SOURCE: "The Use of Music in Literature: 'El Acoso' by Alejo Carpentier and Symphony No. 3 (Eroica) by Beethoven," in Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. VIII, No. 1, Winter, 1971 pp. 103-111.

[In the following essay, Giacoman details how Manhunt reflects in its characters and structure the themes and design of Beethoven's Eroica.]

Throughout the history of the Arts there has been intense interest in the relationship between music and literature. It is the writer's thesis that El Acoso, in addition to its many virtues as a novella, is a rare successful attempt meaningfully and consistently to represent in a literary work the complex structure, tone, and rhythm of a specific musical work (Beethoven's Eroica). Because of the specialized focus of this study on the structural similarities between Beethoven's Third Symphony and Carpentier's El Acoso, I shall ignore the many other aspects of the story, attempting to focus on one question; What are the common structural elements in these two works?

Both works of art represent radical creative departures for Beethoven and Carpentier. The Eroica is a symphony that revolutionized symphonic structure—the continuous and organic mode of connecting the second subject with the first, the introduction of episodes into the development, the extraordinary importance of the Coda, are all complete departures from previous musical tradition. In El Acoso, also, we have an intensification of a highly technical structure, plot, and presentation of characters. Carpentier's deep knowledge of music seems to have led him to adapt many of Beethoven's musical techniques. He succeeds, as did Beethoven, in creating a work whose emotional impact is enhanced, rather than overwhelmed, by intricate technical complexity. If we were to choose a common characteristic in the structural and thematic elements of both works, we would have to say that both represent great examples of the mystery that is the dialectic of art: the wedding of simplicity and complexity.

Carpentier has succeeded in reproducing the symphony on at least three different structural levels that are ingeniously related through characters and style. On the first level, an orchestra is presenting the Eroica itself in a concert hall; this playing of the Eroica is the dramatic focus of the story. The two main characters, El Acosado and El Taquillero, listen to it and comment, and the music is described as it is performed. On the second level, the various themes of the symphony are psychological stimuli for the personal associations of El Acosado, who, as he listens to the concert, experiences flashbacks of episodes that occurred to him as he hid in the tower. According to an introductory note by Carpentier's

El Taquillero and El Acoso are neighbors, although they do not know one another. El Taquillero lives in the modern house overlooking the roof tower where El Acosado has taken refuge with La Vieja, his childhood nurse. At the concert El Acosado realizes that he has heard the music of the symphony before; the ticket-seller, a student of music, had been playing his records of the Eroica over and over while El Acosado was hidden in the tower.¹

Thus El Acosado feels nausea in the concert hall, not purely from fear, but because once when he was on the roof, he drank warm water that made him vomit and at that moment the Taquillero was playing that portion of the symphony. Carpentier has used a Pavlovian notion to help achieve a unique association, by way of music, space, and time.

On the third level we have the structure of the short novel itself, which is organized to correspond to the symphonic movements. Both action and characters seem to follow the motifs and themes of the music. We can see that even the rhythmic patterns of words follow important musical rhythms at appropriate points in the story.

This brief essay will be an attempt to show some of the more obvious points of musical-literary correspondence in El Acoso and the Eroica. A general description of the music of each symphonic movement will be followed by an illustration of corresponding structure in the story.

Both works are portraits of heroism, the Eroica of Napoleon and El Acoso of El Acosado. The first movement of the Eroica is certainly a section of grandeur and the beginning is the high point. The first subject of the Eroica is the Allegro con brio; the animating soul of the whole movement is ushered in by two great staccato chords of E flat from the full orchestra. Beethoven's sketches show that these chords have undergone three different variations. The main theme itself, given out by the cellos, is only four bars long. A second theme of much greater length follows, containing two sections. The first is simplicity itself—a succession of phrases of three notes, repeated by the different instruments one after another, and accompanied by staccato bass.

This syncopated passage leads us to a statement of the theme by the full orchestra. Now we are ready to leave this battlefield to seek new keys, and new subjects. What ordinarily happens at this point in the first movement is that we embark on a transition section that will lead us to our second main theme. But Beethoven presents us with no less than three subjects, each one of which is meaningful enough to be called a theme in itself. These three transitional subjects enable us to move to the second main theme. The first transition begins with a lyrical motif. The second is a descending one and the third leads us directly into the tender yearning theme. We have hardly heard sixteen bars when suddenly the music stiffens in apprehension like a wild animal that senses danger. Here, again, we are able to see how the orchestra sustains a sense of battle and conflict. There is no let up. Always we face a new danger, an all too short relaxation, then again the challenge, and we ride off to meet it with a great battle cry.

The elements that make up the Coda are abundant. The whole section gives the impression of pulling and tearing. A most outstanding example takes place in the middle of the development section: having concluded a staggering passage of blows and wounds, tearing the audience with dissonance and displaced accents, Beethoven introduces a brand new theme. According to previous tradition, the development section should include themes already stated in the exposition, but our composer takes over again and adds a new, almost elegiac melody that is like a cry of pain after the holocaust. Again it results that this new material is necessary since it serves as a foil for the return of the original heroic theme. During the development section there is one surprise. A horn gives out the first four notes of the chief subject in the chord of E flat, while the string section plays B flat and A flat. Again, at that time all the rules of harmony were against this. And yet, how perfectly right and proper it seems in its place.

Carpentier begins his story by equating the appearance of El Acosado with the heroic theme. Just as the symphony is dedicated to the heroism of Napoleon, the story centers around El Acosado as a modern hero on a smaller scale. Both have joined revolutionary movements that seek to change the structure of society, bring justice for all, and create a better world in which to live. In the same way that Napoleon's very efforts to achieve these ends brought his downfall, El Acosado suffers the same fate as his victims and is finally humbled by defeat. Technically, the author of the story uses two words to correspond to the intitial E flat staccato chords, which begin the heroic theme: "One," and "Anywhere."² To the triple variation of these chords corresponds the physical presentation of El Acosado and his two pursuers. The strings follow the first heroic motive with the second theme, that of El Taquillero. This character, who is present in the concert hall where the Eroica is being performed, states the change in the story: "Tetter E,' he said, as a tenuous phrase of flutes and first violins raised its notes." The novel parallels the three-note phrases of the symphony by using triads:

1. ". . . this throbbing that gouges its elbows into me"

2. ". . . this heaving stomach"

3. ". . . this heart that hangs up here in me"

And later, "Dull thuds that rise from my middle and fall. . . .

1. ". . . on my temples"

2. ". . . my arms"

3. ". . . my thighs"

And, "The air enters in short gasps. . . ."

1. ". . . fills me"

2. ". . . remains within me"

3. ". . . chokes me"

Leaving our hero. . . .

1. ". . . crushed"

2. ". . . collapsed"

3. ". . . empty"

These triads end with a double beat rhythmic pattern corresponding to that in the symphony: "one, two, one, two, one, two. . . ."

As the orchestra plays the heroic theme, El Acosado parallels the same effect by his utterance of the Credo. Just as the orchestra leads us to seek new keys and new subjects, the story also introduces to us several characters. The most important of these is El Taquillero, who appears now in an isolated context. At this point in the story we learn more about his past experiences, his subjective emotions, etc. As the symphony moves through the three subjects that form the transition period and develops the first lyrical motive, El Taquillero, who has been listening, leaves the concert hall and goes to visit Estrella, the young prostitute who has just betrayed El Acosado. El Taquillero senses immediately that Estrella has changed, that she does not welcome him as usual. This corresponds to the sudden change from a tender theme to battle and conflict that occurs in the symphony. El Taquillero desperately attempts to distract Estrella from her concern over the visit from El Acosado's pursuers. The counterplay of chords corresponds to the dissonance in the thoughts of Estrella and El Acosado. As Estrella says, "They even want to know with whom one is looking for life," El Taquillero's association of his heightened sexual desire and simultaneous frustration and rage connect the word life to the bitches "(who). . . would . . . fling the smell of their desire on the breeze so the males would come to break them, until the dawn flight to the high caverns where they whelped. They are coming to look for life."

The sudden entrance of the second lyrical subject is paralleled as El Taquillero's thoughts wander to his concern for La Vieja, another of the secondary characters who establish an indirect relationship between El Taquillero and El Acosado: "He needed to know that the old woman was alive in the night. He needed to know it so badly that he would run to the mansion as soon as the Finale was over to make sure it was not she who had been laid out."

The entire Coda, with the "development" section, represents the heroic dream of El Taquillero, who as a young man disappointed in love, hopes to become a great composer. The transition in the form of a fugue is illustrated by the stream of consciousness that takes place when he re-experiences female scorn and half realizes that even now his musical vocation can be overcome by passionate desire. El Taquillero's reverie is suddenly interrupted by Estrella's repetition of the word inquisition. This word, spoken four times, corresponds to the notes of the horn that occur at the end of the "development" section of the symphony. The horn symbolizes hunting, and Estrella's mention of Inquisition brings to mind her betrayal of El Acosado.

The funeral march that follows is one of the most perfect in form and variation. It is a huge movement, highly elaborated and extended. And yet each time one says, "Oh no, he cannot do that theme again," Beethoven comes up with the most inventive surprise and turns what might have been a repetitious moment into one of blinding glory. Actually, this happens four times in the funeral march. The first is a long statement of the somber theme together with all its repetitions and restatements. Then we have a middle section of the trio with its refreshing mode. The conventional procedure would have been to repeat the first part, to add on an ending, and finish the section. But instead, when we are expecting simply to hear the theme again (perhaps shortened following the custom of that time), what we hear are the seeds of the development that are presented in the following sections. Then we have a fugue. Following it, as we are resting from the tension, we face the trails of the melody; suddenly WHAM . . ., we are nailed to our seats by Beethoven's crushing force and almost superhuman timing. The third great surprise is the Coda. Having heard all the restatements of the march theme, we are expecting the end. There the composer injects some of the peace that almost makes us kneel in humility and reverence. Finally when we hear the march melody instead of a simple restatement, we literally see it break into fragments like the speech of one so overcome by grief that he can speak only in halting, gasping efforts.

As we hear the funeral march, Carpentier introduces the humble attitude of La Vieja. He describes her laments as "weeping breath become words." During the repetitions and restatements of the symphony, El Acosado relives the experiences he had while living in the home of La Vieja, lacking food and water. The only thing he had besides his pistol was his fear: ". . . for his fear made sleep and death one."

Throughout this section, El Acosado tells us about his past and his early plans to study architecture when he arrived in Havana. All of his previous experiences are reproduced by the seeds of the musical development. During the fugue, we learn about the thoughts of El Acosado. Among other things, he remembers the poet Heredia and El Becario, who had recommended Estrella to El Acosado. As the fugue finishes and we are resting, El Acosado arrives at a crucial moment, the feeling that he knows the Truth. This mystical moment is represented in the symphony by the sforzando that we spoke of. As soon as the Coda begins, we see El Acosado again, this time suffering from hunger and thirst. Thinking of food as he listens to the concert, his associations lead to the past again. His conscience reproaches him for having eaten the food of La Vieja. The dramatic effects of the tutti parallel his frustration. With the death of the Vieja and the betrayal by Estrella, the Funeral March closes.

What follows now is a rather short and driving scherzo. Throughout we hear shocks and tremors as of a deep, subterranean disturbance. All is cahined power and pent-up tension. What drives us to this feeling is the three-beat measure. But by alternating two different chords beat by beat, what we hear is an impression of a measure of two. This double alternation tends to cancel out the repressive feeling of the measure in which it is imbedded, so that we are left with the sense of neither double nor triple. What we really feel is an ambivalence. This tends to result in a tremendous, repressed power. All of the equally strong beats following each other with staccato rapidity convey to us the feeling of a series of downbeats. It is this compression that creates the tension. The repression must eventually erupt, but not before Beethoven has held us as long as possible. When the explosion occurs, we are left with a deep, satisfying feeling. Throughout the Scherzo we are faced with a trio of three horns. The first one is led close to its extreme upper limit, while the two lower horns are doing scampering exercises in their lowest registers where the horn is least able to scamper. The entire scene illustrates a hunt.

There is an actual hunting scene in this section of the story. It is in this section that Carpentier develops the frantic efforts of El Acosado to evade the two men who relentlessly pursue him. The two assassins are the lower horns and El Acosado is represented by the upper horn, as one who is forced to his upper limit. In this section of the novella, we witness the activities of the Acosado that led him to his present situation: his initiation into the revolutionary party, his betrayal and torture, his consequent condemnation as an informer. All of this and his remorse for having murdered the party enemy cause the mental anguish and guilt of El Acosado to reach an unbearable point, and the mental tension in the story is tremendous as El Acosado recalls his deed: "Oh, the howl, the look on the face of the one who fell forward that time, his neck scarred by acne—that neck so like the one encountered here, closer than that of the other when I sighted it through my sawed-off shotgun . . ." Just as in the symphony the tense mental introspection alternates with lively chase, as El Acosado associates his victim with himself ". . . those outside, those waiting for me, were also looking at the neck scarred by acne—not look at it, not look at it," the efficient pursuers are steadily closing in on the doomed man. The explosion and relief of the symphony parallel El Acosado's decision to talk to the police about his political activities, ending the excruciating torture to which they have subjected him. After he is released, "It was like the beginning of a convalescence, a return to the world of men. . . . The released man went to his lodging house, breathing in the cool of the vestibules . . . discovering, like one emerging from a hospital, the oily smoothness of butter, the crackle of fresh bread, the meek splendor of honey."

The final movement of the Eroica presents a series of episodes in the form of fragments tied together by a central theme. In fact, it is a series of variations on simple themes. Perhaps the most notable feature of this section is its dynamic structure. It is written in a two-time beat and starts in the string section of the orchestra. Once the central theme is presented, it follows eight variations. The first and the second are somber in tone. The rest of the variations show a lively spirit. We have also several "fugato" forms ending in a religious melody. It seems at this point that the funeral march is going to appear again, but the horns announce the final victory of the main theme.

In the story a similar thematic structure parallels the symphony. A series of episodes of the past life of El Acosado are presented to us: his search for divine help, his attempt to seek refuge in a church. Then the Becario is presented to talk to our hero on the superman theory: "Will power," he tells the Acosado, "is the only thing that can lead us to victory: the ambition for power." El Acosado escapes from the church, and the sound of the nearby thunderstorm (presented in the orchestra by the brass section) brings him to a café. Here he finds the two men who were chasing him (the two low horns previously mentioned). They rise to shoot him down, but El Acosado escapes and hides in the concert hall. There he expects to evade his tormentors, and listens to the symphony that he had heard for many days while hidden in the tower in the house of La Vieja. When the concert is over, the people leave and El Taquillero complains that it is one minute too short. Then the presecutors enter and murder El Acosado, who has been hiding in the darkened hall. The symphony, which was prematurely completed by the orchestra, actually ends here, with the orchestra of nature substituting for the instruments; the grandeur of the thunder shakes the theater in a fitting Finale. We find that the reliving of El Acosado's heroic suffering has taken place in forty-six minutes, the duration of the Eroica.

Notes

¹ This introductory note appeared on page 109 of the English translation of the narrative published by Noonday, 1959. Harriet de Onis is the translator.

² All quotations of this study are from Guerra del Tiempo by Alejo Carpentier (Mexico: Cia. General de Ediciones, S.A., 1958). Translations are mine.