What Is Musical Genius?

I MEDICINE, MUSIC AND THE MIND What is musical genius? Paul Robertson Paul Robertson ABSTRACT – While musical genius must have implicit (or ‘tacit’) cultural attitudes may well also FRSA, Founder neuro-biological basis it is defined and under- account for many other apparent anomalies around Leader, Medici stood within prevailing cultural frameworks. In musical genius, eg that historically there have been String Quartet; order to measure it historic and aesthetic tradi- virtually no ‘great’ woman classical composers and Visiting Professor tions and assumptions need to be considered. indeed until relatively recently, with the exception of in Music and Child prodigies and savants are discussed as well some operatic divas, relatively few famous female Medicine, Peninsula as traditional associations that suggest that performers of ‘genius’ (Clara Schumann steps out of Medical School; depression and the melancholic personality have the pages of musical history as a veritable colossus in Associate Fellow, Templeton/Green particular relevance in musical creativity and this context). College, Oxford; originality. Chief Executive, Musical excellence – the historical view The Music Mind KEY WORDS: child prodigies, melancholic Spirit Trust personality, musical genius Current Western definitions of musical genius tend to include certain key capabilities, for example tech- Clin Med nical mastery, virtuosity, emotional depth, integrity, 2008;8:178–81 Genius: a person of great intelligence, who shows an exceptional natural capacity of intellect, especially as shown in originality, understanding and transcendence. Some creative and original work. Geniuses always show strong commentators also include exceptional memory and individuality and imagination, and are not only intelligent, precociousness in this list. Surprisingly few of these but unique and innovative. (Wikipedia) qualities, however, feature in earlier historical views of musical excellence. From this definition, it would be tempting to In Ancient Rome, the genius was the guiding spirit assume that specifically musical genius must be self- of a person, or clan (gens) and in their mythology, evident. After all, surely such exceptional giftedness every man had a genius and every woman a juno would be instantly recognisable? Unfortunately, (Juno was also the queen of the gods). The compa- defining a complex, integrated and culturally specific rable Arabic term is djinn which is more familiar to concept such as ‘genius’ proves notoriously tricky in most of us in the anglicised form, ‘genie’ – a power- practice. The German musician and poet Christian fully magical but notoriously fickle eminence. One of Friedrich Schubart (1739–91) hints at the scope of the earliest descriptions of this artistic ‘genius’ is the problem: Plato’s (c. 427 BC–c. 347 BC) who says, ‘not by art does the poet sing, but by power divine’ and goes on Musical genius is rooted in the heart and receives its from this to suggest that, since art requires inspira- impressions through the ear…. All musical geniuses are tion, the artist must literally be out of his ‘senses’ (or self-taught, for the fire that animates them carries them ‘mind’). John Dryden (1631–1700) maintained that away irresistibly to seek their own flight orbit…. ‘great wits are sure to madness near allied’, while as Nevertheless, no musical genius can reach perfection early as 1517 Joachim Vadian criticised musicians without cultivation and training. Art must perfect what who, ‘believe themselves to be lacking in genius, Nature sketched in the raw.1 unless their demeanor is frivolous and dubious, and To define and identify genius, one simple approach who act as if seized by Platonic madness’. would be to assess and measure exceptionally high This supposed association between musical genius functioning. However, while it is relatively straight- and ‘madness’ continues to the present day, under- forward to calibrate a cluster of abilities that lie at, lying many of our tacit assumptions about musical say, the 0:1% high-end of the musical bell curve, a creativity and the artists’ role and status. Although number of difficulties arise from this approach. the cultural language phrases this concept of the Alternatively, an attempt can be made to define the ‘divine’ spark somewhat differently, the ‘inspired’ more complex and essentially aesthetic qualities that musician is still favoured over the master craftsman exist as a corollary between artistic ‘genius’ and and because of this bizarre behaviours are accepted, ‘greatness’. Since cultures are themselves defined by and even encouraged, from our musical ‘geniuses’. such ‘implicit’ aesthetic distinctions, this is infinitely When the Roman playwright Seneca (c. 4 BC–AD 65) more challenging – and potentially rewarding. These says ‘there is no great genius without a touch of mad- 178 Clinical Medicine Vol 8 No 2 April 2008 What is musical genius? ness’ he touches a chord with our current thinking and shared However, as divine authority increasingly passed to monarchs cultural values. Like the Ancient Greeks (who established these and their courts an increasing appetite for novelty and finally values) there is a certain ambivalence here. We also define ‘sci- the development of musical fashion is detected. This was ence’ and ‘madness’ according to a fundamentally intellectual inevitably accompanied by a revision of musical excellence ethos, in which the ‘rational’ is held to define ‘truth’ more than towards our modern one, in which novelty becomes a defining our more disturbing (djinn-like?) ‘intuitive’, irrational/emo- quality of ‘genius’. So by the 15th century we find Tinctoris tional experience. Medicine has helped perpetuate this. A highly (c. 1435–1511) archly remarking that, ‘The French freshly invent esteemed psychiatrist and amateur violist friend told me that, as new songs every day, whereas the English keep writing in one recently as the 1940s, standard textbooks of psychiatry included and the same style – surely a sign of a wretched talent’. Othmar ‘artist’ in their list of abnormalities of mind, the rationale being Luscinius initiated a longstanding debate over cultural rela- that ‘an artist is an obsessive individual driven by internal tivism, writing in 1536, ‘Each epoch has its own laws, its own imperatives that have no external reality’. Our culture is not taste…in music, he who does not excel the past becomes the alone in paying homage to the irrational power of music. The laughing stock of all’. These philosophical changes introduce the creative Shamanic musical healing traditions and traditional notion of musical originality as a necessary trait of excellence ‘possession’ ceremonies of musical Tarantism, still practiced and hence, inevitably, an essential ingredient of genius itself. worldwide, also offer cultural homage to the power of such musical ‘inspiration’. Within their cultural milieu these frenzied Child prodigies, autism and personality musician dancers are not ‘out of their minds’ but rather in a spiritually significant ‘altered state’ without which their lives The idea that musical and other forms of artistic inspiration go would be immeasurably impoverished. with particular personality structures is an ancient one. Aristotle Down the ages, writers and philosophers have developed (384–322 BC – Problem XXX, 1)3 is quite specific about what he increasingly sophisticated models to reconcile the apparent con- considered the fundamental artistic pathology, ‘Why is it that all tradiction between ‘mind’ and ‘spirit’. Here is Glareanus in 1547: those who have become eminent in philosophy or politics or poetry or the arts are clearly melancholics?’. Although to the the melodic inventor and the contrapuntist are more to be ascribed to ancient Greeks, as one of the four ‘humours’ or ‘temperaments’, the energies of genius, and to some natural and inborn talent, than to Melancholy signified the introverted and reflective introspective craftsmanship…it appears certain that neither is possible for a man personality rather than anything approaching clinical depres- unless he is born for it, or, as the people say, unless his mother gave it to sion, nonetheless the association was established. In the him.2 Renaissance, the dubious honour of cementing this notion This dichotomy is still being played out in the continuing debate belongs to Marsilio Ficino (1433–99) who gave shape to the idea over nature versus nurture. Continuing the same theme, more of the melancholy man of genius and revealed it to the rest of than a 1,000 years ago Boethius (c. AD 480–524) unkindly sug- Europe. During the Elizabethan period such intense moral gested that performers ‘bring no rational powers to bear on introspection was generally thought to be morally admirable. music [and] since they are merely mechanical are utterly devoid This notion that musical genius and pathological mental dis- of the capacity for thought’. He derided composers equally, by turbance share a kind of unholy alliance is extremely doubtful. I adding another twist: ‘in composing they are not motivated by do not know of any established association between organic philosophical speculation, but by some natural instinct’. Here mental illness and enhanced creativity (although it is worth again we see a philosophy that holds the rational (‘ratio’) as the reading Oliver Sacks’s articles about Tourette’s syndrome and supreme human faculty and considers mere sensory experience accelerated cognition4,5) and historically, if alcoholism and ter- (what

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