Musical Structure

[Serial_Apologist]

... my concern with this formulation is that it avoids an essential difference : for the composer, the work in posse is still pliable. For the ultimate listener, it is 'fixed' by the interpretation given it by the performers. For the performers the work still has a degree of that pliability ; so too perhaps for someone reading the score. But a performance crystallizes it ...


.

Actually, it is possible to envisage an ideal performance of an existing work in one's head, as I have found, going through Stravinsky's "Rite" from start to finish, in my head, while cycling to work. Admittedly doing so circumvents the original intention of a public hearing - I won't allow anybody else access to my brain! - but the coming of recordings has done that in any case.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

... my concern with this formulation is that it avoids an essential difference : for the composer, the work in posse is still pliable. For the ultimate listener, it is 'fixed' by the interpretation given it by the performers. For the performers the work still has a degree of that pliability ; so too perhaps for someone reading the score. But a performance crystallizes it ...

Yes - the listener has a different type of structuring activity when "receiving" a performance of a completed piece of Music from the composer's activity when composing. But I think it's still fair to describe the structuring process that the (or "a") listener does as they take in the moments of the performance is (or can be) more than a passive one? (And a process/activity that develops and continues with each subsequent encounter with the work - either in a Live performance, or in a recording.)

[teamsaint]

Yes - the listener has a different type of structuring activity when "receiving" a performance of a completed piece of Music from the composer's activity when composing. But I think it's still fair to describe the structuring process that the (or "a") listener does as they take in the moments of the performance is (or can be) more than a passive one? (And a process/activity that develops and continues with each subsequent encounter with the work - either in a Live performance, or in a recording.)

I know we broadly agree here Ferney, but at the risk of repetition....

It has to be active, even if in a " restrained" way. We always bring something new to our reception of a work. New experience, further understanding, a different frame of mind.

Just to go back to those Mass settings, which I find a helpful example in thinking about this, , the listener , even if passively, is always going to bring some new insight, thought, emotion ,critical approach to understanding of the music and experience. But it doesn't have to be just passive acceptance of such alteration in our mind,it can be a more active attempt to understand structure with renewed perspective.

Even in a first encounter, what we bring is how we are and how want to approach ,now.The way we approach , and try to understand can't be ( exactly) the same next time.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I know we broadly agree here Ferney, but at the risk of repetition....

It has to be active, even if in a " restrained" way. We always bring something new to our reception of a work. New experience, further understanding, a different frame of mind.

...

Even in a first encounter, what we bring is how we are and how want to approach ,now.The way we approach , and try to understand can't be ( exactly) the same next time.

- totally agree on all counts, here.


(And - not totally unrealated here - with this Thread, I have become aware that I have different listening strategies for a work that it's possible that I'm only going to hear once - "young composer works at HCMF", for example - from how I attend to a recording, which I know I'm going to be able to hear - accidents aside - as frequently as I wish.)

[teamsaint]

- totally agree on all counts, here.


(And - not totally unrealated here - with this Thread, I have become aware that I have different listening strategies for a work that it's possible that I'm only going to hear once - "young composer works at HCMF", for example - from how I attend to a recording, which I know I'm going to be able to hear - accidents aside - as frequently as I wish.)

Yes, interesting thought.


WIlko Johnson's supposed farewell tour was an education too....

( we can laugh now obviously ........)

[BBMmk2]

I know we broadly agree here Ferney, but at the risk of repetition....

It has to be active, even if in a " restrained" way. We always bring something new to our reception of a work. New experience, further understanding, a different frame of mind.

Just to go back to those Mass settings, which I find a helpful example in thinking about this, , the listener , even if passively, is always going to bring some new insight, thought, emotion ,critical approach to understanding of the music and experience. But it doesn't have to be just passive acceptance of such alteration in our mind,it can be a more active attempt to understand structure with renewed perspective.

Even in a first encounter, what we bring is how we are and how want to approach ,now.The way we approach , and try to understand can't be ( exactly) the same next time.

Surely, though, TS, this is common knowledge?

[french frank]

We always bring something new to our reception of a work.

To our reception of the work - not to the work. What about the structure itself? Does that vary depending on your 'mood'?

I'm at a disadvantage in still not understanding, in the context of a musical work which is structured entirely during the composing process, what the elements are that constitute 'structure', when we not talking about the four movements, the section of variations, the repetitions, the sonata form: so what are the weapons?

Also, whatever the kind of artwork (music, word, painting), even if a structure is worked out in advance, I don't see that that structure is in any way fixed. It can be altered at any point en route until the artist releases it: finito (for now). But doesn't that mean that if the structure emerges as the composition process progresses, it can still be altered/adjusted at the point when the work is 'completed'. Or can it? Or could the whole point be that the original structure must be retained (like Ignorance, 'Touch it and the bloom is gone')? If not, there is a certain freedom that may open unthought of possibilities in the latter system, but 'tidying it up' later, making adjustments, does lessen the difference between the two methods, doesn't it? Or do they still remain, erm, galaxies apart?

[vinteuil]

... there is a certain freedom that may open unthought of possibilities in the latter system, but 'tidying it up' later, making adjustments, does lessen the difference between the two methods, doesn't it? Or do they still remain, erm, galaxies apart?

... and perhaps some works are destined to remain always open, never fixed. Attempts by scholars to establish 'a' text of Wordsworth's Prelude have resulted in the dawning realisation that the task is impossible, and we have to learn to live with it in all its possible incarnations, including the two-book form of 1798/1799; four-book 1804; thirteen book 1805; fourteen-book 1850. None of them is the 'definitive' version...

Did someone mention Bruckner's Symphonies?




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[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

To our reception of the work - not to the work. What about the structure itself? Does that vary depending on your 'mood'?

I'm at a disadvantage in still not understanding, in the context of a musical work which is structured entirely during the composing process, what the elements are that constitute 'structure', when we not talking about the four movements, the section of variations, the repetitions, the sonata form: so what are the weapons?

It depends on the length of the work, I think. For a large-scale work that I've not heard before, it's a process of comparing what changes and what remains the same for me. Moments where themes, tonalities, textures, dynamics etc are established (and attempting to identify how they do this) compared with other moments where things change - and why and how they do so. Grasping the general progression of events, noticing returning (mostly thematic at this first encounter) ideas or new ones - spotting significant uses of instrumentation; and simultaneously either "seeing" pattern/patterns cohering - or simply allowing a sonic wallow, enjoying the unfamiliar environment. (Memory plays a very important role in my listening - annoyingly so on those occasions where a composer's work shares too many similarities with another piece that I know well, leaving it unclear what the composer actually has to say for themselves.)

A balance of difference and repetition, an attempt to get the various events in a work to cohere in some way; putting memory (and, at times, expectations) to work. Subsequent hearings take this general picture and sharpen the focus - in that sense, a structure (rather, my awareness of it) can vary according to mood and experience: even with a very familiar work, details (of harmony, tonality, pitch ... ) which have previously been overlooked can suddenly become clear - along with the part that they play in the work.

So, whilst the structural trajectory of a composition (or one with a fixed order of events at any rate) is presented in a performance, my own thought processes (memory, expectation, surprise ... disappointment) need actively to be "ordered" in order to follow (in both senses) this.

[Serial_Apologist]

To our reception of the work - not to the work. What about the structure itself? Does that vary depending on your 'mood'?

I'm at a disadvantage in still not understanding, in the context of a musical work which is structured entirely during the composing process, what the elements are that constitute 'structure', when we not talking about the four movements, the section of variations, the repetitions, the sonata form: so what are the weapons?

Also, whatever the kind of artwork (music, word, painting), even if a structure is worked out in advance, I don't see that that structure is in any way fixed. It can be altered at any point en route until the artist releases it: finito (for now). But doesn't that mean that if the structure emerges as the composition process progresses, it can still be altered/adjusted at the point when the work is 'completed'. Or can it? Or could the whole point be that the original structure must be retained (like Ignorance, 'Touch it and the bloom is gone')? If not, there is a certain freedom that may open unthought of possibilities in the latter system, but 'tidying it up' later, making adjustments, does lessen the difference between the two methods, doesn't it? Or do they still remain, erm, galaxies apart?

By structure as I understand you to mean, you would be talking about how pitch relations, harmony, metre, rhythm, tempo, dynamics (loud to soft), instrumentation - music's "parameters" - fit into forms already outlined in the discussion. There have been composers who have made alterations up to and even following first, second, third etc performances out of dissatisfaction, now that they had heard the music live. Sometimes it may be consequent on a performer or group of performers objecting to passages being to them unplayable, sometimes, as in the case of Brahms and Joachim (iirc) suggestions to the composer regarding technical possibilities not forseen owing to deficiences in the former's knowledge. Mahler's habit of last-minute score alterations to suit different room acoustics anticipates the flexible instrumental settings of Charles Ives, adding or subtracting according to numbers of available players, and the open variable forms turned to by a number of leading avant-garde and experimental composers in the 1950s and '60s. Boulez saw individual works as being in perpetual states of work-in-progress, whose completion was subject to his changing views about composition, sometimes to the extent that some of his works may in effect have remained incomplete on his death, according to his criteria. Then of course there are score extensions and reductions of a different kind - orchestrations of solo piano pieces, for instance, or piano reductions, such as Liszt's of well-known classics and works by his near-contemporaries. Then finally there are partially or fully extemporised works, sometimes written for groups of varying sizes right down to the individual. So without invoking the term variation in the conventional sense, there are innumerable possible variations on what one can mean by structural parameters, the forms into which they are coordinated, and the extent to which forms, indeed the elements making them up, can be regarded as closed.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Or ... at least I think that's sort-of what I do! Crumbs, this is difficult, trying to think how I "instinctively" listen - structuring what I hear: it's a way of processing the amount of information presented from moment-to-moment in a work.

And other things are happening - if I'm led (by a title, or a programme note note, or a remembered/misremembered comment) to expect certain "traditional" processes, (or expressly NOT to expect any such): the difference, as S_A suggests, between hearing an 18th Century Sonata for the first ever time, or a work by Boulez.

[french frank]

Thanks to S_A for his comments, but

So, whilst the structural trajectory of a composition (or one with a fixed order of events at any rate) is presented in a performance, my own thought processes (memory, expectation, surprise ... disappointment) need actively to be "ordered" in order to follow (in both senses) this.

That seems to be a highly sophisticated, refined way of appreciating music which - doesn't it? - puts ability to appreciate such music within the reach of comparatvely few? Is that self-evident (if not an intention) - or disputable?

And 'Grasping the general progression of events' seems to me to resemble 'following' - in both nuances of the word [Add: which you suggested in the bit I quoted! ].

[doversoul1]

Thanks to S_A for his comments, but

That seems to be a highly sophisticated, refined way of appreciating music which - doesn't it? - puts ability to appreciate such music within the reach of comparatvely few? Is that self-evident (if not an intention) - or disputable?

And 'Grasping the general progression of events' seems to me to resemble 'following' - in both nuances of the word [Add: which you suggested in the bit I quoted! ].

Can something similar be said about reading literature or any fiction? Readers who have no knowledge of literary theories can be deeply moved by what they read but those comparatively few who are familiar with, say, narratology (structuralism?) are able to ‘follow’ how the narrative is structured to create particular effects. I think the two are different kinds of reading and not the question of the degree of appreciation.

[Serial_Apologist]

Thanks to S_A for his comments, but

[...]

That seems to be a highly sophisticated, refined way of appreciating music which - doesn't it? - puts ability to appreciate such music within the reach of comparatvely few? Is that self-evident (if not an intention) - or disputable?

What I understand ferney to mean is that the ordering of his thought processes are congruent with the requirements of the listening situation - a process relative to the "demands" being made by the music. I would say this calls on long-term inculcated learning - but that just reflects my own experience: I'm sure MrGG can cite innumerable examples of his own of children/young people able to grasp the most, to my way of thinking, difficult music in one fell swoop - I could cite one myself. Personally it took me years to get to grips with Webern, and quite a lot of Schoenberg, even; and I am only now slowly growing my inner response capacity to levels accordant with Carter and Ferneyhough. In the late 1920s Hanns Eisler consciously simplified his Schoenbergian idiom to make music instantly appealable to and performable by "non-musicians" in response to the political demands of the situation in Germany as he saw them, so sometimes fulfilling these epicurean considerations of making the goodies of bourgeois culture mass accessible have to be postponed while more basic desiderata are met!

And 'Grasping the general progression of events' seems to me to resemble 'following' - in both nuances of the word [Add: which you suggested in the bit I quoted! ].

Not sure what you're asking here. Beyond the simply instinctual (eg touching a hot iron) there's always some sort of time lapse involved in response, though, isn't there!? The more complex the world becomes, the more complex the set of responses demanded to keep up, (I should know!), and the more complex the aesthetic and matching technical means to express them - otherwise we're indulging in authenticity, one of the best ways of inducing obedience and conformity. (It's no coincidence to me that while mass acceptance of practical internet skills attached to social media that place individuals at the mercy of powerful criminal forces the servers are increasingly unable to control serves the perpetuation of power and influence under the pretense of making knowledge/information available at the touch of a button, the music business end of big business forever pushes the pop end of the industry as a bread-and-circuses means of securing a certain simplified conformist mindset that diverts attention away from finding (time for) solutions to the bigger problems afflicting the world!)

[Serial_Apologist]

Can something similar be said about reading literature or any fiction? Readers who have no knowledge of literary theories can be deeply moved by what they read but those comparatively few who are familiar with, say, narratology (structuralism?) are able to ‘follow’ how the narrative is structured to create particular effects. I think the two are different kinds of reading and not the question of the degree of appreciation.

Yes indeed: "the word is not the thing" as Zen popularisers used to put it - to which Wittgenstein (and his erstwhile followers) would say, how (in what ways) can language do this? As, if I understand correctly, you say, a different response level is involved between responding to text (of any sort, not just "literature") as distinguished from responding to music. Pictures are also invoked as exemplars of signification in post-structuralist theories too, being as powerful in infuencing ways of seeing ourselves and others as they are, subliminally - or less so, hopefully, when we're made conscious of the processes, whom they benefit, and to what ends (without trying to sound paranoid!). Whether or not different parts of the brain are operative is another possibly interesting question, together with, to what extent are we equipped to make judgements as to the potential harmfulness of certain stimuli, along with the people who fund and "curate" them!