Kalevi Aho: Symphony No. 16 (world premiere)

[ahinton]

"Absolute music" as contrasted with music designed to expressively depict or at least distill specific and historical human events seems a valid distinction.  Who would ever think absolute music means "divorced from humanity"?
More in the mode of the "essential" as opposed to the "episodic".  Something like that.

I don't think anything of the kind, which is whyt I wrote that there's no such thing; what music is not in some way influenced to some degree by experience, environment, events or other that might (albeit misleadingly) be termed "extra-musical" phenomena?...

[Gauk]

"Absolute music" as contrasted with music designed to expressively depict or at least distill specific and historical human events seems a valid distinction.  Who would ever think absolute music means "divorced from humanity"?
More in the mode of the "essential" as opposed to the "episodic".  Something like that.

I don't think anything of the kind, which is what I wrote tht there's no such thing; what music is not in some way influenced to some degree by experience, environment, events or other that might (albeit misleadingly) be termed "extra-musical" phenomena?...

It's easy to overstate such extra-musical influences. There are plenty of examples of composers writing music of a character completely at odds with their personal circumstances; writing joyous music when in the depths of misery and so on. There is a pernicious habit of a certain breed of commentator always to try and relate an art work (not just music) to the situation of the artist at the time of composition, on the assumption that the work must be influenced by whatever was happening to the artist at the time. But composition does not work like that. It does not have to be reactive. A composer is quite likely to approach a new work as an exercise in solving artistic problems without reference to environment or events.

The result will not be music "divorced from humanity" unless the composer is very formulaic (and unskilled), since music must communicate something to its listeners. Even music that might be taken as the height of "absolute" or "abstract" - for instance, a Bach fugue - may actually pack a huge emotional punch.

The distinction here, it seems to me, is just the old question of "programme music", a phrase that has long had negative connotations that I don't think are entirely fair. I don't see a problem in distinguishing between music that has an overt reference to a non-musical subject, whether it be a concentration camp or a walk in the Alps, and music lacking any such reference. I would also suggest that it would not be a good idea to try and dismiss any piece simply on the grounds that it fell into one group or the other. If one tried to restrict oneself only to hearing "abstract" works, one would miss so much.

[ahinton]

"Absolute music" as contrasted with music designed to expressively depict or at least distill specific and historical human events seems a valid distinction.  Who would ever think absolute music means "divorced from humanity"?
More in the mode of the "essential" as opposed to the "episodic".  Something like that.

I don't think anything of the kind, which is what I wrote tht there's no such thing; what music is not in some way influenced to some degree by experience, environment, events or other that might (albeit misleadingly) be termed "extra-musical" phenomena?...

It's easy to overstate such extra-musical influences. There are plenty of examples of composers writing music of a character completely at odds with their personal circumstances; writing joyous music when in the depths of misery and so on. There is a pernicious habit of a certain breed of commentator always to try and relate an art work (not just music) to the situation of the artist at the time of composition, on the assumption that the work must be influenced by whatever was happening to the artist at the time. But composition does not work like that. It does not have to be reactive. A composer is quite likely to approach a new work as an exercise in solving artistic problems without reference to environment or events.

The result will not be music "divorced from humanity" unless the composer is very formulaic (and unskilled), since music must communicate something to its listeners. Even music that might be taken as the height of "absolute" or "abstract" - for instance, a Bach fugue - may actually pack a huge emotional punch.

The distinction here, it seems to me, is just the old question of "programme music", a phrase that has long had negative connotations that I don't think are entirely fair. I don't see a problem in distinguishing between music that has an overt reference to a non-musical subject, whether it be a concentration camp or a walk in the Alps, and music lacking any such reference. I would also suggest that it would not be a good idea to try and dismiss any piece simply on the grounds that it fell into one group or the other. If one tried to restrict oneself only to hearing "abstract" works, one would miss so much.

Good points here. I think, however, that the crucial word in what you write is "overt" and, whilst it would of course be entirely resonable to seek to distinguish (when appropriate) between works that actively seek to portray, or react to (or against!), events and other phenomena and those that don't, that does not of itself mean that the latter are in any meaningful sense "absolute" or "abstract", because even when the composer might not necessarily be consciously aware of all of the influences that may impact upon a work that he/she is writing or has written, he/she is a sentient human being, my point therefore being that the kinds of creative processes behind composing a musical work are inevitably those that are managed by sentient human beings and so writing a piece of music does not involve shying away from all other aspects of human activity and the human condition.

You write that "even music that might be taken as the height of "absolute" or "abstract" - for instance, a Bach fugue - may actually pack a huge emotional punch" and, of course, they usually do!

You are correct in noting that "there are plenty of examples of composers writing music of a character completely at odds with their personal circumstances; writing joyous music when in the depths of misery and so on"; that can also extend to how a composer might feel about the progress of a work that he/she is writing - witness, for example, the satisfaction that Tchaikovsky felt as his final symphony took shape as contrasted with his emotional state at the time or, to a somewhat lesser extent, the same in the case of Schönberg with his first chamber symphony.

With your observation of the "a pernicious habit of a certain breed of commentator always to try and relate an art work (not just music) to the situation of the artist at the time of composition, on the assumption that the work must be influenced by whatever was happening to the artist at the time" I can only express agreement and feel the same chagrin about it that you do but, to me, it's the sheer arrogantly simplistic aspect of this kind of writing that jars so badly, as though not only is the critic somehow trying, out of what he/she seems to perceive as a matter of duty, to tell the readers that, because he/she says so, it must be correct but also that composers seem to be incapable of writing anything other than as directly and almost wilfully influenced by their recent/current experiences/environmentl clearly, this kind of expression on the part of the critic demonstrates a woeful lack of understanding of how and even why composition works in practice and therefore tells the intelligent reader more about said critic than about what he/she is ostensibly seeking to convey. It's also deplorably patronising.

You write that "composition does not work like that", that it "does not have to be reactive" and that a composer "is quite likely to approach a new work as an exercise in solving artistic problems without reference to environment or events", all of which may well be true but, again, the important word here is "overt"; composers don't have to write in overtly reactive ways or to seek to solve crective conundra without direct reference to external environment or events but, at the same time, "no man is an island" and no composer is either.

[guest2]

. . . "no man is an island" and no composer is either.

Not true. Every artist must be an island.

[ahinton]

. . . "no man is an island" and no composer is either.

Not true. Every artist must be an island.

Were that the case (which mercifully it is not and indeed could not be), how would any of them hope to communicate with others? (by which I mean composers communicating with performers and both communicating with listeners). Yes, a composer needs time to him/herself to prepare his her work, just as performers need the same to prepare performances of it, but that's hardly synonymous with being in "island", in the understood "no man (or woman) is an island" sense!

[Gauk]

Granted that “overt” is a key word here – but what happens if we start dealing with the non-overt? Firstly, one is in danger of falling into the trap of assuming that a work “must” reflect the circumstances in which it was written, because the composer was “only human”. Surely Mozart’s late music “must” reflect his straitened circumstances? I don’t buy it. Secondly, if the extra-musical influence is not overt, who is to say that it is really there at all? One can get into very sterile speculations that can never be proved or disproved.

Of course, there are no absolutes, so I don’t doubt there are cases where a composer has written works that were particularly sunny because of happy circumstances, even where this was a subconscious reaction and not acknowledged. But what proportion of works are so affected?

Here, it is interesting to look at music composed in Europe in the years 1940-1945. This was the most traumatic period in European history since the 17th century, and few people could have lived through it unaffected. So it is instructive to survey how composers reacted. If, to make it simpler, one restricts the discussion to “major” works (define it how you like), one can consider works under three classes: compositions overtly about war, compositions not overtly about war, but which exhibit violence, despair, unrest and other symptoms of troubled times. (Often it will later be conceded that the work was a product of the composer’s reaction to events.) Lastly, there are works that show no indication whatever of having been composed in wartime.

The impression I have is that the last group is very much the majority. Indeed, it is sometimes startling to turn to works written at times of national tragedy, when you would think, “surely the composer must reflect something of the terrible things happening at the time”, and the music is entirely uninflected by strife.

It’s probably also true to say that the majority of “war” works written in this period are from the USSR, where composers were officially encouraged to write patriotic pieces. There does not seem to have been any equivalent urge to write war music in Germany at the time, and the only German pieces I can think of from the period that do address the spirit of the times are reactions to the destruction at the end of the war.

So if composers during the traumatic times of the Second World War tended not to let it influence their musical output, one can conclude that the influence of less dramatic extra-musical circumstances on composers at other times is probably not very great.

[ahinton]

one is in danger of falling into the trap of assuming that a work “must” reflect the circumstances in which it was written, because the composer was “only human”

No; I did not suggest that it was necessarily possible to codify and identify the specific influences that might impact of the composition of a work, or that any work "must" do that!

[Gauk]

one is in danger of falling into the trap of assuming that a work “must” reflect the circumstances in which it was written, because the composer was “only human”

No; I did not suggests that it was necessarily possible to codify and identify the specific influences that might impact of the composition of a work, or that any work "must" do that!

I did not claim that you suggested anything, I wrote only in generalities. If one presumes that it is likely that composers are subject to unconscious extra-musical influence in all their compositions, then some people are going to try and look for them. But if such influences are non-overt, and, indeed, unconscious, then, so far from it being possible to identify or codify such influences, any discussion comes down to unsupported assertion. And whether or not such influences exist, they might as well not exist for all the light they shed on anything.

[ahinton]

one is in danger of falling into the trap of assuming that a work “must” reflect the circumstances in which it was written, because the composer was “only human”

No; I did not suggest that it was necessarily possible to codify and identify the specific influences that might impact of the composition of a work, or that any work "must" do that!

I did not claim that you suggested anything, I wrote only in generalities. If one presumes that it is likely that composers are subject to unconscious extra-musical influence in all their compositions, then some people are going to try and look for them. But if such influences are non-overt, and, indeed, unconscious, then, so far from it being possible to identify or codify such influences, any discussion comes down to unsupported assertion. And whether or not such influences exist, they might as well not exist for all the light they shed on anything.

I agree; this, as you rightly observe, is where potentially misleading and possibly unfounded assumptions may be made about what "external" influences might have impacted upon this, that or the other work in such cases, although there are other instances where it's easier to do this kind of thing meaningfully when, for example, the composer has him/herself stated that certain circumstantial evidence of such influence/s pertain (but such examples are, of course, of the "overt" kind rather than the unconscious/subconscious kind).

[guest2]

Every artist must be an island.

Were that the case (which mercifully it is not and indeed could not be) . . .

You cannot be serious in your promotion of derivative music! Another term for that is "lift music" is it not? And in books it comes down to the Mills and Boon series, one hundred of which are "released" every month! Just imagine Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Chausson, Scryabine or Szymanowski sitting down to write a bit of lift music, or Broch a romantic paperback.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elevator

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mills_%26_Boon

[Gauk]

Derivative music and lift music are two very different things. Have a listen to the piece by Morel I uploaded recently to the Canadian music thread. It is derivative - it shamelessly steals from Stravinsky - but there is no way it would ever be played in a lift. Incidentally, two composers who were interested in what we would now call lift music were Satie and Hindemith.

[ahinton]

Every artist must be an island.

Were that the case (which mercifully it is not and indeed could not be) . . .

You cannot be serious in your promotion of derivative music! Another term for that is "lift music" is it not? And in books it comes down to the Mills and Boon series, one hundred of which are "released" every month! Just imagine Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Chausson, Scryabine or Szymanowski sitting down to write a bit of lift music, or Broch a romantic paperback.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elevator

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mills_%26_Boon

Of course I couldn't be serious in such promotion - but then I didn't and most decidedly wouldn't promote anything of the kind! Wrong end of wrong stick again on your part, gerard, I fear! I therefore don't need the unelevating elevator music definitions and references that you have provided, thanks, since they are not pertinent to anything that I have written here; that said, they do offer the opportunity to cite a remark once made by Elliott Carter when he'd just been deprecating the tiresome prevalence of that very kind of music along remarkably similar lines to sentiments expressed by Chopin some 16 decades earlier when bemoaning the fact that musical performance seemed to accompany every activity in the great English houses and that it might not be so very long before it would do so to what went on in the smallest rooms of those houses; Carter was asked how he might react were he to go up or down in a hotel elevator and be confronted with his own music therein and he instantly answered that he'd press the red alarm button...

[ahinton]

Derivative music and lift music are two very different things. Have a listen to the piece by Morel I uploaded recently to the Canadian music thread. It is derivative - it shamelessly steals from Stravinsky - but there is no way it would ever be played in a lift. Incidentally, two composers who were interested in what we would now call lift music were Satie and Hindemith.

I'm rather struggling to imagine Trois morceaux en forme de poire or Embryons desséchés - let alone Vexations - being relayed in an elevator; Descriptions automatiques, peut-être? As to Hindemith, well, likewise I'd have trouble imagining Die Harmonie der Welt or The Long Christmas Dinner emerging from speakers in one. No, none of these strike me as potentially elevating musical experiences on the way up to Room 101 on the 101st floor. Perhaps the only plausible candidates for this might be Cole Porter's song Miss Otis regrets or Rimsky-Korsakov's le Coq d'Or (as in "stand clear of the d'Ors" (I've already got me coat)...

[Gauk]

Satie called the concept "Musique d'Ameublement" - furniture music. You didn't really imagine I meant ALL Satie's music, surely? You can find a good essay here:

http://www.academia.edu/166786/Erik_Satie_s_Musique_d_Ameublement_some_ninety_years_later

In Hindemith's case, I am thinking of his early forays into "Gebrauchsmusik" - utility music. "This music is written neither for the concert hall nor for the artist," he wrote. In the "Plöner Musiktag", he compiled pieces beginning with a Morgenmusik, a Tafelmusik, a cantata and an evening concert in accordance with the course of the day at a boarding school in Plön.

As for Chopin's fears about music in the smallest room, it's as well he never lived to experience the gents in an English motorway services.

[ahinton]

Satie called the concept "Musique d'Ameublement" - furniture music. You didn't really imagine I meant ALL Satie's music, surely?

I wsasn't sure quite what to imahine on that.

In Hindemith's case, I am thinking of his early forays into "Gebrauchsmusik" - utility music. "This music is written neither for the concert hall nor for the artist," he wrote. In the "Plöner Musiktag", he compiled pieces beginning with a Morgenmusik, a Tafelmusik, a cantata and an evening concert in accordance with the course of the day at a boarding school in Plön.

For all that I admire Hindemith, I've always felt that he'd somehow confused himself with that one (although that's not to be read as an implied disdain on my part for the music that he wrote under that notion); if certain music is not written either for the concert hall or the artist (presumably meaning the performer), then for whom is it intended? It is presumably intended to be listrened to and, in order for that to be made possible, artists have to perform it.

As for Chopin's fears about music in the smallest room, it's as well he never lived to experience the gents in an English motorway services.

Isn't it just!