Why it's important to play music from dead composers

[m1469]

Not just any dead composer, but certain ones.  I've had the feeling that sometimes people are confused as to why we keep playing the same pieces over the years - haven't they been done enough?  Perhaps some have, yes, perhaps (if done right).  Or I get the feeling that people think it's *just* a matter of upholding some kind of physical/technical tradition ... but the reason these works survive I think is something more than that.

I realized it's important while I pondered the idea of intelligent, emotional, and spiritual loneliness.  An individual beyond his/her years and/or for whatever reason must write specifically for the purpose of finding that or those hearts in generations to come, whose works carry with them something of a message for those who will either understand it only later, or for those who deeply need it as if in a desert-land later.  I think Beethoven is such a composer.  I think his insights into life are meant for generations beyond his, not just those individuals who were surrounding him.  It's important to play works like these and to keep playing them over time because the meaning of these works are being realized as humanity grows and develops.  None of this means that modern works and composers are not important (on the contrary), but some are meant for generations to come (perhaps even some being written today).  It's also important to write for the generations to come.

I also think that they are not just meant for listeners alone, but for those who learn them.  There is *meant* to be a learning process and that process is meant to have personal substance, growth, development.  As performers we are "supposed" to "get" something out of learning these works that is part of the message from the composer.  And it's only that human experience, that learning and growing process which can bring the music to life for a listener, and this is why it's important to continue to have thoughtful, artistic performers (not just computers).

[ted]

I do not feel any obligation at all to either listen to or play anything I do not enjoy, which does not say something to me, simply because somebody asserts I ought to, because millions of other people do enjoy it, or because it is famous. I do not reject anything on that ground either though; to do that would merely be contrary. I think I can say with absolute certainty though, that whether a person is living or dead makes no difference at all to how I might react to sounds created by that person. Indeed, I truly think sound itself, man-made or otherwise, and my brain's reaction to it is all that matters to me. I have come to that odd but consistent stance over very many years.

Having dispensed with myself and my point of view, which you know about anyway, and which doesn't matter very much, the question of music and posterity is admittedly a very interesting one. A surprisingly large number of present composers - and let us include improvisers too in these days of digital recording - do seem to possess a  desire to speak to future generations through their music. They might not say so overtly (one or two do in no uncertain terms !) but it is often easy to see that this underlying thesis drives them. Did the old classical masters consciously write for posterity ? You would likely know much better than I about that. I suspect some did and some didn't. What about the jazz masters ? Probably a bit of a mixture too, I would guess.

In the end I suppose it depends on your religious philosophy, for want of a better term, how you view your own existence and its creative products in relation to time, whether you tend to see yourself as an isolated, fleeting entity or part of a manifold of never-ending collective consciousness in time as well as space. The latter would certainly appear the more comforting and less lonely but I wonder if it gives rise to better music ? The question is also intimately connected with another one. Do you think  anything at all, much less "insights into life", is really communicated through musical sound ? Perhaps the receiving mind just plops its own meaning onto whatever it hears.


 

[m1469]

I do not feel any obligation at all to either listen to or play anything I do not enjoy, which does not say something to me, simply because somebody asserts I ought to, because millions of other people do enjoy it, or because it is famous.

Yes, when I say "important" I don't mean it in the sense of how it's important to eat vegetables so everybody should and really ought to go ahead and try to do that daily.  I mean, there is a living importance within it, it's not empty.

I do not reject anything on that ground either though; to do that would merely be contrary. I think I can say with absolute certainty though, that whether a person is living or dead makes no difference at all to how I might react to sounds created by that person. Indeed, I truly think sound itself, man-made or otherwise, and my brain's reaction to it is all that matters to me. I have come to that odd but consistent stance over very many years.

Having dispensed with myself and my point of view, which you know about anyway, and which doesn't matter very much, the question of music and posterity is admittedly a very interesting one. A surprisingly large number of present composers - and let us include improvisers too in these days of digital recording - do seem to possess a  desire to speak to future generations through their music. They might not say so overtly (one or two do in no uncertain terms !) but it is often easy to see that this underlying thesis drives them.

Even within that, though, there is a huge variance as to why they would want to do so.  For some, I imagine, it's for no other reason than enjoying the idea of something of themselves continuing on ... heck!  People have kids for the same reason!  While that conversation probably fits, I will narrow down what I mean.  I mean those composers who possess an insight or have something to say to a different kind of receptivity than what they may be finding around them, and that sometimes this insight may only be better understood as humanity -from the lowest understanding to the highest- has grown and is demonstrating something more along the lines of what was beyond one's years in generations before them.  

For example, Beethoven's 9th (and I'm sure there can be loads of other examples from all sorts of people) - while he may or may not have been writing it specifically for those around (I mean the purpose in his head and heart) or for those in generations to come, I believe it "speaks" of a higher humanity than we are collectively demonstrating even now.  It is a vision that not all possess, which, hypothetically speaking, is "about" a kind of life that if *ever* is lived on earth, is not going to be for generations yet to come.  Or it's about a life that perhaps we will never experience on earth, but perhaps in another realm.  All the same, it's a vision and humanity connects with it in different ways but that symphony and beautiful theme has become weaved into our growth and maturation.  Did Beethoven mean it specifically for that?  I can't say I know that of course, but I think he definitely put a message in a bottle, so to speak, in hope, faith, and even great humility.

Do you think anything at all, much less "insights into life", is really communicated through musical sound ? Perhaps the receiving mind just plops its own meaning onto whatever it hears.

I think insights are ultimately communicated by a sense that is not biological as we typically think of biology.  Similarly, there is not a true biological explanation for mother love (you don't find it in the body upon dissecting it and exploring its genesis), yet it is experienced by both mother and child and indicates a form of communication.  I think it's similar with what you ask, in the respect that I personally don't believe the full meaning is in the sound itself (perhaps this is a large point of differing between us).  In that respect, if it helps to illustrate what I mean, I also don't find communication and insight and meaning in a drop of water, per se, or in an ocean or a river itself.  Not in a mountain forest and meadow and wild flowers ... but it's easy to think that one does.  No -and it's taken me years to dissect it because I've thought for years that I do find the meaning in these things- there is something behind it all which provides the meaning, and without that, all of those other things wouldn't (and in my mind couldn't) have a significance of their own.

For me, would I write and play and sing for posterity alone?  Maybe.  But, even more than that, it's to that heart; in that sense it's specific.  It's like I can feel that heart and I *want* to communicate to it, and I can only imagine I'm not the sole owner of that kind of experience.  Beethoven to me is such an interesting "specimen" because of his human deafness ... obviously there was something more to music, and even more to sound itself, than what is easy to perceive of if we have the "luxury" of humanly taking a certain perception of vibration for granted.  He reached deeper.

Because we all know our own lives best, I do rely upon my own experience as some form of example as to what humanity knows and experiences as humanity.  I can only assume that there are open hearts beyond my own in the world, and I don't perceive that as a unique-to-me kind of knowledge, just as I don't perceive the "insight" of nature in those drops of waters, etc., only my own.  To me it is there, and I have a natural inclination to want to share that with other individuals who are also already beautifully and lovingly encased within it.  All I want is to say "isn't that a beautiful flower?" to somebody who also finds it beautiful.  If I have to put that message in a bottle for another time I will, and I'll set it in some sea in hopes that it finds that heart, but I guess the sea might already be all around us.


*yikes* (*runs to the piano*)

[ted]

Excellent discussion, you make one or two points I had not thought of, but I have a busy couple of days ahead of me and hopefully I shall find time to "run to the piano" too between chauffeuring jobs and appointments. My wife is singing in the Brahms requiem with her church choir and various other duties call. Brahms, and this piece especially, which I have heard for the last month, does about as much for me as Beethoven and religion put together, but I am nonetheless fascinated by deeply felt reactions to philosophy and music contrary to my own. I shall be back.   

[pytheamateur]

Well, name me a living composer that actually writes music for the piano that is neither fiendishly difficult nor so atonal that sounds like some random bashing on the keyboard.

[nikolasideris]

Well, name me a living composer that actually writes music for the piano that is neither fiendishly difficult nor so atonal that sounds like some random bashing on the keyboard.

Me!

But really...

As a composer I find that knowledge of the music history (not the historical facts. These are totally boring for me, but the music facts, and the composition facts and the works and analysis), are hugely important! Even more importantly the fact that we have missing clues on certain things, perhaps even works, publishers are worried about the correct notes because of that, etc, makes it even more important to know about old works and the continuity of music! It's one thing to have the composer next to you and him offering an mp3 of the work and another to have to scan a score, that is ill equipped in every way possible to transfer 100% the ideas of the composer!

It's impossible to grasp everything from the score. Tradition comes into play and that can only work via knowing older works!

Of course I will agree that the relevance of the older works is not completely gone, but it remains rather abstract... It's difficult from the 'Revolutionary etude' to have the same effect it did at the time!

Finally, the one point about living composers if I may. While they are not exactly known to enjoy discussing their works, I think that it's hugely important to be able and talk to them about their work. I mean how can you discuss with Claude (Debussy) any disagreements you may have about his prelude... In the opposite standing point you can very well ask me about anything and I'll try to explain as best as I can, and I know plenty of composers that are here and available!

[ted]

I did say I would return to this discussion so here I am. I certainly do not share any commonality of association with images people assert are intrinsic to various pieces of the past. That they should do that is not wrong, but for me it is not right. An example would be Bach. I enjoy a lot of Bach, but not because of any supposedly inherent message which everybody claims is being transmitted through it. In fact I do form all sorts of visions and images, as usual when I listen to any music. However, they are light years away from the sort of aura most people have about him. I am completely without religion and have never had any desire to have anything to do with it. Also, thinking about what we know of Bach the man would only put me off his music, as it did in my youth before I had the sense to realise personality is irrelevant.

So you see, with Beethoven as with Bach, Chopin and all that lot, "I cannot bring my passions from a common spring." But much music of the past does have important things to say to me, they just aren't the same things most people hear, that's all, because to me all musical sound is entirely abstract. It isn't like literature, which mostly employs a commonality of the external world. Therefore I fail to understand how any unequivocal messages can exist in the music to be passed down.

On one point I stand firm though. There is no "should" or "ought to" attached to anything in the arts. "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law". Dead composers are of interest to me only as much as their abstract sound statements stir my brain, just the same as for living ones or computer programs.

[Derek]

I think I've got a unique perspective to add to this conversation. I'm a much simpler person than everyone who has already participated, I think. But, I learned a lot from one of you (Ted) early in my hobby as an improvising pianist. I learned early and often to listen for sounds of my own that I liked. This took hold so well that I ended up losing interest in a lot of classical music save a few that I grew up admiring (Beethoven, Chopin). Even though I still like music by those dead guys, I find I more enjoy finding my own sounds. These sounds may not ever be recognized as "great," by others, but they move me as much or more than the great composers. I feel like the problem with too much worship of the dead ones is that it might crowd out equally valid ideas that anyone with the desire to create might be able to unearth from their own musical hearts. It may also prevent a lot of people with average levels of talent (like me) from creating music for themselves. If I hadn't encountered the alternative perspective espoused by Ted, I'm absolutely certain I'd be dramatically less creative now, cowering in artificially large shadows cast by composers of the past.