The following text was written as a preface to the score
of James Sellars's orchestra work, "Afterwards: Identity and Difference,"
which was premiered on 4 October 1996, by The New Hampshire Symphony Orchestra,
conducted by James Bolle.
Afterwards is an extensive re-composition of the first movement of
Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, effecting a transformation of Beethoven's original
intention and musical meaning. In part, Afterwards is a response
to the writing of a new breed of critics and musicologists (Susan McClary,
Richard Leppert, John Shepherd, Lawrence Kramer, Suzanne G. Cusick, and
Elizabeth Wood, to begin a long list), who borrow, from current literary
criticism, strategies that center on a method of textual analysis and philosophical
argument known as "deconstruction," and apply them to music. Simply
put, deconstruction seeks to demonstrate that meaning or significance does
not inhere in a text or even in the words themselves, but is "constructed"
by the reader, built up historically, and determined culturally. Beethoven's
music, it turns out, encrusted with decades of cultural meaning and centrally
positioned in the canon of Western music, is a favored target of deconstructive
criticism. Afterwards, in musical terms, takes a similar critical
approach; and, as a construction itself can now be de- and re-constructed,
the beginning of a process not unlike the compositional practice of musical
troping in the Middle Ages. In other words, Afterwards is but one
among an infinite series of possible re-readings of the Beethoven original.
There is, of course, a well-known and distinguished history of recycling
older music: Bach's arrangements of Vivaldi and Stravinsky's arrangements
of Bach, Gesualdo, and Pergolesi immediately come to mind. Afterwards,
however, is considerably different from these previous works in that it
takes a critical stance toward a past masterpiece, substantially altering
its form and content so that Beethoven's resolution and firmness of purpose
are rendered ambivalent and ambiguous. Afterwards is not a simple
inversion of Beethoven's intentions, but a pervasive revision made from
our retrospective, historical position, always with regard to the culturally
constructed meaning of Beethoven's original.
Actually, a deconstructive approach to a piece of music demands a written
critique, not another musical composition, but after reading a number of
these critiques, especially those which take Beethoven to task for "subjugating
the feminine to the masculine," for "his pounding, thrusting gestures,"
for "his violent climaxes and the absolute closure of his overpowering
cadences," I asked myself: What would a deconstructed Beethoven's Fifth
(one that answers these deconstructive critical issues) sound like?
Afterwards is the answer, in music, to my question.
There is another, larger, over-riding reason I composed a new orchestra
piece based on a famous one from the past: "Classical" music has
reached a critical turning point. Most composers (though there may be a
few sado-masochistic exceptions) are generally constructive and productive,
concerned with the well-being of music and protective of the past repertoire.
As is the case with many composers (and as a critic and teacher) I feel
as if I am continually on a rescue mission. Musicians, critics, and concert
and recording producers, are well aware that a rescue of music is in order.
Musicologist Lawrence Kramer, in his new book Classical Music and Postmodern
Knowledge baldly states the present situation:
For those who care about "classical" music...[I]t is no secret that, in the United States anyway, this music is in trouble. It barely registers in our schools, it has neither the prestige nor the popularity of literature and visual art, and it squanders its capacities for self-renewal by clinging to an exceptionally static core repertoire. Its audience is shrinking, graying, and overly palefaced, and the suspicion has been voiced abroad that its claim to occupy a sphere of autonomous artistic greatness is largely a means of veiling, and thus perpetuating, a narrow set of social interests.
Kramer goes on to say that "the possibility of tapping new sources
of cultural and intellectual energy may come not a moment too soon."
He proposes bringing the autonomous "masterpieces" out of their
unapproachable realm, back into the world of living art, and offers a quote
from Goethe(!) as leading the way: "There is absolutely nothing so
extraordinary that it cannot be brought into association with the relationships
and conditions proper to the human character." One must consider that
the last major orchestra piece to be placed in the reliquary of Western
music masterworks was Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra in 1945. Since
then, the reliquary has been sealed shut: nothing old gets out, nothing
new gets in. Facing this state of affairs, it occurred to me that composers
today must deal not only with the task of writing quality music, but, more
importantly, with a music world in which past works have been rendered inviolable
and untouchable, perfect creations that cannot be equaled in our imperfect
times. The masterpieces in the reliquary have long been validated by the
formalist/positivist methods of modernist musicology and are not subject
to reinterpretation or to discussion of musical meaning. Musicologist Carl
Dahlhaus wrote of the inescapable canon of relatively autonomous German
masterpieces that must be held exempt from any social-cultural understanding.
This, it seems to me, is bad for both old and new music. It is my hope (at
risk of hubris) that Afterwards may bring Beethoven's famous movement
back into play for those dutiful concert listeners whose paralyzing respect
no longer allows them to question the musical meaning of a masterpiece,
as well as for the hierophantic scholars who guard the sacred reliquary.
To be sure, Afterwards was not written to "improve" the
famous Fifth musically, but to call its constructed, acquired cultural meaning
into question. Consequently, the two works may be seen to play off one another.
It may be asked why I chose, of all music, the first movement of Beethoven's
Fifth to operate upon. Indeed, in the conservative world of "classical"
music, one does not dally with any masterpiece without good reason,
considering that even the new performances of the classics on "original
instruments" often raises critical hackles. But because of its (over)familiarity
to the concert music audience and its central position in the canon, this
most famous movement of "Fate Knocking at the Door" seemed the
perfect choice. Perhaps more importantly, given the strength of this autonomous
work, virtually frozen in formal perfection, and with its honored place
in music history, Beethoven's monument is not in any real danger here. After
all, rock bands have had at it for years.
Despite any risk of danger to Beethoven, Afterwards was great fun
to compose, done with much jouissance (as the postmodernist are wont
to encourage), but the outcome, in my opinion, is a serious comment on the
condition of music today. I firmly believe that to place any art in a sacred
realm is to lose art itself. Art is, after all, always theatrical to a degree,
and would not be art at all if it were not constantly reminding us of its
own artificiality. Because of its supposed lack of concrete meaning, music,
of all the arts, is especially susceptible to sanctification, and to becoming
the object of such high respect that it is simply left out of the living
culture. Short of vandalism, anything that relativizes our music, that makes
us reconsider its meaning, that brings up for discussion not necessarily
the performance, but the music itself, is generally good for its lifeblood.
"Identity and Difference," the sub-title of Afterwards,
indicates an important dimension of the work: the Beethoven original is
the ground (Identity) against which the compositional game (Difference)
is played. By offering a contrast to the original, this play of difference
disrupts the historically constructed meaning of the Beethoven movement.
Afterwards does not attempt to solve musical problems by posing musical
answers, but instead addresses cultural-social-historical problems. Although
this may seem an awfully convoluted, intellectual game, I hasten to add
that knowledge of the Beethoven movement and its relationship to Afterwards
is not necessary for an understanding or appreciation of my work. Nonetheless,
it is through familiarity with the original that the game is enhanced.
If the name of the game is "Difference," allow me to point up
some other contrasting elements that differentiate Afterwards from
its referential base. Substituting difference for unity, Afterwards
arouses the desire that is absent in the mastery of the Beethoven movement.
There is nothing more utilitarian, more economical than the opening of Beethoven's
Fifth. Nothing is extrinsic to its form; there is no useless beauty. Afterwards
contains the superfluous, the not-self, the incidental. It loosens Beethoven's
celebrated architectonic structure, mixing the music's conventional stable
and unstable elements so that one is "always already" in the process
of becoming the other, a matter of a digressive and excursive versus a dialectical
and discursive form.
The above-mentioned transformations of expressive intent can also be described
in terms of concrete musical elements. For instance, the Beethoven work
opens with a (masculine?) major 3rd, followed, a step below, by a (feminine?)
minor 3rd. Or, avoiding the controversial issue of gender, we might say
that the major 3rd is closed, more final, whereas the minor 3rd is open
and inconclusive. Afterwards reverses the quality of these two opening
intervals, placing the minor over the major 3rd. In general, the sections,
phrases, and cadences are considerably extended beyond Beethoven's compact
classical proportions, and, where the Beethoven is loud and declamatory,
Afterwards is soft and reticent. The new work augments Beethoven's
instrumentation with low woodwind and brass, harp, piano, and extra percussion.
One might say that Beethoven's original orchestration has been Tchaikovsky-ized
In overall design, Afterwards is an analog of sonata allegro form,
although the traditional argument of tonic (thesis) and dominant (antithesis)
and its resolution in the recapitulation (synthesis) is considerably weakened
by a non-hierarchical series of tonal centers. In addition, the tonal centers
themselves are further weakened by the use of modal scale degrees and a
"floating" tonic or final. (In less technical terms this may be
said to soften the harmonic progressions, which avoids closure and finality.)
As in the conventional sonata, the two themes of the exposition are one
sharp apart. But contrary to convention, the development section adds yet
another sharp before veering off into a brief atonal passage (analogous
to the chromatics in the Beethoven development) before a brief reference
to C minor, the key of the Fifth Symphony itself. The recapitulation of
the second theme, a slow section in three with a hint of Mahler's world,
is furthest from the Beethoven original, and the Coda attenuates Beethoven's
themes in the aeolian mode before fading away on a harmonically unsupported
A in the bass. The duration of Afterwards is about twice as long
as the original.
I like to think that had Beethoven been composing today, aware of our social
conditions and knowing the standing of the West in our global culture, his
"Fifth" might have sounded something like Afterwards. Of
one thing I am more certain: Mendelssohn, Schumann, Tchaikovsky, and
Beethoven would think it strange that we do not have our own music. Rock,
which is often put forward as the real music of today, is, I think, too
market driven to represent much more than money and manufactured celebrities.
Nor can performance of concert music, however great, replace new composition,
which is a reflection of our time and place. Certainly, a Shostakovitch
symphony or a Copland ballet tells us more about ourselves than a thousand
philharmonics.
In the late 1970s I asked John Cage if he thought listening to Beethoven's
music was harmful to society. He answered, "You will have to determine
that for yourself. If I were to determine it for you there would be no determination,
would there?" Since he often answered such leading questions with another
question, I never found out what he thought of a culture saturated with
classical symphonic music from the past, but I did go on to "determine"
for myself that listening even to Beethoven's most aggressive works was
not harmful, unless they were heard as musical absolutes. At risk of being
marked as an iconoclast, the decadent "other" of our time to the
preeminent Beethoven of an idealized past, I hope that Afterwards
will cause people to listen to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony in a different
way. This is important because music, whatever its origin, is largely created
by the listener. Even Beethoven changes every day.
James Sellars
Hartford, Connecticut
October 1995
©Copyright 1995 by Hog River Music