Greatness in Music

[drogulus]

    No, I'm right. By tools I mean high concepts like "the future of German music" (as well as more specifically musical concepts like the idea of "unprincipled harmony"). Thinking that composition can be governed by some form of historical necessity is exactly the kind of misplaced "intellectualism" I had in mind. Taruskins review in TNR addresses this from the vantage point of critics and elite audiences who tend to drive music towards the esoteric.
   
    And yes, Schoenberg valued his conceptions more highly than how his music sounded. You must make a choice to go with the plan or follow an "unprincipled" course like most composers do, subordinating any scheme to the overall goal of making music rather than a treatise in sound. What some of you may have missed it that this is obvious to even unschooled listeners, who intuit quite correctly that the message is "stay out". And stay out is exactly what they do.

    Taruskin writes:

These values are now a little more than two centuries old, deriving from a discourse that originated with Moses Mendelssohn and Immanuel Kant in the late eighteenth century, made its first beachhead on musical terrain in the work of E.T.A. Hoffmann in the first decade of the nineteenth century, reached an apogee with Schopenhauer, and had Adorno, who died in 1969, as its last authentic apostle. Although it began as an ethnocentric creed and continues to have German epigones, its chief bastion is now the Anglophone academy. (When I vented a rather vehement anti-Adornian position, somewhat along the lines of what will follow here, before a German audience in Berlin last year and encountered surprisingly little resistance, I asked one of my hosts about it and was told, "Oh my dear, Adorno is your problem now.")

The main tenet of the creed is the defense of the autonomy of the human subject as manifested in art that is created out of a purely aesthetic, hence disinterested, impulse. Such art is without utilitarian purpose (although, as Kant famously insisted, it is "purposive"), but it serves as the symbolic embodiment of human freedom and as the vehicle of transcendent metaphysical experience. This is the most asocial definition of artistic value ever promulgated. Artists, responsible to themselves alone, provide a model of human self-realization. All social demands on the artist--whether made by church, state, or paying public--and all social or commercial mediation are inimical to the authenticity of the creative product.

[karlhenning]

No, I'm right.

Naturally;  and someday when all we benighted people who disagree with you see the light, we will agree with you in your entire rightness.

By tools I mean high concepts like "the future of German music" (as well as more specifically musical concepts like the idea of "unprincipled harmony"). Thinking that composition can be governed by some form of historical necessity is exactly the kind of misplaced "intellectualism" I had in mind.

Ernie, you still can't make tidy statements about the composer thinking this or that more important;  for one reason, because there is no tidy mechanism which demonstrates how various theories and high concepts result in such-and-so music, and not in any other music;  nor which demonstrates how various theories and high concepts result in such-and-so music, such that no other theories (or absence/renunciation of them) can result in music of much the same profile.

Sit down, and take a deep breath, Ernie:  you are the one here who is trying to bend everything to your nice, neat high theory;  you are the one losing sight of the music (though not losing sight of your distaste for the shadow of the music).

Taruskins review in TNR addresses this from the vantage point of critics and elite audiences who tend to drive music towards the esoteric.

I'm sure that would be interesting if I read it, Ernie;  but we are not discussing "the vantage point of critics and elite audiences who tend to drive music towards the esoteric";  we are discussing Schoenberg, a man who made music.
   

And yes, Schoenberg valued his conceptions more highly than how his music sounded. You must make a choice to go with the plan or follow an "unprincipled" course like most composers do, subordinating any scheme to the overall goal of making music rather than a treatise in sound. What some of you may have missed it that this is obvious to even unschooled listeners, who intuit quite correctly that the message is "stay out". And stay out is exactly what they do.

You should really get out of your bubble more, Ernie.  This is all an admirable tidy theory constructed upon your not getting this or that music.  You know better than Levine, is that it?  Levine hears/plays the music, and his understanding of its message is "come in," and he does.  Many listeners do, Ernie.  But that brute fact is inconvenient to your "high theory," isn't it?

Taruskin writes:

These values are now a little more than two centuries old, deriving from a discourse that originated with Moses Mendelssohn and Immanuel Kant in the late eighteenth century, made its first beachhead on musical terrain in the work of E.T.A. Hoffmann in the first decade of the nineteenth century, reached an apogee with Schopenhauer, and had Adorno, who died in 1969, as its last authentic apostle. Although it began as an ethnocentric creed and continues to have German epigones, its chief bastion is now the Anglophone academy. (When I vented a rather vehement anti-Adornian position, somewhat along the lines of what will follow here, before a German audience in Berlin last year and encountered surprisingly little resistance, I asked one of my hosts about it and was told, "Oh my dear, Adorno is your problem now.")

The main tenet of the creed is the defense of the autonomy of the human subject as manifested in art that is created out of a purely aesthetic, hence disinterested, impulse. Such art is without utilitarian purpose (although, as Kant famously insisted, it is "purposive"), but it serves as the symbolic embodiment of human freedom and as the vehicle of transcendent metaphysical experience. This is the most asocial definition of artistic value ever promulgated. Artists, responsible to themselves alone, provide a model of human self-realization. All social demands on the artist--whether made by church, state, or paying public--and all social or commercial mediation are inimical to the authenticity of the creative product.

I'm a composer, and I have ideas about what I write, and ideas about various kinds of music, generally and specifically.

I might read that long disquisition you've pasted in Ernie;  only I get the message "stay out," and I will.

[(poco) Sforzando]

    No, I'm right. By tools I mean high concepts like "the future of German music" (as well as more specifically musical concepts like the idea of "unprincipled harmony"). Thinking that composition can be governed by some form of historical necessity is exactly the kind of misplaced "intellectualism" I had in mind. Taruskins review in TNR addresses this from the vantage point of critics and elite audiences who tend to drive music towards the esoteric.
   
    And yes, Schoenberg valued his conceptions more highly than how his music sounded. You must make a choice to go with the plan or follow an "unprincipled" course like most composers do, subordinating any scheme to the overall goal of making music rather than a treatise in sound. What some of you may have missed it that this is obvious to even unschooled listeners, who intuit quite correctly that the message is "stay out". And stay out is exactly what they do.

When Webern (however naively and inaccurately) hoped that someday his postman would be whistling 12-tone rows, was his message to "stay out"? When Berg wrote (and I can't find the quotation right now) that he wanted listeners to Wozzeck not to pay attention to the various technical forms but to concentrate on the tragedy of the demented and downtrodden Johann Franz Wozzeck, was his message to "stay out"? When Stockhausen wrote of his Carré that "I wish that this music could impart some inner peace, expanse, and concentration; an awareness that we have a lot of time, if we take it," was his message to "stay out"? Sounds to me as if each of these composers was most definitely "subordinating any scheme to the overall goal of making music."

But "thinking that composition can be governed by some form of historical necessity" is an accusation that can be levelled at Wagner and his contemporary advocates of "Music of the Future," no less than Schoenberg. And perhaps even of earlier composers like Machaut and Monteverdi. The issue, however, is not what the composer may have "intended," but what he achieved in his music, and while it can't be denied that the audience for Schoenberg has remained relatively small, there is a small but passionate following for his music and that of the other composers I've mentioned above.

[drogulus]

This is all an admirable tidy theory constructed upon your not getting this or that music.  You know better than Levine, is that it?  Levine hears/plays the music, and his understanding of its message is "come in," and he does.  Many listeners do, Ernie.  But that brute fact is inconvenient to your "high theory," isn't it?

     It's not very tidy, I admit. And there's no reason why I can't enjoy whatever music I like, whatever obsessions drive the composer. I'm noting certain trends which affect the decisions of composers, audiences and performers, and act to condition "Greatness in Music" as a general idea. There's nothing very novel in my remarks. I was glad to see Taruskin saying similar things. I don't require this, but it's good to see.

     Karl, when I say I'm right, all I mean is that I've thought about it and I'm not ready to substitute your judgment for mine. It doesn't mean I won't listen to what you say. I sometimes change my mind, too.

[karlhenning]

I am also suspicious of notions of an "overall goal of making music," if those notions theorize that Webern, or Schoenberg, is 'beyond the pale.'

If Schoenberg's message, "high theory," whatever was "stay out" . . . why did Gershwin want to take lessons with him? Why did Oscar Levant commission the Piano Concerto?

Why didn't these good people, who had much warmer sense of the "overall goal of making music," apparently, have the sense to "stay out"?

[karlhenning]

And there's no reason why I can't enjoy whatever music I like, whatever obsessions drive the composer.

Sure, Ernie.

Karl, when I say I'm right, all I mean is that I've thought about it and I'm not ready to substitute your judgment for mine. It doesn't mean I won't listen to what you say. I sometimes change my mind, too.

That's quite a nuanced reading of "No, I'm right";  but now that you explain what you meant, I have no quarrel with that explanation.

[drogulus]

When Webern (however naively and inaccurately) hoped that someday his postman would be whistling 12-tone rows, was his message to "stay out"?

     Yes, I think so, but not as a matter of conscious intention. Thinking the postman will whistle your tunes means that you are bewitched by the same idea that you wish to promulgate. Geez, this is not that difficult! Why can't composers have unpopular ideas and labor under the misapprehension that one day the audience will catch up? And why can't they be led to this by some rather unfortunate ideas about the teleology of German music? I think that's what happened.

I am also suspicious of notions of an "overall goal of making music," if those notions theorize that Webern, or Schoenberg, is 'beyond the pale.'

      They're not beyond the Pale for me.

      I do think that composers can fall under influences they would be better off without and still compose great music.

     

If Schoenberg's message, "high theory," whatever was "stay out" . . . why did Gershwin want to take lessons with him? Why did Oscar Levant commission the Piano Concerto?

Why didn't these good people, who had much warmer sense of the "overall goal of making music," apparently, have the sense to "stay out"?

       The higher up the intellectual and artistic pecking order you go, the more attractive these ideas about the autonomy of Art become. They don't appeal to the general public much. Gershwin and Levant are exactly the sort of people who would respond. For them Schoenberg was the badge of cultural authority they hungered for. They had popular acceptance, now they "really wanted to direct". 

[karlhenning]

Yes, I think so, but not as a matter of conscious intention. Thinking the postman will whistle your tunes means that you are bewitched by the same idea that you wish to promulgate. Geez, this is not that difficult! Why can't composers have unpopular ideas and labor under the misapprehension that one day the audience will catch up? And why can't they be led to this by some rather unfortunate ideas about the teleology of German music? I think that's what happened.

Mostly good thought, Ernie.  I still think you're not quite doing Webern justice with the verb promulgate.  Webern was a shy man, and in his lifetime, he was not much of a promulgator, not of his own music.  He wrote music pretty much from his own inner convictions;  at some of the intimate concert settings that the Society (whose exact name eludes me at the moment), he heard some of his music performed.  (I am not saying that he wrote his music, and didn't care about performance.)

We may here be taking the remark out of the writer's actual intention.  Maybe Webern saying that someday the postmen would be whistling his music, was not strictly speaking the naive pipe-dream which from the vantage-point of this discussion, it sounds.  Maybe it was a composer discovering the kind of music he wants to write, which is already a kind of work to 'determine that stage';  and maybe that remark was simply a comparatively innocent remark of the composer assuring himself that what he was doing musically, it is okay that he is doing that.

I do think that composers can fall under influences they would be better off without and still compose great music.

I can probably agree with the principle;  I've wound up shedding various influences over the years (some of them imposed, some of them voluntarily engaged).  I'm cautious of using this as a cudgel.

[drogulus]

      The whole business of high art ideology can be seen to proceed in 2 stages, or alternatvely as a gradual intensification, if you will. The first stage would start with Beethoven as the subject and unwitting founder of the artist-as-hero cult, with Wagner as as the successor who most consciously took up the mantle. But it would be a mistake to think this was all worked out by an individual.

      The second stage, or perhaps just the entailment that had to come (yechh!....too much Necessity! ) would be the Vienna Circle. I see ultramodernism as an intensification of the same ideas the Late Romantics labored under using different means.

[karlhenning]

Another angle on the postman remark:

One of Webern's musical activities was, he was a chorus master.  Some of the choruses he led, were not dissimilar to (say) the Tanglewood Festival Chorus.  That is, the ensemble is not composed of professional singers, not people who dedicate their vocation to vocal performance;  but people who do other work in the community (some of them postmen, perhaps) but who sing with enough ability and application, that they can take part in professional-quality performances of oratorios, &c.  (IIRC, Webern conducted the premiere of Mahler's Das klagende Lied.)

So perhaps Webern's remark is in part a matter of the comparatively conservative optimism, that his music will be performed more in future;  and when chorus members rehearse a piece a number of times, in preparing a polished performance, the music sticks in their inner ears, and they do find themselves humming it a lot.

Put in this fashion, it doesn't seem impossibly naive to have a postman singing a twelve-tone row.  The Tanglewood Festival Chorus a couple of seasons back performed Schoenberg's A Survivor from Warsaw (another work which, if its message is "stay out," I'm not getting the message, and not getting it big-time).

Schoenberg famously sets the ancient prayer, Sh'ma Yisroel, to a twelve-tone row. Really, I do not think it inconceivable, that a postman in the Boston area might have hummed that twelve-tone row.

[karlhenning]

I see ultramodernism as an intensification of the same ideas the Late Romantics labored under using different means.

There is certainly something to this.

[longears]

The higher up the intellectual and artistic pecking order you go, the more attractive these ideas about the autonomy of Art become.

This is the most unintentionally hilarious thing you've said in weeks, Ernie.  By the way, "the higher up the intellectual pecking order you go," the more self-impressed mediocrities you find.  I've known very few really bright people whom I would denigrate as "intellectuals," and very few intellectuals of more than high-normal intelligence--but they sure do think highly of themselves!

Gershwin and Levant are exactly the sort of people who would respond. For them Schoenberg was the badge of cultural authority they hungered for. They had popular acceptance, now they "really wanted to direct". 

And this is intentionally funny, thank you very much  , and possibly insightful as well! 

[knight66]

I did know someone in Edinburgh who in all sincerity described himself as a philosopher. He was not gainfully employed; neither did I hear him say anything remarkable, apart from the aforementioned. I have known some seriously clever people; but I cannot recall any of them indicating directly that they were brainboxes.

Mike

[drogulus]

       Autonomy of Art ideas are attractive because it puts the Artist/Thinker in the drivers seat, so the Gershwins ask the Schoenbergs how to do things, rather than the other way round which Justice would demand.

       OK, that wasn't very unintentional. 

[jochanaan]

       Autonomy of Art ideas are attractive because it puts the Artist/Thinker in the drivers seat, so the Gershwins ask the Schoenbergs how to do things, rather than the other way round which Justice would demand...

Why would Justice demand this?

[karlhenning]

I think (maybe) Ernie was being a wee bit wry there, jochanaan . . . .

[jochanaan]

I think (maybe) Ernie was being a wee bit wry there, jochanaan . . . .

Perhaps; but I'd like to see how he responds...

[karlhenning]

Verily, the question abideth.

[karlhenning]

(* Jeevesian cough *)

This emerged from the "most intelligent composer" thread.

James makes a point about professional consensus.

I slightly expand thereupon.

[karlhenning]

[C]an you ever really understand someone else's opinion or taste if it doesn't agree with your own?

A fine question worth considering, I think.