New Concepts of Hymnody

It is not really possible to speak about “new concepts of hymnody” before one has explained what is meant by “old” traditional concepts. I would, therefore, ask your indulgence to begin with a hymnological excursion and a few analyses before giving my own concept of what constitutes a modern church hymn.

As a musician I must at the same time ask for understanding if I consider the melodies primarily. The texts are, of course, just as important as the melodies, but since I am limited in space here, I can consider them only insofar as they influence the structure of the melodies.

Finally, as a Protestant, I would principally like to concern myself with the strophic church hymn. This does not mean that I do not recognize the importance of the nonstrophic service hymns, but again because of limited space I cannot consider them in detail here.

I begin with the hymnological excursion.

The majority of church melodies used in Protestant hymnbooks in Germany until 1950 and in the USA up to the present time originated in the 18th and 19th centuries. For many people in Germany until recently and in the USA even today, these hymn melodies represented and still represent the essence of the Protestant church hymn. As a matter of fact, they represent a rather uniform type, with which I would first like to concern myself. For examples I have chosen the well-known melody Seelenbräutigam (“Jesus, Lead Thou On”), which must be considered one of the oldest melodies of this type (it originated before 1700), and “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” a well-known example from the 19th century.

Let us study the two melodies in order to recall them.

Both melodies are based on a single rhythmic motif, two measures long and repeated. Both melodies can be divided into sections of four measures each: “Jesus, Lead Thou On” has three such sections (12 measures); “What a Friend” consists of four sections (16 measures). The last four measures correspond to the first four measures. In “Jesus, Lead Thou On” the rhythmic motive is shortened in the middle section, using only the first half and making a sequence of the half motive; this makes possible an enlargement in the harmonic development: besides the three main triads, tonic, dominant, and subdominant, the tonic parallel with its intermediary dominant (measures 7 and 8) appear. Nevertheless, the motivic poverty and the poverty of harmony is evident. It is still more apparent in “What a Friend.” Here a single rhythmic motive controls the total melody: it appears eight times, practically unchanged. The harmony needs only the three main triads, tonic, dominant, and subdominant.

Click here for music examples.

Both melodies are dependent on a period structure and harmonic scheme. This applies also to nearly all melodies of the 18th and 19th centuries. Their schematic arrangement and their motivic poverty is often concealed through the use of suspension tones or suspension chords (6/4 chord). Thus many such melodies take on a somewhat sentimental character. Let us study a third example by which we may establish a perfect schematization of the melody, “O Happy Home.”

Click here for "O Happy Home."

The single rhythmic motive here begins on the upbeat of two measures, and it appears four times. The first part makes a cadence to the dominant, the second to the tonic, the third leads from the tonic to the subdominant, the fourth via the dominant back to the tonic. The harmonic scheme corresponds exactly to the period scheme. The harmonic accents as well as the strong accents of the period are, however, concealed by means of suspensions.

In spite of their poor motive structure and harmony, such melodies are very popular in many congregations. They are readily absorbed and remembered, since after the first two measures one usually knows what follows. Such melodies are certainly sung with much vigor and assurance. They often have a further advantage: their schematic form represents in a somewhat neutral manner the verse scheme of many different hymn texts. For this reason, many hymn texts can be sung to such melodies. The young Johann Sebastian Bach, for instance, found 110 different hymn texts for the melody “Oh, that I Had a Thousand Voices” in his Lüneburg hymnbook around 1700.

I might mention another reference for this type of melody: its stylistic, that is, compositional, relationship with the folk song of the 18th and 19th centuries and with the commercial dance music of the 20th century. These folk melodies and dance melodies also are usually based on a single rhythmic motive and are dependent on a very simple periodic scheme and the three cadence harmonies. Let us take the dance melody “Auf Wiedersehn” and analyze it:

Click here for “Auf Wiedersehn”

This stylistic relationship between sacred and secular song melodies coincides with one of the oldest traditions of the Protestant church hymn. Through it a sacred hymn establishes its “position in life”; it is not only sung in the church but also in the family and in public. However, today this presents a big problem. While the folk songs of Luther’s day certainly possessed an artistic value, the dance tunes of the so-called “hit parades” are cheap dime store productions. After a few years or even earlier they are used up; they come and they disappear in more or less short intervals of time. On the other hand, a church hymn should serve many generations and should have value for hundreds of years. We are, therefore, not very happy if in our day a church hymn is composed along the same lines as a popular song. We ask ourselves if the same style which is necessary for a “musical” is also suitable for the service of God.

An ever growing number of people will answer this question with a decisive no. The musical vessel in which the worshiping congregation offers praises and thanks to God must of necessity be altogether different from the musical vessel in which cheap amusement is presented commercially. Serious musicians have known this all along: it is significant that Johann Sebastian Bach never used the melody “Oh, that I Had a Thousand Voices,” which in Lüneburg was used for 110 different texts. In like manner Mendelssohn, Brahms, and Reger never were inclined to use tunes like “Jesus, Lead Thou On” or any other schematizing melodies. Following the composers, the musicologists—and soon also those theologians who had musical talent and today even a large number of congregations—came to recognize that the 16th and 17th centuries produced better chorale melodies than the 18th and 19th centuries. This was also recognized above all by the liturgical movement of our century, since there is no bridge from psalmody and nonstrophic hymns to the schematic hymns of the 18th and 19th centuries.

And thus we come to a consideration of the melodies of the 16th century. As examples I have chosen Luther’s melody to his hymn Aus tiefer Not (“From Depths of Woe”), composed 1524, and one of the two very famous hymns of Philipp Nicolai. Let us first analyze Luther’s melody:

Click here for Luther's melody.

The analysis shows that this melody has no period-measure scheme. The repeated part has 4 1/2 measures and the second part 6 1/2 measures, altogether 11 measures. The scheme of the harmonic cadence with three main triads cannot be a basis because the melody belongs to the Phrygian mode. The construction of the melody is also independent of any preconceived scheme. A rhythmically uniform motive is also not apparent. Instead, there is an altogether different, very interesting principle of melodic construction. The construction of the melody closely follows the text of the first stanza. The tiefe Not (“depth of woe”) is shown by means of a picture: the downward progression of a fifth on the syllable tief (“deep”). In its further development the melody follows the intonation and the accent of the spoken language: important syllables like Not, dir, Gott, etc. are sung on higher pitches. According to Luther’s instruction, the notes should “enliven the text.” The notes should stress the important syllables of the first stanza. It is really remarkable that through this method not only the text but also the melody becomes alive. Almost no line is similar to the previous one, and thus we have a large number of melodic motives. This richness in melodic motives makes a melody of this character valuable and worthy of being treated by the greatest composers in various compositions. But we find this type of melody not only with Luther. We find the same procedures in Philipp Nicolai’s “Wake, Awake, for Night Is Flying.”

Click here for “Wake, Awake, for Night Is Flying.”

This melody is also not schematized. The part that is repeated has five measures, the other six measures. The harmonic progression is simple but not schematic. The melodic structure, which shows no unit motive, remains independent. It uses its freedom to make the first strophe alive. The use of the triad at the beginning presents an image of the fanfare of the “watchers” on the heights exemplified by the highest note in the melody. Besides this picture, we find in Nicolai’s melody also the intonation of spoken language: important syllables appear on higher notes. Thus we encounter an abundance of melodic motives here too. We now see that with Luther and Nicolai not the form but the content of the text forms the melody. Word and tone have an intimate connection. The hymn texts are thus set to music as if they were prose. This is a stylistic bridge to the nonstrophic church hymns and to psalmody. There can be little doubt that this melody type has much more value than the melody type of the 18th and 19th centuries. Fairness demands, however, that we do not only see the advantages of the hymns of the Reformation period. These Reformation hymns are much more difficult to learn and to remember than the later schematized song melodies. Almost exclusively they can be sung only to their own text, and they have no stylistic reference to the world of music in which we live.

During the past 10 years in Germany, this want of a stylistic reference to our musical world, which one must concede to be true of the Reformation hymn melodies, brought about a discussion concerning the actualization of the church hymn, concerning new concepts for hymnody. Young theologians demanded that not only churches and the sermon should in outward structure adapt themselves to 20th-century development but also the congregation’s response, the church hymn. As a matter of fact, each epoch in our history has sought and found its own peculiar hymnodic expression; therefore, also our period must seek and find its own expression. Please do not misunderstand me: the new hymns which we are seeking are not to replace our heritage of hymns; the new hymns should take their place alongside the older hymns, and they should continue the great tradition of Christian hymnody. It is correct that the new hymns should assist the congregation towards contemporary expression, but it is no less correct to maintain that the hymns of our heritage establish a tradition which unites our present generation in its church song with earlier generations. We need both. The task that confronts us today is simply this: As we study our hymnological heritage or tradition, how can we realize what we learn from this tradition in our contemporary stylistic situation in terms of music and lyrics?

What we must learn is the importance of the close connection between word and tone. We have seen that this close connection gave the melodies of the Reformation period such rich values. This close word-tone relationship we find not only in the hymnody of the 16th century but also in the Gregorian melodies of the early Middle Ages. And in more recent times, we find this close connection of music and language, music and prose, in the Negro spirituals. Many of the spirituals have become world famous, and rightly so. As we analyze them, we find that much of what we have said about the melodies of Luther and Nicolai also applies to the spirituals.

Click here for spirituals.

Ostensibly the melody follows the text figuratively as in the beginning on “Swing low” it moves downward and then again upward on “to carry me home.” Imitation of the natural speech melody, the accent and rhythm of spoken language, we find in “Didn’t My Lord Deliver Daniel.”

Nothing would be more incorrect than the supposition that the relationship of word and tone were a historically conditioned quality and had no actuality in our day. This relationship of word and tone is essential to the function of our worship hymns: the singing in our worship service constitutes the ideal possibility for collective speech. The congregation does not sing in order to make music but in order to proclaim the word collectively.

In the spirituals, too, the rich and flexible melody, and above all the original syncopated rhythm, results from the close connection of word and tone. This new rhythm of the spirituals is not so new. It was discussed by Theodore F. Seward in the introduction to the collection Fisk Jubilee Songs as early as 1875:

A technical analysis of these melodies shows some interesting facts. The first peculiarity that strikes the attention is the rhythm. This is often complicated and strikingly original. But although so new and strange, it is most remarkable that these effects are so extremely satisfactory.

Another noticeable feature of the songs is the rare occurrence of triple time or three-part measure among them. The reason for this is doubtless to be found in the beating of the foot and the swaying of the body which are such frequent accompaniments of the singing. These motions are in even measure and in perfect time; and so it will be found that, however broken and seemingly irregular the movement of the music, it is always capable of the most exact measurement.

Already in 1875 the Negro spirituals were described in their division into “melodic section” and “rhythm section”—and this is today the distinguishing mark of jazz. It is true, there are great differences between Negro spirituals and jazz; nevertheless, this division—“melodic section,” “rhythmic section”—clearly established jazz as having its origin in the Negro spiritual. Within jazz this style has completely blended in the European musical development and today has in fact become an integral part of our musical culture. The “rhythmic section” has adopted functional cadence harmony and metrical periodizing (in 4, 8, 12, or 16 measures) from America’s European music tradition. This schematism is negated by melodic improvisation, which expresses itself totally without scheme, is very irregular, and goes far beyond the spiritual melodies in its irregularity and richness in motives.

I have earlier expressed an opinion that in the division of the musical setting into “melodic section” and “rhythm section” our human existence in the 20th century is reflected. In fact, the musical juxtaposition of subjective freedom-experience (in the jazz improvisation) and objective order (in the jazz rhythm group) corresponds very nearly to the experience of 20th-century man in his problems of maintaining himself and his ideas of human freedom in the machinery of our modern, rationalized style of living. For this reason I consider jazz as representing the music of our century, and in my work I am endeavoring to make its stimulation fruitful for church music.

So much for the stylistic situation of our music today.

What is the stylistic situation in today’s lyrics? I must confine myself to a few very important international developments. While the lyric of the 18th century was almost always bound to metrical speech, the modern lyric of our century is almost always prose. However, it retains the order of verse lines. Let us call the form of this lyric “verses in prose.” This development is international: We think of Trakl, Brecht, or Benn—of Ezra Pound, W. H. Auden, or Dylan Thomas.

Is it possible to combine these developments of modern lyric with the function of the church hymn? Not eo ipso. The church hymn is bound to a strophic melody which can be repeated. A strophic tie-up to prose is very difficult, and we find it quite seldom in modern lyric. That it is not completely left out can be seen from the texts of the American blues. These texts are almost always strophic prose.

The main problem of the modern church hymn based on a close connection between word and tone is that the author should be both poet and composer. Remember Luther and Nicolai, who ideally solved this problem.

Since I am a composer, I had to take refuge in the prose of the Bible to invent a church hymn according to my new concept. Many verses of the Bible possess the intensity of great poetry. Thus for the first verses of Psalm 46 I invented a melody which totally coincided with the content, the speech melody, and above all the rhythm of these verses. To this melody (“melodic section”) I invented a fundamental rhythm composed of chords which appear in regular periodic progression (“rhythm section”). We shall see that the melody’s most important tones coincide with the most important syllables of the psalm text (Gott, Zuversicht, Hilfe, etc.).

Click here for psalm text.

For this psalm melody, the Protestant student pastor at Heidelberg University wrote two additional stanzas in cooperation with me. In doing so, he had to follow most closely the melody already completed. These two additional stanzas, enlarging the psalm verse in a trinitarian manner, are metrically free—in other words, they are prose. However, once in a while there appear rhymes to make a stronger impression on the memory. It is important that also in the added two lines the important melody notes appear on the most important syllables. This song is the “Hymnus” of my Vesper, for choir and three instruments, which was recently recorded on the CANTATE label by the Spandauer Kantorei under the direction of Martin Behrmann.

On the same recording another song of the same type is to be found—Uns ist ein Kind geboren, a Christmas song. Here also a verse from the Bible is the basis for the first stanza. Three additional stanzas were written to the melody by the Munich poetess Ilse Schnell. Out of this I have made a short hymn cantata for choir, vibraphone, harpsichord, and double bass (Bärenreiter Ausgabe 4348).

For a third hymn, which I composed on that famous text from the Gospel According to St. John, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us,” I added two more stanzas in cooperation with the Berlin poet Kurt Ihlenfeld.

Click here for “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”

I would not wish to close without pointing out that this church hymn type, although primarily text-bound, secondarily must observe the rules of musical form. By the way: the rhythm confines itself to only two different note values, in order to remain simple. Since I have so often quoted Luther, I do not wish to neglect to point out that limiting the note values to only two different note-value patterns also corresponds to Calvin’s instructions concerning the Geneva Psalter. This still holds true for today.

There is no doubt that this new hymn type is more difficult to learn and to sing than the traditional 19th-century type. It is at least as difficult as the Reformation hymns. In Germany we have good results with Gemeinde-Singstunden. Half an hour before or after the Sunday church service the church musician teaches the congregation the more difficult Reformation or contemporary hymn melodies. These melodies should be taught also to the confirmation classes. If the church wants to have and keep a rich and valuable hymnody, it must take care of it and, if necessary, do something for it.

New Concepts of Polyphony

The position of polyphony in 20th-century music is controversial and therefore extremely changeable. Certainly no one would be ready to maintain that polyphony had ever been the sole master over any musical epoch, not even in Palestrina’s or Bach’s time; there was always homophonic and monodic music alongside of polyphony. On occasion even such an eminent contrapuntalist as Mozart (when he wanted to be) could, in a moment of good-natured mockery, liken a melodist to the thoroughbred racehorse but compare the contrapuntist to the plodding cart horse. In the 19th century, too, the greatest composers were outstanding contrapuntists. And we do not have to confine our thinking to Brahms, Bruckner, and Reger, where this is obvious; the music of the later Chopin, the later Wagner, and that of Richard Strauss is polyphonic and unthinkable without independent secondary parts. Even Verdi, whose opera music succeeds with a minimum of polyphony, did write great polyphonic music in his Requiem. Perhaps the first composer to succeed in writing great music that can be called neither polyphonic nor homophonic, music that dispenses with the idea of principal and secondary parts, was Claude Debussy. I suppose one might say the same about Igor Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps (“Rite of Spring,” 1913). But already after 1920 a new surge of contrapuntal writing is evident—neoclassicism arrives, a style destined to reach its climax in the thirties and forties. Stravinsky and Hindemith wrote fugues; Bartók, too, used the contrapuntal technique more and more frequently. The twelve-tone school of Schönberg had always thought of itself as polyphonic. But since the early fifties, polyphony is again on the decline. The followers of Webern, above all, the protagonists of the Darmstadt (Germany) Vacation Courses for New Music, look upon the contrapuntal technique as a typical characteristic of neoclassicism and oppose both. Electronic music has little use for independent voice leading. Graphic notation, the latest development of the experimental avant-garde, does allow for certain possibilities in polyphonic music, but actually it departs from composition in the direction of improvisation.

The low estimate of polyphony held by the experimental avant-garde is, however, not only the result of the decline of neoclassicism. It is, above all, the result also of certain contradictions in twelve-tone counterpoint to which Theodore W. Adorno called attention already in the forties. Adorno pointed out that twelve-tone counterpoint “opposes all imitative and canonic devices. The use of such means. . . has the effect of a double disposition, of tautology. They organize for a second time a context that has already been organized by means of the twelve-tone technique” (Philosophie der neuen Musik, p. 89). It is equally disastrous for twelve-tone counterpoint that the individual parts can no longer be contrasted: each part always consists of the same 12 tones in the same sequence. Furthermore, the repetitious omnipresence of all 12 tones keeps individual parts from having harmonic experiences worth mentioning in the course of the composition.

It is not my intention to discuss the various applications of 20th-century contrapuntal polyphony in this paper. But let us emphasize what might be considered beyond challenge: the polyphonic technique is dependent on the intended compositional style.

But not only the question whether a composer composes polyphonically is a question about his style; also the question how he handles the technique of polyphony is dependent on it. Let us first try to elucidate what we understand polyphony to be. The Harvard Dictionary of Music provides the following excellent definition:

Music written as a combination of several simultaneous voices (parts) of a more or less pronounced individuality. Hence, the term polyphony is practically synonymous with counterpoint.

In studying the works of Johann Sebastian Bach, the greatest polyphonist in the history of music, we notice that polyphony permits either the “combination” of the individual voices to dominate or their “individuality.” Let us therefore distinguish two different types of polyphony: imitative polyphony and cantus-firmus polyphony. In Bach’s fugues normally all participating parts are developed from the same theme and the same motives; this is imitative counterpoint, which leads to a polyphony that we shall call “homogeneous.” But in a chorale prelude of Bach’s such as the three-part Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme (“Wake, Awake, for Night Is Flying”), the individuality of the parts, their mutual independence, is emphasized. This is the cantus-firmus technique, which leads to a polyphony that we shall call “heterogeneous.”

In looking over the available heritage of polyphonic music unbiasedly, we come to the conclusion that not only in Bach but also in Schütz and in Palestrina and also after Bach the homogeneous type of polyphony is the more frequent one. This tendency must be assigned to three reasons that lie outside the individual part. First, the vocal polyphony of the motet was inclined to assign the same text to all voices for the purpose of making the text more easily understood; and the common text had a way of imposing a homogeneous use of motives on the individual voices. Secondly, the discovery of the musical dynamics as a means of intensification of expression led to the technique of letting the parts enter not simultaneously but one after another; a continuous growth in intensity, quasi a crescendo in polyphony, was possible only in imitative part entrances and homogeneous use of motives. Thirdly, the development of harmony, as an autonomous musical dimension since the time of Bach’s fugue, made the autonomy of the individual melodic line more and more illusory. More so than “heterogeneous” counterpoint, “homogeneous” counterpoint had a way of accommodating itself to the autocratic path of chord progression and modulation. This development culminated in the chromatically modulating fugue technique of Max Reger, in which the individual part often becomes amorphous. Homogeneous polyphony becomes pseudopolyphony here, veiled homophony.

A new preference for variously individualized parts developed the string quartet polyphony of Viennese classicism and the symphonic polyphony that took its beginning from it and extended into the 20th century. This kaleidoscopic polyphony, consisting of a countless variety of individual motives, we can classify as “heterogeneous” counterpoint. Of course, even in the string quartet polyphony an element of pseudopolyphony is discernable: the inner unity of the individual part falls prey to demands of the autonomy of harmonic progression and form. The individual part itself is now composed of heterogeneous motives. Even the unchanging number of the parts is sacrificed.

After this orientation in the most important forms of polyphony, I should like to return to the stylistic situation of our own day and discuss the question whether the polyphonic technique can be developed further in it and how this can be done. When I concerned myself with the questions of the “new concepts of hymnody,” I already sketched the stylistic situation of 20th-century music as I see it. I should like to repeat that I consider as representative not the dodecaphonic, or serial, music but the division of the musical setting into “melodic section” and “rhythm section,” as it has taken place in jazz (pp. 57 f.). Please do not misunderstand me: jazz is improvised music and can therefore not be compared with the accomplishments of the great composers of our century. Nevertheless, the division of jazz improvisation into “melodic section” and “rhythm section” is an authentic expression of our time and therefore a constant challenge to the composer to cast in compositional form what the jazz musician has already realized in improvisation.

There is no need to prove further that already in this division, in this splitting of the musical setting, an element of contrapuntal polyphony is present. The rhythm section usually proceeds according to the laws of the harmonic cadence, the “blues scheme,” and a uniform “beat,” which normally emphasizes the second rhythmic beat in every case. A melodic expression of the rhythm section is achieved in the pizzicato contrabass. The counterpoint for this is the improvising part, the “chorus,” performed by one of the instruments of the melodic section. The “chorus” has no motivic communion with the rhythm section; in fact, it even strives with every means of improvisation to steer clear of it and to “drown out” its schematism. Its counterpoint is radically “heterogeneous.”

As a compositional device, this intentional irregularity cannot easily be made meaningful. Here, too, the use of a prose text is of help; prose is rhythmically irregular and yet full of meaning. In a vocal realization of the “melodic section” we are therefore on solid ground as we compose. As “rhythm section” we employ a plucked double bass; its uniform pizzicato furnishes the background to which the regular rhythm of the melody can be contrasted. This is “heterogeneous counterpoint,” to which a further heterogeneous part is added: a cantus firmus in broad note values.

Example: Mache dich auf, werde licht, motet for choir and double bass (up to measure 22)
(From: Heinz Werner Zimmermann, Weihnacht, 4 Christmas motets; Verlag Merseburger, Berlin; published in an English translation by Richard T. Gore: Four Christmas Motets, Chantry Music Press, Springfield, Ohio, 1967).
(Recorded by the Spandauer Kantorei under M. Behrmann. CANTATE  658217)

A fugue, too, may be composed in the same technique. The voice parts in such a composition on a prose text are given an irregular syncopated rhythm; a uniform double bass pizzicato forms a counterpoint to their homogeneous fugal polyphony. The double bass part remains heterogeneous apart from the vocal fugal polyphony.

Example: Barmherzig und gnädig ist der Herr, fugue for choir and double bass (up to measure 23)
(From: Heinz Werner Zimmermann, Psalmkonzert, for baritone solo, 5-part choir, children’s choir, 3 trumpets, vibraphone, and double bars; Verlag Merseburger, Berlin; published in an English edition by Audrey Davidson and Marian Johns, eds., Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, Mo., 1967)
(Recorded by the Karlsruher Kantorei under K. M. Ziegler. CANTATE 640229

This polyphony is at one and the same time homogeneous and heterogeneous. The five parts of the vocal fugue are homogeneous; taken together, they stand over against the contrasting instrumental part, and thus, in a manner of speaking, a two-part heterogeneous counterpoint results.

This mixed form is not as yet a new form of polyphony. Incomparably great examples of such polyphony are found already in Johann Sebastian Bach. We have but to think of the opening chorus of the St. Matthew Passion, where the heterogeneous counterpoint of the boys’ choir’s cantus firmus is added to the homogeneous texture of the imitative voices. Or we might consider the “Confiteor” of the Mass in B Minor, where the heterogeneous Gregorian canon forms a counterpoint to the fugal polyphony. Also the first section of the “Credo” in the Mass in B Minor should be mentioned in this connection; there, too, we find a heterogeneous double bass part in counterpoint to a fugue.

The contrapuntal considerations of the jazz improvisation, however, go beyond the idea of heterogeneous counterpoint. With Bach even in the heterogeneous counterpoint the participating parts all have the character of “lines” that speak and aim at dramatization and intensification; but between the almost arbitrary liberty of the jazz improvisation and the almost mechanical schematization of the “blues scheme” an unbridgeable and an intentional stylistic gulf is fixed. This is especially noticeable in the use of the plucked double bass part. As long as the double bass belongs to the “rhythm section” (and this is its normal function), it not only expresses itself almost exclusively in equal note values but also holds strictly to a clean intonation of the harmonic scheme; as soon as it begins its “chorus,” however, and its improvisation, its style changes—it takes on the character of the melody instruments, the rhythmical organization becomes discontinuous, and the pitches are occasionally played expressively imprecise. The time and pitch elements that were objective before have now become subjective.

The division into melodic section and rhythm section is at the same time a stylistic division. Therefore the jazz counterpoint is not only “heterogeneous” but even “polystylistic.”

In the opening and closing movements of my Vesper (for chorus and three instruments), I tried to distinguish the vocal parts stylistically from the instrumental parts. The instrumental parts are based on the “blues scheme” and are organized schematically into groups of four measures. The vocal parts on the other hand consist of imitative line polyphony; metrically it is free even where near the close it shrinks together to chordal homophony. Here, too, the irregularity is a result of setting a prose text.

Example: “Ingressus: Eile, Gott, mich zu erretten”
(From: Heinz Werner Zimmermann, Vesper, for chorus, vibraphone, harpsichord, and double bass; Bärenreiter Verlag, Kassel, BA 4351)
(Recorded by the Spandauer Kantorei under M. Behrmann. CANTATE 658217)

This, too, could be called two-part heterogeneous counterpoint. It goes without saying that the instrumental blues structure in its schematization carries a message concerning our rationalized everyday existence, whereas the line polyphony of the vocal parts engaged in addressing God, though surrounded outwardly by this experience, is nevertheless inwardly independent of it and free.

But a new element must be discussed at this point. The traditional counterpoint normally consists of independent individual parts, but in the “Ingressus” of my Vesper two entirely different types of writing are heard in counterpoint to each other. Such polyphony, consisting no longer of different individual parts but of different types of writing, I should like to call “pluralistic polyphony.”

Of course, music history records an exceptional case in which even three different types of writing stand in counterpoint to each other. I am referring to Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni, where in the finale of Act I three dances of different time signature and tempo are heard simultaneously. Up to a point this, too, may be called “pluralistic polyphony.” But the missing element is the stylistic difference of the types of writing. This stylistic difference was not yet available in Mozart’s time; the unity of compositional technique, which knew of no difference between church music, concert music, and operatic music, made truly “pluralistic” polyphony impossible and at the same time unnecessary.

But today we are living in a world of musical pluralism, in a multiplicity of contemporary idioms, and surrounded by the rich heritage of musical history and by the gifts of exotic folklore. Today “pluralistic polyphony” becomes a possibility for the first time; and at the same time it becomes a necessity. It opens up the possibility of giving back to the contrapuntal manner of writing the control over the totality of the available expressive means open to the compositional craft. For polyphony is essentially not a special technique for the display of exceptional musical erudition; it is rather an arena where the totality of the compositional technique may be brought together for the creation of a musical microcosm, for the creation of a world in miniature.

No single style among the many is competent to create this microcosm with its own materials. We need only to examine from this viewpoint the two most important schools of the 20th century—the neoclassical and the dodecaphonic. To the neoclassical school, represented especially by Stravinsky and Hindemith, we are indebted for the renewal of lineal polyphony; its central work is Hindemith’s Ludus tonalis. In the world of this polyphony, however, modern musical consciousness finds a place only when it can be expressed with the materials of one or more individual parts. This was, incidentally, not different either in the polyphony of Bach. But in Bach’s time modern musical consciousness could actually still be expressed almost completely in a single musical part. Hence the enormous compositional progress from a single part of Palestrina’s polyphony to a single part of Bach’s polyphony. In this difference almost all the progress in compositional means of expression from the16th to the 18th century is visible. But in spite of all the excellence of the Ludus tonalis, certainly no one would want to maintain that one may read the state of the total musical consciousness of the 20th century from a single individual part of Hindemith. It is not Hindemith that fails; it is the individual part. In the 20th century the individual part can no longer reproduce the wealth of the actual musical consciousness.

The situation is different in the case of the dodecaphonic school. We are indebted to Schönberg, Berg, and Webern for an unheard-of distillation and refinement of the musical consciousness. There is hardly a single musical dimension that would not be distilled and refined by them. And yet this style is exclusive; what is not distilled, is cut off. Cut off, therefore, are all the compositional means of expression that belong to the past, and they may at best serve only as quoted material; cut off likewise is the elementary and naturally also the trivial, which in modern musical consciousness is important as never before. And so this style, too, cannot present a total picture of today’s musical consciousness but only a partial view, though it be ever so characteristic. And it intends to do no more.

“Pluralistic polyphony,” able to reconcile in a work of art the multitude of conflicting styles that are components of our modern musical consciousness, is today still Zukunftsmusik, “music of the future.” We have seen that it is necessary; we have not yet seen whether it is possible.

Let us recall what we understand “pluralistic polyphony” to be. We understand it to be not a combination of different individual parts but a combination of stylistically heterogeneous types of writing.

How did the traditional polyphony, the polyphony of Palestrina and that of Bach, become possible? It became a possibility through the development of a contrapuntal technique of composition. The goal of a “pluralistic polyphony” can therefore be reached only through further development of the contrapuntal technique. Let us therefore in closing establish some orientation as to whether and how the contrapuntal technique of the new conception may be adjusted to a pluralistic polyphony.

In the Harvard Dictionary of Music we read the following words of gold:

In music where there are present more than a single unaccompanied melody, a musical texture exists which can be regarded from two points of view, the horizontal and the vertical; such a musical fabric is not dissimilar to a textile material with its warp and woof. . . . Music which is made up of individual melodic strands woven together is contrapuntal or polyphonic.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Counterpoint has had a history of about a thousand years. A study of this history shows that at no time has there been a complete disregard of the vertical aspect of view. There has been, however, a good deal of change in this aspect; so much indeed, that the consideration of this point serves as a convenient means of evolutionary classification in the history of counterpoint. This does not mean to imply that other points of view—evolution of the melodic lines and of their rhythmic coordination—are less important, but only that, owing to their more complex nature, they do not lend themselves to the purpose of short description and survey.

The vertical aspect of the counterpoint of Palestrina was established on the basis of a distinction between intervals that produce consonances and intervals that produce dissonances, between chords that produce consonances and melody tones that produce dissonances. The consonant chords were practically limited to the triad and the chord of the sixth. Bach’s palette was already richer. Dissonant chords, too, could be used in the contrapuntal setting (for instance, the seventh chords). Less strict than the Palestrina setting, the Bach setting in its figured bass, distinguishes only the so-called “harmonic” and “nonharmonic” notes.

Our harmonic palette of today has been expanded especially by the use of combined harmonies. Thus, for instance, Olivier Messiaen is fond of the following chord combinations in Visions de l’Amen, p. 34:

Click here for "Visions de l'Amen."

We can see that these sounds can, in part, have a pluralistic structure too; they may be divided into two or even three different triads. For this reason they are especially well suited for pluralistic polyphony. Our first problem is to investigate whether all chords may be combined with equal facility or whether we can discover a law governing greater or lesser consonances. It is relatively simple to expand a seventh chord or a ninth chord to form a twin harmony. Thus the dominant ninth G B D F A-flat may be expanded by the addition of D-flat, and it will then consist of the G-major chord plus a D-flat-major chord:

Click here for Ex.11.

It is worth noting that D-flat stands in tritone relation to the root G and yet produces an excellent tonal result. If we add a B-flat-minor triad to the G-major triad, we get a somewhat more dissonant harmony (Example 11 b). Together with the major-third B we simultaneously have the minor-third B-flat. We know this dissonance as “neutral third” especially from the works of Bartók. This interval, too, always provides satisfying harmonic results. But it is a different matter when we add an A-minor triad to the G-major triad (Example 11 c). In this twin harmony the interval of a fourth G-C results, which is present neither in the G-major triad nor in the A-minor triad. Let us call it a “nonharmonic fourth.” It almost always leads to poor harmonic results. Also the number of minor or major seconds produced in twin harmonies determine greater or lesser consonance.

From these considerations the first chapter of a methodology for pluralistic counterpoint evolves: “Concerning Pluralistic Consonances.” As we know, the methodology of counterpoint consists of providing a countermelody for a given cantus firmus in various ways. We are familiar with Fux categories: “Note against note,” “two against one,” “four against one,” “suspensions,” and “florid counterpoint.” The first exercise in pluralistic counterpoint therefore is called “chord against chord” and permits chord combinations producing satisfying consonances. Chord combinations involving nonharmonic fourths or an excessive number of intervals of a second are ruled out. The harmonic major cadence may, for example, serve as cantus firmus. The second species is called “two chords against one” and permits dissonant passing chords. By analogy we may then advance to the species called “four chords against one,” “chord suspensions,” and so on. One of the criteria governing the quality of the counterpoint chords is whether the wealth of the 12 half steps now available has been exhausted (Example 12). Of course, we must point out that pluralistic polyphony has just as little to do with dodecaphony as with polytonality.

Click here for Ex. 12.

A Netherlands school crab canon of the late Middle Ages carries the enigmatic superscription In fine initium (“At the end [you will find] the beginning”). This is the end of my paper concerning New concepts of polyphony. But this is only the beginning of the long road that leads from theoretical concept to artistic realization. The goal of this pathway is not an eclectic potpourri of styles without connection but a musical incarnation of everything that is alive in our musical consciousness today, its expression in clear styles of writing, and its formal presentation in a new polyphony.

From The Musical Heritage of the Church, Volume VII (St. Louis, Mo.: Concordia Publishing House, 1970). Copyright Concordia Publishing House. Printed by permission. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Concordia Publishing House.