1.10 The Opening Passage of Hadyns Symphony no. 103, mov. 4..

41

Example 1.11 Postlude of Widmung Quotation from Schuberts Ave Maria.

46

Example 1.12 Fantasies Alluded Theme in Bars 15-18 and Bars 19-50.

48

Example 1.13 Beethovens An die ferne Geliebte Quoted in Schumanns Fantasie

49

Example 1.14 Dies Irae Quotation in Berliozs Symphonie Fantastique..

51

vi

Example 2.1 The Beginning Phrase of The Things Our Father Loved..

72

Example 2.2 My Old Kentucky Home (the first phrase).

74

Example 2.3 The Real Face of Ives

77

Example 2.4 An Imagined World of Street Parade.

81

Example 2.5 The Climatic Moment and the Sonic Flashbacks..

83

Example 2.6 The Things Our Father Loved

84

Example 2.7 Wandering off from the Reality to the Imaginary World...

94

Example 2.8 Nightbirds Warbling The Pianists Whistle...

95

Example 2.9 Distinct Sonic Layers Form a Spatial-Temporal Complex

100

Example 3.1 The Multifarious Timbres of the Native Instruments

116

Example 3.2 First Proclamation of a Tragic Life

118

Example 3.3 The Operatic Quoted Tune in Exaggerated Melismas...

120

Example 3.4 The Second Intrusion of the Operatic Quotation...

124

Example 3.5 The Ending Passage Recalling the First Movement...

127

1

Introduction

The use of pre-existing music in a new composition is an old practice. For

centuries, composers have incorporated into newly composed music pre-existing

material, ranging from short motives to entire themes. From the Renaissance parody

masses by Dufay and Josquin, to the collage of quotations of street waltzes, so-called

art music and indigenous folk songs in the late nineteenth-century symphonic works

by Mahler, the use of pre-existing music has contributed in a fundamental way to the

development of compositional practice in the West.

In a new composition, pre-existing music manifests itself in various forms, such

as a quodlibet, modeling, variations, medley, cantus firmus, parody, paraphrase,

collage, programmatic quotation or allusion.1 This diversity of manifestations not

only reflects the compositional habits of each period but also a whole gamut of

referential meanings. For example, using pre-existing material serves the expression

of national character, cultural identity or ones personal cosmological and

philosophical ideas. As I will show in Chapter 2 and 3, among different ways of

using pre-existing material, quotation holds an especially significant place in

twentieth-century music.

While recent scholars have paid considerable attention to the development of a

typology of borrowing practices, identifying them in relation to their provenance and

their role in compositional technique, few of them view quotation in terms of the

aesthetic response it engenders. In this thesis, I will attempt to show in which ways

memory may be used as a valuable conceptual framework upon considering some of

these responses. By its very nature, memory refers to the past. Yet it is an active

1 The different types of borrowing technique used in this thesis are taken from Peter Burkholders

typology of musical borrowing. See Burkholder, Borrowing: Types of Borrowing, Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (accessed on 2006/5/1),

2

process taking place wholly in the present. Upon recalling, the mind stretches back

into the remote past and makes it seem as though the present has come to a halt. A

memory has the power to take over ones heart and mind and never seems to leave

one indifferent and idle. The act of recall, whether voluntary or involuntary, is a

medium through which to gain a sense of time past, the distance between the then

and now, the experience as it was and it is. It challenges the moving force of time,

inducing a temporary shift of time and space between ones present reality and a

known or imagined past.

The present study places memory not in the sphere of psychology, cognitive or

medical sciences, but aesthetics. Susanne Langer regards memory as a special kind

of experience, because it is composed of selected impressions, physical strains,

expectations, and minute, undeveloped reactions. 2 Memory sifts all these

interrelated materials and seems to represent them in the form of moving images

within a multidimensional series of events. Sometimes these mental events occur in a

logical order, but very often they do not. To Langer, recollection thus is a personal

way to reconstruct aesthetically and emotionally the past in terms of the present.

However, like shards of an ancient relic, a glimpse of the fleeting images of memory

is enough to evoke an aesthetic response, transporting ones mind into another world

of the remote past of a particular milieu, even without capacity for one to thoroughly

recognize it. It is this process I hear in musical quotation. Since much quoted

material in twentieth-century music is stylistically diverse and cross-culturally

referential, a collage assemblage of quotes, even just a glimpse of their appearance,

is able to elicit, however fleetingly, a feeling of a distant past and create in the

listeners an imaginary space of a particular milieu and style.

2 Susanne K. Langer, Feeling and Form: A Theory of Art Developed from Philosophy in a New Key

(New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1953), 263.

3

Our sense of the past is derived from memories mixed with extraneous elements,

assumptions and speculations, which makes life seems like a chain of unrelated

events rather than as a single progressive movement. In music that features

quotations, our sense of the past is derived from recognizing the appearance of

pre-existing music which, too, appears as an extraneous element, a sudden concept or

leisurely speculation. In such music, time is essentially represented as a chain of

more or less related musical events rather than the metrical count of the metronome.

A quote grants us access to the imagined world of the recollected past and, when

highlighted enough to be recognizable as such, stands in contrast to the real world of

the present as expressed by the surrounding music. Upon interpreting the use of

pre-existing music, the aesthetic object, as I will argue in Chapter 2 and 3, is the shift

from original to quoted music, and vice versa. The clash of evoked styles or genres

produced by a quote as well as the quotes baggage of associations provides a clue as

to the content of this imaginary world. That is why listeners can respond

aesthetically to a quotation even without knowledge of its exact provenance and

textual or referential content.

In order to narrow down the broad range of possibilities covered by the term

musical borrowing, in this thesis I will focus on quotation. Peter Burkholder has

defined quotation as the incorporation of a relatively brief segment of existing

music in another work, in a manner akin to quotation in speech or literature, or a

segment of existing music so incorporated in a later work. 3 Similarly, my

understanding of quotation is confined to melodic quotation. The melodic quotation

usually appears as an isolated fragment, incomplete and brief yet cogent, creating the

impression of a collage or incongruous juxtaposition with other textural layers of the

3 Peter Burkholder, Borrowing: Quotation, Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (accessed on 2006/5/1),

4

piece in which it is embedded. This particular form of pre-existing music is

significantly distinctive from other forms of musical borrowing, such as cantus

firmus, variation, arrangement, quodlibet, modeling, medley, paraphrasing or parody.

This is because a quote is not the constitutive element of a piece nor does it function

as a pre-existing compositional model. In most of the examples examined in this

thesis, quotation is explicitly identified and meant to be recognized as music from a

specific period of a particular style, and as such easily distinguishable from the

surrounding musical context. Its use may not be due to the specific melodic qualities

of the quoted tune but rather to its effectiveness as a reminder of a certain type of

affect or the constellation of ideas and meanings that emerge from its associations to

a program, literary tradition or socio-cultural context.

I will divide my discussion into three main sections. In the remainder of this

introduction, I will review the musicological literature on musical borrowing or

quotation. Then, in Chapter 1, I will give a brief account on the use of pre-existing

music from medieval to postmodern time. In Chapter 2, I will illustrate my argument

with reference to the works of Charles Ives and George Crumbs. Finally, in Chapter 3,

I will examine the use of quotation in the late twentieth-century works by Chinese

composers Tung Lai-shing and Tan Dun. Given the size and scope of Tans and

Tungs symphonic works, I will focus exclusively on the use of quotation in the first

section, Heaven, of Tans Symphony 1997: Heaven, Earth Mankind and the second

movement, The Angel, of Tungs orchestral piece, The Book Of Laughter and

Forgetting.

Literature Review

One of the thorniest challenges facing those who study pre-existing music is an

5

accurate, exact definition of quotation. How do we identify a musical passage as a

quotation? Jeanette Bicknell has discussed the crux of the matter in her article The

Problem of Reference in Musical Quotation: A Phenomenological Approach.4 As

Bicknell points out, a musical quotation is a deliberate evocation and it should be

distinguished from the coincidental similarities between works or plagiarism.5 Often

audiences can easily identify a quotation as the result of the composers intention to

take from others for various purposes. But the problem remains of how one can mark

aurally a quoted passage as being different from the original music.

Musical quotation differs from linguistic quotation in that it hardly features a

clear and assertive mark to set off the quote from the rest of the music in a piece. In

writing, a quotation mark can set off a group of words as a direct citation distinct

from other passages in a text. And the word, that, in language or an appropriate

footnote, can act as an indicator for indirect quotation. But in the case of music, a

quotation is altered or transformed in such a way that there is no strict criterion

matching that of syntactic replication in language. In addition, music has no semantic

structure in that the indicating word that is absent. Bicknell therefore claims that

there is no way to single the quote out of the surrounding musical context.6 She

attempts to lessen the problem by considering the listeners experience. She suggests

that the presence of auditory clues, familiarity with the quoted passage, and the larger

compositional context in which these quotes appear are helpful to recognize the

presence of a quotation. But they are often a symptom of musical denotation only,

rather than an absolute, must-use criterion.7

Bicknell also deals with two more aspects of the problem of defining quotation:

4 Jeanette Bicknell, The Problem of Reference in Musical Quotation: A Phenomenological

Approach, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 59, no. 5 (Spring 2001): 185-91. 5 Ibid., 185. 6 Ibid.,185. 7 Bicknell, The Problem of Reference in Musical Quotation, 186.

6

methodological considerations and relevance to aesthetic understanding.8 Regarding

the first aspect, she refers to analogues with spoken language in real communication.

Listeners should examine how language users actually communicate in order to

identify a musical quotes appearance. All speech acts, as well as the dramatic,

rhetorical and narrative forms of communicative discourse are encompassed by the

listeners experience. With regard to the second aspect, Bicknell emphasizes style as

an aesthetic issue.9 Even when the exact source of the quoted material is unknown,

recognizing its presence can involve identifying the stylistic differences between the

original music and the quoted material. Listeners should take style recognition as a

way of indicating quotation within an aesthetic context.

I strongly agree with several of Bicknells suggestions. As I have already argued,

the fact of quotation itself, rather than the programmatic content of the quote, can be

a salient aesthetic object. Of course, the aesthetic effectiveness of a quotation

depends in part on the composers intention, as well as his or her ability to place the

quotation within the horizon of expectations of the listeners. It goes without saying

that an unrecognized quotation cannot be aesthetically effective.

As used in contemporary scholarship, musical quotation still remains an unclear,

even somewhat ambiguous term. Peter Burkholder, for instance, has defined

programmatic quotation in terms of compositional technique rather than its aesthetic

dimension. In his article The Uses of Existing music: Musical Borrowing as a

Field, he argues that musical borrowing can be treated as an independent field of

scholarship.10 Borrowing is an important compositional strategy for composers

throughout the history of Western music. In fact, Western music history is the history

8 Bicknell, The Problem of Reference in Musical Quotation, 189. 9 Ibid., 189. 10 Peter Burkholder, The Uses of Existing Music: Musical Borrowing as a Field, Notes, 50, no. 3

(March 1994): 851-70.

7

of borrowing. In the article, Burkholder attempts to classify fourteen forms of

borrowing as follows: modeling, variation, paraphrasing, setting a tune with new

accompaniment, cantus firmus, medley, quodlibet, stylistic allusion, transcribing,

cumulative setting, collage, patchwork, extended paraphrase and programmatic

quotation.11 This catalogue is a valuable taxonomy. However, Burkholder admits

that broad categories such as borrowing or quotation are not precise enough to

allow for nuanced distinctions. Quotation, for instance, is classified according to

its programmatic content. A valuable aspect of Burkholders article is his tentative

chronology across different historical periods. Through a careful chronological

arrangement, he traces the various ways in which pre-existing music have been used

identifying important changes that have taken place in the process. For example,

Burkholder suggests that in the fourteenth-century, the cantus firmus modeling was

based on competition with previous masters. He also rightly stresses the significance

of intabulations as an extraordinarily common form of borrowing.12

Burkholder also wrote a monograph on Charles Ives uses of musical

borrowing.13 In it, Burkholder elaborates on his previous classification and applies it

to Ives entire oeuvre. Irrespective of whether it is sufficient or appropriate to view

Ives use of borrowing in such a way, Burkholder has offered a meticulous study

worthy of reference.14 In his articles for the New Grove Dictionary, too, Burkholder

classifies musical borrowing along similar lines with ample reference to examples

and traces each form of borrowing through different historical periods.15 It is fair to

say that Burkholders ambition to treat borrowing as an independent research field

has been fulfilled in the New Grove Dictionary articles.

11 Burkholder, The Uses of Existing Music, 854. 12 Ibid., 869. 13 Peter Burkholder, All Made of Tunes, (London: Yale University Press, 1995), 3-5. 14 Ibid., 1-11. 15 Burkholder, Quotation, New Grove Online.

8

Burkholders view of borrowing is formalistic. In a formal analysis, exploring

borrowing techniques is used as a way to understand the compositional strategy and

working habits of a composer, as well as the style of his music. Since Charles Ives is

well known for using pre-existing materials, Burkholder identifies each kind of

borrowing in Ives music, exploring the complex musical, aesthetic and

psychological motivations behind such borrowings, and shows their purposes,

techniques and effects in the music. However, his view mainly falls on the

composers side. In Chapter 2, I will try to show that it is not sufficient for us to

understand borrowing without reference to the quoted materials sonic effect, its

phenomenology.

David Metzer has explored the cultural meaning of quotation in

twentieth-century music in his volume Quotation and Cultural Meaning in

Twentieth-Century Music. Metzer contends that when twentieth-century composers

incorporate quotations from others into their own music they are not only drawing

upon a melody but also the cultural associations of the original piece. By working

with and altering a melody, composers also transform these associations, thereby

bringing a new meaning to it.16 This new meaning is a derivation of the composers

view of his own socio-cultural surroundings, which Metzer sees as the main aesthetic

source of a quotation. In the chapter Childhood and Nostalgia in the Works of

Charles Ives, for instance, Metzer points out that Ives incorporation of folk tunes

into his own music aims at re-inventing a representation of his childhood as a means

of redeeming the feeling of nostalgia and sense of loss. To Ives, childhood is

innocence, pure, wholesome and healthy, and this view colors in a new way the

folk materials he uses.17 Through references to several examples, Mezter discusses 16 David Metzer, Quotation and Cultural Meaning in Twentieth-Century Music, (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 2003), 1-14. 17 Metzer, Quotation, 18.

9

Ives personal view of his childhood as well as the socio-cultural milieu of the place

where he grew up.

While David Metzer attempts to explain a twentieth-century composers

socio-cultural view by way of musical quotation, Walter Frisch adopts a broader

perspective by referring to fin de sicle German culture in order to elucidate musical

borrowing practices in late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century German

music. In his book German Modernism, Frisch refers to many newspapers, journals,

and critical writings to discuss the so-called regeneration in the historicist modernism

of the German music.18 It is in this period that Bachs music becomes a symbol of

what is healthy and wholesome in the German tradition. Lead by Wilibald Nagel, a

critic-historian from Darmstadt, many German critics, philosophers and scholars,

such as Max von Schillings, Alexandre Guilmant and others, claimed that Bachs

style and music was the only cure that would allow German music to recover from

its morbid, decadent Romanticism.19 This second revival of Bach nurtured the

music of Max Reger, Ferruccio Busioni, and many others. These composers

incorporated into their works not only Bachs musical themes but also his style and

contrapuntal techniques. According to Frisch, then, borrowing practices in this period

can then be explained by referring to the socio-cultural situation of German culture in

general. When writing the history of the music of fin de sicle Germany, Frisch

successfully combines socio-cultural trends and music together, displaying a new and

novel aspect through which to examine the practice of borrowing in music.

Both Metzer and Frischs approaches rely on the knowledge of the source and

the programmatic content of the quoted tune. Given this, the stress unavoidably falls

on the quotes original meaning and how this meaning interacts with the new musical 18 Walter Frisch, German Modernism: Music and the Arts, (Los Angeles, Berkeley: University of

California Press, 2005), 139-140. 19 Ibid., 141-42.

10

context in which it is embedded. However, as I have suggested, recognizing a

quotation may itself be the focus of legitimate inquiry. This premise relies mainly on

the significance of the stylistic traits of the quoted material. Leonard Meyer has

discussed the stylistic traits of borrowed tunes and asserted that borrowing can elicit

meanings for listeners in reference to the borrowed tunes stylistic constraints. He

agrees that paraphrase, modeling and borrowing can reflect the fundamental habits

and disposition of a composer (or a group).20 He employs Haydns fugal passage in

the Finale movement of the string quartet in F minor, op. 20, no. 5 to point out that

Haydns use of Bachs contrapuntal style tends to sound classical, rather than

Baroque, reflecting his highly personal approach to writing counterpoint.21 In

addition, Meyer claims that if a paraphrased or borrowed tune disguises its

appearance under various forms for example, lacking the support of the

conventional harmonies its stylistic world turns out to be fictional, rather than

real.22 He uses Stravinskys The Rakes Progress, Act 2, Scene 2 to illustrate this

point. In this piece, the closing classical gesture is preceded by and harmonized

with non-functional chords, and it repeats many times in cadences. It is treated in

such a piquant way that its classical traits are stressed. The more the quoted

melodic material is divorced from its normally supporting harmonic context, the

greater the prominence of its role in the music. Decontextualizing the quoted material

thus serves as a means of highlighting its presence.

The mere appearance of a quote can also signify the impression of a temporal

shift. This perspective brings us to the ideas of Karol Berger, regarding Beethovens

manipulation of thematic materials in the recapitulation of a piece and how it affects

20 Leonard Meyer, Style and Music, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), 56. 21 Ibid., 56. 22 Ibid., 348-49.

11

the aesthetic state of the listeners.23 Bergers premise is based on the assumption that

music represents two ontological levels, one real (the present time) and the other

imagined or remembered (past). When music deviates from its normal orbit without

following normal practice through, for example, an unexpected interpolation of

materials heard before, the effect may be that the listeners mind wanders off from

its present concerns into a imaginary recollected world that can tear itself away from

this other world only with effort.24 To Berger, the aesthetic object falls on the

vacillation between these two metaphorical levels of the mental world.

This intuition is key to understanding the unexplainable and unexpected miss or

return of the thematic material in the recapitulation section in many of Beethovens

pieces. Although Berger carries out detailed score analysis, his focus is the impact

that such gestures can exert upon the listeners. If materials heard in the beginning of

a piece and reoccurring in later sections of the same piece have the power to create a

shift in the listeners mental world, then the question becomes: is Beethoven

quoting himself? And if so, can a pre-existing tune appearing in a new composition

exert a similar impact to the listeners? In chapters 2 and 3, I will attempt to show in

what ways these questions may be answered in the affirmative.

23 Karol Berger, Beethoven and the Aesthetic State, Beethoven Forum, 7, no. 1 (1999): 17-28. 24 Berger, Beethoven, 21.

12

Chapter 1 Use of Pre-existing Music in History

Medieval Monophonic Chant

Sacred music involving use of pre-existing music can be traced back to trope

composition in early medieval times. Following the standardization of the chant

repertory in the 8th and 9th centuries, church musicians developed a new and

authorized type of chant, the trope, for Mass in liturgical services. Tropes were newly

composed additions, which served to expand the existing chants in one of three ways:

(1) by adding new text and music before the chant or between phrases, (2) by adding

new music to extend melismas or by adding new ones, or (3) by adding text to

existing melismas.

The Introit Resurrexi used in the Easter proper and ordinary mass is one

example of trope composition. This chant takes its name from its processional

function, marking the entrance of the clergy and choir ensemble performing services.

It consists of an antiphon and a psalm tone. The antiphon of Resurrexi frames the

psalm verse and the Gloria Patri (Doxology). The procedure of the performance is as

follows: antiphon psalm verse antiphon Gloria Patri antiphon. Although the

beginning note in the antiphon of Resurrexi is D (example 2.1), it ends on E (the

final). Hence, the whole Introit movement is classified in mode 4, the plagal form of

phrygian mode, ranging no higher than the fourth above E.

Around the 10th to the 11th century, the Introit trope Quem queritis in sepulchro

was a prefatory component to the Easter Introit Resurrexi in the southwestern

13

Frankish Kingdom.25 This trope consists of five text lines. According to some

sources, the first three lines are spoken by the angels, the women, and the angels

respectively. 26 This three-line dialogue between the angels and the women at

Christs tomb is well-known as the cradle of liturgical drama. The newly written

trope melody begins and ends on D (example 2.2). It proceeds forward until the last

line of the text, anticipating the first note of the antiphon. The seamless connection is

so smooth that the trope section seems to be part of the antiphon itself, rather than an

additional portion. Before the rise of polyphonic music, the trope was often placed

before the pre-existing chant or between phrases. Quem queritis in sepulchro is an

example consisting of a whole trope section preceding the pre-existing chant. Ecce

pater cunctis, on the other hand, is an example of placing the trope melody

in-between phrases of the pre-existing chant.

Example 1.1: The Antiphonal Sections of Resurrexi, Posuisti, Alleluia

25 Sarah Fuller, The European Musical Heritage: 800-1750, rev. ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2006),

21. 26 Ibid., 21.

14

Example 1.2: The Ending of the First Trope in Quem queritis in sepulchro

Ecce pater cunctis comprises three trope phrases. Each phrase prefaces with

pre-existing materials the antiphon melodic segment of the Introit. The

conjunctions between the first two tropes and their following antiphon phrases are

skillfully dovetailed in the joining points with the notes D and E, respectively

(example 2.3a and 2.3b). However, in the third trope, the dovetail is abandoned with

a move of a third downward from E to C, which is the beginning note of the

succeeding antiphon melody (at mirabilis). Despite this, the skip of a third does not

interrupt the smoothness of the melodic flow (example 2.3c). Regarding the

pre-existing chant material, Quem queritis in sepulchro uses the entire Resurrexi

antiphon melody to respond the newly added trope section, functioning as a

conclusion. By contrast, Ecce pater cunctis only preserves several melodic segments

of the Introit as an interpolative statement to separate each newly added trope melody.

A full performance of the Easter Introit with tropes would be quite long, and would

proceed as follows: Quem queritis antiphon psalm verse antiphon with trope

Ecce pater cunctis Gloria Patri antiphon.27 The trope lines would have been

sung by soloists, and the antiphon and verses by a choir. This Introit was part of the

Frankish chant repertory for a long stretch of time. The preservation of the

pre-existing chant in trope composition is something significant in and of itself.

Throughout the medieval period, Christian liturgy played an extraordinarily 27 Fuller, Musical Heritage, 21.

etc.

15

important role in the development of artistic practices. As Burkholder asserts,

commonalities among chants within and across these [medieval] repertories testify

to ongoing processes of re-using and re-working melodic materials that probably go

back to the Christian observances and their Jewish predecessors.28 In the early

Middle Ages, some chants sharing the same mode and liturgical function suggest that

they were elaborated from an existing reciting formula [reciting tone] or at least

some melismas were drawn from one chant to another, others existing melodies were

adapted for new texts, such as for antiphons and hymns, and the different chant

repertories have unique variants of melodies for certain texts, indicating adapting

either one from another or both from a common source. 29 Granted, adding

something new onto a familiar chant tune could have been an efficient and

convenient way to produce more pieces to have met the increasing demand for music

in liturgical services.

Example 1.3a: The Ending of the First Trope in Ecce pater cunctis

Example 1.3b: The Ending of the Second Trope in Ecce pater cunctis

28 Peter Burkholder, Borrowing: Medieval Monophony, Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy

(Accessed 2006/5/1 ), 29 Burkholder, Medieval Monophony, Grove Music Online.

16

Example 1.3c: The Ending of the Third Trope in Ecce pater cunctis

Plainchant, in fact, is an essential aspect of the representation of Christianity.

Beside their religious function, trope sections combined with already-existing

materials to satisfy the need for new auditory experience for the ecclesiastics and

churchgoers. The effect is one in which the existing train of thought (induced by the

newly written trope) is interrupted to create space and time for the recollection of a

past instant (induced by the pre-existing chant). It is a moment of letting the past

being actualized in the present, removing the boundary of time between what was

called past and present.

Furthermore, a familiar chant tune must have been an aid for memorization in

performance. It is widely known that all music was sung from memory, before the

invention of the staff and notation. Life in early western monasteries centered on the

Divine Office. According to Anna Maria Busse Berger, the invention of writing does

not automatically put an end to memorization. 30 All writing serves exact

memorization, opening up new ways of committing material to memory. To let music

be visualized does not replace performance from memory, however, but actually aids

it.31 Nearly all the singing performances were carried out through memorization,

because the use of candles to provide the light source for reading manuscripts was

30 Anna Maria Busse Berger, Medieval Music and the Art of Memory (Los Angeles, Berkeley:

University of California Press, 2005), 47. 31 Ibid., 45.

17

rare in many service occasions.32 Memorization continued to be practiced in Notre

Dame of Paris singers till the sevetheenth-century, that is until the invention of

comparable more systematic pitch notation on the staff, more precise measured and

rhythmic notation, and altogether with the change in performing context.

The Easter Introit Resurrexi is not just a simple application of text with melody,

but a creative reworking of a pre-existing melody with newly written materials. The

development of medieval Christianity left a mark on the development of Western

music through this pervasive compositional process. For centuries, this pre-existing

material became the entire basis of artistic elaboration.

Notre Dame Organum

When Western music reached its first peak with so-called Notre Dame

Polyphony in the thirteenth-century, the attitude towards using pre-existing music

still showed no obvious differences from trope composition. The major forms of the

new polyphonic settings, including all kinds of organum, the discant style clausula,

and the sacred or secular motet later, were also based on pre-existing chant melodies

as a taken-for-granted compositional procedure. The only difference between them

was that the newly composed melodies were now set vertically above the chant,

instead of linearly before or in-between it. Perhaps, the only exception was the

Conductus, a new musical genre consisting of a fully composed polyphonic setting

without any pre-existing material. However, the use of pre-existing chant in Notre

Dame Polyphony served more than a mere memorizing aid for singers or as a

representation of Christianity in medieval society. Several polyphonic versions of the

Easter Mass Alleluia Pasha nostrum by Lonin (c. 1135-c. 1201) indicate the extent 32 Maria Berger provides evidences to support this findings. See Berger, Medieval Music, 48.

18

to which Notre-Dame Polyphony marks a new stage in the history of the use of

pre-existing material.33

Consider, for example, Lonins organum duplum and discant clausula

(1163-1190) for Alleluia Pascha nostrum.34 It is a rare case, among surviving

settings, of a piece showing a clear succession of layers of polyphonic

embellishments. According to Gordon A. Anderson, the date of this plainchants

manuscript was about 1099. It was collected in The Latin Compositions in Fasciules

VII and VIII of the Notre Dame Manuscript Wolfenbttel Helmstedt Part II.35

However, the date of Lonins different polyphonic versions of this plainchant was

around seventy to eighty years later. It is quite strange that the manuscript collections

contain music composed several decades later. Perhaps, this collection is an

expanding volume of manuscripts representing a period of time.

When the Alleluia section is performed as plainchant, it is sung by a solo priest

and joined at certain points by a unison choir sung monophonically (example 2.4).

Lonin set only the solo sections polyphonically, because he expected the sections

sung by the chorus to remain simple plainchant. The polyphonic sections are in two

parts. Lonin set the opening intonation Alleluia in an older melismatic and florid

style of organum. The pre-existing plainchant intonation transposes down a fifth

beginning on the final C, rather than in the original tune in G (example 2.5). The

melody stretches out into unmeasured long notes of indefinite duration in the lower

tenor part of the organum. The setting suggests that Lonin was not concerned with

the perceivability of the pre-existing material. Above and against this inaudible

tenor is the solo chorus singing textless melismatic passages, broken at irregular 33 Donald J. Grout, and Claude V. Palisca, A History of Western Music, 5th ed. (New York: W.W.

Norton and Company, 1996), 81-86. 34 Peter Burkholder, Norton Anthology of Western Music, vol. 1, 4th ed. (New York: W.W. Norton and

Company, 2001), 54. 35 By referencing to Gordon A. Andersons record, Burkholder states the source and date of this

plainchants manuscript, as well as its later polyphonic versions. Ibid., 54.

19

intervals by cadences and rests. Its original notation suggests a free, unmeasured

rhythm. The fluid upper melody, non-periodic and loosely segmented, strongly

suggests an improvisatory effect, creating a great contrast to the stable tenor

background.

Example 1.4: The Original Alleluia Plainchant

Example 1.5: Lonins Duplum Setting of Alleluia Organum

This type of polyphonic texture was an unprecedented design that arose in

parallel with the advancement of a supreme medieval architecture. In the late 12th

century, a new monumental Gothic cathedral in Paris represented the model for

worshipping the biblical monotheistic God. In parallel with this new, awe-inspiring

splendor, was the Notre Dame polyphonic music. Its earliest stages were dated

around 1170, similar to the time when Alleluia Pascha nostrum was dated. While the

Gothic cathedral contains several skyscraper-like towers and buttresses pointing

towards the heaven, seeming to bridge the earthly sinned to the salvation and mercy

of God, the interior of the cathedral was designed grand enough for performing many

20

kinds of liturgical services. In Gothic design, the nave is the main part of cathedral,

extending from the entrance (the narthex) to the transept or chancel (area around the

altar).36 Such Gothic designs are generally divided into many bays, producing the

optical effect of having great length from the narthex to the transept.

During the Renaissance, the nave format became more flexible, and the nave

was divided into fewer compartments, giving a feeling of spaciousness and balanced

proportion between the height, length, and width. Therefore, unlike the earlier abbey

church in monasteries, the newly enlarged physical space demanded a greater

sonority, which should not be confused with increased volume, rather, more textured

sound in order to generate richer reverberation in order to fulfill the vacuum-like

interior body of the edifice.

There is little doubt that the polyphonic musical textures could have met the

special requirements of this new architectural design. As medieval polyphony

encouraged the addition of voices and voice parts, the choir areas of the Gothic

cathedral, compared with the monastery church, were enlarged to accommodate more

people. The acoustic body of the nave resonates in thicker and denser sonority, which

indubitably created, in the medieval minds or worshippers, a Christian mood of

godly solemnity and awe-inspiring devotion. If the nave was an ideal sacred place to

nurture the development of polyphonic settings in music, then the shrines inside the

cathedrals could have been a holy place for retrieving the memory of Christianity in

the pilgrims minds. In this sense, the pre-existing chant is analogous to the shrine. In

fact, the Latin word of shrine is scrinium, and it means box.37 A shrine refers

originally to a container, usually in precious materials, created especially to house a

relic, or oftentimes, a cult image. It can also be a holy or sacred place, often 36 Gloria K. Fiero, The Humanistic Tradition: Medieval Europe and the World Beyond, 3rd ed.

(London: McGraw-Hill, 1998), 123-27. 37 Fiero, Medieval Europe, 123.

21

containing the same, dedicated towardss a certain deity, saint, or similar religious

figure which was the object of worship or veneration, as opposed to being placed for

the convenience of worshippers. Thus, the pre-existing plainchant resembles a shrine

in such a way that both objects link bystanders with the collective memory of holy

Christianity for the pilgrims. However, aside from the musical material itself, the

tenor part of a polyphonic texture, in particular, reminds us of the aura of sacred

devotion, resembling the practice depicted in many medieval religious paintings.

Taking Alleluia Pascha nostrum as an example, the pre-existing chant in the

tenor now acted as the basis of the polyphonic texture, which governs the formation

of the upper newly composed melody. It functions as a structural prop, likened to a

niche in medieval painting. The niche is a hollow place in a wall that usually is made

to hold a piece of art, such as statue or tempera. Inside the Cathedral, religious

subjects, for example, Lady Madonna Enthroned, Annunciation or other

deceased Saint figures, are usually portrayed on tempera on woods or panels for

interior decoration.38 The entire picture, with its sacred figures, is usually framed by

a triangular-shaped arched niche or sometimes decorated with golden flowers. This

artistic practice could help to cystallise the figures in awe-inspiring form, creating the

solemn, sanctified aura through which spiritual messages could easily be transmitted

to worshippers. Similarly, using a pre-existing plainchant for a new piece reminds

one of the sacred natures of Christianity and its central place in medieval social and

artistic life.

Then again, besides acting as a niche-like prop, the pre-existing chant also

presented itself as an isolated sonic layer, with the upper voices moving in a different

spatial-temporal layer. The underlying essence of polyphonic music centers on its

38 William Fleming, Arts and Ideas, 9th ed. (Forth Worth: Harcourt Brace and Company, 1995),

199-208.

22

power to articulate time and space in an interwoven conjuncture. The Notre Dame

polyphonic music might be said represent the first instance of different musical

events moving simultaneously in different tempos. Take, for example, the moving

melismatic upper voices or the nearly motionless tenor low voice. This brings us near

the essence of what musical time is. How is time sensed in music? Susan Langer, in

Feeling and Form, has attempted to illustrate musical time in two ways. One is the

scientifically-measured clock time in terms of metronomic tempo, and the other is

psychologically-perceived time in terms of duration.39 Her concept relates time to

music in terms of duration. She stresses that music actually makes time audible, and

its form and continuity sensible.40 By making the distinction between clock time

and psychological time, listeners are expected to sense music in form of duration,

rather than using a counting machine to measure. This time is sensed by a series of

unrelated sonic images. It spreads out for listeners direct and complete apprehension,

letting their senses monopolize it, to organize it and to fill and shape it.41 As such,

duration becomes lived or experienced time. Music becomes the living, dynamic,

artistic embodiment of time. Its stunning power over all listeners is fundamentally

derived from how the listeners engage with the sense of duration, and perceive this

duration as motion, as movement, as the occurrence of successive [musical] events,

which culminates in a sense of fullness of experience, of a sonorous content whose

passage in time is rich and meaningful.42

Regarding Lonins case, two distinct musical times can be sensed through

listening. While the transposed pre-existing chant in C of Allelluia sung in the

39 Susan Langer, Feeling and Form (New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1953). 40 Ibid., 110. 41 Ibid., 110. 42 George Rochberg elaborates Susan Langers idea of musical time. He claimed that musical time

can be sensed in the form of musical duration. See George Rochberg, The Aesthetics of Survival: A Composers View of Twentieth-Century Music, rev. ed. (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2004), 61.

23

tenor part is stretched into an unreasonably long duration, making it barely

recognizable, it simultaneously creates a timeless layer in the background. It

becomes timeless because of the absence of some explicit and significant audible

musical events or sonic images marking its course. This timeless duration frames the

structure of the entire piece. In contrast, the solo in the upper part is sung in a florid

and melismatic way, which creates a sonic foreground. Listeners are able to clearly

hear, in terms of pitches and melismas, the improvisatory melody in which musical

events appear. The effect is stunning, even though listeners may not be aware of the

pre-existing chant tune, or be able to identify it.

Clausula and Motet

Apart from organum, other components of a mass in the high medieval period,

such as the substitute clausula, and its later developed version, motet, were also

significant instances of use of pre-existing music. In Alleluia Pascha nostrum, after

concluding the organum section, the chorus responds the Alleluia section in unison,

retaining its original, simple style. The soloists then return to continue the

Pas-cha-no melismatic duplum passage of organum (example 2.6 and 2.7). This

passage serves as an introductory passage for the subsequent section the substitute

clausula in discant style. A clausula is a self-contained, but replaceable, section. Like

troping in monophonic chant, composers often wrote different music for this section,

aiming to add something new to the movement, as well as to allow the music to

progress more quickly in terms of tempo. As the pre-existing chant moves at

extremely slow speed, due to its extraordinarily long duration, to complete the entire

movement would require an unbearably long amount of time. Discant style offers a

solution to the problem, because both the tenor and the duplum move in measured

24

rhythms, with similar note values moving at similar speed. This style makes both

parts progress faster than in the organum setting. The change from free ornate style

(organum) to a measured rhythmic setting (discant style) is important in the

development of Notre Dame Polyphony.

Example 1.6: The Original Plainchant of Pascha Nostrum

Example 1.7: Lonins Duplum Setting of Pascha Nostrum Organum

Example 2.8: Gaudeat devtio fidelium Motet and Nostrum Clausula

25

In Alleluia Pascha nostrum, for example, the soloists sings the Nostrum

clausula section in discant style, immediately following the previous organum with

the G note (singing No) as the dovetailed point (example 2.7 and 2.8). This

connection is so smooth that the unpleasant sense of abrupt and extreme contrast

between the two sections is diminished. Apart from speeding up the music, the

self-contained clausula gives rise to a new musical genre the motet, which was an

important genre that prevailed in both the sacred and secular musical terrains. As the

substitute clausula continued to develop, some unknown individual or group of

individuals working in the late twelfth- or early thirteenth-centuries had the idea of

underlying new text to the duplum of a pre-existing clausula and performing the new

work outside the liturgy of the church. This is a new genre, the motet, was born. In

French, motet means word. The introduction of secular words into what had

previously been sacred works is something found repeatedly in the motet repertory.

For example, there are other motets based on the same chant Alleluia Pascha

nostrum. They are Ave Maria, Fons letitie, on the same tenor la, Gaudeat devotion

fidelium, which is based on the texted duplum of the clausula over the nostrum tenor,

and Salve, salus hominum/O radians stella/ nostrum, which is a double-texted motet

based on the tenor nostrum respectively.43

The use of pre-existing chant in medieval polyphony continued to be a

compositional habit for the next few hundreds years, just like the practice of troping

was in earlier medieval music. Separated from its liturgical context, the tenor of a

motet was no longer a sacred object, and usually simply a portion of a larger

plainchant. Music written in the secular realm using pre-existing music normally

used in the church gradually became important. Composers were quick to take

43 Burkholder has given a detailed analysis of the substitute clausula and motets. See Burkholder,

Norton Anthology 4th ed., 54-71.

26

advantage of the expressive potential of the new practice. They began to manipulate

the musical content of the tenor in various ways.44 If the pre-existing chant was a

representation of the heavenly world, and a vernacular text of the earthly world, then,

the breaking of the boundary between these two worlds seems to be a utopian aspect

of the motet.

Isorhythmic Mass

Polyphonic music written around the 14th to sixteenth-century developed new

ways of using pre-existing material. In many masses and motets composed by

Machaut, instead of setting the pre-existing chant verbatim, this was embellished and

elaborated. Although disguised, they were now used as both coherent and creative

elements of the entire piece. For instance, in Aucune gent/Qui plkus aimme/ Fiat

voluntas tua, Machaut borrowed the talea, color and structural elements of Vitrys

Douce playsence/Garison/Neuma.45 In another piece, La Messe de Nostre Dame

(Mass of Our Lady), for Mass Ordinary cycle (1360), Machaut used the isorhythmic

device for the Kyrie, Sanctus, Agnus Dei and Ite missa est sections, which were

based on the pre-existing plainchant, Kyrie Cunctipotens Genitor.46 The remaining

non-chant based sections of Gloria and Credo were written in syllabic and

homophonic style. It is a wonderful example of a mixture of styles.

The secret of isorhythmic composition falls on the rhythmic pattern and

repetition. In fact, the root of the word Iso- in Greek means equal. Isorhythmic

music is based on repetitions of the same (equal) rhythm of the pre-existing tune. The 44 Mark Evan Bonds, A History of Music in Western Culture (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall,

2003), 59. 45 Burkholder, Borrowing: 14th Century, Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed 2006/5/1),

46 For detailed analysis of the Kyrie section of this piece, refer to Peter Burkholder, Norton Anthology

of Western Music, vol. 1, 5th ed. (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2006), 127-32.

27

isorhythmic technique contains talea and color as two repeated elements. While

the talea (cutting) is an extended rhythmic pattern repeated one or more times in the

tenor, the color is a repeated melodic pattern, as opposed to the repeating talea. In the

first section of Machauts Kyrie, from his setting of the Ordinary of the Mass, the

twenty-eight notes of the chant are divided into seven statements of a four-note

rhythmic patter (talea) in the tenor. While the contra-tenor (the bass) is also mostly

isorhythmic with a talea of twelve bars, the upper parts are quasi-isorhythmic setting

over the same span.

Besides isorhythmic composition, Renaissance composers continued to use

pre-existing materials as cantus firmi, or by reworking them in the form of quodlibet,

paraphrasing and variation. They strove to embellish such pre-existing tunes as

hymns, chansons, chants in both motets and masses. They also liked to rework a

polyphonic model in mass composition and to combine fragments or contrapuntal of

tunes linearly in form of quodlibet.47 Adapting tunes from other contemporary

composers into ones own work was also much favored. This reflected the idea that

composers had come to view of specific works as models. They intended to emulate

them, yet show that their own compositions were equally individual and independent

of the models. One remarkable example of using a secular tune in form of cantus

firmus was Dufays L homme arm mass/ Kyrie.48

Dufays Secularism

One of the masters of polyphonic music, Dufay seems to be among the first to

47 Peter Burkholder, The Uses of Existing Music: Musical Borrowing as a Field, Notes, 50, no. 3

(March 1994): 869-70. 48 The score is collected in Norton Score. See Kristine Forney, ed., The Norton Scores: A Study

Anthology, vol. 1, 8th ed. (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1999), 16-21.

28

pay attention to the organic structure of a piece and manipulate texture as a device to

create climatic point.49 According to Stanley Boorman, an isorhythmic tenor always

acts as a unifying device for the whole piece.50 With its repetitions, the tenor melody

serves to bind together the various parts of a composition and gives guidance to

listeners to comprehend how the music is progressing. However, it is no more than a

skeleton to hold the rest of the music as flesh and blood. Thus, isorhythmic technique

is not sufficient to provide an organic structure, growing, and leading to and from

musical climaxes. In addition, the effect of the isorhythmic music can be flat and

static, in that it seems incapable in and of itself of creating the impression of

movement towardss a goal.51 However, under the ingenuous design of Dufay, none

of the sections of a piece comes across as static. Each voice is meticulously

elaborated to shape a coherent organism to form each section, albeit at different

levels from the others. Dufays technique is largely based on two skillful methods:

one is the gradually greater use of faster note values to enhance various rhythms, and

the other is the changes of texture within and across section(s) to build climaxes. An

instance of Dufays ability to manipulate texture for achievein a climax, while using

a secular pre-existing tune as a foundation, can be found in L homme arm Kyrie.

Because of his interest in creating various textures to serve personal artistic

aims, Dufay favors the four-voice, instead of the standard three-voice, format. A

four-voice setting is an ideal texture in polyphony to create sufficient contrasts within

different lines. Throughout his career, Dufay wrote four-voice polyphonic music in

all the available genres. Some of his masses are built on a cantus firmus taken from a

Gregorian chant, others on melodies from a popular song. In the L homme arm

49 Stanley Boorman states that it is Dufay who wrote one of the first musical compositions with an

organic shape. See Stanley Boorman, The Early Renaissance and Dufay, The Musical Times, 115, no. 1577 (July, 1974): 561.

50 Ibid., 561. 51 Ibid., 561.

29

Kyrie Mass, Dufay borrows a catchy popular tune as its basis. This popular tune is an

anonymous military folk song. Dufay sets the music in the typical A B A form,

where the two A sections are in triple meter and the contrasting B section is in

duple meter. Being concealed in a web of polyphonic lines, the pre-existing melody

provides the structural framework for each section of the Mass, just as was done in

the earlier practices. The tenor melody sustains in an extraordinary long duration.

The opening movement of the Kyrie is divided into three sections according to its

text. Instead of using all four voices to begin the music, Dufay saves the color of

tenor, just reducing the texture to three lines (example 2.9). After the three voices

conclude singing the text, Kyrie, the military tune enters in the tenor. This time the

pre-existing tune L homme arm Kyrie is no longer located at the bass to support

newly composed lines above (example 2.9). However, its prop-like role is not lost.

Melodies in all voices are derived from this cantus firmus. Although there are now

four voices in the texture, the music is not too heavy or ponderous. Dufay carefully

and skillfully manipulates the upper melodies and lower melodies in two distinct

moving sonic layers. While the pre-existing tune and the bass are cast in rather long

duration, the upper voices sing in long melismas with quicker speed. The effect is as

astonishing as the florid organum by Leonin. Dufay plays the magic of texture once

more near the end of the first Kyrie section. He combines all four voices with similar

note values and rhythms in a single polyphonic fabric, not only creating a tutti climax,

but also enhancing a dramatic contrast between this and the previous passage.

30

Example 1.9: The Opening Passage of Dufays L homme arm Kyrie

The Christe is the middle section of the piece. Dufay reduces the texture of

this section to the two upper voices only, displaying a texture of thin, a little

transparent, to support the long melismatic passage. Not until the angelic upper

voices reach half of the section do the lower voices enter. The tune L homme arm

Kyrie continues to act as the cantus firmus, which is the corner stone for filling out

the harmonies, sometimes the hollow-sounding octave and fifth, and at other times

the sonorous sixth and third proceeding parallel with the rest of the voices. Since the

voices are moving in similar note values and styles, just as in the previous setting, the

music also provides contrast, as well as climax for the section.

The returning last Kyrie section is set similar to its first appearance, but the

tempo is faster. The tenor part is held for half of the section to impart contrast to the

textures and tone colors. When approaching the end, the music arrives at the climax

with all voices combined in a large audible space, creating a solemn and appealing

effect for listeners. While the sonorities of Dufays polyphonic design are shocking

and moving, the significance of a secular tune in the vernacular should not be

31

overlooked. This is true of the other arts as well. For example, Renaissance writers

continued to create entertaining secular works in the vernacular, and artists such as

Giotto and Van Eyck explored perspective and human emotions in painting. Artists

such as these showed the turning of their focus from the memorable past of

Christianity onto the present lived reality, commencing a new epoch that stressed

humanity and enlightenment as the epitome that a mature society should possess.

Transcription as Emulation

The tradition of transcribing a vocal piece for an instrument can be exemplified

by William Byrds version of John Dowlands song, Pavana Lachrymae, which was

written around 1600. The piece can be regarded as one of the typical examples of

reworking music as an emulative model. This model song was a secular lute song

called Flow, my tears. In fact, other than Byrd, several composers had reworked or

rewritten variations on Dowlands song. In this piece, Byrd did not merely transcribe

but in the process changed the genre from song to a pavane for the keyboard.

The form of this piece is set in AABBCC form, reflecting the original form of

the pavane, but with an additional variation to each strain, marked Rep. Basically,

Byrd varied each verse of the original song and retained the outline of the tune in the

right hand. He also added short, accompanimental motives and embellished figures

for both hands, keeping the structure of pavana in six variation-like sections to suit

an instrumental style.52 Not only did Byrd retain the melancholic mood of the song

by using text-painting and subtle harmonies, he also employed many virtuosic

running figures to express the idiomatic style of keyboard music. For example, in the

second strain, at the words And tears and sighs and groans, where Dowland 52 Burkholder, Norton Anthology, 4th ed., 360.

32

imitated the melody in his bass line, Byrd followed Dowlands creative idea and

embellished the melody to the pattern to create an intense feeling. Undoubtedly, by

transcribing someone elses music and turning it into his own instrumental creation,

Byrd not only paid his homage to John Dowland but also expressed his intention to

emulate his contemporary.

Le Goff once commented on this new attitude of Renaissance social life by

saying that: The Renaissancethe primary stress is on the present, while from

the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries, the ideology of progress turns the

valorization of time towardss the future.53 H. W. Janson further asserted that the

aim of the Renaissance was not to duplicate the works of antiquity but to equal and,

if possible, to surpass them.54 Thus, the artists and composers of the Renaissance

easily found themselves in the position of the legendary sorcerers apprentice who set

out to emulate his masters achievements. However, did they feel that they should

give far greater effort than the masters had experienced in the process? Since the

masters were dead, rather than being merely absent, they had to cope with these

unfamiliar powers the best they could, until they became masters in their own right.

In practice, writers strove to express themselves with eloquent vernacular languages,

instead of Latin. Architects continued to build churches demanded by Christian

rituals, not to duplicate pagan temples, but their churches were designed all

antica, in the manner of the ancients, using an architectural vocabulary based on

the study of classical structures.55 In the development of art music, more composers

continued Dufays manner by drawing on current composers music as an emulative

model, expressing them in terms of paraphrasing, reworking, variations or other

53 Jacques Le Goff, History and Memory, trans. Steven Rendall and Elizabeth Claman (New York:

Columbia University, 1992), 11. 54 H. W. Janson, History of Art, 5th ed. (London: Thames and Hudson Ltd., 1995), 405. 55 Ibid., 405.

33

ways of using pre-existing music.

As such, many Renaissance composers strove to hold up their own individual

accomplishments by focusing on the contemporary models, despite the fact that this

process of forced growth was replete with crisis and tensions. Using pre-existing

music in the form of transcription seems to reflect an awareness of the pre-existing

material as pre-existing in a way that is difficult to gauge in the practice of

monophonic chant and even Notre-Dame polyphony. The issue of perceivability

remains important, however, especially when a pre-existing tune is buried in a thick

polyphonic texture.

Josquin routinely used secular music as a basis for some Masses, and even

Palestrina in his earlier years composed half a dozen imitation Masses on secular

madrigals or chansons.56 Martin Luther once remarked Josquin Des Prez as the

master of the notes, which must do as he wills.57 Luthers comments may be

indicative of the emulative attitudes and intentions of the Renaissance composers

using pre-existing materials. Sometimes, the emulative model might include the

composers own music. In Missa, Se la face ay pale, Dufay drew on his own secular

chansons tenor melody to form the tenor voice of the mass near the end of the

Gloria, Credo and Sanctus.58 This showed how widespread borrowing practices

were, how often new composition depended on reworking pre-existing material, how

habitual borrowing was for composers, and how varied and often masterly were their

methods of adaptation.

56 Janson, History of Art, 159. 57 Burkholder, Borrowing: Renaissance, Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed 2006/5/1),

58 Ibid.

34

Bachs Catholic Practice in Lutheran Chorale

The demand for new and individual compositions was characteristic of the

sixteenth-century. The conventional practices of using pre-existing material in a new

work gradually faded out.59 Parody, paraphrasing and cantus firmus were no longer

the composers favorites, clearly showing that using past plainchant as the basis of a

composition had declined. Burkholder further supports this trend by stating Settings

of Latin liturgical texts such as hymns and the Magnificent were less likely to

incorporate the original chant, partly because the modern style differed radically

from the old modal tunes and from earlier styles of elaborating them.60 Furthermore,

plenty of pieces were composed in an original manner in order to serve the

aristocratic patrons, or to entertain a newly rising social class the wealthy

bourgeoisie.

This new compositional practice could be traced back to the Reformation and

the Counter-reformation, which in fact was not only a religious movement, but also a

social movement that influenced all artistic creations. After excommunicating Luther

for heresy in 1521, the Roman Catholic Church began to reassess its position towards

the Protestant Reformation. The music of the counter-reformation largely followed

the guidance by the Council of Trent in between 1545-1563. 61 The Council

eliminated a number of plainchants that had been added to the liturgy since medieval

times, such as the Sequence on which Josquin had based the opening of his Ave

Mariavirgo serena.62 This authorized removal of past materials brought an effect

equivalent to recognizing that the past antiquity was a period distinctive from the

59 Bonds, Music in Western Culture, 181. 60 Burkholder, Borrowing: The Baroque Era, Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed

2006/5/1 ), 61 Bonds, Music in Western Culture, 158-59. 62 Ibid., 159.

35

so-called modern in the present. However, it is quite interesting to find that the old

practice of retaining an already-existed hymn tune continued as the foundation of a

new piece in the areas affected by the Lutheran reformation.

Bach often adapted materials from music of the sacred past to construct a new

piece for liturgical purpose, in a manner similar to the one observed for a medieval

Mass or Motet. For instance, Bach set Luthers chorale A Might Fortress Is Our God

in his Cantata no. 80, Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott, named after the chorale, for the

Feast of the Reformation. He borrowed Luthers texts and chorale melody in the

first, second, fifth, and last movements, while the rest of the text was by Bachs

favorite librettist, Salomo Frank. Using a chorale tune for a cantata in the services of

Lutheran Church is not unlike the old conventional practice of using plainchant for a

movement in the Catholic mass. Bach knew that the pious congregation could

remember Luthers inspiring melody, a majestic chorale, by heart. In Ein feste Burg

ist unser Gott, except for a few occasional leaps, the nine phrases of the embellished

borrowed melody always move stepwise downward in the scale of original D major,

paralleling the nine lines of each stanza of Luthers poem.63

In the opening movement, where the chorus sings a fugue under the orchestral

accompaniment, the adapted hymn tune is used in an embellished way, something

like a melodic variation. While the soprano line of the aria duet in the second

movement also uses the chorale tune in the same decorated way, the orchestral

opening in the fifth movement is like a paraphrase of the chorale melody. Not until

the orchestral tutti and the chorus singing the opening hymn-like chorale in the final

movement does the pre-existing tune clearly manifest its original face. Here, the

implication is obvious. Bach maintains the old practice of casting the pre-existing 63 Machlis and Forney have given a detailed analysis of Bachs Cantata no. 80. Refer to Joseph

Machlis and Kristine Forney, The Enjoyment of Music, 8th ed. (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999), 418-22.

36

monophonic chant into the polyphonic texture as the foundation of a piece. It is a

somewhat Catholic trait embedded in a wholly Protestant service. It seems to

unite these two antagonistic religions in a peaceful platform of shared musical

practices.

Like the other Baroque contemporaries, Bach could also treat pre-existing

material in quite a different way. For example, he recast many of his own secular

cantatas as sacred cantatas and reworked individual cantata movements in new works.

In some passages of Christmas Oratorio and Mass in B minor, for instance, Bach

incorporated several pre-existing materials from his cantatas. In addition, Bach also

adapted some violin and other concertos as harpsichord concertos, just like a

self-reworking of the same piece.64 In the Baroque period, no one considered this as

plagiarism or laziness; rather, it was simply a matter of compositional routine or

legitimized habit. In this sense, Bachs repeated re-workings of his own music just

reflected a phenomenon in Baroque days.

In the Baroque period, many composers who lived to a ripe old age had no

privilege of seeing their own earlier works performed or even a segment to be used in

the other piece. For example, J. S. Bach (1685-1750) did not know the music by

Heinrich Schutz (1585-1650), one of the greatest German composers of scared vocal

music in the sevetheenth-century, even though Schutz had spent the majority of his

career in the same general region of Germany in which Bach lived and worked.65

And when Monteverdi died in 1643, his opera Orfeo of 1607, was all but forgotten;

by 1650, even his later operas like Poppea (1642) had no chance to be performed

again. Thus, Baroque composers tended to write as much music as they could in their

lifetime. The purpose of recycling their own music was largely in order to produce 64 Burkholder, Borrowing: Reworkings and Issues of Originality, Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy

(Accessed 2006/5/1), 65 Bonds, Music in Western Culture, 181.

37

more works, which may have resulted in more performances and thereby stable

income.

Johann Mattheson observed this borrowing habit and suggested in Der

volkommene Capellmeister in 1739 that borrowing is permissible; but one must

return the object borrowed with interest; that is, one must so construct and develop

imitations that they are prettier and better than the pieces from which they are

derived.66 Many examples of reworking, whether self-borrowing are used or not,

show the attempt of incorporating some degrees of originality into the music.

Aside from recycling a small passage for a new work, in some cases, almost the

whole theme or the entire pieces from others were incorporated in a similar way. For

example, Monteverdi, reworked the instrumental overture, Toccato, to his

renowned opera Orfeo into the opening chorus of Vespers of 1610. He rewrote his

canzonetta Ciome d oro and presented it as the motet Beatus vir.67 This practice

seemed to be a convenient way of recycling a composers own materials, ostensibly

in order to save time. Handel, in the late Baroque period, was another figure

notorious for recycling his own material to increase his music productions. Purcell,

for his part, frequently recycled earlier music in his plays and often excerpted and

adapted solo songs and duets from larger works, while the Italian composer Antonio

Vivaldi frequently re-used his own arias in his later operas, and shared tunes from his

instrumental and vocal works as ritornello materials.68 Besides using his own

pre-existing material, Monteverdi also reworked music by his contemporaries. For

instance, he reworked Caccinis monodic setting of Sfogava con le stele, as a

five-voice madrigal. Therefore, recycling for ones own purposes became a new way

of treating pre-existing materials for a new piece and continued to be a practice 66 Burkholder, Reworkings and Issues of Originality, Grove Music Online. 67 Bonds, Music in Western Culture, 244-45. 68 Burkholder, Reworkings and Issues of Originality, Grove Music Online.

38

across the centuries.

Adapting Folk Music as a Creative Means

A new attitude towardss the use of pre-existing material for a new piece arose in

the eighteenth-century. Adapting traditional folk songs of certain geographical areas

as thematic materials to construct new pieces came to be a common compositional

process. Of course, it was not a new trend (think, again, of Dufays mass L homme

arm). However, treating folk tunes as a creative source, rather than a mere basis for

adding new polyphonic lines, was first seen in the hands of Classical composers.

Such pre-existing folk materials could be introduced into music as a purely

suggestive extraneous element, a passing reference, or reminder of a well-known

idea, emotion, or aspect of folk mentality. According to Henry F. Gilbert, to express

ones emotion effectively by means of song or vocal utterance of some kind is a most

primitive trait of the human being.69 The most natural cries of joy and sorrow,

triumph and failure are all embedded in folk songs. As such, folk elements have

forever been the fructifying source of all arts. In addition, folk songs are also capable

of evoking an emotional expression for a particular tribe or race-group, possessing

characteristics and general qualities for the development of that particular group or

nation.

At the peak of the Classical period, Joseph Haydn seemed to be the first

important composer to successfully make use of folk tunes and dances as the

thematic germ to develop music.70 After Haydn came Mozart, Beethoven and

Schubert, but not one of them habitually made use of folk tune as thematic material 69 Henry F. Gilbert, Folk-Music in Art-Music: A Discussion and a Theory, The Musical Quarterly, 3,

no. 4 (Oct. 1917): 598. 70 Gilbert, Folk-Music, 583.

39

as much as Haydn did. Gilbert mentioned Haydns use of folk materials in three

different ingenuous manners, specified as follows: 1. verbatim, as a musical germ

from which to develop a composition; 2. verbatim, but having no particular relation

to the musical structure; 3. as suggestion towards the composition of folk tune like

themes expressive of the folk spirit.71 Since Haydn grew up in a small Austrian

town, he must have been familiar with the folk music with which he was surrounded

since childhood. W. H. Hadow talked about Haydns predilection for folk music in

these terms: Haydns music is saturated with Croatian melodySome of his

tunes are folk songs in their simplest form some are folk songs altered and improved,

the vast majority are original, but display the same general characteristicsthe

common employment of folk songs dates from the Symphony in D major (1762) to

the Salomon Symphonies of 1795; they find their way into everything hymns,

quartets, divertimenti; not, of course, because of Haydn had nay need to take them

but because he loved them too well to leave them out.72 Haydn varied the folk

melody The Road Far Away for the theme of the 4th movement of the Symphony no.

104 in D major.73 He also adapted a variant of the Croatian folk song Stal se jisem

into his famous Austrian Hymn in the 2nd movement of String Quartet, op. 76, no.

3, which is now the National Anthem of Germany.74 Furthermore, he used Croatian

folk melodies as the thematic sources in his Symphony no. 103 in Eb major (Drum

Roll). From W. H. Hadow, in the Andante movement of Drum Roll, the two themes,

first minor (mm. 1-8) and the second major (mm. 27-50) are both drawn from two

71 Gilbert, Folk-Music, 582. 72 According to Gilbert, this commentary is written by W. H. Hadow. See A Croatian Composer:

Joseph Haydn. The citation is largely a translation of a pamphlet by Dr. Kuha*. See Gilbert, Folk-Music, 583-84 and William Henry Hadow, A Croatian Composer: Notes Towards the Study of Joseph Haydn, in Haydn Symphony No.103 in E-flat Major, Norton Critical Score, Karl Geiringer ed. (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1974), 100-101.

73 Ralph G. Heidsiek, Folk Quotations in the Concert Repertoire, Music Educators Journal, 56, no. 1 (Sept. 1969): 52.

74 Gil