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Further Reading

Yesterday I read again Susan McClary’s chapter “Excess and Frame: The Musical Representation of Madwomen” in Feminine Endings. One of the subchapters in this book deals with Erwartung by Arnold Schoenberg. During my recent research trip in Berlin I did not have time to read the whole chapter, so I returned to it now, and I was amazed by McClary’s virtuosity, her breath of knowledge in music and other contemporary theory, and the way she builds her arguments. This chapter is a good example to authoritative writing.

Due to some of the issues that I have spoke about in recent posts (such as The difference between a poor critic and a good scholar, Musicology, Science and Postmodernism, Performance and Analysis: a response to Zecharia, and Heinrich Schenker and his followers) I thought it would be useful to quote the following from McClary’s chapter:

“That analysis is an indispensable ingredient in out study of music is beyond question. Yet we need to supplement bare formal analysis with information concerning the historical conditions that give rise both to particular repertories and also to the metatheoretical discourses that serve and explain away the ‘problematic’ aspects of music. If – as clearly is the case – a fascination with madness and transgressive behavior motivates much of the music we care about, then surly we need to take that into account before we jump into our graphs. Otherwise, what precisely are we doing? Whose rationality are we attempting to establish, and why?” (109)

What I love about this passage is that is does not go against analysis. It states clearly that analysis is “an indispensable ingredient in out study of music”. However, it suggests that scholars must go beyond the score in order to reach a more comprehensive understanding of music.

Moreover, it suggests that some of the motivation behind formal analysis is to demonstrate a supposed rationality of music that is actually motivated by irrational things (such as madness and transgressive behavior). Western culture celebrates rationality as one of its highest values and goals. It is postmodern authors (such as Michel Foucault) that demonstrate that this is nothing but a myth.

This is one of the things that I find extremely attractive about the epoch after modernism. Irrational issues such as madness, gender, identity and religion can be discussed in the open. These are the things that touch most of us and make us, at least partly, obsessed about the music that we love.

There is something annoying about being a musicologist and a postmodernist. As a musicologist one is expected to be a scientist, to reach an objective truth and to say things with authority. As a postmodernist, one is expected to doubt the idea of one truth, to show various perspectives of a phenomenon and to deal with the elusive thing called: meaning. Being a musicologist and a postmodernist may seem a contradiction in terms.

There is something extremely attractive about science. It tells us stories about the truth: one truth. It gives us a sense of revelation, almost a religious one. It gives us miraculous power to control the world and to dominate it. It cures illness (often creating new ones) and promotes technological progress (are we happier?). For me, the notion of “progress” is nothing more than a superstition. Glenn Gould was aware of it, as are many others.

In the realm of music, many are still worshiping idols. It may be the romantic notion of the composer-idol. It may be a cold notion of cognition, by seeking the “grammar” behind the music. The common act of this idol worshipping is that it bypasses the concept that music meaning is something that is affected by performers, listeners and the social and cultural contexts that they live in.

Dr Flora Jersonsky-Margalit kindly pointed out an article that is relevant to this discussion. Avshlom Alizur wrote what seems to me as a simplistic article about postmodernism. I will not spend my time demonstrating why it is simplistic. Who ever is interested in reading a more comprehensive understanding of postmodernism in welcome to read first chapter of Religion Without Illusion (in Hebrew) by Dr. Gili Zivan. דת ללא אשליה

It is shocking how much time is spent on teaching how music is built while ignoring how it is experienced. A music student learns hours of harmony, counterpoint, and ear training (of the type that teaches you how to identify simple building blocks of music). The music student learns about the history of the composers (less about the history of music). Music analysis often focuses on analyzing what the composer did in his score. A better way to do things is to teach how harmonic grammar changes its meaning in different contexts. How context affects the meaning of counterpoint rules in the music of Bach and others (yes, also other composers used counterpoint…). How the same chord receives different meaning in different contexts and how very different chords sound the same in certain contexts (the music theorist Edward T. Cone wrote in 1967 a wonderful article called “Beyond analysis”).

It is true that some students start learning music with the aim of becoming composers. Yet, others simply want to play music or learn more about it in order to further enjoy it. As Eric Clark suggests in his recent articles, the crucial question is what music means. In order to deal with this question one needs to speak about performance. Performance is something social. It is a scene where certain things become more important than others. Performers, no matter whether they admit it or not, no matter whether they are conscious about it or not, always emphasize things in their performance.

Dealing with performance is one of the ways to deal with musical meaning. It is not by chance that performance studies became such a vibrant and important field in the world, when much of the academic world is increasingly influenced by postmodern thought.

Why does one cry from music? Is it because of Schenker? Is it because of the score? The score has something to do with it. However, it is only one important factor among many that play a role in the creation of musical meaning in performance.

It seems to me much more reasonable that students should compare recordings with the score and discuss the issue of interpretation. Why one interpretation is good and one is bad (the postmodernists will not like this…). Not only whether the performer is “faithful” to the score, but whether the score is “faithful” to the performer. I find both questions slightly ridiculous.

Musical meaning is a negotiation between cultural signs that are interpreted and reinterpreted. The scene is fluctuating and the “truth” depends on the performers and listeners. We can write all day about the “structure” and the “rules” of perceiving it. Yet, if one redefines in performance what in fact the structure is, than how “objective” can one be a priory to performance?

So what is the difference between a poor musical critic, who may speak about food when writing about music, and a musicologist who is supposed to transcend personal subjective metaphors and speak with slightly more authority? I will deal with this question in one of my forthcoming posts.

Shalom Zecharia. Thank you for your interesting comment. You wrote that Roger Kamien “organizes his Beethovenian thought and music according to Schenker. It does not matter that nobody […] understands what the Schenker formulas are about. […] Kamien knows Schenker intimately and very well, and apparently understands Beethoven through him. No doubt his excellent and convincing performances are a product of this knowledge […]. Everyone hears Kamien’s convincing Beethoven, therefore Kamien’s argument for Schenker’s necessity is passively corroborated by everyone who listens to Kamiens’ Beethoven. The opinions of other musicologists or commentators do not constitute any sound argument in this regard. Would Kamien’s Beethoven sound less convincingly – and Kamien would nonetheless argue for Schenker’s necessity - then we could start citing other musicologists. Kamien is right in his position (it does not mean that his truth is the only one).”

I am not sure that Kamien’s performance (I am speaking about the one I heard in his lecture in the Tel-Aviv University about three years ago) sounded ‘convincing’ to everyone. Moreover, I am not convinced that it sounded so to everyone from the same reasons. You assume that if Kamien ‘understands’ Beethoven’s music via Schenker and plays ‘convincingly’ than it is necessarily due to a Schenkerian analysis. What about the other things originating from performers? These are also an integral part of the performance. Why do you assume that ‘the’ structure that is analyzed from the score is more influential on the listener’s experience than other things such as performer’s character, mood, performance tradition, and interaction with the audience (etc.) that influence the flow of time, articulation, tension, body language (etc.)?

The fact that Kamien relates his achievements in musical performance to the composer and to a certain analytical method does not mean that we must accept his explanation. We might, instead, choose to give him more credit than he gives himself, and to assume that Kamien is more than a faithful messenger or a tool in the hands of others. Perhaps there is something in his personality or momentary choices that make his performances as they are.

Recent post-structural research in music and in other fields demonstrates that from the point of view of perception, score originated structure (there are other structures are you know) is an important factor. Yet it is only one factor in a large net of factors that create musical meaning in the heart of the listeners.

If you are interested to read something I wrote on the subject in Hebrew you are welcome to look at my publications and press the link on a review I wrote on Eric Clarke that deals exactly with such issues.

I am no Schenkerian. My knowledge of Schenker is limited and I never really did any analysis using his methods. I read criticism on Schenker’s theory, I read about his method and I know quite well several books and articles that are highly influenced by his theory. It is quite clear that Schenker is the most influential music theorist since the second half of the twentieth century. He has fanatic followers who believe in his theory and spread it. He has admirers that are influenced by him, yet are also critical to his thoughts. And there are people, like me, who highly respect his work yet feel far from it. Perhaps in the future, if I learn more about his work, I might be converted.

Recently, a book on Schenker call The Schenker Project was written by Nicholas Cook. I read parts of it and I think that it is very good. Cook has extensive knowledge on Schenker in particular and music analysis in general (he has a very good book which is ‘a must’ for anyone interested in Musical Analysis). Here is part of the abstract of the book: ‘This book aims to explain Schenker’s project through reading his key works within a series of period contexts. These include music criticism, the field in which Schenker first made his name; Viennese modernism, particularly the debate over architectural ornamentation; German cultural conservatism, which is the source of many of Schenker’s most deeply entrenched values; and Schenker’s own position as a Galician Jew who came to Vienna just as fully racialized anti-semitism was developing there.’

It is well known that Schenker’s theory ignores things such as rhythm and orchestration. Some of Schenker’s followers continued his work in very interesting ways. When I was young and naïve, I wrote a negative review on Harald Krabs’s book on Schumann (Fantasy Pieces). I still stand behind most of the criticism that I wrote at the time (a different version of part of this review can be found in my PhD in one of the chapters on Pierrot lunaire). Yet today I am capable of appreciating even more his achievements in this book.

John Rink, who was my Ph.D. supervisor, is influenced by Schenker. His is one of the theorists that include quazi-Schenkerian methods in research on performance. A fascinating article that he wrote doing this is: ‘Analysis and (or?) performance’ in Musical Performance: A Guide to Understanding, ed. John Rink (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). It is interesting that this article in meant to assist performers. It advocates a middle way between those who think that one must do comprehensive Schenkerian analysis in order to perform and those who are against any kind of analysis before performing. He uses the term ‘informed intuition’.

Apart from the problems mentioned above, Schenker’s theory in misguided in the following (this is not meant to be a comprehensive list):

1) It claims to be the only truth.
2) It suggests that a work of Genius is based of certain structural definitions.
3) It claims that works of Genius are German.
4) It ignores the cultural and social aspects of music making.
5) It is based on the concept of organicism which is anachronistic.

It is important that every serious musician learns about Schenker. However, this must be conducted in a critical manner.

Since this blog deals alot with issues if performance, I would like to mention an important book that was published lately: Heinrich Schenker, ed. Heribert Esser, The Art of Performance (USA: Oxford University Press, 2002) This book includes unpublished writings on performance by Schenker. It is facinating and not expensive.

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