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GETTING OUT OF THE LABYRINTH: GERALD BARRY'S WIENER BLUT AND THE PATH TO PETRA VON KANT
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 August 2024
Abstract
Gerald Barry's approach to composition has undergone a number of changes. Frequently these developments coincide with the composition of a large-scale opera. One of these points of transition in his output occurs in the period before he commenced work on The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant. Between 1999 and 2000 Barry composed three works – 1998, The Eternal Recurrence and Wiener Blut – in which he attempted to find a new compositional direction after a period in which canonic proliferation dominated his musical material. This article examines some of the main traits of these works, and Wiener Blut in particular, since it contains a greater variety of approaches than the other two compositions. The article also considers how Barry's shift in approach may have been linked to his decision to set Rainer Werner Fassbinder's play. Its quite plain, realistic prose was a contrast to the sort of text Barry had previously chosen to set, requiring a different musical response, and the article draws out some possible connections between Barry's three ‘pointillistic’ compositions and the opera.
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- RESEARCH ARTICLE
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- Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press
References
1 His other operas do not have this sense of exploring completely different territory: La Plus Forte (2006) continues to mine techniques used in Petra von Kant (albeit from a more subdued standpoint), while Alice's Adventures Underground (2014–15) retreads ground covered in The Importance of Being Earnest.
2 Glide was first broadcast by BBC Radio 3 on 17 January 1998. The incidental music in its original form has been recorded and published under the title Before the Road.
3 Gerald Barry, interview with John Hughes, RTÉ radio broadcast, undated 1999.
4 Gerald Barry, interview with Sarah Walker, BBC Radio 3, Hear and Now, 16 June 2000. The programme included the premiere of 1998, played by Barry in a performance that lasts 18 and a half minutes.
5 Clarke, Jocelyn, ‘Pleasantly Alienating and Strangely Seductive’, New Music News, February 1995 (Dublin: Contemporary Music Centre), p. 10Google Scholar. Neighbours was a long-running Australian television soap opera.
6 Michael Dervan, ‘A Fight at the Opera’, Irish Times, 26 September 2002. In the event, the use of a large orchestra playing at a high volume ensures that most of the text is not clearly heard in live performance.
7 1998 exists in three different instrumentations, for solo piano, violin and piano or string quartet respectively.
8 In the recent recording of The Eternal Recurrence there is a substantial cut of over 170 bars, which brings the duration down to under 12 minutes. Britten Sinfonia, Thomas Adès, Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphonies 7–9, Gerald Barry: The Eternal Recurrence. 2021, Signum Classics, (CD) SIGCD659.
9 Barry, interview with Sarah Walker. It is notable that since this period the idea of memory, and in particular childhood memories, either real or fictional, has become an important trope in Barry's descriptions of his work. For example, the programme note for The Road states that it ‘refers to an image from childhood of sun with high wind on a remote road’. However, as with all descriptions from Barry, these are not to be taken literally; the note for The Road continues: ‘The music is not programmatic; the title and the note came after the music was completed.’ Discussing The Road with Jean Martin he added, ‘I did say in the programme that it was inspired by a memory from childhood of sun with high wind on a remote road. Often those are memories that one invents after writing the piece.’ Gerald Barry, interview with Jean Martin, 24 June 2000, www.soundbasis.eu/writing/Barry.html (accessed 16 April 2018).
10 Barry, interview with Jean Martin.
11 Michael Dungan, ‘An Interview with Gerald Barry’, Contemporary Music Centre Dublin, 27 February 2004, formerly available at www.cmc.ie/features/interview-gerald-barry (accessed 21 March 2005).
12 Barry, interview with Jean Martin.
13 Barry, interview with Sarah Walker.
14 Barry, interview with Sarah Walker.
15 Gerald Barry, interview with Ivan Hewett, BBC Radio 3, Hear and Now, 2 June 2007.
16 Barry, Gerald, Wiener Blut programme note (Dublin: Gerald Barry Festival, 21–25 June 2000)Google Scholar.
17 Barry, interview with Jean Martin.
18 Barry, interview with Jean Martin.
19 Barry, interview with Ivan Hewett; Gerald Barry, introductory comments before a performance of Wiener Blut by the Northern Sinfonia conducted by Thomas Zehetmaier, BBC Radio 3, 9 January 2004.
20 Gerald Barry, pre-concert talk, National Concert Hall Dublin, 14 May 2002.
21 Barry, introductory comments before a performance of Wiener Blut.
22 Barry, interview with Jean Martin.
23 Barry, interview with Ivan Hewitt.
24 Barry, interview with Jean Martin.
25 Barry, interview with Jean Martin.
26 It is clear from comparison of the score of the original and orchestral versions that Barry increased the amount of these markings after the experience of hearing it in performance.
27 The difference between the original and orchestral versions is naturally most striking in this section, where the extra weight of the strings alters the balance between parts considerably, though this does not result in clarity but a more heavily weighted density.
28 For example, one can identify larger repetitions, such as bars 326–29, which are repeated at bars 341–44, but with considerable re-voicing of the various parts which disguise the recurrence.
29 In more practical terms this repetition is one of the passages which disguises the underlying Bach rhythmic template.
30 March, Daniel, ‘Speed and Slowness in the Music of Gerald Barry’, Contemporary Music Review, 33, no. 4 (2014), pp. 383–84Google Scholar.
31 This may be the reason for the lengthy cut of the purely orchestral music from the piece, noted in footnote 8.
32 March, ‘Speed and Slowness’, p. 380.
33 Act 2 was premiered in Dublin on 27 September 2002 by the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland under Gerhard Markson. The rest of the opera was written after this performance.
34 For example, see the rapid sung C major arpeggios at bars 118 and 515 in the original uncut score.
35 The other technique used to aid recognition of repetitions is to score fragments in a distinctive manner and retain this scoring in any repetition.
36 When performed in German a further vocal statement is required to fit the words.
38 Barry, Gerald, interview with Hewett, Ivan, The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant programme (London: English National Opera, 2005)Google Scholar.