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Ron Dough
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« Reply #60 on: 14:49:40, 14-12-2007 » |
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Just before I look into the possibilities of splitting the thread, I wonder whether it might be a level of conviction in anything that can have the same effect on an artist's work.
For perhaps four centuries, the dominant conviction which inspired composers was religious, rather than political: but could that be said to have had any less or more effect on their output? If either, were exactly do the differences lie?
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Ron Dough
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« Reply #61 on: 14:59:56, 14-12-2007 » |
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I've now performed the split, which I trust will meet with general approval. If, however, there are any posts which a member feels might be better accommodated in their previous location, please let me know.
Ron
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #62 on: 15:01:26, 14-12-2007 » |
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For perhaps four centuries, the dominant conviction which inspired composers was religious, rather than political That assumes there was actually a difference between political power lying in the hands of clerics, rather than in the hands of professional politicians?  |
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
- Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
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increpatio
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« Reply #63 on: 15:02:17, 14-12-2007 » |
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It remains my view - until somebody manages to persuade me otherwise - that politics has throughout history had (by its very terms of reference and pragmatic severity) nothing but a negative and detrimental effect upon the expression of artistic ideas.
What about Cancer Ward, or, heaven forbid, animal farm? Political ideas, in literature, can be very fruitful as well. Within art, what about a lot of folk songs that would contain (perhaps subersive) political commentary; or, to take a modern composer who's very actively political musically, say Rzewski (say his variations on the Chilean revolutionary song 'La Pueblo Unido'). A lot of artistic excellence emerges in response to repressive conditions, I think. I don't think that it's doing people justice to say that their works of art are inferior to what they would have been had they, say, lived under a different system (whatever they might say about this themselves). Sure there are such things as political constraints, but at what stage they become detrimental is, I think, not at all clear-cut, anecdotal frogs notwithstanding. I think it's debatable whether music wishes to 'rise above' certain issues; sometimes (with Rzewski, say, or with folk music or rap), it seems more reasonable to me to view the ideal of *engagement* to be just as, if not more so relevant than those of political aloofness or abstract self-expression might be. |
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« Last Edit: 15:10:50, 14-12-2007 by increpatio »
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #64 on: 15:03:31, 14-12-2007 » |
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Just before I look into the possibilities of splitting the thread, I wonder whether it might be a level of conviction in anything that can have the same effect on an artist's work.
For perhaps four centuries, the dominant conviction which inspired composers was religious, rather than political: but could that be said to have had any less or more effect on their output? If either, were exactly do the differences lie?
Well, Ron, would you accept that from the point of view of a non-believer, that religious convictions are in themselves political ones, however motivated? Or at least constitute an attempt to render certain ideas, thoughts, desires that have their roots in human concerns into something purportedly spiritual? [EDIT: I realise Reiner had already made a similar type of point] |
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« Last Edit: 15:09:17, 14-12-2007 by Ian Pace »
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'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
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Bryn
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« Reply #65 on: 15:04:39, 14-12-2007 » |
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I've now performed the split, which I trust will meet with general approval. If, however, there are any posts which a member feels might be better accommodated in their previous location, please let me know.
Ron
Ron, One glaring example is surely: For a few years, in my youth, I thought I knew and admired a work for piano and wind quintet by this Wallingford Riegger. It was on a Saga LP, along with Barber's "Summer Music" and other works for chamber winds by American composers. I eventually discovered that the attribution on the record label and sleeve was erroneous. I seem to recall it was actually the Poulenc sextet for piano and winds. Ah, here is the source of the other recordings on that Saga LP: The damned image would not link, so here's the URL of the page it belongs to. I wonder if, in the distant past, the New York WInd Quinted just happened to record an LP of the Riegger and Poulenc works for piano and wind quintet? That might at least offer some sort of expalnation for the error of attribution on that Saga LP. Update:  ? |
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ahinton
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« Reply #66 on: 15:13:01, 14-12-2007 » |
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Last point: Alistair's post makes sense if one conceives the issue primarily as one of intent; but there's another way of seeing it, looking more at the work rather than the intentions behind it, and at the meanings it generates in the society and environment it inhabits. Music deemed as 'formalist' by Zhdanov (or, for that music, music denounced by Norman Tebbitt in The Sun, specifically Birtwistle's Panic) came to have a particular political meaning whether or not the composers intended it as such.
But whose intent? You are quite right to raise the issue of intent, but what I was referring to in the kind of denunciatory actions of the Zhdanovs and Khomeinis and the denunciatory expressions of the Tebbits was more the intent and motivation of the denouncers than those of the composers (the difference between the first two and third examples here being, of course, that actions followed in those first two, whereas none were taken following Tebbit's mere expression of "opinion") accordingly, I have a hard job accepting that music subjected to such denunciation came as a direct consequence "to have a particular political meaning" for anyone other than the denouncers and those whose thoughts they influenced and that, in any case, such "political meaning" would clearly have been artifically and externally imposed upon the music concerned rather than being an inherent part of it. Best, Alistair |
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IgnorantRockFan
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« Reply #67 on: 15:13:48, 14-12-2007 » |
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But I should like to know (title page apart) exactly how politics caused Beethoven to alter a single note of the Eroica. You don't think that the spirit of Revolution permeates every note? Shouldn't we be using our ears, rather than relying on mere titles (or changed titles)? I recently read about Bach writing a birthday song for the Queen of Saxony. A few years later, he wanted a song about Christmas so he took the music for the Queen's birthday song and gave it new words... hey presto, religious music! (Am I wrong? Please correct me if I misunderstood the story, because that would invalidate my point.) I was rather disturbed by this, as the notion of music (not words, music) embodying a specific idea tumbles like a house of cards. You can say that your music means something, and learned men will nod their heads and agree with your profundity, then on a whim you can declare it means something entirely different... leaving those learned men feeling pretty silly, no doubt (as with the emperor's new clothes?) |
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Allegro, ma non tanto
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Ron Dough
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« Reply #68 on: 15:16:54, 14-12-2007 » |
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Bryn, Absolutely: I'll do it as soon as I can find the required key!
Reiner and Ian (together)(!): No, I don't believe there's any difference at all, though I'd be very interested to hear if anyone does...
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #69 on: 15:20:17, 14-12-2007 » |
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I recently read about Bach writing a birthday song for the Queen of Saxony. A few years later, he wanted a song about Christmas so he took the music for the Queen's birthday song and gave it new words... hey presto, religious music! It's not inconceivable that that might simply say something about the similarity between optimum aesthetic means for glorifying a hereditary monarch, and for glorifying a particular type of religious submission? |
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'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
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ahinton
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« Reply #70 on: 15:20:31, 14-12-2007 » |
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But I should like to know (title page apart) exactly how politics caused Beethoven to alter a single note of the Eroica. You don't think that the spirit of Revolution permeates every note? Shouldn't we be using our ears, rather than relying on mere titles (or changed titles)? I recently read about Bach writing a birthday song for the Queen of Saxony. A few years later, he wanted a song about Christmas so he took the music for the Queen's birthday song and gave it new words... hey presto, religious music! And likewise it came to pass that, centuries later in another land, two knights of our realm respectively re-candled their wind and came up with A Recycle of Athene, although Michael Mansfield QC has so far appeared to express no interest in that aspect of the case as the Diana "investigations" lumber their wearisome way into their second decade... Best, Alistair |
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ahinton
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« Reply #71 on: 15:22:08, 14-12-2007 » |
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I recently read about Bach writing a birthday song for the Queen of Saxony. A few years later, he wanted a song about Christmas so he took the music for the Queen's birthday song and gave it new words... hey presto, religious music! It's not inconceivable that that might simply say something about the similarity between optimum aesthetic means for glorifying a hereditary monarch, and for glorifying a particular type of religious submission? It would arguably be inconceivable had the hereditary monarch been an atheist (which I realise was not the case in this instance, but...) Best, Alistair |
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richard barrett
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« Reply #72 on: 15:27:39, 14-12-2007 » |
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In the 18th century, temporal rulers were understood to be elements in the very same system which encompassed the theocentric cosmic order, so this example from Bach wouldn't have been in any way a contradiction.
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IgnorantRockFan
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« Reply #73 on: 15:36:00, 14-12-2007 » |
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I retire from the field, leaving behind me the vague hope that somebody more learned than myself will come up with a more clear-cut example of reusing music without reusing the idea  |
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Allegro, ma non tanto
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increpatio
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« Reply #74 on: 15:42:09, 14-12-2007 » |
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I retire from the field, leaving behind me the vague hope that somebody more learned than myself will come up with a more clear-cut example of reusing music without reusing the idea Attaching music to advertisements? (this happens often, and with the artists' permissions). |
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