Fugitive Thoughts (while listening to György and Marta Kurtág)
1) The 20th century split of composer and performer into two unique roles is a catastrophe. Whether György Kurtág’s piano-playing is more informed by his experience of writing music (and the “from the inside out” comprehension that comes with it) or his music is more informed by his (obviously loving, tactile) relationship with the piano, I cannot say: both effects are profound. Listening to him play Bach, I felt none of the usual distance between the music itself, and the performance (and performer) of it. It was two titanic musical personalities, effortlessly fused.
2) People often speak of concerts being religious experiences; it seems to me that this is a reference to the transformative power of music, the word “religious” a stand-in for “spiritual.” But to (nonbeliever) me, one of the most appealing aspects of religion, in its purest form, is the mindfulness - the sense of purpose - it aims to inspire in its practitioners: the sense that every act must have an intent, an awareness. While spirituality is hardly in short supply with them, it was in this sense that the Kurtágs’ concert tonight struck me as religious. To me, anyway, it acted both as an inspiration, and as a reproach, for having, on occasion, played a phrase with less than total commitment - without a sense of purpose.
3) Making art is, at its core, about giving love.
February 2nd, 2009 at 10:50 pm
“Catastrophe.” Interesting.
Also interesting: that this realization occurred while listening to a concert, not while thinking about what it would be like to compose.
Also interesting: the question of how the split happened. How gradual was it? Was it controversial at first? Like, “that person doesn’t even write music! Why should I even bother listening?”
Possibly slightly less interesting: the taxonomy of specialization. The 20th century saw a LOT of splits in a lot of fields. How does one think of them? Are they all basically a part of the same phenomenon? Are there important differences? Categories?
February 5th, 2009 at 5:55 am
Food for thought.
The word catastrophe is a bit strong; there were certain advantages to specialization that were worth exploring.
In that regard the 20th century was an interesting, enriching experiment.
It’s more that we have gone too far in one direction. We now need a correction.
More to the point: most composers today have no idea what it’s like to perform someone else’s piece (or their own, for that matter). This tends to make them impractical and isolated.
Most performers don’t compose, or even try to compose, ever, as Daniel suggested above, and that ensures that they don’t have proper perspective on what it’s like to have your piece massacred by someone else.
There are plenty of other things ‘broken’ in the way we approach new music that are not being addressed, and I’m not just referring to the way performers are dressed, etc.
The fact that it’s acceptable to perform contemporary music from score is absurd, and another indication about the way the process is flawed in today’s environment.
The future will belong to those who can help reverse these and other pernicious trend
February 5th, 2009 at 8:02 am
I love these comments, not least because they give me the excuse to write more about Kurtag - my current favorite activity. I’ll try to address as many of the points as possible.
The word catastrophe is strong - it was meant partially as a provocation, and partially as a response to my feeling that Kurtag, more than anyone else I’ve encountered, can only be categorized “musician” - it was a very nice feeling.
And it’s not that the realization came during the concert - it’s something I’ve thought about a great deal. Rather, as hinted at in the previous paragraph, the concert illustrated the alternative - a composing performer/performing composer - and the differences from the current norm were profound. In fairness, I think that one big reason for this is that Kurtag is a truly extraordinary person. Still, the insight he brought to the concert as a result of his expertise in both roles seemed, to me at least, inarguable.
More evidence of this came the following morning, when I attended a master class he conducted on his own works. (He was also hearing Beethoven, Schubert, Bartok - sadly, I was only able to attend the one session, which featured his music exclusively.) At one point, he made the following rather remarkable assertion: “I don’t believe in dynamics.” He then elaborated, in English that somehow managed to be simultaneously halting and idiomatic, that a dynamic was simply a manifestation - another tool for notating a gesture, or a feeling. (Notating such things, obviously, is unavoidably imprecise.) In other words, forte doesn’t mean “loud” - it means that the music is animated, or angry, or intense, or one of a thousand other things that might force one to play loudly. This now seems obvious to me. The fact that I never thought about dynamics in these terms before is probably related to the fact that I don’t compose - that I don’t, to quote Ivan, have the experience of having heard someone else massacre one of my pieces, or to be more gracious (or equivocal), having misunderstood the intent of one of my pieces.
To address the issue of how and why the split happened: it was definitely gradual. Leon Fleisher once told me - correctly, I believe - that Schubert was the first composer ever to mark his music “defensively” (lots of ppps and fffs), presumably because he was leaving the performance of his music in the hands of people in whom he had less than absolute faith. I’m sure that there were advantages to the specialization - at least on the composition side - but I think that at this point the damage has far outweighed the benefit. I’m totally unqualified to talk about specialization in fields other than music, but I imagine that it’s not a coincidence that these phenomena occurred more or less simultaneously, and I’m increasingly inclined
to believe that specialization, in general, is just a small step away from isolation. Not good in music, and probably not much good in any other field. I hope that the pendulum swing has begun.
February 5th, 2009 at 9:00 pm
Wow - I’ve been watching this conversation evolve over the past few days and I have to say, I find it quite fascinating. I’m not a musician like the rest of you I gather, just a mere veterinary student, but I was having a similar conversation with a colleague of mine about this very topic.
We’re approaching the end of our curriculum and deciding whether or not to specialize. My classmate agrees with you Jonathan. He feels that specialized practitioners may find it difficult to appreciate certain aspects of the profession, of which they are not involved in. While I see his point, I think there is a real beauty in thoroughly understanding just one topic.
I’m also particularly interested in your choice of words. I could see how you might classify this shift towards extreme specialization as verging on “isolation”, but I would rather use the term “solitude” or even “serenity”. By immersing myself in one modality, I feel (maybe falsely) a sense of order and peacefulness. I find I’m able to appreciate the intricacies and beauty that most people might overlook.
While I immensely respect the well rounded practitioner and understand the importance of knowing a backstory, I personally love the solitude of intensely studying one modality. For you a piano, for me a CT scanner.
February 9th, 2009 at 10:52 am
The split mainly applies to “classical” musicians, and to a lesser extent in dance bands. Jazz and rock musicians are much more likely to be performing their own compositions, or their own versions of somebody else’s.
I think most 20C composers did perform, or at least conduct, their own music. Obvious examples would be Mompou, Stravinsky, Britten, Partch, Lutoslawski, Foss.
The problem is with performers who don’t compose. But then, many of them do, but we don’t hear the music, either because concert promoters and record companies are nervous of new music, or because the music is not much good (Klemperer?). But I just got a CD of Gulda playing Bach (extremely well), on which the last track is a Prelude and Fugue by Gulda himself.
So when do we get a CD of “Biss plays Biss”?
March 2nd, 2009 at 8:22 pm
More great comments! I’m sorry it’s taken me weeks to address them: orchestra touring = insanity.
Malgosia, I’m out of my depth discussing the question of specialization in fields other than music - that’s why I should have avoided it in the first place. In my (very limited) experience at a university, I found myself frustrated that there were so many brilliant people concentrated in one place, and that they seemed (to me, anyway) relatively uninterested in talking to one another. But hearing you describe it, I definitely see the point of specialization, and also think music is a unique case.
Don, Biss plays Biss is not forthcoming - I am part of the problem! (Mozart cadenzas really don’t count…) I think it’s worth noting that conducting as a freestanding profession is also a comparatively recent phenomenon. (And one not unrelated to the performer/composer split.) Part of the reason I think the idea of a non-performing composer is problematic is that they have no connection to the physical act of producing sound, which means that composers who conduct (primarily their own music, in some cases) are still in some fundamental ways removed from the music-making process.
But of course, you’re right - the split was never absolute, and never applied to jazz or rock. I definitely think this is an area in which we classical musicians could learn a lot from our non-classical counterparts. (Though I fear the opposite may be happening, if for different reasons: in pop at least, many of the current “stars” sing music that was dreamed up by production teams.)