In Futurum, No One Can Hear You Play

Much like Stalin's artistic overlording, the Third Reich implemented an artistic suppression program, though their justifications for suppression involved labeling Jewish and modernist art as "degenerate" (entartete), and a special death camp, Theresienstadt (in the Czech city of Terezín) was notable for housing artists, as well as being the camp they showed to visiting foreign dignitaries as a nice clean façade for the Final Solution.  Nearly a whole generation of Jewish composers were sent to Theresienstadt and other camps, and their music was resurrected much later in the 20th century to much acclaim and popularity, showcasing some truly unique voices, the greatest of which may be Erwin Schulhoff (1892-1942).  A composer of incredible versatility and fecundity, Schulhoff was sent to the Wülzburg concentration camp and died in 1942 from tuberculosis, and the revival of his works is one of the great humanitarian efforts in 20th century art.  And dang, did he write some doozies.

While his music went through a number of transformations, his earliest notable period was one of Dadaism, starting in the late 1910's right alongside the likes of Braque and Duchamp (though they never met him).  His experimentations with dadaism (including the baffling Symphonia Germanica (please click that link)) were contemporaneous with his development of "sophisticated jazz", easily the best and most sophisticated of the many European attempts to blend jazz with classical music between the wars, and the two styles meet in his 5 PIttoresques.  While the outer four are decent examples of the early stage of his jazz pieces (though they pale in comparison to later masterworks such as the 5 Jazz Etudes), the third pittoresque, In Futurum, out-bizarres all expectations.

Not since the works of John Stump has the world seen such extensive perversion of musical engraving.  Not one parameter is sacred, from the impossible 3/5 and 7/10 meters to the use of rests rather than notes.  This silent piece predates John Cage's 4'33'' (which will NOT be making an appearance on this blog, in case you were wondering, as there are zero pages in the score), though it is predated by Alphonse Allais's Marche Funebre, which I'll get to at the proper time.  While nothing can be physically played there is an arc to the piece, with a mid-level climax at the pair of faces in the third stave.  These cartoon emotion-notes should appear in more pieces, and are a perfect jab at simplistic tonal resolutions.  The big halt is at the last bar of the fifth stave, a Grand Pause accentuated by five exclamation points, and the piece ends with two happy faces, just like music should.  There's never been a commercial recording (I wonder why?...), but I did find this hilarious performing solution by a student pianist who should be very proud of his work.

~PNK