Recent Pasts 20/21 Words Series - Andrew Imbrie and Milton Babbitt, Page 2
IMBRIE:
Sessions on Schenker and the 12-tone method
Roger’s classes in analysis were a revelation at a time when such courses were usually entitled ‘Form and Analysis’ and consisted in the assignment of specimens to taxonomic categories according to thematic patterns. The ideas of Schenker had only barely attained a toe-hold in this country. Roger was keenly aware of the implications of Schenker’s theory and at the same time it troubled him deeply for the same reasons that it troubled Schoenberg. But whereas Schoenberg rejected it, Roger remained fascinated because it struck a responsive chord.
It seemed to promise a conceptual way out of what he perceived as an excessive preoccupation with detail on the part of 20th century composers; a preoccupation which he traced back at least as far as the Wagnerian system of leitmotifs and which continued to hound such different composers as Debussy, Scriabin, Stravinsky and Schoenberg himself (especially in the early atonal works). What Schenker’s idea contributed to Roger’s teaching was the reinforcement of Roger’s own predilection toward linear value. The projecting or composing out of a musical idea or relationship. The achievement of spannung, a German word for which he could find no adequate translation. The antithesis of the cult of detail, where a characteristic interval-cell, color, harmony, or rhythmic motive dominates the scene, was what Roger loved to call the ‘long line’.
We all knew what he meant, or we thought we did, but I’ve heard no one attempt to describe it precisely. Perhaps it is simply self-evident. In thinking about it now, I’m not so sure. It certainly cannot be equated with Schenker’s urlinie, which is the part of Schenker’s theory which bothered Roger the most, because of its abstract nature. Nor can it be confused with Wagner’s ‘endless melody’, so-called with its sequences and chains of deceptive cadences. Although Roger did find the long line in Wagner (one example he quoted was the descent from climax to conclusion of the prelude to Act One of Lohengrin), he found it particularly in Mozart and also in Bach, Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert and the late Verdi.
The long line is perhaps best regarded as a synonym for the ‘large gesture’, another favorite expression of his. Both expressions connote an abundance and generosity of invention; a sureness and sufficiency of energy to sustain the thought; an eagle-like soaring; the encompassing of a panorama in which the relation between detail and large context is harmonious.
This concern for projection through time led Roger to the penetrating analysis of rhythmic and especially metrical organization. His incisive and intuitive grasp of the essential role of accent in generating such organization was seminal. He would have us ‘periodize’, as he called it, the Beethoven or Mozart work we were studying. That is, we were to measure the distances between the important downbeats, (and) discover the larger structure of measured groups. With the introduction of such startling ideas in both the linear harmonic and the metric-rhythmic realms, and in view of his informal manner of presentation, rich with allusion, anecdote, humor and tolerant debate – it is no wonder that during my senior year at Princeton we spent an entire year on Beethoven’s Opus 132 without getting to the last movement.
These remarks about the influence of Roger Sessions on me and many others are taken from an article I wrote in his memory for a special 1985 edition of the magazine Perspectives of New Music. As an undergraduate at Princeton , I had become acquainted with Milton Babbitt and Edward Cone, among many others. Both of them, each in his own way, stimulated my thinking about music. They set for me an example of what it might mean to become more mature, both personally and creatively. I still regard them as strong influences. (Incidentally, Ed Cone was the first Princeton undergraduate to compose a piece of music as a senior thesis).
As soon as I graduated from Princeton in 1942 I was drafted into the Army during World War II. I was stationed in Arlington, Virginia, where I was trained to be a Japanese translator. One of our teachers was Edwin Reischauer, who later became ambassador to Japan. One of the other students was Robert Commanday, who later served as music critic of the San Francisco Chronicle. We became good friends and collaborated on a musical comedy, for which I wrote the tunes imitating the style of Gershwin and others of that era.