What's the point of Beethoven's piano sonatas?

[Mandryka]

I know that some music is there to help us march, to help us work, to help us to fight, to reinforce the feeling of belonging to a group, to find a partner etc.

I know that a story in natural language may encourage us to imagine states of affairs which we have never met in real life, and this may well aid us deal with life's contingencies as and when they arrive. Same, I suppose, for songs and for operas. We're better placed for dealing with the psychological consequences of being left out in the cold, rejected, through experiencing Winterreise, for example -- that's why it matters so much! And we understand better the tension between desire and duty through our experience of Berlioz's Les Troyens.

But what is the function of instrumental art music, with no associated story? Why do people care about it so much?

Hence the title of this thread: What's the point of Beethoven's piano sonatas?

[San Antone]

But what is the function of instrumental art music, with no associated story? Why do people care about it so much?

Hence the title of this thread: What's the point of Beethoven's piano sonatas?

They are their own "point".  Their reason to exist is because Beethoven needed to express them.  And we are the beneficiaries of his talent.

For you to think that music needs a story in order to be meaningful strikes me as a limited view of the possibilities inherent in music.  And a view to which I do not subscribe.

[Mandryka]

They are their own "point".  Their reason to exist is because Beethoven needed to express them. 

The question I want to pose is not why they exist, but why we value them so much.

For you to think that music needs a story in order to be meaningful strikes me as a limited view of the possibilities inherent in music.  And a view to which I do not subscribe.

I'd like to delve a little bit more into what those possibilities are for us, the listeners. I mean, possibly writing them had a therapeutic effect for Beethoven, possibly he needed to write them, as you suggest. But that's by the by for my concerns, albeit interesting for biographers of the composer.

[San Antone]

The question I want to pose is not why they exist, but why we value them so much.

Because we find them beautiful, inspiring, interesting, and a host of other things to countless individuals across several centuries.  You might as well ask why we appreciate sunsets.

[Mandryka]

You might as well ask why we appreciate sunsets.

I think that's a good question. The appreciation of a sunset seems to have no evolutionary function like the appreciation of a piece of instrumental music doesn't obviously have a function. So why do we do it?

A related question -- is man the only animal which can appreciate instrumental music? Is it cultural or biological? 

I'm wondering whether music appreciation is related to our being at the top of the evolutionary tree -- and maybe even has in some way helped us to get there.

[Mirror Image]

Because we find them beautiful, inspiring, interesting, and a host of other things to countless individuals across several centuries.  You might as well ask why we appreciate sunsets.

+1 I don't understand the question. Why do I like butter pecan ice cream? Geez....let me think about this, oh, I know! Because it tastes good! Next question...

[Mandryka]

+1 I don't understand the question. Why do I like butter pecan ice cream? Geez....let me think about this, oh, I know! Because it tastes good! Next question...

The ice cream tastes good because . . . fat and protein are necessary to help us physically develop. And that's why, for example, arsenic tastes bad.

Our judgement about how it tastes has a very tight relation to its role in our biological well being.

[ChopinBroccoli]

You might as well ask why we appreciate sunsets.

This^

[Mandryka]

This^

well go on then . . . answer the bloody question! Why do we appreciate sunsets? Why do we find them beautiful, awe inspiring, thrilling?

[ChopinBroccoli]

well go on then . . . answer the bloody question! Why do we appreciate sunsets? Why do we find them beautiful, awe inspiring, thrilling?

Because they are?

There's so much music more deserving of this line of questioning

[Mandryka]

Because they are?

But in a sunset,  the beauty isn't like the level of light. If you find a sunset beautiful it's because the scene has caused something to happen inside your central nervous system. And that begs the question: why has this species evolved to have that type of reaction?

My own feeling is that the answer has something to do with a genetic propensity of human beings to want to control the natural world -- something which clearly helps with our survival (or rather did until global warming . . . but let's not go there!)

And now we begin to see that the sunset question isn't like the music question at all!

There's so much music more deserving of this line of questioning

Not sure what you're getting at there.

[San Antone]

well go on then . . . answer the bloody question! Why do we appreciate sunsets? Why do we find them beautiful, awe inspiring, thrilling?

If you haven't read any Susanne K. Langer, you might want to.  This is her field.

Here's one of her books (I haven't read it, but back in the '70s her books on the theories of appreciation of art and music, aesthetics in general were all the rage).

[asin]0674665031[/asin]

I am not interested in discussing this idea on GMG, however.  I long ago quit asking or wondering about your question.  All I want to do now is listen to music that excites and pleases me - which is most music.

[Mandryka]

If you haven't read any Susanne K. Langer, you might want to.  This is her field.

Here's one of her books (I haven't read it, but back in the '70s her books on the theories of appreciation of art and music, aesthetics in general were all the rage).

[asin]0674665031[/asin]

I am not interesting in discussing this idea on GMG, however.  I long ago quit asking or wondering about your question.  All I want to do now is listen to music that excites and pleases me - which is most music.

Cheers, on the list it goes.

[Ratliff]

A more salient question, to my mind, why do people expend so much energy formulating and obsessing about questions that have no answer?

My personal reason for valuing Beethoven Piano Sonatas, and other instrumental music, is that they give satisfaction and pleasure. It unfolds in time like an abstract drama in which you receive a sequence of impressions and you get to fill in the story with your imagination. Others may have completely different reasons for valuing then, of course.

[steve ridgway]

The entire universe has evolved from a cloud of simple gas to produce an incredible amount of beauty, variety and complexity, and continues to do so. It's just what it does, maybe even what it's for.

[ChopinBroccoli]

But in a sunset,  the beauty isn't like the level of light. If you find a sunset beautiful it's because the scene has caused something to happen inside your central nervous system. And that begs the question: why has this species evolved to have that type of reaction?

My own feeling is that the answer has something to do with a genetic propensity of human beings to want to control the natural world -- something which clearly helps with our survival (or rather did until global warming . . . but let's not go there!)

And now we begin to see that the sunset question isn't like the music question at all!


Not sure what you're getting at there.

All I mean is that there's boatloads of music that's completely awful 

[staxomega]

I think that's a good question. The appreciation of a sunset seems to have no evolutionary function like the appreciation of a piece of instrumental music doesn't obviously have a function. So why do we do it?

A related question -- is man the only animal which can appreciate instrumental music? Is it cultural or biological? 

I'm wondering whether music appreciation is related to our being at the top of the evolutionary tree -- and maybe even has in some way helped us to get there.

There is little doubt in my mind that our appreciation of music must have advanced us as a species.

Something extra to live for (other than an evolutionary desire to procreate, have our genes passed down, etc) as something as simple as music must have helped in advancing the sciences, desire to live longer, and so on right?

[Mandryka]

A more salient question, to my mind, why do people expend so much energy formulating and obsessing about questions that have no answer?

e. It unfolds in time like an abstract drama in which you receive a sequence of impressions and you get to fill in the story with your imagination. Others may have completely different reasons for valuing then, of course.

Is that your answer? That you construct the narrative in your head, and that's why they matter to you. I.e. the reason that the instrumental art music matters is ultimately the same as why any narrative matters.  Hmmmm, that's interesting.

[Ratliff]

Is that your answer? That you construct the narrative in your head, and that's why they matter to you. I.e. the reason that the instrumental art music matters is ultimately the same as why any narrative matters.  Hmmmm, that's interesting.

That, layered on the overt aesthetic beauty, melody, harmony, counterpoint, sonority, etc. It allows a role for my imagination, like reading a novel, in which you construct the characters in your imagination, in contrast to a movie, where it is more explicit. That's just my personal experience. I don't know what others find in it.

[Mandryka]

That, layered on the overt aesthetic beauty, melody, harmony, counterpoint, sonority, etc. It allows a role for my imagination, like reading a novel, in which you construct the characters in your imagination, in contrast to a movie, where it is more explicit. That's just my personal experience. I don't know what others find in it.

It certainly is quite a common approach to music, there are films of Cortot teaching where he creates a narrative around quite abstract music by Chopin and/or (can't remember) Schumann.

My problem is that the music which matters most to me -- for example the canons at the end of Art of Fugue, or Eliane Radigue's  Occam Ocean -- seem to resist this approach!