What is the 'composer's intention?'

[Jo498]

Even the use of an absolute title has connotations of its own.

This is often striking in music from the first third/half of the 20th century. Many composers seemed to take pains to avoid "loaded" titles like symphony and preferred neutral/technical terms like "Music for string instruments, percussion and celesta" or "Orchesterstücke", "kleine Kammermusik". Often this seems like obvious distancing not only from program music but from the connotations of the late romantic SYMPHONY.
Sometimes this leads to clashes between the music and the title: Janacek's "Sinfonietta" with 8 (or 10?) trumpets. Reger called a 40+ min. piece for full orchestra "Sinfonietta" as well.

[Monsieur Croche]

Wait? You mean that Satie's Desiccated Embryos has nothing to do with the music?!

You've gotta watch out for them Dadaist composers, especially when it comes to the titles they gave their pieces... devious tricksters, the lot of'em 

[Madiel]

After LOTS of practice writing, the composer will have more specific experience in -- necessarily qualified "for them" -- what works, what doesn't, what just might be generally evocative of a general emotion, at least, and then becomes better versed in that. Then, I believe they can more deliberately and willfully command the direction the piece takes.

Finally. Thank you. You're finally acknowledging that there's an intent. And that semiotics have a purpose for composers rather than just being noticed by listeners after the fact.

This is pretty much all I've ever been asking for.

I never suggested, for one second, that composing was simply some kind of diary of what mood a composer was in, and part of my frustration has been that you've treated me as if that's what I've been suggesting.

[(poco) Sforzando]

A listener is going to formulate an opinion of a work regardless of a title or what truly may be the composer's intent. Sibelius' The Wood-Nymph, for example, has a very specific inspiration and one can read about it all they want, but once the music hits our eardrums it does take on a life of its' own. I do, however, love reading about how a genesis of a work came to be and what it's direct influence was and so forth, but, for whatever reason, I can never make the connection between the composer's own inspiration and what I'm actually hearing. Now, I can inject all sorts of emotions and mental imagery into a work as I'm listening to it, but I don't actually believe that was the intent of the music. There always seems to be a disconnect between the composer and the listener and I'm perfectly fine with this kind of understanding as it's not really my place to question what the composer actually meant. It's merely my job to listen, enjoy, and, hopefully, come away from a piece with a better understanding of the composer's music.

I tend to agree with this. How much these titles have to do with one's experience of a work is questionable, IMO, and I generally find them at most a kind of fleeting evocation that may have little to do with the actual music. The first movement of La Mer may have been called "from dawn to noon," but musically speaking it feels overall more like a journey from a kind of pianissimo vagueness at the opening to a blazing fortissimo conclusion. The sun at high noon? or just a fortissimo resolution of the primary theme for the full orchestra in Db major? There's a marvelous passage midway where following an initial small climax, a quartet of cellos springs forth, highlighted by chords in the horns, to begin the second half of the movement. I don't know if this was Satie's 8:45AM or Debussy's attempt to depict a sunrise; whatever the case it feels aurally like a uniquely beautiful tonal palette that would be the same if the piece had a title or not.

Sometimes these programs can get in the way, too. I find almost all of Dvorak's tone poems prolix and unsatisfying because he seem so earnest to tell a story; similarly, the larger tone of poems of Strauss like Zarathustra and Heldenleben seem to me garrulous and diffuse because they are so program-dependent. Contrast these to the more successful IMO smaller works like Till, T+V, Don Juan, and even Don Quixote. These pieces work for me because whatever the merits of the program, they all express a musical coherence that can be traced back to standard forms like rondo (Till), sonata form (T+V and Don Juan), or variations (DQ, though the last of these comes close to stretching the limits).

But much of the discussion here seems to be getting hung up on program music, where there are of course innumerable examples of music where a program doesn't apply. And so far I'm just considering instrumental music; music with texts (song, choral work, opera) or scenarios (ballet) creates its own set of complications.

[(poco) Sforzando]

This is often striking in music from the first third/half of the 20th century. Many composers seemed to take pains to avoid "loaded" titles like symphony and preferred neutral/technical terms like "Music for string instruments, percussion and celesta" or "Orchesterstücke", "kleine Kammermusik". Often this seems like obvious distancing not only from program music but from the connotations of the late romantic SYMPHONY.
Sometimes this leads to clashes between the music and the title: Janacek's "Sinfonietta" with 8 (or 10?) trumpets. Reger called a 40+ min. piece for full orchestra "Sinfonietta" as well.

Yes, but there are numerous examples of 20th-century music that use evocative titles as well: Tippett's The Rose Lake, Stockhausen's Punkte and Kontakte, Boulez's Répons and Rituel, Ferneyhough's La Chute d'Icare, Lindberg's Kraft, Ligeti's San Francisco Polyphony, Adams's Harmonielehre, just to name a few.

[Monsieur Croche]

Finally. Thank you. You're finally acknowledging that there's an intent. And that semiotics have a purpose for composers rather than just being noticed by listeners after the fact.

This is pretty much all I've ever been asking for.

I never suggested, for one second, that composing was simply some kind of diary of what mood a composer was in, and part of my frustration has been that you've treated me as if that's what I've been suggesting.

Misunderstanding is the basis of all comedy. Neither of us were aspiring to that, so for taking you too literally, and you me, perhaps, made the comedy, and frustrated intent -- as it were  Apologies, all round.

To think there would be a way to completely avoid putting oneself into ones creative work, regardless if it is severely 'intellectual,' is a comic proposition in itself.

[Monsieur Croche]

This is often striking in music from the first third/half of the 20th century. Many composers seemed to take pains to avoid "loaded" titles like symphony and preferred neutral/technical terms like "Music for string instruments, percussion and celesta" or "Orchesterstücke", "kleine Kammermusik". Often this seems like obvious distancing not only from program music but from the connotations of the late romantic SYMPHONY.
Sometimes this leads to clashes between the music and the title: Janacek's "Sinfonietta" with 8 (or 10?) trumpets. Reger called a 40+ min. piece for full orchestra "Sinfonietta" as well.

So many younger composers of the time wanted to separate and distance themselves from the hegemony of Germanic influence, its harmonic practice and traits, and its formalism especially (even the young Germans stepped away, lol.)

As well as those pieces you mentioned, we get things like Debussy's La mer, trois esquisses symphoniques pour orchestre, which, despite its name, is a formal three-movement symphony (go ahead, analyze it if you need a confirmation : -)

Debussy wanted no truck with being associated with the Germanic influence and its hierarchy of traditional musical forms, at least outwardly.

[Mirror Image]

I tend to agree with this. How much these titles have to do with one's experience of a work is questionable, IMO, and I generally find them at most a kind of fleeting evocation that may have little to do with the actual music. The first movement of La Mer may have been called "from dawn to noon," but musically speaking it feels overall more like a journey from a kind of pianissimo vagueness at the opening to a blazing fortissimo conclusion. The sun at high noon? or just a fortissimo resolution of the primary theme for the full orchestra in Db major? There's a marvelous passage midway where following an initial small climax, a quartet of cellos springs forth, highlighted by chords in the horns, to begin the second half of the movement. I don't know if this was Satie's 8:45AM or Debussy's attempt to depict a sunrise; whatever the case it feels aurally like a uniquely beautiful tonal palette that would be the same if the piece had a title or not.

Sometimes these programs can get in the way, too. I find almost all of Dvorak's tone poems prolix and unsatisfying because he seem so earnest to tell a story; similarly, the larger tone of poems of Strauss like Zarathustra and Heldenleben seem to me garrulous and diffuse because they are so program-dependent. Contrast these to the more successful IMO smaller works like Till, T+V, Don Juan, and even Don Quixote. These pieces work for me because whatever the merits of the program, they all express a musical coherence that can be traced back to standard forms like rondo (Till), sonata form (T+V and Don Juan), or variations (DQ, though the last of these comes close to stretching the limits).

But much of the discussion here seems to be getting hung up on program music, where there are of course innumerable examples of music where a program doesn't apply. And so far I'm just considering instrumental music; music with texts (song, choral work, opera) or scenarios (ballet) creates its own set of complications.

Absolutely agreed. I have nothing to add except giving you a high five!

[Mirror Image]

I don´t claim that every piece of music has, or should have, a program. I don´t even make my own program for each and every piece I hear. More often than not, I don´t. But I can surely tell that this piece here, or part of a piece, is sad, that other one joyful,; this one is passionate and turbulent, that other one serene and tranquil; I surely recognize sorrow when I hear it, or pain, or melancholy, or yearning, or happiness, or love, or despair, or resignation, or triumph or whatever. And I have big difficulties in believing, or being persuaded, that the emotional content which is so obvious to me (and in many cases not only to me) is just an accidental result, an unintended consequence, of someone´s combining sounds as s/he best sees fit without any other consideration, and it is irrelevant to the music itself.

That's true. Some composers go through a whole myriad of emotions before they hit the 30th measure. But do we really know the intent of the work in question? It's not like we can call Brahms up and ask him what he meant with his Violin Concerto or whatever. We have to just listen to the music and trust our own instincts and hope we can come away with some kind of understanding even if it's totally off the mark.

P.S. A funny anecdote to what I wrote above, I remember watching an interview with Thomas Beecham and the discussion was about Delius. The interviewer asked if Beecham ever discussed Delius' own compositions with him and he said "Oh god, no. He couldn't tell me anything about them."

[James]

But much of the discussion here seems to be getting hung up on program music, where there are of course innumerable examples of music where a program doesn't apply. And so far I'm just considering instrumental music; music with texts (song, choral work, opera) or scenarios (ballet) creates its own set of complications.

Programs are mostly bogus and unnecessary imo .. at best perhaps a glimpse into the mind's eye of the composer, at worst just superfluous material tacked on. I have NEVER paid attention to them, and when I have tried to read them, my eyes just glaze over - I ultimately just care about the music and how it sounds. And I think the so-called complications folks bring to vocal things, ballet etc. are their own and unnecessary. The music can be appreciated & enjoyed on it's own terms. And getting too hung up on tags that are given pieces? Gimme a break. If a mere tag detracts a person so much from the music, they should have their heads examined.

[Madiel]

But do we really know the intent of the work in question? It's not like we can call Brahms up and ask him what he meant with his Violin Concerto or whatever.

No, but when I talk about "intent" I'm not talking about what was "meant" in terms of some detailed explanation, or plot, or thesis. I simply mean that a composer had something in mind. Not necessarily something incredibly specific like "this is actually based on a scene from Goethe's Faust", but something a lot more specific than "I just felt the need to put some notes down".

Writing a piece on commission or for a particular friend or for a particular occasion is intent. When people write pieces for anniversaries or other kinds of celebrations, you usually end up with happy music.

Writing a series of chamber pieces because you want to explore the possibilities of the genre is intent. Writing a concerto where you aim to integrate the soloist more closely with the orchestra is intent. It comes in many forms and degrees.

The fact that the extent to which an intent can be discerned for some pieces is very limited does not make the whole notion of intent valueless. And the fact that you can't call Brahms up does not mean that Brahms was a total hermit who never wrote a letter, or never spoke to a friend or colleague.

[Mirror Image]

No, but when I talk about "intent" I'm not talking about what was "meant" in terms of some detailed explanation, or plot, or thesis. I simply mean that a composer had something in mind. Not necessarily something incredibly specific like "this is actually based on a scene from Goethe's Faust", but something a lot more specific than "I just felt the need to put some notes down".

Writing a piece on commission or for a particular friend or for a particular occasion is intent. When people write pieces for anniversaries or other kinds of celebrations, you usually end up with happy music.

Writing a series of chamber pieces because you want to explore the possibilities of the genre is intent. Writing a concerto where you aim to integrate the soloist more closely with the orchestra is intent. It comes in many forms and degrees.

The fact that the extent to which an intent can be discerned for some pieces is very limited does not make the whole notion of intent valueless. And the fact that you can't call Brahms up does not mean that Brahms was a total hermit who never wrote a letter, or never spoke to a friend or colleague.

I understand, but even if you knew the composer's intent, would it influence how you perceive the music? Personally, it wouldn't matter to me because I still believe there's a disconnect from the composer to the listener and that's why whatever you take away from a piece is still a matter of subjectivity.

I've read about many composer's lives (biographies, journals, etc.) and I've learned a lot about the composer and the environment in which they conceived their masterpieces, but when it came time to listening to their music, their reasoning for writing this passage here and that one there seemed rather irrelevant to me. All that mattered was how the music was affecting me.

It's like I said before, there isn't a right or wrong way to listen to music. All that matters really is that you're listening. That's all the composer could ask for I imagine.

[James]

but something a lot more specific than "I just felt the need to put some notes down".

In the end, I think the notes on paper are it for the most part though, beyond that, things are murky and open to interpretation  .. so really analyzing the composer's score, rehearsing/hearing it, getting it correct and understanding what is important within it musically are paramount to understanding the composer's true voice & intent. It will shine through. What it all means & describes in words or images is abstract and will vary from person to person ..

[Madiel]

I understand, but even if you knew the composer's intent, would it influence how you perceive the music? Personally, it wouldn't matter to me because I still believe there's a disconnect from the composer to the listener and that's why whatever you take away from a piece is still a matter of subjectivity.

Yes, absolutely it would. For Strauss' more programmatic, sectional works like Ein Heldenleben and Don Quixote, it certainly makes a difference to my ability to follow the music/my interest in it. Knowing the poems behind Gaspard de la nuit most definitely enhances my enjoyment of specific parts of the pieces, most especially the coda of 'Ondine' where knowing what it represents influences the way I both hear it and play it, and just makes the piece all the more impressive to me.

I've no problem with people placing their own interpretations on music when the composer hasn't left any guidance, but when the composer has left guidance, and in fact in some cases has been very deliberate in making that guidance public, deliberately ignoring it would actually strike me as rude and dismissive of the composer's efforts. It comes across as saying to a composer "look, mister, don't give me any ideas, your job is to produce the notes and I'll decide what to do with them after that". It's saying that you, as performer or listener. are more important to the music than the composer is.**

This has to do with whether music is capable of expression or not. If it is, then that expression is first and foremost the composer's.

In similar fashion, I am appalled by the habit many pop music fans have (particularly those younger than me) of editing and reshuffling an album within a day or two of its release, cutting out whatever they didn't immediately like. Of course, once upon a time people felt free to switch Bach preludes and fugues around or insert a movement from one of Beethoven's symphonies into another. But to me both the older and more modern forms of this show a complete disinterest in the intentions and designs of the composer that I just can't countenance. People act as if they own the music, and as if they know better than the music's creator.


**An idea that Ravel in particular would have rejected. His well-known response to a complaint that he treated performers like slaves was that performers are slaves.

[Mirror Image]

Yes, absolutely it would. For Strauss' more programmatic, sectional works like Ein Heldenleben and Don Quixote, it certainly makes a difference to my ability to follow the music/my interest in it. Knowing the poems behind Gaspard de la nuit most definitely enhances my enjoyment of specific parts of the pieces, most especially the coda of 'Ondine' where knowing what it represents influences the way I both hear it and play it, and just makes the piece all the more impressive to me.

I've no problem with people placing their own interpretations on music when the composer hasn't left any guidance, but when the composer has left guidance, and in fact in some cases has been very deliberate in making that guidance public, deliberately ignoring it would actually strike me as rude and dismissive of the composer's efforts. It comes across as saying to a composer "look, mister, don't give me any ideas, your job is to produce the notes and I'll decide what to do with them after that". It's saying that you, as performer or listener. are more important to the music than the composer is.**

This has to do with whether music is capable of expression or not. If it is, then that expression is first and foremost the composer's.

In similar fashion, I am appalled by the habit many pop music fans have (particularly those younger than me) of editing and reshuffling an album within a day or two of its release, cutting out whatever they didn't immediately like. Of course, once upon a time people felt free to switch Bach preludes and fugues around or insert a movement from one of Beethoven's symphonies into another. But to me both the older and more modern forms of this show a complete disinterest in the intentions and designs of the composer that I just can't countenance. People act as if they own the music, and as if they know better than the music's creator.


**An idea that Ravel in particular would have rejected. His well-known response to a complaint that he treated performers like slaves was that performers are slaves.

When a composer writes anything for the public to hear, sooner or later they're going to have to accept, even if they had laid out specifics as to what their intent actually was to the listener, that it is the listener who will interpret the piece however they like. I guess I'm 'rude and dismissive of the composer's efforts' because it doesn't really matter to me what the composer meant or what their intentions were with this or that work. Music is an art and, like any art form, the listener/viewer will always end up drawing their own conclusions.

[Madiel]

Okay. Then would you accept a performer changing the composer's musical notes?

After all, the notes are an expression of the composer's intentions.

I believe that Beethoven, at least, was quite angry when a publisher helpfully tried to "correct" his "mistakes" in his music. Why shouldn't he have accepted that other people could now do what they liked with the music?

I can't see a reason founded in logic for thinking that anything a composer puts down in musical notation is sacrosanct, yet anything a composer puts down using the Latin or Cyrillic alphabet is unimportant.

[Mirror Image]

Okay. Then would you accept a performer changing the composer's musical notes?

After all, the notes are an expression of the composer's intentions.

The performer is simply the middle man in the listening pyramid. We have to trust that they're performing the music correctly or how it is written, but even if they take artistic liberties here and there, I would never know if they did unless I'm able to look directly at the score. And since I can't read music, I have no idea. All I can do is make comparisons from one performer to another and find out what I like about this performance vs. that performance.

[James]

The intrepreter is the person who learns, practices and delivers the music to the listener. They bring it to life. The better they are, the better things will be. The composer pulls the strings.

[Mirror Image]

I can't see a reason founded in logic for thinking that anything a composer puts down in musical notation is sacrosanct, yet anything a composer puts down using the Latin or Cyrillic alphabet is unimportant.

But what I'm saying is that I simply can't help how I feel about piece of music and what I take away from it. I can't make any kind of relation to a composer's intent to what I'm actually hearing, because that relation isn't something that's easily transferrable to the music itself. The composer can write down verbatim "In this section of the music, I'm angry and I intended it sound like I'm murdering someone," well this passage he's referring to I can hear as something completely different than what they intended even though it was clearly written that they intended it to sound a certain way. I wouldn't say I'm ignoring the composer and their own thoughts about the work, but it's just that this music invokes all sorts of reactions and emotions that negating my own experience in order to understand a composer's intention has never really been in the cards for me.

[(poco) Sforzando]

But what I'm saying is that I simply can't help how I feel about piece of music and what I take away from it. I can't make any kind of relation to a composer's intent to what I'm actually hearing, because that relation isn't something that's easily transferrable to the music itself. The composer can write down verbatim "In this section of the music, I'm angry and I intended it sound like I'm murdering someone," well this passage he's referring to I can hear as something completely different than what they intended even though it was clearly written that they intended it to sound a certain way. I wouldn't say I'm ignoring the composer and their own thoughts about the work, but it's just that this music invokes all sorts of reactions and emotions that negating my own experience in order to understand a composer's intention has never really been in the cards for me.

The composer Robert Simpson, who wrote a very good book on Bruckner that I'm too lazy to pull down from my shelf and copy from, described the middle section of the scherzo from IX as a nightmarish vision, creepy crawly things skittering about. I find it delicate and charming.