Autobiography & Understanding: a Few Idle Thoughts on a Sunday Afternoon

[Roehre]

Beethoven set the trend for autobiography in music. The Eroica's famously scribbled out dedication to Napoleon has left many listeners and commentators to conclude that Beethoven himself was the hero of his own work. That LvB had contemplated suicide in the face of his terrible deafness is borne out by the Heiligenstadt Testament but he didn't do it and here in the Eroica's first movement is this sense of titanic struggle against the odds, autobiography in music for the first time. I can, and do, hear this struggle and knowing the background, the historic circumstances and Beethoven's own fight against the odds adds immeasurably to what I gain from listening to the work.

For this type of reasoning re the "meaning" of the Eroica, it is inconvenient that it wasn't this work, but the rather sunny 2nd symphony which he was composing simultaneously with the Heiligenstadt testament and concurrently with his suicide thoughts.
Further have nearly all beethovenian utterances re the "meaning" of his work come down to us through the highly corrupt notes/biographies by Schindler, and are therefore highly unreliable.
I hardly believe these romanticised stories of what's behind the beethovenian notes.
There are too few connections between the surviving sketches and these backgrounds, though B annotated his sketches relatively extensively - his plans, the relations etc- and re-used his sketches sometimes years after being dotted down.

One of the very rare exceptions is the cavatina from opus 130, which caused Beethoven (in his own, and this time well documented words) to get tears in his eyes.

Citing the Eroica as an example, Richard Strauss was explicit in his autobiographical claims in writing Ein Heldenleben. Similar to Shostakovich in the 15th Symphony, Strauss goes so far as to quote his own works in the 'Heroes Works of Peace' and more explicit than that you cannot get!

Not to mention works like Intermezzo, Sinfonia domestica, Parergon, München-Gedächtniswalzer and Metamorphosen, all with well documented domestic or historic events.

Gustav Mahler was also explicit in claiming that his symphonies were about his whole life and the suffering he had endured.

But he also claimed that symphonies had to encapsulate the whole world.

So could we listen to the above mentioned works knowing nothing whatsoever of the autobiography behind the music? Of course we can but in my view the real appreciation will only come with the knowledge of what lies behind the notes.

Perhaps, as it also can destroy one's appreciation.

I certainly appreciated Ein Heldenleben much more when I was fully aware of what every one of Strauss's quotes was.

That makes two of us. But it was even a greater revelation to learn that Don Quixote and Heldenleben are each other's anti-podes, and composed and designed as such. That knowledge put for me the E-flat bombast of Heldenleben in another and more sympathetic light.

As for the Shostakovich 7, I believe that it lies firmly in the tradition of Beethoven's example. Again, we don't need to know what circumstances lay behind it's composition or to have read books on Stalin's Russia or the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, but if you do all of this then the appreciation of why the notes were written in the way they were is very considerably deepened.

And here we differ, as with the Beethoven, as though the backgrounds behind the notes are helpful, I prefer to listen to the music without that baggage.

There are other works (Berg's Lyric Suite is one, Elgar's Violin Concerto another) that have autobiographical content and I daresay there are many that do but of which we know nothing.

I like to add the best part of Webern's output here, which is in one way or another highly (auto)biographic.

And though I made some critical notes in the margin, it does make sense what you wrote, Petrushka

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

This discussion is well above me... but was not Shosty about the most autobiographical of all composers in the way he used the DSCH motif so frequently?

No, it's me prancing around with a few ideas that occured to me on the two Shosty Threads and not expressing myself well, Flay. Basically, aeolie sums up my own attitude in his #14 - but I also find myself resorting to pictorial/narrative terms when trying to introduce people to works they don't immediately "get". (Dave2002 has aked about Stockhausen's Gruppen, a work I adore, and I'm trying to find some way of communicating what it is that astonishes me about it that doesn't oversimplify the work). And does knowledge of the autobiographical elements of (for example) Berg's Violin Concerto help someone who dislikes the work "appreciate" it any more? And does a weak work of Art "gain" anything by its "good intentions", or is it all "just" the right sounds at the right time?

Idle thoughts for those of us so inclined to share ideas about. I'm glad it's kicked off some cracking responses.

(What about B - A - C - H, by the way?)

[teamsaint]

Re Ferney's #17, the language used to describe music, as a listening experience rather than technical language, is a whole other thread I guess.

Colour, for instance.. Odd word to use?

[Roehre]

Not OT at all ... Beethoven is reported to have said of the opening five bars of the Fifth Symphomy on different occasions both that it represented "fate knocking at the door" and that it was based upon the song of the Yellowhammer. (Bars 244 - 249 perhaps closer to the Yellowhammer song here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxwghyuHzzQ.....

FHG, I am afraid this is one of Schindler's (One of the first Beethoven biographers, and, as it has turned out since the mid-1970s, a highly unreliable one) fabrications.

[Roehre]

This discussion is well above me... but was not Shosty about the most autobiographical of all composers in the way he used the DSCH motif so frequently?

and what about B-A-C-H

[Roehre]

There are several reasons why I am not that keen on the attribution of autobiographical associations to pieces of music. ...... The second is that it ought to be quite legitimate for someone to listen to a piece of music knowing nothing of the life of its composer or the circumstances of its creation - that knowledge ought not, for me, to be a prerequisite for listening to the music. The third is that to make such associations ....... is immediately to reduce the work to meanings that are individual and particular and away from those of more general and universal application. .....

In some ways, ignorance of a composer's life can paradoxically allow a listener to hear a work free from preconceptions about it and try to work out such meanings as there are without imputing those derived from extra-musical events.

Approximately what I stated/meant in my reply to Barbirollian's approach of DSCH 7
thread "Dimitri Shostakovich: which one is your favourite amongst his works? "#59

Originally Posted by Barbirollians
I think the Leningrad symphony is a masterpiece . It has to be understood in the context of its time and listened to in that manner . ....

Masterpieces are timeless, which listeners must be able to understand without the context of its time and being listened to in that manner. If that weren't the case, future generations were unable to understand the work, and consequently it is no masterpiece.

[jayne lee wilson]

The Leningrad Symphony throws many of fhg's original questions into relief. It seems to me quite impossible to understand it or "assess" it in any meaningful terms without a knowledge of its historical and autobiographical background. Without that, you may well judge it as "bombastic" or "banal" - making the same mistake as the reader who identifies an author's beliefs with those of her characters. It isn't either of those things IN ITSELF; it includes the expression of those shallower but still powerfully motivating modes (or states of mind) within the wider compass of its visually evocative, Romantic and Socialist Realist artistic style (which includes many noble and beautiful inspirations, especially in the adagio). In an output including the apparently routine agitprop of the 3rd and 12th symphonies, it shouldn't be so difficult to make such distinctions and see various of the symphonies as belonging to different types or categories of style or expression.

This doesn't stop anyone enjoying the 7th qua music, for the sheer sonic and emotional thrill it offers. I can enjoy it and love it for those very reasons without needing to "assess" it or judge it as a "purely musical" achievement relative to 4,5 and 6. But background knowledge does much more than enrich the experience and if you dismiss it as a "purely musical" achievement without that knowledge then your judgement is almost invalid, coming from the wrong perspective (or no perspective). You wouldn't judge a Spielberg film in the same way as a Truffaut or a Chabrol. DSCH is a complex composer - he created both Truffauts and Spielbergs! (Maybe No.15 is his David Lynch).

I once tried to place the symphonies in such categories, calling Nos. 4-6 as "Autobiography Chapters 1-3" and 7-9 as of course "War Symphonies 1-3". (Nos. 13-15 were "Songs and Dances of Death" - I've attempted a few comments on 15 on the selfnamed thread). I considered calling No.7 "War Symphony No.1/Symphonic Poem No.1" (with 11 and 12 as Symphonic Poems 2 and 3). I do think you have to get away from the idea of everything being reducible to the "purely musical" for its value to be made clear, especially in the 20th Century.

[Richard Barrett]

Derrida and other post structuralists suggest that the act of reading (in texts) is as creative (potentially) as writing.

Indeed - but I guess what I was saying was that in a musical context this seems pretty apparent without our needing Derrida's help. I've frequently found that ideas like this seem (at least to their authors!) highly sophisticated and profound when applied to literature but somewhat obvious when applied to music.

I wonder why some people have posted that this discussion is "well above" the, I'm sure it isn't! I mean I don't think it's at all necessary to invoke (post-)structuralism to talk about these issues; in fact it's more likely to be a hindrance.

The composers whose work has been mentioned here would seem all to invite the terms "romantic" (Beethoven, Strauss, Elgar) or in different ways "post-romantic" (Shostakovich, Berg) to describe their work, that is to say a way of looking at music and art which places the "self-expression" of the artist in a central position. Does that mean that the idea of "autobiographical" music is a historically and stylistically circumscribed phenomenon? (It's certainly something which is highly unlikely to arise in any tradition of textless music apart from the "Western classical" one I think.)

[teamsaint]

Indeed - but I guess what I was saying was that in a musical context this seems pretty apparent without our needing Derrida's help. I've frequently found that ideas like this seem (at least to their authors!) highly sophisticated and profound when applied to literature but somewhat obvious when applied to music.

It's maybe not obvious to everybody.We all develop our understanding at different speeds, and in different ways. You were talking about the response of the listener in a creative way, and I felt this resonates with what some theorists have to say about literature.

As to whether its a hindrance, I was really asking a question as to whether ideas common in critical theory (which can of course be useful tools) had transferred into, or been adapted in the musical world.
I have found that my very basic understanding of structuralist ideas has been helpful when reading FHG's posts,( and following up the musical suggestions) about 2VS school , for instance.

[verismissimo]

Isn't all music autobiographical?

[french frank]

Since the thread title is not specific, perhaps a non-musical example is permitted. I liked Richard Barrett's comment about 'listening being creative' but if it's truly 'creative' the 'fact' of the autobiographical background becomes subjective rather than factual, depending on the listener's reaction.

As a new 'specialist' in medieval French literature () I was reading one poet's (Villon's) complete oeuvre for the first time. One of the less renowned poems struck me as highly amusing, read in the context of the poet's jokiness and often sardonic humour. When my wider reading of the leading critical works increased I was deflated to discover that this was one of the poet's failures (I was struck by the somewhat similar terminology used by edashtav of the Shosta symphony): the poem was bombastic, turgid, grotesque, inappropriately (given the autobiographical context) OTT - but no mention of humour.

It was quite inappropriate (they said) because as a student Villon had been involved in an affray in which a clerk had been stabbed to death: Villon was recognised in the group, arrested and sentenced to hang. On appeal, the sentence was quashed and instead he was banished (from Paris). His poem was to praise the Court of Appeal for sparing his life.

That's the autobiography behind it: so what does one make of a jokey poem ('bombastic, turgid, grotesque, OTT') - inept 'unpoetic' grovelling. To me it was the effervescent high spirits of relief. That's where the creativity of the reader comes in. Can one ever really know, unless the composer/poet has written a full account what one is "supposed" to understand from the autobiography of a creative work of art?

[Richard Barrett]

Isn't all music autobiographical?

No - plenty of music is the result of "collective composition" of one sort or another, for example the classical music of Indonesia or Japan, or Gregorian chant, or free improvisation - I think it's only music composed by a single person and (as my previous post says) within a tradition which values individual self-expression that could possibly called "autobiographical", which means that music composed before 1800 or so couldn't accurately be so described, don't you think?

[Richard Barrett]

I have found that my very basic understanding of structuralist ideas has been helpful

When I said "obvious" what I meant was that it's quite feasible to understand what "creative listening" means without a theoretical apparatus like structuralism to relate it to. Personally I prefer not to go far in the direction of relating ideas from (usually) literary theory to music, because it often looks as if the implication is that "music is a language" which I think is a higly problematic idea.

[teamsaint]

When I said "obvious" what I meant was that it's quite feasible to understand what "creative listening" means without a theoretical apparatus like structuralism to relate it to. Personally I prefer not to go far in the direction of relating ideas from (usually) literary theory to music, because it often looks as if the implication is that "music is a language" which I think is a higly problematic idea.

The ideas from theory that might possibly be useful in considering music are those which look outside strictly literary applications ,as structuralism sometimes does.

I agree that the theoretical apparatus isn't necessary. It's not in literature either, though there is probably an underlying "understood "apparatus, which might be , for instance, close reading technique.

It would be interesting, elsewhere perhaps, to discuss why you and others like MrGG have problems (at best) with the idea of music as a language, or perhaps you would be kind enough to point me in the direction of something to read online on this subject. I would appreciate that.

Edit: I'll try not to mention this stuff again. but my experience with literary theory is that it can be very useful as a way of examining ones overview of a piece of literature. Otherwise , it tends to become academic argument for its own sake. The complexity of it means that it really is for a very small group , interested in it for its own sake.

[edashtav]

Isn't all music autobiographical?

But, the degree of self-revelation varies, compare Prokofiev (and Stravinsky) with Shostakovich, for example. (However,it can be argued that not revealing one's emotions is as autobiographical as being unbuttoned.) Can we deny that Gesualdo's psychoses inform the fractured bars and previously unheard dissonances of his music?