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Remembering René Leibowitz (1913-1972): Composer and Champion of Schoenberg's Legacy

Jul. 21, 2024

Preface

This article first appeared 25 years after the death of René Leibowitz. Now it is 52 years thereafter, and this unique composer-conductor continues to fascinate a small but loyal coterie of musicians. Among his most inspiring works are the orchestral transcriptions—Leibowitz was a phenomenal orchestrator—of major works by Bach, Mozart, Schubert (the beloved piano four-hand pieces), and others. In his own way, he made an invaluable contribution to the music of his own day as well as the past.

It is 25 vears since René Leibowitz died in Paris at the age of 59. Among the general public, he had been known as a conductor with the dual mission of being as faithful as possible to composers' intentions in the performance of their works; and of presenting to unschooled audiences the music of our time in general and of Amold Schoenberg in particular. The Viennese master was his musical paragon. To those with a particular interest in theory and analysis, Leibowitz represented akeen analytical mind and a facile pen, a writer whose books, especially the 1946 Schoenberg et son ecole (English translation, 1949), was for many the very first glimpse into the Second Viennese School. Having studied privately with Ravel in 1933, he himself took on private pupils who wished to learn about the application of serialism and numbered among his students such celebrities-to-be as Pierre Boulez and Hans Werner Henze. 

Whether Schoenberg's music – or Leibowitz's – will ever be "in the mainstream" is debatable, but that it continues to be played and studied and discussed is beyond question. A recently-released recotding, René Leibowitz: Chamber Music, by the ensemble aisthesis and soloists under the direction of Walter Nussbaum (DIVOX CDX 29303, distributed by Allegro Corp.) contains eleven works written between 1944 and 1970.

Article

Among the most interesting commentaries on Leibowitz was the German-language prefatory essay by Rudolf Kolisch to René Leibowitz 1913-1972: A Register of His Music and Writings, edited by Jacques-Louis Monod (1983, Mobart Music Publcations, Hillsdale, NY). As far as we can tell, it is published here for the lirst time in English translation:

René Leibowitz became known as a conductor, a career that is usually central and exclusive to its practitioners and that sometimes brands them as famous figures. For him, however, it was only the smallest aspect in a specftum of activity which was quite extraordinary in its scope and intensity. Much more significant was his role as a teacher: he brought the message of the Second Viennese School to France where a legion of younger composers, among them Boulez, received it from him. But he also passed this message on in books – Schoenberg et son école, Introduction à la musique de douze sons, a biography of Schoenberg – which alone assures him a high place among writers on music, to begin with because here was the first time one could find analyses of the new technique. A History of Opera and the didactic work Thinking for Orchesta, along with an impressive series of other publications, attest to his multifaceted gifts.

These functions as interpreter, teacher, and writer, however, are as nothing compared to his achievement as a composer: he left us 92 works, among them five operas. It is an unbelievable indicator of the situation in the music business that Leibowitz as a composer is almost unknown and that performances of his works hardly ever happen. [Editor's Note: Keep in mind that this evaluation was made almost two decades ago.]

While Leibowitz performances are still not plentiful, his music does continue to be played, and his scores continue to sell steadily, according to his principal publisher, Mobart Music Publications. 

Not only does the volume of his output alone legitimize him as a composer but his music's historical significance lies in its being the clearest example of Schoenberg's legacy. Without being a mere imitation, it is wrought from his spirit and comes closest to him in style. It must be obvious that this fact still has a negative effect even today: not only "ex ipso fonte aqua gratius bibirur" [Ovid: water drunk freely from this fountain] but in that the amusement industy drinks unwillingly and only sparingly from this spring.

Just how this situation arose must be regarded as a musicologically fascinating case: Leibowitz was not a Schoenberg student in the normal sense of the word; he never studied formally with anyone, at least as a composer. He was, as was his model, an autodidact in every sense. Only through study of his writings and compositions – and their acquisition in those days was nothing short of an heroic achievement – did Leibowitz evolve an affiliation whose enthusiasm, exclusivity, and loyalty was truly rare. And so he resolved to include a Schoenberg work in each and every one of his concert programs, carrying this intention out to an astonishing degree.

It is a testimony to his powerful intellectual competence that he was able, by way of self-instruction, to develop a specific and highly sophisticated technique. It is very tempting to speculate that he might never have acquired such a technique had he, in fact, had personai lessons since Schoenberg expressly excluded his own music in his teaching and used only traditional music for his instruction. This is precisely what differentiates Leibowitz from the real Schoenberg students.

Be that as it may, this technique was always available to him and he used it as he needed it, the sign of a real composer. A special dimension of his output, probably stemming from his activities with orchestras, is his interest in orchestral transcriptions in the service of his great predecessors – Bach, Mozart, Schubert, Liszt, Schoenberg. When time comes no longer so remote that Schoenberg is recognized not only as the most significant musical phenomenon that he is played and accepted into the mainstream, then Leibowitz's time will also have come.

'T is a consummation devoutly to be wish'd.

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