1993 – Sabbatical Year: Is Arnold Schoenberg all that bad?

I have sensed that Harvey has long been interested in Arnold Schoenberg’s music.

Also, during his training, Harvey became fascinated by the work of the New Testament scholar, Rudolf Bultmann, especially in the area of Form Criticism and how the Gospels came to be written.

In 1993, as part of his sabbatical, Harvey began to study the work of both controversial innovators in earnest. He tried to ‘get to grips’ with two particular themes –

1. the ‘12-Note Method’ which Schoenberg described as ‘composition with twelve notes related only to each other.’
2. the programme of ‘demythologising’ to which Bultmann was profoundly committed all his life.

I was able to catch Musico-Theological echoes in both these demanding themes as Harvey resonated and improvised with them in this research.

Schoenberg’s ’12-note Method’ gives equal emphasis and significance to each and every note of the ‘diatonic’ scale (i.e. all white notes and all black notes on a piano keyboard). This means that no one sounding note (tone) takes priority or dominance over another.  The long-established idea of ‘coming home’ to a ‘key note’ at the end of a composition no longer applies.  For example, Schoenberg could no longer designate a Concerto, a String Quartet or a Symphony as being in C major or D minor, F Sharp minor or A flat major.

A Theological improvisation on Schoenberg’s ’12-Note Method’ could sound out and call into question the relatedness of the many different religions of the world (notes on a scale), and the way Christianity has so often taken priority over all others. 

Harvey was asking:

Should we question the traditional assumption, held by many, that the Christian religion must have a ‘key note’ position in the spiritual world?

At the end of all things (if we can imagine the created order as a sounding ‘symphony’), will everything ‘come home’ in one dominant tonic ‘key’, or will there be no one prominent spiritual movement or religion taking priority over all the others?

These unsettling thoughts – and more like them – might explain why Schoenberg’s music was met with such vehement hostility.

In July, Harvey travelled to Marburg, Germany, taking me with him, staying in the University there.  You may remember that I had connections with Marburg through Nellie Barth, the violinist wife of Karl Barth, the famous dogmatic theologian. Rudolf Bultmann had been a professor at Marburg after Barth’s time there, and it was so good to be in familiar territory.

Bultmann had caused much controversy with his programme of ‘demythology’ and existential theology which challenged the historicity of much of the bible stories and gospel narratives.  By so doing he asked penetrating questions about the sources and origins of the written text, and his work identified huge problems in the way the bible is interpreted.

Harvey’s musical approach to Bultmann’s work enabled him to examine the origins of musical texts/scores.  He found that Bultmann’s complicated ideas about biblical Form Criticism are easier to grasp when the structure of a musical work is examined and explored relentlessly and fully. 

Harvey’s awareness of Eric Fenby’s work with Delius (for example), how he was able to distil the composer’s ideas, became a formative example of historical origins.  Fenby’s detailed and painstaking work (outlined in my 1964-5 diary entry) provided a helpful illustration of the complexity which lay behind the ways the Gospel texts may have come about.

(Delius & Fenby c1932)

Just like Schoenberg, Bultmann’s name was rarely popular!

Bultmann wrote: “It is incredible how many people pass judgment on my work without ever having read a word of it. . . . I have sometimes asked the grounds for a writer’s verdict, and which of my writings he has read. The answer has regularly been, without exception, that he has not read any of my writings; but he has learnt from a Sunday paper or a parish magazine that I am a heretic.“

Harvey’s sabbatical studies were very exciting and fulfilling, but I still longed for him to put them into musicking practice! It was all ‘brain-work’ and little exercise of the whole body!

My question is: How does all this exciting and challenging rersearch have a bearing upon Harvey’s body when he preaches and while he exercises pastoral care?