The Fantasia for Solo Cello: A Close Reading, with Reference to the Sketches and the Compositional Process

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1 The Fantasia or Solo Cello: A Close Reading, with Reerence to the Sketches and the Comositional Process Graham Hair Thomas Wilson comosed his little Fantasia or solo cello in 1964 (comleting it on July 0th, according to the manuscrit). The ollowing remarks oer a ʻclose readingʼ o ʻhow the iece goesʼ, and in articular attemt to outline how a listener might interret the structure o the iece, but I hoe they will also illuminate some asects o how I think the comoser went about comosing it, since he let some sketches as well as the inal version, and we can ollow the trail o evidence let by these sketches to ascertain a ew things about the comositional rocess. Nevertheless, in my oinion, what the sketches reveal is best understood in the context o a knowledge o the inal version, so I shall cast my reerences to them in the context o some remarks on that broader toic. None o this is to deny the oetic, hilosohical and even visionary qualities o Wilsonʼs work, about which other contributors to this volume have written so eloquently. But one o Britainʼs greatest midtwentieth century comosition teachers, Matyas Seiber, used to assert that creating a musical work was above all like cobbling a air o shoes, a ractical matter o crat and skill, and in this contribution, I shall try to demonstrate these qualities in Thomas Wilson. The choice o the Fantasia was dictated by two actors: reducing the task to manageable roortions, and the existence o a ew sketches, which ermit a metahorical glance over the shoulder o the comoser at work. Overall Design Although the title ʻFantasiaʼ might lead one to exect an imrovisatory tye o iece, it is in act designed according to a standard ʻABAʼ ormat ( bars). But as with most such designs, esecially erhas in the twentieth-century, the return to the ʻAʼ section is by no means literal and the ʻBʼ section material is not totally indeendent o the material heard in the ʻAʼ section. Some ʻsontaneousʼ musical decision-making about the concatenation and combination o musical materials was clearly involved, at least with regard to the small and medium scale. Variety o Material The sho-worn old comositional saw about ʻunity within varietyʼ (or was it ʻvariety within unityʼ?) is robably not one to which Wilson would have objected er se. Most o his ieces maniest a varied collection o ideas, subjected to a rather rigorous rocess o integration. However, or the old dictum to have any meaning at all let in its old bones, we need to know not that there is ʻdisarateʼ material, but the recise basis o its disarateness, including how to tell what is not uniied as well as what is. Moreover, we need to know not that varied ideas are integrated, but how, when, why, at what level (and so on) they are integrated. So letʼs start with the ʻvaried collectionʼ notion. At one or two strategic oints in this Fantasia there are musical statements which are, in some sense, more or less unique: the oening ew bars, or examle, where we hear a kind o ʻhead-motiʼ (to borrow terminology rom a much earlier eriod o music history): with a ceremonial, anare-like character, which then (excet or the immediately ollowing hrase) dros out until it is heard again at the oening o the reeat o the ʻAʼ section (Temo Primo, bar 78), and once or twice more in the body o this ʻreetition o Aʼ 79

2 The Music o Thomas Wilson section. Mesto, oco rubato ( q = c MM48) Examle 1: Fantasia or Solo Cello, bars 1-2 Centuries o music history tell us that this is a kind o ʻanareʼ. Clearly, it also embodies an element o the ʻScotch snaʼ, and I am indebted to Musica Scoticaʼs general editor, Dr Kenneth Elliott, or the suggestion that it could be heard as recalling the roud and digniied character o a seciic Scottish dance-genre: the slow Strathsey. It is heard only in the ʻAʼ section o the Fantasia (and its reeat at bars 78), but stands out o its context there too, contrasting as it does with most o the rest o the ʻAʼ section material. It is clearly intended as ʻbeginningʼ material, even though in the reeat o the ʻAʼ section (bars 78) it recurs ragmentarily in the body o the section (bar 97) as well as in the oening hrase; nevertheless, this reeated ragment is marked ʻda lontanoʼ that is, clearly intended as an ʻechoʼ, reminding the listener o its ʻbeginningʼ unction. There is another rhythmic igure in the Fantasia with a similarly ʻuniqueʼ character. This is (no surrise!) another ʻhead-motiʼ: the igure which occurs at the beginning o the ʻBʼ section. Poco iù mosso ( q = c 96) aass. Examle 2: Fantasia or Solo Cello, bars 7-8 Just as Examle 1 is an archetyal ʻanareʼ igure, Examle 2 is an archetyal scherzo aassionato one. Its rhythm is that o a ʻFrench overtureʼ, o course, though in this register and instrumentation we are unlikely to hear it in that rame o reerence. Like the ʻslow Strathseyʼ igure, the scherzo aassionato igure aears at the beginning o a section and then ades away and is (by and large) heard no more. It is clear that these two igures are resonsible to a large degree or the act that we can actually hear this iece as an ʻABAʼ design at all, or ʻAʼ and ʻBʼ sections share quite a ew other materials. But the ʻhead-motisʼ roclaim the dierent characters o the ʻAʼ and ʻBʼ sections deinitively, though both sections have two sides to their character: on the one hand, the declamatory, exclamatory and rhetorical character o the ʻslow Strathseyʼ head-moti in section ʻAʼ is immediately comlemented by a ruminative, rhasodic hrase (see Examle 11, age 88), while on the other hand, my descrition scherzo aassionato or the ʻsection Bʼ head-moti indicates reerences to two distinct tyes o scherzo; Examle 2 suggests more the wild urgency o the Choin scherzos in B@ minor and C# minor, whereas the comlementary igure which ollows (see Examle 1, age 89) suggests more the Beethovenian model: skittish and layul, but with a leaning toward the rumbustious. 80

3 Graham Hair: The Fantasia or Solo Cello Nevertheless, desite these dierent characters, we can notice straight away that the ʻanareʼ igure is built on ive notes (F#, G, A, and C) o which the scherzo aassionato igure icks u our (G, A, B@ and C). Thereʼs unity in the variety, ater all, erhas? Variety o rhythm, unity o itch? But, clearly, thereʼs variety o itch as well. In the case o the scherzo aassionato igure we might think: the irst our notes o the G minor scale. But the ʻanareʼ igure says otherwise: ive notes rom the octatonic scale. In the event, the interlay between minor and octatonic lay an integrative role in other ways as the iece unolds. Octatonic Scale, Minor Triad Consider, or examle, the hrase which ollows on immediately rom the oening ʻanareʼ. m sonore 81 calmato Examle : Fantasia or Solo Cello, bars 4 7 Setting aside the last recurrences (or now) o the ʻslow Strathseyʼ rhythm, what weʼre hearing is an octatonic scale with the notes groued rincially in airs: E F, G A@, B@ B, C# D, E F below which we hear a succession o minor triads. D F A (with the E as an aoggiatura), F A@ C (with the G as an aoggiatura), A@ C@ E@ (with the B@ as an aoggiatura) and inally B D F# (with the C# as an aoggiatura). It is thus in this ʻoctatonicʼ context that this second hrase o the ʻAʼ section introduces the minor triad as an integrative moti, and the minor triad turns out to be a ragment o material which recurs many times during the course o the iece, in a variety o dierent contexts. Motivic Unity The idea o the minor triad er se (that is, its itchclass content) as a ʻmotiʼ may seem a little hard to swallow. Ater all, in (say) Beethovenʼs Fith Symhony, the C minor triad recurs hundreds o times, yet we donʼt normally identiy it as a moti there. By ʻmotiʼ we usually mean something distinctive enough to jum out at us rom the general context, and usually in ractice something to do with rhythm and shae, not just itchclass content, athough o course the idea o a seciically ʻharmonicʼ moti has been with us at least since Wagnerʼs ʻTristanʼ chord, and Schoenbergʼs ʻemanciation o the dissonanceʼ is intimately bound u with the ʻmotivicityʼ o harmony. Actually, what makes the minor triad ʻmotivicʼ here is indeed something to do with shae, viz the voicing (sacing), or it is seciically a minor triad with the root at the bottom, the ith above it and then the tenth, in that order (that is, a triad in ʻoenʼ osition). It is also a moti which recurs in more than one rhythmic/textural guise, that is, ater its ʻdeclamatoryʼ incarnation in the ʻAʼ section it is oten articulated by a articular attern o areggiation, using reeated notes, esecially in the ʻBʼ section o the work.

4 The Music o Thomas Wilson iu moto ord m accel Examle 4: Fantasia or Solo Cello, some o the various versions o the minor triad Octatonic Scale, Diminished Seventh One o the eatures to which the conjunction o minor triad and octatonic scale in Examle draws attention is the diminished seventh, that is, we hear the octatonic scale in the to line, while the bass o the our minor triads moves through the succession D, F A@ and B. However, the diminished seventh and the octatonic scale too are surely, er se, too ʻgenericʼ in nature to constitute ʻmotisʼ in any traditional sense, and unlike the situation with the minor triad, the treatment o the actors o rhythm and shae donʼt imose suiciently clear ʻgesturalʼ characteristics to override these ʻgenericʼ qualities. The use o the diminished seventh and octatonic scale in the Fantasia is, by and large, directed to other ends, I believe: large-scale structural ones. Again, however, we need to show not that the diminished seventh and octatonic scale aear, but how, when, why, at what level etc. Diminished Seventh The act that (to within enharmonic notation) just three dierent diminished sevenths can be extracted rom the temered chromatic scale has cast a considerable inluence on the structure o a great deal o music beore that o Thomas Wilson, o course. Think o Liszt, Wagner, Stravinsky, Bartok and scores o other comosers. Here, in the context o Thomas Wilsonʼs Fantasia, it is enlightening to consider the way in which the roots o our oen-osition minor triads are chosen rom one or other o these diminished seventh collections. In what ollows, I shall reer to the three diminished-seventh collections as numbers I (D, F, A@ and B), II (C, E@, F# and A) and III (E, G, B@ and C#), and, by extension, allocate the 12 oen-osition minor triads to one or other o these three collections. In the oening assage (bars 1 11) o the ʻAʼ section we hear oen-osition minor triads o D, F, A@ and B (ʻCollection Iʼ, see Examle 2), and in its terminal assage (bars 27 6) oen-osition minor triads o E, G, B@ and C# (ʻCollection IIIʼ, see Examle 5): 82

5 Graham Hair: The Fantasia or Solo Cello Vc. m ord 4 subito ord m iu moto accel sul ont gliss. ord tasto m Examle 5: Fantasia or Solo Cello, bars 7 This might lead us to exect that the ʻAʼ sectionʼs middle assage will be devoted to assertions o Collection II by means o oen-osition minor triads on C, E@, F# and A. Well: sort o! Ater a coule o transitional bars (12-1) comes a assage which, indeed, asserts a recurring oen-osition triad on C, but it is C major, not C minor (bars 14 18), and there are no subsidiary oen-osition triads (major or minor) on E@, F# or A aended to this striking eature. Exchange o minor or major is almost as old a device as the history o tonality, o course, but Wilson has ound a new slant on a new context or even one o the hoariest old items in the reertoire o comositional devices. izz arco Examle 6: Fantasia or Solo Cello, bars Even here, Wilson looks or an integrative device which will draw the excetional event into the context o the discourse o the whole. In this case, we need to recall the octatonic context o the receding Collection I assage (or examle, in bars 4 7): D E F G A@ B@ B$ C# D, and Wilson relates his C major triad to it by lacing it too in an octatonic context. But transosing the D scale onto C would generate C D E@ F G@ A@ A$ B C, which contains no E natural at all. Wilson thereore chooses or the context surrounding his C major triad the alternative orm o the octatonic scale on C, which does contain the E natural, viz C D@ E@ E$ F# G A B@ C. The treatment o these ʻdiminished-seventh-relatedʼ oen-osition triads changes as the Fantasia rogresses. We could summarise the situation in section ʻAʼ by saying that Collections I and III are reresented by all our oen-osition triads, all minor, but Collection II by a single oen-osition triad, which is surrisingly major. 8

6 The Music o Thomas Wilson The contrasting ʻBʼ section (bars 7-77) is almost entirely devoted to Collections II and III, which alternate like this: III (bar 7) > II (44) > III (47) > II (51) > III (60 then 71). There is but one reerence, en assant, to Collection I in this ʻBʼ section, at bar 49, and it is by no means highlighted dramatically by reetition and gestural isolation, as was the excetional C major triad in the ʻAʼ section. So we can say that, ractically seaking, the ʻAʼ section makes lay with all three diminished-seventh collections, but the ʻBʼ section with only two o them (II and III). I we ollow this line o musical logic through, we might deduce that the return o the ʻAʼ section at bar 78 will reer exclusively to Collection I (D, F, A@ and B), and this is in act what haens. So to summarise this ʻstructural narrativeʼ, we could think o the ʻAʼ section o the Fantasia as laying out a diverse bunch o materials and sections ʻBʼ and ʻreetition o Aʼ as exloring dierent acets thereo. Alternatively, erhas we might think o the iece as beginning (Section ʻAʼ) with a statement o all three Collections, reducing this to two in Section ʻBʼ and reducing this urther to just one in the ʻreetition o Aʼ section. The latter might rovide a better clue as to how the sense o tonality is ʻenactedʼ in Thomas Wilsonʼs Fantasia, or the iece is surely tonal in some sense or other. In this latter reading, tonality is exressed by a rocess o gradually ocussing more narrowly on ʻDʼ as the iece roceeds. To be sure, the iece begins and ends in D (or better: on or around D). But the sense o the centrality o D is really only achieved by the end o the iece. The iece as a whole exresses the centricity o D, not really articular arts o it. Another imlication here is that Collection I can be thought o as ʻonʼ D (to which F, A@ and B are subsidiary). Likewise Collections II and III are subsidiary to the one on D. Collections II and III may have their own internal hierachy o course. For examle, my remarks on the rominent C major triad at bars 14 embody my assumtion that C is the rincial tone in Collection II, and I have accorded E the rimacy in Collection III. There may be internal reasons to accord this rimacy to E; more on that question later. But the sketches lend weight to such a reading too, or they show that, ater the irst statement o the E minor version o the minor-triad moti (bar 27), the comoserʼs irst intention at the reetition o this moti (bar 1) was to move u to G minor, but in act, he changed his mind and decided on a reetition o E minor. Above the relevant oint in the sketches he wrote ʻBis??ʼ (two question marks) and resumably later ʻE min??ʼ (two question marks and underlined twice), and underneath that again, ʻYesʼ (underlined three times!). Pulling all this together, it might not be going too ar to see C and E as ʻneighbour tonesʼ to the D: ʻembellishingʼ tones, whose rominence ades as the iece roceeds. Octatonic Scale, Chromatic Scale, Aggregate Naturally, although we have ocussed on these three diminished-seventh collections, this is not the only material which aears in Fantasia. Nevertheless, the other material which aears in the three sections o the work can oten be regarded as an outgrowth o them. So let us now return to a re-consideration o bar 4, which oened u the discussion o the role o both minor triads and the diminished seventh in Fantasia through consideration o the octatonic scale. As noted, we have the diminished seventh: D, F A@ and B (now christened ʻCollection Iʼ) in the bass, with the same our tones lus our more (E, G, B@ and C# = Collection III) summing to the octatonic scale 84

7 Graham Hair: The Fantasia or Solo Cello (E, F, G, B$, C# and D) in the to line. Obviously, the ith o each chord (A > C > E@ > F#) adds Collection II into this mix, making an aggregate o all twelve tones overall. This is tyically the way in which ʻtwelvetone-nessʼ inds a lace in Wilsonʼs scores: by the occasional strategic concatenation o other materials which, in themselves, are not twelve-tone. Other concatenations o similar materials may sum dierently. For examle the our ʻdiminished-seventhrelatedʼ minor triads, without the to-line ʻaoggiaturasʼ o bars 4 7 roduce ʻeight-toneʼ (octatonic) aggregates. The ollowing outlining (bars 84 85) o the ʻCollection Iʼ rising bass with the minor triads attached roduces a reresentation o the octatonic scale on D, though not the same octatonic scale as at bars 4 7: Bars 4 7 (see Examle ): D E F G A@ B@ B$ C# Bars (see Examle 7): D E@ F G@ A@ A$ B C Temo izz m iu mosso accel rit Examle 7: Fantasia or Solo Cello, bars A more extended assage o this kind, outlining Collection II in the bass, and roducing an eighttone octatonic aggregate, occurs at bars (F# G# A$ B C D E@ E F (F#)). Note that this time the collection neither starts nor ends on C and that the C-triad which aears is the ʻnormativeʼ minor, not the ʻexcetionalʼ major. 85

8 The Music o Thomas Wilson eroce, agitato [oco iu mosso ( q = MM c96)] m izz molto vibrato arco Examle 8: Fantasia or Solo Cello, bars calmato rit Finally, consider the assage at bars 6 7, which outlines Collection III in the bass, but adds the assing notes C (between B@ and C#), D# (between C# and E) and F# (between E and G), thus roducing an eleven-tone aggregate; only the omission o the assing-note A between G and B@ inhibits the comletion o the twelve-tone aggregate. O course, aggregates, whether eight-tone or twelve-tone, or o some other character, are sometimes created by means other than the concatenation o minor triads. Consider, or instance, the way in which the aorementioned and aore-celebrated statements o the C major triad are comlemented and extended sul tasto 21 accel oco (oco) 22 m m 2 24 rit lautando Examle 9: Fantasia or Solo Cello, bars

9 Graham Hair: The Fantasia or Solo Cello The attachment o a erect 5th below six notes o the D octatonic scale (in bars 19 20): D E F G G# B@ G A B@ C C# E@... roduces the ten-note collection D E@ E F G G# A B@ C C#; the attachment o a erect 5th above each note o the diminished seventh containing D (in bars 20 21): F# A C E@ B D F A@... roduces an eight-note (octatonic) collection D E@ F F# A@ A B$ C. This little ʻdeveloment sectionʼ which ollows the assertions o the C major triad could also be considered to stem rom the ʻoen-osition triadʼ moti, irst by rolonging its bottom interval, the erect ith, in a assage based exclusively on that interval, and then, a ew bars later, rolonging its to interval, the minor sixth, in a assage based exclusively on it. Thus, the third subsection (bars 27 6) o the ʻAʼ section is extensively re-occuied with these minor sixths, just as its second subsection (14 26) had extensively eatured the erect iths (see Examle 10). oco m m subito sul ont gliss. tasto ord m subito sul ont ord gliss. m Examle 10: Fantasia or Solo Cello, bars 27 4 Contrasting Material We have come quite a long way down the track towards an integrated overview o the structure o the Fantasia with just these ew scras o material: (i) the three transositions o the diminished seventh and o the octatonic scale (ii) a articular voicing o the minor triad and a major variant (iii) two contrasting gestures: the ʻslow Strathseyʼ igure and the scherzo igure. 87

10 The Music o Thomas Wilson This is not in any way to suggest that this tightly-uniied character excludes the use o contrasting material. Elsewhere in this volume, the essay by William Sweeney outlines the role which dialogues between two contrasting tyes o material, and contrasting states more generally, lay in Wilsonʼs Symhony No.. John Maxwell Geddesʼs survey also reers to this characteristic o other Wilson works. We see this here in the Fantasia as well. Both the rincial thematic ideas are develoed by being set against contrasting material. Thus the ʻslow Strathseyʼ igure in the ʻAʼ section, with its jerky rhythm and double and trile stoing (bars 4 6), is treated as an antecedent and extended by the addition o a contrasting consequent (bars 6 10) which is a rhasodic melodic hrase, characterised by lowing trilet/dulet juxtaositions. m sonore calmato oco m Examle 11: Fantasia or Solo Cello, bars 4 10 This whole antecedent-consequent air (bars 4 10) is then reeated in varied orm (bars 10 1). Likewise, the scherzo igure at the beginning o the ʻBʼ section is extended by contrasting material, though not in quite the same way. The scherzo igure is reeated at various transositions between bar 7 and 44, and between each statement Wilson laces a contrasting ʻareggiated minor chordʼ moti (ʻinterrutionsʼ). We have reviously discussed these chords in the context o other aearances o similar material (various incarnations o the ʻminor triadʼ moti); at this oint it is useul to ocus on them in the context o contrasting material, in their role o ʻinterrutionʼ. That Wilson thought o them in this way we know rom his sketches, or he wrote out a assage develoing the scherzo igure without them, and then added them in or the deinitive version o the score (see Examles 12 and 1): Examle 12: Fantasia or Solo Cello, sketches (scherzo igure) 88

11 Graham Hair: The Fantasia or Solo Cello Poco iu mosso ( q = MM c96) aass Examle 1: Fantasia or Solo Cello, bars 7 41 As I noted earlier, the scherzo igure, like the ʻAʼ sectionʼs ʻslow Strathseyʼ igure, is treated as just a ʻhead-motiʼ, that is, it subsequently dissolves away. When it does so, leaving the areggiated oenosition minor triad to dominate the scene, Wilson brings in a dierent kind o contrasting igure, characterised by narrow intervals (mainly tones and semitones), in contradistinction to the oenosition minor triad, which is characterised by wide ones (iths, sixths and tenths). Vc. non stacc iù sub oco accel cresc Examle 14: Fantasia or Solo Cello, bars Chromatic Scale and Twelve-tone Series This use o narrow intervals tends indirectly to suggest the chromatic scale, which we have seen lurking in the background several times in our trawl through the other materials (octatonic, diminished, triadic). Indeed, Wilson wrote out a twelve-tone series in the sketches or this iece: 89

12 The Music o Thomas Wilson Examle 15: Fantasia or Solo Cello, sketches (twelve-tone series) John Maxwell Geddes has described something called ʻoldbackʼ scales in Wilson (see age 57), and erhas this ʻseriesʼ could be considered as one o them. At any rate, it doesnʼt seem to aear in literal orm as a series er se in the Fantasia, but certainly the idea o combining octatonic or other nonchromatic scalar segments to orm chromatic (or near-chromatic) aggregates seems to be one o the seciic ways o imlementing this generic concet. It aears sasmodically in the earlier sections o Fantasia, but, as one might exect, reaches its aotheosis in the inal climactic renzy (89 9): agitato rubato subito a temo oco Examle 16: Fantasia or Solo Cello, bars 89 9 Thereater, a raid roll-call o ragmentary reerences to earlier material dissolves the iece into a inal ʻsubsidingʼ assage (bars ), which culminates in a return to (or better: a narrowing o ocus uon) the ʻtonicʼ, in the orm o the ubiquitous minor oen-osition triad, on D as at the beginning o the iece in bar 4, but now standing alone and slowly-areggiated, in the last two bars: iu lento izz arco rit niente Examle 17: Fantasia or Solo Cello, bars