Though we know the history of Western classical music is nothing like the sanitized, pseudo-evolutionary sweep we’re inculcated in from childhood, the brainwashing is hard to shake. Its insidious influence descends like a fog on the minds of astute listeners, those who claim to appreciate the values of music from vastly different cultures. There are, I suspect, several dozen classically trained composers, who feel much more at home with an Arabian oud solo than an orchestral piece by a “minor composer,” whose work has failed to get a conservatory seal of approval.

Worse, even within the charmed circle of the mainstream classical and modernist repertoire, the evolutionary model is subjected to a “time-warp” phenomenon. While the consensus view is that Western classical music evolved from its pre-tonal beginnings toward Late Romanticism, that doesn’t stop the music of each period from being unfavorably compared to that of its predecessor, as needed. 

Hence, the story goes, the brilliance of CPE Bach pales in comparison to that of his father, until the music of his generation “led to” Haydn and Mozart — without regard to the hundreds of other composers who contributed to that process. Even within that questionable frame of reference, Mozart doesn’t really make it as a composer until his study of JS Bach’s counterpoint enables him to do a fairly good impression of the older master. 

Whether the so-called “Jupiter” Symphony, a fine work by any measure, is “better” than the other two of Mozart’s last three symphonies should be open to question. An objective evaluation might even conclude that the Jupiter loses as much for its templated approach to imitative counterpoint as it gains. Its climactic sections are a brilliant imitation of JS Bach, but maybe a bad imitation of Mozart at his best. Or are they? The point is to keep the discussion open in your mind and not simply stamp any work with a category label, whether out of fear or exhaustion.

The process continues, in that Haydn’s main value is seen as a precursor to Beethoven’s vaunted motivic development. Now, Beethoven certainly deserves to be vaunted, just with the caveat that the line between “development” and “obsessive repetition” needs to be examined with more subtle instruments than mindless reverence. 

Brahms, who knew a thing or two about counterpoint and motivic development, gets short shrift for not being enough like Beethoven, whereas there are still musicians who believe that, compared to Brahms, Schubert and Schumann had no business writing a sonata allegro movement at all. Completely aside, that is, from whether they might have been pursuing different esthetic goals than Beethoven or Brahms. In that context, Chopin’s two mature piano sonatas are enough to make university musicologists wet the bed. Chopin’s recapitulation in the first movement of the B minor is taken as proof of inferiority, even though it is an obvious outgrowth of every aspect of the rest of his musical language. Did he elide something? Oh, my word!

With that in mind, any expedition down the untraveled pathways of German music in the years between the two world wars requires a kind of deprogramming therapy. If the year 1916 only conjures up statistics like “five years after Mahler’s funeral,” or “Berg’s Wozzeck,” it’s no wonder an off-the-radar piece like Franz Schreker’s Chamber Symphony might take more than one try to enter your consciousness. 

Depending on how inculcated you are, you may have to lie down after the first hearing, because of the cognitive dissonance the Symphony engenders. It is, after all, a work by a little-known, out-of-the-canon composer written with undeniable talent, wit, genuine emotion and original textures. 

To be fair, the Chamber Symphony is, in some respects, unique in Schreker’s output. Like his contemporary, Alexander Zemlinsky, most of Schreker’s effort went into elaborate post-Wagnerian operas that are unlikely to hold the stage today. Not so much for the music, which is neither as good nor as derivative as it might have been. But what distinguishes both composers’ operas is a morbid fascination with the downside of human psychology. Were their operas cogent, revelatory psychological essays, that would be one thing. They tend, however, to read like overwrought adolescent male fantasies. 

Based on these odd storylines, it seems that both Schreker and Zemlinsky considered a preoccupation with rape, murder, etc. etc. to be a sign of intellectual sophistication. Some of this same animus runs through Berg’s far superior “Lulu,” especially in what I can glean from the unfinished third act. In any case, Schreker often put his fine musical talents at the service of his own less-than-first-rate librettos, including two in which the main character is a yearning composer. 

In contrast, the immediate experience of the Chamber Symphony is a fascinating glimpse of alternative realities. By 1934, when Schreker’s “Four Short Orchestral Pieces” appeared, the composer, hounded by the Nazis, had moved away from the poetic vision that once inspired him.

In any case, from its opening measures, the Chamber Symphony spins out a fresh, original web of sound that’s also the exemplar of everything Schoenberg chose to renounce. Despite its superficial similarities with Schoenberg’s First Chamber Symphony, Schreker’s work sails closer to the Mahler/Straus shoreline. Also in contrast to the Schoenberg, Schreker does not experiment with quartal harmony. And, of  course, from its opening measures, Schoenberg’s work is cast in a decidedly Modernist idiom.

At the same time, Schreker’s integration of heterophony, pure sound play and “textural themes” morphs each of his stylistic influences into something new. Though his integration of whole-tone harmonies has more in common with Mahler’s Seventh or Schoenberg’s “Pelleas and Mellisande,” the Chamber Symphony nevertheless evokes the subtle modalities of Debussy.

Ultimately, Schreker’s esthetic is the determining factor. In 1916, he was still a thorough-going Romantic. Though his Chamber Symphony lacks a stated program, the dreamy, floating sounds of the opening suggest the start of a spiritual voyage. Regardless, there’s no denying the composer’s “modern” willingness to suspend traditional continuity in favor of a kaleidoscopic sliding together of sound objects.

The score is a curious amalgam and was conceived in a culture that becomes more remote from ours every year. Still, a hundred-and-eight years out, you’ll recognize artistic issues of continuity that are still unsolved. There’s much in this score that many composers would discard without batting any eye, but also musical values still not acknowledged or understood.

That Schreker’s Chamber Symphony will most likely always be seen as a curiosity, I believe its unique qualities deserve more frequent hearings. More than a snapshot of a vanished era, it’s the testament of an extraordinary imagination. Even the work’s “Scherzo” — exactly the kind of thing I might have hoped he had outgrown — is nevertheless as full of graceful, felicitous and surprising touches as the opening. 

In the end, what enters Western classical composers into the “Hall of Fame” is a depth of emotion or a scorecard rating of how well the composer’s language attains a feeling of universality. Is Schreker’s Chamber Symphony profound? I suppose not. What it is, though, is profoundly felt and imagined. It’s the work of an extremely facile composer, whose gifts are undeniable, however much filtered through an esthetic we may find hard to grasp.

^^^

Mark Laporta is a musician, composer and novelist. His science fiction series, Against the Glare of Darkness, is published by Chickadee Prince Books, and is available  in paperback or ebook on Amazon, Barnes & Noble or at a bookstore near you. His latest space opera saga is being serialized in Oblivioni Magazine, which you can read from the beginning. Or listen to his musical compositions here.

Image design: Kalyee Srithnam.