Papa Haydn's is a coffee shop in Portland, Oregon. This seems fitting, when we consider that he is associated with rhetoric and language, something we know was cultivated in the coffee shops of Europe in the eighteenth century. In "Rhetoric Versus Truth," Mark Bonds takes a look at Haydn's classification as a "clever orator" and what that says about the effects of different modes of listening on the understanding and reception of music at the turn of the nineteenth century.
Bonds reminds us a bit of Lowe's article when he asserts that "every individual brings to the act of listening a matrix of assumptions and expectations - usually unconscious but no less significant - that shapes the experience of hearing a work of music, be it new or old" (Bonds 111). With this in mind, Bonds studies the perception of Haydn's music within a rhetorical framework based on the function of music as a language and the "burden of intelligibility." This burden is important in Bonds' analysis; we can follow the shift in listening technique by paying attention to where or on whom this burden falls as time passes.
The early nineteenth century saw the burden fall on the listeners and not the composers, as Beethoven begins to write music with no intention of "leading" the listener along in their comprehension of his musical ideas. The effect of this change is that the "individual who assumes it will be his or her responsibility to make sense of the work at hand listens in a manner far different from one who relies on the composer to act as an orator" (Bonds 125).
These differences can also be tied to the debate over the importance of rhetoric versus philosophy, and whether rhetoric is anything more than a clever job of making the truth more appealing or perhaps even concealing the truth in a way that entices the listener to do or think something they otherwise would not.
One question Bond poses here is this: "How can an idea be separated from the manner in which it is expressed?" This is a similar idea to the one posed in LeGuin's article: "How can a sonata ever be better than its performance?" My question, then, for you is: Is a composition only as good as a listener's reaction to it, or can it be deemed worthy of high praise as its own entity, regardless of whether most listeners claim to have an understanding of it? What implications does this have for composers who are beginning a new piece? To whom does the work need to seem worthwhile, and what musical aspects do you think played into those decisions in the nineteenth century? Are they the same musical aspects that composers strive for today?
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The worth of a composition to an individual, I think, would depend upon that individual person's interpretation of it. Thus, the worth of a composition to a society would then depend upon the conglomeration of multiple responses to the piece as a collective whole. The composition has innate value in the sense that it exists in its entirety before it is ever heard or interpreted. And yet, it could be argued, a piece of music would be entirely worthless if never performed and enjoyed. The value of the object and the worth attributed by an outside source are then conjoined in such a way as to make the distinction difficult.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, we tend to grant greater worth to the judgments of those who are "experts" in a given field. But who made the critic the master of interpretation? For myself, I have to remember that music is not only a science, it is an art. I can appreciate a piece for its scientific technicality or use of certain musical ideas and still not "like" the composition. Thus, there are some pieces which have scientific/technical worth without necessarily having artistic worth.
So I present this thought: perhaps the "scientific" or technical aspect of music has innate value and, as I discussed in my post, represents a more "absolute" truth. Whereas the artistic aspect of music is entirely derived from the response of the individual, and consequently becomes a subjective - or relative - truth.
Asking whether a piece is "good" or not is extremely subjective and depends greatly on the point of view from which one sees it. I do believe that piece may be deemed to be good, or maybe more accurately, successful without acclaim from a majority of the listening public.
ReplyDeleteAs far as implications in starting, working on, and completing a piece, it definitely depends on the goals of the composer which feeds into the next part of the question about who must find the piece worthwhile. I think first and foremost the composer must find the piece that they are writing to be worth while, from that point on it depends on the purpose of the composer. Both Haydn and Beethoven had in common the idea that their music was worth while, as may be seen by the amount they composed and the fact that they usually had a part in premiering much of it. From there though, it seems that Haydn lent almost equal weight to his opinion and the opinion of the public as to whether his music was worth while and wrote accordingly. On the other hand, Beethoven seemed far more interested in writing music that he found worth while whether the listening public agreed with him or not, especially in his metaphysical period later in his lifetime.
As a personal aside, I am interested in what others think about the fact that Beethoven heavily drafted and re-edited his pieces many times before releasing them to the public in relation to the idea that his music was a search for "absolute truth".
If we define "good" as "deserving of high praise," we must further qualify WHO is obliged to praise it. If it is defined distinctly for each person, that person has every right to judge it unfairly and color it with his own biases and prejudices. The decision to assess the performance independently of its score is entirely up to him; after all, if all he DOES is read the score, it is impossible for a performance to influence his decision.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, if we define it as "deserving of universal praise," we have a much messier situation on our hands. We certainly don't want to make it a democracy. In the universal case, we are unable to so easily isolate the score from the performance: as long as SOMEONE has heard a performance of a piece, the piece exists as a performance.