Leonard Bernstein: Symphony No. 2,
"The Age of Anxiety" (1949/65)
Analysis by Kyle Gann
Score reductions largely from Leo Smit's two-piano score, but sometimes by the author
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 License.The Symphony No. 2 of Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990), subtitled "The Age of Anxiety," is virtually a piano concerto, for it features a large solo part. It is based on a lengthy, abstract, eponymous 1947 poem by the English poet Wystan Hugh Auden (1907-1973), and its form follows that of the poem. The poem concerns four lonely characters, Quant, Malin, Rosetta, and Emble, who meet in a New York City bar shortly after the end of World War II. In the Prologue they smoke, drink, listen to the radio, ruminate about history and war, and eventually gravitate toward each other and start talking. They talk about the Seven Ages of man, then leave the bar and talk about the Seven Stages of history; these two groups of seven will inspire Bernstein to create a set of fourteen variations. Rosetta suggests going to her apartment for a drink, and the cab ride is given over to a Dirge in which they lament the loss of a colossal father figure. In her apartment they dance, sing, and try to seem happy, performing a Masque which Bernstein depicts in a wild, complex jazz evocation. In the Epilogue they disperse and are alone with their thoughts. Malin melancholically muses,
Age softens the sense of defeat
As well as the will to success,
Till the unchangeable losses of childhood,
The forbidden affections rebel
No more; so now in the mornings
I wake, neither warned nor refreshed,
From dreams without daring...In the preface to the score Bernstein writes:
I was merely writing a symphony inspired by a poem and following the general form of that poem. Yet, when each section was finished I discovered, upon re-reading, detail after detail of programmatic relation to the poem - details that had "written themselves," wholly unplanned and unconscious.
Nevertheless, I will not here attempt to second-guess what details Bernstein had in mind; he didn't specify, and the poem is dense with often inscrutable references.
Bernstein's symphony came under much criticism over the years for its promiscuous mixture of romanticism, jazz, neoclassicism, and modernity. Starting in the 1970s, though, composers such as George Rochberg, William Bolcom, David del Tredici, and others began mixing modern with romantic elements in large works that went under the banner of postmodernism, and such juxtapositions put an end to the previous obsession with stylistic homogeneity. Bernstein was ahead of them all, and the Second Symphony - well unified motivically, tonally, and emotionally despite its stylistic heterogeneity - is long overdue its rehabilitation.
Following the six sections of the poem, "The Age of Anxiety" is officially in six movements, but as the first three proceed without a break and so do the last three, it is experienced as a rare two-movement symphony. As we go through the symphony, be alert to clashes of C and C#/Db, and to the role those pitches have in relation to A minor/major. For instance, Part One begins in a C-major scale, and its concluding phrase starts on A minor, builds up to C# minor, and then ends on a C-natural. Part Two begins with a low C# in the bass; its final theme statement begins in A major and modulates to C# major for the finale. In addition, on a less structural level the major-minor nucleus represented by A-C-C# (what we would call a [034] pitch set in an atonal context), is a generating cell of much of the melodic material as well.
Part One
Prologue -- mm. 1-28The Seven Ages -- mm. 29-277
Var. I -- mm. 29-43
Var. II -- mm. 44-75
Var. III -- mm. 76-111
Var. IV -- mm. 112-150
Var. V -- mm. 151-229
Var. VI -- mm. 230-255
Var. VII -- mm. 256-277The Seven Stages -- mm. 278-640
Var. VIII -- mm. 278-308
Var. IX -- mm. 309-407
Var. X -- mm. 408-431
Var. XI -- mm. 432-509
Var. XII -- mm. 510-525
Var. XIII -- mm. 526-597
Var. XIV -- mm. 598-640Part One consists of a brief Prologue and two sets of seven variations each. This "theme and variations," though, is like none I've ever seen elsewhere, variations without a theme. It has often been noted that, instead of there being a central idea, each variation takes off on a motive from the previous variation, so that the movement is an evolving chain of ideas - much as happens in an intense conversation, each tangent leading to a new topic, and this depicts the conversation Auden's four characters have at the bar. We will find that this more true, however, of "The Seven Ages" than of "The Seven Stages," which is somewhat more conventionally monothematic.
It would be tedious in the extreme to outline all the features of a brief Prologue and fourteen variations in series, so instead I will discuss some features of Part One as a whole before detailing the means of linking the variations. To begin with, there is a quietly dramatic framing device that appears three times. The Prologue is a duet for two clarinets, and at its end comes a remarkable gesture. The clarinets' cadence at m. 20 on G becomes part of a four-note descent in the harp, basses, and bass clarinet: G, F, C, and an unexpected descent down to a low E, like a tumble into the abyss. (The falling minor sixth will play an active role in this symphony.) The flute then enters on an unexpected high D# and leads down an irregular, actually modulating scale as the strings move slowly upwards on chords of fourths. This scale Bernstein describes as "a bridge into the realm of the unconscious."
The bridge returns two more times. One is at the end of Variation I, where the G-F-C-E descent is omitted, and the high D# (now in the harp in octaves) enters over the final A-major triad in the piano. The final return is a bridge between the second and third movements, i.e. the first set of seven variations and the second set. Variation VII, the end of the first set, metamorphoses into a repeat of the end of the Prologue, leading once again to the bridge. This time, however, the piano begins its descent on a D# an octave higher, and the falling line is tripled from 16 to 48 notes, breathtakingly trailing more than six octaves across the keyboard range to end on a quiet C beneath an angelic C-major triad in the flutes and clarinets. In this descent, as in the first two, there are never two half-steps in a row, nor more than two whole-steps. It is a diatonic line of continuous modulation, and notice that the first three woodwind chords in mm. 271-273 momentarily alter the perceived meter by changing on every third beat.
So this recurring bridge frames the first variation and makes a dramatic divide between the two variation sets. We move on now to tonality and harmony, which are sometimes difficult to be specific about here. Bernstein is a composer of tremendous harmonic subtlety, and while the music is rarely markedly dissonant, it can be difficult to discern what key is implied at a given moment. His pandiatonicism is similar to Aaron Copland's, but far more nuanced by changing chromatic notes and incomplete modulations. No list of keys alluded to by the different variations would do justice to the music's tonal flexibility (though we'll attempt a partial one later), and a few relatively clear examples will make the point better.
Out of the first part's 640 measures, the opening Prologue lasts only 28. It opens with a quiet duet for two clarinets, one starting on B, the other on F, lasting 19 measures.
The key would seem to be C major, but as the upper clarinet begins four of its seven phrases on B, the modal center remains in doubt, and tends toward Locrian mode, though there are three cadences on C with G or E. The only accidentals are F# and Bb, the latter only occurring in the fourth and fifth phrases, nudging the tonality now toward G, now toward F, but always returning to the C diatonic. The sixth and seventh phrases begin with the same notes as the third, as a kind of return.
Let's move next to Variation III, which is one of the most normal sounding in terms of its tonality. First of all, Variation II ends by stating its motive in the clarinet and harp on the notes E-A-D-B. It is brilliant of Bernstein to begin his next melody with this same motive transposed up a major third (from A to C#; a lesser musician might have settled for the echo at same pitch).
Pardon the amount of detail needed, but see if you can follow this description in the example below. The theme at m. 76 seems to start in C# minor, on a VI chord, moving to a i chord with the second scale step in the melody, confirmed by the octave C# drop in the bass. The motive is repeated, only the D# is now replaced by E#, seeming to presage a move to the key of F#; likewise, the middle-voice B suspension resolves to A# rather than A, supported by a D# in the bass. Measures 79-80, however, restore the E-natural, seemingly canceling the move to F#.
In mm. 80-81 once again the bass leaps upward again from C# to A, but instead of resolving to G# it now goes to G-natural, which the appearance of F# minor in m. 82 makes us retroactively interpret as a Neapolitan. No sooner have we reached the forecast F# minor, though, than an apparent V of C# comes at m. 83, followed by a V of D# (both sounding more like dominants for being in first inversion), and then a B minor triad. This phrase repeats at mm. 86-88, respelled, and instead of B minor for a close we get E minor - which, with the G rising to G#, leads back to a repetition of the whole passage staring in C# minor again. (And why, in m. 86, the inner G and Bb for an Ab triad?)
Within this passage we've had triads on C#, F#, G#, D#, B, E, and so it seems that we're playing around within the world of C# minor, from which we seem to be modulating, but no modulation ever quite reaches its goal. Later, the third phrase, for solo strings at m. 102, begins with the inversion of the theme and seems to move from the key of C# to that of A, though its final note is again C#.
One of the most amazing technical tours-de-force in the symphony is Variation VIII, based as it is entirely on a six-note ostinato highlighting the downward minor sixth leap, Db-C-Db-F-Gb-Ab.
The melody is pretty securely in C major/minor, and the presence of both Db and Ab plus C and F in the ostinato means that the music sounds alternately tonal and bitonal beat by beat. It's easy to perceive the ostinato on its own as being in Db major, but the C and F support the melody, and the Db is easily heard as a Neapolitan scale degree at times. In addition, Bernstein brilliantly throws in a little chromatic internal melody easily heard as being in either key and going back and forth between major and minor in both. For me this is one of the most intelligent and subtle essays in bitonality in the entire musical repertoire.
Variation IX is a somewhat self-contained movement that reveals Bernstein's harmonic proclivities well. First, its opening Db crescendos over the increasing C major of variation VII rather thrillingly, creating an expectation of excitement. The six-note ostinato is expanded into a longer waltz theme (at least, Bernstein writes "In modo di Walzer," though it's a little hard imagining dancing to this). As in so many of his (and Copland's) melodies, this one runs through a triad foreign to the key, Fb major in this case, and in the process creating a major-minor pitch motive - Fb-Db-F-Ab (mm. 316-318) - which will become prominent later in the Dirge. At m. 320 the tonality shifts upward a major second into Eb, adding a little chromatic motive which will continue. The line that leads downward from this returns the key to Db, but then it cadences on a B dominant 7th with a dissonant C that will turn into C-B-C-E - the Db-C-Db-F motive a half-step lower. It resolves upward to start the waltz again in Db.
At m. 347 the extended theme is played by the orchestra in block chords, petering out with a few chromatic motives, and then stops. Next (m. 356) comes another of Bernstein's middle sections in C major, the theme played in innocent thirds but turning again to Eb major. A recap of the C major now leads back to the B dominant 7th (m. 370); thus even though the first section is in Db and the second in C, both veer into the chords of Eb major and B dominant 7th. This time, however, the B dominant resolves for awhile into E major.
In the following section (mm. 372-387) the piano articulates E major, but the orchestra keeps climbing through triads on G-natural for a major-minor touch, as earlier the Db was interspersed with Fb.
At. m. 388 a series of block chord or octave statements of the waltz theme (extended to varying lengths) start on C, then Eb, F, Gb, C, and Db, the last bringing the variation to a halt, and ending with the G-Ab-Dd that will begin Variation X.
Now let us go through the thematic route of the fourteen variations, by looking at which motive each takes from its predecessor. The Prologue is dominated by one motive, which occurs no fewer than seven times with slight variations of rhythm and contour. The final occurrence, following the bridge, is transposed downward a minor sixth from the opening version.
Opening quietly in C#, Variation I, for piano solo, uses this motive in two of its four phrases, nearly identical. Note that the second chord here, B-A-F#, sounds likely to be a dominant of the relative minor E, but when the D in the upper melody turns out to be natural rather than sharp, it becomes a ii diminished-7th chord of A, modulating to that key instead - one of Bernstein's elegant modulatory sleights of hand.
Variation II doesn't take its generating motive from the piano solo in Variation I, but rather from the "bridge to the subconscious" that acts as a transition between them. This variation is made up of descending modulatory-diatonic scales at both eighth-note and 16th-note speeds at once (I have marked the whole-steps as 2 and the half-steps as 1). Note that except for the first two at mm. 44 and 46, none of the other versions of this motive is identical; they differ in minute ways that have no clear harmonic motivation that I can see.
In addition, Variation II contains two other motives. One, at first as accompaniment, comes back alone at the end of the variation, and will figure in Part Two as well.
There is another, even more prominent motive that starts out as accompaniment at m. 48 and becomes more and more foregrounded as the variation proceeds. As we have already seen, slowed down and with its rhythm altered, it will be the seed for the romantic melody of Variation III, and its first four notes in eighth-notes will continue through Variation IV as well.
Several of the variations have contrasting middle sections, including II, IV, V, VI, X, and XI (plus the Dirge), and several of these contain passages of uninflected C major. In this case both the bridge motive and this latter one appear in pure accidental-free C major in mm. 59-62 - before shifting to C# at m. 63.
Variation III, as we have seen, plays the melody drawn from this theme twice, and then has a partly inverted version of that theme (m. 102) for solo string quartet. One motive of the theme, with a 3+3+2 rhythm, will provide the idea for Variation IV's theme in 5/8. Notice that the latter theme mixes around its perfect fifths and perfect fourths, making a subtle different between the two statements.
Variation IV is a small ABA form, except that a little of the B section returns after the second A. The first four notes of the Variations II/III theme return as orchestral accompaniment at m. 120, and then take over the B section.
Notice a motive in the strings (middle staff) of C-Eb-B-C: this, reduced to 16th-notes, will become the generating motive of Variation V.
That motive gives rise, in Variation V, to a short theme that is basically tonal but chromatic. The next example gives the skeleton for most of the first half in terms of their appearances; omitted here are the 16th-note chords in between melody notes, which more or less provide chords commensurate with the momentary tonality of the theme, but sometimes with dissonances thrown in. The rhythm is variable at the beginning of each statement, and at m. 177 a phrase comes in that continues as a secondary motive.
A brief middle section (mm. 191-203) is based on a theme leaping around the keyboard which is actually mostly a chromatic scale with octave displacements. Afterward the variation's main theme picks up where it started, in Eb.
Variation V ends repetitively with a motive of pitches F#-A-B, which the flute keeps playing after the rest of the orchestra stops. It is with these notes that brief, delicate Var. VI begins, scored for only the solo piano. In the example, mm. 230-236 constitute the entire A section of the variation, and they are repeated verbatim for the second A section. The melody's augmented and diminished octaves are probably inspired by the previous variation's B section, and note that in the pairs of chords the bass note of each is always dissonant with the other chord, as though they are at cross-purposes.
The B section of this short passage is a quiet duet of piano lines, reminiscent of the Prologue though still with some ninth and seventh leaps, and tentatively moving from A minor to A major. After a return of the A section, Variation VII simply opens with a near-quotation from the middle section of Var. VI, then morphs into the last two phrases of the Prologue, followed by the 48-note "bridge to the subconscious" we've already looked at.
The third movement, "The Seven Stages" (Variations VIII through XIV) is not quite the same kind of series of consecutive links as the second movement. Five of the seven variations play off of the Db-C-Db-F-Gb-Ab ostinato introduced in Var. VIII, tending to make it progressively longer; this ostinato has no obvious source in the previous movement, but we have had some emphasis on the falling minor sixth. Variation IX turns the motive into its longer waltz tune, and repeatedly inserts an Fb-major triad into its Db-major tonality. The middle section then transforms the theme into a momentary pure C-major continuum, much as happened in the middle of Variation II. Mercurial Variation XII normalizes a longer version of the theme, using it in a modulatory manner, turning from E major to Eb major to B minor (Copland's "modulatory theme" in the first and third movements of his slightly earlier Third Symphony works similarly). Variation XII makes a quasi-fugue from statements of the first seven notes in half-notes, finally overlaid by the entire fifteen-note theme (from Var. XII) in quarter-notes. The final Variation XIV is little more than a quick coda, starting with the theme, and stating its first seven notes in both inverted and original forms (mm. 624-636) at its climax.
Variations X and XI diverge from this pattern. The former seems to take off from the fifth through seventh notes of the ostinato, because it makes up its textures mostly from motives of a rising half-step and falling fifth, beginning in the piano in a canon in virtual 7/4 meter.
The middle section of this variation consists of a repetitive lick in the piano over a series of left-hand leaps that will become the subject of the subsequent variation; and notice the orchestra returning to the ostinato in Db underneath.
The leaping intervals that develop through Variation X give rise to a similarly leaping theme in Variation XI. If the reader will concede that this first statement is in C major/minor, ending on the leading tone, then the theme is repeated quite straightforwardly afterward (though with the long rests shortened by a measure) in the piano in E (m. 444), then by the strings in Eb (m. 453), then by the winds and harp in G (m. 462), with upper lines in the piano suggestive of the middle section of Variation X. Two possible models for this melody come quickly to mind: the fugue subject of the middle movement of Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms (1930), and the theme of the fast section of the third movement of Copland's Third Symphony (1946), whose final phrase is a converging wedge motive much like Bernstein's. Surely Bernstein was so aware of these two works that this must virtually be considered an homage to both composers.
After m. 470 Bernstein continues to play with these motives, with one more verbatim statement of the theme in the trumpet in the original key of C at m. 493.
After this, Var. XII is almost entirely for piano solo (plus a few octaves in the flute and strings), returning to the main Part Two melody as seen above, harmonized by chords that support, sometimes ambiguously, the changing tonality. A new motive is added, heavily suggested by much of the 2/4 figuration so far, that will feature heavily in Var. XIV.
The piano continues playing Var. XII through the first eleven measures of Var. XIII. This latter is a virtuoso contrapuntal passage in which the orchestra plays the seven-note version of the theme (C-B-C-E-F-G-C) and the fifteen-note version (E-D#-E-G#-A-B-E-F#-G-Bb-Eb-G-F#-D-B), the former in half-notes and the latter almost always in quarter-notes until the end, in counterpoint with each other. The example gives the entire variation in terms of its thematic content. Three times the fifteen-note theme is played in rhythmic canon at a one-measure rhythmic interval, in Ab (m. 565), in Eb (m. 572), and in F (m. 579). Finally, at m. 586, the orchestra plays most of the fifteen-note theme in half-note chords, while the bass instruments play its inversion.
Brief Variation XIV starts with the fifteen-note theme in octaves, followed by the syncopated motive newly introduced in Var. XII in the orchestra and then piano. From m. 610 to 623 tremolo strings, joined first by the winds and then piano, play a crescendoing buildup of motives from the theme, and at m. 624 the orchestra returns with a climactic inversion of the seven-note theme. After some static figures from earlier variations pitting F# major against C major, the piano and orchestra together veer through a cadence on minor triads on A, Eb, E, Eb, and C#, crashing down to a final C-natural.
Part Two
The Dirge -- mm. 1-79
12-tone row -- mm. 1-4
Dirge -- mm. 5-26
Middle section -- mm. 27-63
Dirge -- mm. 64-75
Mid-section remembered -- mm. 76-79The Masque -- mm. 80-392
First half -- mm. 80-204
Second Half -- mm. 204-354
Bridge -- mm. 355-382The Epilogue -- mm. 383-505
Transition -- mm. 383-412
Major and minor themes -- mm. 413-466
Piano solo -- mm. 460-483
Final theme -- mm. 484-505Throughout his career Bernstein expressed little sympathy for the twelve-tone idiom, and when he occasionally uses a twelve-tone row himself (as in the Kaddish Symphony), it is meant to depict anguish and disorder. Part Two and its opening Dirge begin with a twelve-tone row in the piano, with one pitch (A) repeated motivically. All is clearly not well.
The row, in order of the notes' appearance and with spellings simplified, is E B D# G C# A# D F# A C Ab F, containing two augmented triads and ending with four notes constituting F major/minor; these last four notes will become a melodic motive for the movement. The fact that the low C# lies outside the ascending sequence means that it will be moved around in subsequent statements, and used as a bass note in chords drawn from the row. Bernstein never applies any of the usual twelve-tone transformations (inversion, retrograde, transposition) to the row. It will appear again at mm. 14, 15, and 64 in slightly altered forms, and as a chord in the strings at m. 79 as preparation for the Masque movement. The idea of ascending twelve-note collections will continue in mm. 16-19, but there Bernstein abandons the row and uses chains of ascending fourths or whole-tone collections in its place. He clearly had no interest in serial manipulations.
Twelve-tone material notwithstanding, Stravinsky's Le sacre du printemps seems a more obvious influence here than anything by Schoenberg. The underlying material for the A sections of the Dirge's ABA form is a dense chorale moving between F# minor seventh and F major seventh with a very simple modal melody on three notes - B, C#, D - and Bernstein keeps repeating the same figures in slightly altered rhythmic configurations, very much as Stravinsky does in his 1913 work.
The figure runs from mm. 5-10, and in mm. 11 to 13 it is moved up or down a half step. Over it is placed the primary melody for the A sections, first in a high octave in the piccolo doubled by the piano in octaves and with quasi-grace-note decorations (though notated rhythmically). Though the first four pitches are the last four of the row; note that this angular melody uses every pitch except Bb and B; it is not itself twelve-tone.
At m. 14 this melody is repeated in the strings, accompanied by the piano repeating its twelve-tone ascents (though only the first two follow the row as given at the beginning). At m. 20, the orchestra plays the dense chorale figure for five more measures, louder and with an extra dissonant high Bb added, and with some transposition in the final two measures. A transition in mm. 24-26 has the strings outlining lines on a motive of a descending minor third, half-step, and minor third - drawn from the last four notes of the row, C-A-Ab-F - coming to rest on a low octave E to begin the B section.
This B section is the piece's most freely rhapsodic passage, a piano solo in dotted rhythms, accompanied only lightly by the cellos and violas. The primary motive employs the downward minor sixth, and seems to stem from the Db-C-Db-F motive of "The Seven Stages," transposed to B-A#-B-D#.
The melody moves into the bass, whereupon much of the texture consists of repeated right-hand dyads interlocked with a free left-hand melody. At first the music moves among keys pandiatonically, from B to C Lydian, to C# Dorian, to D Dorian, at which point it has repetitive phrases going out of phase with each other.
At m. 49 the left hand begins introducing the major/minor motive from the final four notes of the twelve-tone row, and the music gradually becomes louder and more dissonant.
The solo crescendos in dynamics, leap-size, and dissonance until it lands on a C# at m. 64, whereupon the orchestra dramatically builds up the twelve-tone row from the bottom. The next two climactic measures almost seem taken from Le sacre: the orchestra pounds away at the twelve-note chord in the rhythm of the earlier dense chorale. (Bernstein indicates in the score that the winds, whose notes are actually tied, are supposed to make exaggerated crescendos and decrescendos every eighth-note to achieve the pp/ff effect.)
From here the chorale motive pares down to its original texture and is transposed to a few different levels, with the bass notes moving chromatically from D up to G#. At m. 70 the violins bring back the long melody from mm. 9 and 15, now transposed from A to C#. A couple of added phrases bring the movement to rest on a C# drone, above which the piano begins playing its B section motive in A, its final phrase moving to C# major - in what I think must be a conscious echo of the A major/minor in the B section of Variation VI.
Then the strings sustain the twelve-tone chord pianississimo one last time, as the cymbal and snare drum begin a jazz rhythm to begin the Masque.
The Masque
The fifth movement was apparently the first to be written [Philip Gentry, "Leonard Bernstein's The Age of Anxiety: A Great American Symphony during McCarthyism," American Music, Vol. 29, No. 3 (Fall 2011), p. 316], which makes sense given that it is the longest section and the most elaborate by far; of the entire piece's 1145 measures, it occupies 313. It depicts the four protagonists back at Rosetta's apartment, drinking and doing the best they can to have a good time, as Rosetta and Emble dance and begin to neck; eventually Malin and Quant leave, but as the two new aspiring lovers fall into bed, Emble lapses into a drunken sleep and Rosetta muses on the emptiness of the evening. The music is a huge whirligig of jazz evocation, but if we break it up into eight ideas, some melodic and others transitional or framing, we can turn it into a coherent picture.
The first, which we'll call A, is the tentative beginning of a jazz quasi-improvisation, based on a motive A-B-D-C#-B in the piano. It enters at m. 80 (starting with two bars of jazz percussion before the motive enters), reappears at m. 205 with an offbeat Eb octave in the piano as the xylophone, celeste, and harp take over the previous right-hand notes, and finally in a more dissonant variation at m. 366, with the motive transposed to D-E-G-F#-Eb.
This motive is used for much of the free development in the movement, and there are two passages (mm. 236-258 and 369-377, almost identical) in which the A contour is repeated and expanded while leaping notes on either side spell out a syncopated rhythm.
Idea A is initially followed by idea B, an improvisatory-sounding beginning of a jazz tune that never stabilizes anywhere, over 3/8 repeated left-hand patterns. Its first entrance is at m. 89 and reappears at m. 215. It is characterized by the dissonant seconds that American classical composers resort to when they depict the stride piano style, but that I haven't found much when listening to stride piano itself. (I've often wondered if they received their impression of the style from listening to stride piano at parties where the slightly inebriated soloist missed notes.)
The C idea behaves more like a real theme and appears eight times in consecutive pairs, gradually lengthening at first, and going into triplet 16th-notes at the fifth and sixth appearances. It is accompanied in the left hand by static ostinatos outlining a 3/8 meter. There is a tendency (which we find in Copland and Harris as well) for the line to run up through one key and down through another.
Idea D is an interruption of idea C, so tied with it that one could consider them parts of the same idea, and indefinitely extendible for transitions. Its second pattern of a chromatic scale with octave displacements seems related to Variation V from the second movement.
Idea E is also extendible and used for transitions. it is simply an alternation in swung triplets between two notes a half-step apart, a kind of holding pattern. At its first appearance, mm. 137-147, it leaps through different registers on the piano, creating tension for the grand melody of idea F. Its second appearance at mm. 265-269 is merely a brief transition. Its Db-E-F pitch set is another manifestation of the major-minor cell (more often A-C-C#) that runs through the piece.
Idea F is the grand melody in which the movement seems to culminate. Its first notes, playing jazzily between F major and minor, stem from the last four notes of the Dirge's twelve-tone row, and despite remaining in 2/4 meter throughout, it is quite rhythmically fluid. For instance, the opening motive returns after 13 eighth-notes, twice, and then its more delicate second part plays with motives mostly five eighth-notes in length, varied by seven and three; the first half of the tune lasts twelve measures, the second ten. The theme enters in the piano in F at m. 148, then is taken up by piano and orchestra together in C at m. 190 (without its second half). It returns in the second half at m. 298, played by the orchestra with the piano taking over the second half, and then the first half, with its penultimate phrase thrice repeated, becomes the big C-major climax at m. 340.
Idea G is a nervous alternation of major thirds in 7/8 meter, inching upward by whole steps. It follows the second half of idea F at m. 170 and again at m. 320. Starting in the final Episode movement it will reappear several times in the orchestral piano, as a kind of evocation of Rosetta's party in the distance.
Idea H is simply the climactic cadence of the first and second halves at mm. 259 and 378.
Let's see, now, if we can string these ideas together and make sense of the over all form.
mm. 80-90: Idea A
mm. 90-102: Idea B
mm. 103-109: Idea C
mm. 110-119: Idea D
mm. 120-127: Idea C
mm. 128-136: Idea D extended and developed
mm. 137-147: Idea E, first on E-F, leaping around the piano to C and B
mm. 148-169: Idea F in F
mm. 170-189: Idea G, rising ever higher
mm. 190-204: Idea F, first half only, in Cmm. 204-215: Idea A, slightly varied
mm. 215-227: Idea B, as before
mm. 228-235: Idea C, now in 16th-note triplets
mm. 236-258: The Idea A motive developed with leaping bass notes
mm. 259-264: Idea H
mm. 265-269: Idea E as a brief transition
mm. 270-276: Idea C much as before
mm. 277-282: Idea D much as before
mm. 283-289: Idea C, developed
mm. 290-297: Idea D, developed and extended
mm. 298-319: Idea F in F
mm. 320-339: Idea G, as before plus with Idea F played by the harp
mm. 340-354: Idea F, first half only, in Cmm. 355-366: Idea A varied, more dissonant, on D instead of A
mm. 366-368: References to Idea B
mm. 369-377: The Idea A motive developed with leaping bass notes
mm. 378-382: Idea H, variedWe can arrange all these letters, grouping them to bring out repeating configurations, as
Looking further, we can see that the following sections are more or less recapitulated:
AB -- mm. 80-102 correspond to mm. 205-227
CDCD -- mm. 103-136 correspond to mm. 270-297 (with variations)
FGF -- mm. 148-214 correspond to mm. 298-354In short, the movement falls into two large parts, mm. 80-204 and 204-354 respectively, each containing ideas ABCDCDFGF, except that in the first part the E idea is inserted between CDCD and FGF, and in the second CAHE is inserted between AB and CDCD. Then, at m. 365 the movement seems to start over again, more frenetically, but stays around the A idea and quickly leads to climactic Idea H again. Twice the movement starts tentatively with Idea A and works its way through C and D to climactic statements of the Idea F theme in F going through Idea G in Db to a final statement of Idea F (first half only) in the key of C; and then the movement feints at starting over again before an abrupt halt. It's hardly a simple form, but the parallels among the succession of ideas are more easily perceived than charted out.
The Epilogue
Nothing in the Masque movement stands in for Rosetta's sad, quiet soliloquy at the end of that section of the poem, nor does anything in Auden's Epilogue provide a foundation for Bernstein's optimistic apotheosis. Overall both poem and symphony are classic examples of post-war, 1940s film-noir cynicism, but while Auden could pursue the mood to its nihilistic end, Bernstein felt a Hollywoodish need to provide a happy ending - possibly primarily because people do not applaud at the end of a poem as they do at the end of a symphony. Bernstein's Epilogue, thankfully, is far less complicated than his Masque, and lushly romantic. His original idea was to omit the piano entirely, removing the soloist's subjective role from the picture, but in 1965 he decided that subtracting the soloist created an imbalance, and he added some piano solos that both recapitulate orchestral material from this movement and recall moments from the work's beginning.
Recap of Idea H -- mm. 383-386
Return of Idea G, with new theme in background -- mm. 387-412Minor-key theme with Prologue references -- mm. 413-419
Major key theme in C -- mm. 420-424
Minor-key theme in piano -- mm. 425-431
Major-key theme in A -- mm. 432-435
Piano continues minor-key theme material -- mm. 436-443
Major-key theme in E -- mm. 444-451
Major-key theme in F -- mm. 452-459Piano cadenza -- mm. 460-483
Climbing motive leading to Var. II motives -- mm. 460-466
Minor-key theme -- mm. 467-475
Recap of Prologue material -- mm. 476-483Major-key theme in A -- mm. 484-491
Major-key theme in C# -- mm. 492-505In the score, the Epilogue begins by reiterating a form of Idea H from the Masque; the listener might be forgiven for considering this still part of the preceding movement. Measures 387-412 are likewise transitional, as the orchestral piano continues playing Idea G, evoking the forced gaiety of the party, as in the background a lone trumpet plays the perfect fourths (Db-Ab, Ab-Eb) of what I am going to call the major-key theme, avoiding a rather obvious temptation to impose my own spin by calling it the hope theme, or faith theme, or redemption theme, or something. This movement also has a minor-key theme, which shifts to C minor after Idea G's Db, and a pattern of ascending through thirds (and triads) that I will call the climbing motive. All of this new material is exposed in the first twelve measures of the movement proper, mm. 413-424. Yet it is not all new material, for the minor-key theme at m. 413 is quite audibly based on the Prologue motive from the beginning of the work, now turned from melancholy to an aching bitterness, and with its final rising third stretched to a dramatic tenth.
The climbing motive's basic pattern climbs through triplet triads to rise to a seventh, and then starting from the seventh to repeat a third higher, sometimes dropping down a fifth and back up as though to gain momentum. The minor-key theme resolves into this more comforting figuration, which starts to contrapuntally pervade the major-key theme as well.
The major-key theme, simply descending by innocent perfect fourths, threatens to out-Copland Copland, and not only because of the fourths (though one also thinks of the G-C fourths in the melody to Variation VIII). Notice the rising Lydian scale in the lower voice that always manages to end on the sixth scale degree, keeping each cadence just a little off-balance - another Coplandy touch. In fact, in mm. 452-459, where the climbing motive plays above falling fourths in the brass at different pitch levels, it almost sounds as though Bernstein has written his theme over an early passage of Copland's Third Symphony. "What is left, it turns out, is faith," Bernstein writes of this theme (not an Auden quote) in his preface to the score, and as it develops it will add a note of lush romanticism that does seem incongruous with the metropolitan acerbity of the rest of the score. Yet we have evidence that Bernstein intended this final dash of romanticism as irony. "My original idea," he later remarked, "was to produce a mockery of faith, a phony faith," [interview with Philip Ramey, 1975, quoted in Meryle Secrest, Leonard Bernstein: A Life (New York: Knopf, 1994), 175] and he told a friend, "the last movement is strictly Warner brothers." [Peyser, Leonard Bernstein, 184.] Still, I find no perceptible mockery of the theme in the score, no dissonance to undercut its seriousness. However Bernstein meant it, it seems genuine if perhaps misplaced. Ever since I was a teenager, I've always heard it as a kind of homage to Copland, who was such an important mentor for him. But it does rather sound like a jump backwards in music history, and a glorious rural sunrise following an inebriated evening at a seedy New York bar.
In any case, the major-key theme appears at m. 420 in C, at m. 432 in A, at m. 444 in E, and then at m. 484 in a long extended form starting in A again and modulating to C# major, in which the piece ends (key of not the Prologue, but of the first variation). The first such instance is followed (m. 424) by the piano playing the minor-key theme and evolving into the climbing material, and so does the second at m. 435. The third undergoes some development in the orchestra, as the strings increasingly climb through the climbing figure over the rest of the orchestra's fourths and Lydian scales. This approach to a climax breaks off abruptly, and the piano cadenza added in 1965 follows.
In this the piano (mm. 460-462) plays a few angry gestures based on the climbing motive, but quickly resolves into two motives quoted in decrescendo from Variation II. It then launches into the minor-key theme again (m. 478), in the same C minor as the orchestra's original version, following it almost exactly except for twice repeating the final gesture. Finally it morphs (m. 476) into an almost exact quotation of its solo in Variation I, an octave higher (and spelled in flats rather than sharps), as in the background the orchestral piano plays distant phrases from the Masque's Idea G, its party music; thus the opening melancholy and attempt at enjoyment are recollected together in memory.
From here on (m. 484) the orchestra seeps pianissimo back into the major-key theme, developing it in the Warner Bros. manner Bernstein cynically refers to. The bass on a drone A moves downward starting at m. 489 to C# - just as the piano solo in Variation I started in C# and modulates twice, and finally, to A.
At m. 502 the piano has one last chord before the orchestra's triumphant cadence on an added-sixth C# major chord. The added sixth was a standard feature of Swing Era big-band music, and acquired for the classical ear a rather tawdry association (Messiaen has been criticized for being fond of it). Having heard it for years in Messiaen, Harris, and Bernstein before I was exposed to Swing Era music, I've never had any trouble with it. It sounds joyous.
Virgil Thomson, in his 1950 New York Herald Tribune review, referred to the Masque as being "in the jazz style known as 'Harlem party piano."... Then comes a finale out of Strauss's Death and Transfiguration." This is the complaint that has long dogged The Age of Anxiety, from which I believe the advent of postmodernism at least partly absolves it. Thomson also writes, "The work does not hold inevitably the musical attention. Its form is improvisatory. Its melodic content casual, its harmony stiff, its contrapuntal tension weak." ["On the Whole, Derivative," New York Herald Tribune, February 24, 1950; reprinted in Tim Page, ed., Thomson: Music Chronicles 1940-1954 (New York: The Library of America, 2014), p. 791.] He rather pompously mentions that he's read through the score, but I've now spent fifty years living with the score to his one (at most), and while I understand why it wouldn't have suited his proclivities (he fawned over the neoclassicists and hated Sibelius) I completely disagree with him. Though there is certainly much intuitive composing and evocation of improvisation in the work, I am impressed by the solidness of its harmonic structure. Not every passage in the work is clear or stable as to tonality, but let's look at how much of the large-scale harmonic form we can be certain about:
Prologue --- C major (A minor)
Var. I --- C#, modulating twice to A
Var. II --- variable, but returning to D# minor
Var. III --- C# minor, turning to A in third (inversion) phrase
Var. IV --- Ambiguous
Var. V --- Eb minor and wandering
Var. VI --- Ambiguous, A minor to major in middle
Var. VII --- A minor/major ending on C
Var. VIII --- C/Db bitonal
Var. IX --- Db
Var. X --- Possibly Db
Var. XI --- C, then wandering
Var. XII --- E, then wandering
Var. XIII --- C, then wandering
Var. XIV --- A to start; final cadence starts on A, goes up to C#, crashes on CDirge --- Low C#; theme in A; middle section wandering; A to C# at end
Masque --- Ambiguous; jazz tune (C) always in C; climax tune in F, Db, C (twice)
Epilogue --- Minor theme in C; Major theme in C, A, E, A, modulating to C#There aren't many different keys there, but you will have noticed, I hope, that there is an awful lot of switching between C and C#/Db, most explicitly in Var. VIII where they're heard at the same time. There's a lot of A minor changing to A major, which happens by moving C to C#. I'm tempted to say the piece is a clash between C and C#, with A as the mediating key, and an ambiguity between major and minor is found in much of the material. In fact, if we keep the passages in the key of A in mind as reference points, it's almost as though Bernstein conceived structurally of Part One, beginning and ending on C, as the (conceptually, not literally) minor movement and Part Two, with C# at the beginning and end, as the major one. The facility with which he confidently modulates back to restate former themes in their original keys is quite impressive.
The piece starts nominally in C, to which key the "bridge to the subconscious" returns twice. The way in which the Dirge remains grounded on a low C#, finally ending in that key after spending much time in A is masterful, and later the final theme makes its way from A back to that same C#. The Masque manages to evoke the same keys for the same material, ending its two halves with the succession F-Db-C. The chain of motives in "The Seven Ages" is effective and original, evoking a common conversational experience, while "The Seven Stages" lightly imposes a more traditional structure by relating everything back to the Db-C-Db-F motive. Several of the variations have in common a more relaxed middle passage in diatonic C major. In short, this is not an improvisatory form at all, but one whose composer kept long-range tonal associations clearly in mind throughout.
Plus, overall, I find this symphony more remarkable for its harmonic subtlety than any other I'm analyzing in this collection. Copland's modulations are clear to the point of being almost formulaic, Harris's are a little chaotic but it's generally possible to figure out how he's thinking. Bernstein often manages to keep his tonality ambiguous but pleasantly so, and at the end to keep returning to the tonalities that frame the work. I wouldn't make the claim that this is a better symphony than the Thirds of Ives, Copland, and Harris, but it certainly deserves a place among them, and it has often been denied that.
Copyright 2019 Kyle Gann
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