Austin Clarkson: "Busoni, Varèse, Wolpe and the Dialectical Mind"
Submitted by EthnoAdmin on September 14, 2007 - 6:49pm.
. . . a language not even one of whose words I know, a language in
Oct 12 2007 - 4:00pm
Oct 12 2007 - 6:00pm
Location:
620 Dodge Hallwhich dumb things speak to me, and in which, it may be, I shall at
last have to respond in my grave to an Unknown Judge.
Hugo von Hoffmansthal
Ferruccio Busoni presides over the 20th century like the Unknown
Judge in the letter from Hugo von Hoffmansthal with which he
prefaced the Entwurf. Busoni’s ideas were realized by many of his
disciples, even while his name was all but forgotten. Perhaps
Busoni slipped below the waves of the master narrative of
20th-century music because he believed that ultimate knowledge is
conveyed through the imagination and not by the reason alone.
Edgard Varèse and Stefan Wolpe, who were among Busoni’s most
important epigones, were masters of the dialectic between ordinary
discourse and the language of dumb things. Though nearly 20 years
separated them in age, they became close friends after Wolpe
immigrated to America in 1938 and took up residence in New York
City. Their similar personalities and shared reverence for Busoni
brought them together, and in the late 1940s and early 1950s they
joined the circle of painters and composers known as the New York
School. Varèse composed his principal works before World War II and
Wolpe composed his after the War, and yet their ideas, though
developed independently, have important points of contact that stem
from Busoni. In particular, Varese’s statement that the “each piece
discovers its own form,” or, as Wolpe put it, “the model is
identical to the imagination.” To illustrate that point Wolpe
played Ionisation by Varèse. In another lecture Wolpe said that one
should know about “all the structures of fantasy and fantasies of
structures,” and “mix surprise and enigma, magic and shock,
intelligence and abandon, Form and Antiform.” To illustrate that
statement he played Octandre by Varèse, Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge,
and his own Quartet for Trumpet, Tenor Saxophone, Percussion and
Piano. We shall discuss the import of this concept of dialectic in
Wolpe’s Symphony No. 1 (1955-1956), which has just been published
in a new edition.
