Musical Structure

[MrGongGong]

I'm going to play Tom some La Monte Young & Eliane Radigue and then see what he says

[BBMmk2]

A brief comment can often suffice, Maestro!

See #2

Well, here;'s my snippet. this should be rather a good thread to discuss musical structure. So often we talk about recordings, and recommend them. Of which I have purchased through this way. But the actual structure of a work, any work can be most interesting. it would be good to see this develop further.

It's like when I am arranging a piece of music, like my last project Finlandia, you really get to know how the composer wrote this and why he did.

[Richard Barrett]

part of the success of many works is the way that the composer(/artist/writer) plays with expectations. Some knowledge of the Sonata Principle(s) is essential to appreciate when a composer re-imagines how this/these can work. It's when "principles"/guidelines become "rules" that ossification has a tendency of settling in - and when long-established procedures become paradigms of "eternal Truths" (long after those procedures have exhausted their expressive potential). IMO.

My own two cents' worth regarding sonata principles etc.:

Firstly: these "principles" evolved through an increasingly complex exploration of key relationships, from the simple structural use of dominant-tonic relations used in five hundred different ways in Scarlatti's binary-form sonatas, to the expansion of thematic and harmonic resources you see in Mahler's symphonic movements. It might be said therefore that sonata form is predicated on (a) the (evolving) system of tonality and (b) the sense of completeness and closure that it makes possible, so that in cases when that system is no longer a motivation for musical structure, the sonata principle loses what's possibly its primary motivating factor. When you no longer anticipate a tonal sense of tying up all the loose ends and all being well with the world, whether or not that actually takes place, music's structural syntax (or that sense of anticipation, to put it another way) has to be based on something else, and not just something to fill a "tonality-shaped hole" but a principle which is as much a consequence of its own starting materials as a sonata movement is of tonality.

Secondly: playing with the expectations of audience members who have "the knowledge" is all very well but one might imagine that it divides listeners into those who are in the know and those who aren't, and one might therefore wish to create a more level playing field, where to be sure listeners are encouraged to experience the structure of the music as an integrated part of its expressive identity, which does require a certain open-mindedness and preparedness to think of listening as active participation, but doesn't require this to have emerged from an understanding of "the classics". Otherwise the frequent consequence is music which disappears up its own long-established principles...

[vinteuil]

.

... and then again - I suspect many listeners, even musically-informed listeners, have very different ways of appreciating music : some are able to 'understand' long term large scale overarching structures, while others delight in the closer focus of the immediate sound experience. I am sure (before the advent of generally available prescription spectacles) that those interested in the natural world might tend to an appreciation of lichens and beetles - or on the other hand of atmospheric systems and mountain ranges - depending on the nature of their eyesight.

I am by nature short-sighted; I suspect also my appreciation of music is more focused on the short-term joy in the passing sounds rather than an understanding of a larger structure. But I can appreciate the sense of the ginormous world-moving pivots of The Golden Bowl - and of Bruckner symphonies...

[Richard Barrett]

... and then again - I suspect many listeners, even musically-informed listeners, have very different ways of appreciating music : some are able to 'understand' long term large scale overarching structures, while others delight in the closer focus of the immediate sound experience.

But the ideal situation might be to be in a position to do both - pausing on the mountain to inspect the lichen, and indeed integrating both within a single enormously deep perspective. I think music can encourage the development of such a perspective, leading to an expansion of one's perception rather than a reinforcement of one or other habitual mode of listening. This is my experience anyway.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

My own two cents' worth regarding sonata principles etc.:

Firstly: these "principles" evolved through an increasingly complex exploration of key relationships, from the simple structural use of dominant-tonic relations used in five hundred different ways in Scarlatti's binary-form sonatas, to the expansion of thematic and harmonic resources you see in Mahler's symphonic movements. It might be said therefore that sonata form is predicated on (a) the (evolving) system of tonality and (b) the sense of completeness and closure that it makes possible, so that in cases when that system is no longer a motivation for musical structure, the sonata principle loses what's possibly its primary motivating factor. When you no longer anticipate a tonal sense of tying up all the loose ends and all being well with the world, whether or not that actually takes place, music's structural syntax (or that sense of anticipation, to put it another way) has to be based on something else, and not just something to fill a "tonality-shaped hole" but a principle which is as much a consequence of its own starting materials as a sonata movement is of tonality.

Secondly: playing with the expectations of audience members who have "the knowledge" is all very well but one might imagine that it divides listeners into those who are in the know and those who aren't, and one might therefore wish to create a more level playing field, where to be sure listeners are encouraged to experience the structure of the music as an integrated part of its expressive identity, which does require a certain open-mindedness and preparedness to think of listening as active participation, but doesn't require this to have emerged from an understanding of "the classics". Otherwise the frequent consequence is music which disappears up its own long-established principles...

But how do Musicians know which members of their audiences are "in the know" and which aren't - and how can a "level playing field" be created without this knowledge - even if only the performers are in the know, then there is still such a division? And does that matter? Whilst it's an additional frisson to know when an 18th composer tweaks procedures familiar to many in his (rarely "/her") audience, this doesn't stop a 21st Century listener unfamiliar with these procedures from experiencing an equally strong enjoyment on their own terms - nor is this enjoyment necessarily negated if such a listener subsequently finds out about these procedures and the composer's tweakings.

I heard somebody this morning on R3 expressing her concern that her students didn't "get" much of Paradise Lost because they didn't know the (King James) Bible in the detailed way that Milton took for granted his readers would know. I wonder if she wasn't interested in discovering what the poem says to such readers - and if she thinks that it is a weaker work for only being fully accessible to readers with Biblical knowledge. Being able to "read" the iconography of a painting isn't an essential condition for being moved by that painting - but it is essential for a "full appreciation" of the painter's achievement, if that is important to the viewer.

[ahinton]

Yes - but I think it's always been the contemporaries of the critics who so "perceive", Alison, as with Bruckner (and Delius - it took ten years of living in the weather conditions of a Bradford postcode for me to follow the progression in his larger-scale works!)

It's only human - if a listener has set ideas about what constitutes "good structure", then it's difficult for them to hear what a composer is doing when s/he does something that doesn't conform to those preconceptions.

Which makes life very difficult for them when these preconceptions are confronted by a piece created on the moment in improvisation.

As Sorabji one said, musical "form" is dictated by the content of the music itself, whereas musical "jelly moulds" are imposed upon it by certain types of theorist and pedagogue to prove a point that does not exist; they are therefore opposites...

[vinteuil]

But how do Musicians know which members of their audiences are "in the know" and which aren't - and how can a "level playing field" be created without this knowledge - even if only the performers are in the know, then there is still such a division? And does that matter? .

... but I think of CPE Bach, Haydn, Mozart, and their wish for their music to be appreciated both by the simple and the connoisseur -

CPE and his "Kenner und Liebhaber" - and the Mozart 'Prussian' quartets - " the Wiener Zeitung announced the publication of the quartets as follows: From Artaria Comp., art dealers in the Kohlmarkt are to be had: Three entirely new concertante quartets for two violins, viola and violoncello by Hr. Kapellmeister Mozart Op 18. These quartets are one of the estimable works of the composer Mozart, who was torn untimely from this world; they flowed from the pen of this so great musical genius not long before his death, and they display all that musical interest in respect of Art, Beauty, and Taste, which must awaken pleasure and admiration not only in the amateur but the true connoisseur also..."

Clearly Richd: Barrett is working so that his toons will be whistled by the butcher's boys on their bicycles in Bologna...



.

[Richard Barrett]

But how do Musicians know which members of their audiences are "in the know" and which aren't

They don't.

how can a "level playing field" be created without this knowledge

I don't really understand this question!

this doesn't stop a 21st Century listener unfamiliar with these procedures from experiencing an equally strong enjoyment on their own terms

No it doesn't. And indeed there could well be something about the music which also encourages people to seek out its wider context and connections. What I'm concerned about really is the extent to which 21st century composers still so often make assumptions that their audiences do or ought to accept the same systems of value, for example about musical structure, that they themselves do, as is clear from the quote in the OP.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

... but I think of CPE Bach, Haydn, Mozart, and their wish for their music to be appreciated both by the simple and the connoisseur -

CPE and his "Kenner und Liebhaber" - and the Mozart 'Prussian' quartets - " the Wiener Zeitung announced the publication of the quartets as follows: From Artaria Comp., art dealers in the Kohlmarkt are to be had: Three entirely new concertante quartets for two violins, viola and violoncello by Hr. Kapellmeister Mozart Op 18. These quartets are one of the estimable works of the composer Mozart, who was torn untimely from this world; they flowed from the pen of this so great musical genius not long before his death, and they display all that musical interest in respect of Art, Beauty, and Taste, which must awaken pleasure and admiration not only in the amateur but the true connoisseur also..."

Yes - so was I when I wrote "essential to appreciate" in my Post that Richard quotes in his #18: any listener can experience "pleasure and admiration" with a work of Art, but to get full appreciation of what the Artist was doing in that work, some additional knowledge is essential. Doesn't the blocked text that you quote suggest that there are different types of "pleasure and admiration", otherwise why mention both "the amateur [and] the true connoisseur" at all - why not simply "awaken pleasure and admiration in the listener"?

It's not a requirement that all listeners should have such knowledge - but those who "get" the tweaks have a better understanding of why the works affect them as they do.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I don't really understand this question!

I meant that if someone "wanted a more level playing field" for a mixed group of listeners, wouldn't they first need to know what the different levels of being "in the know" exist in the first place? There would be no such "levelling" if the presumption is that no one in the audience will have such knowledge, any more than there is when audiences are presumed to have such knowledge.

(Some knowledge of how syntax should work might be essential to seeing how that sentence tweaks the rules - and, indeed, working out what the hell it means. I hope the essence of what I'm struggling to say is clear(ish). )

What I'm concerned about really is the extent to which 21st century composers still so often make assumptions that their audiences do or ought to accept the same systems of value, for example about musical structure, that they themselves do, as is clear from the quote in the OP.

[vinteuil]

Yes - so was I when I wrote "essential to appreciate" in my Post that Richard quotes in his #18: any listener can experience "pleasure and admiration" with a work of Art, but to get full appreciation of what the Artist was doing in that work, some additional knowledge is essential. Doesn't the blocked text that you quote suggest that there are different types of "pleasure and admiration", otherwise why mention both "the amateur [and] the true connoisseur" at all - why not simply "awaken pleasure and admiration in the listener"?

It's not a requirement that all listeners should have such knowledge - but those who "get" the tweaks have a better understanding of why the works affect them as they do.

. I think I agree - the intention was indeed to capture two classes of people - the simple who wd 'enjoy' the works and the connoisseurs who wd 'appreciate' them.

Being able to "read" the iconography of a painting isn't an essential condition for being moved by that painting - but it is essential for a "full appreciation" of the painter's achievement, if that is important to the viewer.

... I was peculiarly lucky in the family in which I grew up, which put a great premium on a particular understanding of history and culture. Admittedly, this was all very Kenneth Clark Western Civilization stuff, but it did mean that I got a background in the classics etc which led to an understanding of, say, the iconography of renaissance paintings - I am grateful for this inasmuch as I 'get' what a painter is doing when he (usually a 'he'... ) has a geezer with a lion - a deer - a woman with a big wheel - a plate with two jellies on...

I think I'm lucky; I'm not sure how much of all that load of allusion and resonance is still 'alive' to the generations ahead...

A particular love of mine is Poussin. Many art-lovers celebrate his formal beauty, and the abstract delight of the shapes and proportions he creates - all of which is true and important. But when you look at his 'Seven Sacraments' - well, if you don't know "what's going on" - then surely you're missing out on a lot?



/.

[Richard Barrett]

I meant that if someone "wanted a more level playing field" for a mixed group of listeners, wouldn't they first need to know what the different levels of being "in the know" exist in the first place?

I don't think so. I mean, I don't find it so difficult to imagine myself as a listener with little or no knowledge of "classical music". But then my own knowledge of the inner workings of it is probably more like that of someone more or less fluent in a foreign language than like that of a native speaker (bearing in mind the fundamental differences between music and language!). But maybe this issue is a distraction - a large part of what constitutes a composer's artistic individuality is to do with being able to externalise their own "way of hearing" so that others might gain insight and a deepening of their listening experience by being encouraged to hear (ideally not just that particular music but music in general, maybe even sound in general) in a different way from their accustomed one(s). (Having a highly-developed "art of listening" is really very little different from composing music, I think.) But first the way of hearing needs actually to be individuated rather than just received!

[Serial_Apologist]

I don't think so. I mean, I don't find it so difficult to imagine myself as a listener with little or no knowledge of "classical music". But then my own knowledge of the inner workings of it is probably more like that of someone more or less fluent in a foreign language than like that of a native speaker (bearing in mind the fundamental differences between music and language!). But maybe this issue is a distraction - a large part of what constitutes a composer's artistic individuality is to do with being able to externalise their own "way of hearing" so that others might gain insight and a deepening of their listening experience by being encouraged to hear (ideally not just that particular music but music in general, maybe even sound in general) in a different way from their accustomed one(s). (Having a highly-developed "art of listening" is really very little different from composing music, I think.) But first the way of hearing needs actually to be individuated rather than just received!

Do you mean individuation in the Jungian sense of the child needing to evolve its own sense-making capacities, rather than continuing to hang on to its parents' (or significant others') apron strings for reinforcement?

[Richard Barrett]

Do you mean individuation in the Jungian sense of the child needing to evolve its own sense-making capacities, rather than continuing to hang on to its parents' (or significant others') apron strings for reinforcement?

Maybe. I know next to nothing about Jung.