What is the 'composer's intention?'

[Florestan]

But of course, and no real harm done.

I do think that latching on to the ethos and its use of language from well over one hundred years ago a kind of highly specific and repeated musical tourism, and perhaps a hard core escapism in embracing an era other than your own. It can be a way of denying yourself living in and being more a part and participant in your own time... I suppose that includes 'not facing' the arts from your own time as well....

I have no problem with anyone enjoying it for what it is if in the proportionately right place and time, i.e. please don't spill it over onto anyone in music before Schubert [with the odd and one legitimate exception of Carl Maria von Weber] or post Mahler other than that second wave of the small handful of late and later 'modern' romantics who lived well into the twentieth century, Schoenberg, Sibelius, R. Strauss, Tubin, etc.

So, me included, a few peeved minds because of a contest of whose opinion is thought to be, I suppose, "More Valid," and that is seen on online fora everywhere, and is also a very "first world problem."

Still, none in that camp are writing the liner notes for classical recording companies, major orchestra's program notes, etc. -- and neither are you or me. Some Guy, on the other hand, has been paid to do just that, a good number of times over the years. 

Hang me by the neck if can make head or tail of this...

[(poco) Sforzando]

Hang me by the neck if can make head or tail of this balderdash...

One minute it's put a gun to my head, the next it's hang me by the neck. My dear fellow, do you have a death wish?

[Florestan]

One minute it's put a gun to my head, the next it's hang me by the neck. My dear fellow, do you have a death wish?

Hah! 

English is not my mother´ s tongue --- nor is it Shakespeare my best teacher!

but

One of my favorite novels is Dotkor Faustus by Thomas Mann

and one of my favorite lines of that novel is:

but, if thou marry, Hang me by the neck, if horns that year miscarry.

[(poco) Sforzando]

but, if thou marry, Hang me by the neck, if horns that year miscarry.

Which is from Love's Labour's Lost, the Shakespearean play that Adrian Leverkühn sets as an opera. But you know that.

[Florestan]

Which is from Love's Labour's Lost, the Shakespearean play that Adrian Leverkühn sets as an opera. But you know that.

Yes, I know that all right. 

The quote about Romanticism´ s setting music free from its previously communal fanfare status is also from Doktor Faustus --- and I (mostly) agree with it... 

[starrynight]

But even in ordinary conversation, language--spoken language--is clearly a thing of rhythm and pitch and volume, all musical things.

But not melody/harmony.

[James]

The human voice is a powerful musical instrument too. In Art music we have a vast range & type of both male & female singers - soprano, mezzo-soprano, contralto, countertenor, tenor, baritone, bass. Then you can get into the whole world of choral music. Throat/Overtone singing .. And whole works have been built on a deep knowledge of phonetics. Then the possibilities opened up further with electronics ..

[jochanaan]

Performers think constantly (or they should) about "the composer's intent."  We have several primary guides.  First and foremost is what the composer wrote.  Whatever else we do, we must be guided by the written notes and other indications such as tempo markings.  (Every once in a while one comes across obvious errors.  Then we generally play what is obviously "right" as opposed to what is an obvious mistake in copying or printing.  When possible, I like to use an "Urtext" edition, copied from the original manuscripts.)

Then comes any verbal instruction or comment the composer may have written outside the written music.  A prime example is Mozart's "It should flow like oil", referring to any legato passage in his music.

Then comes what we know about performance practices in the composer's time and place.  Here is where "Historically Informed" research is very helpful.  With more recent music, recordings conducted by the composer are especially enlightening.

Then, finally, when all this is in place, the final "decision" is made--and it is often made in the white heat of the concert--about just exactly how fast, how loud, with what kind of sound and flexibility we should play at every note.  But at every step, the written notes are our guide.  It is not for us classical musicians to "try" to impose our own personality on the music; that happens without our trying.  It is for us rather to take this non-verbal, musical message from the past and bring it to life in the present.

There is a charming story about Arturo Toscanini.  Apparently at the end of a dress rehearsal, he stopped and said, "Who am I?  I am nothing."  (This may have greatly surprised the orchestra. )  He then said, "Who are you?  You are nothing."  (This would not have surprised them at all.  He told them that often enough. ) He finished with, "Beethoven; Beethoven is everything."

[Monsieur Croche]

One minute it's put a gun to my head, the next it's hang me by the neck. My dear fellow, do you have a death wish?

Well, that's romanticism for you, deeply dwelling on loss, yearning, unrequited love, weltschmertz, a longing for the better life as lived in dreams -- i.e. death -- vs. a life awake (Schubert ~ Nacht und Träume), the love of all things generally lugubrious, and did I mention death? (Mahler ~ Das Lied von der Erde; Der Abschied)

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Well, that's romanticism for you, deeply dwelling on loss, yearning, unrequited love, weltschmertz, a longing for the better life as lived in dreams -- i.e. death -- vs. a life awake (Schubert ~ Nacht und Träume), the love of all things generally lugubrious, and did I mention death? (Mahler ~ Das Lied von der Erde; Der Abschied)

Death.....Mahler....songs....children......bleak music, utterly bleak.

[Monsieur Croche]

But even in ordinary conversation, language--spoken language--is clearly a thing of rhythm and pitch and volume, all musical things.

But not melody/harmony.

If you are not locked in on that simpler notion of a melody being very audible as 'tune' and in a set scale, then it is easier to see that speech is melodic or melody like -- and its elements, with or without making verbal sense, can readily go from musical to music.
Unless a person is speaking in a monotone, what comes out uses:
~ a range of tones, high to low
~ Phrases contain a sequence of those tones, high and low mixed
~ Phrases are distinguished on from the next by slight, partial or full stops [commas, semicolons, colons, periods] all part of the overall rhythm of clauses or statements in the linear-temporal flow.

Those parameters define melody, and how it occurs, how it is handled.

Harmony requires two pitches at once: Two or more persons speaking at once, in not exactly the same pitches, or tones, is then harmony.

[James]

Question: having established that any words a composer writes about a piece are not definitive, how are we treating the words IN the piece?

Because most scores do not consist solely of musical notation.

Are you referring to dynamic/articulation markings etc. as apart of a comprehensive written musical notation that give instructions to a musical performer? Or vocal-oriented music?

[James]

"But even in ordinary conversation, language--spoken language--is clearly a thing of rhythm and pitch and volume, all musical things." ~ Some Guy

If you are not locked in on that simpler notion of a melody being very audible as 'tune' and in a set scale, then it is easier to see that speech is melodic or melody like -- and its elements, with or without making verbal sense, can readily go from musical to music.
Unless a person is speaking in a monotone, what comes out uses:
~ a range of tones, high to low
~ Phrases contain a sequence of those tones, high and low mixed
~ the phrasing, with slight, partial or full stops [[ commas, semicolons, colons, periods, separate clauses or statement in the linear-temporal flow.

Those parameters define melody.

Harmony requires two pitches at once: Two or more persons speaking at once, in not exactly the same pitches, or tones, is then harmony.

Lots of music has been influenced by human speech. But then again, a lot of things have & can be transcribed, analyzed and used.

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Lots of music has been influenced by human speech. But then again, a lot of things have & can be transcribed, analyzed and used.

Kind of reminds me of Ursonate by Kurt Schwitters.

[zamyrabyrd]

But not melody/harmony.

The vertical aspect of melody/harmony can be considered coloristic. In other words, it is not so much what is said but how. An Eb between a C and G can make all the difference in the world if changed to an E. Acoustics and the overtone series are the 3D aspect in music, frequently overlooked or not given enough importance.

[Monsieur Croche]

Yes, I know that all right. 

The quote about Romanticism setting music free from its previously communal fanfare status is also from Doktor Faustus --- and I (mostly) agree with it... 

A great writer and a somewhat great book, I thought. It seems Mann knew next to beans about music, so he consulted with Adorno, of all people, lol, and in whatever way he understood it he leaned heavily on what Adorno advised. So in Doktor Faustus  we have Adorno's notions on music, including his sociopolitical constructs, as filtered through Mann.

Most of the discourse about music in Doktor Faustus I found so risible that it distracted me away from 'being in the novel.' I'm reminded of what Stravinsky said on writers and music...

"If a literary man puts together two words about music, one of them will be wrong."

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

The vertical aspect of melody/harmony can be considered coloristic. In other words, it is not so much what is said but how. An Eb between a C and G can make all the difference in the world if changed to an E. Acoustics and the overtone series are the 3D aspect in music, frequently overlooked or not given enough importance.

And this is especially important when it comes to orchestration....different combinations of instruments sympathise differently with one another depending on which overtones are most prominent in their timbre.

[starrynight]

Harmony requires two pitches at once: Two or more persons speaking at once, in not exactly the same pitches, or tones, is then harmony.

Which speech isn't really about, because two speaking at once wouldn't make sense.

I do think there are differences between speech/music, not saying there can't be similarities as I've felt that in the past.  But it can sometimes feel that people are using intellectual reasoning to prove a point in every way rather than looking at just how we experience things.  There's a reason we do music rather than only speak to each other instead.

Yes, of course voices are used in music, of course the voice is an instrument (I've said that for years), but there are clearly different purposes between normal speech and the voice used in music.

On a sidenote I really hate it when on some poetry reading they stick some music in the background.  Damn annoying.  And then people look at popular song, for example, as having to be about great lyrics, when people are largely interested in the musical element of the word/music combination.  Poetry obviously has musical elements but is not music, it has an emphasis more on the cultural connotations of the words used.  Music by it's nature is more abstract.  You could make an argument they are part of some spectrum running from basic cultural connotations (normal language) to the most abstract (a cross cultural musical style).  But to make out they are all simply the same is to try and prove some argument in a way thought clever and impressing rather than trying to take into account all aspects.

[Madiel]

As has been pointed out before, a couple of times, musical allusions in a piece of music are not extramusical. And, in a way, even musical references to things that sound, like thunder or bird calls or coyote howls or train noises, are just barely extramusical, the things being referenced being already on the way to being music simply by being sounds.

But on to orfeo's query. I was just gearing up to write something about words and music, so sure, I'll take the bait.

Here's the thing about language. While the cliche about music being a language is pretty questionable, language is quite a lot like music. When people talk about music being a language, they often use words like "phrase" and "grammar" to make their point. These are analogies and only useful to give a general idea about how music and language are related. But if you think about language being like music, the words you use will be things like "rhythm" and "pitch." These are not analogies; these are just literally true.

Music cannot be made to express meaning like language does, no matter how hard you push it--even if you're Richard Strauss. Language, however, becomes musical quite easily, most obviously in poetry, which is a use of language that's as much about sound as it is about connotative meaning. But even in ordinary conversation, language--spoken language--is clearly a thing of rhythm and pitch and volume, all musical things. So normal is this, that the exception, inflectionless speaking, is still referred to with a musical term, tone, as in monotone.

It is quite easy and natural for language to do musical things and hence quite easy and natural for words and music to play well together, as it were. While music does not need words to explain its meanings--and my point all along has simply been that trying to explain what music means with words will inevitably start pointing away from the music to something else--the musical elements intrinsic to language means that words can be made to work very nicely in a musical context, because they're already halfway there in the first place. Like train brakes or the wind or the rain outside M. Chopin's house.

I can't see how this has anything to do with my query whatsoever.

[Madiel]

Are you referring to dynamic/articulation markings etc. as apart of a comprehensive written musical notation that give instructions to a musical performer? Or vocal-oriented music?

I was referring to the former. Do you ignore tempo markings because they're in a foreign language (often Italian)?

I just want to know where people's conceptual boundaries lie. Music notation does not consist simply of notes. It includes a huge range of other things, and I want to know just which bits people consider to be obligatory. At what point is a performance wrong if it it fails to follow what the composer said?