Tchaikovsky's 6th Symphony Question

[some guy]

Try as I might (not that I particularly want to), I simply can't listen to Sibelius's 1st symphony without mental images of snow and wind popping up - which in turn modifies my response to the music.

Interesting. Not a need, just something that happens. (Not something I would have been able to come up with on my own. Good on you for giving me this idea.) And for me, I've never made mental images like this but once. Listening to Smetana's Ma Vlast for the first time as a kid. It was late at night, and I had gone to bed, and while the music was playing, I made all sorts of images of knights and castles and such. I don't do that any more. Ma Vlast has become a piece of music, only, again for me.

Even if I think I'm completely absorbed by the formal relations of tone, shape, texture and colour, I don't need much persuading to accept that something else is also going on, subliminally - the extra layers that caused Ruskin to separate out the 'aesthetic' from the 'theoretic'.

I don't think of the relations of tone, shape, texture and colour as being formal. But then I don't think of the relations of tone, shape, texture and colour. I certainly experience them. But, as you mentioned, I only think about them when I'm talking about the experience afterwards. As far as "something else ... going on," I think that's the nub of it right there. I don't think there's something else going on, nor do I need there to be. What's right there seems sufficient.

This is not to say that I don't get more and more out of a work at each subsequent hearing. Of course I do. But the more I get is always a musical more, not a narrative more or a pictoral more or a cinematic more--a dear friend of mine turns every piece of music into a movie; that's how he experiences music--or even an emotional more. (I don't value music for its ability to affect me emotionally. As I have intimated before, everything affects me emotionally. I value music because it sounds good. I'm wired to respond viscerally and spiritually to sound. (I wonder. Did I just contradict myself?))

Often I don't want to separate out my responses in the way you like to do, though I'll fight anyone who says you shouldn't do it.

Beauty!!

(Thanks, by the way, for forcing me to rethink all this stuff. This really is one of those instances of finding out what I think by seeing what I say.)

And me you too. Always a pleasure to converse with you.

[Elgarian]

I don't think of the relations of tone, shape, texture and colour as being formal. But then I don't think of the relations of tone, shape, texture and colour. I certainly experience them. But, as you mentioned, I only think about them when I'm talking about the experience afterwards.

'Structural' might have been a better word than 'formal'. But as you say, it only matters afterwards, not during.


May I stick these two bits together for comparison?
Statement A

As far as "something else ... going on," I think that's the nub of it right there. I don't think there's something else going on, nor do I need there to be. What's right there seems sufficient.

Statement B (my emphasis)

I value music because it sounds good. I'm wired to respond viscerally and spiritually to sound. (I wonder. Did I just contradict myself?))

I think you did. I think it's ever so interesting that you added that 'and spiritually', there. That's the theoretic* separating itself from the aesthetic.

*I mean theoretic in Ruskin's sense of the word.

[Marc]

And again, music evokes emotion, it does not communicate anything definite.

Sure, I like that description, especially the evocation part.

Still, I'm not entirely sure when vocal music is concerned, both religious and secular.
I'm sure one will find a certain amount of elements there, which are really meant to be narrative and communicative by the composer. Like 17th or 18th century church cantatas with a lot of sermon-like qualitites. Or a lot of songs, no matter if the composer is John Downland or Robert Schumann.
Of course one has to know the meaning of the lyrics. That's when a booklet with translation comes in handy. But if the listener doesn't know the meaning, then the music becomes more abstract again, and the importance of the evocation part has 'returned'. (At least that's my personal experience.)

Elgarian, if I wanted "comfortable," I certainly wouldn't listen to any movement of Tchaik 6!

Definitely only to be listened to sitting on a hard chair.

Tchaikovsky's 6th is such expressive music that it goes straight to my heart. Even if I sit on a comfy chair.

[jochanaan]

...Tchaikovsky's 6th is such expressive music that it goes straight to my heart. Even if I sit on a comfy chair.

And not in a "comforting" way, I'll bet!  That was my point.  This music evokes enough emotions we usually don't like to feel to blow all our comfortable preconceptions out of our heads.  At least it did, and does, for me.

[Elgarian]

This music evokes enough emotions we usually don't like to feel to blow all our comfortable preconceptions out of our heads.

We've covered so much territory in a short space that I've somewhat lost track of where we started, but I think at least three of us (Marc + jochanaan + me) agree on this in terms of emotional discomfort, at least. I'm not entirely sure, though, whether it blows away my preconceptions or confirms them.

[Marc]

And not in a "comforting" way, I'll bet!

Sometimes it doesn't work that way, and then I turn it off.

This music evokes enough emotions we usually don't like to feel to blow all our comfortable preconceptions out of our heads.  At least it did, and does, for me.

I think I know what you mean. Usually I don't, but sometimes I really need c.q. like to utter these emotions. Tchaikovsky 6 helps me to endure them, and to cope with them. In the end, this is a very satisfying experience. That's one of the reasons why this piece is one of my beloved treasures.

[some guy]

Music as therapy.

I guess that's OK, as far as it goes. (That is, I'm sure it is satisfying.) But the question keeps coming up: But what about the music?

There's so much more. Sure music can comfort, but so can a nice bowl of hot chicken soup (or tofu for vegans), so can a nice warm kitty curled up on your lap, so can a friend's arm around your shoulders. These are all very nice things, and what's more they have all helped me to endure and to cope with difficult emotions. And that's been very satisfying.

Surely though there's more* to great art than what a cat curled up on your lap can provide. Or?

*Perhaps "more" is even the wrong word. It's not more of something; it's something quite other. Neither music nor cats can substitute for each other. Their values, while there may be some overlap**, are quite different from each other.

**pun

[Elgarian]

I guess that's OK, as far as it goes. (That is, I'm sure it is satisfying.) But the question keeps coming up: But what about the music?

There's so much more.

I think the confusion may be arising here, at least in part, because of a misunderstanding. You could, I think, by separating 'music' from emotion (or even from 'life'), seem to be offering not more, but less.

I know you're not offering less, in fact. But that's maybe how it seems. Aesthesis is not more than Theoria. It's different. To get the full richness of response to the arts, both need to be in operation. (You recognised the need yourself, I think, when you added the words 'and spiritual' in your earlier post.) So when you say this, we're getting closer:

*Perhaps "more" is even the wrong word. It's not more of something; it's something quite other.

Exactly so. This is why Ruskin's terms, although unfashionably antiquated (he borrows his terms from Aristotle, I think), can help to clarify discussions like these, because they distinguish between that part of our enjoyment of art which is supplied by the senses (aesthesis) and that which is apprehended by our moral or spiritual faculty (theoria).

[Marc]

The better I think the music is, the better the (non-musical) effect it has, and vice versa.
This goes from operette to heavy contrapuntal compositions, et cetera et cetera.

[jochanaan]

Music as therapy... There's so much more. Sure music can comfort, but so can a nice bowl of hot chicken soup (or tofu for vegans), so can a nice warm kitty curled up on your lap, so can a friend's arm around your shoulders. These are all very nice things, and what's more they have all helped me to endure and to cope with difficult emotions. And that's been very satisfying.

Surely though there's more* to great art than what a cat curled up on your lap can provide. Or?...

Well, of course.  If the music weren't great to begin with, it wouldn't be so therapeutic.  And of course, extensive therapy is not "comforting" nor really comfortable.  (I've been there; I know.)  Real healing has to take you out of your comfort zone.

[Elgarian]

If the music weren't great to begin with, it wouldn't be so therapeutic.  And of course, extensive therapy is not "comforting" nor really comfortable.

Thinking about this after my previous post, I found myself very much of the same mind. As you say, therapy isn't primarily about comfort, but about growth: an enhancement of understanding involving an extension or development of the self. That seems to be consistent with the kind of thing we get from a profound experience of art.

The other point I think we were making is that Tchaikovsky's 6th is not comforting. Any therapeutic value it might have would be cathartic rather than reassuring. (That guy Aristotle again - he will keep popping up.)

[jochanaan]

Thinking about this after my previous post, I found myself very much of the same mind. As you say, therapy isn't primarily about comfort, but about growth: an enhancement of understanding involving an extension or development of the self. That seems to be consistent with the kind of thing we get from a profound experience of art.

The other point I think we were making is that Tchaikovsky's 6th is not comforting. Any therapeutic value it might have would be cathartic rather than reassuring. (That guy Aristotle again - he will keep popping up.)

Yep, very much of the same mind.

[Elgarian]

I tried dipping into Karl Popper's autiobiography today - he has a couple of sections on the philosophy of music, and I thought at first he was going to shed some light on this discussion. It looked promising because he starts by criticising the idea of art as the expression of emotions: Popper declares (as some guy suggested) that since anything can be an expression of emotion, the expression of emotion 'is not a characteristic of art'.

Now this seems to me to be as clearly wrong as it would be to conclude that the expression of meaning is not a characteristic of language, on the grounds that anything - a scowl, a gesture, firing a gun - can convey meaning. I admire Popper's thought when it comes to the philosophy of science, but I think he's wrong here. It's correct to observe that the expression of emotion is not a unique characteristic of art; but that doesn't mean that one of the purposes of art may not be to express emotion. The observation that I can stay alive either by eating or by taking intravenous nutrient injections doesn't nullify the important fact that a primary purpose of eating is to stay alive.

Popper goes on to talk about the composition of music not as expression, but as problem-solving: 'To see the musician as struggling to solve musical problems is of course very different from seeing him engaged in expressing his emotions'. Well of course - but this seems a remarkably monodimensional theory of composition. Why can he not be engaged in both? That is, why may he not be engaged in solving a musical problem in such a way as to express an emotion? In fact we know composers do this. Consider Fiordiligi's aria 'Come scoglia' from Cosi Fan Tutti. We know she's declaring, very forcibly, her belief in her own strength of character. Not only the words, but the music, express it. But the orchestral accompaniment gently questions the genuineness of the claim, with at times a kind of mocking, tittering attitude. Mozart is solving some very complex musical problems, certainly, but he's doing so in a way that makes us feel simultaneously the strength of Fiordiligi's feelings, and also to feel some doubts about them. Any adequate discussion of the music has to bring all these things into the debate.

I've used 'Come scoglia' as an example because the various facets of music and expression are interwoven in a very obvious way, so it's easy to unravel, but the general principle stands. Tchaikovsky's composition of the 6th symphony was, I'd like to suggest,  a solving of musical problems with a view to the expression of certain feelings. Without that aspect of 'expression', I'm not sure I see much difference between composition and the solving of a crossword puzzle. Solving crossword puzzles can be an engrossing activity, but I never solved a crossword puzzle yet that brought me to the edge of tears.

[greg]

Sounds like he's forgetting a bit of common sense.

[some guy]

Well, it seems like we're not going to agree. But maybe some further explanation might at least get us all to the point where we at least know what we're not agreeing about.

Elgarian cites Popper as saying that since anything can be an expression of emotion, the expression of emotion is not a characteristic of art. Popper is not saying that art cannot or does not express emotion, however (any more than he would say that language cannot or does not express meaning). He just got through saying (or was so cited) that anything can be an expression of emotion.

Anything includes art.

If you're trying to isolate the characteristics of something, that is, the things that make that thing that thing and not some other thing, then you will have to do some eliminating, among other things. If music, say, shares things in common with literature and philosophy and bridges and skyscrapers and birds, then those common things won't go very far towards defining what music is. That's common sense! (All animals breathe, so breathing is not a characteristic of dogs. You wouldn't define a dog as something that breathes unless you were contrasting animals and rocks. And then you're not talking about dogs any more, per se!)

When it comes to music, it seems that many (most) listeners use it for other than musical purposes, daydreaming, therapy (comforting or otherwise), background noise, and for stirring up all sorts of emotions. Now just because music can indeed help one accomplish all those things doesn't mean those things are the purpose of music. Does music have a purpose or a value that is musical, something that goes beyond utility (nice though the uses can be)?

I think yes (which was the real import of my using what I feared at the time was an ill-chosed word: spiritual). That is, I don't think music is important because it has spiritual values; I think music is important because it has musical values and that these musical values are analogous to what we might term spiritual values as opposed to practical values. (Music doesn't feed you like potatoes do or shelter you like roofs do.)

Music can certainly cause you to feel things. Composers who felt things most certainly did write some music while feeling those things or perhaps by doing a bit of recalling in tranquility. But if you're focussed on your emotions when you listen, then you're missing the music.

The composer, in the meantime, has to face musical issues, the things that have to do with vibrations and dynamics and durations and the various ways of combining various sounds. (I'm sure Grofe had emotions as deep as anyone else's, but his music will never stack up against Bartok's or Schoenberg's because he didn't have the same chops musically that those guys did.)

[Elgarian]

Well, it seems like we're not going to agree.

I don't see what's preventing us from agreeing - at least up to a point. After all, I'm not denying that there's a non-emotional component to the composing and appreciation of music. I'm arguing only for the inclusion of the emotional/spiritual component as part of the 'purpose' of both activities.

Elgarian cites Popper as saying that since anything can be an expression of emotion, the expression of emotion is not a characteristic of art. Popper is not saying that art cannot or does not express emotion, however (any more than he would say that language cannot or does not express meaning). He just got through saying (or was so cited) that anything can be an expression of emotion.

Anything includes art.

Yes, that's definitely what he's saying, and we all agree with him this far.

If you're trying to isolate the characteristics of something, that is, the things that make that thing that thing and not some other thing, then you will have to do some eliminating, among other things. If music, say, shares things in common with literature and philosophy and bridges and skyscrapers and birds, then those common things won't go very far towards defining what music is. That's common sense! (All animals breathe, so breathing is not a characteristic of dogs. You wouldn't define a dog as something that breathes unless you were contrasting animals and rocks. And then you're not talking about dogs any more, per se!)

Here is where the differences arise - and I think it's because what Popper is attempting to do is the wrong thing. The aim is not to distinguish music from all other things it might be confused with, but to determine the purpose of music; that is, to examine what happens when a musical experience occurs. It doesn't matter if this happens to duplicate something that other things also achieve. Consider, for instance, the bicycle. We can describe its construction in terms of wheels, pedals, frame, gears etc - but if we exclude from the description the statement that the bicycle allows us to travel from one place to another, then our description is seriously lacking. It doesn't matter that cars, scooters, horses, buses and feet also allow us to travel similarly. The travelling is an essential part of the description of the purpose of a bicycle. So with music, and the spiritual/emotional experience that forms part of our experience of it.

When it comes to music, it seems that many (most) listeners use it for other than musical purposes, daydreaming, therapy (comforting or otherwise), background noise, and for stirring up all sorts of emotions. Now just because music can indeed help one accomplish all those things doesn't mean those things are the purpose of music.

But what about Duchamp's 50% that belongs to me? If I'm listening to Elgar and feeling better for the experience (or listening to Tchaikovsky and feeling worse), shouldn't I have a say in what the purpose of that activity is?

Does music have a purpose or a value that is musical, something that goes beyond utility (nice though the uses can be)?

We agree that it does. Our difference arises not because I deny the value of the purely musical, but because I think the utility is an essential part of the value.

I think music is important because it has musical values and that these musical values are analogous to what we might term spiritual values as opposed to practical values.

I agree with this completely, so I'm starting to wonder if the real issue lies in the nature of the connection between the musical and the spiritual. I don't think I can cope with that right now ...

The composer, in the meantime, has to face musical issues, the things that have to do with vibrations and dynamics and durations and the various ways of combining various sounds.

Yes. But is that really all he's doing? Was Mozart really concerned only with vibrations and dynamics etc when he composed 'Come scoglio'? I could never believe that. He knew perfectly well what emotional effects the music would have on us - he was so obviously constructing his music with dramatic, as well as musical, intent, and conveys that drama, that complexity of emotion, in a way that only music can permit.

My goodness, this is huge. It's far too ambitious of us to sort this out in a forum like this, but perhaps the thinking process it inspires, however incomplete, is as important as any outcome we might achieve. (So our conversation could be seen as an analogue of the thing we're discussing!) Indeed, conversations with you are like a rich feast in which all kinds of surprising savoury flavours keep cropping up, just when I think I'm ready for the pudding and custard.

[some guy]

My goodness, this is huge. It's far too ambitious of us to sort this out in a forum like this.

Hahaha, just what I was thinking as I was writing that last post!! But we are ambitious types, are we not?

Indeed, conversations with you are like a rich feast in which all kinds of surprising savoury flavours keep cropping up, just when I think I'm ready for the pudding and custard.

Made me grin! (Plus, I've got another salad here for you, sir!)

The aim is not to distinguish music from all other things it might be confused with, but to determine the purpose of music; that is, to examine what happens when a musical experience occurs. It doesn't matter if this happens to duplicate something that other things also achieve. Consider, for instance, the bicycle. We can describe its construction in terms of wheels, pedals, frame, gears etc - but if we exclude from the description the statement that the bicycle allows us to travel from one place to another, then our description is seriously lacking. It doesn't matter that cars, scooters, horses, buses and feet also allow us to travel similarly. The travelling is an essential part of the description of the purpose of a bicycle. So with music, and the spiritual/emotional experience that forms part of our experience of it.

I think here you have identified the crux of the matter, of this conversation if not of the topic. The bicycle is music, then, and cars are art and scooters are sculpture and horses are dance and buses are theatre and feet are poetry. How's that? And music does have many similarities with the other arts. But Popper is concerned with defining the characteristics of art, or so I understood it from a) your citation and b) my own very hazy recollections of reading him thirty or forty years ago. (Not to avoid confusion, just to identify what's characteristic to art.) So yes, all art, however different the various kinds are from each other, is all about "travel" shall we say? (though I would not agree that getting from one point to the other is the only point of travelling!!). And "travel" is not something a chair does, say, or a basketball game.

But what about Duchamp's 50% that belongs to me?

Rather than identifying something belonging to you, I think what Duchamp is after here is more along the lines of responsibility in a relationship. Think of it that way. To make a human relationship work, you have to balance your needs with the other person's needs, based on a pretty fair idea (which you continually work at to improve) of who that other person is. I think I may be only trying to point out that if we don't keep trying to understand what sort of thing music is, and what it requires from us as listeners, then our relationship with it will be flawed. If in a relationship with another human, you were to process everything as what you were getting out of it, what value it had for you, then that would be a relationship that wouldn't have much chance of surviving.

With music, of course, music not being sentient, it's not going to pack up and move back to mother's even if you abuse it!

[Mozart] knew perfectly well what emotional effects the music would have on us....

Hmmm. Not perfectly. Only approximately. (You do know people whom Mozart leaves perfectly (!) cold, do you not?)

[jochanaan]

Does music, including the symphony we're discussing, have to have a purpose at all?  If so, why?

[Elgarian]

Does music, including the symphony we're discussing, have to have a purpose at all?  If so, why?

It has a purpose in the sense that Tchaikovsky didn't just compose it as a kind of random act. He had a reason or reasons for composing it (we suppose), and a potential audience in mind that would listen to it. And we, as listeners, choose to listen to it with purpose, hoping, I presume, to gain something from the experience. So those are all different 'purposes', related both to composing and to listening, which I suppose add up to something that we might call 'the purpose' of the music - that is, the ambitiously tricky thing that we're trying to unravel in this thread. (I do understand that the unravelling process won't appeal to everyone; I have some sympathy with the existentialist approach that might say - here I am, here's the music, I'll dive in.)

Still chewing on some guy's salad. Lots to digest, there.

[jochanaan]

It has a purpose in the sense that Tchaikovsky didn't just compose it as a kind of random act. He had a reason or reasons for composing it (we suppose), and a potential audience in mind that would listen to it. And we, as listeners, choose to listen to it with purpose, hoping, I presume, to gain something from the experience. So those are all different 'purposes', related both to composing and to listening, which I suppose add up to something that we might call 'the purpose' of the music - that is, the ambitiously tricky thing that we're trying to unravel in this thread. (I do understand that the unravelling process won't appeal to everyone; I have some sympathy with the existentialist approach that might say - here I am, here's the music, I'll dive in.)...

So can we reduce that purpose to words?  Or is its purpose simply itself, in all its many diverse aspects?