Review

Author(s): Michael Russ

Review by: Michael Russ
Source: Music & Letters, Vol. 90, No. 4 (Nov., 2009), pp. 722-725
Published by: Oxford University Press
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 Other chapters in the collection include Ste- Analyzing Atonal Music: Pitch-Class Set Theory
phen Press's and Elizabeth Bergman's studies of and Its Contexts. By Michiel Schuijer. pp.
Prokofiev's career in America; Press's study is xviii + 310. Eastman Studies in Music. (Uni-
largely reception-based, while Bergman has versity of Rochester Press, Rochester, NY
examined documents relating to Prokofiev's and Woodbridge, 2008, £50. ISBN 978-1-
plans to continue his career there after relocat- 58046-270-9.)
ing to the Soviet Union. This confirms what
Morrison makes clear in The People's Artist: that A very particular concatenation of circum-
Prokofiev continued to agree to engagements in stances in America led to the emergence of
America that he was never able to fulfil. What
pitch-class (PC) set theory: the arrival of the
remains to be established is whether there was
computer, the creation of a mass higher educa-
ever any real chance of Prokofiev's being able tion system, an openness to positivist ap-
to tour abroad after 1938, or whether the deci-
proaches to the study of the humanities (as fam-
sion to bar him from foreign travel was passed ously criticized by Kerman), the adoption of
early on at a high level and never openly the theories of Heinrich Schenker with its com-
revealed to the composer. Though this seems mensurate need to find a theoretical alternative
plausible, it cannot be assumed; and so this par-
for atonal music, serial theory, and Schoen-
ticular issue is still an unsolved mystery. Kevin
berg's teachings on the 'inner logic' of music.
Bartig's perceptive study of Prokofiev's work on
PC set analysis was therefore very much of its
the score of Lieutenant Kizhe reveals that,
time and place, as Michiel Schuijer admirably
though contrived so as to be as adaptable as demonstrates in this book.
possible, the music was written without access
When teaching PC set analysis to undergrad-
to visual images, creating, as Bärtig puts it, 'an
uate students, the 'so-what' question is often
eerily lonely soundtrack' (p. 383). Finally, Leon
uppermost in their minds. PC set analysis is nei-
Botstein muses on the significance of Christian
ther a theory of perception, nor one of compos-
Science throughout Prokofiev's life, in particu-
itional process. Except where sets correspond
lar upon how the composer could have accom-
with primary segments, we don't perceive them
modated his beliefs with living and working in
the Soviet Union. In the end, Botstein con- to be musical units. Despite attempts to write
manuals on how to listen to atonal music, it
cludes, 'In the context of eternity and the per-
remains difficult to differentiate, even in con-
fection of a loving, divine spirit Stalin's evil
trolled conditions, between the 220 prime
was just another lie, a forgettable mistake' (pp.
forms of PC sets, with a few notable exceptions
550-1). Whether this is really how Prokofiev that coincide with distinctive scales and chords.
saw things is unknowable, but Botstein is surely
correct to surmise that Prokofiev did not waver Schenkerian theory has a basis in strict counter-
point and figured bass that connects it with
in his belief in his own vocation and in its per-
haps 'eternal' significance. It was this self-belief, compositional training in the eighteenth cen-
above all, that sustained him through all his dif- tury. PC set theory connects with serial proce-
ficulties and only began to defeat him right at dures, but it is fanciful to suggest that composers
the end of his life. Had he outlived Stalin and from the first part of the century composed by
kept his health, Prokofiev would have risen consciously making connections and distinc-
once again as a powerful, authoritative force tions between pre-compositionally unordered
PC sets.
in Soviet musical life, probably clashing vigor-
ously with younger composers treading the What, then, is the point of pitch-class set ana-
same 'modernist' paths he himself had rejected lysis? The analyst's argument might well be
thirty years earlier. It is an appealing vision, that it is to provide evidence of the coherence
and a tragedy that he did not get the chance to (perhaps, like Schenker's Ursatz, beneath the
regain the upper hand over his tormentors. surface and not immediately obvious) of the
Both these volumes are absolutely indispens- repertory under examination. (That was cer-
able to anyone even casually interested in this tainly uppermost in Alan Forte's mind.) But
field, and all scholars working in Soviet music ultimately this kind of direct analytical gain,
studies have reason to be grateful to Simon while important, is not for Schuijer the primary
Morrison for his pioneering work. reason for PC set theory's existence. He argues
Pauline Fairclough powerfully that the development of this theory
is as much about the study of music and the
University of Bristol
place of theory in American universities as it
doi:10.1093/ml/gcp034 is about explaining atonal music. PC set theory
was part of a programme to lift the impor-
tance of music theory and to place it along-

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side performance, composition, and musicol- tionship, and he consequently revises the view
ogy while recognizing that the 'discipline [of that it was Babbitt's influence that led to the
music theory] has never disentangled itself widespread adoption in the American curricu-
from teaching' (p. 271). The theory provided lum of pitch-class set theory. Instead, Schuijer
a tool with which students could explore sys- argues that the development of this theory was
tematically the challenging languages of early as much about revitalizing teaching and learn-
twentieth-century music. Schenkerian and PC ing and providing a professional training in
set methods would together revitalize music music theory.
theory from the poor state in which it found Pitch-class set analysis had a more chequered
itself in the 1950s. history in Europe, with little uptake and much
This educational purpose sat neatly alongside hostility on mainland Europe even if it has
a desire to establish a more scientific approach been of more consequence in the United King-
to the study of music, an approach that reflected dom. One reason is well known - the Euro-
the newly emerging computing technology that peans favour interpretation and analysis that
was already having an impact upon the huma- enhances understanding of the canon of Euro-
nities (although computing was used more in pean works. But there are profound differences
the formulation of PC set theory than in its in education systems between Europe and
pedagogical and analytical applications): America and, in the final decades of the twenti-
eth century, there was greater support for con-
PC set theory is not only the product of the scientifi-
cation of music theory, but also of a commitment to temporary music outside the universities. The
education. Whosoever rejects its formalism and need for contemporary composers to prove
reductionalism, and finds its language inappropriate, their worth inside and outside the academy
should bear in mind that these aspects serve the pur- was undoubtedly less strong, and they showed
pose of equal opportunity. They enable anyone who no desire to follow the Americans in developing
is interested and perseveres, to develop an expertise theory. (In British Universities in particular,
in some of the art music of the post-1900 era and to teaching and research in music theory has
hand it down to others, (p. 277 )
largely been undertaken by academics rather
In Schuijer's view, the development of PC set than practising composers.) Mainland Euro-
theory relates to the fundamental tenets of the pean objections to PC set theory are briefly
American university and the development of explored at the beginning of the book. For
mass higher education. many Europeans PC set theory is a step too
Alongside Forte, Babbitt looms large through- far. Schuijer recalls the words of a professor
out the book. He found a home for his positiv- from the Sorbonne at a recent conference, who
ist, scientific approach, for his rejection of the remarked 'we don't discuss . . . [PC sets] since
aesthetic and interpretative, in Princeton Uni- we don't hear them' or another who took offence
versity. For him 'statements that characterized, at the reduction of great music to mere
explained, justified or criticized music were numbers.
to meet absolute criteria of scientific rigour' At the heart of the book are five succinct
(p. 256). The university provided a home for chapters that distil the essence of PC set theory
approaches that sometimes surrounded music with great clarity. These deal with 'objects and
with 'a barricade of abstractions' (p. 257), entities', 'operations' (transposition, inversion,
abstractions necessary if university music multiplication) 'equivalence', 'similarity', and
theory was to be at the leading edge in a devel- 'inclusion'. Here one notices a desire to keep
oping society. In the 1960s and 1970s, American the definitions as wide and as historically con-
universities were increasingly certifying (with textualized as possible. The book does not pro-
Ph.D.s) and employing composers at a time ceed by taking the twelve PCs and six ICs
when there were relatively few opportunities (interval classes) defined in Forte's The Structure
elsewhere for performance of more hard-edged of Atonal Music as a starting point, but main-
compositions. (Schuijer explores this in perhaps tains a place for PI (pitch-interval - the
more detail than is necessary for a book on PC number of semitones up or down which separate
set analysis.) However, American composers two pitch classes, not reduced to one of Forte's
were employed as teachers in institutions that interval classes and not modulo 12) and PIC
were ultimately democratic, permeable, and (the same but modulo 12). Schuijer also often
geared towards mass higher education. They resists giving each set identified in his examples
were not at heart fortresses to defend extreme a Forte name, preferring simply to refer to
composition and music theory (in fact, few of them by their PC content, and the reader
the composers recruited were serialists). Bab- versed in Forte's set names will often find them-
bitt, in Schuijer's view, misunderstood this rela- selves having to look up the set names.

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 In the discussions of operations, equivalence, Schuijer's discussions are remarkably com-
and similarity, Schuijer locates PC set theory pact yet wide-ranging, summarising well the es-
in its historical context. Discussion of transposi- sence of the theory. Inevitably Schuijer's own
tion takes us back to Bernhard and Koch and preferences come through; so for example, in
transposing melodic ideas in diatonic space. the discussion of inversion he seems, oddly, to
Zarlino and fugai theory are starting points for prefer definitions that eschew the concept of an
discussion of inversion; multiplication has its axis and Perle's useful concept of sum-cycles,
origin in Bartók's expansion of diatonic inter- but these are minor quibbles.
vals. Similarity is traced to Krenek and Hinde- Schuijer has a keen sense of when the theory
mith's ideas about chord classification and rela- seems to take off and live a life of its own
tive chord tension. For equivalence, a context is rather than being analytically or pedagogically
found in the work of theorists such as Klein, useful. After surveying the increasingly abstruse
Stein, and Hauer, who attempted to count the approaches taken to measuring the similarity
total number of chords in the twelve-note of PC sets by Teitelbaum, Regener, Morris,
universe. Lewin, Isaacson and others he remarks that
The discussion is clear and efficient and these they
central chapters, while complex, could serve as
have attained a high degree of sophistication. In com-
an excellent PC set primer. Along the way, two bination with their lack of an obvious source of vali-
deeper questions constantly emerge. Can we dation, this renders them unfit for pedagogical pur-
hear these relationships? What is basis of the poses. Similarity is thus also an area of PC set
segmentation that leads to the sets that generate theory falling outside the traditional scope of music
them? The salience of a thematic transposition analysis (which has always had a generally pedagogic
is obvious, but the salience of a relationship be- orientation), (p. 134)
tween two PC sets is less so. Schuijer points to He later concludes that the study of these rela-
an example in Forte's The Structure of Atonal tions is 'apparently ... so engaging intellectually
Music that selects two forms of set class 5-7 in
as to survive the lack of lasting success' (p. 177).
Webern's Movement for String Quartet Op.5, Such comments might well receive a more sym-
No. 5. The first is presented as a melodic seg- pathetic response in Europe rather than
ment; the second, a transposition T10, is a America.
chord. These events are separated by 13 bars The salience of sets and the issue of segmen-
and there is little to connect them other than
tation again emerge in the chapter on inclusion.
this relationship. The basis on which we select Interestingly, it is approached using an unlikely
these sets as significance is questionable - in a tonal example (Faure's Élégie for cello and
later analysis (in The Atonal Music of Anton piano). While inclusion and, in particular, the
Webern) Forte's segmentation is different and set complex have no real precedents in tonal
this 'relationship' disappears. The lasting prob- theory, the concept of 'families' provides a link,
lem with PC set theory is that it produces not only to the diatonic family of tonal chords
many fascinating relationships between objects and ideas such as the pivot chord - a chord
whose status is not ultimately verifiable. Ultim- that belongs to two families - but also to con-
ately, PC set theory, while it 'appeals to a scien- structs such as Schoenberg's 'regions' in Struc-
tific sense of objectivity and consistency' (270) tural Functions of Music. Although the set com-
is not scientific; its results cannot be properly plex is at the heart of Forte's treatment of
tested and verified and it can't 'explain' atonal inclusion in his seminal book, it has not found
music, it can only help look for possible relation- widespread analytical application. Nor, in
ships and consistencies. Schuijer's view, has his concept of genera,
PC set analysis has its origins in many prior though he does not mention some interesting
analytical and theoretical strategies including British applications of Forte's genera, notably
reduction or representing musical phenomena Deborah Mawer's book-length study of PC set
with numbers. It also has strong links to the genera in the music of Milhaud. British work,
theory and practice of serialism, not least to which tends towards the analytical and heuris-
serialismi blurring of horizontal and vertical tic, is largely neglected by Schuijer. Anthony
musical planes. Not surprisingly, serial theory, Pople's Tonalities project, which represents an
particular that of Babbitt, features often in the advance in the computational and pedagogic
book, but, as is pointed out, one of the strongest use of PC set theory, is not mentioned.
motivations for Forte's work was his desire to The time is ripe for the contextualizing of PC
demonstrate that atonal music was coherent, set theory that Schuijer achieves in this book.
and that it was not 'distorted tonal music, or For him 'music theory is also part of music his-
half baked serial music'. (60) tory' (p. 218); it is a 'construction of its own

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time; a domain of musical competence that sustained line in works as widely separated and
reflects contemporary concerns, interests and stylistically disparate as the Piano Sonata
perceptions' (p. 26). Will PC set theory survive (1945-6) and Dialogues (2003), while Paul Grif-
as more than an episode in the history of fiths (or 'Griffith', as he is spelt here) is illumi-
theory and a useful way of classifying certain nating on Carter's concern with words, and the
musical phenomena? Schuijer does not answer way thinking for voices affects musical materi-
this question explicitly. Doubtless, theorists will als, especially in the John Hollander cycle Of
continue to explore the relationships between challenge and of love (1994).
sets in abstract, but will PC set theory continue Most striking of all are a pair of complemen-
to inspire analysts, given that its usefulness tary essays by two very different American
might be seen to be restricted to a narrow reper- composers, Alvin Curran and Fred Lerdahl.
tory and the status of its results uncertain? Pos- Curran, a pupil of Carter's whose own music
sibly, the answer lies in seeing analysis not so could hardly be more different from the mas-
much as scientific or pedagogical inquiry but ter's, manages to celebrate and criticize in the
as a kind of performance that 'exploits' as much same breath: Carter's music has become
as it 'explains' (p. 227), something that 'pro- a shining model of what one might call gentlemanly
duces' rather than 'traces' musical meaning experimentalism, music which questioned everything
(p. 223). The quality of these engagements with except the major institutions for which it was des-
the repertory will determine its survival, as tined
will the contexts it finds itself in in the future. thing or anyone in Elliott's work, and this makes
Michael Russ him a maverick of a very special kind, one for whom
the modernist utopia of societal education and trans-
University of Huddersfield formation and art for art remains forever a viable
doi:10.1093/ml/gcp075 goal despite the wobbly economics of today's sym-
phony orchestras and the philosophy of do-it-yourself
mayhem espoused by many of us born after him.
Elliott Carter: A Centennial Celebration. Ed. by (p. 43)
Marc Ponthus and Susan Tang. pp. viii + 122.
Curran offers a more genial version of the
(Pendragon Press, Hillsdale, NY, 2008, £25. blanket anathema handed down by Richard
ISBN 978-1-57647-135-7.)
Taruskin in his Oxford History of Western Music
Elliott Carter: A Centennial Portrait in Letters and
(New York, 2005), and it could just possibly
Documents. Ed. by Felix Meyer and Anne C. have been Taruskin whom Fred Lerdahl had in
Shreffler. pp. xi + 367. (Paul Sacher Founda- his sights in framing his own much more posi-
tion/Boydell Press, Woodbridge, 2008, £25. tive reflections 'On Carter's Influence'.
ISBN 978-1-84383-404-5.) Back in 1988, Lerdahl offered his views on
those 'cognitive constraints on compositional
Despite their common purpose, these Carter systems' which (he argued) prevented much
centennial publications could hardly be more 'atonal' music from achieving comparable aural
different. While the volume emanating from comprehensibility to that founded in more ex-
the Paul Sacher Foundation - repository of a plicitly hierarchical systems of organization,
major collection of Carter manuscripts and and he included Carter among those composers
other documents - is weighty and beautifully who allegedly divorced 'method from intuition'
produced, the Pendragon Press Festschrift is (see Generative Processes in Music, ed. John A. Slo-
slim and, in many ways, rather shoddy. Proof- boda (Oxford 1988), 231-59). Twenty years on,
reading is appalling, and the thinking behind however, Lerdahl mounts a lucid defence
it is also open to question - not least the idea whose terminology might have been conceived
that extracts from compositions by several of as a direct response to Taruskin-style accusa-
the contributors deserve space that might have tions of Carter's 'asocial aesthetic'.
been given to more extended articles, or more Writing mainly about the second string quar-
extracts from Carter's own music (not, to be tet, Lerdahl notes that
fair, that these are stinted). But no reader can
complain that a variety of viewpoints is not pre- just as Carter's tempi are strongly relational, so his
sented, and several worthwhile ideas emerge. musical characters are intensely social. In his music,
individual behaviours are understood only in the con-
As is to be expected, the articles in A Centen-
text of other behaviours. Tempo is but one factor in
nial Celebration are by admirers and collabora- forming characters: each character also carries its
tors: Pierre Boulez is represented by a rather own melodic intervals, contour, and mood. Carter
desultory interview, John Ashbery by an even projects interacting personalities in lively and often
more perfunctory memoir. But Charles Rosen conflicting conversations. The resulting music is viv-
finds a consistent concern with the shaping of a idly dramatic yet non-programmatic.

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