Richards' Automatic Genius presents us with a distinct shift in musical style and preference during the 18th century: the prominence of "mechanical music" and the obsession with scientific analysis and breakdown of anything natural. The values of the Enlightenment had veered off into different directions, one touting that scientific explanation and, more importantly, mechanical imitation were the routes for discovering truth. The appeal of musical clocks and mechanical ducks fed off of the public's desire to see human mastery of the understandable world; by conquering nature, we could then one day control it.
In discussing the importance of expression, Richards presents us with two contrasting views. The "less exalted spheres", apparently tired of "simplicity", were all too delighted with the marvels that musical machines could produce. Others were appalled by the idea of the humanity of music disappearing and fought for the importance of passion and expression within a piece of music. To hearken back to previous points of the article, what makes a piece of music unique and transcendent was supposedly its connection to it's human creator; the minute its creator disappeared, the possibility of "conversation" ceased to exist and the music became stale and, frankly, pointless.
Mozart himself seemed to be part of this mechanical craze; he was a lovable freak, seemingly above normal human abilities who had inherent "automatic" connections to music. He himself was a remarkable machine, something more than human which could unearth deeper meanings and experiences than we alone could find. He was "automatic" and "natural", and so was his music. This innate connection can be seen in the Fantastie K.608.
What Mozart seemed to do with his Fantasies was combine both necessary elements: use the technical prowess of a machine to strengthen his music's emotional power. He mastered both, isolated the best in each, and made the two ideas compatible with one another. "Expressionists", for lack of a better term, could listen guilt-free and enjoy the experience, while "machinists" could see the necessity of a great mind behind an extraordinary machine in order to produce something sublime.
Questions!
Does the fact that Mozart's Fantasie K.608 was written for a musical clock really diminish it's value as a piece of music? Even though it was written by an individual, does music lose some value in the transition to being played by a machine?
How could it be argued that the values of the Enlightenment are both upheld and destroyed by an audience's preference for "mechanical music" over that of a live performer? What does it say about the listeners themselves that some found more "truth", as Gluck might say, and sublimity in musical pieces only playable by a machine?
Harking back to my discussion of the control of nature, do you feel that music is an area in which people desire control, or ignorance? As listeners, do we prefer to be washed over with music, not contemplating it, or forcing ourselves to grasp its undefinable concepts? As creators, do we feel the need to understand or communicate our meaning, or do we simply create what we feel we must? Which is preferable? How does this connect to the increasing use of technology to create music?
(Hope this isn't too late! Thanks guys.)
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Going off of your first question, I think the music itself didn't really lose credibility as being played as "clock music" but more of that it helped to gain more credibility to the genre itself. Mozart's k. 608 was something that helped to prove the fact that even something that is not considered "real" music could still be as complex and interesting as "real" music.
ReplyDeleteAlso on the fact of music losing its credibility on being played by a machine might depend mainly on how it was composed. K. 608 was composed specifically for the mechanical clock and not for a performaer to play so there actually might be some loss in credibility if K. 608 were to be played by a person instead of the other way around.
For the second question, the values of the enlightenment that are held are the idea of scientific inquiry as to be able to have a machine play instead of a human. However, the concept of simplicity and being 'natural' are missing from the music as it is made more complicated for a machine to be able to play while a human can't and it isn't natural in the sense of a human playing it.
In my opinion, a musical work should always be considered in the context in which it was written. In this case, K. 608 was composed for the mechanical clock, and it should be considered within the context of that instrument. When we apply our modern (age of Beethoven) listening techniques to this piece, we are attempting to see it as a piece of music separate from anything else, which is what makes it lose its credibility. If we look at it as a piece for a mechanical instrument, it does its job extremely well, and is therefore a credible piece of music.
ReplyDeleteI suppose in some ways you could argue that the ability to achieve something with a machine that could not be achieved by a human performer reflects Enlightenment ideals in the sense that humanity has expanded beyond it's own bounds. We have enlightened ourselves so much that we have stepped outside the sphere and the limits of humanity. Whether or not this is desirable is, of course, up for debate.
And yet, it also seems as though by taking the human performer out of the picture, we are meant to accept the mechanical performance as perfection. I don't believe it falls within Enlightenment thinking to consider a piece of music to ever be complete or perfect, because so much at that time centers on the performance and what the listener gets out of the piece. Perhaps some listeners who preferred the mechanical to the natural felt that way because they wanted to eliminate any ambiguities in the subtleties of performance that would give them a different impression of the piece from another listener. Is it possible that some people wanted to rid themselves of the debate we had in response to the Lowe article about how many different interpretations there can be of a single piece by eliminating the variable, so to speak, of varying performances?
I'd be interested to know, although it's impossible, whether or not Mozart felt that his musical ideas had been communicated adequately by this machine. Theoretically, it would seem that a composer writing for a machine would then have the opportunity to cater to the specific functions and capabilities of that machine and therefore end up with a perfect performance of their composition. Do you think this is really possible?
Lastly, in response to your final question, I think there is an interesting mix of people who desire more control, and those who want to be passive listeners. This has changed over time, and I think lately more people enjoy being passive listeners than active ones, because we have been conditioned that way. However, those who like to be in control are perhaps the ones creating the music these days moreso than listening to it? Who knows. This is a really interesting post, Devan.