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Prologue: Experiencing Music

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Prologue: Experiencing Music Prologue: Experiencing music Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent. -.Victor Hugo, William Shakespeare, 1864 Throughout the millennia of our existence, human beings have danced, worked, battled, entertained, loved, laughed, cried, and died to music. The sounds of music are said to be endowed with powers: to sooth, console, and energise; to enhance physical and emotional wellbeing; to facilitate and enrich conduct of non-musical activities; and to act as icons of sacred collective meanings as well as inducers of cherished subjective meanings. Today it is difficult to imagine any public ceremony or private function associated with the important transitions of life, indeed with almost any part of life, devoid of music. Music is so ubiquitous that it often blends into the background only noticed by its absence, or, when the music does not align with our tastes, by its unwanted and intrusive presence. The widespread use of music as recreational activity, mood enhancer, and soundtrack to life, has undoubtedly served the pecuniary interests of a multi-billion dollar global industry. Even so, a chief factor in the industry’s success is not of its own making but is located in humanity’s insatiable appetite for music. Neurologist and author, Oliver Sacks (2008), suggests that the habitual craving for music exhibited by most humans, (but definitely not all), amounts to an obsession that he labels musicophilia. One of the key characteristics of human musicophilia is our perception, our insistence, that music has meaning. Interest in the meanings of music in human experience has a venerable heritage among scholars and music lovers alike. This interest has generated a vast, multifaceted, and ever- expanding literature. It is reasonable, then, that the search for music’s meanings turns first to the discipline for which music is the chief concern, that is, musicology. It is somewhat disappointing to find that until fairly recently musicologists, music theorists, and music analysts, took the meaningfulness of music for granted and bracketed the study of musical 1 meaning from the sanctioned interests of the discipline. Instead, musicology generally has tended to focus on the scientific study of the mechanisms by which pieces of music are composed and notated, the historical development of music, and the stylistics of performance. These are all valid aspects of musical understanding and they may serve as the foundations of rich personal meanings for some musicians, music theorists, and others. However, in my experience, although trained to perceive and understand the mechanisms, structures, and disciplinary terminology of music, I would not place the perception or description of such mechanisms high up on any list of factors sustaining my fascination with music. Nor, on the basis of informal observations, would I say that they are common in the meanings of music recounted by others. More often music lovers, myself included, justify their appetite for and meanings of music in terms akin to Nietzsche (1886/1990, p. 111), who states that music is ‘something for the sake of which life is worth living’. Nietzsche’s famous statement eloquently summarises the residual impacts of our responses to music, and yet it remains tantalizingly silent about the specifics of phenomenal1 experience underpinning the powerful responses to, and cherished meanings, of particular pieces of music. Personal Meanings of Music Eminent and often controversial musicologist Susan McClary states that she was drawn to music research because she wanted evidence that she was not alone in experiencing ‘overwhelming responses’ (McClary, 2002, p. 4) when she listened to music and that others derived meaning from music. Like McClary, I too experience overwhelming responses to music, which can leave me feeling uplifted, consoled, calmed, or energised. I also wonder at the diversity of responses to music and the incredible variety in meanings attributed to specific pieces music in particular. My interests, however, move beyond musicological concerns about underlying musical mechanisms to embrace the social 1 In this thesis the term ‘phenomenal’ refers to experiences perceived by the senses, the feelings of immediate experience (Chalmers, 1997). 2 dimensions of music and its meanings in everyday experience. As Kotarba (2014, para. 1) neatly expresses it, these interests lie in ‘… the ways people seek meaning for life and life’s problems through their group memberships and activities’. It is important to clarify at this early stage that the inquiry reported in this thesis accepts that pieces of music can be meaningful in the sense that they have been heard before, that they can be identified, and that the particular contexts of having heard them, such as being the theme of a television program or advertisement, can be recalled. However, such merely factual recollections are not the focus of this inquiry. Nor does the inquiry seek meanings of music in a reductionist sense such as ‘the’ one and only universally agreed meaning of, say, The Beatles’ song ‘Lucy in the sky with diamonds’ or of Bach’s Goldberg Variations. Rather, investigations focus on personal meanings: on what meanings in the smaller scale, idiographic, and subjective sense might tell us about how meanings adhere to The Beatles, Bach, or to any other piece of music, and what functions such meanings play in our everyday lives. To clarify the types of musical meanings that are the focus of this inquiry, two pieces of music and a range of personal meanings ascribed to them are presented. The first set of personal meanings is embedded by the poet Schober and composer Schubert in the song ‘An die Musik’ (To Music). The second set of personal meanings are offered by the playwright Shaffer about the ‘Adagio’ from Mozart’s Serenade for 13 wind instruments, known as the Gran Partita. These examples illustrate a range of meanings of music and serve to elegantly and musically evoke the particular interests of this inquiry. Early in the 19th century, Austrian poet Franz Schober wrote ‘An die Musik’, an ode expressing gratitude for the beneficial roles music played in his life. Schober’s poem may well have faded into obscurity had his composer friend, the then 20 year old Franz Schubert, not set it to music. Schubert’s noble melody and appealing harmonies combine with Schober’s poem to create a profound and eloquent expression of the ability of music to temporarily take us out of ourselves, our situations, and away from our anxieties. 3 View a performance of ‘An die Musik’ Click the link on the picture or click on Tack 1 of the accompanying DVD. Singer: Dame Janet Baker Accompanist: Murray Perahia Venue: Royal Opera House, London An die Musik Du holde Kunst, in wievel grauen Studen Oft hat ein Seufzer, deiner Harf entflossen Wo mich des Lebens wilder Kreis umstricht, Ein süsse, heliger Akkord von dir Hast du mein Herz zu warmer Lieb entzunden, Den Himmel bessrer Zeiten mir erschlossen, Hast mich in einer bessre Welt entruct! Du holde Kunst, ich danke dir dafur! Schubert and Schober (1817/1928, p. 236) You sacred art, in how many grey hours, Often has a sigh from your harp flowed When life’s wild turmoil has surrounded me, A sweet, holy chord from you Have you filled my heart with warm love, Lifted me to a heaven of better times Have carried me to a better world! You noble Art, I thank you for that!2 Figure 1. An die Music (To Music) German poem (1817), English transliteration (2009), and a performance (1978) of the Schubert/Schober: Song ‘An die Musik’ (To Music), Opus 88 No. 4 illustrating musical meanings. Reproduced from Youtube. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pt19nrxdVb4. Copyright 1978 by British Broadcasting Corporation. Schober’s words in ‘An die Musik’, amplified by Schubert’s music, articulate a number of meanings of music. For example, that sweet chords fill the poet’s heart with love, and that music offers respite by transporting him imaginatively to a better place. This poem/song suggests that for Schober and Schubert an important meaning of music was what it could do for them, for example, acting as a kind of anti-depressant or tonic for their romantic melancholy. 2 Transliteration by Dennis Foster, October 2009. 4 The second example is drawn from the words of the character Salieri in Peter Shaffer’s fictional play, Amadeus. Salieri, in the play and in real life, was a musician and composer who in Mozart’s lifetime held the position of Imperial Kapellmeister at the Hapsburg’s court in Vienna. Salieri describes his responses to the ‘Adagio’ from Mozart’s Gran Partita. View the scene from Amadeus, (1984) Click the link on the picture or click on Tack 2 of the accompanying DVD. Actor: F. Murray Abraham Producer: Saul Zaentz Director: Milos Forman SALIERI: On the page it looked nothing. The beginning simple, almost comic. Just a pulse – bassoons, basset horns - like a rusty squeezebox. Then suddenly, high above it, an oboe. A single note, hanging there unwavering, until a clarinet took it over and sweetened it into a phrase of such delight! This was no composition by a performing monkey! This was a music I'd never heard. Filled with such longing, such unfulfillable longing, it had me trembling. It seemed to me that I was hearing the voice of God. (Shaffer, 1984, Scene 41) Figure 2. Dialogue and performance of Scene 41 of film Amadeus Words and performance of Scene 41 from the film of Shaffer’s (1984) play Amadeus illustrating musical meaning making. Reproduced from Youtube. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxgZcMGmkkI.Copyright 1984 for screenplay Paul Zaents Orion Films. Copyright 1984 by Warner Bros Productions.
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