Joachim Noller

 

Forms of reality

 

Michel Butor, Votre Faust and „mobile structures“

 

Translation: Philip Marston

 

The essay you read here is a revised version of a talk I gave on 23 March 2013 at the Berliner Kunstquartier Bethanien as part of a symposium entitled „Empört Euch! Mitsprache in Votre Faust von Pousseur/Butor - Utopie oder Vision?“ („Rise up and say what you think! The audience’s right to have their say in Pousseur’s/Butor‘s Votre Faust - Utopian dream or vision?“). The occasion was a new production ofVotre Faust at the Radialsystem Berlin (premiered on 30 March 2013) and at the Schauspielhaus Basel.

 

When I wrote an encyclopedic article[1] on Henri Pousseur‘s and Michel Butor‘s opera[2] Votre Faust many years ago, my main focus was on the authorship of the composer. Today I would like rather to highlight the contribution made by the man who would, I suppose, traditionally be termed the librettist, Butor, for the very good reason that, far from merely dutifully providing a libretto, he saw his role as a source of ideas and ways of shaping the work, as someone who had the wider cultural setting in mind, was committed to thinking through the aesthetic trends of the time and knew how to use them as fertile ground bringing forth artistic fruit, who transcended the boundaries between different artistic genres - literature, music and painting - examining and redefining their relationship to one another, and who, in doing it, did not linger in the realms of analytical observation. I will attempt to apply some of the thoughts expressed by Butor in his early works to Votre Faust in the hope of elucidating how the innovative idea of variable form can be understood in a wider context, not simply in a musical one.

It is interesting to note in the genesis of Votre Faust that one version of the text (already, it is worth mentioning, furnished with numerous specific instructions for its musical and acoustic realization) already appeared in 1962[3] (as we know, the period over which the opera was written is normally given as 1961-68). It is even more remarkable that a German translation was published only two years later, in 1964[4]. There can hardly have been anyone in the German-speaking world at that time who was not a specialist for New Music who had even heard of Pousseur. This book, entitled Euer Faust. Variables Spiel in Art einer Oper, is part of a series of publications which cannot be praised too highly and which came out during the 1960s, translated and virtually published by Helmut Scheffel in the Biederstein-Verlag in Munich, and made a number of works by Butor familiar to the German-speaking public. The fact that Votre Faust here - in a foreign language –attracted considerable interest quasi as a monograph shows us: the important place it occupied in the French author’s oeuvre was already recognized at the time. The value of this publication is not diminished by the fact that it is subtitled Vorläufige Fassung (provisional version), since every version of this work must be regarded as being provisional[5]. But this is the text which made the piece public, and even bearing in mind that it is not yet an opera libretto, the acoustic blueprint „in the manner” of an imaginary opera or a musical radio play is already so inextricably woven into it that the reader is enabled to imagine what his ears would experience.

 

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What are the poet(olog)ical guiding principles that cause a writer to collaborate with a composer? What can he contribute to such a work? More specifically, i.e., focusing on our example: how can the artistic interim results be understood from Butor’s perspective, starting with this first version?

Butor’s starting point is the desire to renew the novel, but it is not difficult to apply the insights he gained here universally. In 1955 he writes of the novel „comme recherche” (translated into English as „the novel as research”, and into German as „Der Roman als Suche“), and emphasizes the necessity of creating new forms characterized by a certain constructive rigour and internal consistency compared with conventional narrative forms[6]. Such new forms should not be devised for their own sake. „Formal invention in the novel, far from being opposed to realism, as short-sighted criticism all too often imagines, is in fact the conditio sine qua non of a more intensified reality“[7]. Yet such an intensified realism seems at first sight to contradict the notions normally associated with the word. The relationship between what is depicted in the novel and so-called „reality” has a symbolic character, i.e., it is far removed from the stereotypical reproduction of things on the pattern of basic facts and ideational superstructure etc.: „what I call the 'symbolism' of a novel is the entirety of the relationships between what it is describing to us and the reality we live in“[8]. Butor is here preparing his readers to understand that new forms, while they may be extremely stringent in nature, nevertheless have reality as their content, albeit in a highly codified form.

Five years later, in 1960, he publishes an essay in which this line of thought is projected onto composing: music should likewise be a realistic art form[9]. The neglect of such „con-textual” aspects in music theory appears as a mirror-image corollary of the tendency to ignore formal aspects in literary theory, first and foremost as applied to the novel. The debate was initially waged against the backdrop of Marxist polemics between the positions of Formalism, regarded as being reactionary, and orthodox Realism. In the post-war years, politically active artists and intellectuals who advocated a rejuvenation of language tried to transcend this antagonistic dichotomy, convinced that Formalism and Realism did not have to be irreconcilable opposites[10], and Butor’s deepest instincts made him inclined to agree with them. Others avoided becoming involved in such a dialectical conflict; they kept their eyes firmly fixed on technical innovations or at least presented themselves as doing so. Butor, in contrast, championed maintaining the reference to reality and demanded that it should also be present in music. Such a link, of course, would be unthinkable without formal consequences, and the title of his 1955 essay already implies that such a form might be stringent, but not fixed once and for all: le roman comme recherche, the novel as research (or as a quest). What emerges from this search is thus not a finished design, but a work in progress, in the process of developing a form, forms gradually crystallizing out, a process which still remains meaningful even when it never reaches a definitive goal.

These ideas eventually lead Butor to demand (as he terms them) mobile structures, as it were the crowning glory in a poetics of the new novel: „different narrative lines“ the reader can follow must become a possibility. A higher degree of mobility than ever before could be imagined, one where the reader shares responsibility for the outcome „for what happens in the microcosm of the work, mirroring as it does our human state, for the most part without his knowing, just as in real life, each of his steps, his choices precluding outcomes or making them possible, making it clear to him that he has this freedom. One day, I am sure, we will get there“[11]. These lines are published in French in 1963; mobile structures appear here, in this last sentence, almost as a Utopian vision of the future (of music). It is all the more significant that the Fantaisie variable genre opéra, characterized by the introduction of just such a mobile structure, appeared just one year previously. It is almost as though the opera is the vehicle taking Butor into this new world he finds it so difficult to realize in his own artistic strivings.

At any rate the variable form of Votre Faust points to one way in which Formalism and Realism can be amalgamated; it is a form which is new, a form which opens up to reality, which does not crystallize into a rigid state, which can change. But despite all this mobilization it remains a form which can justifiably be so designated. It does not have the destruction of form as its goal, it does not aim at Informalism. And this – I would assert – is where Butor is on the same wavelength as Pousseur, but also as another eminent master of aleatory composition. I mean Bruno Maderna, who, by the way, wrote his magnum opus for the music theatre at almost the same time as our two protagonists: Hyperion, like Votre Faust, had a long gestation period from the beginning to the end of the Sixties. Open form – writes the Italian composer in 1965 – is „a necessary adventure of the creative imagination in our time“, an important, but at the same time a perilous achievement, „because this manipulation of the unforeseeable should lead to the unfurling, the blossoming of beauties which the composer envisioned as multiple possibilities, unceasingly renewing themselves: to an apotheosis of form, not to its negation. I am against forms which are against form“[12]. The plea for formal diversity, here too, is quite distinct from tendencies to dissolve form in Informalism. In line with Umberto Eco’s concept of the opera aperta the opening of form, as a result of dialectical negation, creates new ideas of order; after all, it is Maderna himself who brings the shaping of the form to a conclusive end in every performance as its conductor.

 

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Around 1960, we find Butor already formulating quite specific ideas about what an open form could look, or rather sound, like in the field of music. The model he takes for this comes from Stravinsky’s evolution as a composer and musical dramatist, which reached a watershed in The Rake‘s Progress, an opera completed in 1951: the composer „saw himself faced with the absolute necessity of finding an overriding organizational principle within which all the historical and geographical characteristic local colours which he had so diligently learned to manipulate could freely interact. That is why it is perfectly understandable that Stravinsky adopted serialism after the Rake’s Progress“[13]. Seen in this perspective, serialism takes on an integrative function; it is not intended to displace the elements which had developed and been employed up to that point, but to place them in a new context, to connect them to one another[14]. The elements which thus need to be slotted into a unity, using the example of Stravinsky, are an accumulation of disparate couleurs locales, but above all the note patterns derived from various compositional techniques taken from the past. What emerges on the basis of such heterogeneous material is an amalgam of styles, and the task is to knit this into a generic compositional framework; i.e., a form is needed which can open itself due to its heterogeneous innermost nature while at the same time guaranteeing that it will hold together, a form with centrifugal properties against which the composer must pit centripetal forces. Butor is here raising a central issue, one which will occupy Pousseur in composing the music to Votre Faust for years on end. We might, with Maderna, pose the question as to how far Votre Faust already suggests possibilities for constructing a convincing form on the basis of the materials assembled in it.

We will refrain from giving an answer at this point, turning instead to the essay I have quoted from here which deals most lucidly with the musical questions of its time. I refer of course to the libretto of the Faust opera itself, which not only, as already indicated, gives clear instructions for how it is to be acoustically realized, as if it were a musical radio play, but also contains a thematic discourse on the form such realization could take. The prototype here is Scene 1, in which the protagonist and composer Henri is grappling with the Second Cantata, Anton Webern‘s last completed work, and discussing the opera project Faust with Richard and the theatre director.

The scene contains several episodes of a dodecaphonic-serial nature; first of all Webern’s cantata, an iconic example of twelve-tone composition, is played and discussed, then the theatre director demonstrates the transformations of a tone row, and finally it is pointed out that the final bars of the scene are the „exact inversion“[15], of what was heard at the beginning. The serial structure resembles a framework into which from then on other auditory motifs are slotted, motifs which are highly realistic and in some cases recur. Thus the following elements are „inlaid” in Webern’s acoustic world at the beginning of the scene: „Etudes on a violin, the sound of a cobbler tapping with a hammer, a door shutting, the chiming of a clock, a snatch of dance music“[16]. We might therefore distinguish between an artificial aesthetic plane and another consisting of sounds ostensibly associated with the real world. What Butor is suggesting in the case of Stravinsky also applies here, in my opinion: the aesthetic (serial) form creates a contextual framework and links heterogeneous elements together. In Votre Faust, however, these do not evoke historical connotations, but the everyday world. Apart from that, these levels can freely intermingle despite their functional separation, e.g. when the singer in the Webern cantata metamorphoses into a street singer. On top of this, the artificial aesthetic plane itself has a component of realism, since what we see in this scene is how an avant-garde composer around 1960, feeling obliged to follow in the steps of Webern, is struggling with the problem of how to avoid merely emulating him. This represents the dilemma Pousseur faced every day as a composer. To summarize: even the most apparently artificial element is part of a reality, and it would be quite wrong to assert categorically that it is opposed to „reality“.

But while concentrating on the problems of form, we should not forget that Butor firmly believes that he is participating in a trans-formative process, reshaping form itself. What he wrote concerning the novel in 1955 could – as already suggested – be transferred to other art forms: artistic efforts at any one moment do not document a result but the search for the new, the transformation of the novel form, „of the idea of the novel itself, which is evolving, very slowly but inexorably [...] towards a new kind of poetry which is at the same time epic and didactic”[17]. This transformation during the following years includes – as Butor would surely express it - mobilization, a certain opening of form, intended to act as a catalyst for the process of renewal. In 1953, Butor wrote an essay entitled L’alchimie et son langage[18] in which he examines the mysterious metallurgical processes of the alchemists and their influence on thinking. If, taking a small step of imagination, we apply this to Votre Faust: the heterogeneous mix of styles and the hope that this can be transmuted into a real synthesis, greater than the sum of the ingredients in the mix, a new material of a quality which did not exist before – perhaps something of this alchemistic belief lies behind the idea of variable form and its rationalizations.

 

***

 

In the first scene of Votre Faust, from which we already quoted several times above, Henri plays from the piano score of Webern’s Second Cantata. His friend Richard makes a disparaging comment: „Always the same thing. You’re not exactly variable, you know!“. Henri retorts: „But I am always finding new things in it. Just now, for instance, I am focusing on the relationship between the words and the music. It’s quite fascinating!“[19]. And this is not only Pousseur speaking here; his librettist also holds up a meaningful examination of Webern as an alternative to the pseudo-Webernist cult of the Darmstadt serialists, one which focuses precisely on the relationship between words and music, shining a light on an area underestimated, if not indeed completely ignored, for years by the musical avant-garde. Now Butor, when he speaks of the relationship between words and music in general and the possibilities opened up by the contemporary period in particular, does seem at first sight to be subscribing to certain conventions, those typical of a literary perspective on things: of music, we hear „that it can follow a path which leads it to the text, that this is even what it longs for, that it is only waiting for those words which do not yet exist, which can only exist when it makes them possible“[20]. Music - at least we might infer so from this – is raised to a higher plane, perhaps even to perfection, but at the minimum to its highest possible form through the word. We might be forgiven for saying, what else did we expect from a man of words?

But it is not Butor’s intention to depose the art of sounds from its throne or to replace it by words. A small manifesto for the synthesis of all the arts is contained in the following sentence: „Since the dawn of time, it has been with the aid of the eye that the ear learned to understand, through which cries became words“[21], and this path leading from cries to words should be understood metaphorically. Hearing does not end with the word, but it reaches a linguistic plane by learning to understand. Elsewhere Butor writes that there are sound objects which could almost be words in themselves: „the shutting of a door, a quotation from Haydn“[22]. These are quotations from the sounding reality of everyday life or history, such as they (see above) occur in Scene I of Votre Faust or – if we accept Butor’s interpretation - in Stravinsky’s Rake‘s Progress. According to this, their meaning is not linked to their realistic properties but also, perhaps indeed more so, to their function as quasi-speech. When acoustic motifs are „quasi-speech“, they take on correspondingly a quality of conveying meaning, which can be recognized as such. In this metaphorical sense, Butor is unable to imagine any music of real sophistication without „words“, just as a linguistic art without musical qualities would similarly prove to be a poor thing indeed.

 

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One can readily understand, writes Butor, „the role played by the instruments, how the notes they sound transform the function of those sung by the singer, the way in which they reshape the space within which the word is enunciated, changing its properties”[23]. Changing its properties here does not only mean that words set to music are different from those without music, but that this reshaping by means of music helps the writer to discover a different literature or, put more modestly, to make some progress in their quest („The novel as research“). For the writer, music becomes the Vulcan’s cave „in which the weapons and the instruments of a new literature can be forged“[24]. We may draw the conclusion from this that the reason for collaborating with a composer is not primarily a passion for music or music theatre, but lies in the, to put it baldly, selfish search for new literary forms, new literature cultivated on a humus derived from the spirit of new music. Votre Faust: for Butor, it is a transient creative phase from which he hopes for a progressive impetus for his own art. But of course, this artistic programme is also (and in chronological terms, first) addressed to the composer, who is called upon to demonstrate the suitability of musical forms as „best practice“. Accordingly, the aesthetic requirements are to be verified first and foremost (i.e., ahead of all the other arts) in musical composition itself. Le roman comme recherche therefore presupposes la composition comme recherche.

Let us return to the quotation that instrumental sounds „reshape the space within which the word is enunciated, changing its properties“ (see above). What is being changed are the properties of the elements of literature („le mot”). This literature suddenly acquires – however it may have originally been fitted into the work – a variable form. Different musical settings of the same text should therefore be of particular interest to Butor: as a logical consequence, they would be stages in the development of a variable form. Putting it another way: every composer breaks away from the definitive form of the text, opens it up, but without thereby negating the text (assuming that it has a message to convey). Indeed, he carries it forward, revises it, brings out quite different facets of it (hitherto only implied, seemingly unimportant aspects). It is very revealing to read Butor’s description of Pierre Boulez‘ Mallarmé settings in 1961. Their music contains „new possibilities, descriptive, narrative, extraordinary“[25]. He underlines here that the combination of words and music is able to reveal meaning in a different way from a text just by itself. Boulez‘ Mallarmé settings, which Butor understands as a work complex, appear as an expressive and formal extension, an ongoing development of Mallarmé’s poetry. Butor emphasizes the fact that (in 1961) some parts of the work were not yet cast into a definitive form, but were earmarked for further revision. The writer is fascinated by this progressive development. „Listening to it now, one cannot stop oneself trying to imagine what future versions might sound like, in this way stimulating the listener’s powers of invention to help in the process in a remarkable fashion“[26]. In the end this is tantamount to describing all Boulez’ settings of Mallarmé as one large-scale work in variable form. With hindsight, Butor is unmistakably projecting his poetical ideas onto Boulez’ sonic structures. He wants to show us how the musician’s forge can produce instruments which can also serve the cause of literary innovation, thus underscoring once again the significance which the work on Votre Faust holds for his own creative processes.

 

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So let us focus for one last time on the core aesthetic idea of this essay: what was the fascination, in the years around 1960, of mobile structures, as Butor called them? And what might we find fascinating about them today? Did variable form really give an impetus for renewal which lasted beyond the day? Was it able to liberate the audience on the receiving end from its alleged passivity? Wherein lies its value over and above short-sighted ideological dead-ends?

I believe that we could learn much about the purpose of variable forms, ante litteram, by looking at Friedrich Schiller‘s idea of the play of ideas and the instinct for play. Play: here, this is not the antithesis of seriousness, but signifies a dialectic synthesis[27]. On the one side there is a formative instinct, whose object is the outer shape („Gestalt“): „a concept which encompasses all the formal states of things and all the relationships of these to the powers of thought“[28]. And on the other side there is the sensuous impulse („sinnlicher Trieb“), whose object is life itself - yet another term could be applied to this: reality, and this is already closer to Butor’s poetics. And how are we supposed to coordinate these two sides? It is the play instinct which helps to realize „the dual law of absolute formalism and absolute realism“[29]. The play instinct will „bring form into matter and reality into form“[30]. The play instinct – naturally in its sense here, far removed from what we normally understand by it in everyday language – achieves this reconciliation of formalism and realism without sacrificing one to the other. And this instinct fulfils its cultural function – Schiller is utterly convinced of this – on the basis of an ethical responsibility. I propose that the relevance of this approach for the simultaneously playful and nevertheless serious forms of avant-garde art today is self-evident.

 

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The experimental works of art of the 20th century today face the litmus test. The way we understand them should itself be capable of taking on variable forms. We hear something again after many years and come to a quite different assessment of its value, and such assessment should be quite free from aesthetic or ideological constraints. The whole purpose of reviving a work[31] is to enable the generation of this intellectual and cultural added value and is not merely a question of discovering hitherto misjudged masterpieces.