Beauty and Truth in Performance

[goldentone]

Did anyone happen to catch on PBS "Encore with James Conlon"?  I saw it Sunday night.
Fascinating.  It was from the 12th Van Cliburn competition.  Menahem Pressler was also
on the show and they discussed the dichotomy of beauty and truth in music.

The most important aspect, I believe, dealt with the truth of a piece of music.

What do you believe is truth in music?

How can we discover the truth, or the meaning, of a piece of music?  How do we convey it?  I have heard it said of Pogorelich twice, and once by a great pianist (I think it was Richter), that Pogorelich doesn't seem to understand what he is playing.

Can Beauty and Truth be one and the same?  Was Keats' ending to Ode on a Grecian Urn correct?   "Beauty is truth, truth beauty.  That is all ye know on earth and all ye need to know." 

Does all music contain truth?  As a subject, what was Beethoven trying to tell us in sonata opus 109, particularly the first movement?



 

 

[prongated]

As a subject, what was Beethoven trying to tell us in sonata opus 109, particularly the first movement?

"well...I don't know, why don't you dig him up and ask him?"

[lostinidlewonder]

Given that Beauty and Truth are subjective you can definately say that it exists in music. It is not like a 1+1 = 2 Truth, I cannot even think about something that is universally beautiful to all, perhaps Love (but even that has many shades).

What is true in music is emotion. Truth is music is being able to feel the emotion charged within the notes. I could also say a Truth is music is encapsulating a memory. How many pieces have been written in dedication to someone, you can feel it thorugh and through the music. Ravels Pavane for that little princess just makes me cry every time!! Or feeling the thumbs moving next to one other in similar motion in a Schumann Romance just makes me think about couples in love. Truth and Beauty is definately there in music but it is exactly is subjective.

[m1469]

What do you believe is truth in music?

Okay.  I have been thinking about this for a bit, you know, really mulling it over and I think I am finding what these answers are for myself (or at least a bit of a beginning).  I agree with lostinidle, that there is indeed subjectivity involved within it, but my subjective opinions and thoughts on this subject (and a lot of life) is that there is absolute value within music, and that this absolute value is what I would call 'truth' and 'beauty'.

How can we discover the truth, or the meaning, of a piece of music?

I think that I can answer this at the same time as continuing my answer to your first question.  First of all, I would say that truth and beauty *are* the meaning of a piece, and this package is what I call the 'value' of the music.  Truth and beauty are synonomous to me. 

As I have been pondering these subjects and pondering a response to this thread, a number of different concepts have come to mind for me, including some analogies.  Finally, something just clicked into place.  The beauty of music lay in the very core of music; the very fundamentals.  I have always been drawn to the fundamentals and have never felt that I could know them well enough to truly express my musical and lifelong desires (perhaps this will/is change(ing)).  But, even if I come to a point in my life where I feel I am expressing exactly what I want, I suspect I should wish to somehow expand on that.

I think the beauty of music is actually very simple, yet infinitely profound.  One of the analogies that has come to mind for me with regard to this subject, is that of color and painting.  I would liken things like harmony, texture and melody to color, brush stroke and form.  With painting, the beauty lay in the painting's display of balance in all of these areas, and I think the same is said for a piece of music.

There is some kind of inherent and untouchable value in things like color.  Nobody can change the fact that we have an array of color found within light, for example.  Mathematics is another analogy that came to mind for me when considering this subject.  The beauty of math, and to me there is unspeakable beauty within it, lay within its principles and its very foundation.  There is, to me, something very beautiful about the equation and answer of 2+2 = 4.  It is simple, yet relfective of the whole.

I suppose I am on a bit of a tangent by now.

How do we convey it?

Music's beauty lay in its principles and in the organization and structure of its parts.  The way we convey this as musicians is similar to how an artist conveys his/her concept of the nature of color and form through paint, or how an architect conveys his/her understanding of mathematics through physical structure (and the concept that built it).

There is beauty in the harmony of one's body and mind working perfectly in sync, with the sole purpose being to express the meaning of music.  There is beauty in the relationship of teacher and student working perfectly in sync, with the sole purpose being to express the meaning of music.  There is beauty and truth in witnessing an outcome which reflects the honest endeavor of producing a beautiful outcome.

The most beautiful performances to me are those in which there is transparency and purity, like colors embedded within light.

Does all music contain truth?

 
Yes, I believe that if there is not truth then it is not music.

Just some thoughts for now.  I think I am going to have to leave some of this up to my practice and playing .

[counterpoint]

Arnold Schoenberg was a great advocate of "truth" in music.

It's not quite clear for me, what's the meaning of this word in respect of music.
For performing music, there are better words, such as honesty, modesty and faithfulness.
For composing, I don't see how music can "lie". It's the use of music (for propagandistic purposes), that can make it a lie.

Beauty? Some music is beautiful, some is not. That is not a criterion for quality.

[thalberg]

Arnold Schoenberg was a great advocate of "truth" in music.

It's not quite clear for me, what's the meaning of this word in respect of music.
For performing music, there are better words, such as honesty, modesty and faithfulness.
For composing, I don't see how music can "lie". It's the use of music (for propagandistic purposes), that can make it a lie.

Beauty? Some music is beautiful, some is not. That is not a criterion for quality.

I've done lots of Schoenberg research, and I'm always impressed with what you say about him.  Indeed, he did once write that the aim of music was not beauty but comprehensibility. 

[counterpoint]

Indeed, he did once write that the aim of music was not beauty but comprehensibility. 

In his "Harmonielehre", Schönberg wrote:

Die Schönheit gibt es erst von dem Moment an, wo die Unproduktiven sie zu vermissen beginnen. Früher existiert sie nicht, denn der Künstler hat sie nicht nötig. Ihm genügt die Wahrhaftigkeit. Ihm genügt es, sich ausgedrückt zu haben. Das zu sagen, was gesagt werden mußte; nach den Gesetzen der Natur. Die Gesetze der Natur des genialen Menschen aber sind die Gesetze der zukünftigen Menschheit.

Beauty doesn't exist but in the moment, where the unproductive do miss her. It doesn't exist before that, because the artist does not need her. Truthfulness is enough. It's enough for him to have expressed, what had to be expressed. To say, what is needed to say; after the laws of nature. But the laws of the genius' nature are the laws of the future mankind.

[thalberg]

In his "Harmonielehre", Schönberg wrote:

Die Schönheit gibt es erst von dem Moment an, wo die Unproduktiven sie zu vermissen beginnen. Früher existiert sie nicht, denn der Künstler hat sie nicht nötig. Ihm genügt die Wahrhaftigkeit. Ihm genügt es, sich ausgedrückt zu haben. Das zu sagen, was gesagt werden mußte; nach den Gesetzen der Natur. Die Gesetze der Natur des genialen Menschen aber sind die Gesetze der zukünftigen Menschheit.

Beauty doesn't exist but in the moment, where the unproductive do miss her. It doesn't exist before that, because the artist does not need her. Truthfulness is enough. It's enough for him to have expressed, what had to be expressed. To say, what is needed to say; after the laws of nature. But the laws of the genius' nature are the laws of the future mankind.

I love it!  It's amazing that you read Harmonielehre.  What inspired you to do so?  I've never met anyone who has read it.  I read a lot of it for my dissertation research.

[counterpoint]

I love it!  It's amazing that you read Harmonielehre.  What inspired you to do so?  I've never met anyone who has read it.  I read a lot of it for my dissertation research.

Errrm, no, I don't have read Schönberg's Harmonielehre, but I have read much about Schönberg, and I have a book called "Bekenntnisse und Erkenntnisse - Komponisten über ihr Werk" written by Josef Rufer (who was Schönberg's Assistant in Berlin). In this book there are many quotes from a lot of composers, the quote from "Harmonielehre" is just an excerpt from it.

I have also some books and records of Hanns Eisler, who was a student of Schönberg in Wien, where Eisler talks about what he has learned from him. And some Adorno-books of course    (but Schönberg did not fully agree with what Adorno wrote about the 12-tone-method)