Melodic-Harmonic Language in the
Organ Music of Petr Eben
- Sabin Levi
Petr
Eben became increasingly known in the Western world after the immense success
of his organ cycle “Nědelny Hudba” (Sunday Music). Being known initially among
organists, his name became a real “household” name for the lovers of
contemporary instrumental and vocal music. Eben’s organ music, strikes the
listener with multiple qualities - it is particularly characteristic with its
deep spirituality, original rhythm, and its modern approach to pitch
organization. While his early works are tonal, Eben’s musical language
developed increasingly atonal characteristics, until they became almost totally
atonal.
Eben creative thinking placed him in the forefront of the
contemporary composers for organ, making him probably the most important organ
composer alive.
The composer was born in 1929, in Źamberk, a small East
Bohemian town, and spent most of his childhood in the ancient town of Ĉesky
Krumlov, in Southern Bohemia . His father was a
Czech Jew, his mother - Czech Catholic. He was influenced by the old town’s
medieval architecture and atmosphere, which explains his later interest in
Medieval and Renaissance literature and sometimes gave his music a certain
“archaic” feeling. In Ĉesky Krumlov he also developed his great passion for
organ and organ music.
Young
Petr had grew up in a musical family and had his first music lessons when six
years old. He had to leave school at fourteen, at the onset of the WWII, and
being labeled a Jew, was sent to Buchenwald in
1944. After the end of the war, he studied piano and cello and at the age of
nineteen he entered the Prague
Music Academy Charles University
(founded 1348) in Prague
The first major success of the young musician was winning a
gold medal at the Arts Contest at the World Youth Festival in Moscow
Eben studied abroad too, in Montserrat in Spain and in Solesmes in France , taught in the UK
What are the characteristic features of Eben’s organ music?
1. It is highly spiritual and often devoted to religious
themes. Being a devoted Catholic, Eben met many hardships in his career in the
Communist Czechoslovakia, however, he never ceased to have highly religious
output. Many of his works are based on the Old Testament (Job, Four
Biblical Dances), or New Testament (Laudes, Amen - es werde wahr).
He was also interested in some of the great literature works of the Western
world - Faust. He also wrote an impressive amount of “absolute music”
pieces - Sunday Music, Hommage á Dietrich Buxtehude, Hommage á
Henry Purcell, and the cycles Versetti, Momenti d’organo,
etc.
2. Exclusive use of Czech musical folklore - including direct
quotations as well as his own melodies which only remind us of folklore, in the
typical Bartok tradition. Eben follows Bartok’s, as well as Dvořak’s and
Janacek’s footsteps also in the tradition of organizing folksong-collecting
expeditions. Many of those songs are included in his numerous collections of
folk music arranged for choir, voice and piano, piano solo, etc.(for example, Hundred
Folk Songs arranged for piano (1959-1960). Entirely based on Czech folk
songs are also the Two Organ Choral Fantasies (1972).
3. Extensive use of plainchant. In numerous examples (Laudes
(1964), First Organ Concerto (also called Symphonia Gregoriana,
1954), Eben turns to plainchant, citing existing music, as well as putting it
through a sophisticated musical metamorphosis. In this tradition, he joins the school of Tournemire
4. Influence from other performance and art media. In Eben’s
organ music there are numerous examples of connections between music and visual
arts (The Chagal Windows), music and theater (Faust), dance (Four Biblical
Dances), frequent use of narrator (Job), etc.
5. Advanced musical language.
In Eben’s vast organ output there are a number of musical features that
show the typical modernistic approach of the 20th century. Eben uses his more
advanced musical tools with moderation. In his music we will not find free
improvisation, unusual notational shapes, or search for new colors and timbres.
a. Use of rhythm. Eben is very fond of ostinato, but he
doesn’t use it as a form-building factor (as Orff does)- example - Moto
Ostinato from the Sunday Music cycle – 1959. In addition, he frequently
uses non-square meters, (like, for example, the 5/16 meter in the first
movement of Mutations) - this could be seen as both a modernistic
approach, as well as influence from some folk music meters from the Slavic
countries which are also non-square. Frequently there are examples in Eben’s
scores where there are clear allusions to percussion instruments, thus
influencing the music’s rhythmic signature (#3 of the Four Biblical Dances,
the beginning of the piece, where the organ imitates a tambourine). In general,
one could say that his organ music is very symphonic by conception, and
sometimes there are numerous allusions to individual instruments.
b. Use of polyphony.
Eben’s approach to symmetry reminds the listener (and also the observer
of his scores) of the polyphonical means used by the old masters (example - the first movement of Laudes).
One can find symmetrical means which are closely related to inversions and
retrogrades of his themes, use of canons, (the first of the two Fantasies,
opening measures, also the closing measures of the last piece of the Sunday
Music cycle, mm. 268-273) augmentations (Laudes, first piece, mm.
32-56) and diminutions (last movement of the Sunday Music, the theme in
mm.117-124 is a diminution of the main theme, mm. 8-10) and fugues (Hommage
á Dietrich Buxtehude).
c. modality and symmetry – they are
everywhere, in both young and mature works, although they are always secondary
to Eben’s tonal/linear musical approach.
6. Evolution of style - there is a noticeable evolution from
conventional to more and more advanced melodic and harmonic language. In addition to melody and harmony, there is
also an interesting development in the structural build of his organ pieces.
a.
Tonal/ melodic
evolution.
In Sunday Music,
(1958), although there are no key signature markings, tonality is clearly
stated, and even basic functions could be discerned easily. For example, the
main melody of the famous Moto Ostinato (the third piece of the cycle)
can be identified functionally as having a tonic in m. 5 and dominant in m. 10.
The piece also ends in a convincing G minor, with a plagal cadence, subdominant
to tonic, in its last measure. Following the classical tonal tradition, the
piece ends in the same key as it started.
The same principle is correct for all the movements in the cycle.
In the cycle
Laudes (1966), there is a visible advancement of Eben’s tonal language. There
is more attention to melody’s graphical signature, its intervals and their
direction. In addition, there is a curious and unique way of treating an
existing melody (Gregorian chant), which is the thematic basis of all four
pieces.
In the first piece, the Gregorian-based theme
(the second theme) is cited “as is,” i.e. in its finished variant in mm. 74-77,
however, it appears in a somehow twisted form earlier, first in mm. 25-28.
Here, its interval structure is altered, in comparison to the initial version
of the theme. Intervals used in mm. 25-28 are deliberately small, mostly thirds
and seconds, with only one exception (a fourth) in m. 28 (Example 1). |
| Exampel 1
While
there are no changes in the theme’s second and third appearances (mm. 29-33 and
35-38) the fourth appearance is inverted (mm. 39-42, Example 2).
|
 |
| Exampel 2 |
Afterwards, the interval structure of the theme keeps
changing, the intervals getting bigger and bigger: fourths, tritones, fifths,
sixths, even one example of a tenth in the next three of the themes’
appearances: mm. 46-49, 49-53, 53-56. In
mm. 69-72 appears the “widest” theme, where the intervals are mostly sevenths,
but there are also some ninths and tenths (Example 3).
 |
| Example 3 |
Finally,
the “clean” variant of theme comes, the one closest to its Gregorian original,
in mm. 74-77(Example 4).
 |
| Example 4 |
The same melody/form building principle is used much more
widely in the later cycle Faust.
In its entire second part – Mysterium, Eben plans a musical
development based on gradual increasing of interval ranges. In the first
measures (mm. 1-42) there are no other melodic (horizontal) intervals at all
except small and large seconds, and the maximum harmonic (vertical) interval
allowed is a small third. Fourths in the vertical are introduced first at m.
42, larger intervals at m. 43, while horizontal intervals’ progression grows
slower - melodic small third appears first in m. 48, a tritone - in m. 51, a
fourth - in m. 63, (in opposite order) a sixth - in m. 64, and in the same
measure there is the first small seventh. Vertical seventh appears earlier, but
it is not introduced as clear and as obvious as in m. 69 for the first time, in
the right hand’s part, and the first time an octave is reached in vertical and
horizontal is just in m. 89! The section starting from m. 89 seems to
concentrate gradually on the seventh as a main building block, and starting
from m. 97, there is rarely any other interval involved.
b.
increasing
chromatization.
In Sunday Music one could interpret most of the chromatic
treatment as tonal, functional alterations. Less so in Laudes; in the third
piece of Laudes, there is the first appearance of black-white keys’
division of parts, where the right hand plays only on the white keys, while at
the same time, the left hand plays only on the black ones, in mm. 72-76. While
both parts are tonal and diatonic, when mixed they give quite a
chromatic/dissonant impression.
Melodic-harmonic language in this cycle is much more
dissonant/chromatic, and there are no longer “same key” finals seen, as in Sunday
Music.
Further melodic development can be seen in the first of the
Four Biblical Dances. The melody consists of only four tones, and they are used
interchangeably, in seemingly random order, and with large leaps in melodic
line, in mm.41 and 42. This quite unexpected feature becomes even more unusual
by the fact that it is marked “ad libitum”!
c. Theme “wrapping”
Eben is very fond of introducing a melody “hidden” inside a
chord. This can be seen in more than one piece. For example, one of the main
melodies of the second piece of Sunday Music appears almost completely
invisible, “wrapped” around multiple chords in mm. 96-99, after starting the
chords’ section in m. 93. The theme appears clearly and distinctly just 22
measures after, in m. 121-124. The same compositional principle is used also in
the Laudes organ cycle, in the first piece, where the second theme,
which appears mm. 25-29, also is “wrapped” around the chordal structure in mm.
61-65 (Example 5).
 |
| Example 5 |
d.
registration
In the second piece of Laudes we encounter Quint and Tierce
over the fundamental 8’. This is a relatively unusual registration, giving a
rather “mysterious” sound (note that the tempo marking is “Fantastico”). The even more mysterious registration at the
beginning of the fourth piece emphasizes
further the very unusual way the Gregorian chant is first introduced - in a
“chopped” form, literally note at a time, in a tutti pedal part against a very
quiet “sonorific” sound at the manuals (mm.
1-17, Example 6).
 |
| Example 6 |
In
the Four Biblical Dances, (number 3, Song of the Beggar with a Hurdy-gurdy)
the organ is made deliberately to sound like a barrel organ (another example is
the fifth piece).
When
trying to follow Eben’s evolution through the years, one is startled to find
out what changes have occurred in his melodic/harmonic thinking. While being
always interested in tonality, he turns more and more towards interval-oriented
thinking, symmetry and restricted-tone-usage complexes. He also pays an increasing attention to
coloristic features (in both his harmonic language and his original registrations),
symphonic thinking while writing for the keyboard, and instrument-imitating
techniques. His scores become increasingly chromatic, and in this instance he
could be compared to Vierne. There is an increasing preference for
interval-oriented thinking, operating with intervals in a very individual and
intuitive manner. Sound complexes such as chords and multi-level, multi-line
constructions become more and more significant. Eben’s organ works are
large-scale, mural-like compositions, always with some kind of an underlying
program and context, and are characteristic by their visual, theater-oriented
nature. Starting as a traditionally oriented tonal composer, he creates music,
which becomes very modern, having all the indications of a major 20th
century creative musical thinker.
- author Sabin Levi
