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The Identity of Leopold Spinner
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 February 2010
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SPINNER only ever asked friends and, so far as we know, musicians he knew personally to further the cause of his music; at most he would accept the good offices of those acquaintances he trusted. His own initiatives consisted solely of submitting or sending out scores he thought had possibilities. Any sort of propaganda or publicity was alien to him. The object and basis of any negotiations was his music: it should speak for itself, it should be performed and, presumably, published for its own sake. He considered it sufficiently convincing not to require his powers of persuasion. Again, when it came to performances, he displayed an attitude characteristic of the composers and performers of the Schoenberg School: comparable instances are recorded of Schoenberg, Webern, Kolisch, and Stcuermann, and to some extent Berg. He willingly supported serious efforts on behalf of his music; on the other hand he refused to make the customary concessions to the music industry or to the conditions necessary for performances nowadays. He would not employ kindly euphemisms, and was loth to forgo the realization of the differentiations in interpretation vital to his music. He was never simply grateful just to be performed. All this with good reason: the approach to new music, including that of the Second Viennese School, is still made difficult or blocked by inadequately rehearsed, misleading, incomprehensible or merely boring performances. Spinner's music cannot be fully grasped at first hearing or playing, and looking at the notes leads to nothing—save the observation that some of them look ‘like Webern’. Unfortunately hardly any of Spinner's works have gone beyond the first performance, and as for the scores, all they got was a cursory glance.
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References
1 Mersmann, Hans, Die modeme Musik (Bückcn-Handbuch der Musikwisscnschaft, Wildpark – Potsdam 1929), p. 143Google Scholar.
2 ibid., p. 144.
3 The best-known, but not the only, example is Webern. See for instance Schoenberg's note (facsimile) in Stuckenschmidt, Hans Heínz, Schoenberg. Leben, Umwelt, Werk, p. 491Google Scholar. Cf. also Brinkniann, Reinhold, Einleitnng aw Ramie, in Die Wiener Sclule heute (publication of the Institut für Neue Musik und Musikerzienhung Darmstadt, Band 24, Mainz 1983), especially p. l3ffGoogle Scholar.
4 Stein, Erwin, ‘Neue Formprinzipien’ in: Musikblätter des Anbnuh VI, special number for Schoenberg's 50th Birthday, 13 09 1924. pp. 286–303Google Scholar.
5 Edited by Willi Reich (Vienna 1960).
6 Spinner to René Leibowitz, Summer 1950.
7 About 1935 Berg made an arrangement of the Adagio second movement for clarinet, violin, and piano, which was published posthumously (1956). The manuscript which was the basis for this publication is in the hand of Spinner, Berg himself wrote the directions for the arrangement as well as various different subsequently composed passages in a copy of the published piano score. Spinner's manuscript (in the possession of Universal Edition, Vienna) is undated and unsigned but was perhaps written after the war. Cf. Congdon, David, ‘Kammerkonrert – evolution of the Adagio and the Trio Transciption’, in Aiban Berg Symposion Wien 1980 (conference report Vienna 1981), p. 145 ffGoogle Scholar. Congdon was not aware that the manuscript had come from Spinner.
8 Cf. Herschkowitz, moreover Filip, ‘Some Thoughts on Lulu’, in: The International Albau Berg Society Newsletter, No. 7 (Fall 1978), p. 11Google Scholar. Webern in this context developed the idea of the synthesis of horizontal and vertical presentation of musical ideas.
9 Letter from Spinner to Gottfried von Einem, 7 September 1976.
10 Siegfried Ochlgiesscr has passed on (verbally), from Webern's compositional teaching, these two typical phrases: ‘The idea is an obligation’ and ‘You must know your theme minutely’.
11 Drew, David, ‘Twelve Questions for Leopold Spinner’, in TEMPO 99 (1972, pp. 14–17)Google Scholar.
12 Postcard from Webern in Vienna to Spinner in London, dated 4 July 1939.