From: roger@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig)
Subject: Re: Bach and religious feelings
Originator: news@nimaster
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 14:12:14 GMT

In article <1992Aug19.111503.29246@nntpd.lkg.dec.com> tomanix@sintra.xip.dec.com (Antonio Rodrigues) writes:

>roger@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig) writes:

>>>The music speaks for itself, most eloquently.

>>Bullshit.

>>NO music speaks.  Ever.  It has to be played and listened to.  It has to
>>be given a context for listening, and in many cases it needs to be
>>explained, either in reference to other music, or in reference ot
>>cultural or historical matters.

>>Music does NOT speak for itself; we have to make it speak, and we
>>generally make that music speak which agrees with our opinions.

>Maybe I'm wrong but it seems that you are that kind of people that
>listens music in their cars on the way home after a working day.

I'd say you're wrong.  I do occasionally listen to music in the car, but
I also listen at many other times.  Sometimes, for pay.  You see, I'm a
musicologist.  I study the stuff.

>Music, the way I see it, is an image, a projection of something that is
>beyond itself. 

An image of what?  Could you be more specific?  Give an example?  

No, better not.  That would be explaining, I suppose.

>A language, and so it speaks for itself. 

Huh?  Languages don't speak for themselves.  People speak languages.

(Not that music *is* a language, mind you; that metaphor has real
problems when you begin to make any sort of serious parallels to real
languages.)

>When you' re listen
>music, and Bach is a good example, you 're transported to other reality. 

Well, *you* may be.  

Now, ask yourself why.  Is it sheerly because of something within the
music?  Or is it something within *you* that responds to the music?  And
is that something perhaps culturally and historically influenced?  I
would argue strongly that it is.  And then I would argue that without
the cultural background, you would *not* be transported to "other
reality" -- in whatever sense it's real...

>The thing is that you have to be sensitive to music the same way you have to
>be sensitive to maths in order to understand, I prefer 'feel', that language.  

I'd like to see some evidence of that claim. I took a lot of math in
college, and was quite "Sensitive" so some of it, too.  (Nor was it a
language...)  And I consider myself fairly sensitive to music, as well;
I enjoy listening and playing and singing.  On the other hand, I've
found that the esthetic pleasures  get from math and music are entirely
different, have little in common with one another.  (There *is* some
cultural aspect to the appreciation of mathematical "beauty", to be
sure, but it's not closely related to musical culture.)

>If by 'a context for listening' you mean 'not in the car' I can agree
>with you, but I prefer to say 'available to feel'.

No, that's not what I mean, as dozens of my postings have made clear.
By "context for listening" I mean your education, your family
background, the music you grew up with, the position of music in the
society you live in, and the effort you've put into learning music over
a lifetime, among other things.  These affect your availability to feel,
as well as the things available for you to feel.

>The music DON'T need to be played, the player is just the 'transport
>provider', and all musics, again Bach is a good example, lost something when
>they 're being performed, even if they are good performances.

But if they don't lose that something, you don't hear them, and they
lose *everything*.  What about it?  Who has ever *gained* anything from
unperformed music?  Better still, what of the even greater pleasure of
*performing* the music?  If you think *listening* to Bach is nice, try
*playing* or *singing* Bach.  

Players are *not* "transport providers."  The music simply does not
exist without them, certainly not in any sense that would allow you to
get transported into whatever other reality you find so real; the act of
playing makes music, music.

>Do you think music 'needs to be explained' ?! 

Often, yes, as I wrote above.

>Please try to 'explain' to 
>me 'The Goldberg Variations' ..., no, I don't mean that text you found in
>your CD, 

Found it?  I *wrote* it!  8-)

>I mean the music, it' essence, and I don't see what it has to do
>with Mr. Goldberg or the Count Kaiserling's sleepless nights. 

But it has to do with

--your worshipful attitude toward Bach
--the attitude of composers since his death
--late 20th Century Western culture's fascination with baroque music
--music composed since 1740 that relates to it
--our culture's image of Bach and the Baroque
--modern philosophies of performance practice, choice of
instruments,etc.
--the whole idea of "great," "timeless," "classical" music -- something
that didn't exist in Bach's day...


Without those things, you'd never *hear* any Bach.  None.  Not a bit.

And if I did play you some Bach, and you had no connection to those
things, or if they didn't exist, you wouldn't know what to make of it.
Not at all.  

As for the "essence" of the piece, don't accuse the piece of having it.
Accuse yourself and the performers who play it.  Is the piece the same
when played by Kempff and Gould and Curtis and Leonhardt?  Does it have
the same essence?  Is it the same when *listened* to by you and by me?
Does it *then* have the same essence?  

"Essence" is something that YOU create by interacting with the piece.
By listening or playing.

Roger

Newsgroups: rec.music.classical