Moral Maze - British Places : Better Represented By Classical Music Than Other Forms

[teamsaint]

I'm not sure what this means.

Sounds an awful lot like the way that critical theory sometimes manifests itself in University English departments.
Very interesting and instructive, ( fascinating in fact)but tending sometimes to become an academic end in itself.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

She writes that an appropriate critical approach "would serve the work of art rather than usurp its place", that is, wouldn't reduce it to a network of symbols and thereby bypass its sensual qualities. The last sentence of the essay is "In place of a hermeneutics we need an erotics of art." It came up during a discussion at home of the work of David Lynch, which I prefer to appreciate for its sensual/formal qualities rather than try to work out "what it all means".

Ah, thank you; that makes it very clear - and shows that I had completely misunderstood what she was saying!

[french frank]

Ah, thank you; that makes it very clear - and shows that I had completely misunderstood what she was saying!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_Interpretation

Though I think a 'critical' approach can analyse the appreciation of a work of art - why it is that we admire or are moved by the work. I don't think that precludes the instinctive appreciation of the work itself on a sensual level. But nor does the sensual appreciation replace aesthetics - which is surely an intellectual pursuit? To each his own. Or her.

[Serial_Apologist]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_Interpretation

Though I think a 'critical' approach can analyse the appreciation of a work of art - why it is that we admire or are moved by the work. I don't think that precludes the instinctive appreciation of the work itself on a sensual level. But nor does the sensual appreciation replace aesthetics - which is surely an intellectual pursuit? To each his own. Or her.

For me, classical music of whatever era has to appeal primordially at the sensual/emotional level (if that's not tautological) before motivating me to want to investigate further into form and construction. That said, on occasion I do find myself responding emotionally while taking in what is happening at the level of structure; but I think matters of larger form are either taken on board at the subconscious level - probably the way a composer who takes one through eg a given key scheme - or through a longer process of familiarisation. It seems that different genres of music can appeal on different response levels: emotional, sensual, physical, intellectual. And then there's the "cybernetic" level. On top of the aforementioned, that's what really appeals for me about the best of jazz.

[teamsaint]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_Interpretation

Though I think a 'critical' approach can analyse the appreciation of a work of art - why it is that we admire or are moved by the work. I don't think that precludes the instinctive appreciation of the work itself on a sensual level. But nor does the sensual appreciation replace aesthetics - which is surely an intellectual pursuit? To each his own. Or her.

I only just got round to reading that Wiki article, not knowing Sontag's work.

A couple of thoughts:
With regard to applying critical theory to art, and especially literature, there does seem to be a danger that analysis and different approaches can risk " engulfing" the work in question. But that doesn't invalidate those approaches.
I don't think this needs to concern most of us with reference to music though , certainly those of us who don't inhabit university music departments, and maybe not even them, since the kind of critical approaches applied to literature are far from common currency in the world of most music enthusiasts.

There is a really interesting point about "developing a descriptive vocabulary for how it appears and how it does whatever it does."

I've long thought that there is a something of an issue for in music, where descriptive language is often in terms of other senses, ( EG orchestral colour). Perhaps the technical language available in musical theory has either repressed development of a specific descriptive language , or rendered it less than necessary.

[Richard Barrett]

There is a really interesting point about "developing a descriptive vocabulary for how it appears and how it does whatever it does."

I've long thought that there is a something of an issue for in music, where descriptive language is often in terms of other senses, (EG orchestral colour). Perhaps the technical language available in musical theory has either repressed development of a specific descriptive language , or rendered it less than necessary.

A problem with the language of music theory is that it's understood by so few people, and even among those it is often interpreted as dry and dispassionate when the person using it actually wishes to express a visceral and emotionally charged phenomenon. I don't really have a problem with using poetic metaphors from other sensory modalities in talking about music; I think that at a certain deep level of (eg. musical) experience these modalities merge together, in other words deep down we're all synaesthetes. When thinking about music away from actually listening, it is in any case useful to be able to talk about a piece of music as a whole without projecting it onto the time domain, so that for example we can imagine, and think and talk about the "shape", "texture", "colour" etc. of a piece of music as something extended in imaginary space. Personally I do try to describe (musical) things in ways that don't have too much baggage from inherited vocabularies attached to them, while at the same time not indulging in the fetish for neologisms you see for example in a lot of French post-structuralist writing. Sometimes I get a bit tongue-tied as a result!

[teamsaint]

A problem with the language of music theory is that it's understood by so few people, and even among those it is often interpreted as dry and dispassionate when the person using it actually wishes to express a visceral and emotionally charged phenomenon. I don't really have a problem with using poetic metaphors from other sensory modalities in talking about music; I think that at a certain deep level of (eg. musical) experience these modalities merge together, in other words deep down we're all synaesthetes. When thinking about music away from actually listening, it is in any case useful to be able to talk about a piece of music as a whole without projecting it onto the time domain, so that for example we can imagine, and think and talk about the "shape", "texture", "colour" etc. of a piece of music as something extended in imaginary space. Personally I do try to describe (musical) things in ways that don't have too much baggage from inherited vocabularies attached to them, while at the same time not indulging in the fetish for neologisms you see for example in a lot of French post-structuralist writing. Sometimes I get a bit tongue-tied as a result!

I thought a bit more about about what I wrote after posting, and realised that it might come over as a bit either/or. Clearly it is useful, sometimes unavoidable to borrow descriptive terms from other areas,such as " colour" and they can function fine, for the purpose. I think the idea of baggage is a useful one to have in mind in this regard.
Something else that occasionally bothers me is the rather catch all use of certain terms , such as texture and shape, which can of course be useful, but also become a lazy and unhelpful shorthand .

We are way off topic now !! Interesting though. Maybe a new thread on descriptive musical language ?

[ahinton]

I thought a bit more about about what I wrote after posting, and realised that it might come over as a bit either/or. Clearly it is useful, sometimes unavoidable to borrow descriptive terms from other areas,such as " colour" and they can function fine, for the purpose. I think the idea of baggage is a useful one to have in mind in this regard.
Something else that occasionally bothers me is the rather catch all use of certain terms , such as texture and shape, which can of course be useful, but also become a lazy and unhelpful shorthand .

We are way off topic now !! Interesting though. Maybe a new thread on descriptive musical language ?

Good idea - although myabe it should be entitled "Dancing about Architecture"...

[Richard Barrett]

Something else that occasionally bothers me is the rather catch all use of certain terms , such as texture and shape, which can of course be useful, but also become a lazy and unhelpful shorthand.

That's certainly something to bear in mind. I just did a little search in the book I'm working on, which currently consists of 145 pages, and see that the word "texture" (and derivatives) occurs 43 times and "shape" (ditto) 33. I don't think this is the result of laziness!

[vinteuil]

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... I can't for the moment think of any examples where literary writers are convincing in their descriptions of music and its effects. There are famous examples - Forster with Beethoven in Howards End, and of course Proust's descriptions of Vinteuil's music and its effects on Swann - but I'm never really persuaded. Does anyone have a good example from literature? Mann's Tristan or Dr Faustus ?

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[Lat-Literal]

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... I can't for the moment think of any examples where literary writers are convincing in their descriptions of music and its effects. There are famous examples - Forster with Beethoven in Howards End, and of course Proust's descriptions of Vinteuil's music and its effects on Swann - but I'm never really persuaded. Does anyone have a good example from literature? Mann's Tristan or Dr Faustus ?

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Kerouac writes jazz better than he describes it.

Perhaps that is how it should be?

("And the Ting, Tong, Tang, of the Guitar"............ Belloc).

[Richard Barrett]

Does anyone have a good example from literature? Mann's Tristan or Dr Faustus

Dr Faustus for sure, but it's very rare. I "hear" Leverkühn's music quite clearly when reading the book. Neither Ian McEwan's Amsterdam or David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas is a credible depiction of a composer's work and work-process. I remember Hermann Hesse's Gertrud as more successful in that regard but it's well over 30 years since I read it!

On the other hand plenty of books about music fail in my opinion to describe it in a convincing or compelling way...

[teamsaint]

A quote from Robert Schumann,re Waldszenen, that I thought was relevant to some of the discussions above.

On the set, Schumann wrote: "The titles for pieces of music, since they again have come into favor in our day, have been censured here and there, and it has been said that 'good music needs no sign-post.' Certainly not, but neither does a title rob it of its value; and the composer, by adding one, at least prevents a complete misunderstanding of the character of his music. What is important is that such a verbal heading should be significant and apt. It may be considered the test of the general level of the composer's education."[2]