Chapter Five - Far Sounds in Zemlinsky and Schreker
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 March 2023
Summary
Seated one day at the organ,
I was weary and ill at ease;
And my fingers wandered idly
Over the noisy keys.
I know not what I was playing
Or what I was dreaming then,
But I struck one chord of music
Like the sound of a great Amen.
It flooded the crimson twilight
Like the close of an angel's psalm,
And it lay on my fevered spirit
With a touch of infinite calm.
It quieted pain and sorrow
Like love overcoming strife;
It seemed the harmonious echo
From our discordant life.
It linked all perplexèd meanings
Into one perfect peace,
And trembled away into silence
As if it were loth to cease.
I have sought, but I seek it vainly,
That one lost chord divine,
Which came from the soul of the organ
And entered into mine.
It may be that death's bright angel
Will speak in that chord again;
It may be that only in heav’n
I shall hear that grand Amen.
Alexander von Zemlinsky (1842–1900) lived during the great age of lost chords. When Zemlinsky was a little boy, Arthur Sullivan wrote set to music the famous poem about hearing a concord beyond all concords. But although Sullivan's piano mimics an organ swelling in rich modulations, I don't think that any specific chord could be considered a “lost” chord, or even that any chord formation would present the slightest challenge to the humblest student of Simon Sechter or Heinrich Schenker. But the text, by the poet Adelaide Anne Procter, doesn't invite any particular search for occult harmonies. A “chord divine” that links “perplexèd meanings Into one perfect peace,” a chord that is the grandest of Amens, has to be something familiar. There are plenty of lost discords, but there are no lost concords: nothing is ultraconcordant beyond the octave, the fifth, and the other very simple ratios. An Amen heard in heaven can't be more heart easing than an ordinary plagal cadence, unless transfigured ears can hear things we can't hear; a plagal cadence is exactly what Sullivan supplies at the end of his song.
- Type
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- Information
- Music SpeaksOn the Language of Opera, Dance, and Song, pp. 72 - 93Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2009