Page 265 - Vinkler, Jonatan, in Jernej Weiss. ur. 2014. Musica et Artes: ob osemdesetletnici Primoža Kureta. Koper: Založba Univerze na Primorskem.
P. 265
woyzeck and wozzeck – büchner and berg
pressionist accents of Wozzeck and the Madman. It is the episodic, eerie ap-
pearance of the Madman that connects Büchner’s play and Berg’s opera to the
tradition of the Shakespearian fool, who knows everything »atemporally«,
who »«grasps the germ of evil inherent in the world«6. But here the Mad-
man speaks very little, marking the scene with the symbolic line »Ich riech
Blut«, in a short musical speech introduced by an accordion, interrupted by
tense pauses, with a musical motif that verges on the falsetto, emphasising the
grotesqueness of the moment.
The final scene of Act Two fulfils the first part of the Madman’s proph-
ecy, when Wozzeck’s blood flows after the confrontation with the Drum Ma-
jor. But the bloodiest scene is yet to come.
The form of Act Three, with its unusual and moving denouement, is
modern, after the preceding acts’ review of baroque, classical and romantic
modes. Berg’s invention (on which each scene of the act rests) is one that or-
ganically incorporates the musical past (we think of Bach’s Inventions for
two and three voices, written with a didactic rather than artistic end) and at
the same time creates new ways of generating musical discourse. Invention
is the very object of a composer, and the musical piece that is named the in-
vention becomes the space where he exercises his inventiveness, which is si-
multaneously free and rigorous, improvisational and structured. The tech-
nique of variation helps Berg to conceive six inventions in this act: on a theme
(Scene One), on the note B (Scene Two), on a dance rhythm (Scene Three), on
a six-note chord (Scene Four), on a tone (Final Interlude), and on an ostinato
movement of triolets (Scene Five).
The spiritualised music of Marie’s Bible reading brings to the fore the
melody that generates the variations and then the double fugue, which rein-
forces the previous polyphonic meanders and introduces an atmosphere of
meditation and repentance. (Bach is present here somewhere behind this first
scene, perhaps in combination with Verdi’s Desdemona.) But the action takes
a radically different shape in the next invention, on the note B, on a night of
a blood-red full moon, on the shore of an eerie lake, where Wozzeck murders
Marie. The expressionist accents obvious in this scene are (whether paradoxi-
cally or not) combined with a musical structure of extreme rigour. The B note
is a constant in the score, in every bar: sometimes we hear it as deep, menacing
bass notes, sometimes as a shrill high note (something like the music to the
shower scene in Hitchcock’s Psycho), and sometimes it merges into the overall
musical fabric. The B note migrates through every register and multiple com-
6 Vlad Zografi, „Bufoni și knuki,” in Infinitul dinăuntru (Bucharest: Humanitas, 2012).
263
pressionist accents of Wozzeck and the Madman. It is the episodic, eerie ap-
pearance of the Madman that connects Büchner’s play and Berg’s opera to the
tradition of the Shakespearian fool, who knows everything »atemporally«,
who »«grasps the germ of evil inherent in the world«6. But here the Mad-
man speaks very little, marking the scene with the symbolic line »Ich riech
Blut«, in a short musical speech introduced by an accordion, interrupted by
tense pauses, with a musical motif that verges on the falsetto, emphasising the
grotesqueness of the moment.
The final scene of Act Two fulfils the first part of the Madman’s proph-
ecy, when Wozzeck’s blood flows after the confrontation with the Drum Ma-
jor. But the bloodiest scene is yet to come.
The form of Act Three, with its unusual and moving denouement, is
modern, after the preceding acts’ review of baroque, classical and romantic
modes. Berg’s invention (on which each scene of the act rests) is one that or-
ganically incorporates the musical past (we think of Bach’s Inventions for
two and three voices, written with a didactic rather than artistic end) and at
the same time creates new ways of generating musical discourse. Invention
is the very object of a composer, and the musical piece that is named the in-
vention becomes the space where he exercises his inventiveness, which is si-
multaneously free and rigorous, improvisational and structured. The tech-
nique of variation helps Berg to conceive six inventions in this act: on a theme
(Scene One), on the note B (Scene Two), on a dance rhythm (Scene Three), on
a six-note chord (Scene Four), on a tone (Final Interlude), and on an ostinato
movement of triolets (Scene Five).
The spiritualised music of Marie’s Bible reading brings to the fore the
melody that generates the variations and then the double fugue, which rein-
forces the previous polyphonic meanders and introduces an atmosphere of
meditation and repentance. (Bach is present here somewhere behind this first
scene, perhaps in combination with Verdi’s Desdemona.) But the action takes
a radically different shape in the next invention, on the note B, on a night of
a blood-red full moon, on the shore of an eerie lake, where Wozzeck murders
Marie. The expressionist accents obvious in this scene are (whether paradoxi-
cally or not) combined with a musical structure of extreme rigour. The B note
is a constant in the score, in every bar: sometimes we hear it as deep, menacing
bass notes, sometimes as a shrill high note (something like the music to the
shower scene in Hitchcock’s Psycho), and sometimes it merges into the overall
musical fabric. The B note migrates through every register and multiple com-
6 Vlad Zografi, „Bufoni și knuki,” in Infinitul dinăuntru (Bucharest: Humanitas, 2012).
263
