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The Idea of Evolution in the Music of the 20th Century

Author(s): William Austin


Source: The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 39, No. 1 (Jan., 1953), pp. 26-36
Published by: Oxford University Press
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THE IDEA OF EVOLUTION IN THE
MUSIC OF THE 20TH CENTURY
By WILLIAM AUSTIN

W HEN we speak of "the evolution of music," we are using a


phrase so hackneyed that it may attract no attention at all; it
may be mere verbiage filling out the rhythm of a sentence that would
mean no less if the phrase were replaced by the one word "music." But
sometimes we really need the phrase "evolution of music." We need it
to call attention to two things: the continuity of change in ideas and
techniques from one piece of music to another and one composer to
another; and the great diversity of ideas and techniques in musical
compositions and styles.
If we say that music has evolved in the 2oth century, we deny that
new music is the product of a "special creation," unrelated to the music
of the past, and we deny that it is the outcome of a"revolution," super-
seding the music of the past. We insist rather that new music is derived
from old music and enriches old music with new values.
At the same time, our phrase "evolution of music" suggests that the
history of music is too complex to be compared with the history of a
government or any other institution; that music is too diverse to be
summed up in relation to a single line, be it a straight line, a wavy one,
or a spiral of whatever dimensions. The history of music resembles more
nearly the history of literature, or painting, or language, or society as a
whole. The musical process has no culmination; it is not like the evolu-
tion of a species from primitive ancestors to a successful, specialized,
modem form, or the growth of an individual organism from a single
cell to maturity. It is rather like the evolution of a whole phylum, with
its branches continually forking out.
Before we proceed to argue in favor of this comparison we must
guard against supposing that it is more than a comparison. The actual
process, we must remember, has taken place in the minds of composers.
When we speak of composers' practices diverging or conforming, we
are already using a figure of speech; translated into literal language, our
26

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The Idea of Evolution in the Music of the 20th Century 27

meaning is simply that practices differ from or resemble the practices


we have agreed to call normal. When we speak of lines of development
from common practice to a new practice, we are using a faded metaphor
to refer to an abstract concept that has no name of its own; we use
the term so glibly that we neglect to examine the concept; we are in
danger of imagining that the lines of development are more than meta-
phor-things in themselves. The interpretation of history, especially the
history of an art, must rely to a great extent on hazardous metaphors
of this sort, because the real events whose relations we seek to under-
stand are so very complex. Music itself does not evolve from one com-
position to another or one style to another. Separate pieces of music are
made by men. With the phrase "evolution of 20oth-century music" we
refer to relations among certain events in the minds of men.

We know very little about these actual events. In the future psy-
chologists may enable us to find out more about them than we know
how to find out now (provided they do not teach us first to lose interest
in such events as musical composition). Now we can only guess how
much of a composer's act is the outcome of conscious choice, how much
is habit, and how much intuition; we can make only the wildest kind
of guess as to what sources the intuition may arise from, how the habits
are formed and how they are shared among the individuals of a group,
and how the choice is exercised. It is very tempting to speculate, for
example, that conformity to a norm is habitual and unconscious while
divergence is the outcome of individual creative choice; or that con-
formity is conscious craftsmanship, more or less well-developed, while
divergence is capricious individual intuition; that divergence in a cer-
tain direction is provoked, or even determined, by the inherent nature
of an unstable norm; or that some particular divergence is elicited, or
even caused, by a changed social environment. Speculation on these
questions is futile until the application of our psychological and socio
logical disciplines to the theory of art is more advanced. At present
there is no way of testing any hypothetical answer. We need not
despair of ever finding verifiable answers to these tantalizing questions,
but for the present they are no more promising than the older questions
of philosophers, "What is beauty?" and "What does music mean?"
Such questions have often served to stimulate and exercise imagination
even though no proposed answers have won wide agreement. Mean-
while, musical scholarship can make its own advances by clarifying its
descriptive terms and improving its technique of analysis. For musical
research is focused on music. If some day we want to know more about

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28 The Musical Quarterly
the historical process, we cannot be content ultima
study of the chief documents only, the complet
rather we shall need to consider all the relevant ev
ways of thinking and feeling. We cannot hope to u
process that led to Faurd's peculiar practice of harm
out probing many aspects of his personality, includ
the music of other composers both older and young
including his attitudes towards social and political t
vations as well as traditions and innovations in the
It should be obvious that we lack sufficient
thorough understanding of the process. Our knowle
to justify our metaphor. But it is enough for that,
rect some mistaken interpretations of the proce
the relations among the events in the minds of com
to relations among species of plants and animals ob
and interpreted in their theory of evolution.
This view is by no means new, but it is not yet w
consistently maintained. A presentation of the v
study by every musician is Charles Koechlin's essay
monie: periode contemporaine, in the Lavignac Ency
proves the validity of the evolutionary view by traci
opment of new harmonic practices from the comm
music, and sharply defining the varieties of practice
musical examples. Further evidence to support th
may be found in the present author's study of Har
2o-Century Music.2 Indeed, any study that star
analysis and critical evaluation of many specific pie
lend support to the evolutionary view; the idea of a
can be maintained only as long as we deal with abst
typical works. Yet in our writing, speaking, and th
century music it is often the case that we limit our
favorites, and even if we are ready to grant some v
lutionary view we are slow to reject other views inco
A different view at least as common as ours is
Willi Apel in the article on "New Music" in the H
Approximately the same view is held by many o
recently Roger Sessions has restated it, with many
chapter on "Music in the World Today" in his v
I Paris, 1923, II, 1 :591-76o.

2 Unpublished thesis, Harvard, I95o.

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The Idea of Evolution in the Music of the 20th Century 29
Musical Experience (Princeton, 1950). We direct our argument spe-
cifically against Apel's article because it is a responsible statement by a
respected scholar and because it is likely to have far-reaching influence,
whereas much of the writing on new music is relatively ephemeral and
either condescends to its readers or else addresses an esoteric circle.
Apel speaks repeatedly of (i) a general "break with tradition," of
"negation," "destruction," "rejection" of both technical and esthetic
inheritance from the period of common practice. (2) He describes the
years from about 1918 to 1925 as an "anarchic" period in which all
kinds of new systems were proposed to "fill the vacuum" left by the
rejection of the past. (3) He interprets the relative quiet of the years
since 1925 as a restoration of order, a synthesis of the best results of the
free experimentation of the chaotic period with certain principles revived
from the I8th century and earlier periods. Into this framework he fits
the names of prominent composers, titles and dates of important com-
positions, and the host of "isms" encountered in discussions of new music.
We may make allowances for the brevity of the article: we assume that
its author and most of its readers would recognize that no neat division
into periods can correspond exactly to the real course of events, that
anticipations, lags, and intricate cross-currents necessitate qualifications
of such a broad outline. But qualifications are not enough to make this
scheme fit the facts.

We know that some practices of many 2oth-century composers con-


form to the norm of older practices. Further, we find unbroken lines
of development from the I9th century through the works of Debussy
and his generation, through early and late works of Stravinsky and
Bart6k, down to the most recent works of younger men. What then is
the basis of the notion of a break with tradition?
The only important practice that justifies this notion is that of
Schoenberg and his disciples: they do in general reject the diatonic
scale and the use of major and minor triads. Even this practice is the
outcome of a gradual evolution from the past, a gradual increase in the
use of what were exceptional practices. But Schoenberg's Op. 11 does
mark a decisive stage in this evolutionary process, the appearance of a
definitely new species, sharply distinguished from its phylogenic ancestor.
Apel implies that all or nearly all serious composers have agreed with
Schoenberg in this rejection, that tonality and functional harmony
became extinct in the practice of serious composition. This implication
is quite false. Many composers rejected nothing. They modified every-
thing, and continually added to the variety of possibilities at their com-

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30 The Musical Quarterly
mand. The influence of Schoenberg on Stravin
and even Hindemith has surely been far less t
determine just what this influence has been wou
investigation of each composer, for no one of
Schoenberg's fundamental rejection.'

There have been some experiments by minor com


the notion of a break with tradition, for example
and other fractional intervals by HAba and other
counterpoint" of Seeger and Cowell (reversing
sonance and dissonance). These experiments ha
retical speculations, and they have not proved an
have not noticeably affected any important co
originators of these experiments abandoned them
synthesis.

More plausible than such arbitrary experiments as these are the theo-
ries of a "supradiatonic" scale destined to replace the diatonic, which
have been elaborated by Joseph Yasser, in A Theory of Evolving Tonality
(New York, 1932), and A. S. Ogolevets, in Osnovy Garmonicheskogo
Yazyka (Moscow, I941 ). But these theories have found no practical
application.

Perhaps the basis of the idea of a break with tradition is not any
actual musical practice or technical theory, but rather the verbal
pronouncements and the associated fisticuffs of the Futurists and
Dadaists. The manifestos of these movements do call for rejection,
negation, destruction. These manifestos have been quoted at second
or third hand by Apel, as by other writers on 20oth-century music.
Slonimsky, by including them in his indispensable reference book Music
Since 1900oo, has made them known to a wide audience without giving
any adequate commentary on them. For a hasty reader of Slonimsky,
the violence that the Futurists and Dadaists revelled in is easily con-
nected with the violence accompanying the first performance of Op. II
and the Rite of Spring. Hence a digression to consider these movements
with care may prove helpful.

The Futurist movement in literature and the visual arts was inaugu-

s For an unusually sane estimate of Schoenberg's influence, see Ravel, Contem-


porary Music, in Rice Institute Pamphlets, XV (1928), 131-45. Although this is a
wide-ranging article meant for a non-professional audience, it penetrates more deeply
than many later articles and maintains an attitude of sympathetic detachment that
is unmatched in any other discussion of Schoenberg known to this author.

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The Idea of Evolution in the Music of the 20th Century 31

rated in I909 by F. T. Marinetti.' The slogans of the movement were


"modernolatry," "anti-pastism," "speed," "machinery," "absolute spon-
taneity." Its significance in fields other than music does not concern us
here, except to recognize that it originated and flourished outside the
musical world. Its one musical representative was Francesco Balilla
Pratella.5
Pratella at this time was director of the Musical Institute at Lugo.
He was an ardent patriot and anti-German. He had published a theo-
retical treatise and a study of Rossini, had had produced two operas, in
a style something like that of Mascagni, and had contributed critical
articles to various periodicals. In I91o he became a Futurist and issued
his manifesto dei musicisti futuristi. In 191I this was followed by a
manifesto tecnico della musica futurista, announcing these principles,
among others: melody must be based "on a single chromatic atonal
mode"; four-measure phrasing must be destroyed. In I912 he pub-
lished his manifestos together with what was apparently the first and
last example of Futurist music, a piece for orchestra, in piano reduction,
called Hymn of Life. This music is trivial; its "novelty" consists of the
whole-tone scale (by 191 2 long familiar) and changing meters (with
rhythmic patterns like those in the simplest popular songs). In I917
Pratella explained his Futurism as a form of patriotism; he declared
that by now it was "old hat," and that he had forgotten it.s His national-
ism found better outlets in the study of folklore and in editorial assign-
ments for I classici della musica italiana. His many later compositions,
including both operas and instrumental music, have attracted little
attention. He became director of the Conservatory at Ravenna and
editor of a magazine, II pensiero musicale. Best paradox of all, he
entitled a two-volume collection of his critical articles Evoluzione della
musica. Futurism was only an incident in his evolution.
No more important composers were directly associated with Futurism.
In i934 Marinetti condemned Pratella and all other musicians because
they continued to cultivate "music for music's sake" and failed to
realize his visions of an "aeromusic whose law is synthesis."'
4An authoritative account of the movement is given by Marinetti himself in
the Enciclopedia italiana (Milan, 1932), XVI, 227-31.
SThe chief sources for the next paragraph are Pratella's Cronache e critiche
"Bologna, 19i8) and Schmidl's Dizionario universale dei musicisti (Milan, 1926),
II, 3II.
6 Cronache e critiche, pp. 52, 79.

7 See Slonimsky, Music Since 19oo, New York, 1938, pp. 556-57.

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32 The Musical Quarterly
The Futurist "art of noises," invented by Luigi
approached more nearly to Marinetti's vision. Ru
painter; he specifically disclaimed any standing
ever, he too had an interpretation of the "evolution
"a tendency towards the most complex dissonanc
satisfied only by the supplementary use of noise and
musical sounds." To call him a "real composer" an
between his art of noises and the so-called "machine
and Bart6k, as Apel does,9 is far-fetched.
The insignificance of musical Futurism was perce
appeared on the scene in Italy,'o and in i915 W.
its limitations calmly and precisely, distinguishing i
attitude on the one hand, and from the more evolut
ously represented by Sibelius, Ravel, Scriabin, an
other."

Unfortunately such fine perceptions and distinctions were not grasped


by all people who had contact with the ideas of musical Futurism. Thus
an article by N. C. Gatty in 1916 argues vehemently against Futurism
without mentioning its origin, and conveys the impression, since Strauss
is the only composer mentioned, that Futurism is a vague power menac-
ing the whole course of musical development.'2
Marinetti was one of the group that rallied at Zurich in 1916 with
the slogan "Dada."'3 One of his contributions to the movement was
Bruitisme, which must have been very similar to Russolo's art of noises.
Bruitisme was not intended to be music: "music is this or that sort of
harmonic ingenuity, an art, an activity of the intellect-Bruitisme is life
itself." There is no evidence that Bruitisme ever developed any clearer
definition, or that it was ever cultivated by anyone but Marinetti, or
8 Slonimsky, op. cit., pp. 147-48, 536-42. Note that Slonimsky does not include
Pratella's writings, which are tamer than those of Marinetti and Russolo.
9 Harvard Dictionary, p. 289. In this article Apel attributes to Pratella a quo-
tation actually from Russolo addressed to Pratella.
10 See reviews of Pratella's publications in the Rivista musicale italiana, XX
(1913), 682-684, and XXVI (1919), 411-413; see also a general discussion in G.
Bastianelli, Saggi di critica musicale, Milan, 1914, PP- 59-71.
11 Some Aspects of Modern Music, in The Musical Quarterly, I (9x15), 57-68.
12Futurism, A Series of Negatives, ibid., II (1916), 9-12.
13 Chief sources for the following facts are R. Huelsenbeck, En avant Dada;
eine Geschichte des Dadaismus, Hannover, I92o, and the anthology, Dada Almanach,
Berlin, 192o, ed. by Huelsenbeck. Concerning Bruitisme, see esp. En avant, pp. 6-7.
Slonimsky, op. cit., pp. xvii, x67, 169, prints choice documents from the Almanach,
giving the impression that he regards the movement as important.

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The Idea of Evolution in the Music of the 20th Century 33

that any musicians of importance were directly connected with Dada."4


Yet Apel lists Bruitisme as though it were a factor in musical history
comparable to the twelve-tone technique.
Elements of parody, deliberate banality, and facetious wit are present,
sporadically, at all stages of the history of music, and have become
prominent since Strauss's merry pranks. It is possible that Dada may
somehow have affected Satie, Stravinsky, Berg, Milhaud, Poulenc, and
younger composers, but there is much evidence that they did not adopt
its destructive attitude towards tradition or its contempt of communica-
tion, and this is the point that deserves most emphasis.
The bases, then, of the notion of a break with tradition are Schoen-
berg's rejection of certain elements of the tradition, which is mistakenly
attributed to all composers, and Marinetti's revolt against any tradition
and any music, which is confusedly magnified into two musical schools.
These bases are inadequate to support the notion.
On the other hand, of course, it is true that by 1918 practices of
important composers varied more widely than ever before-varied from
each other and varied from the norm of past practices. There is no
doubt that the long period of common practice had ended. But if this
was anarchy in 1918 it is still anarchy in 1952.
There is only one practice that justifies the notion of a new synthesis:
Hindemith's. His line of development, from a style resembling Strauss
and Reger, through a style resembling Schoenberg (to some degree), to
a milder, more consistent style resembling Bach, is well known." Hinde-
mith's theory also contributes, perhaps as much as his practice, to the
impressiveness of this development. The theory clearly expresses a hope
that the result of the development, the late-Hindemith style, may indeed
become a synthesis for the 2oth century, a new norm replacing the old
14Almanach includes mention of performances at the piano by Hans Heusser
(a young musician of Zurich) playing his own compositions (p. Ig), and by a
Mlle. Suzanne Perottet, playing Schoenberg and Satie (pp. I8, 25). The same
sources list among "quelques presidents et pr6sidentes" (pp. 95, 96) Stravinsky
and Edgard Varise, but this does not constitute evidence of their association.

15 H. Strobel, Paul Hindemith, 2nd ed., Mainz, 1931, traces the development
very convincingly. Strobel's introductory survey of new music presents a scheme
almost the same as Apel's, but since it is designed as a background for Hindemith
rather than a comprehensive dictionary-article it has somewhat more justification.
Note that Apel has recently protested against the blatant pro-Hindemith anti-Schoen-
berg stand of Albert Wellek in his article on atonality in Musik in Geschichte und
Gegenwart (review in Journal of the American Musicological Society, IV [1951] 163).
Certainly the article of Apel's under attack here is far more fair-minded and more
subtle than Wellek's, but in principle we maintain that Apel's criticism of Wellek
is applicable to his own article.

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34 The Musical Quarterly
norm from which practices now diverge in so ma
possibly see in Apel's interpretation of the history
an unconscious reflection of this hope of Hindemi
But Hindemith's practice is still only one amon
Bart6k, Milhaud, Prokofiev, Copland, Walton,
as little in common with Hindemith as they have
with each other. And Hindemith's theory is less
these composers than is the theory based on t
practice.
Each of these men, to be sure, has written some music in recent
years that seems "milder" than some of their products of the early
'twenties. Also we have learned, to a greater or lesser extent, what to
expect from each of them. But they have no more in common than
they ever had. Each has followed his own line of development; the lines
may not continue to diverge at the same rate as before, but they show
no sign of converging either; they seem to be running roughly parallel.
Apel's article aims to comprehend the development of 2oth-century
music in relation to a single line, as if it were one organism. Apel quali-
fies his scheme with the note that Schoenberg and his immediate fol-
lowers have remained aloof from the "neo-Classic synthesis" (although,
as a matter of fact, Schoenberg was among the first to exemplify the
intense interest in counterpoint, in chamber music, and in I8th-century
forms that distinguish neo-Classicism, along with tonal cadences). Apel
concludes: "In twenty years we shall know who pursued the right path."
He implies that Schoenberg suffers an arrested development, that the
main line has now passed him by, that there cannot be more than one
right path, that all composers are seeking the same ideal destination.
Advocates of atonality like Krenekl" and Leibowitz" welcome such a
challenge. They too interpret the development of 20oth-century music in
relation to a single line: not a straight line, but a single "dialectical"
process; for them, every "tonal" composer is a reactionary, engaged in
futile resistance to an inevitable progress. They too claim to see a shift
from a negative to a positive emphasis about 1925, but for them of
course the new positive element is the twelve-tone technique rather than
a return to the past. At the same time, they prize the freedom and
diversity possible within the twelve-tone technique and defer somewhat
the hope of a new synthesis.
leMusic Here and Now, New York, 1939.
17 Numerous books and articles, especially L'Evolution de la musique de Bach
a Schoenberg, Paris, 1951.

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The Idea of Evolution in the Music of the 20th Century 35

These two opposed attitudes are strikingly similar. Both are too
simple. Perhaps the root of our difficulty is our metaphorical language.
Our phrase, "the evolution of 2oth-century music," tends to make us
think of individual works or individual composers as specimens of a
race, or as various races of one species. We search for an image of the
norm of the species, and for an indication of the direction of future
evolution. These are chimeras. If we like our metaphor, we should say
that what happened to music in the first two decades of the 20oth century
was an explosive evolution, a multiple forking or branching out of one
species into many new species and sub-species, together with one remark-
able mutation which reached a hitherto unoccupied zone of the adaptive
grid, and that happily almost all the species, sub-species, and varieties
are still flourishing, only a few of the more grotesque individual sports
having died without issue."
This makes it obvious that the evolution of music is no more than a
metaphor, but as a metaphor its meaning is rich and remarkably precise.
This kind of metaphor has led to many hypotheses fruitful for the
study of social institutions, of literature, fine arts, and music.19 The ideas
of evolving styles and evolving forms have helped us gain acquaintance
with many unjustly neglected works of the past; they have helped us
understand many works better. It is doubtful whether they have helped
us to understand the actual psycho-social process of artistic creation. It
is regrettable that they have sometimes led us to futile inquiries, and
even to distorted interpretations of works that we might have understood
better without the metaphorical frame.20
After all, our interest in the historical process is a secondary interest.
We are concerned with it chiefly as a means to understanding works of
art themselves. When a metaphor gets in the way of our esthetic enjoy-
ment, we should not hesitate to forget the metaphor. If a metaphor can
be made to help, we should make the most of it. The criterion for judg-
ing an interpretation of musical history is how it illumines music and
18 Cf. G. G. Simpson, Tempo and Mode in Evolution, New York, 1944.
19 Cf. Glen Haydon, Introduction to Musicology, New York, 1941, pp. 247-64.
so Cf. Warren D. Allen, Philosophies of Music History, New York, 1939. This
is an interesting expos6 of the confusions and distortions resulting from the metaphors
of evolution and growth in general histories of music. Allen wants musicologists to
do away with analogies altogether. This seems too severe a prescription. To avoid
analogies would be to avoid constructive thinking. Allen does not deny the essential
meaning of the evolution-analogy: that new styles, like new species, are intimately
connected with their predecessors, not produced by a "special creation." He prefers
to emphasize the relation between new styles and new environmental conditions,
new functional needs.

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36 The Musical Quarterly
enhances its inherent interest. An interpretation t
music to pigeonholes is worse than no interpret
of a manifold evolution should encourage us to
achievements of 20oth-century composers, and to
own merits.

We cannot conclude without touching on a further complication. It


is very probable that theories about the historical process contributed
something to the formation of Wagner's style, and something to the
formation of most styles since his. Sophisticated historical theories are
inextricably mixed with the harmonic theories of Schoenberg, Hinde-
mith, Milhaud, Koechlin, and Casella, and the "poetics" of Stravinsky.
Of course the theories of history are as diverse as the musical practices.
Thus the process takes on an aspect of involution. It is obvious that our
theory of evolution cannot evaluate the role in the process of other theo-
ries, for, as we have insisted, our knowledge of the process is barely
sufficient to evaluate their adequacy. We should, however, evaluate the
possible role of our own proposal: what might the evolutionary view
mean to a composer? It can provide no positive ingredient to help a
composer form his style, but it could give a composer, if he needs it, a
certain degree of confidence to explore whatever paths invite him.
If more pretentious theories offer more help to some composers, we
would not wish to dissuade these composers. We can hardly expect com-
posers to consider these questions objectively, and we can pardon almost
anything they may do in their mysterious process. We adhere to the evo-
lutionary interpretation of 2oth-century music not so much for its
pragmatic value as for its adequacy to interpret the facts we observe, the
facts of continuity and diversity of composers' practices. Yet this inter-
pretation has great pragmatic value for critics, scholars, students, and
other friends of music. For us the limitations of the more pretentious
theories are unfortunate. The best attitude is the broadest and most
objective. We can profit by recognizing continuity and diversity, by
grasping the relatedness of new practices to old, and by leaving to com-
posers the problem of choosing among the many different practices
now in use.

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