In an article from the Winter 1998 issue of 'The Musical Times', entitled
"Beethoven's Primitive Cell Structures", Reginald Smith Brindle finds
parallels between Beethoven's music and that of early man.

Here are some extracts:

   "Although one is aware in Beethoven's music of a certain primordial
   quality, as if some part of it echoes the beginnings of music's
   existence, one would hesitate to associate any part of his sublime
   art with that of primitive cultures. Yet there are certain aspects
   of his music which would seem to have been gleaned, not from his
   immediate predecessors, but from the music of man in the most distant
   epochs of history. Obviously, any recollection of such historically
   distant elements was no deliberate act on his part, as had been the
   'neo-primitive" artistic movement of this century. Rather it must
   have been due to a dim stirring in his subconscious, a re-awakening
   of a dynamic creative art practised by his remote ancestors."

Our scholarly author, of course acknowledges that no direct knowledge of
Palaeolithic music exists in the present age.  He turns instead to numerous
examples of parallels which may be drawn from examples of modern 'stone
age' primitive societies, for example the Yamana of Tierra del Fuego.
During the visit of HMS Beagle (1832-4):

   "The Yamana expressed friendship as follows: 'They made Messrs Waldron
   and Drayton jump with them on the beach...took hold of their arms
   facing them, and jumping 2 - 3 inches from the ground, made them keep
   time to the following song:

   Ha ma la    ha ma la    ha ma la    ha ma la
   O    la la la la    la la la la    la"

Smith Brindle points out the musical factors of a regular metre and
repetition of simple rhythms with a dynamic, motoric basis and that
repetition in one form or another is fundamental to primitive song.
Likewise Beethoven devised a form of musical structure depending on
persistent repetition of a minimum number of rhythmic cells.

   "None of his immediate predecessors initiated this, nor had it been
   a feature in any Western art music during known history".

   "It is important to emphasise here that we are referring to a
   persistent repetition of rhythmic cells over a large area.  Such
   composers as Mozart and, before him, originators of the galant style,
   often initiated a melody by repeating a simple rhythmic formula two
   or three times before the melody culminated or 'took flight' with
   differently shaped material.  This 'gathering together' of similar
   melodic strands is common enough, but a very different process indeed
   from Beethoven's construction of entire edifices through multiple
   repetitions of one or two cells.  Such constructions can be likened
   to honeycomb structures, where each cell is identical, equal is status
   and indispensable to the strength of the whole."

   "There is another close parallel between Beethoven's repetitive
   structures and those of primitive man:  relief from monotony is
   obtained (without resorting to variations or expansions of the
   material) by volume contrasts and by occasionally moving the music
   onto different tonal planes.  We will shortly see these primitive
   techniques are virtually identical with the organisation of the entire
   development section of the first movement of the Pastoral Symphony".

To be continued...

Geoffrey Gaskell [log in to unmask]
http://freeweb.digiweb.com/music/Gustav_Mahler/