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

[Roehre]

Sorry missed this cross-posting last night.

I thought both ideas ("fate" and "yellowhammer") originated in Schindler. The myth of Beethoven as Byronic hero originates so often in Schindler - the way so much of the late 19th - early 20th Century so eagerly accepted them as corresponding to what they heard in the Music (or how the myths conditioned how the Music was performed and heard) is central to much of this discussion.

That's right: both are (most likely) Schindler-fabrications

[Bryn]

Let's not forget the claim (said to have originated with his son, Peter) that the ribald quoting of Lehar's Da geh' ich zu Maxim(one of Hitler's favourites) in the Intermezzo interrotto of Bartok's Concerto for orchestra, was a send-up of the use of the same theme by Shostakovich in his 7th Symphony, rather than it being of a similar nature to Shostakovich's employment of it. The 'Peter Bartok' version is still the more widely known, but even Wikipedia now seems to have caught up with the more likely rationale for the theme's use.

[Roehre]

...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). .....

From this argument follows, that a person is unable to enjoy [in whatever sense] a work and cannot have a live-enriching listening experience, as long as that person doesn't know the backgounds?

Out of the window go all those works in archives and gathering dust on publisher's shelves by people of whom we don't know much of their lives.....

We must throw away many a work by JSBach, as many of his children died in childhood, his wife died when he was away, and we are unable to find, to define, any of these evens in his output?

[aeolium]

That's right; a composer might know some of all of the motivations that gave rise to a particular one of his/her works and might be able to explain it in detail (if he/she wanted to do) but the composer has no control over how different listeners listen to performances of it and the conclusions that they form from so doing.

Yes, although as well as the many different ways in which listeners can respond to a piece of music, I was thinking also that the composer might not always be fully in control of his material, in that it may include aspects that he does not wish consciously to acknowledge (or even would wish consciously to repress). I'm not sure about this though - I'm thinking more of examples from literature.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

while it is of considerable interest and relevance to anchor this thread in relation to the Shostakovitch Symphony No 7; it seems to me a risky endeavour to treat this as an example of some musical universal, true for all musics or any idealised subdivision thereof ...

an account of an intention at one point, coexistent with its composition, may be one thing,; but a later reflection, eg in a post-war post-stalinist period might be quite another with no loss of integrity on the part of the artist .... the statement that i think matters most is the one prior to the composition [if any such were made] by the artist to himself [he may never share it] .... the appreciation of the work by the artists post delivery as it were, may tell us how that intent was realised but not necessarily much about what that intent was ....

since we know well that a composition performed in the hall is one thing, and replicated on the cd or broadcast another, we must also surmise that the first room is different from all following rooms, not by much perhaps in war torn Russia; but definitely in 21Cent London NY or Moscow ... with concomitant variations in subtlety of feelings both performing and listening to it ... what do we now know of the Great Patriotic War, NAZI and Soviet terror systems, starvation &c ... matters of distressing familiarity to the artists involved in realising these first performances?

one thought from a psychological point of view is that the composer might be reaching to the vernacular to express and share his feelings and solidarity with his compatriots .... how then might we consider 'banal ' or 'bombastic' and how then might we view the challenge for an essentially timid introvert [if he was such] in seeking such monumental solidarity with the common man?

[Roehre]

That's right; a composer might know some of all of the motivations that gave rise to a particular one of his/her works and might be able to explain it in detail (if he/she wanted to do) but the composer has no control over how different listeners listen to performances of it and the conclusions that they form from so doing.

Long ago I played Penderecki's Threnos to a friend who was interested in classical music in general but hadn't much listening experience by then and wanted a bit of guidance. I didn't tell him title nor composer in advance, only pointing out that it was a successful modern score.
Asking what he heard/experienced in the piece, the answer was: a zoo

[Bryn]

Long ago I played Penderecki's Threnos to a friend who was interested in classical music in general but hadn't much listening experience by then and wanted a bit of guidance. I didn't tell him title nor composer in advance, only pointing out that it was a successful modern score.
Asking what he heard/experienced in the piece, the answer was: a zoo

Are you sure you did not play him a Berio opus by mistake?

[ahinton]

Are you sure you did not play him a Berio opus by mistake?

A Berio opus would be by Berio, surely, not by Miss Take? Nice one, though, Bryn!...

[Richard Barrett]

Are the composer's/composers' intentions the only "valid" criteria for judgement in such pieces?

No. For one thing, it isn't possible in principle to know what they were.

While, as I've said, I'm suspicious of imputations of "autobiography" (the thread seems to indicate how easy it is to get tied in knots as a result of them), at the same time I would say there's no such thing as the "purely musical" - any attempt to define what that might be is doomed to fail (try it and see!) because any music is understood in terms of the listener's cultural environment, knowledge, expectations, history and so on.

Roehre's anecdote about the Penderecki piece is relevant here - to thicken the plot even more, the Threnody was completed before its composer had the thought of connecting it with Hiroshima, which then became what it was "about" without a single note being changed.

[french frank]

any music is understood in terms of the listener's cultural environment, knowledge, expectations, history and so on.

Isn't that the key point - the listener's cultural environment, knowledge, expectations, history, at least as much as the composer's; or, more realistically, what the listener knows about the composer's &c &c?

[Richard Barrett]

or, more realistically, what the listener knows about the composer's &c &c?

Yes but not just the composer's &c &c, also for example the idea that instrumental music could be a vehicle for "autobiography", which as we've seen is historically, geographically and culturally circumscribed phenomenon.

Composers themselves are often to be found describing their works in terms that suggest that what the composer was thinking about, or experiencing, during the process of composition, is (or should be) in some way audible to listeners, which is by no means necessarily the case. If I look at one of my own scores, or hear a performance of the piece, I can generally retrace quite accurately my emotional state while I was writing it, the place(s) where it was written, any significant life-events of around that time and so on; but I wouldn't expect or want anyone else to "hear" those things; whatever the music has to express, it's something between it and the listener, and not some story about the composer.

[ahinton]

Yes but not just the composer's &c &c, also for example the idea that instrumental music could be a vehicle for "autobiography", which as we've seen is historically, geographically and culturally circumscribed phenomenon.

Composers themselves are often to be found describing their works in terms that suggest that what the composer was thinking about, or experiencing, during the process of composition, is (or should be) in some way audible to listeners, which is by no means necessarily the case. If I look at one of my own scores, or hear a performance of the piece, I can generally retrace quite accurately my emotional state while I was writing it, the place(s) where it was written, any significant life-events of around that time and so on; but I wouldn't expect or want anyone else to "hear" those things; whatever the music has to express, it's something between it and the listener, and not some story about the composer.

Indeed - I think that you have the balance just right about this. I think also that some composers are on occasion given to talking and writing rather too much about their work and, all too often, this kind of thing can tend to obscure rather than enlighten the listener / reader about such matters as what might have motivated the composition of this or that work of how certain particular circumstances might in some way have impacted on the way in which it was written. I tend to say as little as possible about mine in the hope that whatever's in it will somehow manage to get across at least to some listeners on its own merits, although that's a very different thing to the "purely musical" notion to which you drew attention upthread.

[jayne lee wilson]

Do you mean that this Music depends, for its final judgement, on knowledge of its background? Allowing that argument to stand, supposing a listener who has such knowledge (and who doesn't confuse the tale with the teller) but still finds the movement "banal" and "bombastic" (even if s/he know that such bombast is intentional and all done with the best possible motives): is such a listener's "judgement" still "invalid"?

Or, for that matter, a listener who loves the movement, finding it exciting both in and out of context, and can hear rhythmic, thematic and harmonic links to the overall structure, but who (by some astonishing oversight) doesn't know anything about the siege of Leningrad - is their Musical appreciation also "invalid"?

Are the composer's/composers' intentions the only "valid" criteria for judgement in such pieces? And who decides what is and is not an "invalid" judgement? (Put briefly; why do you say "dismiss"?)

1st paragraph: your hypothetical response seems convoluted and far-fetched but yes - it would have to be seen as a misjudgement: judging the whole movement by that supposedly "notorious" set of variations, which response has become a cliche, a pre-judice, in itself. Or, to judge the opening of the piece, or its final section from the requiem onward as "banal" etc., would simply be a mishearing of the tone, within the stylistic context I described.

2nd paragraph: "Like/Dislike" needs no justification. Judgements do. The commonest mistake is to attach a negative judgement to a dislike. Why did Barbirollians cause such anger here when he described his response to Lachenmann?

3rd paragraph: Why the semantics? "Dismiss" meaning "judge as poor". The "validity" of such judgements depends on the contextual knowledge of the work of art, it isn't about "who" makes it. I'm really surprised how often I have to say this.

Sighing... once again:
LIKE/DISLIKE REQUIRES NO JUSTIFICATION; JUDGEMENTS DO.

[jayne lee wilson]

From this argument follows, that a person is unable to enjoy [in whatever sense] a work and cannot have a live-enriching listening experience, as long as that person doesn't know the backgounds?

Out of the window go all those works in archives and gathering dust on publisher's shelves by people of whom we don't know much of their lives.....

We must throw away many a work by JSBach, as many of his children died in childhood, his wife died when he was away, and we are unable to find, to define, any of these evens in his output?

No, not at all. As I thought I'd made clear (in no. 22) my comments applied only to this particular case in its very extreme and particular personal and historical context, of an artist in the USSR at that time, and the stylistic, psychological and emotional tactics it required to survive and create. I just don't think you can ever generalise about this with any art form. You will certainly misunderstand Shostakovich's 7th (and many other of his works) if you know nothing of his widely varying idioms and where they come from, if you try to "flatten" them into a single symphonic cycle and judge their quality on that level alone. He is a complex case.

An opposite example might be Panufnik, who lived through terrifying wartime experiences but whose music tends strongly towards abstract, non-programmatic expression (however emotionally intense) and a refining and complexifying of a relatively limited stylistic range. There's little sign of a direct reference or relation between the life and the art. On the other hand, you wouldn't judge the musical qualities of Panufnik's Polonia alongside those of the 5th and 6th symphonies. The artistic aims are completely different.

I'm afraid both you and fhg are generalising far too much from my very case-specific comments...

[french frank]

The "validity" of such judgements depends on the contextual knowledge of the work of art, it isn't about "who" makes it. I'm really surprised how often I have to say this.

Sighing... once again:
LIKE/DISLIKE REQUIRES NO JUSTIFICATION; JUDGEMENTS DO.

As Alexander Pope said: "Who shall decide when doctors disagree?" the key word being 'doctors', not as individual 'who's' (whoes?) but in general as those who are well informed, who as experts would have your 'contextual knowledge'. Is it maintained that, if they hold diametrically opposed views, both views can be equally "valid" or, inconceivable that, having the same contextual knowledge, they could possibly hold such divergent views, that they could ever disagree?

That would seem to discount Richard Barrett's point that the importance lies in the different experience, cultural background &c of the individual listener.

Are you saying that if you have equipped yourself with all the necessary 'contextual knowledge', that will lead anyone infallibly to a one 'correct' understanding of a work?