Page 267 - Vinkler, Jonatan, in Jernej Weiss. ur. 2014. Musica et Artes: ob osemdesetletnici Primoža Kureta. Koper: Založba Univerze na Primorskem.
P. 267
woyzeck and wozzeck – büchner and berg
ent. These facets of Berg as a composer guarantee that the audience will re-
main gripped until the very end.
For example, the six-note chord, from which invention no. 4 springs,
constitutes a symbolic sum of the leitmotiv intervals that hitherto have em-
bodied »the knife« (minor third), »blood« (minor second), and »death«
(perfect fifth). The dramaturgic recollection of the main elements of the dra-
ma pervades the whole of the scene in which Wozzeck drowns as he tries to
wash off the blood in the lake that mirrors the red moon. The chord is to
metamorphose through changes in position, reversal, permutation, division,
regrouping, flattening, orchestration, etc., in order to govern the eerie, hal-
lucinatory musical discourse. Finally, the orchestral effect of the murmur-
ing of the water in which he drowns sends a chill down the audience’s spine,
through refined suggestion rather than thick brush strokes.
Here too Berg requires only music in order to comment on the drama
in his own personal style. The final orchestral interlude is transformed into a
symphonic piece in its own right, sensitively, compassionately, and emotional-
ly summing up the whole of the dramatic action. Expressionist music presup-
poses the avoidance at all costs of »out-dated« tonalities: this is what Schön-
berg postulated. The small tonal beaches throughout Wozzeck–the military
march, the hunting songs, the lullaby–had seemed to fade into the predomi-
nant atonal sound. But the final »triumph«, the conclusion, is in the key of
D, which becomes the theme for a new invention. All the musical motifs con-
nected to Wozzeck and the other characters are incorporated in the organic
weave of a passionate orchestral score, a kind of overture, which closes rath-
er than opens the opera. The audience can see all the episodes of the drama in
their minds’ eye without the help of words, which are no longer needed; the
music is sufficient unto itself, it is endowed with the power of speech (as also
happens in Wagner’s dramas). But of course it would not have the same mean-
ingfulness if it were extracted from the context of the opera.
The orchestral interlude is the real conclusion of the opera; what fol-
lows, the fifth scene of the final act, is a symbolic extension added by the com-
poser to Büchner’s original dramatic text. Through the perpetual, virtually
infinite musical motion, Berg hints at the rhythm of life, of what it is to be
human. The invention based on perpetual motion therefore signifies detach-
ment from the past and the act of looking to the future. Against the continu-
ous motion of eighths, an ostinato (within a polyphony of orchestral planes),
the melodic plan of the scene includes all kinds of leitmotivs, from folk allu-
sions to musical structures with which we are by now familiar: »the lake«,
»death«, »the knife«, »the idée fixe«, »the child«, »Marie«, etc. Finally,
265
ent. These facets of Berg as a composer guarantee that the audience will re-
main gripped until the very end.
For example, the six-note chord, from which invention no. 4 springs,
constitutes a symbolic sum of the leitmotiv intervals that hitherto have em-
bodied »the knife« (minor third), »blood« (minor second), and »death«
(perfect fifth). The dramaturgic recollection of the main elements of the dra-
ma pervades the whole of the scene in which Wozzeck drowns as he tries to
wash off the blood in the lake that mirrors the red moon. The chord is to
metamorphose through changes in position, reversal, permutation, division,
regrouping, flattening, orchestration, etc., in order to govern the eerie, hal-
lucinatory musical discourse. Finally, the orchestral effect of the murmur-
ing of the water in which he drowns sends a chill down the audience’s spine,
through refined suggestion rather than thick brush strokes.
Here too Berg requires only music in order to comment on the drama
in his own personal style. The final orchestral interlude is transformed into a
symphonic piece in its own right, sensitively, compassionately, and emotional-
ly summing up the whole of the dramatic action. Expressionist music presup-
poses the avoidance at all costs of »out-dated« tonalities: this is what Schön-
berg postulated. The small tonal beaches throughout Wozzeck–the military
march, the hunting songs, the lullaby–had seemed to fade into the predomi-
nant atonal sound. But the final »triumph«, the conclusion, is in the key of
D, which becomes the theme for a new invention. All the musical motifs con-
nected to Wozzeck and the other characters are incorporated in the organic
weave of a passionate orchestral score, a kind of overture, which closes rath-
er than opens the opera. The audience can see all the episodes of the drama in
their minds’ eye without the help of words, which are no longer needed; the
music is sufficient unto itself, it is endowed with the power of speech (as also
happens in Wagner’s dramas). But of course it would not have the same mean-
ingfulness if it were extracted from the context of the opera.
The orchestral interlude is the real conclusion of the opera; what fol-
lows, the fifth scene of the final act, is a symbolic extension added by the com-
poser to Büchner’s original dramatic text. Through the perpetual, virtually
infinite musical motion, Berg hints at the rhythm of life, of what it is to be
human. The invention based on perpetual motion therefore signifies detach-
ment from the past and the act of looking to the future. Against the continu-
ous motion of eighths, an ostinato (within a polyphony of orchestral planes),
the melodic plan of the scene includes all kinds of leitmotivs, from folk allu-
sions to musical structures with which we are by now familiar: »the lake«,
»death«, »the knife«, »the idée fixe«, »the child«, »Marie«, etc. Finally,
265
