Motivic Design and Physical Gesture in Laprs-midi dun faune

Edward D. Latham
Esther Boyer College of Music, Temple University, USA elatham@temple.edu

Joellen Meglin
Esther Boyer College of Music, Temple University, USA joellen.meglin@temple.edu

In: R. Parncutt, A. Kessler & F. Zimmer (Eds.) Proceedings of the Conference on Interdisciplinary Musicology (CIM04) Graz/Austria, 15-18 April, 2004 http://gewi.uni-graz.at/~cim04/

Background in music theory, analysis and composition. The two theory, Schenkerian theory and pitch-class set theory, have historically incompatible. Nonetheless, they share a common interest in motives 1988). In recent decades, an interest has developed in applying performance (Berry, 1989).

foundational subdisciplines of American music been viewed as mutually exclusive and largely at various levels of musical structure (Forte, the results yielded by both approaches to

Background in physiology and biology (of music). The Hungarian choreographer and dance theorist Rudolf von Laban developed a comprehensive system of dance notation called kinetography, the study of drawing movement (Laban, 1928). Later dubbed Labanotation (Knust, 1979), Labans system became the gold standard of dance notation systems, enabling choreographers to preserve precisely documented scores of their works that could be reconstructed by later generations of dancers without having to rely on the inconsistent memory of individual dancers (Maletic, 1987). Aims. Using an analysis of both Nijinskys reconstructed dance score (Guest and Jeschke, 1991) and Debussys music for Prlude Lapres-midi dun faune as an example, we aim to provide a synthesis of dance and linear analysis whose results differ significantly from those produced by a purely musical analysis (Brown, 1993). In our examination of Nijinsky as choreographer-analyst, we aim to reverse the directional arrow between analysis and performance, establishing the performance as a potential starting point for interpretation. Main contribution. Our paper will present linear-gestural analysis, a synthesis of the insights provided by traditional linear analysis and the analysis of the dance score, as an alternative to traditional forms of musical analysis. Rather than attempting to artificially separate the two analytical processes and simply compare the results side by side, the new analytical method will allow the insights gained from each analysis to interpenetrate and influence the results of the other. In the case of our analysis of Debussy and Nijinskys Faune, this leads to a different interpretation of the work than that offered most recently by music theorist Matthew Brown (1993), one that takes the visual and aural aspects of the ballet equally into account. Implications. By providing a new method for examining choreographed works, we will provide musicologists with the means to create interpretations that are more relevant to the performers that interact with those works on a daily basis. Likewise, our use of performance as a starting point for interpretation will enable musicologists to create new and innovative studies of important works. Both outcomes will positively affect the relationship between musicology and performance.

Music theory has always taken inspiration from other academic disciplines. Until recently, however, most of that borrowing has been from the natural and social sciences, and not, as one might expect, from the humanities or the arts. One need only think of Schenkers tortuous attempts to derive the fundamental principles of his system from the overtone series, or his desire to tout it as an

organic system, to realize the sacred place that the hard sciences have traditionally held in the development of music theory as an academic discipline. In the mid-twentieth century, this affinityfor mathematics, in particularwas amplified by music theorys desire for institutional acceptance. It was only after the pioneering efforts of scholars such as Milton Babbitt, Allen Forte, and others,

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efforts that established it as a reputable and scientific discipline within the academic community, that music theory could allow itself the luxury of looking again to other disciplines for inspiration. Academic security, moreover, came at a price. In order to found itself upon a bedrock of scientific objectivity, American music theory was forced to distance itself from its sister disciplines within the fine and performing arts, including not only composition and performance, but also theater, dance, and the visual arts. Even literary criticism, a longtime friend of music theory (think of Tovey and his purple passages) became estranged as it grappled with postmodernism while theory remained mired in formalism and the music itself. In the last two decades, however, music analysis has become more amenable to influence from at least one artistic discipline, albeit the most academically established onenamely, literature. From Jean-Jacques Nattiez and Robert Hattens appropriation of semiotics to Joseph Straus and Kevin Korsyns application, or misreading, of Harold Blooms theory of influence, linguistics and literary criticism have proven fertile soil for the growth of interdisciplinary approaches in music theory. More puzzling is the comparative dearth of approaches incorporating ideas from the more closely related performing arts disciplines, theater and dance. In his dissertation and in several past conference papers, Edward D. Latham developed an interdisciplinary approach to the analysis of opera that combined musical and dramatic analysis, drawing upon the work of Constantin Stanislavsky, the Russian actor, director, and teacher who co-founded the Moscow Art Theatre (Latham, 2000). He has since expanded this method to include the analysis of musical theater and the Romantic song cycle. It is our intention here to make a first attempt at a similar interdisciplinary analytical approach for ballet, drawing upon the work of the Hungarian choreographer and dance theorist Rudolf von Laban.

himself with the early dance notation system of the eighteenth-century French choreographer Raul-Auger Feuillet, and studying dance, art and architecture. He later moved to Munich, Zrich, and, after enduring persecution under the Third Reich, settled in London. He published ten books on dance, including his Schrifttanz of 1928, his most important and influential work, and founded several dance institutes and organizations. He died in Surrey, England in 1958. The most significant accomplishment of Laban, who is to dance theory what Schenker is to music theory and Stanislavsky is to dramatic theory, was the development of a comprehensive system for the notation of choreography, which he called kinetography, or the study of drawing movement. Later, American proponents of his notational system dubbed it Labanotation, and it rapidly became the gold standard of dance notation systems. As structured by Laban, a kinetogram, or dance score, is written on a three-line staff adapted from the standard five-line staff used in musical notation (Knust, 1979). The second and fourth lines are omitted for the sake of visual clarity, but the insertion of the subsequent symbols is carried out with these hidden lines in mind. The staff is arranged vertically, in order to show forward progression or momentum, but can be rotated ninety degrees to run parallel to the music, if necessary. In the introductory section of his dictionary of Labanotation, Albrecht Knust, one of Labans foremost students and collaborators, provides an elegant outline of the basic aspects of Labanotation: Knust notes that in a dance score, a center line divides the dancers body into left and right halves, with movements performed by the right side of the body (that is, the dancers right) notated to the right and vice versa. Leg movements are notated immediately to the right and left of the center line if they support the weight of the body, as in walking, and in the next column if they do not, as in a gesture like the tendue. Movements of the upper torso and arms are notated in the outer columns. The basic symbols for direction and height are shaded triangles, with direction indicated by the shape of the symbol (as in the triangle pointing to the right), and height indicated by

Laban and Labanotation

Laban was born in 1879 and spent his youth traveling throughout the Austro- Hungarian Empire with his father, a military governor (Maletic, 1987). After abandoning the military academy in which his father had pressed him to enroll, Laban traveled to Paris, familiarizing

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shading (hatched for high, blank with a dot for medium, and filled for low). The length of a particular symbol on the staff represents its duration. Although space does not permit us to expound upon them here, there are eight other categories of symbols, in addition to the direction signs, including position signs, body signs, and relation signs, among others. Perhaps the most interesting of these are the preliminary indications, or presigns given in the choreographical score before the dance begins, two categories of which are likened by Knust to the key signature and clef in musical notation. Nijinsky and dance notation One of the primary purposes of Labanotation is the preservation and reconstruction of historical choreography, the finer details of which would eventually be lost due to the vagaries of the oral tradition of passing them from teacher to student (think of a game of Telephone!). It is for this purpose that Ann Hutchinson Guest and Claudia Jeschke created their dance score for Debussys Prlude laprs-midi dun faune, as choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky (Guest and Jeschke, 1991). Unlike memory-based Labanotation scores that represent the culmination of an oral tradition, however, Guest and Jeschkes score of Faune is a translation of Nijinskys own notated score, which he created in 1915 using a system he developed himself. Intriguingly, Nijinskys system, like Schenkers, borrows elements of musical notation for many if its symbols. Duration of gestures, for example, is indicated using traditional note values on a five-line staff. Based on the Stepanov system taught to him as a student at the Maryinsky Theater School in Russia, Nijinksys system nevertheless includes some significant improvements, including the use of a separate staff for each section of the body, the use of rests for exits and ties to indicate the retention of a particular gesture, and, perhaps most importantly, the use of ascending or descending pitch to indicate the angle or direction of a gesture. Because it is difficult to scan quickly and interpret accurately, however, it is doubtful that Nijinskys system will replace

Labanotation as the primary system of dance notation. Nonetheless, Guest and Jeschkes research into his score for Faune reveals a previously hidden aspect of Nijinskys professional persona: that of the theorist and analyst. It is this aspect of Nijinsky that we wish to explore now, with respect to his score for Laprs-midi dun faune. Afternoon of a Faun: analysis In creating his now-famous interpretation of Debussys Faune, from which musical elements did Nijinsky draw his inspiration, and how does his choreography interact with the music? An examination of Laprs-midi dun faune, the 1867 eclogue by Stephane Mallarm to which Debussys title makes reference, reveals only general correspondence between it and Nijinskys ballet (i.e., the faun as central character, his encounter with the nymphs, and the use of grapes); in its details, the poem differs markedly from the story created by Nijinsky. In the eclogue, the faun meets only two nymphs, for example, not seven, and his subsequent mnage--trois with them has much more explicit and graphic sexual overtones than the comparatively innocent narrative portrayed in the ballet. It is ironic, then, in retrospect, that the ballet, and particularly its closing scene (where the Faun caresses the dress left behind by his Nymph), created such an uproar when it was premiered in Paris in 1912. The disparity between Mallarms and Nijinskys versions of the story highlights an interesting ambiguity in Debussys title: interpreted literally, Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun could signify music that describes an episode prefiguring the fauns afternoon adventures. Perhaps the Faun, inspired by his encounter with the Nymphs as portrayed by Nijinsky, returns later to seek them out, as portrayed by Mallarm. Yet, it is equally possible that the title is meant to infer a more direct connection between the music and Mallarms eclogue, as in music for the afternoon of a faun. It is to Debussys music and Nijinskys choreography that we must turn to give preference to one interpretation or the other. As is often the case with Debussy scholarship, the analytical work that has been done on the Prelude divides into two camps. On the one hand, there are those, chief among them Richard Parks, who would claim it is an early work by Debussy the modernist: they tend to

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minimize its diatonic elements in favor of its motivic intervallic structures and chromaticism and generally prefer pitch-class set theory to tonal theories. On the other hand, there are those, including Felix Salzer, Charles Burkhart, and Matthew Brown, who would argue that it is the work of Debussy the Late Romantic: they tend to maximize its diatonic elements, absorbing as much of its recalcitrant chromaticism as possible with the porous sponge of Schenkerian theory. In the case of the Prelude, we tend to cast our lot with the sponges: in his zeal to unearth complement relations, 4-17/18/19 complexes, and the like (Parks, 1989), Parks seems to overlook a defining feature of the Preludes musical structurenamely, its restless search for, and drive toward, the root-position tonic E major triad that arrives only ar m. 106, four bars from the end of the piece. The Schenkerian studies of the Prelude are largely in agreement on its broad formal and harmonic outlines: each of them chooses E major as the works tonic key, and none of them departs radically from the formal plan proposed most recently by Matthew Brown in 1993. They do differ, however, in both the scope of their analyses and the degree to which they are willing to subsume the B section of the Prelude (which outlines Db Major) under an E-major background structure. Salzer, for example, analyzed only the first thirty measures of the piece, stopping conveniently short of the first major chromatic episode in mm. 31-36 (Salzer, 1962). Burkhart, too, tackles only a portion of the work (mm. 37-55), though his illustration of the chromatic ascent B-C-Db as an enharmonic motivic enlargement of the B-B#C# ascent of mm. 1-2 lays important groundwork for Browns subsequent analysis of the complete piece (Burkhart, 1978). Matthew Browns analysis is by far the most daring. Not only does he analyze almost every bar of the Prelude (mm. 14-20 being the notable exception), he accounts for the thorny chromatic episode of mm. 31-36 by relating it to the two occurrences of the structural dominant that surround it in mm. 30 and 37, and he incorporates Burkharts BC-Db as a transition section to the secondary key of Db major. The key to Browns analytical success is his enharmonic reinterpretation of Db as C#, an upper neighbor to the primary tone B (scale-degree 5) that becomes part of an expanded 5-6-5 melodic progression. C# as upper neighbor to B is also the primary

focus of Salzers analysis of mm. 1-30, and the two analyses complement each other very well. While we find Browns analysis convincing in many respects, it contains four major flaws. First, the 5-line he proposes as a background structure, the entire descent of which takes place in the span of three measures, contains little harmonic support for scale-degree 3. Though he shows scale-degree 3 as supported by the cadential six-four in m. 105, a paradigm well documented by David Beach, the B shown in the tenor is actually an A and a C# in the music, severely weakening the sense of tonic harmony in the first part of the i measure and privileging V9 instead. Second, Brown does not provide an analysis of mm. 14-20, which contain an important secondary theme, and which mark the motion G#-A-A# as a transposed instance of Burkharts ascending chromatic motive, now in a more prominent register. Third, in his eagerness to show Burkharts motive in its most flattering light, he obscures several important structural harmoniesnotably the E-major tonic in m. 39, the Db-major tonic in m. 47, and the dominant of Ab major in m. 50. Finally, his reading of the Db-major section disregards the registral significance of ab2, the head note of the B-section theme, marking it as a cover tone, and assigning greater weight to the inner-voice Db. We would like to suggest an alternative reading of the Prelude as a 3-line. Like Browns reading, ours also depends on an enharmonic transformation: the primary tone G#, prolonged via an upper-neighbor A# in m, 17 and an upper-neighbor A in mm. 23 and 42, becomes Ab at m. 45. Ab is then prolonged by two middleground descents to F (mm. 45-55 and 63-74), and an enharmonically re-spelled lower-neighbor Gb (m. 62). The return of the home key at m. 79 brings with it a prolongation of E, scaledegree 1, via a lower-neighbor Eb, and the eventual reinstatement of G# as primary tone at m. 94. The fundamental line closes to the tonic at m. 106. In addition to accounting for the aurally salient head note of the B-section theme, the 3-line reading incorporates the missing measures 14-20, which, rather than being merely transitional, constitute an important prefiguration of both the bathing theme at m. 37 and the B-section theme at m. 55. These three themes are connected to the opening measure of the Prlude, and to each other, through their prominent use of pitch-

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class set 3-7 [025], the set-class form of Mlisandes motive. The dates of composition for the opera and the ballet overlap: Debussy began working on Pellas et Mlisande in September, 1893 and had finished a complete draft by August 1895; the Prlude was begun in 1891, and premiered in December 1894. Set class 3-7, then, along with set-classes 427 and 5-34, both used extensively in Pellas to signify Golauds passion for Mlisande, can be seen as intertextual symbols of desire, resonating in both works.

rejects the faun again. The culmination of their battle of wills occurs in m. 73, where they finally embrace by linking elbows (see Figure 12). It is important to emphasize that Nijinsky chooses not to have their union occur on the resolution to the Db-major tonic in m. 74. Rather, he acknowledges the unfinished, interrupted nature of their encounterthe other Nymphs enter, Donna Elvira-like, and spoil the Fauns funby breaking the embrace at m. 74. Frustrated, the Faun gestures defiantly at the Nymphs and moves away from the head Nymph. Clearly, Nijinsky was responding not only to Debussys manipulation of tonality and cadence, but also to his motivic use of harmony and very short, almost antiWagnerian, melodic ideas, techniques that were to become a hallmark of Pellas et Mlisande. Although space does not permit us the luxury of doing so here, we believe that undertaking a detailed analysis of the foreground gestures used by Nijinsky in his setting of Faune (the types of steps used for each character, for example) will reveal further correlations, as well as points of disjunction, between the ballets musical and choreographical structure. Like the use of dramatic theory for the analysis of vocal music, the kind of composite analysis we have proposed here has the advantage of being directly relevant to those individuals most intimately acquainted with the works being analyzednamely, the performers and conductors engaged in rehearsing those works, and we hope it may prove useful to the reader as well. References Berry, W. (1989). Musical Structure and Performance. New Haven: Yale University Press. Brown, M. (1993). Tonality and Form in Debussys Prlude Lapres-midi dun faune. Music Theory Spectrum 15/2, 127-43. Burkhart, C. (1978). Schenkers Motivic Parallelisms. Journal of Music Theory 15/1, 120-45. Forte, A. (1988). New Approaches to the Linear Analysis of Music. Journal of the American Musicological Society 41/2, 315-48. Guest, A. & Jeschke, C. (1991). Nijinskys Faune Restored. Language of Dance Series: Vol. 3, ed. Anne Hutchinson Guest. Philadelphia: Gordon and Breach.

In Nijinskys setting of the Prlude, the erotic connotations of 3-7 and 4-27 are made explicit. Whereas for the majority of the opening A section the Faun mimes playing the flute theme onstage, when 4-27, the A# halfdiminished seventh chord, is arpeggiated in mm. 4 and 7 he stops and turns to look offstage, as if checking to see whether his sinuous melody has borne fruit. His longing is expressed in the subsequent arpeggiation of 3-7 as part of the Bb dominant seventh chord in mm. 8-10, as he slowly returns to his original posture. Again, in mm. 14-20, as 3-7 returns in the melody, he puts down the flute, and picks up some grapes as if to devour them. For the most part, the divisions in Nijinskys plot correlate with the large-scale formal divisions proposed by Brown. The Faun begins alone on stage, and is joined by the Nymphs in mm. 21-28. The whole-tone episode in mm. 31-36 creates an appropriately mysterious and exotic atmosphere for the unveiling of the head Nymph, who begins bathing at m. 37. The encounter, and subsequent pas de deux, between the Faun and the head Nymph takes place during the B section, mm. 55ff, and the Faun returns to his rock alone during the A section, at m. 94. What is not shown in Browns formal scheme, however, is Nijinskys response to the cadential evasions in the B section. Though it begins in Db Major, the B Section soon moves to V9 of E major at m. 60. Resolution to the tonic is evaded, however, by a motion to iv64, an A-minor chord in second inversion, at m. 61, which coincides with the head Nymphs first rejection of the Fauns advances. The Faun then leaps into the air in m. 62, beckoning to her again as the harmony shifts to V9 of G major. As this new dominant ninth, enharmonically reinterpreted as being built on Ebb, again evades resolution by moving down by step to a Db-major triad, the Nymph

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Knust, A. (1979). Dictionary of Kinetography Laban (Labanotation), 2 vols. Plymouth: MacDonald and Evans. Laban, R. (1928). Schrifttanz. Wien: Universal Edition. Latham, Edward D. (2000). Linear-Dramatic Analysis: An Analytical Approach to Twentieth-Century Opera. Ph.D. diss., Yale University. Maletic, V. (1987). Body, Space, Expression: The Development of Rudolf Labans Movement and Dance Concepts. New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Parks, R. (1989). The Music of Claude Debussy. New Haven: Yale University Press. Salzer, F. (1962). Structural Hearing: Tonal Coherence in Music. New York: Dover.