'Contemporary' Music

Author(s): Hans Keller

Source: The Musical Times, Vol. 96, No. 1345 (Mar., 1955), pp. 131-132
Published by: Musical Times Publications Ltd.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/937142
Accessed: 01-03-2018 08:36 UTC

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March 1955 THE MUSICAL TIMES 131

'Contemporary' Music
By HANS KELLER
W HEN they grow old, men and cultures alike critics and the rest included a composer and his
become retrospective; naturally, they are wife, a prominent promoter of 'contemporary'
not greatly interested in what they will not music, and a representative of Stravinsky's pub-
live to see. But while men just grow old, times lisher, leaving just twelve representatives of the
also grow young: a new era emerges before its general public. I am not blaming anybody: music
predecessor has died or even reached old age. is not a duty, not even 'contemporary music',
The contemporaneity of, and ensuing conflict if you do not care for it. What these figures are
between, a young and an old epoch produces such supposed to show is that music tends to become
largely illusory concepts as that of' contemporary ' contemporary ' when musical life has ceased to be
art. so: in Mozart's day, when virtually all the music
When the contrapuntal era grew old, an unsur- played and enjoyed was 'contemporary', nobody
passed genius took upon himself the task of retro- dreamed of conferring that title upon it.
spection, but thanks to J. S. Bach's greatness, the ' Contemporary music' is at bottom a defensive
overlapping of the late polyphonic school and the term coined in reaction against the public's dis-
beginning of the homophonic age cannot possibly inclination to listen to 'this modern stuff', the
be misrepresented as a co-existence of the bad old corresponding pejorative phrase. As in the case
style and the good new. Nevertheless, at the time, of Bach v. Bach, the fundamental conflict is between
such a misunderstanding was inevitable. In fact, two overlapping eras. Our present crisis, however,
the conflict between the epochs happened to coin- is painfully acute because the new era has emerged
cide with the kind of conflict between son and too soon: its predecessor is still intensely alive
father which we may expect to find at the psycho- among composers, performers and listeners. Bach
logical root of the eternal war between youngwas andof course alive too, but he could not present
old: Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach considered his any historical front. Apart from him the poly-
father utterly out of date and, judging him by phonic age was past.
the 'contemporary' standard, overlooked his In such historical circumstances, it is risky to
genius. introduce any chronological terms; and 'con-
After Johann Sebastian's death, most of his temporary' is just such a term. A chronological
works fell into oblivion, simply because they were approach to the development of technique is in
not contemporary. At the same time, the great any case useless, unless we wish to establish the
homophonic masters remained alive to his stature, already self-evident; if art did not behave anachron-
in as far as they were acquainted with his music, istically, it could not develop at all. Chronologically
little of which had been printed by the time he considered, the opening of the development
died. And today, when we are re-entering a contra- section in the finale of the second G minor sym-
puntal era, we find that the old retrospective Bach phony by that notoriously conservative composer,
was a prophet of a distant future, that Schoen- Mozart, is roughly 150 years in advance of its
berg and Stravinsky and Hindemith pay verbal and date of composition. Not only is it anti-tonal,
musical tribute to their bewigged teacher. Some- unfolding its succession of ten different notes like
thing is evidently wrong with history, and almost a note-row, but-far more important technically-
everything is wrong with chronology. it is in fact composed (as I hope to demonstrate in
J. S. Bach was a late-comer, so that the new a forthcoming analysis) according to a strict, if
era had little difficulty in pushing him underground. unconscious, serial method. These circumstances
Schoenberg was an early-comer, so that the old in themselves do not, of course, make the passage
era had little difficulty in pushing him underground. particularly valuable; they just make it uncon-
Among composers today, Schoenberg has re- temporary.
emerged in a spectacular way, both as a great Conversely, Furtwangler has pointed out that
creator and as a technical innovator. A large 'Brahms's harmony in, say, the 'nineties was
number of young European and American com- hardly different from Schubert's in the 'twenties'.
posers of note have come to appreciate his work Schoenberg on the other hand wrote an essay on
and use his technique. Indeed, even his former 'Brahms the Progressive' in which he showed
counter-pole, Stravinsky, has become what we that this old conservative was as much his own
might call his counterpoint: he composes tonal contemporary as Schubert's. Every major master,
and not so tonal serial polyphony and in his latest ' conservative' or 'progressive', is the potential
piece, ' In Memoriam Dylan Thomas', he handles contemporary ' of a later major master.
a five-note row more strictly on Schoenberg's In eighteenth-century English, 'cotemporary'
serial principles than Schoenberg himself treats his was preferred to 'contemporary '. I wish it still
rows in his 'classical' twelve-note works. were. We might then feel forced to supply an
This far-reaching resolution of contemporary answer to the simple question: co-temporary
conflicts among composers has not, however, with what? With our age? That would be not
diminished the problem of ' contemporaneity ' as answering, but begging the question. Gershwin
far as the general musical public is concerned. and Schoenberg; Stravinsky and Oscar Straus;
The audience at the recent first English performance Hindemith, Boulez, and William Alwyn; Vaughan
of this new Stravinsky work-a major event by any Williams and Humphrey Searle; Britten and
standards which do not altogether refuse to take Webern-they all are 'our age' which, in fact,
the development of new music into account- collects such a vast variety of historical stages at
consisted of twenty people. Four of these were the same chronological point that it would be

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132 THE MUSICAL TIMES March 1955

impossible
impossibleto
toattempt
attemptany
any
temporal
temporal
placing
placingto recent music is profoundly con-
approach
of
of music
musicwithin
withinthe
thelast
last
half-century.
half-century. fused by the overlapping of conflicting eras,
A
A concept
conceptwhich
whichwill
will
not
notserve
serve
even
even
as aasdescrip-
aand
descrip-
the notion of 'contemporary music' is the
tive
tive term
termcan
canhardly
hardlybebe
used
used
as as
a critical
a critical
yardstick.
yardstick.
gas that evaporates in the process of boiling. The
Nevertheless, we must not be too hard on the good old times fight the bad young times and the
composers who plead that their music is 'con- good young times fight the bad old times; and
temporary'. They do mean something. They everybody blames somebody. The only people
may of course mean that they express or foresee who really profit by this state of transition are the
extra-musical happenings of their age; unless bad composers. They know how to mix wrong
we want to judge music by extra-musical standards, notes with right chords and mildly exciting rail-
however, this aspect of their contemporaneity will way rhythms, in a way that will appease the
not greatly interest us. What they certainly do uneasy consciences of those performers and
mean is that their music is in some way new; and it listeners who feel they do not understand 'con-
is a pity that the I.S.C.M.-International Society temporary music' although they ought to, and
for New Music in the original German title- are happy to find something which sounds both
found it necessary to replace 'new' by ' con-
'contemporary' and pleasant. In one respect,
temporary' in the English translation. Not that
these members of the musical public are more
the term' new' is itself unambiguous. We too often
forget that old styles may be new and young styles
perceptive than the experts on ' contemporaneity'.
may not be, as old Bach and the young Webernites The bad composer's concocted art does in fact
have shown. Nor should it be necessary to point deserve the logical label 'contemporary': his
out that imitation is not creation, that any product music (usually third-hand Stravinsky) is demon-
which is not a mere copy of something else must strably co-temporary with our uncertain values,
be new, though we sometimes hear that a work of which in themselves are an inevitable historical
art need not be. phenomenon. All music that is temporary is
It all boils down to the fact that our entire contemporary.

John Christopher Smith

Handel's Friend and Secretary
Secretary
By JAMES S. HALL
ANDELIANS throughout the world have 1716, he renewed an acquaintance which had com
welcomed the erection of a memorial plaque menced at Halle, and soon became so captivated
just recently in Bath to John Christopher with that great master's powers, that he left his
Smith, Handel's friend and secretary, on the wall wife and children in Germany, and accompanied
Handel to England, where he regulated the
of the house in Brock Street where he spent his last
years in retirement after presenting Handel's expenses of his public performance, and filled the
autograph manuscripts to George III and the office of treasurer with great exactness and fidelity.
nation. It has been the good fortune of the Deal On the fourth year of his residence in England he
and Walmer Handelian Society, who promoted sent for his wife and family which consisted of a
this memorial, to discover several new facts about son and two daughters'. It is not known where
the life of this altruistic musician and his father, to he lived in the early days, but in 1720 he was estab-
whom we Handelians owe so much. Recent good lished in the music publishing business with
fortune has enabled us to trace the residence of the
premises at 'the Hand and Musick-Book in
elder Smith after Handel's death, the date of his Coventry-Street, ye Upper end of ye Hay Market'.
burial, and to procure a copy of his will which sets This is evident from the title-pages, of the first edi-
out clearly the fate of Handel's manuscripts andtions of the' Suites pour le clavecin ' and the opera
music books. This has been a matter of interest ' II Radamisto ', on which we find him in associa-
and speculation to every Handelian author ever tion with John Cluer and Richard Meares in
since. November and December 1720. His son, also (and
Our knowledge of the elder John Christopher confusingly) John Christopher, was then eight years
Smith-or Johann Christoph Schmidt as he then old and was then attending Clare's Academy, in
was, when Handel brought him to England from Soho Square. We read (in the'Anecdotes', p. 38)
Anspach in Franconia to act as his secretary and that this young man 'imbibed a fondness for
treasurer of his household in 1716-is very scantymusic' and 'in the thirteenth year of his age, he
indeed. We may assume that he was contemporary was taken from the Academy and placed under the
in age with the composer as they were fellow- tuition of Handel'.
students together in the university of Halle. We Sir Newman Flower tells us (' George Frideric
are told by the anonymous author of his son's Handel', Cassell & Co., 1947, p. 131) that 'the
biography (' Anecdotes of John Christopher Smiths, father and son, appear to have made three
Smith', W. Bulmer & Co., 1799) that 'after copies of all Handel's music'. If this is true, a very
marrying a lady with a portion of seven thousand large number must have been lost, though three
crowns he settled in his native city and carried 'on
Smith ' copies of the later or more popular works
a considerable branch of traffic in the woollen are to be found among the four main collections
trade, in which he might have acquired a large of these manuscripts. It is important to note, as
fortune, had he not been seduced by his passion borne out by the wording of our new-found will,
for music. When Handel arrived at Anspach in that the Smiths were in no sense servants of the

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