Futurism of Edgar Varese in piano interpretation of his creative work

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Futurism of Edgar Varese in piano interpretation of his creative work

Creative work of E. Varese has begun intensively developed in recent decades, corresponding to the ever-increasing flow of research on futurism, which was under the ideological taboo due to the closeness of the founder of this movement F.Marinetti to Mussolini. Emergence of publications on futurism [5] and a monograph devoted to the work of Varese [1], leads to a breadth of research readings and this trend, and the works of the author, who objectively concentrated the essential avant-garde aspirations of the art of the twentieth century as a whole. The actualization of this problem is supported by the orientation of the postavant-garde cultural stage towards the poly stylistic confusions in the creative work, including the covering of the layers, which for ideological or other reasons have moved away in the past century [3]. The purpose of this work is to trace the peculiar features of reading by the given composer the expressiveness of a piano © Androsova D., 2017

70that occupied such an exceptional place in the classical music of the previous stage and extremely critically but still used in the work of the author "Ionization".

Futurism of E. Varese is a canonical reality, although, according to his wife and the person holding the same views in creative work, "this hateful label he denied in every possible way" [1, 77]. However, according to the same L. Varese, "he (E. Varese - D.A.) were constantly thinking in the same direction as the Futurists". He added: "he enthusiastically shared many of the postulates of Marinetti, proclaimed in his work 'Futurism' ..." [ibidem]

The discoveries of Varese in the field of the "monotimbral" orchestra are obvious, although theoretically they are not sufficiently conscious and classified. The main thing that should be distinguished in the classics of his style discovery ("Integrals" for 11 wind and percussion, "Ionization" for percussion and sirens, etc.) is the redundancy of the designative meaning in the program relating to the sound substantiality as such. In the interview for the French radio there are the following significant lines:

"E.V. (Edgar Varese - D.A.): ... The symphony orchestra is lifeless. It is sugary. Our era does not accept schmalz.

J.S.: It is turned out that our times - an epoch of domination of wind and percussion instruments...

E.V.: Yes, wind and percussion ..." [1,88].

And further:

"... our time is characterized by a percussion beginning (italics by DA). Our time is the time of the speeds. Violin vibrato does not belong to our time ... "[ibid, 89].

Accordingly, the symbolic saturation of the orchestral music for percussion and wind at Varese's exceeds by several orders the obvious symbolism of the same meanings of works of this kind by A. Berg, I. Stravinsky, B. Bartok ("Concerto for 13 wind instruments, piano and violins", "Octet for Winds", "Music for strings, percussion and celesta"), if to choose by the resemblance of the title of the above mentioned works of Varese. Symbols of genre and style solidarity with baroque, with all the derivatives of this expressive sense of the syncretism of the concert-ensemble-symphony, as indicators of high art in its "touches" of spiritual revelations, at the same time analogies to jazz soundings in varying degrees of "imitation" of their expression in the above-mentioned opuses, numerical symbolism of astral-religious allusions (numbers 13, 1, 3, 8 and etc.) - these and other significant meanings also occur in the works of E. Varese.

Thus, the correlation of the dominance of percussion in the said creations of the French /American composer with jazz compositions and the corresponding significance of "urbanism-bruity" of the 20th century do not require special explanation. However, the deliberate concentration on the timbrality of the percussion, associated with the primitivistic aggressiveness of the impact of this kind of "simplified" music, as well as the "simulation" of melodic voices - in the form of a howling siren in "Ionization", in the form of output of the wind instruments in "Integrals" - creates the effect of deliberate "inversion" of orchestral functionality of groups that reduce the reality of the sound hierarchy to some demonstrative antithesis to the baroque ensemble orchestra, oriented to "imitation of choral voices". Here - "imitation of the jungle voices", in the stylized nature of their submission to the "jungle of the big city". However, all that is said here is the expressiveness of "details", "traits", "components" but not a whole.

Grandiosity of the abstraction given by the program titles clearly outweighs all the details- components of meanings: "integrals" as carriers of the mechanism of erecting this abstraction into a high unity, "ionization" as pre- and post-stormy "nature" of the atmosphere. The composer warns that his "title of the score ... does not matter at all" [1, 33]. But he emphasizes that he "often borrows" the titles "from higher mathematics and astronomy only because these sciences stimulate my imagination ... but in my music there are no signs of planets or theorems" [ibidem].

Constantly appealing to the "spirit of modernity", Varese categorically denied the idea of "imitation of reality" in art [1,77], singled out for himself as the basic - formula of Yu. Vronsky, who defined music as "objectification of that mind contained in sounds" [ibid., 21]. As a result, the spatial concept of music came to the fore, which amounted to an objective revolution in the musical temporally procedural consciousness, indirectly restoring music-myth, the music of metaphysics of the archaic and religious Service.

The numerical element of music fascinated Varese and was consistent with his "spatial" positions in musical creative work, in his deep conviction, constituting the true perspective of music. Thus, works by Varese speak of the future image of the world, drawing . in antiquity and myth, (the latter term is directly applied to the characterization of "Ionization") [1,44].

Chronologically earlier is the opus called "Integrals", 1926, the largest (duration of 10 minutes - 225 bars) ensemble work of Varese of the 20s. It is the intergrowth of the play of calling of the dawn by the wind instruments ("a rooster's crow" of the clarinet in Es - "Is it a Gallic rooster" of Varese's homeland, by the mouths of the representatives of the Six, "waking" to the "new shores" of the basis and tradition, activating the incantatory emissions of "military copper" and "emancipated pedals" of percussion?) - and the inertial density of the usual "masses of matter" copper-percussion instruments. The name is associated with a mathematically conscious, that is, a differentiated and dismembered concept of integrity- enlargement of presentation of the declared ideas and meanings.

The score is clearly dominated by the shrill-piercing (and catchy!) "screams" of high clarinet, tall pipes and piccolo flute, in which "slaves" are "heavy copper" as a sign of the military heroics of expression.

"Rooster and Harlequin" of the Manifesto by J. Cocteau in 1917 in this essay by E. Varese clearly pretend to play activity in supranational, all-planetary scales, guessing in the long term the mission of the "French spirit" in the cultural and political perturbations of the mid-twentieth century. In the work of L. Akopian there indicated the type of a composition of the type of a "compressed cycle": "the play ... is divided into three (possibly even a more fragmented dismemberment - D.A.) of a large section," from which the first, to t. 53, "is the most monothematic", The second "...is multi-thematic", the third (after t. 156 by Adamyan) "reprise" in relation to the first two [1,37-39].

Such a characteristic sins by the "failure" of that new "integrality", which is the meaning of E. Varese's "metaphysical revolution." For the above description points to the "compressed poem," while here it is not the sonative "motivational development" that prevails, but the exposure variation of "crescendo dramaturgy" [according to V. Kholopova, 4, 207], indicative of ritual-ceremonial actions: not so much dynamics as an indicator of the sound of individual instruments and tutti, but the "mass gathering" of texture-tempo- rhythmic density reveals the logic of variant transformations from the beginning to the end of the piece of work.

Since: "rooster's crow" of the motive Cl.in Es (the psalmody with the starting point on the intervals of the reduced quint and the sextons), overgrowing with imitations and echoes-counterpoints, generates the motive of the wood blocks (Chinese Bloks from t. 15), in which, in place of the psalmodifying clarinet, trumpet, oboe etc., a different motif appears, the manifestations of which are fixed in the high-impact percussion - solo Cor.inF solo as a section of Moderato (approximately in the middle of what L. Akopian calls the "first section").

And then - as a "detaching itself" from the theme of the French horn (the move to a reduced fifth and a sixth followed by "swinging" in the "conquered" interval space), there become apparent (in the same horn, in the same Corno in F!) the theme-motif on the reduced quint (t.53, Allegro); and to its as a counterpoint - a motive with a move to the nona, as the development of the second "singing of psalmody" of the previous stage. And a completely "outcome-mini-reprise" is a section of the c. 7 (from t. 71), Subitolento, where against the background of interrupted piccolo and gong-tam-tam pedals, "point inclusions" of clarinets and other percussion - it is found psalmody at the French horn (t. 75), sextic "swinging" at the clarinet in Es, the move to the nona of the French horn, the move to the reduced fifth of the pipe (and all this "stretch" from t. 76 to t. 77), with the subsequent "alignment of lines" to psalmody-pedaling in tt. 79-93, section Presto.

And as a revelation, as a presentation of the same in a new perspective - the magnificent "output" of French horns and trombones, which the researcher cited by us calls "the chorus of brass instruments" and compares it rightly with a solo trombone from Ravel's "Bolero" written three years later. There is one more analogy, a syllabic allusive meaning: a trombone solo from I.Stravinsky's "Story of a Soldier", undoubtedly famous to Varese piece of work by the Russian composer. In general, timbre dramaturgy, motively- background voice "gathering" etc. in Varese's extremely recalls the Introduction to the "Sacred Spring" by Stravinsky, including its "emancipation of nona" (compared with a reduced octave "as the self-significant phonism of Stravinsky's piece of work mentioned). Let us note also some rhythmic sign: quintuplicity, "psal- molated" by trombones accompanied by theme (!) of the French horn.

Analysis in a similar vein, while continuing, shows the "integral" direction of Varese's thinking, right up to the "shout-spatial" culminating point (climax) - before the "breakdown" to the Lent section, which gives a sharp drop in dynamics and the appearance of the "first - starting -motive- theme, this time with the oboe, which "braids" previously shown motifs-turns. The result of this motive "braiding" (in the spirit of the rhetoric of inventio of "poetic" baroque music!) is the extremely multifaceted theme of the French horn (!), which for a total of 10 cycles (tt. 216-225) shows a full twelve-ton series from Es (with interval values from octave/reduced octave to reduced octave f-h). Truly, the integration of the entire interval work of the whole, with the "filling-complementing" sounds of the "point" and quintuple (tt. 219-221) "finishing" on the long note of the solo horn, clearly correlated with the Moderato section at the beginning of the composition (see above).

The result of this analysis is an indication of the capacious symbolism of the meaning of this work, in which obvious are the "clinging" to the discoveries of modernity of the past decades, the foresight of the ways of "integration" of the innovative and "moderate" lines of musical stylistics, and, most importantly, the "new spatiality", which do not have direct analogies to the "life-like process" of the classical European tradition. This is not a "landscape" space made up of personal objects but a spatial unity ("integrity") of the object and objectivity in general.

"Ionization", 1931 - there is also an example of "motive integration", aimed at the final total capacity of the timbre-meaning-theme. As L. Akopian aptly notes, this work represents "a paradoxical and at the same time an absolutely natural combination of extremes: modernism and archaism" [1,43]. The same author considers the composition as a concentration-meaning of his works as a whole [1, 24]: "The rhythm of Varese's forms is determined by the pressure drops of the "field" to the "particles" - pressure which often leads to the loss of the "identity" of the "particles", to their decay, and at the same time, unpredictably, spontaneously generates new configurations" [ibid, 24-25].

Absolutely in the logic of creation of "unfinished series" of meanings in a symbol, the author refers to the "superficial" layer of meaning as a "virtuoso etude with a dashing title" which denotes attention to the physics of small particles and to the existance as "universal for the mythologies of the plot of all times of the origin of culture" [Ibid, 44]. The observation made is more valuable than the reference to the "sonata antitheses" found by N.Slonimsky as a myth-making mechanism (since the antithesis of the complementarity of the mythological components does not coincide with the rationalistic "opposition" of antithesis-negations, namely these are the basis of the sonata classics).

In E. Markova's work there is an indication of heterophony as a "prometheus complex" of music in its historical continuum, generating a tonality that accompanies all historical forms of musical manifestations as a "spontaneous" factor of musical culture - musical civilization [2].

In fact, this scientific abstraction is "voiced-objectified" by Varese, showing three interpenetrating one in another ("mythological antithetical") -sounds of sirens ("representation of pure, undivided nature" [1, 44]), dissected sounds of percussion ("refinement" of which is obvious in relation to glissando sirens) and high- pitched sounds-tones of bells, bells and pianos (italics by D.A.), the latter represents a "cultural-civilizational" layer. This final timbre-tonality serves as a result of the register "expansion" of the percussion instruments (it is indicative that there is less leadership in them - military, associated with the militarily-organizing and aggressive at the same time beginning). Percussion instruments predominate in combinatorial "shifts", in climax "encouraging" by howling" of the "natural aggressiveness" of sirens. Thus, as a result, in the code-finale, with the features of the summing-up of thestretta-reprise, there passes the theme-image of the bells. In Varese's play, an "outrunning reflection" of the military phenomenon as a global monster of the Second World War is heard in the unity of action - counteraction of destructive and creative powers. The result is a blessed sign of the beat of the bells, indicating the birth of the Spiritualization.

As we see, Varese turns to the pianoforte for the symbolization of the borderline of the percussion instruments and tonal-pitch formations, noticing in the possibilities of this instrument to preserve the "contours" of the classical music system, but completely ignoring those expressive universals that made the piano "the king of instruments" during the reign of the opera- symphonic thinking. Thus, Varese values the "symbolics of the classics" associated with the timbre of the pianoforte, although he refuses to symbolize the cantilena-lyrical quality as the fundamental in the musical representation of Beauty. In any case, this follows from the practice of his instrumental technique and from the logic of utterances- characteristics of music.

So, as for the piano in the twentieth century, Varese considered its artistic possibilities to be "exhausted" and "dissolved" its sonority in the sonorous wealth of percussion instruments. In one of his interviews, Varese stated:

"... piano became a percussion instrument (italics by D.A.). There is no melody left in it. The greatest of the pianists known to me, Busoni, has said: 'legato is impossible on the pianoforte. We restore it in our imagination, for our hearing is spoiled by a bad habit. "The sound of the piano is lifeless. It does not correspond to the nature of modern life, the rhythms of our time "... [1,88].

This statement clearly demonstrates that Varese refuses the piano ... in symbolism, for he does not accept that great "legato illusion" that fed all the classical and romantic pianism. Still a piece of work "Ecua- totial" written in 1933, immediately after the premiere of "Ionization", on the text of the prayer of the Mayan in Spanish translation: written for a bass or bass ensemble, also 4 pipes, 4 trombones, pianoforte, organ and ondesMartenot(for the first time - two termenvoxes) and percussion instruments, preferably low tones (gong, tam-tam) [1, 51]. Moreover, the piano is close to the percussion, but "does not merge" with them, and the qualities of the "monster that never breathes" are fixed in the organ, according to Stravinsky [ibid.].

The events of post-avant-garde demonstrated absence of demand of those aggressive avant-garde manifestations, to which E. Varese relied highly. Thus, the futuristic idea of his innovations had semantic outputs of the historical-heuristic order. From the height of historical results at the beginning of the 21st century, Varese accurately foresaw the importance of the "French pedal" in the cultural expansion of Europe in the first half of the 20th century, and the cathartic results of the terrible battle of the Second World War in the middle of the last century. Therefore, Varese's futuristic utopias are not motiveless, since they feed on the semantic extremism of the symbolic potential of music, "landed" by the will of the "call of Time", to the carnal "gravity" of the percussion-noise formations.

In this respect, Varese is a direct continuation of the positions of the Italian futurists, whose utopianism in musical representation, judging by the work of L. Russolo, has symptomatic parallels to the first, but also opposites to the writing of the Italian futurist of the beginning of the last century. If Varese denied strings and piano cantilena, assonantto string expression, thus he supported organ- "mechanical" displays of clavier, clear in his rejection of "soulfulness" of expression, despite the fact that spiritual values for the composer were absolute prerogative.

Such a prominent person for the 20th century as E. Varese like a certain concentration of the specifics of the past century's non-traditionalism, which is very often found in the historical chain of cultural continuity, allows us to trace some indicative features of thinking, somehow epoch-making in the creative work of various authors and representatives of the artistic world of the past century. It seems that the artistic symbolism of the New Age that gave rise to the piano cantilena and "orchestral" piano ("orchestral substitute") of the Liszt's school, in the twentieth century, now is outdated, pulling out symbolism to the percussions. It should be noted that the latter - percussions - promoted in the piano sound by means of "orchestral multi-functionality" timbre registers of this instrument, including this tremolo-martellato, frankly reproducing sound of kettledrums.

However, illusiveness of the exceptionally "percussion" intended purpose of a piano in the twentieth century is determined by the variability of this function in Varese's creative work as such, and, as it will be shown further in the works of other authors. Futuristic peremptory "percussion" of a piano in Varese's creativework received a direct analogy in the works of the primitive neo-folklorist B. Bartok, and strangely bypassed the expressionistic anti-aestheticism of A. Schoenberg.

From the above said, not only the restrictive attitude towards the expressive possibilities of the piano is clear, but also the essentially clavier attitude related to the neoclassical aspirations of the twentieth century orientation of E.Varese. There is also a clear tendency to consider the futuristic discoveries of sonoristics in autonomy from the ideological and political "shade", which was emphasized by Marinetti's group in due time. However, by the middle of the twentieth century it turned out to be a semantic anachronism, uninteresting in use in artistic and musical content, autonomized into the meaningful clavier-percussion effects of the emblematic works of the maestro.

Литература

1. Акопян Л. Эдгар Варез / Л. Акопян // ХХ век. Зарубежная музыка. Очерки. Документы. - Москва, 2000. - Вып. 3. -- С. 3-75.

2. Маркова О. Музичні архетипи та "Прометеїв комплекс" музики / О. --Маркова //Укр. музикознавство. -- Київ, 2001. -- Вип. 30. -- С. 51--60.

3. Маркова Е. Неоевропоцентризм и неосимволизм начала XXI века / Е. Маркова // В. Холопова, Л. Кана- рис, Е. Маркова, С. Таранец. Неоевропоцентризм: музыкальная культура на рубеже столетий. -- Одесса, 2006. -- Кн. 1. -- С. 76--128.

4. Холопова В. Музыка как вид искусства / В. Холопова. -- Москва : НТЦ "Консерватория", 1994. -- 260 с.

5. Vlad R. Modernita e tradizionella musica contemporanea / R. Vlad. -- Torino, 1955. -- 267 p.

References

1. Akopian, L. (2000). Edgar Varese. ХХ century. Foreign Music.Essays.Documents. Moscow, 3, 3--75 [in Russian].

2. Makarova, О. (2001). Musical archetypes and "Prometheus complex" in music. Ukrainian music studies. Kyiv, 30, 51--60 [in Ukrainian].

3. Markova, Е., Kholopova, V., Kanaris, L., Taranets, S. (2006). Neoeurocentrism and Neosymbolism of the beginning of the XXI century. Neoeurocentrism: musical culture at the turn of the century. Оdessa, 1, 76--128 [in Russian].

4. Kholopova, V. (1994). Music as an Art Form. Moscow : research and development centre "Konservatoria", 260 [in Russian].

5. Vlad, R. (1955). Modernita e tradizionellamusicacontemporanea. Torino, 267 [in English].

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