Paraphrase über den Anfang der 9. Symphonie von Beethoven

The sounds at the beginning of the symphony emerge as if from behind a veil—unfathomable, enigmatic, elusive. The contrast to the radiant jubilation of the finale, the “Ode to Joy”, could hardly be any greater. In its time, the beginning of the Ninth was particularly spectacular. Although the introductions of some symphonies were gradual, most introductions were formidable and determined. The motto seemed to be: Let clarity prevail from the start instead of sneaking up to the action. But not so for the revolutionary Beethoven. The first bars can be seen as a musical counterpart to the Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog captured on canvas by Caspar David Friedrich in an expressive allegory of nature in 1818, six years before the premiere of Beethoven’s Ninth. But this music is more than an atmospheric haze of sound in the spirit of romanticism. Beethoven’s symphonic dawning was considerably beyond his time. His work inspired a great many composers—including Friedrich Cerha, who composed the piece Paraphrase in 2010.

Außenansicht

Beethoven the revolutionary, the romantic, the humanist, the European, the philosopher, the genius … The list of attributes of and ideas about one of the greatest composers in Western music history could easily go on and on. The labels don’t always fit together, and it’s not uncommon for them to be contradictory. Even within musical circles there are very different assessments of the composer. In Beethoven’s adopted home of Vienna, two perspectives competed with each other in the twentieth century. Both viewpoints influenced Cerha, whose deep roots in Vienna Modernism are undisputed. Those who disagree with Beethoven’s reputation are the same people who oppose 12-tone music: Josef Matthias Hauer and Arnold Schönberg. Cerha became acquainted with their views of Beethoven, each coloured by their own aesthetics, early in the 1950s. Various individuals from Schönberg’s circle of students, including Erwin Ratz and Josef Polnauer, opened the door to a structural perspective for Cerha, allowing him to see the venerable composer “in a different light than previously”.Schriften: ein Netzwerk, Vienna 2001, p. 31 In an essay, he later reflected on “the intensive examination of Beethoven, initiated by Schönberg, by the entire Viennese school. The essential newness of his music, the concentration of his message in concisely formulated core motifs, and the development that emerges from them” pervades “their musical thinking”.Schriften: ein Netzwerk, Vienna 2001, p. 202
Hauer, whom Cerha visited several times in the early 1950s, advocated a completely different point of view: “In our conversations, he once said: ‘The musical mayhem all started with Beethoven.’ I was taken aback, but I soon realised that this attitude was quite consistent with Hauer’s approach. Beethoven’s evolutionary thinking”Schriften: ein Netzwerk, Vienna 2001, p. 32 stood in counterpoint to his ideal of low-contrast, flowing, static music.
Cerha moves between the poles of these two positions. Both the pro- and the anti-Beethovenian can be found in his work, evolutionary development, and celebrated stasis. The fact that Beethoven, perfector of Viennese classical music, became an object of reflection in later years, in particular the opening bars of the Ninth, further muddies the waters—after all, the original state that emerges here is not far removed from even Hauer’s musical opinions.

Brücke

There are few titles in Cerha’s oeuvre that state their musical goals as clearly as Paraphrase über den Anfang der 9. Symphonie von Beethoven. The subject is a retelling in the best sense of the word: music about music, and not just about any music, but about what is probably the most difficult symphonic colossus of the nineteenth century. The initial word of the piece’s name, “paraphrase”, wraps itself around the object of attention from different sides at the same time. Various artistic disciplines employ paraphrasing, always with a focus that references another work. In the linguistic field paraphrasing is known as a technique for citation, meaning to rephrase without directly reproducing. Other fields pursue similar aims. In literature, this can mean a retelling in a story or a poem, often to update outdated linguistic styles or to bring a text closer to new target groups; the numerous retellings of Homer’s Odyssey for children and young people, for example, are very popular. Paraphrasing in art and music is often comparatively less pragmatic and can mostly be understood as homage, sometimes even as parody. In painting, Pablo Picasso and Vincent van Gogh brought scenes painted by their predecessors (ranging from Rembrandt to Delacroix and Doré) into the present. Their own style of painting provided the necessary framework to create these time-conquering dialogues. Musical paraphrasings increased during the nineteenth century. Familiar melodies often became the subject of virtuoso embellishments, as in the well-known opera paraphrasing of Franz Liszt, set for the piano. He adapted, among other things, Verdi’s Rigoletto—and it may come as a surprise that a connection to Cerha can be found beginning here. In a chamber music counterpart to the orchestral Beethoven paraphrase, in 2011 Cerha composed Vier Paraphrasen for oboe, cello, and piano. This piece also contains (probably coincidentally) a citation of an aria from Rigoletto—and there’s more. One also hears Chopin and Dvořák, and the last movement is even “a mix of Johann Strauß, Offenbach, the Marseillaise, the Internationale, and Lohengrin” Joachim Diederichs: Friedrich Cerha. Werkeinführungen, Quellen, Dokumente, Vienna 2018, p. 152 Cerha is aware “that the inclusion of these pieces in [his] work represent a borderline case”. In the past, he had always avoided quoting too literally, so that references to other works of music appeared more as (sometimes vague) allusions, as in Langegger Nachtmusik I. Only a few pieces from the 1980s, including Eine Art Chansons and both Keintaten, showed his joy in referencing more widely to the outside.

Through Paraphrase, Cerha also revealed something of interest about the general creative process. As the description of the “proliferation” in his mind suggests, the “first version” of a work is “always the shortest. In the clean copy, a piece usually tends to expand, on the one hand because sections adjacent to one other often require the development of transitions, and on the other hand because the imagination does not stop with the first idea, and new doors keep opening up.”Joachim Diederichs: Friedrich Cerha. Werkeinführungen, Quellen, Dokumente, Vienna 2018, p. 123 Cerha’s homage to Beethoven is a prime example of this drive developing from a network of internal sounds.

Innenansicht

In a concert review, Tom Hellat describes the pairing of Beethoven’s symphony with Cerha’s related piece as “The Ninth with an overture”.Tom Hellat, „Die Neunte mit Ouvertüre“, Berliner Zeitung, 9 September 2014 However, the “opening” in the literal sense of the overture relates to more than just its constellation in the concert. It is inscribed much more deeply into the work. His aim is to make it possible to experience sound spaces beneath the surface, to open the act of listening in unimagined directions. At the same time, the role model to which Paraphrase refers is already an open sound space, one that consciously keeps almost everything in limbo.
If one understands Beethoven’s symphonic introduction as an opening to a modern world of sound in which the uncertain and the blurred are celebrated, then this resonates in many different ways. Something related can be found in romanticism—for example Richard Wagner’s famous Rheingold Prelude, grown from a primordial cell, or Anton Bruckner’s “Misterio” (the prelude to his Third), a nebulous field of sound with falling fifths and fourths. But Beethoven’s “original state” also provides suitable inspiration for Modernism. Cerha’s sculptural soundscapes, especially those in the Spiegel are related in spirit to the spatial and colour effects of the introduction to Beethoven’s Ninth. It is clear that the sound material here was more than worth working on.
The kinship of Paraphrase to its role model is emphasized by the orchestration. It “corresponds to that of Beethoven, although the three percussionists of course play other instruments.“Joachim Diederichs: Friedrich Cerha. Werkeinführungen, Quellen, Dokumente, Vienna 2018, p. 123 This expansion of the percussive apparatus is a flourish typical of Cerha, showing the multifaceted nature of the percussion he loves so much and often uses to add colour to the orchestra. In addition to timpani and bass drum (which are dominant in the Ninth), Paraphrase uses a large number of other instruments that only made their way into symphony orchestras after Beethoven’s time: antique cymbals (crotales), for example, and xylophone and tam-tam. These modern instruments change the character decisively. The percussion often leads the way through the deformed, post-symphonic soundscapes.

The invocation of Beethoven has a certain tradition in contemporary music. Fragments of his music appear in important collaged musical works from the late 1960s, for example in Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s Photoptosis, Luciano Berio’s Sinfonia, and Alfred Schnittke’s first symphony. Paraphrase, however, refrains from implementing such citations as directly as in those works. Instead, the echoes of the Ninth in Cerha’s own soundspace follow an almost dreamlike logic. Here and there, the music ties in to Beethoven, condensing individual elements or transforming them into barely recognisable new forms, so that discerning them is often more of a hunch than a certainty. The best way to gain insight into the relationships between the two works is through careful observation.

Interpreting Cerha’s Paraphrase as a mere retelling would be a disservice to the sheer inventiveness of his music. The piece links into Beethoven while maintaining a healthy distance: Individual threads of the symphony’s beginning are picked up and then stretched into an entirely new fabric. The alternation between enraptured, lyrical passages and those that are driving and energetic corresponds to the same dialectic that determines Beethoven’s introduction to the Ninth. However, Cerha’s story is told with a strong and personal voice. According to Riccardo Chailly, conductor of the premiere, “Beethoven appears like a shadowy figure in the night.“Walter Dobner, „Kunst nach Metronom“, Die Presse, 15 October 2011, https://www.diepresse.com/701268/kunst-nach-metronom While the references to him are initially rather clearly recognisable, they soften over time. The end of Paraphrase makes it clear how much Cerha’s own musical ideas overarch the source material. Wrapped in the transcendent mood of the beginning, the metallic percussion instruments reappear. And then, driven by Beethovenian fourths, something new emerges: a polyrhythmic drip, a signature of “late” Cerha.

Instead of emphasizing opposites, Cerha’s work with older music has always been about building bridges. Tradition should act as a doorway to the present, just as looking back should also reveal a way forward. Cerha’s bow to Beethoven can also be seen in this light. He “very much hopes that the gap between” Paraphrase and the Ninth “is not seen as an incurable rift between different things, but can instead be experienced as related music.“Joachim Diederichs: Friedrich Cerha. Werkeinführungen, Quellen, Dokumente, Vienna 2018, p. 123

Schatztruhe