10. Finding a 21st
century future for ragtime in 18th century composition manuals
In her monograph Haydn and the Classical Variation, Elaine R Sisman opened with
observations about how variation technique and variation as a form fell into
disrepute in the nineteenth century.
Virtuoso ornamental variation came to be seen as trivial for a variety
of reasons Sisman enumerated in the first few pages of her book: 1) eighteenth
century variations were seen as borrowing a theme and keeping that theme more
or less in full view; 2) variation form at the time consisted of a sequence of
repeated episodic ornamental variations that were seen as trivial according to
the ideologies of organicism and character, contrapuntal or transformational
variation; 3) the sheer number of virtuoso variation forms produced between
1790 and 1840 led to a glut that, here in 2020 might be likened to a musical
equivalent of too many shallow, obvious superhero movies.
Sisman’s summary is literally on pages 1 and 2
of her book, which is a fantastic account of Haydn’s handling of variation
technique and variation form. I believe
that a future for ragtime can be found in studying Haydn rather than attempting
to find the dance genre wanting in light of Romantic era aesthetics and
ideologies. This is not “just” because I
personally admire and enjoy the works of Haydn more than Beethoven but also
because I believe that the formal, aesthetic and even technical challenges
Haydn dealt with in his time are more germane to the potential fusion of ragtime
as a style with the formal possibilities of sonata forms.
Something Sisman observed later in her book
was that to understand eighteenth century approaches to variation as form and
technique we have to understand how it was situated in the theoretical and
practical literature on music composition in that era.
HAYDN AND THE CLASSICAL
VARIATION
Elaine R Sisman
Harvard University Press
Copyright © 1993 by the
President and Fellows of Harvard College
ISBN 0-674-38315-X
Page 79
Variation form, often counted as
part of the basic equipment of a composer, occupied a particular place in the
spectrum of classical musical structures. Composition manuals of the later
eighteenth century enable us to locate it rather precisely in a hierarchy
ranging from simple dances to complicated sonata forms, by stressing the
fundamental similarities among musical forms rather than their more obvious
external differences. These manuals focused first on details of the melodic and
harmonic construction of phrases and then on their combination and
organization. That small musical segments could be expanded into larger
segments linked the formal designs of small pieces, such as minuets, to large
pieces, such as symphony Allegros. Indeed, Riepel and Koch both considered the
minuet to be the model for larger compositions. As Riepel explained at the
outset of his first chapter, “a Minuet, according to its realization … is no
different from a concerto, an aria, or a symphony … thus, we wish to begin
therewith, [with the] very small and trifling, simply in order to obtain out of
it something bigger and more praiseworthy.” And Koch, after enumerating and
analyzing three types of small pieces, concludes that “these forms are,
together, models in miniature of the larger compositions.”
In her footnotes Sisman adds a comment, “1.
The theorists’ predilection for minuets and other dance pieces has often been
noted.” Mentioning other theorists besides Joseph Riepel and Heinrich Koch, who
were quoted in the passage quoted above. On page 80 Sisman pointed out that
starting with smaller and larger musical structures, beginning with the minuet,
was how Thomas Atwood studied with Mozart.
Many years ago a music instructor I had in
college said “Never underestimate the obvious.” The obvious, in this case, is observing
that a minuet is a dance form, full of phrases that simultaneously have strong
cadence patterns that allow for both closure and potentially infinite
recursion. You “can” stop the dance
anywhere, theoretically, but it also has to be able to, theoretically, go on
for as long as people want to keep dancing.
If in eighteenth century compositional pedagogy as described for us by
Elaine Sisman it was held that before you could write a good symphony you had
to master variations and before you could master variations you had to master
the minuet, a potential application for, say, composers in the United States,
for instance, could be that before you could master the form of a symphony you
might have to master variations and before you could master variations you might have to master ragtime.
We’ve seen how the self-identified cultured
musicians steeped in German Idealist thought and traditions regarded ragtime as
the bottom of the musical barrel, but if we take our cue not from nineteenth
century compositional pedagogy but eighteenth century compositional pedagogy we
might find that starting with the dance music of the day, or at least a day,
isn’t a bad place to start.
We have had a century since the death of Scott
Joplin to explore the ways in which ragtime can be handled not as popular music
but as concert music, as “classical music”, as “serious” music but even a
connoisseur of ragtime might struggle to keep up with the range of formal and
structural experiments that have been introduced into the style since the 1970s
ragtime revival.
I’ll take just a few examples
of post 1970 ragtime in the realm of “classical music” to highlight how
composers have brought ragtime into the concert music traditions. These works will not be conventional rags but
attempts to bring ragtime as a style into works that have sonata or fugue. Before
I do that I want to discuss what’s known as “ragging the classics” within
ragtime traditions. As a guitarist I find it easiest to explain how “ragging
the classics” works with early 19th century Italian guitar sonatas.
POSTSCRIPT 5-5-2020
Actually, I ultimately just dumped the post 1970 ragtime-classical fusion works I wanted to discuss into a postscript
https://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2020/05/might-take-little-break-postlude-to.html
While I was writing through this project it made more sense to keep working with the theoretical aspects of my argument to show how moving from Adorno through to Rochberg and Johnston lets me argue against Adorno's conclusions by paradoxically (and I admit a bit impudently) using his own theoretical statements about the failures of pop styles.
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