MUSICAL RHETORIC IN RICHARD STRAUSS'S DON JUAN, OP. 20 – PART I
To understand the role that dramatic music plays in media one must study earlier musical
forms.
These include the opera and ballet.
The concert overture.
The symphonic poem and its musical offspring, the tone poem.
Also, the incidental music composed to back spoken-word performance in the theatre.
Let's Define Two Terms: #1: Program music – which has nothing to do with computer
software – is defined as music which follows a non-musical program.
The program is often of literary or artistic inspiration, say, a poem, story, or painting.
So the music of those earlier forms had some sort of extra-musical inspiration.
[#2: Rhetoric] A literary term – notice the constructive aspects of the dictionary
definition of "rhetoric."
Let's apply it to a kind of musical composition that conveys an image – think story, poem
or painting – and is effective or persuasive at doing so with music alone; no words uttered.
Those of us in the business of making music for film, television, and some games – media
that tell stories – have much to gain from studying such music.
We begin by looking at the musical rhetoric in Don Juan, a 19th century piece of orchestra
music, by the German composer Richard Strauss.
Don Juan by Strauss is a type of program music called a tone poem.
One music dictionary states that "There are two kinds of program music: that which
is good music regardless of the program, and that which is poor music although it may have
an interesting program."
Well, the four-hundred-year-old legend of Don Juan is certainly "an interesting program"
if history be the judge!
A complete index of everything ever written about this character – books, treatises,
plays, poetry, musical works, and movies – the index alone would fill a huge book.
As to the value of program music, that music dictionary asserts [quote] "There is a certain
weakness inherent in the underlying principle of program music.
Music is basically an art in its own right, and too great a reliance on extraneous associations
is likely to weaken rather than to enhance the artistic value of a composition."
[end of quote] What does this mean?
Some have fanatically taken a stand either for or against the essence of that statement.
Since the 19th century the debate has raged over which type of music is superior: "absolute
music" (which has no outside inspiration) or "program music" which does.
Even today, talented composers of music for film, video games, and other media are sometimes
marginalized and shamed by so-called "purists" of the concert hall, saying that "music
for the screen" is inherently inferior.
Back to Richard Strauss.
We consulted a number of scholarly works for help in researching this topic.
Two books in particular stood as pillars and are referenced in the description box.
First of all, for interpreting Don Juan, the tone poem, there is …
… James Hepokoski's essay "Fiery-Pulsed Libertine or Domestic Hero?
Strauss's Don Juan Reinvestigated."
That piece is published in Richard Strauss: New Perspectives on the Composer and His Work,
Bryan Gilliam, editor.
Its insights on the form and substance of the Strauss work were the launching pad of
this presentation.
To determine the rhetorical use of various orchestra instruments heard in the Don Juan
score – their emotional coloring – Strauss's own revision of Berlioz's Treatise on Instrumentation
provided guidance, with comments by the composer himself, and musical examples.
Form is an Element of music.
It is the organizational outline that sets the structure of a composition.
Form is analogous to an architect's ground plan.
There are simple musical forms, such as rondo (ABACABA), fugue, minuet, scherzo, sonata
and even rondo-sonata.
There are more complex musical structures, such as symphony, concerto, the mass, cantata,
oratorio, also opera and ballet.
In various degrees, all these forms contain dramatic elements that are capable of effectively
communicating feelings associated with a literary "program."
For example, the sonata form – often associated with "absolute" or "pure" music – may
present contrasting or conflicting themes and tonalities.
The themes, like characters in a drama, develop dynamically over time, and are ultimately
reconciled in some way.
The sonata form IS thus a dramatic program.
[mus]
The composer Richard Strauss, born in 1864, in Munich, Germany, began writing music
at the age of eight.
In middle school, Strauss studied composition from age 11 on, under Friedrich Wilhelm Meyer,
the music director at the Ludwigs-Gymnasium.
[mus]
By 1887 Strauss was giving singing lessons to one Pauline, eldest daughter of
Major-General Adolf de Ahna.
Pauline becomes an opera singer, and Strauss and Pauline eventually marry, in 1894
[mus]
In 1888 Strauss had composed his first published tone poem, Don Juan.
Actually, a piece called Macbeth was the first, but due to revisions Macbeth wasn't performed
until 1890, after the first performances of both Don Juan [1889] and another called Tod
und Verklärung [1890].
Like its namesake, Don Juan is a chameleon, its illusory musical form seems to change
throughout the course of the work.
The piece runs on 'wheels within wheels', three discernible super-structures: 1) a Rondo,
2) a Sonata, and 3) a cyclical Symphony of four-movements-in-one.
All three structures unfold at the same time.
It is astounding, when you think about it.
Subsequent installments of this series will ponder which came first in the mind of the
composer: the literary program or the musical design.
We will consider the "musical rhetoric" observed in both program and structure.
Since there are so many non-musical, literary elements associated with Don Juan, does it
necessarily follow that these weaken its musical value?
More to the point: Is the artistic value of music created for film or games somehow inferior
to music for the concert hall, merely because it is made for those media?
Throughout this series we offer a response to that condescending view, held by some,
toward 'media and film music'.
A link to a YouTube performance of Don Juan is in the description box below, so be sure
to listen to the piece before going on.
[mus]
Thank you for watching.
Now, standby for Episode One. [to be continued]
Copyright © Mark Priest 2017
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