Storytelling in Opera and Musical Theater - Nina Penner Musical Meaning and Interpretation

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Octet.

      As Strauss’s title advertises, his work is modeled on the characters and events of Cervantes’s novel. Strauss begins with a character sketch of the protagonist (ex. 1.1). One of the more striking features of the first dozen measures is their unusual harmonic plan. Strauss establishes the key of D major with a cadence in measure 4, but only four bars later, he is tonicizing A♭ major, a tritone away, subsequently returning to D major by measure 12. Even in the context of late-Romantic harmonic practice, the establishment of tritone key relations within such a compressed time span is unorthodox. Yet the passage is stylistically unperturbed. The lilting rhythms and graceful, if exaggeratedly Romantic, swooping gestures in the strings create a sense of complacency, minimizing the effect of the unstable harmonic terrain being traversed. In just these twelve measures, Strauss has communicated a great deal about his protagonist, depicting him to be a romantic of questionable psychological stability, but whose eccentricities remain largely hidden at this point. Many may be fooled into thinking Don Quixote entirely normal, just as he does himself. This belief becomes increasingly unsustainable, however, as Strauss’s harmonies become even more outlandish later on in the introduction.

      Strauss then introduces Don Quixote’s sidekick, Sancho Panza (ex. 1.2). The ungainly leaps in the tenor tuba and bass clarinet parts—so unidiomatic as to be impossible to execute with grace—are appropriate to his humble occupation as a farmer. Suddenly, a viola enters with a jittery, oscillating figure. After the first motive is repeated, the viola takes over, imitating, if wanly, the flamboyancy of Don Quixote’s musical gestures and the noble heroism he espouses (rehearsal numbers 15 and 16, respectively). Strauss presents Sancho Panza as a country bumpkin, initially reticent of his friend’s proposal (hence the oscillation between the bumbling-farmer and quasi-heroic-viola motives and the nervousness of the latter), who quickly becomes intoxicated by delusions of grandeur and agrees to play along.

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      Having introduced his characters, Strauss proceeds to represent them undertaking purposeful actions. They combat windmills Don Quixote believes to be giants (variation 1) and sheep he mistakes for an army (variation 2). In variation 4, they attempt to halt a procession of penitents with a portrait of the Virgin Mary, believed to be a damsel in distress. To provide comfort to his friend and perhaps some personal amusement, Sancho Panza attempts to pass off a peasant as Don Quixote’s beloved Dulcinea (variation 6). They take an imaginary trip through the air (variation 7), followed by a real voyage by boat, which concludes with the capsizing of their vessel (variation 8). In variation 9, they attack a group of monks believed to be evil magicians. Finally, Don Quixote stakes his knighthood against the Knight of the Shining Moon and loses, which causes him to come to his senses and return home, where he dies (variation 10).

      Although one may accept that my description of Strauss’s Don Quixote is a narrative, one may still doubt that Strauss’s music is responsible for conveying this story. Without Strauss’s title and program, I would have had no hope of divining what his music was intended to represent. Jean-Jacques Nattiez has verified this hypothesis with an experiment involving playing L’apprenti sorcier to hosts of Montréal schoolchildren who had never heard it before and who were not provided with its program. They were merely told that the music conveys a story and were instructed to write down what they thought the story was. Nattiez received all sorts of responses—stories about battles, revolutions, animals, mountain climbing, espionage, medieval chivalry, even the life of Beethoven—but none even remotely resembling a story about a wizard in training with a procreating-broom problem.28

      That is not to say that music is incapable of representation without extramusical aids. If one’s target is an aural phenomenon, one could certainly expect more success. Nevertheless, the intended referent of even the most infamously onomatopoeic passages of Don Quixote (e.g., the sheep’s distressed bleating in variation 2, represented by winds and brass performing dissonant chords while flutter-tonguing) are difficult to determine without extramusical cues. But although extramusical, Strauss’s title and program are part of his work.29 Accordingly, it is appropriate that I relied on them in my discussion.

      A more serious objection is that my description went beyond the skimpy details Strauss provided in his score and program. I also relied on knowledge of Cervantes’s novel. Unlike the novel, Strauss’s tone poem does not bring into existence the characters Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. Rather, it is designed to put listeners who already have knowledge of the novel in mind of its characters and their adventures. Some narrative theorists may wish to place more stringent demands on the act of telling or presenting a story, claiming that simply pointing to a preexisting narrative is insufficient.30 I suggest that such inclinations are predicated on too narrow a focus on linguistic narratives. In this regard, I agree with Almén that a consideration of musical works has something to teach us about narratives more generally.

      In my discussion of Don Quixote, I have focused on Strauss’s representation of agents and their goal-directed activities, both of which I take to be essential components of stories, at least within the context of humanist discourse.31 These agents may not be human, but they must be represented as at least humanlike in their sentience, possession of beliefs and desires, and ability to perform self-impelled actions. But if representing an agent capable of action were sufficient, Strauss’s opening character sketch of Don Quixote would be just as much a narrative as the ensuing representation of his and Sancho Panza’s adventures. To exclude mere character sketches, the agent not only must be capable of action but also must exercise that ability.

      The importance of agents to narratives is confirmed by the methodologies that have been employed in narrative-based analyses of instrumental music.32 What is required to understand musical events as constituting a narrative is to regard them as representing one or more agents and their actions. The first step is to identify some salient musical features (themes, motives, keys, instruments, pitches) and anthropomorphize them, regarding them as agents, fleshing out their characteristics, and attributing to them beliefs and desires that serve to motivate their actions. As illustration, I will perform an analysis of this type on the beginning of variation B of the second movement of Stravinsky’s Octet (ex. 1.3).

      I take as the agents of my narrative the instrumental parts trumpet 2 and trombone 2. Trumpet 2 performs a solo march accompanied by the bassoons and trombones, which I interpret as a fictional act of marching, one that is curtailed by the crass glissando trombone 2 performs two measures before rehearsal 29. So far, I have some agents performing some actions. Almén may be inclined to regard my description as a narrative. Others may harbor doubts on this score. The problem, I suggest, is that neither trumpet 2 nor trombone 2 scores very high on the scale of particularity. Who are they? Why is trumpet 2 performing a march, and why does trombone 2 interrupt it? Narratives in other media provide answers to such questions.

      Suppose I were to provide some. Since the musical topic of this passage is a march, a military setting seems apropos. The homophonic texture and regular pulse of the accompaniment suggest a scenario of a platoon going on a march with trumpet 2 as its leader—the corporal, let’s imagine. Based on the brisk tempo and dry accompaniment, the rigid dotted rhythms of trumpet 2’s part and its relative loudness, and even Stravinsky’s very choice of instrument, I could attribute to my corporal the character traits of seriousness, formality, arrogance, a need for control, and a desire to be the center of attention. The measure of triple meter (which would derail any attempt to march to this music) suggests that trumpet 2 is not as competent a leader as he thinks he is. Within the context of

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