Don Basilio, Each thread has a life span (some longer and some shorter). If people have nothing else to say it dies. You probably come to late for many threads when they are on the way out. May be you are busy and don't come often. I always read your threads if I see them, but often I have nothing to say (on the topic it is because I have always something to say).

We note the Member's reference to the children's game "footleball" which we understand consists of a scrabbling of the labouring classes among themselves in the dust. And very relevant it is to the progress of the discussion.

For what a twisting and turning may be noted after one short day! What a dodging and a weaving!

Specifically, three points warrant consideration as illustrations of this.

Point 1:


The only "preposterous assertion" here is the assertion that we ever made an assertion of that kind. No, we did not make it nor would we ever!

Point 2:

Two days ago we had from the Member "There is not and never has been such a thing as 'absolute music'. There is only 'relative music.'" Well that is forthright enough!

But yesterday all of a sudden we have:


Well! It has come into existence overnight!

Point 3:

The Member writes "Roger Scruton is . . . a far more informed writer than Percy Scholes."

We do not think so. Many ideas in his Grove article on "absolute music" are quite crack-brained! For example:

"The term 'absolute music' denotes not so much an agreed idea as an aesthetic problem." - WRONG!

"It names an ideal of musical purity, an ideal from which music has been held to depart in a variety of ways . . ." - WRONG!

"The best way to speak of a thing that claims to be 'absolute' is to say what it is not." - WRONG!

"Liszt and Wagner insisted that the absence of words from music did not entail the absence of meaning. Liszt's Programm-Musik and Wagner's Gesamtkunstwerk both arose from the view that all music was essentially meaningful and no music could be considered more absolute than any other." If that is really so, then Liszt and Wagner were - WRONG! If it is not really so (the more probable case), then R. Scruton is - WRONG!

"No music can be absolute if it seeks to be understood in terms of an extra-musical meaning, whether the meaning lies in a reference to external objects or in expression of the human mind." - WRONG!

"For Richter music was absolute in that it expressed a presentiment of the divine in nature; for Hoffmann it became absolute through the attempt to express the infinite in the only form that renders the infinite intelligible to human feeling. To borrow the terminology of Hegel: music is absolute because it expresses the Absolute." - Absolutely WRONG!

"The notion of the 'absolute' in music has . . . become inseparably entangled with the problem of musical expression." - utterly WRONG!

"It might be argued that music is absolute when it is not applied, or when it is not subjected to any purpose independent of its own autonomous movement." - entirely WRONG!

"Absolute music must be understood as pure form, according to canons that are internal to itself. Unfortunately, such a positive definition of the term raises another philosophical problem: what is meant by ‘understanding music’? And can there be a form of art which is understood in terms that are wholly internal to itself?" - ALL WRONG!

"Attempts by the advocates of absolute music to answer those questions have centred on two ideas: objectivity and structure. Their arguments have been presented in this century most forcefully by the Austrian theorist Heinrich Schenker and by Stravinsky. Music becomes absolute by being an 'objective' art, and it acquires objectivity through its structure. To say of music that it is objective is to say that it is understood as an object in itself, without recourse to any semantic meaning, external purpose or subjective idea. It becomes objective through producing appropriate patterns and forms." - All very WRONG and utterly MISLEADING to boot!

"It should be noted that 'absolute' music, so defined [as 'essentially a structural art' - which in fact it is not], means more than 'abstract' music." - WRONG!

"The advocacy of absolute music has brought with it a view of musical understanding that is as questionable as anything written by Liszt in defence of the symphonic poem." - WRONG!

Members will be beginning to see what we mean about Scruton - he is impossible to pin down!

Finally,


If the Member expects an "analysis" he will be disappointed. There is not much to analyse. It is more of a horror-stricken description than anything else. Of course it describes only our first hearing. We intend to give it up to seven hearings if necessary, and to contribute a new message after each one.

Absolutely !

What are your thoughts about the relationship between absolute music and psychological music? That is, where one starts viewing music in psychological terms, drawing conclusions about the composer's emotional state from their music, and viewing the music in the light of our knowledge of their mental state.

I was reading the inlay to Bentzon's tempered piano box set last night, and he said something to the effect that this was not usually the case with him (something like that he might feel inspired to write a piece of music to a garden shrub, and have the final work come out representing a basement dance), which would indicate to me that such analyses in his case mightn't be too fruitful.

Let me assure Member Grew that nothing less than a meticulous and credible analysis will be acceptable. If this is not delivered, I shall simply ignore the posting as a total and intentionally-disinformative irrelevance. Member Grew knows perfectly well of what proper musical analysis should consist, and is fully expected to live up to those standards of insight, criticism, and presentation.

The signs are not good though: his second sentence (above) is simply plain stupidity, while his third sentence already (even before an analysis has been commenced) shows fairly clearly the sheer banality we are likely to witness from Member Grew. I hope to be proved wrong, but am not too optimistic.

Baz

Perish the thought! I should hope to partake of others' possible enjoyment, not to spoil it.

Baz

We are no experts Don Basil but we are no stiff and stuffy traditionalists. We break with the Oxford English Dictionary on your point. It defines "absolute music" as you will know as "self-dependent instrumental music without literary or other extraneous suggestions."

But we turn to Tovey whom upon this question it is impossible to ignore. In his first passage quoted in message 1 of this thread he tells us about Bach, Mozart, Brahms, Beethoven and words. It will repay your inspection tenfold we think! Then but only after reading that first passage turn to his fourth passage quoted in the same message 1 and take particular heed of the word "merely" in its final phrase.

Then tell us what you think. Does not his force irresistably at once sway one?