Piano Concerto, Op. 42 / Piano Concerto No. 24 In C Minor by Glenn Gould; CBC Symphony Orchestra; Robert Craft; CBC Symphony Orchestra; Walter Susskind; Arnold Schoenberg; Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Columbia Masterworks (MS 6339) Publication date 1962

 ‘This record contains two Concerti which represent,

virtually, the terminal positions of the literature for

piano and orchestra. Possibly greater contrasts and/

or historical point could have been obtained had

we linked a concerto grosso (Handel, for instance)

with a concerto grosso (Hindemith, perhaps) but for

the purpose of illustrating the transition into and out

of the great concerto manner these two works will do

very well indeed. The assumption is, of course, that

the concerto idée is now more or less an unservice-

able mould for the present techniques of musical

composition, although in the guessable future com-

posers will undoubtedly find other means to satisfy

the primeval human need for showing off.

The 150 years between Mozart's K. 491 and

Schoenberg's Op. 42 added many resourceful varia-

tions to the fundamental areas of dynamic contrast

and rhythmic stress which helped the baroque mas-

ters exploit the solo-tutti antithesis. Somewhere

along towards the middle of the eighteenth century

the acoustical corollary of the solo-mass idea—the

pian-e-forte aspect of concerto-grosso style—became

fused with the new symphonic adventures in thematic

contrast, and the concerto became, in effect, a show-

piece adjunct of the classical symphony; and ever

since, with a few eccentric exceptions, the evolution

of the concerto manner has been inextricably bound

up with that of symphonic form.

The one great distinction between concerto tech-

nique and that of its symphonic model has always

Jain in the peculiarly redundant distribution of ma-

terial which the solo-tutti forces required. The diffi-

culty of supplying to the soloist something to keep

him duly occupied that will not, at the same time,

wholly disrupt the symphonic flow of events has

constituted the concerto problem through the years,

and it is a problem which has only rarely been solved.

Perhaps for this reason the most popular and suc-

cessful (though never the best) of concertos have

usually come from composers who were somewhat

lacking in a grasp of symphonic architecture—Liszt,

Grieg, etc.—composers who had in common a con-

fined, periodic concept of symphonic style, but who

were able to linger without embarrassment upon the

glowing melodic moment. Perhaps also for this rea-

son, the great figures of the symphonic repertoire

have almost always come off second best in concerto

writing and their relative failures have helped to

give credence to the wide-spread and perfectly de-

fensible notion that concertos are comparatively

lightweight stuff. (After all, there is something

slightly hilarious when a master of Olympian stature

like Beethoven, for instance, from whom we expect

the uncompromising pronouncement, qualifies his

symphonic “this is my final word” with the concerto-

genre equivalent, “this is my final word—but you

won't mind if I say it again.”)

The most unique development of the classical con-

certo’s attempt to “say it again” was the feature of

the orchestral pre-exposition. This two or three min-

ute capsule of the basic material from the opening

movement allowed the solo instrument, upon its en-

trance, a greater degree of freedom in treating

themes which had previously been heard in some

perspective. It also allowed the solo instrument to

play throughout the exposition proper more continu-

ously than would otherwise be desirable.

The Mozart Concerto in C Minor, perhaps for the

very reason that it contains some of the master’s

most exalted music, is not a very successful concerto.

It opens with a magnificently constructed orchestral

tutti—the sort of pre-exposition which Sir Donald

Tovey was always chiding Beethoven for not having

written. It consists, in fact, of two or three of the

most skillfully architected minutes in all of Mozart.

But with the first entrance of the piano we soon

modulate to a much less elevated region. Having

successfully avoided the mood and pleasure of the

relative major key (E-flat) throughout the orchestral

tutti, the piano now leads us there with a vengeance

—and gets hopelessly stalled in that key. Once,

twice, three times, separated by unimaginative se-

quences, the soloist caresses E-flat with material

wholly unworthy of the magnificence of the intro-

duction. And by the time the tutti material returns

in the development we are left wishing that Mozart

had given his tutti and a few clavier lessons to Haydn

and let the boundless developmental capacities of

that gentleman go to work on it.

The writing for the solo instrument moreover, is

somewhat anachronistic since the left hand of the

solost is more often than not engaged in doubling the

cellos and/or bassoon parts. Consequently, the total

impression of the soloist’s contribution is an annoy-

ing confusion of fickle virtuosity in the upper reg-

isters and an unrealized continuo in the left hand.

(The author has taken a very few liberties in this

regard which he believes are wholly within the spirit

and substance of the work.)

The second movement contains some subtly con-

trived woodwind scoring that contrasts strikingly

with the complete innocence of the solo instrument's

principal theme, which, when it is played on the

discouragingly sophisticated instruments of our own

day is almost impossible of realization. It is the last

movement which holds the Mozart of our dreams.

Here, in a supremely beautiful set of variations, is a

structure with a raison d’étre, a structure in which

the piano shares without intrusion, in which as vari-

ation upon variation passes by, the chromatic fugal

manner which Mozart in his philosophic moods

longed to espouse is applied to the ephemeral realm

of the concerto with brilliant success.

If the Mozart C Minor represents the concerto

form as it merged into the virtuoso tradition, the

Schoenberg concerto represents the beginning of the

end for that tradition. The solo contribution through-

out (cadenzas excepted) is really only that of an

enlarged obbligato. This, despite the fact that

Schoenberg was at the time of its composition (1942)

experiencing a return to large scale architectural in-

terests and was moreover, upon occasion, experi-

menting once again with the use of tonality—albeit

a somewhat grayer and more stringently controlled

tonality than he had used in his early years. It is

probably no accident that his violin and piano con-

certos were written during these years in which he

was most conscious of his link with the romantic

symphonic tradition, but the piano concerto (several

notable analysts to the contrary) is not one of the

works in this neo-tonal cycle, and is in fact fairly

typical of Schoenberg's later twelve-tone writing.

Schoenberg had taken his first, tentative, twelve-

tone steps in the neoclassic environment of. his

middle years—years in which the alarming license

of tonal free trade caused him to gravitate toward a

rational classicism for which the architectural for-

mulae of the eighteenth century provided scholastic

discipline.

As was proper to their eighteenth-century models,

his first essays in twelve-tone writing were exercises

in straightforward row technique. Such architectural

forms as the dance suite, for example, provided a

convenient mould into which the first twelve-tone

fluid might be poured. Thus the most marked feature

of these early twelve-tone efforts is a rather external

poise and grace.

Schoenberg had long been aware that before

twelve-tone music might be said to have achieved

sovereignty, the forms engendered by it would have

to own of something specifically related to twelve-

tone procedure—something in which the growth of

the most minute organism, the embryonic cell’ of

sound would be reflected. It has been said quite

seriously that whatever forms Schoenberg applied to

music, the only constant constructive force in his

work was the principle of variation. Indeed, the vari-

ation concept in its most natural state—that of con-

stant evolution—provides the best synthesis of

twelve-tone theory.

Schoenberg, in his early twelve-tone works, fre-

quently presented two transpositions of the row

simultaneously, thus making a distinct division be-

tween melodic and harmonic participation. In the

middle Thirties, he began more and more frequently

to use one transposition at a time, subdividing it into

harmonic groups so that a succession of chords was

formed from the row with points of melodic line

appearing as uppermost factors of these chords. Thus

the harmonic control of the tone-row was tightened,

while the melodic dimension was somewhat released

from bondage. By the later Thirties, Schoenberg was

attempting to amalgamate both procedures by a si-

multaneous exposition of two transpositions of the

same row—but a row so devised that, should it be

reproduced at a specific interval and (usually) in-

verted, the first six tones of the original become,

though in shuffled order, the last six of the inversion,

and—if there is anyone who is not now thoroughly

confused—vice versa.

The Piano Concerto possesses such a row. Its origi-

nal form is so arranged that, if it is inverted at five

semitones above, the following results:

If these two transpositions are combined it will

be seen that the first six tones of the original and

the first six tones of the inversion produce one com-

plete twelve-tone spectrum, while utilizing only the

interval combinations of half the row. Thus, within

the harmonic range of a full tone-row, a greater

economy of interval structure is achieved.

If the row of the Piano Concerto is subdivided into

four chords of three tones each, two positions of

the same seventh chord are formed by the super-

position of tones 1-3 and 4-6.

The same procedure applied to the consequent

tones, 7-9, 10-12, makes a combination of fourth

chords and whole-tone units, and passages such as

the following are derived:

In somewhat subtler ways the two halves of the

row are frequently assigned distinctive rhythmic

shapes or perhaps consigned to different clefs.

The work is in four movements joined without

pause—or perhaps more accurately, with apostrophes

—and each of these four movements develops a

special aspect of the harmonic treatment of the row.

In the first movement, which is a theme and varia-

tions, the theme is assigned to the right hand of the

piano and consists of the four basic applications of

the twelve-tone series—the original form, the inver-

sion, the retrogression and the retrogressive in-

version. The inversion and retrogressive inversion

appear in the transposition at five semitones. The

accompaniment in the left hand consists of discreet

comments derived from the row in use. Therefore,

the theme of the first movement effects a pseudo-

tonal solidarity by confining itself to one transposi-

tion (if the inversion at five semitones be regarded

as indigenous) of the row. Each successive variation

(there are three separated by episodes of rhythmic

preparation) increases the number of participating

transpositions of the series and hence puts pressure

on the harmonic pace and results in a truncation of

the main theme itself. In the first eight bars of varia-

tion 3 the original theme, or rather the first of its four

sentences, is derived by excerpting and accenting

individual notes drawn from no less than seven

transpositions plus their complementary inversions.

The second movement is an energetic scherzo pro-

pelled by this rhythmic unit:

In this movement, Schoenberg, counting on greater

aural familiarity with the properties of the three-

tone chord units illustrated in Examples B and C,

begins disconnecting successive tones of the original

row and concocting new melodic and harmonic ma-

terial by leap-frogging tones 1, 3, 3—2, 4, 6; similarly

tones 7,9, 11 and 8, 10, 12. The even numbers of the

antecedent (2, 4, 6) and the odd numbers of the con-

sequent (7, 9, 11) form chromatically adjoining

fourth chords while the remaining tones (1, 3, 5—

8, 10, 12) produce a wry diminutive of tones 10-12

from the original set:

Creer rtangs FF Pome cas eee

Utilizing this division of the series and playing it

off against the original’s consequent segment of

whole-tone units in fourth chords. Schoenberg grad-

ually eliminates all other motives and realizes in the

final bars of the scherzo an almost total technical

immobility.

If the scherzo is the dynamic vortex of the work,

the emotional centfe is surely the superb Adagio—

one of the greatest monuments to Schoenberg's tech-

nical skill. Here the procedures of both of the

preceding movements are elaborated and combined.

The a divisi melodic leap-frogging of the scherzo

creates in the opening tutti of the third movement a

new melody of true breadth and grandeur:

Once again, as Schoenberg assumes a greater psy-

chological comprehension on the part of the listener,

a further relaxation of the twelve-tone bondage is

permitted. The four harmonic blocks of the original

row (Example B and C) are concentrated in a long

solo for the piano. Then, with consummate mastery,

these two procedures are brought together in an or-

chestral tutti which is one of the grandest edifices of

the mature Schoenberg.

The final movement is a rondo—a pure, classically

proportioned rondo—in which the central episode is

a series of three variations upon the theme of the

third movement (Example G). In this movement

Schoenberg returns largely to the straightforward-

row technique of the first movement, constructing a

principal theme of jocose gallantry with admirable

limitation of serial means, and the movement pro-

ceeds with the sort of virtuosic abandon and incor-

ruptible simplicity that the rondos of Mozart and

Beethoven reveal.

GLENN GOULD