A Book of Burlesques | Page 4

destiny,
untoward fate):
[Illustration: Musical Score]
This graceful and ingratiating theme will give no concern to the student

of Ravel and Schoenberg. It is, in fact, a quite elemental succession of
intervals of the second, all produced by adding the ninth to the common
chord--thus: C, G, C, D, E--with certain enharmonic changes. Its
simplicity gives it, at a first hearing, a placid, pastoral aspect,
somewhat disconcerting to the literalist, but the discerning will not fail
to note the mutterings beneath the surface. It is first sounded by two
violas and the viol da gamba, and then drops without change to the bass,
where it is repeated fortissimo by two bassoons and the contra-bassoon.
The tempo then quickens and the two themes so far heard are worked
up into a brief but tempestuous fugue. A brief extract will suffice to
show its enormously complex nature:
[Illustration: Musical Score]
A pedal point on B flat is heard at the end of this fugue, sounded
fortissimo by all the brass in unison, and then follows a grand pause,
twelve and a half measures in length. Then, in the strings, is heard the
motive of warning:
[Illustration: Musical Score]
Out of this motive comes the harmonic material for much of what
remains of the composition. At each repetition of the theme, the chord
in the fourth measure is augmented by the addition of another interval,
until in the end it includes every tone of the chromatic scale save C
sharp. This omission is significant of Kraus' artistry. If C sharp were
included the tonality would at once become vague, but without it the
dependence of the whole gorgeous edifice upon C major is kept plain.
At the end, indeed, the tonic chord of C major is clearly sounded by the
wood-wind, against curious triplets, made up of F sharp, A flat and B
flat in various combinations, in the strings; and from it a sudden
modulation is made to C minor, and then to A flat major. This opens
the way for the entrance of the motive of lamentation, or, as the
German commentators call it, the Schreierei Motiv:
[Illustration: Musical Score]
This simple and lovely theme is first sounded, not by any of the usual

instruments of the grand orchestra, but by a phonograph in B flat, with
the accompaniment of a solitary trombone. When the composition was
first played at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig the innovation caused a
sensation, and there were loud cries of sacrilege and even proposals of
police action. One indignant classicist, in token of his ire, hung a
wreath of Knackwürste around the neck of the bust of Johann Sebastian
Bach in the Thomaskirche, and appended to it a card bearing the legend,
Schweinehund! But the exquisite beauty of the effect soon won
acceptance for the means employed to attain it, and the phonograph has
so far made its way with German composers that Prof. Ludwig
Grossetrommel, of Göttingen, has even proposed its employment in
opera in place of singers.
This motive of lamentation is worked out on a grand scale, and in
intimate association with the motives of brooding and of warning.
Kraus is not content with the ordinary materials of composition. His
creative force is always impelling him to break through the fetters of
the diatonic scale, and to find utterance for his ideas in archaic and
extremely exotic tonalities. The pentatonic scale is a favorite with him;
he employs it as boldly as Wagner did in Das Rheingold. But it is not
enough, for he proceeds from it into the Dorian mode of the ancient
Greeks, and then into the Phrygian, and then into two of the plagal
modes. Moreover, he constantly combines both unrelated scales and
antagonistic motives, and invests the combinations in astounding
orchestral colors, so that the hearer, unaccustomed to such bold
experimentations, is quite lost in the maze. Here, for example, is a
characteristic passage for solo French horn and bass piccolo:
[Illustration: Musical Score]
The dotted half notes for the horn obviously come from the motive of
brooding, in augmentation, but the bass piccolo part is new. It soon
appears, however, in various fresh aspects, and in the end it enters into
the famous quadruple motive of "sulphur-yellow truth"--schwefelgelbe
Wahrheit, as we shall presently see. Its first combination is with a
jaunty figure in A minor, and the two together form what most of the
commentators agree upon denominating the Zarathustra motive:

[Illustration: Musical Score]
I call this the Zarathustra motive, following the weight of critical
opinion, but various influential critics dissent. Thus, Dr. Ferdinand
Bierfisch, of the Hochschule für Musik at Dresden, insists that it is the
theme of "the elevated mood produced by the spiritual isolation and
low barometric pressure of the mountains," while Prof. B. Moll, of
Frankfurt a/M.,