ADVENTU RES OF THE M IN D 30 .

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By AARON COPLAND

hat music gives pleasure is axiomatic. IX-cause this is ('non or music as an expressive, communicative agcncy re­ so, the pleasures of music may seem a rather elemen­ mains as inexplicable as ever. \Vc musicians don't ask ror tary subject for discussion. Yel the source of that much. All we want is to have one investigator tell us why this pleasure, our musical instinct. is not at all elementary-it is. you ng rellow seated in row A is firmly held by the musical in fact, one of the prime puzzles of consciousness. "Vh y is it sounds he hears, while hi s girl rriend gets lillie or nothing out tha t sound waves, when they strike the car. cauS(:, as a British or them, or vice versa. T hink how Illany mill ions or useless critic describes it, "voll eys of nerve impulses to How up into practi ce hours migh t have been saved ir some alert proressor the brain," resulting in a pleasurable sensa tion? More tha n or geneti cs had developed a test ror musical sensibility. that, why is it that we arc able {Q make sense out of these nerve The rasci nati on or music rOf some human be ings was curi­ signals so that we emerge from engulfment in the orderl y ously illustrated ror me once during a visit I made to the presentation of sound stimuli as if we had lived through a showrooms or a manuracturcf or electronic organs. As part or simulacrum of life? And why. when s.:, rcJy scated and merely my tour I was taken to see the practice room. There, to my listening. should our hean s beat raster, our toes start tapping. surprise. I round not one but eight aspiring organists, all our minds start racing arter the Illusic, hoping it will go one busil y practici ng simultaneously on eight organs. 1\lol'e sur­ way and watching it go another, deceived and disgruntled prising still was the raCl tha t not a sound was audible, ror all when we arc ullconvinced ; elated and gratdul when we eight pcrrorrners were lis tening through earphones to their in­ acquiesce? dividual instrument. I t was an uncanny sight , even ror a rellow \Ve have a part answer. I su ppose. in that the physical na­ musician. to wa lch these grown m('n mesmerized, as it were, tUfe or sound has been thorout:"hly ex plored: but the phenom- by .1 ~ilc nt and in\'i <;;iblc genic. CO.\'TI.\'Cf:n 0 ,\ P.IC£ J8

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Aaron Copland has been acclaimcd thc " Dcan of from folk sources. notably the b.1llets Rodeo. Dilly American Composers." Born in I3 rooklyn fifty-cight the Kid. and Appalachian Spring. The laner score years ago. hc was the firs t American 10 study com­ won a I ~ulitle r Prize in 1945. He is also a compelling ~ About the Author position .... ith Nadia Boulanger, who later taught so Iccturer and writer on music. This artic1cwasoriginaUY many o f his musically gifted compatriots. Some of presented as a lecture last April al the University of his best-known compositions draw their inspiration New Hampshire. Photograph by Arnold Newman 38 THE SATURDA Y e VEN!N"O POST stopping of time itself. incredible and in­ Tone color is another basic clement in The P leas ures of Music (Continued from Page 19) conceivable. music that may be enjoyed on various To the enlightened listener this time­ levels of perception from the most naive On that day I fully realized how mes­ our judgment as to the artistic stature of filling forward drive has fullest meaning to the most cultivated. Even children merized we car-minded creatures must any extended composition. only whcn accompanied by some con­ have no difficulty in recognizi ng the dif­ seem to OUT less musically inclined Everyone is aware that so-called se­ ception as to where it is heading. what ference between the tonal profile of a friends. rious music has made great strides in gen­ musico-psychological clements arc help­ flute and a trombone. The color of cer­ If music has impact for the mere lis­ eral public acceptance in recent years, ing to move it to its destination, and tain instruments holds an especial attrac­ tener, it follows thai it will have much but the term itself still connotes some­ what formal architectural satisfactions tion fo r certain people. I myself have al­ greater impact for those who sing it or thing forbidding and hermetic 10 the wi ll have been achieved on its arriving ways had a wea kness for the sound of play it themselves with some degrcc of mass audience. T hey atlribute 10 the pro­ chere. eight French horns playing in unison. proficiency. Any educated person in fessional musician :1 kind of init iation Musical flow is la rgcly the result of T heir rich. golden. legendary sonority Elizabethan limes was expected 10 be inlO secrets that arc forever hidden from musical rhythm, and the rhythmic factor transports me. Some present-day Euro­ able to read musical notation and take the outsider. Nothing could be more mis­ in music is certainly a key element that pean composers seem to be having a be. his or hcr parI in a madrigal sing, Passive leading. We all lis ten to music. profes­ has simultaneous attraction on more lated love affair with the vibraphone. An listeners, numhcred in the millions, arc a sionals and nonprofessionals alike, in the than one level. To some African tribes infinitude of possible color combinations comparatively recent innovation. Even same sort of way, in a dumb sort of way, rhythm is music: they have little more. arc available when instruments arc in my own youth, loving music mcant really. because simple or sophisticated But what rhythm it is! Listening to it mixed, especially when combined in that that you either made it yourself or were music attracts all of us, in the first in­ casually. one might never get beyond the wonderful contraption. the orchestra of forced out of thc house to go hcar it stance. on the primordial level of sheer car-splitting poundings, but actually a syntphonic proportions. The art of or­ where it was being made, at considerable rhythmic and sonic appeal. Musicians trained musician's car is nceded to dis­ chestration, needless to say. holds end­ cost and some inconvenience. Nowadays arc flattered, no doubt, by the deferential engage its polyrhythmic intricacies. Minds less fascination for the practicing com­ all that has changed. Music has become attitude of the layman in regard to what that conceive such rhythms have their poser. being part science and part in­ so very accessible that it is almost impos­ he imagines to be our secret understand­ own sophistication; it seems incxact spired guesswork. sible to avoid it. Perhaps you don't mind ing of music. But in all honesty we mu­ and even unfair to call them primi­ As a composer I get great pleasure cashing a check at the local bank to the sicians know that in the main we listen tive. By comparison our own instinct from cooking up tonal combinations. st rains of a Brahms symphony. but I do. basically as others do. because music hits for rhythmic play seems only mild in Ovcr the years I have noted that no cle­ Actually. I think I spend as much time us with an immediacy that we recognize interest-needing reinvigoratio n from ment of the composer's art mystifies the avoiding great works as others spend in in the reactions of the most simple­ time to time. layman more than this ability to con­ seeking them out. The reason is simple: minded of music listeners. It was because the ebb of rhythmic in­ ceive mixed instrumenta l colors. Bu t re­ Meaningful music demands one's un­ vention was comparatively low in late­ member that before we mix them we hear divided attention. :md I can give it that I t is part of my thesis that music. un­ ninetcenth-century European music that them in terms of their component parts. only when I am in a receptive mood and like the other arts. with the possible ex­ Stravinsky was able to apply what [ once If you cxamine an orchestral score you feel the need for it. The use of music as a ception of dancing. gives pleasure simul­ termed "a rhythmic hypodermic" to will note that composers place their in­ kind of ambrosia to titillate the aural taneously on the lowest and highest lev­ western music. His shocker of 1913, The struments on the page in fa mil y groups: senses while one'S conscious mind is cis of apprehension. All of us. for exam­ Rite of Spring. a veritable rhythmic mon­ reading from top to bottom it is custom­ otherwise occupied is the abomination of ple. can understand and feci the joy of strosity to its firs t hcarers, has now be­ ary to lis t the woodwinds. the brass, the every composer who takes his work being carried forward by the flow of come a standard item of the concert percussion and the st rings, in that order. seriously. music. Our love of music is bound up repertory. This indicates the progress Modern orchestral practice o rten juxta­ Thus. the music I have reference to in with its forward motion; noncthcless it is that has been made in the comprchension poses these families one against the o ther this article is designed for your undis­ precisely the creation of that sense of and enjoyment of rhythmic complexities so that their personalities. as families, re­ tracted atlention. It is. in fact. usually flow. its interrelation with and resultant that nonplused our gr:lI1dfathers. And main recognizable and distinct. This prin­ labeled "serious" music in contradis­ effect upon formal structure, that calls the end is by no means in sight. Younger ciple may also be applied to the voice of tinction to light or popular music. How forth high intellectual capacities of a composers have taken us to the very the single instrument. whose pure color this term "serious" came into being no composer. and offers keen pleasures for limit of what the human hand can per­ sonority thereby remains clea rly identifi­ one seems to know. but all of us arc listening minds. Music's incessant move­ form and have gone even beyond what able as such. Orchestral know-how con­ agreed as to ilS inadequacy. It just doesn't ment forward exerts a double and con­ the human ear can grasp in rhythmic dif­ sists in keeping the instruments out of cover enough cases. Very often our "se­ tradictory fascination: On the one hand ferentiation. Sad to say. there is .:t limit. each other's way. so spacing them that rious" music is serious. sometimes deadly it appears to be immobilizing time itself dictated by what nature has supplicd us they avoid repeating what some other in­ serious. but it can also be witty. humor­ by filling out a specific temporal space, with in the way of listening equipment. strument is already doing. at least in the ous. snrcastic. sardonic, grotesque and a while generating al the same moment the BUI within those limits there arc large same register. and thereby exploiting to great many other things besides. It is. in­ sensation of flowing past us with all the areas of rhythmic life still 10 be explored, the fullesl extent the specific color value deed, the emotional range covered which pressure and sparkle of a great rivcr. To rhythmic forms never dreamed of by contributed by each separate instrument makes it serious and. in part. influences stop the flow of music would be like the composers of the march or the mazurka. or grouped instrumenta l family. In modern orchestration. clarity and THE GREENWOODS By Dahl definition of sonorous image are usually the goal. There exists. however. another kind of orchestral m:lgic dependent on a certain ambiguity of effect. Not to be :Ible to identify immediately how a par­ ticular color combination is arrived :It adds to its attractiveness. I like to be in­ trigued by unusual sounds which force me to exclaim: Now [ wonder how the composer does that ?

)i~om what I have said about the art of orchestrati on, you may have gained the notion that it is nothing more than a de­ lightful game. played for the a musement o f the composer. That is, of course, not true. Color in music. as in painting. is meaningful only when it scrves the ex­ • • • , . • pressive idea: it is the expressive idea 1 z 3 that dictates to the composer the choice of his orchestral scheme. Part of the pleasure in being sensitive to the use of color in music is to note in what way a eomposer's personality traits arc revealed thrOUgh his tonal color - schemes. During the period of French impressionism, for example, the com­ posers Debussy and Ravel were thought 10 be very similar in personality. An examination of their orchestral scores would have shown that Debussy. at his '"!lost. ~haracterislic. sought for a spray­ , •. • like Iridescence. a delicate and sensuous . " . , ..• sonority such as had never before been • . heard; while Ravel, using a similar pal­ • '. • • • • • ette. sought a refinement ;;'OId precision a 4 gemlike brilliance that renects the m~re objective (CQlltintlt'd on Page 41) TilE SA TU RDA Y EVENINC I' Q S T (Cantil/lied /rom Page 38) nature of his say. " I didn't have to tell you this, and I early lis teners, but in all such cases laler Bach's genius cannot possi bly be de­ musical personality. Color ideals change know it will not make you happy to hear generations have managed to put up with duced from the circumstances of his rou­ for composers as their personalities it." Actually, it should be of little con­ the failings of men of genius for the sake tine musical existence. A ll his life long he change. A striking example is Igor Stra­ cern to you whether I find Rachmaninoff of other qualities that outweigh them, wrote music for the requirements of the vinsky, who, beginning with the stabbing digestible or not. Ali i am trying to say is Verdi can be commonplace at times, as jobs he held. His melodies were often reds and purples of his early bal let seores, that music strikes us in as many different everyone knows, but his saving grace is a borrowed from li turgical sources, his or­ has in the past decade arrived at an ascetic ways as there a rc composers, and any­ burning sincerity that carries all before it. chestral tex tures limited by the forces at grayness of lO ne that positively chills the thing less than a strong reaction, pro or There is no bluff here. no guile. On what­ his dispos.1l, and his forms, in the main, lis tener by its austeri ty. con, is not worth bothering about. ever level he composed. a no-nonsense were si mila r to those of other composers For contrast we may turn to a Rich­ By contrast, let me point to that peren­ quality comes across: all is directly of his time, whose wo rks, incidentally. he ard Strauss orchestral score, master­ nially popular favorite among compos­ stated. cleanly written with no nOieg had elosely studied. None of these oft­ full y handled in its own way, but over­ ers, Giuseppe Verdi. Quite apart from wasted, and marvelously effective. In the repeated facts explains the universal hold ric h in the piling on of sonorities, like a his music, I ge t pleasure merely thinking end we willingly concede that Ve rdi's his best music has come to have on later German meal that is tOO filling for com­ about the man himself. If honesty and musical materials need not be especially generati ons. fort. The natural and easy handling of or­ forthrightness ever sparked an artist, choice in order to be acceptable, And, chestral forces by a whole school of con­ then Verdi is a prime example. What a naturally enough, when the musical ma­ W hat stri kes me most markedly about temporary American composers would pleasure it is to ma ke contact wi th him terials arc choice and inspired they profit R.1ch 's work is the marvelous rightness of ind icate some inborn affinity between through his letters, to knock aga inst the doubly from being set off against the it. It is the rightness not merely ofa single American personality traits and sym­ hard core of hi s peasant personality. One homely virtues of his more workaday individual but of a whole musical epoch, phonic language, No layman can hope to comes away refreshed, and wi th renewed pages. Bach came at the peak point of a long penetrate a ll the subtleties that go into an confidence in the sturdy, nonneurotic If one we re asked (Q name one musician historical development : his was the her­ o rchestral page of any complexit y, but character of at least one musical master. who came closest to composing wi thout itage of many generations of composing here again it is not necessary to be able to When I was a student it was consid­ human flaw, I suppose general consensus artisans. Never since that time has music analyze the color spect rum of a score in ered bad form to mention Verdi's name would choose Johann Sebastia n Bach. so successfully fused contrapuntal skill order to bask in its effu lgence. in symphonic company, and quite out of Only a very few musical gia nts have with harmonic logic. This amalgam of Thus far I have been dealing with the the question to name Verd i in the same earned the universal admiration that su r· melodies and chords, of independent lines generalities of musical pleasure. Now I sente nce with Ihat formidable dragon of rounds the figu re of the eighteenth-cen­ conceived linear fashion within a mold of wis h to concentrate on the music of a the opera house, R ic hard Wagner. What tury German master. What is it that basic harmonies conceived vertically. pro­ few composers in order to show how the musical elite found difficult to forgive makes his finest scores so profoundly vided Oach with the necessary framework musical values arc differentiated. The in Verdi's case was his tri teness, his ordi­ moving? I have puzzled over that ques­ ro r his massive edifice. Within that edifice late Serge Kousscvitzk y, condUClOr of nariness. Yes, Verdi is trite and ordinary lion for a very long time. but have come is the summation of an entire period, wi th the Boston Symphony, never tired of tell­ at times. just as Wagner is long-wi nded 10 doubt whether it is possible for anyone all the grandeur, nobility and inner depth ing performers that if it we ren't for com­ and boring at times. There is a lesson to (Q reach a comple tely satisfacto ry an­ that one creative soul could bri ng to it. posers they would li terally have nothing be learned here: The way in which we are swer. One thing is certain: We will never It is hopeless, I fear, to attempt to to play o r si ng, He was stressing what is gradually able to accommodate our explain Bach's supremacy by the si ngling probe further into why his music creates too often taken for granted and, there­ minds to the obvious weaknesses in a out of anyone clement in his work. the impression of spiritual wholeness, the fo re, lost sight of-namely, that in our creati ve llrtist's output. Musical history Rather it was a combination of perfec· sense of his communing with the deepest Western World music speaks wi th a com­ teaches us that at fi rst contact the aca­ tions. each of which was applied to the vision. We would o nl y find ourselves poser's voice, and ha lf the pleasure we demicisms of Brahms. the longllellrs of common practice of his day: added to­ groping for words, words that can never get comes from the fa ct that we are lis­ Schubert, the portentousness of Mahler gether they produced the mat ure perfec­ hope to encompass the intangible great­ tening to a particular voice making an were considered insupportable by their tion of the completed oem·rl!. ness of music, least ofallthe intangible in individual Statement at a specific mo­ Bach's greatness. ment in hislOry, Unless you lake off from Those who arc interested in studying there you are certain to miss one of the the interrelationship between a composer principal attractions of musical art­ and his work would do better to turn to namely, contact wi th a strong and ab­ the century that followed Bach's, and es­ sorbing personality. peciall y to the life and work of Ludwig van Beethoven. It mattcrs greatly, therefore. who it is The English critic, Wilfri d Mellers, we arc about to listen 10 in the concert had this to say about Beethoven recently: hall or opera house. And yet I ge t the im­ " It is the essence of t.he person.1lity of pression that to the lay music lover music Beethoven, both as man and as artist is music. and musical events arc attended that he should invite discussion in olhe; with little or no concern as to what musi­ than musical lerms," Mellers meant that cal fa re is to be offered. Not SO with the such a discussion would involve us, wi th professional, to whom it matters a great no trouble at all , in a consideration oft.he deal whether he is about to lislen 10 the rights of man. free will, Napoleon and music of Monteverdi or Massenet, to the French Revoluti on, and o ther allied J, S. o r to J. C. Bach. Isn't it true that su bjects. everything we. as lis teners, know about a We shall never know in exactly what particular composer and his music pre­ way the ferment of historical events af­ pares us in some measure to empathize fected Beetho~e n 's thi nking. but it is cer­ with his special mentality? To me Chopin tain thaI mUSIC such as his would have is one thing, Scarlatti quite another. I been inconcciva b,le in the early nine­ could never confusc them, could you? tccnth century Wit hout serious concern Well. whether you could or nOt, my point for the revolutionary temper of his time remains the same: There are as many and the ability to translate that concern ways for music to be enjoyable as there into the original and unprecedented musi­ arc composers. cal thought of his Own work. One can even get a certain perverse Beethoven bro~ght three startling in­ pleasure out of hating the work of a par­ lile church canvasser, taking part of his novations to mus IC . Fi rst he al tered o ur ticular composer. I, for instance. happen lunch hour, called upon a highly prosperous very concePti~n of the art 'by emphasizing to be rubbed the wrong way by one of to­ insurance broker. He quickly and concisely the psychological element implicit in the day's composer idols, Sergei Rachma­ explained the church's budget and needs and language of Sounds. Because of him ninoff. The prospect of having 10 sit asked for a generous contribution. The insur_ music lost a cer ~a i n innocence, but gained through one of his extended symphonies The instead a new dimension in psyc hological or piano concertos tends, quite frankly, ance executi\'e grumpil y agreed-and scrawled dept.h. Secondly, his Own stormy and ex­ to depress me. All those notes. think I. on his pledge card a promise to pay one dollar plOSlv.e temperament was, in part. re­ and to what end? To me. Rachmaninoff's Perfect a week. D isappointed at the smallness of the sponSible for .1 "dramatization of the characteristic tone is one of self-pity and pledge, the canvasser .gently suggested that whole art of mUsic." The rumbling bass self-indulgence tinged with a definite Squelch perhaps it could be a httle larger. tremolandos, the sudden accents in un­ melancholia. As a fellow human being I " I'm a businessman who takes a business expected places, the hitherto unheard-of can sympathize wilh an artist whose dis­ rhythmic insistence and sharp dynamic tempers produced such music, but as a view of all financial matters," the insurance con tra~ t s, all these were externalizations listener my stomach won't tak.e it. I grant executive snapped. " \ Vhat I have pledged is of an . lnn~r drama that gave his music you his technical adroitness, but even quite. cnoug h . " theamcallmpacL here the ttthnique adopted by the com­ " \Vell," thc canvasser said as he arose to .Both ~hesc clements. the psychological poser was old-fashioned in his own day. leave, "with such a low premium rate, you ~)fIent ~ tl on a ~d the instinct for drama, are I also grant his ability to write long and can hardly expect much protection." lO ~xtflcably Iz~ked in my mind wi th his singing melodic lines, but when these arc third and DOSSlb.ly most original achieve. embroidered with figuration, the musical John Jos eph men ~ -the creattOn of musical forms dy­ substance is watered down, emptied of namically conceived on a sea Ie never before si~nificance, Well, as Andre Gide used to attempted and (Conti/met! on Page 44) 44 T H E SATUR D AV EVENI N G POST (CQlltinll(!d from Page 4}) of an inevi­ congruities deprive him of the spice one scribe a young talent in all its freshness, idiom cover broader expressive nreas than tability that is irresistible. Especially the finds in works fu ll of beauties nnd defects its open and primitive quality, before it is naturally belong to it. Jazz does not do sense of inevitability is remarkable in at thcsame time.'· glossed over later by whatever is ac­ what serious music does either in its Beethoven. Notes are not words, they Part of the pleasure of involving o ne­ quired and perhaps manufactured." rangc of emotional expression or in its arc not under the control of ve rifiable self with the arts is the excitement of ven­ The young composers- of today upset depth of fee ling. or in its universality of logic. and because of thaI composers in turing out amo ng its contemporary man­ thcir elders in the traditional way by language- Ihough it does have univer­ every age have struggled to overcome ifestations. But a strange thing happens positing ,I new ideal for music. This time sality of appeal, whieh is not the same that handicap by producing a di rectional in th is connecti on in the field of music. they called for a music that was to be thing. On the other ha nd , jazz does do effec t convincing to the listener. No com­ The same people who find it quite natu ral thoroughly controlled in its every partic u­ what serious music cannO I do- namely. poser has ever solved Ihe problem more that modern books, pla ys or paintings arc lar. What thcy produced. admirably log­ suggest a colloquialism of musical speech brilliantly than Beethoven; nothing qui le li kely to be controversial seem to want to icnl on paper. often makes a rat her hap­ that is indigenously delightful, a kind so inevitable had c\"cr before been created escape being challenged and troubled ha7.ard and samelike impression in ac­ o f hcre-and-now feeti ng, less enduring in the language of sounds. when they !Urn to music. In the musical tual performance. After a fi rst hearing of than classical music. perhaps, but wi th One doesn't need much his torical per­ field there appears to be an unquenchable some of their works. I jotted down these an immediacy and vibrancy that audi­ spective (0 realize whru a shocking ex­ thirst for the fam ilia r. nnd very little observ3lio ns: " One gets the notion that ences throughout the world fi nd exhil­ periencc Beethove n"s music must have curiosity as to what the newer composers these boys are starting again from the be­ arating. been for his first listeners. Even today, are up to. Such music lovers, as I $Ce it, ginning, with the separate tone and the Personally. I like my jazz free and un­ given thc nature of his music, there arc simply don·t love music enough, for if separate sonority. Notes are strewn about trammeled. as fa r removed from the reg­ limes when I sim ply do nOi understa nd they did their minds would not be closed li ke disjerla membra: there is an end 10 ular commercial product as possi ble. how this man"s art was " sold" to the big to an area that holds the promise of fresh continuity in the old $C nse and an end o f Fortunately, the more progressive jazz musical public. Obviously, he must be and unusual musical experience. Charles thematic relat ionships. In this music one men seem to be less and less restrained sayi ng something that everyone wants to Ives used to say that people who couldn't wai lS to hear what will happen next wi th­ by the conventionalities of their idiom. hear, And yet, if one listens freshly and put up wi th d issonance in music had out the slightest idea what will happen, so little restrained that they appear in fact closely, the odds against accept.mce are ··sissy cars:' Fortunately. there arc in all or why what happened did happen once to be headed our way, By that I mean equally o bvious. As sheer sound there is countries today some braver souls who it has h:lppened. Perhaps one can say that harmonic and structural freedoms little that is luscious about his music-it mind not at ,III having to dig a bit for modern painting of the Paul Kite of recent serious music have had so con­ gives off a comparatively '·dry·' sonority. their musical pleasure. who actually en­ sehool has invaded the new music. The siderable an in fl uence on the younger He seems never 10 flatter an aud ie nce, joy being confronted with the creative so-to-speak disrclation of unrelated tones jazz composers that it becomes increas­ never to know o r care what they might art ist who is problematical. is the wa y I might describe it. No one ingly difficult to keep the categories of like. His themes are not particularly These advcnturous listeners refuse to really knows where it will go. and neither jazz and nonjazz clearly divi ded. A new lovely or memorable; they are more li kely be frightened off too easily. I myself, do I. One thing is sure, however: what­ kind of cross-fertilization of our two to be expressively apt than beautifully when I encounter a piece of music whose ever the lis tener may think of it , it is with­ worlds is de\'eloping that promises an contoured. His general manner is gruff import escapes me immediately, th ink, out doubt the mOSt frustrating music ever unusual synthesis for the future. and unceremo nious, as if the matter un­ r m 1101 gellillg lhis: I shall hare /Q rome put on a performer's music stand." T hus. Ihe varieties of musical pleasure der discussion were much too important back /Q il for a st'rol1d or Ihird Iry . I don't Ihat await the attentive lis tener are to be broached in urbane or diplomatic at all mind actively d isliking a piece of S ome of the younger European com­ broadly inclusive. The art of music, with­ terms. He adopts a peremptory and hor­ contemporary music, but in order 10 feel posers have branched off into the fi rst out specific subject matter and little la lory tone. the assumpt ion being. espe­ happy about it. I must consciously under­ tent ll tive experiments with electronically specific meaning. is nonetheless a bal m cially in his most forceful work, that you stand why I dislike it. Otherwise it re­ produced music. No performers, no for the human spirit; not a refuge or es­ have no choice but to listcn. And that is mains in my mind liS unfinished business. musical instruments, no microphones are cape from the realities of existence, but a precisely what happens-you listen. This doesn't resolve the problem of the needed. But one must be able 10 record o n haven wherei n one makes contact with the Above and beyond every o ther consid­ music lover of good will who says. ·T d tape and be able 10 feed into it electro­ essence o f human experience. It is an in­ eration, Beethoven has one quality fO a li ke to like this modern stuff, but what do magnet ic vi brations, Listening to the re­ exhaustible font from which all of us can remarkable dcgree-he is enormously I do?" Well, the unvnrnished truth is that sul ts. one feels that in this case we shall be replenished . compelling. What is it he is so compelling there arc no magic formulas, no short hn ve to broaden our conception of what about? How can one not be compelled CU I$ for ma king the unfamiliar seem com­ is to be incl uded under the hending of For readers who may wish to pursue and no t be moved by the moral fervor forta bly familiar. There is no ,I dvice one musical pleasure. We will have to take the subject further, the fo llowi ng books and conviction o f such a man? His fi nest can give other than to say. " Relax­ into account areas of sound hitherto ex­ are recommended: works arc the enactment o f a triumph, a that's of first importa nce, and then lis ten cluded from the musical scheme of triumph of affirmation in the face o f the to the same pieces enough times really to things. And why not? With so many other Copland , Aaron human condition. Beet hoven is one o f matter." of man's assumptions subject to review, WI IAT TO LISTEN FOR tN M USIC the great yea-sayers among creative Fortunately not all new music must how could one expect music to remain the McGraw- Hili artists; it is exhilarating to share his clear­ be rated as difficult to comprehend. s.1me? Whatever we may think of their S3.95 e)'ed contemplati on of the tragic sum of I once had occasion 10 divide contem­ efforts. Ihese young experimenters obvi­ life. H is music summons forth o ur better porary composers into categories of rela­ ously need more time ; it is pointless to Copland, Aaron nature ; in purely musical terms Ik'e­ tive difficulty from very easy to very attempt evaluations before they have O UR NEW M usIC thoven seems 10 be exhofling us to Be tough, and a surpri sing number of com­ more fully explored the new terrain. M cGraw- Hili Noble, Be Strong, Be Great in Heart . posers fitted into the fi rst group. No discussion of musical pleasures can $4.50 yes, and Be Compassionate. These ethiea l One of the attractions of concerning be concluded wi thout mentioning thai precepts we subsume from the music. but oneself with the new in music is the pos­ ritualistic word "jazz." BUI. someone is Copland, Aaron it is the music itself-the nine sympho­ sible d iscovery of important work by the sure to ask. is jazz music serious? I'm M US IC AND IM AOtNATiON nies, the sixteen string qu,lrtets. the younger generation of composers. The afraid it is 100 late to bother with the Harl'llrd UI1I\'ersiry Press thirty-two piano sonatas-that holds us, French critic Sainte- Bcuve had this to question, since jazz, serious or not. is S2.75 and holds us in much the same way each say about discovering young talent, "~ I very much here, and it obviously pro­ time we return to it. The core of Bee­ know of no plensure more satisfying for vides pleasure. T he confusion comes, I be~ Sullivan, J. W. N. thoven's music seems indestructible; the the critic than to understand and de- lieve, from attempting to mnke the jazz B EETHOVEN ephemera of sound seem fO have little to Nell' Americall Library do with its strangely immutable sub­ S.35 stance. ;:;:::::.:~ .,-;; ~,...... Tovey, Donald Francis M y concern here wit h composers of I: : .. T HE FORMS OF M USIC the first rank like Bach and Beethoven is M eridicm Books not meant to suggest that only the great­ SU5 est names and the greatc:.t masterpieces are worth your attention. Musical art, as Hodeir, And re we hear it in our day, suffers from, if JAZZ: ITs EVOLllTlON AND EssENCE anything, an overdose of masterworks, El'ergreen &oks an obsessive fixation on the glories of the SI.45 past. This narrows the range of o ur musi­ cal experience and tends to suffocate in­ T urner, \V. J . terest in the present. It blots out many an M OZART: TU E M AN AND HIS W ORKS excellent composer whose work was less Anchor &oks than perfect. It may be carping to say so. S.95 but the fac t is that we tire of everything, even of perfection. It would be truer to Einstein, Alfred point out, it seems to me, that the forc­ A S HORT H ISTORY OF MUSIC runners of Bach have an awkward charm V;IIfage Books and simple grace that not even he could $,95 match, JUS t because of his mature perfec­ tion. The artist Dclacroix had some­ Dent, Edward J. thing of my idea when he complained " T ha t happens to be my shredded wheat !" OPERA about the playwright Racine that " per­ P(mgllill Books fection and the absence of breaks and in- S.5O