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M U S I C T H E O R Y O N L I N E
A Publication of the
Society for Music Theory
Copyright (c) 1993 Society for Music Theory
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| Volume 0, Number 1 February, 1993 ISSN: 1067-3040 |
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AUTHOR: Neumeyer, David, P.
TITLE: Schoenberg at the Movies: Dodecaphony and Film
KEYWORDS: twelve-tone method, Opus 34, commutation test,
Frankenstein, cinema
David P. Neumeyer
Indiana University
School of Music
Bloomington, IN 47405
neumeyer@ucs.indiana.edu
ABSTRACT: Composers used the twelve-tone method in film scores
from the 1950's and 60's. This essay, however, focuses on a much
earlier work: Schoenberg's *Begleitungsmusik zu einer
Lichtspielszene,* Op. 34 (1930), which was, however, commissioned
for a cinema-music library, not a specific film. I apply simple
commutation tests to gauge how Opus 34 might actually function as
background music, and I assess the implications of questions that
arise about musical culture and class differences.
ACCOMPANYING FILES: mto.93.1.1.neumeyer.gif, mto.93.1.1.neumeyer.fig
INTRODUCTION
[1] The play on words is tantalizing, but, alas, no evidence to
date suggests that twelve-tone music was written for any of the
serials so popular in American film theatres in the Thirties and
Forties. Serial music, however, did eventually find its way into
feature films of the psychological-drama, sci fi, and horror
genres. The majority of film composers who used serial methods
picked them up about the same time Stravinsky did, in the early
to mid Fifties. Leonard Rosenmann, for example, claims to have
written the first fully serial score for a full-length feature
film in 1955, for *The Cobweb* (1), though by that time Roman
Vlad, Kenyon Hopkins, Elisabeth Lutyens (2), Roberto Gerhard, and
perhaps others, had already used serial methods to varying
degrees in their own work for films produced in Britain and
Hollywood. By 1962, one might have been excused for thinking that
the gulf between concert and film composition, and between the
movie theatre and television, had been fully and irrevocably
bridged--with Jerry Goldsmith's serial score for the film
biography *Freud* and NBC television's premiere of *The Flood*,
which had been commissioned from Stravinsky.
=====================================================
1. Roy Prendergast, *A Neglected Art: A Critical Study of Music
in Films* (New York: NYU Press, 1977), 119.
2. According to an unpublished finder to film-music holdings in
the British Museum. I am grateful to Alfred W. Cochran for
sharing his copy. Note to format: The asterisks indicate italics.
======================================================
[2] Any number of questions arise from the historical
circumstances sketched above. Among those that interest me is the
obvious "Does twelve-tone music work, by the professional and
critical standards of film composition?" Since "twelve-tone"
designates a technique, not a style, however, the question
becomes more meaningful if we substitute for "serial music" the
broader "atonal music"; that is, the style of Viennese
Expressionism. Research to this question can be carried out to a
surprising extent without scores, by close study of film prints.
Obviously, however, traditional close analysis--such as row-
counting, location and interpretation of subtle intertextual
references (such as B-A-C-H motives) or of relationships between
row choice, row "progression," and film action--does require
scores, which are not generally accessible.
[3] I will pass by the "does it work?" question here, remarking
only that I think the answer (for the classical Hollywood
repertoire at least) is "yes, it does"--the most compelling
instances, by far, to my ear, being not in the serial scores
mentioned above, but in Rosenmann's music for *East of Eden*,
which transplants the manner of Schoenberg's Opus 16 to turn-of-
the-century Monterey and the inner turmoil of the James Dean
character. In what follows, I shall concern myself with the
earliest of all twelve-tone film scores--Schoenberg's
*Begleitungsmusik zu einer Lichtspielszene,* Op. 34 (1930). In
particular, I discuss application of some simple commutation
tests to gauge how this composition might actually function as
background music. In the conclusion, I touch on a broad question
that aims directly at matters of music and musical culture,
namely, "How does film composers' early use of serial methods
affect widely held notions of class differences in twentieth-
century composition?"
SCHOENBERG'S OPUS 34
[4] As Dika Newlin has it, Schoenberg's Opus 34 "was not really
for the movies, but only symbolically."(3) The facts, however, do
not quite support this ideologically convenient assessment. The
composition was requested by Heinrichshofen's Verlag, which at
the time specialized in music for use in silent-film
performances.(4) Walter Bailey discusses Schoenberg's contacts
during this period with the German society of film-music
composers; these clearly suggest that he had practical, not
"symbolical" motives in accepting Heinrichshofen's commission.(5)
Furthermore, it is reasonable to assume that the publishers
thought they might receive something more than a "prestige" item-
-in fact, a composition they could license for performance. If
they were disappointed, it would have been by the music's
difficulty, rather than its style, but, indeed, "it's hardly to
be assumed that this piece was played in theaters in the early
Thirties."(6)
=======================================================
3. Dika Newlin, *Schoenberg Remembered* (New York: Pendragon,
1980), 206.
4. Arnold Schoenberg, *Saemtliche Werke*, IV, vol. 14,1:
*Orchesterwerke III*, ed. Nikos Kokkinis and Jrgen Thym (Mainz:
Schott, 1988), B (Critical Report), xiii-xiv.
5. Walter Bailey, *Programmatic Elements in the Works of
Schoenberg* (UMI Research Press, 1984), 21-22.
6. Schoenberg, *Werke*, xiv.
=======================================================
[5] Opus 34 is not a single-movement composition; it consists of
three more-or-less independent cues given titles by Schoenberg
himself: "Threatening Danger" [Drohende Gefahr] (=bars 1-43),
"Fear" [Angst] (=bars 44-155), and "Catastrophe" [Katastrophe]
(=bars 156-219). The first cue is divided into two main sections
of similar duration (1:21, 1:10, respectively). The first of
these begins slowly with sinister ponticello string tremolos and
motivic fragments cast about between the woodwinds and brass.
This builds to a fortissimo tutti by 0:38, at which point the
tempo picks up a little. Till the beginning of the second section
at 1:22, tutti with abrupt changes between dynamic extremes
(especially sharp brass chords at 1:08) must be treated as
stingers. The second subdivision of the first part ("Maessig)"
is somewhat more consistent. At first it hints at a waltz, with a
clear, continuous melody in doubled winds. A short sforzando
brass chord at 1:41, however, begins a slow process of
melodic/thematic development that coincides with increasing
tension until the end (2:21 ff), which is another tutti, very
heavy and slowing down greatly. The music goes out loudly with a
strong cutoff.
[6] The second cue ("Angst") has four main divisions, the first
and last very fast, the second a stretto (increasingly fast), the
third section slower. The tempi of the first and last sections
are stable, those of the intermediate sections vary. Timings are:
1:05, 0:22, 1:40, and 0:17. The final cue ("Katastrophe") has two
main sections. The first begins "Presto" and gradually slows down
over the course of 43 seconds. A triple-forte climax is reached
after 9 seconds and a loud dynamic level persists till
approximately 9-10 seconds before the beginning of the second
section, which is a long spun-out adagio (2:31) with a clear
melody, mostly consistent (and relatively light) texture and low
dynamic level.
COMMUTATION TESTS FOR FILM MUSIC
[7] The descriptions given above concentrate on characteristics
that point to certain practical problems of film underscoring--
timings of cues and their subdivisions, dynamic range, tempi, and
unusually marked events. In this, they prepare for comments on my
informal experiments using Schoenberg's Opus 34 as a cue for
scenes from several early films. This process amounts to a simple
commutation test,which, as Claudia Gorbman describes it, "focuses
attention on the existing music versus the music that might have
been [and so] brings out stylistic and cultural information that
goes unrecognized in the usual processes of film viewing."(7)
Commutation assumes that cinema is a well-defined code including
several clearly recognizable, separable sub-codes (images,
dialogue, sound, music). The normal mode of cinema is to invite
the spectator/listener to coordinate those several elements
during each segment of the film. This constitutes cinema's
cognitive baseline, so to speak, and thus "whatever music is
applied to a film segment will do something, will have an
effect...because the reader/spectator automatically imposes
meaning on such combinations."(8)
=======================================================
7. Claudia Gorbman, *Unheard Melodies: Narrative Film Music*
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), 18.
8. Gorbman, 5. I am grateful to Stephen Simms for his recent
reminder that David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson use simple
commutation tests in their *Film Art: An Introduction,* third
ed. (New York: McGraw Hill, 1990).
=======================================================
[8] Gorbman herself considers the effects of altering Georges
Delerue's music for a scene from *Jules and Jim* by changing the
mode to minor, making the tempo faster, or altering orchestration
or articulation. She also substitutes for the cue a diegetic song
from later in the film, a piano boogie-woogie, or Beethoven's
Fifth. In every case, it's not difficult to predict the effect
created, but what may be surprising is the extent to which a
viewer's basic understanding of visual and narrative contexts may
be influenced by the musical accompaniment.
[9] For my purposes, it was convenient to flip the terms of
Gorbman's test--I took the first cue from Schoenberg's Opus 34
("Drohende Gefahr") and applied it to three scenes from
*Frankenstein* (1931), as well as to scenes from several other
films released in the period 1929-1932, including *The Blue
Angel* (1930) and *Public Enemy* (1931).(9) It was perhaps a bit
unfair to Schoenberg that these are all sound films, but they are
closely contemporary to Opus 34 and very early in the history of
sound cinema. Furthermore, it was easier to make comparisons with
the familiar conventions of Hollywood sound-film scoring practice,
many of which were established in the years immediately thereafter
(roughly 1932-35). In the following paragraphs, I make some general
comments about the tests and discuss certain details of the
"Monster's Birth" scene from *Frankenstein*.
======================================================
9. Newlin (207fn) writes that Opus 34 was "used as background for
several films; I have seen only Jean-Marie Straub's, in which a
narrative of anti-Jewish atrocities is imposed on it." I haven't
been able to verify her claim to date and would be very pleased
to hear from anyone who knows of films which use Schoenberg's score.
======================================================
[10] The "Monster's Birth" lies at the end of a long (11 minute)
scene in which preparations are made in the lab, unexpected
visitors arrive, and the Monster is "born." Next to the ending
scenes (Maria's father carrying her body through the town square,
and the search for the Monster), this is the most famous sequence
in the film. It contains opportunities for some fairly continuous
writing, the biggest obstacle being an active (and complex)
sound-effects track, with much storm noise, "sizzling" of
electrical gadgets, and so on. The "Monster's Birth" begins with
a flash of lightning and quickly following thunderclap which spur
Henry Frankenstein and his assistant Fritz into action, while
their three guests sit and watch. (The guests are concerned
friends of Henry: his former professor Dr. Waldman, his close
friend Victor, and his fianc'ee Elizabeth.) There is no
substantive dialogue until Henry's increasingly hysterical
response to the Monster's first auto-movements at the end of the
scene. The action consists of Henry and Fritz moving about the
lab, first checking electrical equipment, then unrolling covers
from the Monster, raising the carriage up to an opening in the
ceiling, later lowering same, the movements of the Monster's
right arm, and Henry's response.
[11] Below is a detailed description and shot list for the
"Monster's Birth." (For a segmentation of the entire file as well as
a shot list for the scene which ends with the "Monstor's Birth," see
the .fig file.)
a. Flash of light at 8:39, then loud crash of thunder,
at 8:39; 44" long
then electronic sizzles as Fritz and Henry go to work.
Very little dialogue through this
1. LS of lab from behind carriage (8")
2. carriage (3")
3. Visitors in their seats (2")
4. as in 2 (14")
5. Henry & Fritz at carriage (roll away blankets) (11")
6. as in 3 (Visitors sitting) (2")
7. as in 2, 4 (carriage) (4")
b. Monster goes up in carriage;
at 9:23; 70" long
8. LS from above; carriage goes up, camera following (22")
9. MS Henry (3")
10. CU Fritz (1")
11. LS lab, as at the end of shot 8 (3")
12. CU Victor & Elizabeth (2")
13. CU Dr. (2")
14. Carriage from a different angle (5")
15. as in 9 (MS Henry) (2")
16. as in 12 (CU Victor & Elizabeth) (2")
17. MS Henry (2")
18. carriage (as in 70) (2")
19. CU Fritz (2")
20.-21. Electrical equipment (3")
22. MS Henry (2")
23. Carriage followed down from ceiling (17")
c. The Monster's hand moves; Henry goes wild
at 10:33; 30" long
24. CU Monster's hand (3")
25. MS Henry, with hand in foreground (7")
26. as in 24 (3")
27. MS Henry at carriage, others enter shot (18")
d. End of scene
at c. 11:05
[12] Mapping any kind of music onto a sequence will cause
problems because of the force of film-music conventions. I
leave aside whether these conventions have arisen from natural
(universal?) cognitive biases that would set up probabilities
for most of us whenever we combine film and music, or whether
they were something established in the silent and sound film
cultures of the Hollywood production companies. The practical
problems can be understood in terms of Gorbman's seven "principles
of composition, mixing, and editing," her summary of the
conventionalized solutions to practical problems of film-music
composition.(10) Several do not apply to the matter at hand, but
others--emotion, narrative and connotative cueing, formal and
rhythmic continuity, and unity--flow directly out of the immediate
task of spotting a film or film scene.
================
10. Gorbman, 73.
================
[13] I will start with the problem of the stinger, a sforzando
chord or sharply marked short gesture which draws attention to
something on the screen, a sudden turn of action or a shocked
response--as it were, an accent in the imagetrack coordinated
with an accent in the music. Stingers were used in silent-film
accompaniment but came into their own with the recorded
soundtrack and extensive employment by Max Steiner. (Later on,
they were used most often in cartoons.) Any unusually marked
music--but especially if marked by dynamics--must be regarded as
a potential stinger. Opus 34 is full of them, especially the
second section, but, in fact, since the stinger is meant to be an
unusual event, the second section is actually easier to use as a
cue. The first section has only a few potential stingers, and
their use has to be planned fairly carefully so as not to seem
silly (like the misplaced chords of a bad silent-film
accompaniment). In one early application to the "Monster's Birth"
scene, I found that the lack of a stinger actually emphasized the
failure of clear motivation for the exaggerated wincing of Victor
and Elizabeth in shot 12 (lightning is seen and thunder heard
throughout, but nothing unusually sharp either before or during
the shot). The discrepancy was the more obvious because a stinger
did coincide with the Doctor's similar gesture in the following
shot. In later moments, I caught myself asking why the Doctor was
singled out in this way--and was even able to answer the
question: the "scientific triumph" of Henry over the doubts (and
even obstruction) of the establishment (the Doctor) is given
physical interpretation by this sudden, involuntary (and
undignified) gesture.
[14] From the above, two points arose which couldn't be resolved
with the means at hand--solutions would require rerecording using
a mixer or a newly recorded performance. First, the volume levels
of the music needed to be flattened--the range was too great to
work well throughout the scene. Dialogue was sometimes lost under
the music, the music sometimes inaudible under soundtrack noise.
(In general, I actually found myself "disappointed" that the
piece was less heavily scored and much less emotionally intense
than I expected. On the other hand, the strong--and somewhat
unexpected--build-up at the end of section one (bars 36 ff)
matched very neatly Henry's surprisingly intense (and overly
dramatic) reaction to the Monster's first movements.) Second, the
tempi would need adjusting in several places in order to shift
events such as stingers forward or back a few seconds. This
"elasticity" has long been a requirement of film music and
obviously arises from close temporal constraints unknown in
concert music.(11)
================
11. Gorbman, 76.
================
[15] Another significant factor is that *Frankenstein* already
has some music in the soundtrack: cues for the main and end
titles, as well as source music for the dancing of Goldstadt
citizens. We may safely ignore the music for the end title and
cast list--even in the silent-film era, this was heavily
conventionalized "framing" music whose source is the "up-and-out"
closing progressions for opera and operetta overtures and scene
or act conclusions. The dance music, likewise, is conventional,
its melodies usually less clear than one might like, as the music
competes with crowd noise. (Nor is any one tune linked closely
enough with the citizens to become a naming theme.) More
important, perhaps, is that it is very difficult to think of
other places in the film where this music might appropriately be
used. After this scene, the citizens are heavily involved in the
film's action, but the extended search for the monster and the
burning of the windmill both call for "hurries," a topos which
can incorporate fleeting references to naming themes but is more
likely to be thematically indifferent.
[16] The music for the main titles is another matter. David
Broekman's cue is rich in "exotic," "grotesque," and "sinister"
affects , but it is poor in narrative referential functions (no
suggestion of the general physical locale of the film nor even
that of the opening scene; no suggestion of attributes of the
main characters). Indeed, it relies in the earlier moments rather
too heavily on a conflated exotic/oriental affect and so
threatens to misplace the locale to (at least) the Caucasus
rather than the mountains of middle Europe. As in the
opera/operetta overture, the clearly presented theme would be
expected to play a very important role in any underscoring for
the film. Thus, the lack of any reference to this theme in the
Schoenberg cue has to be taken as a disadvantage.
[17] A related problem is recurrent themes or motives within the
cue itself. If a theme is established in relation to something--a
character, place, situation, or even object--then recurrence of
that theme will tend to recall or "name" that thing. (Indeed, the
recurrence is necessary: the appearance of a melody sets up a
referential possibility, but the recurrence confirms it as a
narrative referential function.) The oboe theme at 0:38 (bar 9)
is the first strongly melodic entity--extended melody rather than
fragmentary motive--but it arrives just a bit too late: beginning
at 0:26, the eleven seconds of shot 5 would have been perfect, as
Henry & Fritz roll away blankets to give us our first full view
of the Monster (Ex. 1: Schoenberg, Opus 34, bars 9ff, oboe
melody; Ex. 2: Schoenberg, Opus 34, series Po). The oboe theme,
thus coordinated with a long shot, might have "named" the Monster
(and, at another level, set up a conjunction of terms
Monster/theme/(oboe)/Po.) At 0:38, we see the visitors sitting,
not an occasion for a naming theme, even if the shot were longer
than two seconds.
CONCLUSION
[18] As I suggested earlier, cognitive paths apparently make
creating a film score no more difficult than playing a CD while
the film is running; but commentary to the commutation tests
should also have suggested that the interplay between cognitive
biases and the traditions of film composition are such that
standards of judgment are available--in short, that we can tell
what a *good* film score is. I would further claim that the
practical problems with the tests support an assertion that
composing a *good* film score is not at all easy.
[19] The fact that film and "non-film" composers were
experimenting with twelve-tone method at the same time also tends
to undercut the assumption that popular culture lags behind the
intellectually aristocratic "avantgarde," a notion that goes back
to the earliest days of the Romantic/modernist conjunction. One
might also ask about implications of the fact that I found little
use for the typical language or methods of musical analysis in my
"mix-and-match" commutation tests. But then, I suppose it is no
secret that our language or methods are not designed to
facilitate judgments of value, but only to support them after
they have been made. Perhaps the most far-reaching implication is
that the link between the tools of technical musical criticism
and the ideology of masterwork culture is not at all secure. If
this suggests a crisis (I hope it does), possible solutions would
seem to be: (1) entrenchment (a strategy of which music theorists
were accused--with hilarious irony--by Joseph Kerman some years
ago); (2) adoption of the socio/anthropo-logical stance (whose
ideal--if not whose practice--emphasizes ideological detachment
from the cultures being studied); or (3) serious modification of
the dominant humanistic stance music theorists have shared with
historical musicologists (in the direction of self-consciousness
and inclusiveness). The first option doesn't appeal to me; either
of the others seems plausible.
[20] The class distinctions that have been supported by
humanistic music scholarship can no longer be concealed. But, if
so, where do we go from here? Where's the real tinsel, anyway?
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