Evasions May Be Maddening, But Definitions May Be Limiting
John GibbonsRecent books and articles by writers such as Richard Taruskin, Alex Ross and Lawrence Kramer, and a simple survey of contemporary trends in “serious” music composition, provoke some thoughts relating to fundamental assessments of what “classical” or “serious” or “art” music really is. An acquaintance asked me recently, “How do you define classical music, and when did it begin?” Sounds like an easy question? Try answering it without a load of prevarications and caveats. Heck, try answering it without descending into gibberish.
I evaded the question.
Oh, initially I took a stab at it, mentioning a sort of potential historical distinction between “functional” musics and “aesthetic” musics, and talked about the codification of the repertory in a discrete body of works that one might imagine European and American music consumers to commonly accept as “classical” music, and I talked about the relationship of patrons, commercial issues, and the concept of artistic integrity, but then had to stop in a confused daze. So my interlocuter interjected, “Do you think Philip Glass is a ‘classical’ composer? I do.” I instinctively think my friend is right, but if I try to explain why, I lapse into incoherence. I know this, however: the difference between so-called popular and so-called classical categories is not determined by the sort of formal education a composer has received (consider Weill’s study with Busoni or Cage’s with Schoenberg) nor by the sort of instumental guise the music adopts, nor, increasingly, by the sort of venue the music is played at. It is tempting for someone like myself, lacking a clean record in the snobbery sweepstakes as I am, to point to commercial ambitions as a sort of demarcating barrier. But I’d be wrong if I posited such a distinction. Charles Ives could afford to be quixotic, and Elliott Carter can afford to be irredeemably complex, for reasons that are obvious…the lack of necessity on relying on income from their musical compositions to make a living. Do you think Mozart wanted to write every last Contre-dance, Serenade, or Divertimento that he did write? Of course not. And Ross points out the pathetic spectacle of Arnold Schoenberg imagining that his opera Von Heute auf Morgen would be a runaway hit. It wasn’t. But let me mention here, apropos Schoenberg, that for my money he out-Weilled Weill in the cabaret genre with his magnificent “Brettl” Lieder. I have the sneaking suspicion that Schoenberg could outplay anyone at their own game any time he chose, but the inexplicable thing about him for so many people is why he chose to do what he did. It would be amusing to compile a Schoenberg program of nothing but widely attractive pieces, not all of which would need to be culled from his early years.
Almost every composer wants to be loved by a a large audience, and wants or needs to generate income from his work. Of course there are exceptions. There are exceptions to every single generalization you can make in this world. But the exceptions are not, by definition, characteristic, so you can throw out the pecuniary aspect as a reliable dividing line. Handel and Rossini did pretty well, eh? And here in Chicago, to my certain knowledge, there are excellent musicians working in unambiguously “popular” genres who struggle to make a decent living, despite highly honed musical skills and plently of intelligence and energy. Music is a hard profession. No, please don’t say, “every profession is hard”, there are some professions that require less dedication. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.
Complexity? Please; this is a canard: Compare Ellington with Clementi. But, it is true, and not merely coincidentally true, that much of the music called “classical” is more conventionally complex then so-called popular music, but nowhere near to point of ubiquity where we can comfortably designate complexity as the dividing line. And complex in what way? Harmonically? Alright, the Classics have Chopin. Rythmically? Traditionally the Classics have lagged here. It amuses me that permutations of odd units of beats, and the juxtaposition of these units in larger segments, as practiced by Stravinsky, is accepted as rhythmic complexity. Complex indeed, compared to Haydn’s “London” symphonies, but there are myriad musics from ethnic and often non-Western sources that do the same thing, only naturally, not contrived. I’ve heard these musics. But here I have to acknowledge unambiguously that I’d rather hear Le Sacre, which is absolutely not on my personal top ten list, or top hundred list, even, than any of these other musics. That’s just because I’m attuned to European cultural values, and it is a perfectly legitimate preference, one for which there is no need to apologise. I admit to considerable skepticism regarding the deliberate appropriation of non-Western elements in musics as diverse as the Beatles, John Cage, and Philip Glass. George Harrison wrote charming songs, which I value. Then, he apparently went to India to sit at the feet of the Groovy Guru, came back, and continued to write charming songs, only this time with sitar. If my facts arn’t exactly right, if Harrison had an Indian grandmother or used sitar before going to India, that doesn’t invalidate my point about the dubiousness of attempted absorption of alien musical cultures. Nothing wrong with it, as long as you don’t pass it off as the real McCoy, which I’m pretty sure the Beatles didn’t, anyway. I think it was in Ross’s fine book that he quotes someone to the effect that the best way to express a culture is to be from that culture. But in these confessionally violent and fragmented times, the sort of attempted cross-cultural synthesis represented by the examples above are most likely a good thing, in any case, but the sort of person who values more or less exclusively Western style and content needn’t apologise. No one person can be all people, although I suspect that this is a sort of ambition for a number of post-modern Western composers, Schnittke, for instance.
Can Personal Taste Be A Potential Arbiter Of The Classical And the Popular?
What I cannot understand: Years ago, a colleague and I were discussing our shared love for the music of Tchaikovsky. The conversation veered into a consideration of Tchaikovsky’s legitimate successors, (Rachmaninov and yes indeedy, Prokofiev, for example) and then we discussed Shostakovich. Specifically, Shostakovich’s marked antipathy for the music of Scriabine. Well, I love to play Scriabine on the piano because somehow his figurations fit my hand exceedingly well, so I can execute virtuoso passages in Scriabine which execution is denied me in certain other repertories. Scriabine is a sort of utopian mystic (a catergorization he paradoxially could be said to share with Webern, queerly enough) and Shostakovich is so-called “down to earth.” Somehow I mentioned that for my view, Shostakovich and Schoenberg were likely my personal favorite composers of the Twentieth century, while Scriabine was a sort of Wagnerian personality, with a weirdly myopic ego, and Stravinsky was already showing signs of wear. This stopped the conversation dead, and actually offended my colleague. She rebuked me with inconsistency; how could any intelligent person who loves Tchaikovsky’s “imperial” music and Shostakovich’s searingly human, if not always humane, works also prize a worthless stinker like Schoenberg, whose appalling music had done so much harm? If you like Shosty’s magnificent (first) violin concerto, you cannot possibly like Schoenberg’s essay in the same genre. You must be lying, or confused; it’s a certaintly that you are inconsistent in a way that disqualifies your viewpoint. But it’s not important what I like, or what you like, relative to some generalized conceit of properly adjudicated taste, and consistency isn’t necessarily a virtue; in fact, one of the cleverest things about being human is a sort of innate sense of a need for balance; my idiotic cats will eat their favorite treats to a surfeit, foregoing all else, whereas the human table includes Yorkshire pudding and a salad with the roast beef. If you’re going to a desert island, and are given two records, don’t take one by Mahler and one by Berg, choose one of those, and complement it with something else. I’m influenced by Taruskin here, but I can say: Shostakovich exemplifies the value of engagement, and Schoenberg exemplifies the value of super-cultural inner exploration, which also has its value, but for fewer people.
So which is “classical”? We can redefine our terms and say Shostakovich is a “popular” composer, but I make the (possibly) unwarranted assumption that educated consumers intuitively accept both as “classical”. So, I’m back to square one, agreeing with my friend from the first paragraph that Glass belongs in the classical bin without being able to say exactly why.
Aside from the fact that attempting to artificially segregate musical styles is like running across the ice rink in your socks, there is no burning need to resolve the issue, but I must say that people do ask the question…as a music teacher, I know they do. Frequently. If it’s a naive question, it at least appears to be the sort of question that has relevance for the supposed crisis in classical music addressed by Kramer and analyzed by Taruskin. Words change their meanings over time and some words lose their meaning. Popular and classical are examples of such words in the field of (What can I call it now? Ecoledenotredamepalestrinabachhaydnmozartbeethovenrossiniwagnerchopindebussystravinskyschoenbergbeatlesglassadams music)…I do know what popular is, however. It is that which a lot of people like. Wait a minute, a lot of people relative to the number of people who like music as a whole? A lot of people relative to those who like Schoenberg? A lot of people who are willing to pay money for it?
Reader Comments (11)
The only reason that anyone thinks of what I never call "classical" music as "classical music" is to contrast "it" with popular music. "Popular music" is a huge mixture of all kinds of musical categories, most of which are not the least bit popular.
I call what I play and write simply some kind of "music." If I am asked to define what I write (sometimes they let me out and I socialize for a while with non-musicians and with people who have no idea what I do with my time), I usually say that I write a lot of chamber music (which is true) and that I like to write operas. That always answers the question in a perfectly clear way. Sometimes people ask me (people who know something about music) if the music I write is tonal or atonal. I tell them that I like to write enharmonic music.
When I teach my community college class, I tend to divide up the musical fare by nationality, time period, or musical movement (I know, it is a construct, but you need them sometimes). I do discuss the "classical period" for what it is, and I talk about "classical forms," but as far as I'm concerned, Debussy wrote "French Music," Shostakovich and Prokofiev, wrote "Russian Music," Copland wrote "American Music," and people who are writing today are writing "New Music," which used to mean highly atonal music, but now means "newly-written" music. Music for films would be called "film music," and music written for ballet could easily be called "ballet music."
Life is changing and we need to change our language to go with the times. People lives are carved up into many parts, and many people (like me and like you) do a lot of things. When asked to declare an "occupation" I always revert to "musician," though I know that I am making a gross generalization. We make gross generalizations when we try to label what we consider movements in our lifetimes. We make gross generalizations when we try to label generations and recent movements in music.
Some terms work. If someone defines a piece as being "minimalist" (meaning minimalism as a style rather than as a technique to be used sparingly) s/he lets me know that I'm should be prepared to be lulled into a kind of stupor caused by experiencing the constant repetition of musical motives. If someone defines a piece as "eletronic" I know what to expect from that as well. "Post classical," is a term that I find kind of vague because of the "post" part. If I'm listening to something now, the "post" throws me into an abyss of things to come--a place without definition and without outward boundaries. "Post modern" is also confusing, since I always think of the word "modern" in relation to the present time.
Thank you for the detailed comment. You must know, however, that terms like "French" "Russian" and even "Ballet" run into the same problems "classical" does. I think Stravinsky's "Symphony in C" is a ballet,sure as shooting. But he calls it, "Symphony"...and does Ravel stop being French and become Spanish when he writes "Bolero" or "Rapsodie Espagnole"? How about Franck and Frank Martin? Are they "Belgian" and "Swiss" composers, or do we just lump 'em in with the French, for convenience? Generalizations are useful, sometimes too useful. You probably know this, as a teacher. The point of my article, which I deliberately took some pains to partially obscure, is to comment on an unusually sharp rift in semantics, at the present time. The meaning of the article's title,by the way, ought to imply that "maddening" is better than "limiting"...thanks for reading, and especially for your thoughtful comment. I may write some more on the topic.
The heck with definitions. I'm with that great popular/classical composer Duke Ellington who said "If it sounds good, it is good." Now try defining that!
I'll define you! But seriously, Richard...when the mind is at sea, a word forms a raft. Definitions can help make sense of style, or they can mislead us, as in "popular" and "classical"
My issue with assigning a nationality is this: what kind of music is "The Rake's Progress"? A Russian-born composer, two British-born librettists (at least one of whom - Auden - later became an American citizen), written in the US, but with the creative people communicating in French because Stravinsky's English wasn't up to par at the time.
I think of nationality more in terms of musical or spoken language, folklore, folk music, and literature, than geographical location. Sometimes it makes sense to draw lines of influence, and other times it seems more useful to make exceptions. It is the same with style (since you brought up Stravinsky).
Yeah, Stravinsky is an exception to so many generalizations. Kramer titled his book, "When Serious Music Still Mattered" which is already polemical. No matter what we do, there will be sloppinesses and insufficiencies in our nomenclature, when dealing with such a slippery topic. I would say it wouldn't matter, except that people ask me about it all the time...I'm hesitant about emphasizing national or confessional boundaries...see what it brings us politically! And I'm teaching a course on Dvorak (and Smetana) in the spring. Boy, am I in trouble!
"And I'm teaching a course on Dvorak (and Smetana) in the spring. Boy, am I in trouble!" Think I'll take that class to be sure you're true to your word though I must say that you always are. And speaking of Smetana, have you ever been to the Smetana Museum in Prague? It was unfortunately closed for renovations during my one visit to that wonderful city on the Moldau (Vltava). Will we hear the complete Má Vlast?
Jumpin' Jinkers! I've only been to Prague once, and the Smetana museum was closed for renovations then, too! Ma Vlast is a treasure, obviously. Spring is a long way off. I ain't a-knowin' what pieces will look at. Where Ma Vlast is concerned, "From Bohemia's Woods and Valleys" might be a good choice...
I'm with Richard for a COMPLETE Ma Vlast.
Maybe. But I have to reserve time for us all to don bear suits a la Vasek and dance the polka. Do you know Smatana's "Macbeth and the Witches"?