The opinion of the judge in the D’Almaine and Another v. Booseycase was that the only way to tell if an arrangement really infringed the copyright of an orig-inal was to listen to them both. He believed that actual musical experience was the ultimate arbiter in musical copyright cases. So far, it has been shown that while Leader and Cock’s arrangement of ‘Pestal’, Brissler’s keyboard edition of Die Lustigen Weiber von Windsorand Musard’s 57th and 58th sets of quadrilles all share an involvement with questions of originality, multiple-authorship and do-mestic use, they each place their emphasis slightly differently across these three factors. At least part of the reason for the differences in these emphases stems from the fact that all of the works offered their domestic listeners different kinds of musical experience. In general, it is possible to identify two different positions about the relationship between one form of musical experience—listening—and keyboard arrangement. Both will now be considered in turn, before it is shown with the aid of two of the three keyboard genres which were discussed in chap-ter three that there are numerous similarities between the listening habits arising from those genres and certain popular musical ones of the twenty-first century.
Szendy places arrangement at the heart of his 2001 textListen: A History of Our Ears.96 For Szendy, arrangements are written presentations of the arranger’s au-ral experience of the original work. What we have in an arrangement, he reasons, is a record of the way in which an arranger listened to the original. “[I]t seems to me,” writes Szendy,
95D’Almaine and Another v. Boosey(1835), p. 302. A note regarding the relationship between the second and third cases under investigation here. At first glance, it might seem that the 1835 case made arrangement illegal, while the 1868 case reversed this decision by suggesting that keyboard editions were actually transformed versions of their originals. That is not correct. The 1835 case found extraction from an original work for the sake of the production of dance music to be a copyright infringement if the arrangement sounded the same as the original. The case from 1868, on the other hand, found that keyboard editions could be copyrighted provided they were of originalswhich were not themselves under copyright: it did not impact on the legality of producing editions of works that were still under copyright, since it assumed those to be illegal.
As the appeals judge Kelly explains in 1868, it is still the case that if an edition “be published as the adaptation to the pianoforte by a composer other than the composer of the original opera, no doubt it is a piracy of the opera” (Wood v. Boosey and Another(1868), p.230). Of course, this was only the explicit conclusion: it is very clear that in his judgement Bramwell is implicitly (though technically irrelevantly) defending the legal protection of all keyboard editions. Even the judges in these cases could not agree as to the legal status of keyboard arrangement.
96Szendy [2007].
of a work. They may even be the only listeners in the history of music towrite downtheir listenings, rather thandescribethem (as critics do).97 Arrangers, Szendy believes, are listeners “who have written down their listen-ings.”98 In listening to an arrangement, we do not simply hear a new version of a pre-existing work. What we actually experience is someone else, listening.
Szendy’s contention that arrangements are written evidence of other people’s aural experience is extremely attractive for three reasons. First, it helps explain that sense of doubleness that emerges when an arrangement is listened to, a feel-ing that both the original and the new are befeel-ing heard at the same time. Szendy dubs this sense the rendering “plastic” of the original text. “We are hearing dou-ble,” he argues; “an oscillating, divided listening. . . that lets itself be hollowed out by the endlessly traversed gap between the original version and its deforma-tion.”99 Second, the position avoids viewing arrangements as historically dubi-ous relics of a need to circulate music. Instead, they are unique documents, near-priceless records of what might otherwise have remained always already lost:
the way that other people have heard music. In this way, and finally, Szendy’s argument presents the possibility that rather than being evanescent, listening ex-perience is fixable, if not completely transparently (everything still has to be writ-ten down), at least approximately. Arrangements embody the hope that musical listening experience is neither lost in the moment it occurs, nor sentenced to be merely asymptotically approximated in written documents, but can actually be captured in musical notation and repeated as contemporary musical experience.
On Liszt’s arrangements of Beethoven’s symphonies, for instance, Szendy eulo-gizes, “[b]etween Beethoven and me there is Liszt the listener, reinscribing his listenings for the piano. And Ilisten to him listening.”100
Two canonic arrangements can be cited which seem to support Szendy’s provoc-ative view. Webern’s 1935Fuga aus dem “Musikalischen Opfer”is an orchestration of the six-part ricercar from J.S. Bach’s 1747Musical Offering.101 The work is of-ten mentioned as one of the best examples ofKlangfarbenmelodie, achieved in this case through the careful segmentation of the original musical lines into smaller units and the allocation of these units to disparate instruments and instrumental groups. Dahlhaus goes further than presenting this technique as a mere instance ofKlangfarbenmelodie, however, and argues that Webern practices here what he calls “analytic instrumentation”.102He contends that from the way in which We-bern copies the original melodic lines into the new lines of the orchestra the com-poser makes clear how he has interpreted—listened to—Bach’s fugue.
Dahlhaus gives one particularly pertinent example of Webern’s “analytic in-strumentation”. He observes that a four-note descending motive part way through Webern’s Bach ricercar is linked to the descending motive at the opening of
97[Szendy, 2007, 36].
98[Szendy, 2007, 6].
99[Szendy, 2007, 36].
100[Szendy, 2007, 60].
101See Bach [1935].
102Dahlhaus [1987].
4 Listening to Keyboard Arrangement
the work by virtue of the fact that the later appearance, rather than being torn apart by the disjunct and rapidly changing instrumentation which prevails at this point, is presented, as in its earlier appearance, whole and unbroken. Since the descending motive part-way through the work is not technically derived from the opening, but is merely similar to it, there is evidence not only that the un-broken presentation of this motive was a calculation on Webern’s part, but that it was a response to his experience of the original work. Because Webern heard the four-note motive during the course of the work as deriving from the four-note motive at its beginning, he orchestrated it as such. As Webern himself explained, the orchestration of the ricercar was made “to reveal its motivic coherence and . . . to indicate the way I feel about the piece.”103
Another arrangement which fulfils Szendy’s requirement of being a signed lis-tening is Luciano Berio’s 1991Rendering per orchestra, his three movement work based on the incomplete sketches for Franz Schubert’s tenth symphony.104 At the time of his death in November 1828, Schubert left behind seven manuscript sheets containing sketches for his tenth symphony in D major. They consist of fragmentary material, presented on a single piano stave, and sometimes only on a single line. Lost, they were rediscovered in 1978, and in at least one case, completed by a modern musicologist.105 In engaging with the sketches, Berio, however, wanted to do something different. Musicologist Thomas Gartmann ex-plains that
Luciano Berio combines inRenderingall of the following approaches:
he presents the material, at the same time making use of that which was rejected; he composes in the style of Schubert; he wilfully com-pletes, but at the same time makes apparent the fragmentary nature of the sketches; he gives his commentary as a contemporary com-poser and makes visible at the same time his distance and nearness to the composition. In this sense the double meaning of the title be-comes clear: ‘rendering’ means not only interpretation, presentation and repetition, but also translation.106
Berio makes it clear inRendering that he does not simply want to complete the work in the style of Schubert. He does this in part by ensuring that it is very obvious when and where he has himself had to compose material in order to bridge the “gaps” which he sees in the original sketches. Thus, Berio orchestrates Schubert’s original draft material in a manner approaching Schubert’s own style (see figure 4.13). At the same time, the passages which he has interpolated make use of an idiosyncratic orchestral timbre which includes the celeste and muted
103Webern, Anton, quoted in Bradshaw, Susan, ‘The Works of Anton Webern,’ Liner Notes,Anton Webern: The Complete Works. Pierre Boulez, Sony Classical, 1991, p.35.
104See Schubert-Berio [1989].
105Newbould [1995].
106“Luciano Berio verbindet inRenderingalle diese Ansätze: Er zeigt das Material vor, verwendet dabei auch Verworfenes, komponiert im Stile Schuberts, ergänzt kräftig, macht teilweise aber auch das Fragment als solches ersichtlich, gibt seinen Kommentar als Komponist der heuti-gen Zeit und macht so zugleich Distanz und Nähe dieser Musik erfahrbar. In diesem Sinne ist auch der doppeldeutige Titel zu verstehen: ‘Rendering’ bedeutet sowohl Interpretation, Vor-trag, Wiedergabe als auch Übersetzung.” [Gartmann, 1994, 129].
tives,harmoniesandtimbresfromanumberofother,completed,lateSchubert works,includingtheB PianoSonataD960andsongsfromDie Winterreise.The resultisadense,almostblanklymonotonesubstance,forwhichBerioprovidesa visualanalogue.
WhenyougotoAssisi,youwillfindbeautifulGiottopaintings,some ofwhicharedamaged.Nowinsteadofhavingthemrepairedbysome stupidpainterwhopretendstobeGiottoandfillsinwhatis missing, theydecidedtoleavethewhite,theconcreteasitwas,whichisvery expressivetoo.Ididthesamething withSchubert.Iorchestrated, completedsomeparts,but wherethesketchesstopIcreatedakind of musicalconcrete,aplaster madeof manydifferentthings, witha totallydifferentsound.ThenyougobacktothenextSchubertsketch. Ihaveanespecialdislikefor musicologists whodecidetocomplete anunfinished work.Ithasbeendone withSchubertpianosonatas forinstance, wherepeopletriedtosqueezeanartificialformoutof thesketches,basingthemonthesonataform.Butthingsdidn’twork thatwayforSchubert.107
Theuseofthiscompositionalconcrete,Berioargues,hasanearlyethicalimport. BerioisnotSchubert;topretendtobe wouldbeimmoral. So wherehesees thesketchesfallsilent,thebesthecandoistocompletethegaps with musical
‘filler’,akindofbindingagent madeoutof motivesandcoloursfrom works composedintheperiodinwhichSchubertwassketchingthetenthsymphony.It isthealternationbetween‘original’andaddedmaterialswhichis,inbothBerio’s RenderingandGiotto’sfrescoes,sopolyvalent(seefigure4.15).
Berio’sRenderingisahighlypersonalattemptto‘render’performab lethesket-chesforSchubert’stenthsymphony.Itisalsoanextremelyidiosyncratic‘hearing’ ofthematerialinthosesketches.Theclearestwaytoappreciatethisistoobserve howBerio’slaying-outofthe materialofthesketchesintoacompleted work differsfromthewayinwhichothers‘hear’thedispositionofthesamecontent. SchubertspecialistHans-JoachimHinrichsen,forinstance ,observesthatthecon-tentofthedraftsisnotnearlyasfragmentaryasotherarrangers,Berioincluded, haveassumed.“[T]hesymphonysketchesoffer,”summarises Hinrichsen ,“de-spitetheirinevitableincompleteness,averyclearandcoherentp ictureofSchu-bert’soverallplan.”108Where,forexample,BerioperceivesholesinSchubert’s notes,Hinrichsen, moreexperiencedinreadingSchubert’scontinuitydraftsand trackingtheirrelationshipstotheirfinishedscores,sees(hears)anindicationfor thereuseofcertainpassages whichhavealreadybeensketched.Infact, H in-richsen,the‘ideal’Schubert-listener,isabletoshowthatthesketchesarealmost entirelycontinuous.109
107[Muller,1996,19].
108“SobietetdennauchdervorliegendeSymphonie-EntwurfinallseinerzwangsläufigenUnvol l-ständigkeitsehr wohleinklaresundzusammenhängendesBildvonSchubertsGesamtplan.”
[Hinrichsen,2002,137].
109SeeHinrichsen[2002].
4 Listening to Keyboard Arrangement
Figure 4.13: Schubert-Berio,Rendering per orchestra, 1991. Berio’s orchestration of Schubert’s sketches.
tween the ‘gaps’ in Schubert’s sketches.
4 Listening to Keyboard Arrangement
Figure 4.15: Berio’s visual analogue for his Rendering per orchestra; Giotto di Bondone, Ascension of Christ, ca. 1300, Fresco, Upper Church, San Francesco, Assisi.
on the part of Berio should be criticised. As he argues, the mistakes which Berio makes with regards “the timing (and location) of the sections turn out to be a fruitful misunderstanding.”110 Regardless, the important point is that by noting that Berio’s analysis of Schubert’s drafts for the tenth symphony differs from that of Hinrichsen’s, it is made clear that Berio’s Schubert rendering is precisely that:
Berio’s. Renderingpresents in musical form an account of the way in which Berio listened to Schubert’s sketches. Hinrichsen concludes that Berio’sRenderingis a
“composed essay on Schubert’s late works”.111 More specifically, after Szendy, it could be described as a composed essay on Berio’s listening to Schubert’s late works.
In the light of these two examples, it might seem that Szendy’s position that arrangements provide evidence for the way that arrangers have listened to an original work is compelling. Despite the rich implications of the view, how-ever, it is not as useful to this investigation as it at first appears. This is be-cause Szendy’s argument only applies to a relatively small number of historical arrangements. These tend to be those made of canonic works by other canonic composers: Busoni’s arrangements of Liszt, Liszt’s arrangements of Beethoven, Wagner’s arrangements of Beethoven, Stokowski’s arrangements of Bach, and so on. Szendy’s model of a great composer creatively rehearing the work of one his forebears, a plastic reintegration of a old work into the new, does not apply to the majority of arrangements, especially those for keyboard produced in the nineteenth century. These were generally made quickly and in large numbers by professional arrangers who had neither the time nor the inclination to respond to the idiosyncrasies of the original sources; they deviated very little from those sources, let alone in ways which might suggest that they were being creatively
‘reheard’; and the sources were normally chosen for purely commercial reasons, not out of an artistic need to respond to their unique musical demands. All of this is to say that these works were conceived, produced and sold in a different aesthetic realm than that which Szendy considers. Although there is a possibil-ity that these kinds of non-canonic arrangements do occasionally contain signs of how an original work was reheard by an arranger, in more general terms it seems that they actually contradict Szendy’s claim thatall arrangements mani-fest listening experiences: where is the evidence, for example, that the arrangers of the non-canonic keyboard arrangements which are the subject of this study ever actually listened to the originals which they arranged (other than perhaps at their own keyboards, already in arrangement)?
While Szendy’s claim that arrangements are written evidence of composer’s aural experiences is not helpful in a study of non-canonic keyboard arrangement of the nineteenth century, arrangement can still be shown to be useful to the histo-rian of listening. This is because it can function as a mirror which reflects listening practices and makes them available to historical enquiry.
The two examples just given of the way in which arrangements can function
110“Der Irrtum, wenn (und wo) er denn tatsächlich vorliegen sollte, erweist sich als fruchtbares Mißverständnis.” [Hinrichsen, 2002, 142].
111“komponierter Essay über Schuberts Spätwerk.” Hinrichsen [2002].
4 Listening to Keyboard Arrangement
as signed ‘listenings’ serve to illustrate this point. In explaining why Webern rewrote Bach in the way in which he did, Dahlhaus has recourse to a quotation by Schoenberg. He argues that
Schoenberg does not, however, claim to understand Bach better than Bach understood himself; rather, he was referring to the development of musical listening. The experience gained from having the motivic structure clarified by the orchestration—an experience which the lis-tener owed to Mahler—could not be forgotten when listening to Bach, in spite of all efforts to think historically.112
Webern, Schoenberg argues, listening after Mahler and used to having contra-puntal argument ‘explained’ by instrumental texture, could not help but hear Bach in this way. His arrangement of Bach reveals how listening practices have changed over time.
The fragmentary nature of Berio’sRenderingalso arguably reveals that certain transformations in listening paradigms have taken place. David Osmond-Smith argues that
Berio’s polemic against the compulsion to complete may well strike a chord with a generation reared less upon the concert-hall, with its enforced concentration upon ‘whole’ works, than upon indefinitely repeatable and interruptible domestic listening. Art-lovers have long been willing to put the fragment or sketch within a frame, and enjoy its sense of the virtual as much as—in some instances more than—
the ’complete’ work that it heralds. Berio’sRenderingasserts the same possibility for music.113
Berio’sRendering, Osmond-Smith believes, only came about in the form in which it did because of developments in domestic listening practices.
Three other authors have made similar points about the value of arrangements in reflecting changes in historical listening practices. Theodor Adorno’s views on listening are summarised in his extremely well-known 1938 essay ‘On the Fetish-Character in Music and the Regression of Listening’.114 He argues that developments in the technological capabilities of sound reproduction have fun-damentally altered listening habits. The easy availability of sound recordings and the near-perfection of their reproduction encourage the listener to consume uncritically the object as it is presented by the recording. The saturation of the market by an object which appears to be nothing less than perfect has a phan-tasmagorical effect, concealing that object’s origin in human labour. The result of this is passive acceptance of the musical work—akin to passive acceptance of Fascist doctrine—and thus a consequent simplification—which he likens to a Freudian regression—of listening ability.
What is notable about Adorno’s argument for this discussion is that while mak-ing it he also criticises a genre which makes use of techniques of arrangement for
112[Dahlhaus, 1987, 182].
113[Osmond-Smith, 1994, 81].
114See Adorno [2002].
the musical work’s dialectical and immanent logic in favour of a merely “culi-nary” presentation of its highlights.
Vulgarisation and enchantment, hostile sisters, dwell together in the arrangements which have colonised large areas of music. The practice of arrangements extends to the most diverse dimensions. Sometimes it seizes on the time. It blatantly snatches the reified bits and pieces out of the context and sets them up as a potpourri.115
In 1930s Europe, the listener’s critical function has been anaesthetised by the purely superficial allure of arrangement and the potpourri.
Adorno’s contention is that because the fractured surface of the potpourri is not dialectically motivated by a subcutaneous logic, it contributes in the 1930s to the regression of listening. Somewhat surprisingly, however, he is keen to defend the use in the Germany of his childhood—in which concert recordings were both rarer and less technologically assured—of another genre which makes use of arrangement: the keyboard edition. In an essay from 1933, he argues that
[i]n an age of the strict division of labour the citizens defended their last music in the fortress of the keyboard, which they kept closely-guarded. . . Even the mistakes which they inevitably made provided
[i]n an age of the strict division of labour the citizens defended their last music in the fortress of the keyboard, which they kept closely-guarded. . . Even the mistakes which they inevitably made provided