Friday Miscellanea

Wednesday, September 5 was the birthday of John Cage (1912 - 1992) who was one of the most influential composers and theorists in North America in the second half of the 20th century. Most notorious for his piece for piano, 4'33, which involves playing no notes, he also wrote several books on music (and Zen and mushrooms), invented the "prepared" piano and just generally shook up the musical world. Here are four of his brief pieces from Sonatas and Interludes for prepared piano:

One of the most interesting consequences of writing this sort of thing is that it drives the theorists nuts because how in heck can you analyze those harmonies!

* * *

I like to drop by Musicology Now from time to time to catch up on the latest trends, even though it is often a dispiriting exercise. They have just posted a multi-part series on "Teaching Music and Difference" which seems to involve various ways of "de-centering" the traditional focus on art music by focusing attention on things like:

• Music, Culture, and Difference in Globalization
• Thick Listening
• Let’s Get It On: Pedagogy, Sexuality, and Music

The common elements are first, that there is no attention paid to any of the usual canon, no Dead White Males (or Females for that matter); instead the focus is on world musical traditions, ethnological study of context (again in non-Western music) and things like sexuality. The last post linked to begins:

Music scholars do not do well with sex.

Musicology, ethnomusicology, popular music studies, anthropology of music. . . . whatever field or discipline we claim, the truth is that as a field of study we need to do better with sex. And I mean that word in every way: sexuality in terms of sexual behavior, sexual identity, sexual orientation and gender expression, and changing definitions of sex as a biocultural marker.  As scholars, we notice and critique colleagues who ignore race, indigeneity, and/or ethnicity. We might not always get those critiques correct or present them nearly often enough, but we see those faultlines.  We attempt to speak to the inclusion of women, again not well enough or often enough, or with nearly enough force inside our own organizations and institutions, but we are at least aware. About sexuality, however, there is still a broad field of lack. Lack of knowledge, to be sure, but also a lack of engagement, interest, and effort. The ignorance looks ignorant.

Well sure, if you are studying sexuality, then you should be studying sexuality, but equally if your field of study is music, then your field of study should be music. There are interesting and complex connections between music and sexuality to be sure, but all I get from posts like that one is a somewhat condescending sanctimony:

Using sexuality to study music is an opportunity not only to make our students better thinkers, but also to demonstrate that sexual diversity has always been there, that the study of music is not separate from that diversity but woven within it, and that we as music scholars will refuse to embrace the phobias and oppressions that exist around us. It is not just good pedagogy, it is good humanity.

And I doubt that you are studying music qua music much at all. But if the goal here is to de-legitimize Western Civilization then job well done!

* * *

Roger Mathew Grant writes about Musical Pleasures saying:

Can a melody provide us with pleasure? Plato certainly thought so, as do many today. But it’s incredibly difficult to discern just how this comes to pass. Is it something about the flow and shape of a tune that encourages you to predict its direction and follow along? Or is it that the lyrics of a certain song describe a scene that reminds you of a joyful time? Perhaps the melody is so familiar that you’ve simply come to identify with it.

Critics have proposed variations on all of these ideas as explanatory mechanisms for musical pleasure, though there remains no critical consensus. The story of their attempts and difficulties forms one vital component of Western intellectual history, and its many misdirections are revealing to trace in their own right. In early modern Europe, theorists generally adopted a view inspired by Aristotle’s Poetics: they supposed that the tones of a melody could work together with a text in order to imitate the natural world. Music, in this view, was something of a live soundtrack to a multimedia representation. It could assist in an analogic way with the depiction of the natural sentiments or features of the world captured in the language of its poetry, thereby eliciting a pleasurable response. Determining specifically how this worked was, in fact, the elusive goal set out at the opening of René Descartes’s first complete treatise, the Compendium Musicae (written in 1618). Unfortunately, Descartes never made it past a simple elaboration of musical preliminaries. He felt that, in order to make the connection to pleasure and passion, he would need a more detailed account of the movements of the soul.

Oh darn, now I have to try and find the treatise by Descartes to see why I have never heard of it before and why it is not better known.

* * *

Jane Kallir writes about The End of Middle-Class Art:

Modernism is inseparable from the rise of the Western middle class. In 19th-century Europe, the bourgeoisie created a vast new market for art, previously a luxury enjoyed mainly by aristocrats. Cities, especially, became cultural hubs replete with museums, galleries, concert halls, theaters and publishing houses. The direct patronage that had characterized the aristocratic age was replaced by a wider distribution system that depended on intermediaries to connect artists with consumers. Critics, art historians and curators augmented the promotional efforts of commercial art dealers by legitimizing artists and educating the public. As the middle class expanded in the second half of the 20th century, advances in mass communications further broadened the audience for art.

This is certainly true in music. The early example of Chopin, who was supported by a large number of middle-class patrons including a number of students, is echoed by Stravinsky who was supported by commissions from performing groups and publishers who saw a middle-class market for his music. Neither were supported by aristocratic nobility.

Many compare the current economic scene to the 19th century’s Gilded Age, and it is therefore hardly surprising that the art world is being overwhelmed by the superrich. To the extent that it was essentially a middle-class phenomenon, one may question whether there still is an art world. The ascetic highbrows have been replaced by “thought leaders,” who kowtow to wealth and equate the “marketplace of ideas” with the financial markets. Any pretense of a firewall between art and money has been abandoned. The roles of dealer, curator, and artist have blurred, compelling artists to promote themselves. High on the food chain we see Damien Hirst collaborating with Sotheby’s and luxury mogul François Pinault; lower down, artists milk sketchy celebrity contacts on Instagram. Meanwhile, with the end of the “American Century,” nations in the Middle East and Asia are exerting more influence on the global conversation. Just as America’s Gilded Age magnates collected Italian Renaissance paintings and portraits of British aristocrats, newly minted billionaires in other parts of the world are scooping up Western masterpieces. The recently opened Louvre Abu Dhabi suggests a long-range agenda, repositioning these works in a broader context to legitimize the full panoply of world cultures. It is a safe bet that art history’s next grand narrative will not be written in the West. Things change.

* * *

And over at the New York Times, Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim writes about the viola: "Twisting for Solos, the Violist Is a Quartet’s Odd Player Out" Have I mentioned recently my aversion to the grammatical twisting that is ever-present in NYT headlines? The New York Times Inversion I am tempted to label it. Every headline must invert the usual order of things so as to seem less, well, dull.

There’s not much to look at when a string quartet is playing. Other than the movements that draw sound from the instruments, the scene is relatively static.

But train your eyes on the violist, and sooner or later you may well witness what seems like a secret struggle. The player’s body language becomes a spiral of contradictions, like someone keeping up dinner-table conversation while scanning the room for the waiter. Chances are that in this awkward yet riveting moment, you witnessed a viola solo, a phenomenon that is rare in chamber music, often fleeting and even physically taxing.

Oddly enough, at the last string quartet concert I attended, with the Fine Arts Quartet, we noticed that the viola managed to project very well despite never contorting himself as the article indicates one must do. And viola solos are only rare in 18th century quartets--they become more and more common in 19th, 20th and 21st century ones. So, in the first two paragraphs of the article we find two very iffy statements. This is, by the way, the norm. In any area where you have professional knowledge and understanding you will find that 90% of what you read in the mass media will be incorrect. It was Michael Crichton that first pointed this out. Now extend that to all those areas in which you do not have professional training...

* * *

And as a little sorbet to clear the palate after so much pondering, here is an item from Slipped Disc: When an international string quartet breaks down.

Seven months I went backstage in the interval of Wigmore Hall concert to say hello to the Artemis Quartet.

I have never known a colder green room. It was mid-February and the heating was full on, but the atmosphere was frigid.

The four players were ranged two on either side of the room. There was no conversation. They were looking at their phones, or t the walls. You did not need to be Sigmund Freud to recognise that this was a group in an advanced stage of human disarray.

As usual over at Slipped Disc, don't neglect reading the comments. No, you should not go back to visit musicians at the interval, but yes, if you have any connection with the artists, I'm sure they would welcome a visit backstage after the concert. When I was newly married to my German wife and we were attending a concert of the Montreal Symphony with guest artist Pepe Romero playing the Rodrigo Concierto de Aranjuez, I dragged her backstage after the concert even though she was sure it was a terrible idea and definitely not permitted! As I had studied with Pepe on more than one occasion and spent a month in his master class in Salzburg he recognized me immediately (he was all by himself, standing in the door of his dressing room) and greeted us enthusiastically.

I did my international debut in Wigmore Hall, a lovely venue, and being in the green room was a daunting experience as the walls are lined with autographed photos of many of the artists who performed there: Arthur Rubinstein and a host of others of his caliber. Sheesh!

* * *

Let's listen to a little Rubinstein for our envoi today. Here is the Polonaise in A flat by Chopin:

I saw him play in Spain in 1974 and to this day I remember the amazing colors he wrested from the piano.