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IN THEIR OWN WORDS. . . .

Ferruccio Busoni on Young Classicism (1920)

Ferruccio Busoni (18661924) was a leading gure in the musical world of his time. He made his reputation rst as a virtuoso pianist and composer, and, after settling in Berlin in 1894, he was much in demand as essayist, teacher, and conductor. In an open letter to the Frankfurt music critic Paul Bekker that is given here, Busoni reects upon the state of modern music in 1920. His ideas about the dawning of an age of young classicism are a remarkably accurate prediction of the direction that music traveled during the next quarter century. After rst thanking Bekker for his support against attacks coming from the composer Hans Ptzneran old nemesis Busoni describes a new style in music, young classicism, which he senses as imminent. It will merge old and new, he says, dispense with the apparent exaggerations of the preceding decades, be objective in its expressivity, return to melody without the intense motivic work of the past, and regain a spirit of serenity. While Busoni is not talking of musical Neoclassicism per se, his forecast is an uncanny prediction of this emerging style.
Dear Mr. Paul Bekker, I read your article Impotencyor Potency? [Frankfurter Zeitung, 1516 January 1920] with agreement and sympathy. I must thank you for much of what you said there. Since [Hans] Ptzner cannot also be accorded my agreement and sympathyhe does not want thesethere is no doubt that misunderstandings will exist between him and the one whom he attacks. But I believe that all who have good intentions wish the best for music, for its highest perfection. This common goal must override all partisanship. I also believe that there are differences in contemporary compositiondifferences in talent!but that these are not chasms. I believe that [contemporary] works are more alike than we think or convince ourselves of. (Differences of opinion are quite another matter. . . . ) In every period there are and must be artists who cling to tradition and others who want to free themselves from it. This twilight condition seems to me to be a healthy one. Historians who seek to generalize and reach conclusions prefer the perspective of the clear light of morning and midday. The appearance of isolated experiments which ow together into caricature is always found in evolution: bizarre, ape-like leaping gestures of those who stand for somethingeither deance or rebellion, satire or foolishness. In the last fteen years this sort of thing has appeared all the more, and it attracts our attention all the more strongly after the standstill of the eighties, which remains quite isolated in the history of art (and which, unfortunately, coincided with my own youth). But the spread of exaggeration, with which beginners today make their debut, points to the end of this period. The next step, which will be demanded by dissent, will move toward a new classicality. By young classicism I mean the mastery, examination, and exploitation of all the gains of previous experiments and their inclusion in solid and beautiful forms. To let one word serve for many, I mean perfection (as suggested by rightness and a bringing to conclusion). This art will be old and new at the same time at rst. We are steering, luckily, in that direction, consciously or unconsciously, willingly or unwillingly. But for this art to arise intact in its newness and to signify to the historian a real achievement, it will have to be founded on many assumptions which today are not yet fully accepted. I believe that one of the most important of these still ungrasped truths is the concept of oneness in music. By this I mean that music is in itself music and nothing more. It cannot be divided into different categories except when words, titles, situations, and meanings are brought to it from outside and evidently divide it into types.

There is no music which is church music in itself, but only absolute music to which sacred words are put or which is performed in church. If you change the text, the music apparently changes also. If you remove the text altogether, there remains (illusorily) a symphonic movement. If you add words to a movement from a string quartet, an opera scene might result. If you play the first movement of the Eroica symphony to an American Indian lm, the music might appear so changed that you will not recognize it. For this reason you should not speak of instrumental music and the true symphonic composer, as you let slip in your article concerning chamber symphonies. I do not presume to criticize you, but I am under the impression that by using these terms you place yourself nearer to Ptzner than you intend. By young classicism I include a denite departure from the thematic and a return to melodynot in the sense of a pleasing motive given to an instrument in a comfortable register, but melody as ruler of all voices, all motions, all bearers of idea and as the generator of harmonyin short, the most highly developed polyphony (but not the most complicated). A third thing of no less importance is the removal of the sensual and the renunciation of subjectivity. (The road to objectivitythe author standing back from his workis a purifying road, a hard way, a trial of re and water.) Also the regaining of cheerfulness (serenitas). This does not mean Beethovens wry smile nor Zarathustras liberating laugh, but the smile of wisdom, of godlinessof absolute music. Not profundity, attitude, and metaphysics, but music through and through, distilled, and never under a mask of gures and ideas which are borrowed from other elds. Human sentiments, but not human concerns, and these expressed to the measure of what is artistic. The measure of what is artistic does not rely only on proportions, on boundaries of what is beautiful, or on the preservation of taste. Instead, it suggests not giving tasks to art that lie outside its nature (description in music, for instance). This is what I think. Can this, to return to what was rst said, can this opinion be contested by honest people? Do I not extend my hand toward a general agreement? Is it possible that these theories could be deemed harmful, dangerous by some, retrograde or compromising by others? I entrust these [questions] to you. Yours truly, F. Busoni
Source: Ferruccio Busoni, Junge Klassizitt, Frankfurter Zeitung, 7 February 1920. Reprinted in Musikbltter des Anbruch 3/1-2 (January 1921): 2527, translated by Bryan R. Simms.