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Posted November 28, 2003
I know nothing of the sex life of Tibor Serly (1901–1978) other than what may be suggested by his marriage to the pianist Miriam Molin. But I do know that this author, composer, conductor, violinist and violist enjoyed referring to sex, in public, in a somewhat witty if not overly subtle way. At a retrospective concert of his works in Longview, Washington, near the end of his life, he introduced his string orchestra arrangement of a Gesualdo madrigal by discussing the most dramatic element of Gesualdo's biography. Not only was Gesualdo a great composer, he was a great murderer. He discovered his wife in bed with her lover, and he stabbed them both to death, taking special attention with his knife to those parts of their bodies that most offended him.
This comment, spoken by a well-dressed little old man on stage before an orchestra, got a chuckle from the audience. Then the music started: no more laughter. And I don't think sex was on the minds of most members of the audience: Gesualdo and Serly had transported us beyond earthly delights.
Serly's sexual references were not confined to such ribald anecdotes, alas. When devising his own theory of expanded harmonic vocabulary, he called his treatise and his compositional method Modus Lascivus.
Why, it was never all that clear. His theory was enharmonicist,
and he aimed to encompass all chords, all scales, all modes. His explanation for the peculiar name for his theory is as peculiar as the name itself:
The nomenclature, MODUS LASCIVUS (medieval term for the C scale), was first intended more for identification purposes. But since theEighty-twofundamental Chord Structures which constitute the core of the theory are all based on the toneC, it became the logical choice of its title.
Musically literate people will see right away how absurd this is, how insignificant the relationship between the Ionian mode (represented by the C major scale and its transpositions) and Serly's complex chord theory. If Serly had written out his chords in reference to the note E, instead, would he have felt compelled to call his theory Modus Frigid,
punning with the Phrygian scale of medieval theory? (The Phrygian mode, like the Ionian mode, plays without flats or sharps, but with E, not C, as tonic. Like the Ionian mode, it can be transposed so that any note of the chromatic scale is tonic: then it is in a different key,
though of the same mode. One might say that a work is in B-flat phrygian just as one might say that another work is in F-sharp major. The Ionian — putatively lascivious
— major mode is the same mode when transposed from C into any other key. This holds true for any other mode.)
It is obvious that Serly merely lusted to reference the word lascivious,
perhaps for reasons reminiscent of a young writer's joy in getting the f-word
into print. Or maybe it was a marketing ploy: he desired to sex up
his theory as well as his music. Or perhaps he felt the need to carve out a more carnal presence in the world, since his only great fame was that of the man who had finished up two of his friend Béla Bartók's final works. Is it better to be known as a dirty old man than as Bartók's Ghost
?
Thankfully, his actual music (as opposed to his writing about music) is utterly sexless. And quite good.
The Musical Heritage Society published at least three LPs of his music in the late '70s, and it is from these records that curious listeners are most likely, today, to experience Serly's music. In addition to listening to these three records, I have played at his piano sonata (but unfortunately lost track of the sheet music) and have read two of his treatises. One of them, Modus Lascivus (The Road to Enharmonicism): A New Concept in Composition, is not only worth reading, it is worth re-reading: I plan to study it in depth in the near future. But when introducing a composer to a new audience, perhaps technical harmony should be neglected in favor of simple description in more everyday language. I'll try.
There is much to be said for many of Serly's works, including his impressive Viola Concerto and his jubilant Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra. But my favorites of Serly's compositions can be found on one out-of-print Musical Heritage Society LP (MHS 3360). It is well worth scouring the used records bins for this one record (I've seen many in Portland and in Seattle; haven't checked elsewhere). My two favorites are his Concertino 3 x 3 and his Second Symphony.
Tibor Serly's Symphony No. 2 in Two Movements is scored for woodwinds, brass and percussion. From the very opening bars, with the plaintive voices of the woodwind instruments quietly soliciting our attention, the symphony seems very much of its time: the first half of the 20th century. Stravinsky, Hindemith, and even Varèse come to mind. But these similarities do not lessen the work in my estimate. When I come to a passage that strikes me as more Varèsian than Stravinskian, or more reminiscent of Holst's Hammersmith than Hindemith's Kammermusik, none of these passages seem as out of place as the moments in, say, Rautavaara's Fifth Symphony where all of a sudden the great Finn channels Varèse's Ameríques rather than his own muse. Serly's second symphony is an integrated work, and nothing sticks out inappropriately.
Serly aimed to write a completely contrapuntal work, and even the big chords,
when they appear, have a linear feel to them, since they are the usually the result of previous melodies in counterpoint, or else initiate a new segment of contrapuntal writing. Still, the music doesn't feel like an experiment (which my phrase aimed to write
might suggest). What Varèse said of himself applies equally, here, to Serly: he didn't write experimental music; all his experiments went into the wastebasket. What is left is the result of successful study and experimentation, in no sense unfinished or hesitant or provisional. The concluding passages of this symphony make that quite clear. As each instrument enters to build into one big chord that then resolves
in a nicely dissonant triumph, the proper response to the symphony becomes apparent: Now that's an ending!
The Concertino 3 x 3 is a much more original (if not more successful) work. Harmonically, it conforms to the principles laid out in his oddly named treatise, a development that Serly nurtured after his wind symphony and after his work on Bartók's unfinished manuscripts. But it is for its structure that most listeners will remember it. It is in nine movements — three sets of three movements (hence the 3 x 3
of the title) — and is one of 20th century art music's fine examples of structural ingenuity and innovation.
The first set is scored for solo piano, and amounts to a piano sonata. The opening Moderato risoluto is toccata-like, and pianistic without being virtuosic. The main theme is quite memorable, and proves well developed by Serly. The second movement is a saraband; it is quite lovely, baroque ornamentations and all. The third movement, a vigorous Allegro vivace rondo, does what every good finale should do: lead up to an impressive ending.
But the concertino has only just begun!
The next three movements are scored for small orchestra. The first movement of this set is, like the work's very first movement, written as a Moderato risoluto. It strikes the listener as very lean in texture, with contrapuntal segments following close at heal with unison and homophonic passages. It is quite obviously related thematically to the first movement of the solo piano set.
What follows is slow music, a dreamy Andante sostenuto. In mood it runs parallel to the piano's sarabande, but the rhythm is in duple (2/4) meter. A passage for violin set against the rest of the orchestra is exquisite, though not exactly memorable melodically. It is an effect,
you might say, a very good one. The movement is a fine, moody example of night music.
The third of this set is labelled a waltz, though this is the most stilted dance music you are likely to come across: as my father would put it, it has no lilt.
Yes, it is a liltless waltz. Imagine drunk socialites dancing, occasionally interrupting their staggered imitations of ballroom bliss with fist-poundings at a lectern. To those who revere Stravinsky's witty music, my description may sound appealing. Alas, the music itself disappoints. (At least it does on the recording in question.)
The final set of three movements combines the solo piano work with the orchestral suite, without any revision, to form a short concerto.
In the first movement of the final set, the piano's passage-work makes for a very good accompaniment to the more straight-forward orchestral material. It is interesting to hear the previous music come to new life. And much of the life is indeed superior to what has gone on before: the complexity redeems some of the over-simple orchestral writing of the first orchestral run-through. Still, the combination is not wholly satisfying, at least when I spin the Musical Heritage Society vinyl today.
In the second movement the piano plays its stately triple-meter ancient Spanish dance against the orchestra's 2/4 nocturne, to startling effect. This is a fine example of expertly conceived polyrhythm.
The last movement, even more than the first, is something of a jumble, with the piano and the orchestra sometimes seeming more juxtaposed than concerted. This may be more the result of the recorded performance than the music as conceived and notated by Serly. But for whatever faults it exhibits, I think it is better than the orchestral finale of the second set.
Serly was not the first to compose in this manner, combining separate, simple parts into a more complex whole. Milhaud essayed two string quartets that, when played simultaneously, make up an octet. Of such attempts, Serly's may be the most ingenious; and for the most part it is very listenable. It will no doubt strike some as a curiosity, but as curiosities go, it not mere. It is impressive in its own way. And the slow movements, at the very least — in all three versions (for piano, for orchestra, and for piano with orchestra) — are masterful. Perhaps in a better performance the outer movements will strike this listener as flawless, too. I wonder which pianist and which orchestra will next take this music up?
I doubt that Tibor Serly will ever find universal acclaim as a composer of the first rank.
But if not worthy to be raised into the pantheon alongside Stravinsky and Hindemith and Bartók, he does deserve to be mentioned and discussed in the same breath as Alexander Tcherepnin, Alan Hovhaness, and Stefan Wolpe (three very, very different composers also beloved by me). Each of these composed truly impressive music, if much also that is second- or third-rate. So, too, with Serly. His output was not as vast as that of Tcherepnin or Hovhaness, but his best music — like theirs — commands attention, and deserves recording by the more adventuresome professional orchestras, and by abler conductors than Serly himself. (The Musical Heritage Society recordings were directed by the composer, and anyone who's heard Milhaud's or Honneger's or even Stravinsky's own recordings knows that even great composers' works demand better performances than their own.) We should hope that future curious listeners will be blessed with better recordings and more artful performances of Serly's work.
Unfortunately, I've heard only one performance of Serly's Second Symphony, by members of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra; I gather that, for this Musical Heritage Society recording they had insufficient practice time. (The Vienna Symphony did a much better job in its performance of a more traditional piece, Serly's Viola Concerto, which I recommend but will not discuss.) I'm afraid that some of the genius of the work must be guessed at by the listener. But, given what we hear, it is an easy guess.
Fortunately, I have heard more than one performance of the Concertino 3 x 3. Like the recording, that other performance also featured Miriam Molin on the piano, and thus proved no leap in quality. The orchestra, however, was not the non-virtuosic Master Virtuosi of London
featured on the LP; instead, I heard an able performance by the Northwest Chamber Orchestra. It's been over 25 years since that concert, and my memory may be unreliable, but the work seemed more impressive live, on that occasion, than it does now on my stereo. I think this is not merely raised standards since my youth; neither is it simply the result of poor sonics and scratchy vinyl. I'm pretty certain the Northwest Chamber Orchestra handled this fascinating, involved music much better.
Which is not to say sexily.
It may very well be, as a clever critic once stated, that jazz, rock 'n' roll, and country-and-western can handily be described in sexual terms (Rock is pre-coital; country, post-coital; but jazz is the real thing
). Fine art music is not so easily reduced to an echo of humanity's animality. Which perhaps explains why most people prefer popular music: its short bursts of repetitive hooks and grabs and poundings mimic well the sex act that most everyone can comprehend and yearn for.
But art music? Well, it aspires to a level of beauty and sublimity that transcends the itch of genital twitchings. When one struggles to find an apt analogy, it isn't to sex; one's fantasies become more philosophic, and we are apt to find ourselves wandering into the lofty (if fictive) realm of Platonic Forms. And no matter what Serly said or wrote, his music is not lascivious.
It is not about sex. It is not spiked with sex. It is not sexy. It is, instead, fine art.
One need not take a knife, Gesualdo-fashion, to the offending parts of popular music (say, its mind-numbing and simple-minded harmonic rhythm, its folksy-but-non-artsy strophic structures, its over-reliance on a usually uninteresting percussion array for accompaniment) to comprehend and advance the cause of classical
music's less earthy aesthetic. Serly, after all, did it more directly, by writing very good music.
And he also did this by exploring in an original way the harmonic properties of simple and complex combinations of tones, his eighty-two
chords. That he called his theory Modus Lascivus
should not dissuade us from listening to his music or studying his treatises.
At the very least, Tibor Serly should be known as something other than the man who completed the final measures of Bartók's third piano concerto and pulled together the sketches of that same Hungarian master's Viola Concerto. Serly was a composer and thinker in his own right.
His music deserves more performances, and, consequently, more numerous fans.
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