Mozartian Counterpoint: Part VII

Mozartian Counterpoint

Part I | II | III | IV | V | VI | VII

Having discussed already the Overtures to La clemenza did Tito, [24] and Die Zauberflöte [25] we have left to discuss the scene from Act II of The Magic Flute with the "two armed men" and Tamino's trial and the Requiem.



37. Die Zauberflöte, KV.620. Act II, Finale: Der, welcher wandert diese Strasse voll Beschwerden

The laws of counterpoint in the era before "Classical" or "Rococo" taste took over were not simply musical rules. Perhaps one might say with greater accuracy that musical rules were not simply rules for composition. In 1739 Johann Heinrich Dedler's encyclopedia the Grosses Universal Lexicon music defined music as, "everything that creates harmony, that is, order. And in this sense it is used by those who assert that the whole universe is music." [Wolff, 2000. 335] Musical rules were then identical or proportional to the "musica universalis" or the "music of the spheres," i.e. the proportions and relationships of the movements of heavenly bodies. The origins of this thinking lie with Pythagoras' theories that, as related by Aristotle, "the principles of mathematics are the principles of all things."[Metaphysics I.v] In the 17th century this view took on additional relationship to God's creation and ordering of the universe and his eternal reign. There were, of course, variations on these views as well as disputes about their academic and theological implications. [26] I only mean to suggest that in many respects to many composers and theoreticians, the laws of musical composition were not artificial but natural and universal, at least to some extent.

Yet times did change. While contrapuntal procedures retained associations with grave, and often sacred, music, and with a "learned" style it was not necessarily on account of a perceived fundamental relationship. Tastes too changed, evidenced by Rousseau's famous distaste for baroque complexity [27] and later, by Koch's distinction that the "Contrapunktist" was more grammarian than poet. [Chapin, 101] Counterpoint of course would endure, as it does to this day, although:

The respect for the principles of strict counterpoint seems to follow pendular swings in history. If in the 1780s musicians began to experiment with counterpoint, in the 1840s they increasingly aimed at historical accuracy, and in the early twentieth century they again sought malleability. In other words, although the strict style always carried symbolic associations of law and order, this law had different implications at different times. [Chapin, 104]

It is the world and weight of this association with immutable law that Mozart invokes with the style and procedures of the choral fantasia of the two armed men. As a slight aside, I do not concur with Chapin (but rather with Hammerstein) that the scene emphasizes a fluidity to the law because it is neither at all clear precisely what the laws are nor whether exceptions to it are made for Tamino and Pamina.

The scene of course works as a scene of cinema and drama. Too, as Abert notes, the words to the song are inspired by those sung in Masonic lodges at the time and the melody is the old chorale "Ach Gott vom Himmel, sieh darein, which Mozart likely saw the theoretical work, Die Kunst des reinen Satzes in der Musik, "The Art of Strict Composition in Music" by Johann Kirnberger, composer, theorist, and student of J. S. Bach. Abert also traces the dotted (first appearing piano in the second violins) to the Kyrie from Heinrich Biber's Missa S. Henrici of 1701, and suggests, correctly I would say, that Mozart intended by it to give the scene an "ecclesiastical coloring." [Abert, 1291]

Mozart draws on all of these associations for this scene of terrible and perpetual power in which the "ticking of the Kyrie theme" calls forth "demonic restlessness" and the "choral melody moves through the intricate weft of the voices like the voice of implacable fate itself. This whole section attests to the greatest contrapuntal rigor, limiting the interludes to their absolute minimum, so that the course of the chorale is never interrupted. [Abert, 1291]

Too one could not miss the parallel to the aria, "Blute Nur, Du Liebes Herz" from Part I of Bach's St. Matthew Passion[28]

Here Mozart has drawn on counterpoint not just as a musical device but for symbolic purpose by also drawing on the cultural traditions with which it was associated.


36. Requiem, KV.626 

Latin text and English translation of the Requiem Mass (Missa pro defunctis) via Wikipedia.

What paragraph of summary could serve to introduce Mozart's Requiem? The massive fugues, the harmonic design, the sheer force of the terror it unleashes, the Gothic images. . . not to mention the myths surrounding Mozart's death, its incomplete state, the challenges to its authenticity, the studies of the fragments and, of course the scholarship devoted to all of these facets which has accumulated over the past 200 and some years. One must, I think, approach it with a little modesty. Modesty in the face of what we are unlikely to clear up, before what is lost, and before the greatness and solemnity of the piece. As in the rest of our survey, we will not be performing in-depth investigation or speculation, but rather highlighting this final work of Mozart's counterpoint. In the Requiem we will see that Mozart's use of counterpoint is is so perfectly suited to this unique use, the Requiem Mass, as to seem almost a distinct usage, "the Mozartian conception of the Requiem." For as surely as Mozart had models for opera and far surpassed them, so has he his models for the Requiem Mass. Likewise his use of Handelian subjects and Bachian choral-writing is so subsumed into Mozart's idiom and the unique demands of the Requiem as to be a whole new creation.

He employs counterpoint here not as study, not for humor or whimsy, as "learned style" contrapuntalizing, incidentally, synthetically, or as climax. Nor is it even employed simply as development as part of a larger sonata-form framework, though of course the counterpoint develops the themes. Rather it is employed persistently throughout the work, though in many varieties, as the ideal expression of the musical ideas, musical ideas themselves either inherited from the Catholic tradition of the Mass for the Dead or developed to give musical expression to this particular text. Here is not the standard setting of "Cum sancto spiritu" as a fugue but the creation of precise and unique settings within a large-scale framework for the Requiem Mass. Mozart draws on the natures of the sections of the mass, of the "tuba mirum," "Rex Tremendae" of the flammis acribus," and "lacrymosa" to create unique small-form structures for this unique text, the requiem mass, and unifies them with unique large-scale harmonic and structural symmetry.  This is in essence word-painting in "motet style," i.e., deriving the musical ideas from the meaning of the text and the musical structure from the stanza-structure of the text.

The Requiem certainly, as Eisen has said [Eisen, 167], demonstrates the profound "unity of affect" of late Mozart. Too as Eisen said we have unity of affect despite variety of technique. Even the words traditionally set to fugues, those based on some of the oldest words and ideas of Christianity, while Mozart does indeed set them to fugues, the fugues are quite extra ordinary. Yet the unity of affect is so profound that even in its incomplete state the piece looms impossibly large in the memory. So much that one is tempted to consider this requiem the "Mozartian conception of the requiem."

Yet perhaps this is not a satisfactory classification of contrapuntal use. Perhaps we might say then the Requiem represents a synthesis of contrapuntal usage, both technically via use of inversion, imitation, double-counterpoint, fugato, and fugue, and stylistically, through variety of texture and expression of text, all of course infused with Mozart's technique and inspiration.

Introit & Kyrie | Rex Tremendae
Recordare | Confutatis | Domine Jesu

Introit



The D minor key in which we open will in fact dominate the whole work, particularly the Introit-Kyrie, the Sequence (Dies irae through Lacrymosa), the Sanctus, and the Agnus Dei.) Dominate as it does the mood though, with its inherent chromaticism D minor functions as genus chromaticum of the Requiem, the point of departure for the voluminous modulation throughout. The requiem theme, from Handel's Funeral Anthem for Queen Caroline ("The Ways of Zion do Mourn") HWV.246, is introduced in canon between the bassoons and basset horns against staccato quavers in the strings, achieving a disconcerting, but not yet overwhelming mood between the eerie sonority of the winds and the stalwart march of the strings.

m.19-23

The basses enter on D with the theme then rising upward through the voices, the altos joining on D and the others a fifth above. Yet soon the voices come together on "dona eis Domine," ending with a  half-cadence on A. Mozart proceeds with homophonic statement of "et lux perpetua luceat eis" followed by "Te decet hymnus in Sion" for the solo soprano, based on the ninth psalm tone (the tonus peregrinus) used only for In exitu Israel de Aegypto[29] but slightly altered to contain a strict inversion of the main theme of the Requiem. [Maunder, 122] This votive is offered over over a new motif (A), which later will set "dona eis requiem." This motif is developed in imitation and inversion in the strings under the solo soprano.

He proceeds with a dense contrapuntal section for all of the strings and the chorus, the strings developing a portentous dotted figure as the chorus cries "Exaudi" and the soprano tutti developing a more lyrical version mostly doubled by the basset horns. The movement ends with a final fugue for which the basses enter with the "requiem theme" followed by the altos a fifth above with the "new" (A) theme that accompanied the soprano.

Requiem in D minor - Introit - m.34-35

What a contrast of textures in such a brief period! Too Mozart varies the instrumental accompaniment: colla parte here, strict obbligato there. The tension builds until arriving at "et lux perpetua luceat eis," first declaimed forte and then pleaded piano over a lamento bass, ending on A and preparing the way for the great double fugue of the Kyrie.

Kyrie

This Kyrie is a tense and twisting ride. Unlike the Kyrie to the C Minor Mass this is one big fugue without a central section on Christe. Too there is no arrival at, or moment of, renewal or respite, only the despair of guilt and the imminence of judgment. The subjects enter and re-enter suddenly, the jarring Kyrie subject always seemingly a moment away. Even the sections in F and B-flat retain the terrible urgency.

Requiem in D minor - Kyrie - subjects

At m.28 the Christe subject (B) enters for the first time in stretto, rising from the bass. Here, as Abert points out, "its ascending diatonic line is compressed to he point where it becomes chromatic," [Abert, 1321] yet another harmonic daring which troubled Mozart's contemporaries. The fugue rushes headlong into a rest, cutting off eleison mid-word as if the day Judgment has indeed arrived. In the following, mostly homophonic, movement of the Dies Irae, it has.


Rex Tremendae


In awe and supplication the chorus cries out three times, supported by the basset horns and bassoons and followed immediately by a descending dotted semiquaver figure, suggestive of both kneeling and collapse. Then the upper voices treat the theme of "Rex tremendae maiestatis," unfolding with its octave leap, in canon over the lower voices in canon alternating "qui salvandos salvas gratis," and all of this over the orchestra which treats yet another theme in canon between the upper and lower strings. The choral parts converge in a homophonic section before switching roles, the tenors beginning the canon with the basses as we modulate to D minor. The movement concludes with the plaintive cry "salve me!"

 Requiem in D minor - Rex Tremendae - m.9-10

Recordare

This is the longest movement of the Requiem, setting six stanzas of the Sequenz. The notion of "Recordare" permeates this movement, which Abert wisely describes as possessing a "discursive" character due to its rondo-like structure and an "interiority" through the counterpoint. We begin with two themes in counterpoint which perfectly set the tone of "Recordare" and whose dialogue throughout will maintain it. The first [A] enters in canon between the basset horns and its first minim followed by the rising quavers followed by entrance of the other voice is astonishing like something taking shape in the memory. So too is the other figure, [B] which enters along with the first but in the bass, a descending figure with a trilled motif. Mozart maintains the intimacy and "interiority" throughout with only the soloists and strings and contrapuntal development. This scalar theme then enters in canon in the violins against a bass pedal point, again suggestive of things tumbling from the memory to one's attention. The soloists will take up theme A with "Recordare" and theme B will become the main theme between the episodes. There interiority and internalization we associate with the inversion of the themes and canonic entrances of the soloists contrasts the emotional and physical reality suggested by the homophonic declamation of phrases like, "Ingemisco" and "tamquam reus," set off as they are by singultiary pauses.


Confutatis

Where the Recordare ends in hope and assurance the Confutatis begins in terror and tremor with the hellfire in the bass instruments crackling over and over. The basses enter "confutatis maledictis" and the tenors follow in close imitation, as if writing in the flame. (The effect of the close imitation, the relentless elevation of tension, is similar here to that in KV. 497.)Yet at m. 7 the women enter in C with the pure, plaintive cry, "voca me cum benedictis." Modulating through the dark realms of A minor and G minor Mozart concludes in F major, the key not of despair but of the mystic brotherhood in Die Zauberflöte.

This movement, one of Mozart's most glorious, has been brilliantly described by a source I now defer to:

Amadeus, dir. Milos Forman. 1984.

Domine Jesu

Perhaps even beyond the relentless entrances of the Kyrie and the hellfire of the Confutatis the Domine Jesu is the most terrifying movement of the Requiem. The piano opening quickly gives way to the forte outburst "Rex Gloriae," the alternating dynamics, startling imagery, and abrupt entrances of "de poenis inferni" and the dark tonality of "et de profundo lacu," and the sudden forte leap of a seventh at "de ore leonis," and the rearing of the lion's hear create a scene of terrible grandeur.

The subsequent fugato on "ne absorbeat eas tartarus ne cadant in obscurum" for the chorus has the rhythm of a dance but is no merry gigue but rather reminiscent the dance of death. The gaping sevenths suggest both distance from God and outcry as the twitching semiquavers in the bass nervously urge the movement on.

The soprano soloist enters with the entrance of the image of St. Michael the Archangel, urging the music though a canon and brighter tonality on "sed signifer sanctus Michael repraesente sanctam," with each successive voice entering a fifth below.

The movement ends with the great "Quam olim" fugue on "quam olim Abraham promisisti," thematically contrasting the terrors of the underworld with the promise of God's covenant with Abraham for his descendants.  The fugue is dominated by the one idea and figure, "quam olim Abrahae. . . promisisti" here and there punctuated by "et semini" eius." The absence of a counter-subject and the accompanying motif in the bass make starkly clear the reality that God's promise is all that saves from "de poenis inferni," "de profundo lacu," and "de ore leonis."

"Domine Jesu," "Quam Olim" Fugue, m. 55-57

Benedictus, Sanctus (Hosanna Fugue) & Amen

It would require great length and discursion usefully to discuss these incomplete movements. I would, though, make a few brief points.


While the unusual subject of the Hosanna fugue is certainly by Mozart its working out by Süssmayr is clearly of a rather pedestrian nature. The Amen fugue survives only as a sketch It is unknown whether Mozart intended to repeat the material from the Introit at Lux Aeterna. Abert points out [Abert, 1335] such a repetition was not uncommon at the time and in KV. 220 and KV.317 Mozart himself had made such repeats. Likewise we must wonder whether it was the composer's intent to use the Kyrie fugue for the "cum sanctis tuis in aetarnum" fugue. Clearly the structure of the Requiem demands a fugue at cum sanctis. . . but whether the frightful Kyrie fugue suits "with your saints in heaven" is not obvious. 




Final Thoughts

This Requiem, for all of its thematic borrowing from other works, is an astoundingly original work. For all of its drama and imagery, it is grave and dignified. Despite its incomplete state, it is demonstrates extraordinary unity. We see here what we have seen throughout our look at Mozart's counterpoint: technical mastery and erudition, drama and lyricism, variety, and an overall unity of affect which reconciles the myriad details of the work. With this one, incomplete, work Mozart struck such a chord in the hearts of men as to have defined "requiem." Who imagines another when he hears the word? For something he wanted "to try his hand at" [Wolff, 1994. 73] the Requiem was beyond ambitious.

[Mozart's Requiem] is no longer content to stir specific emotions in the most general terms but that seeks to reflect the detailed psychological development of the work. Time and again it is Mozart the dramatist who emerges from the score, not in the sense of an opera composer or man of the theater, but in the way in which Bach in his vocal works and Schubert in his lieder occasionally plays the part of the dramatist. Mozart was right when he said that he was writing his Requiem for himself, but his remark goes far deeper than he himself intended; it is his most individual and personal confession of his thoughts about life and death. . .  [Abert, 1336]

Mozart reconciled all, leaving us with the sight of man humbled before God at the breaking of the world.

Bibliography

Abert, Hermann. W. A. Mozart. Yale University Press. New Haven and New York. 2007.

Chapin, Keith. Strict and Free Reversed: The Law of Counterpoint in Koch’s Musikalisches Lexikon and Mozart’s Zauberflöte. Eighteenth-Century Music 3/1, 91–107. Cambridge University Press. 2006.

Eisen, Cliff. Mozart's Chamber Music, essay in The Cambridge Companion to Mozart. Keefe, Simon P. (ed.) Cambridge Companion to Mozart. Cambridge. 2003.

Maunder, Richard. Mozart's Requiem: On Preparing a New Edition. Oxford University Press. New York. 1988.


Wolff, Christoph. Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician. W. W. Norton and Co. New York, New York. 2000

Wolff, Christoph. (Whittall, Mary. (trans.)) Mozart's Requiem: Historical and Analytical Studies, Documents, Score. University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles. 1994.

Recommended Reading

Gutmann, Peter. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Requiem. 2006. http://www.classicalnotes.net/classics/mozartrequiem.html

–

Footnotes

24. http://apologiaproliterativita.blogspot.com/2010/04/on-overture-to-la-clemenza-di-tito.html
25. http://apologiaproliterativita.blogspot.com/2010/05/on-overture-to-die-zauberflote.html
26. see: Yeardsley, David. Bach and the Meanings of Counterpoint. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. 2002.
27. http://apologiaproliterativita.blogspot.com/2010/12/inside-chamber-music-with-bruce-adolphe.html
28. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Yoio3S3zVw
29. http://musicfortheliturgy.org/Gregorian_Video/PENT_21_t4.htm 

András Schiff on Beethoven, op. 13

Pianist András Schiff on Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 8 

in C minor, op. 13.

• Listen to more of this series here

Part I | Part II | Part III

Libertarianism and Moral Authority

A brief inquiry with no answers into some moral and epistemological issues of politics.

Two Definitions

The notion of "moral authority" carries two associations one of which by far predominates. In this common conception someone by his own observance of a particular law or virtue is said to have the "moral authority" to pass judgment on someone else's violation of that principle. For example, a very honest man might have the "moral authority" to pass judgment on someone else's honesty. We see this logic more casually adopted when a man is said to be a hypocrite for accusing others of violating a principle he himself violates. For example most people would balk at the notion of a frequently tardy man chastising someone else for being late. The reasoning of this interpretation of moral authority is that observing a law or exercising a virtue gives you the authority to judge whether or not that law or virtue has been violated. This concept of moral authority is concerned with identifying the moral deed or misdeed.

The second notion of moral authority concerns more complicated matters. This aspect concerns what to do when some principle or virtue has been violated. "Authority" in this sense means someone has the authority to act, either preemptively or punitively, on someone else's actions. Where might this authority come from? We will not here get too bogged down in metaphysics and epistemology so let us merely examine two alternatives. In one conception some authority exists, derived from somewhere. Perhaps it comes from a council of men or a king or a deity or by sheer nature. Most people would fall somewhere in this category since most people believe, I suspect, that it is moral, for example, to incarcerate murderers and offenders of equally serious crimes. Fewer people believe, though, that they have the authority to tell someone what kind of food he can eat.

Now it is not easy to justify telling a man what to eat but it seems rather so to justify incarcerating a murderer. Yet anyone concerned with liberty must ask: where does the authority come from? Even if a given behavior is thought to be wrong, what gives you the authority to right it? The only explanation seems to be that because the world ought to be a certain way that it is naturally moral to make it that way. Corrective action is merely returning nature to its proper state. There are two extremes to this question of moral authority, one in which the individual has the moral authority to order others as he desires and another in which he has no authority whatsoever. It is not hard to imagine the totalitarian world of the first scenario but trying to imagine the second might be fruitful. Could this most liberal society exist?

Let us take an examine the situation of an alleged crime where no one has any moral authority to compel anyone to do anything. Let us say only that a man has a right to his life and his property. Suppose a murder is committed. Whose rights were violated? Only the murdered man's. Where would the authority to jail him come from? How does the authority to arbitrate what happened and to decide how to react to it fall to particular people? How would it fall, say, to me? My rights weren't violated. Do the man's rights somehow get automatically delegated in certain situations? What if I came upon him as he was being attacked? Could I intervene? How would his authority to protect himself get to me (obviously presuming he wasn't aware of my presence)?

Now this example naturally seems ridiculous but it defines more clearly this other sense of "moral authority" because I think most people would justify intervention or incarceration of the offender by saying something like, "Because it is always/naturally wrong to murder someone it is always/naturally right to prevent a murder from occurring." Stated as such this notion of moral authority is essentially the justification for all laws and it is more often and more simply stated that "some things are just wrong." Most people agree about murder, but what about issues of the environment, or poverty, or inequality, or abortion? There is discord about those issues.

How we arrive at what we think is morally right and wrong, as we said above, varies. Yet inevitably we create some conception of a world with particular "natural" rules. We may justify it in a variety of ways. It may be unique to us or common amongst a few or many. Now we have separated judgment from action in distinguishing two types of "moral authority." If one denies the latter conception, the right to force someone to do something, can there be said to be a political aspect to that type of authority? It would seem not since no action is involved. Of course if you acknowledge the authority to enforce, even in some circumstances, then agreement on the "natural rules" (however many there are) and the methodology of justifying them are unavoidably political matters.


Libertarian Politics

With those observations in mind I wish to examine two ideas: federalism and libertarian politics. The first notion would seem to alleviate the problem of both moral authority and epistemology. The laws the most people agree on apply to everybody and the laws the fewest people agree on apply, at minimum, only to the individuals who believe them. If people geographically arrange themselves then the people with similar ideas can live together and most people won't have to live under laws they disagree with. That a democratic-republican society functions at all might seem to suggest that federalism has met with some success. Yet it does not truly answer any question about morality or necessity of moral authority.

Force a libertarian to do something and you will often get the response "On what authority?" (You'll probably get a few other words too.) Indeed one might say the essence of libertarianism is the principle of not initiating force and to varying degrees a libertarian would deny the moral authority to initiate force. We say initiate because it is consistent with libertarian position for an individual to respond with force to forceful aggression against his fundamental rights. Politically this would translate a lack of laws, a system in which all is legal that does not interfere with the rights of another.

Let us take this position to its extreme, though, and suppose that there are no laws (i.e. rules backed up by the threat of force) of any kind. (More practically this idea would be advocated as "no rules you did not vote for," which would be tantamount to our hypothetical situation if you decided not to assent to any.) We will see this position to be the quite similar to the one in  our example above in which we acknowledge no moral authority of any kind. With this position, could you punish a criminal? Since he does not assent to your laws he's not technically a criminal. Suppose you signed a contract with him. You might think you are safe since you have his word. Well what does it mean to "have his word?" Suppose he says you forged his name and denies signing the contract? What if he simply says he changed his mind? By what principle is he bound to the contract and denied the right to change his mind? On what principle do you deny his account of events? As we asked before, what authority would any third parties have in the matter?

Putting aside the question of how to compel someone, what about punishing criminals?  Why is such a thing as a "penalty" legitimate? Why is a punitive measure morally acceptable? Does the person wronged decide the penalty? Are there limits? Why or why not?

Any answer to any of these questions would recourse to some principle, and any action on that principle would effectively make it a law, a law founded on the moral authority to enforce it. Even in such an extreme liberal society some laws would exist as common and in their commonality, in their being conceived as "real" or "natural," would be their legitimacy, i.e. the people would believe them axiomatically (whether they are derived by reason or faith or whether they are inherited or newly-fashioned.) Not only some common morality, but some common conception of metaphysics is required for a community. A disagreement over metaphysical issues, at least certain ones, would seem  invariably to lead to an impasse. Perhaps it would be more precise to say that to disagree over both certain metaphysical issues and then certain moral ones would lead to an impasse and inevitable conflict. Either you have to agree on laws, i.e. both the concept of law and specific laws, or agree to leave each other alone.

Can you have a society with a multiplicity of essential rules and metaphysical principles, i.e. with a multiplicity of "realities." For example, if a crime is committed can the wronged party determine what happened, arrest the perpetrator, and punish him on his own? It is commonly said that one man cannot be the "judge, jury, and executioner" rather some consensus as to what happened, what is wrong, and what to do about it must be reached. In this line of thinking the wronged party, though his right was the one violated, cannot be left to create his own (potentially erroneous) reality of what happened. Now of course consensus is not at all a guarantee of finding the truth but all alternatives would degenerate into either a situation with no authoritative account of what happened or forcing the unwilling guilty party to accept a particular account anyway. Is it necessarily the case then, that some force, majority, and belief in the truth of your principle, are required for a minimum degree of peaceful coexistence? We might say that the more one must believe by compulsion the less liberal the society. Can a society be too liberal? Can the principles of federalism and libertarianism, which push many moral and philosophical problems out of the political sphere, be taken too far? Is there an ideal (probably very small) body of laws which would provide sufficient common law to allow the remainder of decisions to be reached privately and voluntarily?


The Political Process and Being "Restrained to Reality"

We said earlier that the principle of federalism may be thought to ameliorate some of these problems by avoiding certain issues and creating a hierarchy of ones which at least some people can agree on. Now mind you, they are hierarchical in so far as the ones at the top are universally agreed upon and those at the bottom may be so unique as to vary on an individual basis, but this does not reflect the truthfulness of the principles. In this respect the principle of federalism allows us to evade the need for accord. Yet when people must interact accord is needed and it is in a courtroom that such accord is usually reached. With our observations above in mind we may ask how well our system deals with the problems we have come across. Let us observe the important aspects. 1) The two senses of moral authority have been broken up amongst parties, the jury deciding what happened and the judge deciding what to do about it. 2) The person who acts to enforce the law is another party still. 3) Both the defendant and the plaintiff receive advocates for their cause, i.e. their version of what happened. 4) The judge is bound by laws of precedent and the jury by laws and processes designed to assure their objectivity. 5) The defendant is innocent until proven guilty. 6) There may be an appeal of the verdict. 7) Lastly all parties are sworn to an oath obligating them to restrain their accounts to the "truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."

Features one and two exist to separate "judge, jury, and executioner," a separation which has the virtues of using an expert to handle the law and a group of peers to determine the course of events but there is in fact a more important result and it is that the separation creates a system and thus a delay. Assuming there is no problem with having one man be judge, jury, and executioner if he were he could simply walk around legitimately pronouncing verdicts. (A slightly improved situation from the one we depicted earlier in which every person was judge, jury, and executioner.) Separating the roles amongst people necessitates a delay between the crime and the verdict/judgment, and a separation between the parties in conflict.

The third feature has two results. First it permits both parties to present their versions of events and wholeheartedly to advocate for themselves. Their attorneys prevent them from damaging their presentations of their cases. Second, it allows the jury to deliberate on the potential versions of the incident in question. By assuming each side is presenting the best case possible for his cause they assume that each version is the best presentation of that interpretation of events, thus the more likely of the two is the closest to the truth. Feature four has the effect of casting the net as far as possible when seeking objective observers. The judge is bound by the verdicts of similar situations in the past and the jury is selected to screen out people who might be biased.

Features five and six are designed to "lean on the side of liberty" rather than on the side of establishing order or even ascertaining the truth.

Lastly, an objective reality is presumed and all parties are sworn to it. You do not have to speak but if you do you are restrained to reality. The system does not concede that the situation must necessarily be knowable but it insists that there is only one legitimate version of it. It is even unacceptable to attempt to undermine this search for reality by omitting facts ("the whole truth") or by disguising facts amongst lies ("nothing but the truth.")

These seven features would seem precautions designed to determine the facts of a situation, pronounce a verdict, and pronounce a judgment while being sensitive to the philosophical issues at play (in this case epistemological and moral issues.) They attempt a fine balance between individual and society, philosophical certainty and doubt, and authority and liberty.

How successful are they? Do they defer too much to one principle?  Ought they be less moderate?

Crazy Conductors

The role of the conductor is unique insofar as the position may in fact garner as much attention as it deserves. (Is that the snicker of chamber musicians I hear?) This may seem an outlandish claim given the rock star status conductors have had for some time. The position has certainly come a long way from the generations of anonymous conductors throughout the Christian churches in the Middle Ages, through the era of the Kapellmeister, who was often required to compose music for the services, into the era of the composer-conductor who conducted his own work, often from the keyboard at which he played, through the rise of the professional conductor which started with the treatises of Berlioz and Wagner who elevated it to an art form itself.

Wagner actually traced origins of the professional conductor to Mendelssohn, the conductor he credited with refining the rough edges of the poor provincial kapellmeister to some degree of elegance. To its improvement, Wagner says, the position gradually attracted the air of elevated culture, though his compliment is sort of back handed:

They differ widely from the helpless epigonae of our old conductors: they are not musicians brought up in the orchestra or at the theater, but respectable pupils of the new-fangled conservatoires. . . they managed to transform the timid modesty of our poor native Capellmeister into a sort of cosmopolitan bon ton. . . [Wagner, On Conducting]

Wagner would in fact criticize them overtly and more severely, alleging they lacked the passion for the task and a sense of what the position called them to do. Most of all they lacked a sense of the power of the art they were bringing to life. This is of course an unsurprising sentiment coming from Wagner and I think to some extent we all take music seriously. We believe it has unique properties to move and transfix, to depress or elate us. That it is a rich medium for expression, abstract but with great power, is not so esoteric an observation. On top of all of this seriousness is the greatness of the music and the towering figures who wrote it. Still atop that is the often grave nature of the material, be they dark operas, raging symphonies, or solemn masses.

Lastly atop that pile of severity  is that music is simply hard to pull off. It requires a lifetime of dedication and study for all performers. For the conductor himself he has to gain access to an orchestra and not just any one but hopefully a competent one and one with the instrumentalists he needs in the quantities he needs. He has to balance the sound amongst the groups, likely having been trained on several instruments himself. He must delve into the original manuscript of the work and perhaps determine the authenticity of a passage (perhaps it is in another hand from the rest), whether or not it is correct as written (did he intend to write these consecutive octaves? should this instrument really be silent here?), what to do about a missing portion (such as a cadenza), how and when to add ornamentation, which make of an instrument to use and whether he must substitute one for another (perhaps he cannot get basset horns and must use a bass clarinet), and at last, the tempo. Discovering these things, but the tempo perhaps most of all, requires a great understanding of the piece, its composer, the instruments it was written for, the form of the piece (rondo, minuet, et cetera) and the performance practice of the day. About the challenge of determining the tempo Wagner wrote:

Sebastian Bach, as a rule, does not indicate tempo at all, which in a truly musical sense is perhaps best. He may have said to himself: whoever does not understand my themes and figures, and does not feel their character and expression, will not be much the wiser for an Italian indication of tempo.

A challenging position indeed. Esteemed too, and rightfully so. It is a bit of paradox, then, and a rather unfortunate one, that one looks as ridiculous as one invariably does when conducting. Perhaps it is because he is not actually doing anything himself, that he is not playing an instrument, (though they often like to imagine that they are "playing" the actual performers) that he looks so odd. Perhaps it is the histrionics needed to convey the emotion. Perhaps it is the gestures and the attempt to translate, however clumsily, the sublime and abstract music into a simple gesture. Maybe it's the dainty baton. Whatever the reason they always look quite ridiculous to me. Whether they're flailing away at a prestissimo, tiptoeing through a dance, or frantically tossing out the entrances of a choral fugue, they're quite the spectacles.

Brilliant spectacles, of course. Rest assured of my respect, though I at times find their gestures as distracting as I do the physical drama of performers. They must be scholars, musicians, artists, and leaders. Still in the spirit of good-natured fun I assembled this collection of some of the greats at perhaps their oddest, perhaps also their greatest, moments. Of course they look odder taken out of context, so let us keep that in mind. Too let us not be thought of as trivializing them but rather let this be some relief, some comitas, from the relentless seriousness of "serious music." Let us remember that while we may soar with the muses at the heights of Parnassos, we sometimes do not. Or at least we don't look it. Remember that the great composers were not just Great Composers, but men who composed great music.


So let us, now and then, recall that Bach was a vigorous man who danced and got into a street scuffle with his bassoonist, that Mozart wrote a canon "Kiss My Ass" and wrote a letter in the mock-hand of his pupil, signing it "Franz Süssmayr, Shithead." Let us remember Haydn's musical fart joke and the humor of Beethoven's variations.

There is a charming moment in Robert Graves' I, Claudius where Augustus Caesar, Emperor of the Roman Empire, who had survived the civil war, wrested control of the faltering republic and defeated Marc Antony at Actium, and grasped together the fraying threads of Roman culture and religion, in his old age tells his wife as they sit in their imperial box at the gladiatorial games, "remember the time I fell out of my chair?"

John Eliot Gardiner

Karl Richter

Leonard Bernstein

Leopold Stokowski

Mariss Jansons

Neville Marriner

Nikolaus Harnoncourt

Otto Klemperer

Wilhelm Furtwangler

Wolfgang Sawallisch

Bruno Walter

James Levine

Carlos Kleiber

Herbert von Karajan

Colin Davis

Daniel Barenboim

Georg Solti

–

Wagner, Richard. On Conducting. Dover. Mineola, NY. 1989.
     see http://www.fullbooks.com/On-Conducting-Ueber-das-Dirigiren-.html

Beyond the Infinite

Once again we will be considering Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Last time we considered it in the context of epistemology. This time I would like to consider it in the light of ontology. I offer a pair of ideas, the first via quotations from Thomas Aquinas (from his Summa Contra Gentiles) and then, from Nietzsche. In Kubrick's spirit of not forcing an interpretation of the film I will refrain from synthesis and merely offer these ideas as food for thought.

–

L. For whatever is imperfect in a species seeks to acquire the perfection of that species. Thus, whoso has an opinion about a matter, and therefore an imperfect knowledge about it, for this very reason is spurred to the desire for certain knowledge about it.

This immediate vision of God is promised to us in Holy Scripture: We see now through a glass in a dark manner; but then face to face. It would be impious to understand this in a material way, and imagine a material face in the Godhead. Nor is it possible for us to see God with a bodily face. Thus then we shall see God face to face, because we shall see Him immediately, even as a man whom we see face to face.

It is through this vision that we become most like God, and participators of His blessedness, since God understands His substance through His essence, and this is His blessedness. Therefore it is said (I John iii.2): When he shall appear, we shall be like to Him; because we shall see Him as He is.

LII. However, it is not possible for any created substance to attain, by its own power, to this way of seeing God. For that which is proper to the higher nature cannot be acquired by a lower nature, except through the action of the higher nature to which it properly belongs. . . Therefore no intellectual substance can see God through the divine essence, unless God Himself bring this about.

If any two things have to be united together so that one be formal and the other material, their union must be completed by an action on the part of the one that is formal, and not by the action of the one that is material; for the form is the principle of action, whereas matter is the passive principle.

Hence it is said (Rom. vi. 23): The grace of God is life everlasting. For we have proved that man's happiness consists in seeing God, which is called life everlasting.

LIV.  There should be proportion between the one understanding and the thing understood. But there is no proportion between the created intellect, even perfected by this light, and the divine substance; for there still remains an infinite distance between them. Therefore the created intellect cannot be raised by any light to see the divine substance. 

. . . because it is not seen as perfectly by the created intellect as it is visible, even as one who holds a demonstrated conclusion as an opinion is said to know it but not to comprehend it, because he does not know it perfectly, that is, scientifically, although there be not part of it that he does not know. 

LIX. All the intellect sees in the divine substance, it sees at once. Hence Augustine says: Our thoughts will not then be unstable, going to and fro from one thing to another, but we shall see all we know by one glance.

LXI. Therefore this vision takes place in a kind of participation in eternity. Moreover this  vision is a kind of life, because the act of the intellect is a kind of life. Therefore by that vision the created intellect becomes a partaker of eternal life. . . The intellectual soul is created on the border line between eternity and time. . . therefore by this vision it enters into a participation of eternity. . .

For this reason our Lord says (Jo. xvii. 3): This is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true God.

–

Regarding Nietzsche

(Picking up on our discussion of Nietzsche from our previous look at 2001.)

What of the man of the final scenes? What does he do? It is he who creates from the primordial soup or is it the monolith? Does he do everything or nothing? Is he creative or impotent? Is his final gesture one of supplication or resolve? Affirmation or negation? Clearly his final reaction to the monolith differs from the others. Is he the übermensch or the last man?

With both St. Thomas and Nietzsche in mind: 

Consider the title of the final act: Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite. Consider the use of György Ligeti's Requiem in the famous "Star Gate" scene. Who dies and who is born? Lastly, is the monolith ever comprehended by anyone in the film? Does it actually affect the characters or is the film about man's dialogue with this unknown? How does the final encounter with it differ? Is the scene of the star child birth or re-birth?

Around the Web

For January 1 through February 25.

1) Interview: Violinist Janine Jansen.

2) Perlman Leaves Westchester Orchestra.

3) Michael Tilson Thomas and the New World Symphony Orhcestra

4) The New World Symphony's new $160 million Miami Beach home opens [Video]

5) The Overture to Guillaume Tell: The Splendid Start to a Farewell to Opera

6) Beating Time: Just what is the role of the conductor?

7) At Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival, Pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard Explores the Musical Marvels of Polyphony [2010]

8) Death's March: Can we hear the strains of mortality in the late works of classical composers?

9) Beethoven's Grosse Fuge

10) Jazz: Clint Eastwood's Earliest Muse

11) Music: Intoxicating Afterall

12) Chess Music

13) What Happens in Vagueness Stays in Vagueness: The Decline and Fall of American English, and Stuff

14) The Lost Art of Editing

15) How To Serve Dish

16) Sanity and Sanctity - The Ennobling Fantasy of J.R.R. Tolkien

17) Texas' Terracotta Warriors

18) Researchers Discover 16,500 Year Old Cemetery in Middle East 

19) Stories in Clay: Decoding Ancient Greek Pottery

20) Victory and the Savior Generals

21) Bother Me, I'm Thinking: Why you should drop that espresso and bounce a ball instead

22) Slacking as Self-Discovery

23) The Doctors and the Divine: What do we learn when we diagnose genius?

24) Why We're All Above Average

25) Heeding George Orwell's Tea-Making Advice

26) Anselm Kiefer releases a new publication and series of works reinterpreting the myth of Jason and the Argonauts

27) The Forger's Story

28) Washington in Three Dimensions

29) 74 of Thomas Jefferson’s Books Identified at Washington University Library

30) James Madison and the Dilemmas of Democracy

31) Who's Afraid of an Amendments Convention?

32) 'Communist Monopoly' Teaches Downside of Socialist Life

33) Consumers Don't Cause Recessions

34) Dambisa Moyo and Niall Ferguson on the "Eastern Challenge to Western Prosperity"

35) Hawking contra Philosophy

36) God, the West and the Scholastic Mentality

37) Brrrrr!

Book Reviews

38) The Age of Napoleon by Alistair Horne

39) An Extravagant Hunger: The Passionate Years of M.F.K. Fisher by Anne Zimmerman

40) America's Unsung War Heroes

41) Endgame: Bobby Fischer’s Remarkable Rise and Fall—from America’s Brightest Prodigy to the Edge of Madness by Frank Brady

42) Civilization: The West and the Rest by Niall Ferguson

43) Examined Lives: From Socrates to Nietzsche by James Miller

44) Free Market Madness: Why Human Nature Is at Odds with Economics—and Why It Matters by Peter Ubel

45) Generosity Unbound: How American Philanthropy Can Strengthen the Economy and Expand the Middle Class by Claire Gaudiani

46) The Genteel Tradition in American Philosophy & Character and Opinion in the United States by George Santayana

47) The Hemlock Cup: Socrates, Athens and the Search for the Good Life by Bettany Hughes

48) Liberty's Exiles by Maya Jasanoff

49) Mozart and the Nazis: How the Third Reich Abused A Cultural Icon by Erik Levi

50) The Music of the Lord of the Rings Films by Doug Adams

51) Plunder!: How Public Employee Unions are Raiding Treasuries, Controlling Our Lives, and Bankrupting the Nation by Steven Greenhut

52) Prose by Elizabeth Bishop & Elizabeth Bishop and The New Yorker: The Complete Correspondence edited by Joelle Bielle

53) Revolutionaries: A New History of the Invention of America by Jack Rakove

54) The Servile Mind: How Democracy Erodes the Moral Life by Kenneth Minogue

Movie Review: Unfaithfully Yours (1948)

Written and directed by Preston Sturges. 1948.

Unfaithfully Yours is a much odder movie than I expected and just why it works I am not precisely sure. Yet it does work and it is very funny.

All of the performances are pitched nearly to the point of caricature, from Rex Harrison's cocky and stubborn conductor to Darnell's turn as his impossibly devoted wife to Edgar Kennedy as the music-loving flatfoot, the characters are at the edge of parody. This feature along with the dry and sharp wit which pervades nearly every line of the opening act, sets the audience slightly off-balance. Even the dialogue subverts our expectations and not just with sharp phrases. In the first few minutes Harrison switches between a semi-oratorical style and bizarre throw away phrases ("a cat who had its kittens in a harmonium.") We hear both musical jargon and rhyming jokes ("handle Handel" and "your Delius is delirious.") All of this dialogue is delivered with great rapidity further confusing the tone of this act as the film never settles into one tone. One the one hand we have some rather saucy dialogue (cut off with a few clever edits) and on the other we have giant cymbals and a fiasco with fire-hoses set to the William Tell Overture. No wonder Unfaithfully Yours is sometimes billed as slapstick and other times dark comedy. What will we make of all of this?

The grossly overweening Sir Alfred De Carter (Harrison) is quite the conceited conductor even before he suspects his new bride of infidelity. Afterward he is so simply and insufferably cruel and Darnell's reaction to him so honest and pained we have to wonder, again, what exactly we're supposed to make of this. This feels too serious to brush off with a few laughs.

When De Carter finally takes the stage to conduct, he imagines what he might do to rectify the situation of his wife's affair and he contemplates his choices we enter into sequences in his imagination. In the first scene the director plays the tone as if it were a murder mystery. Carter's wife is now wholly, and devilishly, complicit in her affair with Tony's secretary. For his revenge Carter executes a brilliant and elaborate set up of the two adulterers, offing his wife and framing his secretary for the deed. All set to the overture to Rossini's Semiramide he prepares the frame: dispatching his wife, sharpening the blade, and getting Tony's fingerprints on it. Carter orchestrates the crime to perfection so that one carefully timed phone-call from the lobby sets the events in motion to doom his secretary. The scene concludes with Carter enjoying a hilariously over-the-top cackle at Tony's trial.

In the second sequence, set to the prelude to Tannhäuser and maintaining a melodramatic tone, Carter is resigned to the wandering of his wife's heart. He does not blame her but rather excuses her and even writes her a check so she can go off with Tony and be happy with him, free from want. In the final sequence Carter is manic, challenging Tony to a game of Russian roulette.

Each scene matches the tone and tempo of the music and the concert hall serves as an effective point of departure. Now these stirrings of his imagination have so inspired Carter that he gives the greatest conducting performance of his career. . . from which he promptly bolts to try and setup the crime at his apartment. The ensuing string of mishaps is the lowest humor in the movie, a flurry of slapstick with running gags, a foot through a chair, and a pin in the buttocks, but Harrison plays it completely straight to hilarious result. Instead of orchestrating the masterful plot of his dreams he sits amidst the rubble of his room, mussed, foiled and struggling with the Simplicitas Home Recorder.

The ultimate reconciliation with his wife, again set to Tannhäuser, makes a sort of coda to the film, and to continue the analogy the whole film's structure is rather musical. We get a sort of exposition of all the traditional styles of comedy with a hodgepodge of characters and tones. This gives way to three variations on a second act which played straight are not funny in themselves but humorous as contrasting resolutions to the plot. He then settles on a full-fledged slapstick finale before tying the plot and romance up with a coda. The couple's love, which we really have to take for granted since it is not developed, may serve only to tie the whole mess of things together. The coda too with its Wagnerian background and exaggerated romantic speechifying is far over the top.

Again we must ask: what do we make of this? Is it a mess, uneven, revolutionary? This structure is more novel even than it appears due to how it unifies the highly disparate stylistic features of the movie and complements its character, and in this respect Unfaithfully Yours stands above other loosely structured comedies. The opening is a whimsical potpourri of styles, tones, and clichés. Only Carter's cruelty stands out too much. A normal film would have staked out its bounds and stayed within them to tell its story. You should need multiple films to contrast these styles but Sturges here with his "musical" structure fits them all in one movie.

An Interview with James Levine

Maestro James Levine on his start, conducting, teaching, getting into opera, and a lifetime of music. Since his start in 1971 Levine has conducted over 2,400 performances at the Metropolitan Opera, including works by Berg, Berlioz, Debussy, Mascagni, Mozart, Puccini, Satie, Schoenberg, Strauss, Stravinsky, Verdi, and Wagner,

Book Review: Intelligence in War

Intelligence in War: The Value–and Limitations–About What the Military Can Learn About the Enemy. 
by John Keegan. 2002.

 "Intelligence is the handmaiden, not the mistress, of the warrior."

The ten or so reviews on the cover of and in John Keegan's Intelligence in War all puzzle me a bit. The book is "witty," "wise," "well-written," and "sharp." It will be "an object of study" and it contains "expert [theorizing]." Too it is "fascinating" and filled with "drama." None said the book is persuasive, which I overwhelmingly find it. In fact after reading Intelligence in War Keegan's thesis seems self-evident. Yet it is often the case that the most simplistic observation or phenomenon requires the most detailed and careful study to explain. Keegan surely does this: Keegan's 349-page book is dense with troop strengths, sizes and locations, details about who knew what and when, and discussions of alternative explanations for every given phenomenon. Yet necessary as that research may be to Keegan's argument it is the axioms about war in general which stick in the memory and to which we return. This isn't just a book about how different commanders spied on their enemies, but a theory about what intelligence is and what it can, and cannot, offer the military.

Keegan appropriately begins at the beginning which is a sort of lingo boot camp where we are introduced to real-time intelligence (rare intelligence on who knows what in sufficient time to make effective use of the news), strategic intelligence (knowledge of the character of the enemy, its size and capability, its dispositions and the nature of the terrain) and signal intelligence (captured enemy communications.) To  these classifications Keegan adds a few caveats: 1) all intelligence is subject to its accuracy, timeliness, and the interpretation put on it, 2) the best intelligence won't help if the defense is too weak to profit by it, 3) intelligence is generally necessary but not sufficient for victory, 4) willpower counts for more than foreknowledge. Throughout Intelligence in War we will see these cautions play out from Napoleon to the Falklands, sometimes in great successes and sometimes in great defeats, in turns expected and surprising, in strokes of luck fortunate and disastrous.

I. Chasing Napoleon & Jackson in the Shenandoah

The first of Keegan's studies examines Lord Horatio Nelson's chase after Napoleon's Egypt-bound fleet in 1798. Commanded by Vice-Admiral Brueys and headed for Egypt with a convoy of nearly 300 ships escorted by his 22 warships the French fleet departed from Toulon on 19 May and Nelson planned to intercept. Unfortunately, the sea did not cooperate and a storm scattered Nelson's scout ships and damaged his own. Another obvious yet important maxim may now be observed: the sea is very large and it is very hard to find someone on it. With that in mind Nelson's task would seem impossible: reconvene with his fleet, track down the French fleet, and defeat it. The first task would have been easier had his captains followed his directions to sail at a particular pattern and latitude should they get separated. (In fact they did obey but broke formation a day sooner than Nelson's arrival, only one day beyond the stipulated instructions.) It was thus the situation that a scattered English fleet was seeking both Napoleon and each other. 

Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson

It is impossible here to describe the ensuing chase through the Mediterranean, but of the intelligence quest we must note that Nelson had to balance his original orders and the intelligence he first set sail with, partially incorrect intelligence from London (assembled from both contacts and the indiscreet French papers), counsel from his captains (which he deigned to take), gathered reports (often partially correct), and the general question of Napoleon's plan: if he was going to Sicily, Constantinople, or Egypt. Additionally Nelson faced the logistical problems of weather, communication (amongst his ships and with London), and mistakes by both himself and his captains. To note only such is still to put aside the cunning of the enemy himself, who used disinformation in the official press and commandeered merchant ships to deprive Nelson of fresh reports. Despite several near misses Keegan counts this not just a resounding victory for Nelson at the Nile, but an intelligence victory. Having lost the French fleet it was bound to take time to find it again and Nelson overcame all of these obstacles, slowly gathering reports, weighing probabilities, scoping out potential targets, and narrowing down the possibilities. Keegan's summary of the situation as Nelson would have seen it, i.e. with all the possibilities based on his information (correct and incorrect), is tremendously insightful and making us wonder: how did he pull it off? Who could? There seem to be simply too many variables and gaps in information.

It was not ultimately any given piece of intelligence which turned the tide but throughout the chase it was Nelson's dogged pursuit, his relentlessness, extreme focus, strategic grasp, and operational innovation which allowed him to recover from mistakes and erroneous reports and rule out alternatives. Important too is that Nelson was free from London to make his own judgments. Finally at the Nile, Keegan writes, it was ultimately the killer instinct of the British which accounts for their spectacular victory.

Whereas Nelson was on the French fleet's tail in the Mediterranean, the task of Stonewall Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley was to "mystify and mislead" his enemy. Here too the terrain and available means of communication play integral parts of the story. The South was materially weak but geographically strong and the Shenandoah Valley could be used either defensively or offensively. Jackson elects to use it defensively and attempts what seems the impossible: to keep the 160,000 union troops spread out across Virginia pinned down and separated and to make Lincoln think an attack on Washington was possible at any time. Throughout the campaign Jackson would have to balance keeping Union General Nathaniel Banks within the valley, 2) avoiding the Union forces to the West, and 3) keeping open his line of withdrawal to Richmond. Jackson's task absolutely required him to wage a mobile campaign, but to do so he would need to out-maneuver Banks in the valley and monitor all movements inside and around it. Offering invaluable aid in this endeavor was the mapmaker Jedediah Hotchkiss who provided Jackson with accurate maps of the valley. The Shenandoah, with its different names for the same place and different places with the same name, its rivers, mountain passes, and railways, would prove vexing for the Northern generals who lacked firsthand knowledge and even maps. 

Shenandoah Valley

Keegan's account of the brilliant Jacksonian campaign of misdirection and diversion is as detailed and gripping as Nelson's tale and equally revealing about both the general's mind and the quality of his troops. Jackson had to contend with the positions of many Union generals as well as provide the needed support for Lee and Johnston. While he had the assets of Hotchkiss and his maps, interrogation reports, and local intelligence (something Brueys had deprived Nelson of) Jackson suffered from incorrect intelligence too: on 25 May 1862 Jackson came upon Banks' men from behind, not ahead of them as his intelligence predicted. As such he could not cut them off from Harper's Ferry and Banks was able to withdraw, Jackson's cavalry under Ashby being off one of Ashby's rides. (Let this occurrence not obscure the fact that Ashby and his cavalry screened Jackson's movements from Fremont and Banks with terrific efficiency.) Too Jackson's first encounter with the Union army in the Shenandoah a month earlier was an outright mess as Jackson was to learn, contra his intelligence, he was outnumbered 10,000 to his 4,000. 

"Stonewall" Jackson

Jackson, though, made outstanding use of his intelligence. First was his understanding of his enemy, Banks, whom he correctly perceived to be a political general, not a soldier. Too he knew that McClellan was a procrastinator and would ask for more troops, allowing his enemies to strengthen their positions. Jackson made use of his constantly refreshed intelligence from Hotchkiss and reports from the friendly population to move quickly through the valley. So fast, in fact, his infantry was dubbed, "Jackson's foot cavalry" as they were able to march as long as horsemen could ride, and barefoot, for dozens of miles. With his speed and knowledge of the terrain he was able to calculate the uncertainties of his opponents, often many moves ahead, and draw them in or avoid battle in order to take it on his terms. Jackson was able, then, to paralyze the larger forces with his much smaller one until he eventually drove the Union from the field at Port Republic and liberated Richmond.

II. The Wireless Era

The biggest surprise at the advent of radio communication is what does not change in naval warfare. Keegan makes his point in three short stories from the First World War.

Yes the Nelsonian era's Home Popham semaphore system gives way to the Morse ciphers over radio without delay, but radio silence was imperative to keep your location a secret, thus when drawing out ships for reconnaissance the distances were, in the 20th century, still at line-of-sight. Thus in 1914 with Kaiser Wilhelm's imperial project underway and after the buildup of their navy over the last fourteen years under Admiral von Tirpitz, the German navy, though it could not defeat Great Britain in its home water, could harass the vast British fleet of 8,500 merchant ships in the Pacific. At the time, the British did not protect their merchant fleets with convoys. 

The flaws in the British strategy here are many but chief among them, besides the mistake of not providing convoys for their merchantmen, were 1) their attempt to work a worldwide strategy without using their best ships, 2) Churchill (then the Admiralty's political chief)'s war on the North coast of Belgium, and 3) Rear Admiral Sir Christopher Cradock's impossible task of both protecting British trade in the Atlantic and waging cruiser war in the Pacific. The intelligence aspect of Cradock's embarrassing defeat 1 November 1914 at Coronel (off the coast of central Chile), Britain's first naval defeat since 1812, can be summed up in brief: his opponent, Vice Admiral Graf von Spee only used one of his ships' wireless, hiding his numbers.

The search for the German cruiser Emden is one of the most famous in naval history. Lieutenant Commander Karl von Müller had been made commander of Emden in 1913 and with a combination of luck, cunning, and skill, captured fourteen British merchant ships in the Indian Ocean. Duly celebrated by those under his command he was also widely remembered as a "Gentleman-of-War" for his successful efforts to minimize civilian casualties and policy of sending captives away. Müller's success and safety laid both in his firm observance of radio silence and in the vastness of the sea itself. Churchill's cruiser sweeps, of eight ships again still separated by the limit of visual range, could scarcely hope with their paltry range of 12 miles to find Emden in the 3,000 mile wide Pacific. Yet Emden's success was not infinite and though von Müller observed radio silence it was his insistence on destroying a communication outpost and adding to his ship's laurels that caused its downfall. Upon approaching Direction Island the islanders got off a message, "SOS Emden here." What von Müller did not know was that the SOS was to the HMS Minotaur, a ship Emden knew was not far but had assumed was steaming to Africa to deal with a Boer uprising. Having misinterpreted the location and direction of the Minotaur von Müller unwisely ignored the SOS the islanders got off. The Minotaur radioed the Sydney which showed up at Direction Island just as von Müller was expecting his Buresk. As Buresk and Sydney looked alike at a distance, von Müller allowed Sydney to get regrettably close, where she shot Emden to pieces. 

Wreck of the Emden, November 1914.

The final warning from the dawning of the wireless age comes from the German command's mistakes: they did not thoroughly enough conceal the movements of their ships and they did not position ammo ships as they did colliers. Thus while they with a mere eight ships were able to stretch British naval resources to their limit, Keegan suggests the cruiser campaign had "not even seriously damaged" British maritime trade, citing the losses by Emden and Karlsrühe, "the most effective raiders," at 143,000 tons in the face of the total of 19 million tons of British shipping. Too, "the East Asian Cruiser Squadron proper had sun no merchantmen at all," Keegan concludes. (See Halpern, A Naval History of World War, which Keegan references, for more data on the tonnage of loss, replacement by construction, and replacement by capture for the campaign.)

III. Foreknowledge

Despite the complexities as to how the German taking of Crete fits into WWII the Cretan example to intelligence is a straightforward one and important one: intelligence is only as good as the interpretation put on it. As a corollary one might add, "the interpretation is often best supplied by the intelligence officers who gather it on a daily basis." By 1941 Enigma was being cracked in real time and the defenders of Crete possessed the timing, objectives, strength, and composition of the German paratroopers which were to land on Crete. Too the British Commonwealth forces numbered 42,460 to the expected 22,040 expected German.  What more could you ask for? Yet Bernard Freyberg was at a tremendous disadvantage at interpreting the intelligence. He had no expertise in dealing with Enigma and interpreting the decrypted signal intelligence, yet having heard of Enigma but three weeks before the German attack he was forced to make operational decisions from the sigintel and without the benefit of any second opinion or advice. Why would Freyberg expect anything other than a sea-based assault: in all of history no island had ever been captured except by sea-invasion and likewise the Germans were challenging British sea authority elsewhere. In explaining Freyber's situation Keegan quotes Ralph Bennet, the "authoritative historian of the Ultra system and himself a wartime Bletchley analyst" who concludes that while Freyberg may seem to have been foolishly preoccupied with a sea-attack, his apprehension about one, "can only be faulted by an abuse of hindsight." [Keegan, 171] One does not simply study raw Enigma decrypts and make decisions based on them, they need to be woven into a pattern intelligible to a commander.

Bennet and Keegan both emphasize the fact that "force as well as foreknowledge is needed to win battles." Convinced of a sea-based assault to come Freyberg then does not commit the needed quantity of troops to repel the German airborne attack and the island is lost, though that is not the end of the story. [Keegan, 179] Despite their victory the attacking Germans were in fact hurt by their intelligence. They were told the Cretan garrison was 12,000, that there would be light resistance, and that they would be welcomed by the native population: assertions all of which proved incorrect. Nonetheless the "almost mindless courage" of the 7th Airborne and 5th Mountain Divisions "in almost berserker mode" took Crete. Too they took it from the New Zealand troops, troops Rommel himself said were "the best he ever met," including his own. [Keegan, 324]

German Paratroopers landing on Crete

On the fall of Crete Keegan concludes, "a defending force, uncertain of how to respond to impending danger. . . is at a disadvantage against an enemy who has his aim clearly in mind." [Keegan, 179]

The Battle of Midway provides another case study which forces us to question just what intelligence means to winning battles. I will discuss some of the intelligence aspects of Midway in tandem with those of the Atlantic U-boat war, but a few points should be made unique to Midway. First is that the U.S. had little if any inkling of the effect the Doolittle raids had on Japanese honor and thus the degree to which the raids would refocus their endeavors on the U.S. and, ultimately, Midway. Second is that the battle represented a contrast of command styles: while the Japanese Navy was created on the Western model, its operational methods were not Western. The Western way of war centers on singularity of aim and concentration of force whereas the Asian favors complexity and diffusion. Third is the degree to which chance plays a role, often a sizable one. Consider the following turns of events:

Admiral Chūichi Nagumo's reconnaissance plane leaves late due to mechanical difficulty. The sky is spotted with clouds. Nagumo changes direction and a group of Hornets is intercepted by 60 Zeroes. The Hornets are lost but the fight brings down the Zeroes from the height they should be at to protect their carriers. More American aircraft follow and take out the four unprotected Japanese carriers. Then the U.S. submarine Nautilus sails astray and attracts the attention of the Japanese fleet, from which one destroyer breaks off to give chase. U.S. planes spot the Japanese ship's wake and follow it back to its fleet and report the Japanese fleet's position to American commanders. In a matter of hours Nagumo's situation is radically altered. Too in Nagumo's tactics we see familiar fatal flaws we saw in Jackson's enemies and Cradock's orders: 1) he simply was not trained to think in terms of the speeds and distances necessary to adapt, 2) he had two obligations he could not equally meet: defend the landing force and draw the U.S. Carriers in to battle. Frustrated by his intelligence, Nagumo dithered, unsure which effort to prioritize and attempting to do both. Backed up by Rochefort's intelligence and without the luxury of indecision the American commanders went all in with their attacks.

 Commanders at Midway:

Admirals Raymond Spruance (l) and Frank J. Fletcher (c.) and Fleet Admiral Chester A. Nimitz

IV. Cryptography During WWII

"Intelligence did not win the war, but it shortened it."

Keegan's sections on the breaking of the Enigma and the Japanese Purple the most traditionally spy-like of the book. In the Pacific, Purple decrypts yielded little due to radio silence. In the Atlantic Enigma was eventually being decrypted in real time. Yet such was due mostly to sloppiness on the part of certain branches (the newer branches like the Luftwaffe which did not have the benefit of any tradition, let alone one of strict and tested procedures and special schooling.) In contrast the Kreigsmarine was an older service and observed in its use of cryptography sensible and tested protocols including 1) training to avoid particular types of mistakes, 2) operating on the premise that the enemy was listening, 3) using as few transmissions as possible, and 4) constantly reviewing the security of the system. Unfortunately such methods were undone undone by the fact that the U-boat operators did not even both using Enigma's fourth rotator and many reports were re-broadcasted unencrypted or weakly encrypted by shore stations.

Again though, Keegan suggests it was not that the Bletchley Park code-breakers steered the convoys away from Dönitz's wolf-pack traps but a host of factors which led to the failure of the German U-boat war in the Atlantic and the triumph of the British merchant fleet. Among those factors were that Dönitz never secured funding to create the numbers of boats he needed to conduct his campaign, too he did not vary his techniques and tactics. Also, while the German torpedoes had improved, the U-boats still relied on Nelsonian line of sight to acquire their targets. Too the open environment of the British government with its "need-to-know" was more fruitful than the  secrecy in the German hierarchy. Ultimately, though, Keegan credits the merchantmen's perseverance with the victory. 

V2 on Meillerwagen mobile platform.

There are a few final and clear intelligence lessons we ought to take from the German V-weapons program. The British, despite eventually possessing a wealth of intelligence on the program, could simply not imagine the weapons were as advanced as they would have had to have been to match the reports, thus they doubted the reports. British scientists looking at the intelligence simply lacked the rocket expertise to determine the feasibility and nature of the German program. Also, the "creative tension" of Churchill's government backfired here as Duncan Sandys, chair of the Science Advisory Committee, and Lord Cherwell, aka. Dr. Frederick Lindemann, Churchill's longtime science adviser, were both hopelessly competing for Churchill's ear. When the debate over whether the V-weapons existed came up they naturally took opposing sides to the detriment of productive and inquisitive debate. Without experts the British science intelligence floundered amongst vague agent reports, inexplicable photographs, and interrogation reports. The picture only became clear to them literally the day before the first V-1s started falling on London. (Even though they made two mostly unsuccessful bombing runs on suspected rocket targets.)

V. Conclusion

As is now probably rather clear, intelligence is but one of many factors in warfare. Keegan's discussion of the American and British code-breaking camps is as exciting as the battles but it won't do to recount it in detail. His observations as to the differences in their environments and styles are most perceptive. Keegan also sheds light on the great Polish achievement of breaking the Enigma purely by mathematics.

Only someone with his range of knowledge could make the observation, among others, that Saddam Hussein's SCUD missiles would be hard, if not impossible to find, because their carriers were based on the design of the German mobile launching platform for the V2, the Meillerwagen. The Meillerwagen was a brilliantly simple, inexpensive, and inconspicuous mobile platform which could be rolled out into a street to launch a rocket within an hour.

Keegan himself is a master of weighing alternatives and in presenting his copious array of facts he shows us what seems most likely worked in someone's favor and what appears more consequential than it was. He concludes with a few more cautions about intelligence. First we tend to overestimate its usefulness because we confuse it with espionage and intermingle it with subversion. Too we confuse intelligence with resistance.

Second, we ignore structural and institutional factors. For example, few intelligence officers spend a lifetime in intelligence as many transfer to operations so they can become master rather than servant. How then can we expect experts?

Third, we tend to overlook human factors like an individual's training, his experiences, personal tendencies. We tend to see scientists as rational automatons who couldn't possibly be pig-headed and stubborn like Lord Cherwell, who had the mathematics on his side as far as English scientists knew. We tend to see incompetence or corruption where there might be more subtle human failings. The "Cambridge Spies" were shuffled around despite their terribly poor personal behavior due to the permissiveness of their superiors, the "indulgence of the well-behaved for the naughty," which they hoped would free them from charges of pomposity and stuffiness. [Keegan, 337] Churchill expected his Special Operations to sow the seeds of dissent in Nazi Europe. He expected his German opponents to be gentleman like the Boers he fought years ago. He realized niether the degree to which the overturning of German culture, currency, and monarchy had left the people prey to the self-righteousness of the Nazi party nor the degree to which the Nazis would bring down vicious cruelty on those who threatened it.  

Lastly, we have fallen prey to the myth that somehow special or intelligence operations are as effective, more deadly, and cheaper than fighting and winning wars. There are no simple, cheap, and guaranteed paths to victory. In fact, even with intelligence, even with intelligence and numbers in your advantage, you're not guaranteed. .  . well, anything. It wasn't the intelligence that won, but the ferocity of the British fleet, it was the Confederate troops who marched barefoot, the frenzied German paratroopers, and the relentless British merchantmen that won the day. The tenacity of a commander, wise speculation and covert deployment, timing and luck all play their part. Intelligence is often necessary but never sufficient, and certainly never a substitute for the will to win.

A Few More Observations

Intelligence in War is indeed meticulously researched and this virtue lends further credence to Keegan's thesis. No one could accuse him of cherry-picking his facts. He really does seem to  delve into every conceivable aspect of a situation. From capabilities of individual ships to expenses to miles of cable laid to letters and documents, this books is painstakingly researched. It is also copiously referenced with footnotes to works famous and obscure for those looking to do additional reading outside the bibliography. In fact, Intelligence in War might make a good jumping-off point to a number of classic works Keegan references, from Tanner's Stonewall in the Valley to Hinsley's British Intelligence in the Second World War and Bennet's Ultra and Mediterranean Strategy.

Keegan's maxims and general observations about warfare formed from the lessons in these case studies are, finally, the essence of the book. This is, I think, what most accounts for the sweep of Intelligence in War. Even more than the daring escapades and vast landscapes it is the fact that Keegan is talking not just about battles but about battle that gives Intelligence in War its scope. Too, though, his caution about judging with hindsight and his willingness to ask of a leader what he reasonably could have been expected to do in situation with what he had at his disposal gives Keegan's writing a rare sapient quality. This also serves to humanize all the leaders in the book, making commanders like Nelson and Jackson who succeeded against great odds and their own mistakes seem all the larger, and commanders like Cradock and Nagumo seem crippled by their limitations and swallowed by their circumstances. Yet Keegan's thesis is ultimately not a glorification of Great Leaders of History, but an admission that it is the guts of the men on the ground that win the battles.

One regret is perhaps inevitable: with detail of this magnitude only some case studies will make the final version of the book. Keegan includes about a dozen major case studies and persuades with them but surely he has notes on many more. I for one would like to see some of them in a second volume.

Updated: 4/29/11: Results of WWI German cruiser campaign.

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Keegan, John. Intelligence in War: The Value–and Limitations–About What the Military Can Learn From the Enemy. Random House. London. 2002.