Absolute or programmatic?

[jas]

An essay I wrote recently got me thinking about this. Do you think that absolute or programmatic music counts as the higher art? I know you get good and bad music of both types, but humour me. In  principle, which would be the pinnacle of musical achievement? Should music be able to represent or comment upon the world? Or should it remain completely autonomous? There have been influential thinkers and musicians from both camps. Wagner's Gesamtkunstwerk, and E.T.A. Hoffmann with his lauding of Beethoven's 5th as "transcendent" music, for example.

Personally, I believe that absolute music has more value (again, I mean in principle; in practise it's not so clear-cut, I know). I think that imitating other things can belittle music as an art in its own right. Clearly, the other arts have to imitate. Paintings and sculptures have to be "of" something, books and plays have to be "about" something. But music doesn't have to do any of these things, and I think that's what makes it different, or, to quote Hoffmann, "transcendent."

Obviously, I'm not looking to "answer the question", as such. I know there's no right answer. I'm just curious about what others think.

Jas

[prometheus]

I think that absolute music relies more on the strenght of music over other arts. So I agree with what you said. You can't write an abstract story. You can pain an abstract painting but they often don't make such a strong impression.


Music is naturally abstract and it is very powerful. This makes music unique. So it is not that abstract art is better. It is that music shines more when it is abstract.

[elgreco]

You can pain an abstract painting but they often don't make such a strong impression.

As "often" as representational paintings do not make a strong impression.

Music is naturally abstract and it is very powerful. This makes music unique. So it is not that abstract art is better. It is that music shines more when it is abstract.

"Prometheus" makes a very good point here. I would like to add, that abstract music can shine more—provided that it is good music, of course—, because there is no "semantic patina" that prevents it from doing so.

—ElGreco

[prometheus]

If you think that is a good point then you should agree, or rather reconsider the interpretation, of the first bit you quoted. I am not saying one should make representational paintings exclusively, or that all of them are better. I was saying that is is hard to transfer abstract ideas through painting. They just channel less strongly.

I mean, look at all the famous paintings. I am not saying these are as good as they are, it is never the case, but I couldn't really remember an abstract painting that people are really impressed with. Sure, everyone knows that famous Mondriaan painting. But who actually likes it? A lot of the really famous paintings depict well known and important events from stories, myth and history. Another very popular genre are portraits. These just seems to make the most impression on people.

[jas]

Music is naturally abstract and it is very powerful. This makes music unique. So it is not that abstract art is better. It is that music shines more when it is abstract.

Yep, that's pretty much what I was getting at. I've only very rarely found programmatic or representational music to be as unidentifiably fantastic as absolute music.

I would like to add, that abstract music can shine more—provided that it is good music, of course—, because there is no "semantic patina" that prevents it from doing so.

What do you mean by "semantic patina"? Obviously, music has no semantic aspect, though it could be seen as syntactic to an extent... I prefer not to think of it in that way, though. I think that to look at music as a language that has to be coherent is to try to turn it into what it's not.

Jas

[prometheus]

Music is not a language. But we interpret and hear music through systems that were developed for communication. So music is an evolutionary by-product of language.

I have seen some people argue that music itself had a evolutionary function but I have never seen a strong case made for it. It is true that music moves people in a unique way and this is something that has not yet been explained.