I've followed this discussion with quite a bit of interest and, not knowing
when to look away from a car wreck, decided to weigh in with my opinions.
Bill Pirkle wrote:
>I was asking if the composer "owned" the style, not could they be
>indentified by it. Put another way, does the composer have exclusive,
>non-transferable rights to the style as if imitating it violates something.
>I see a composer's style a their contribution to the art of composition, as
>Chopin taught us to expand the harmonies from inside an octave to inside a
>tenth. Surely he did not feel that he had invented something that he had
>exclusive rights to, so why should we. In art, there were artists that
>showed us how to use perspective, coloring and shading, subject treatment,
>brush strokes, etc. Nobody thinks that using these is copying someone's
>style.
There is an inherent difference in studying someone else's style and
replicating that person's style. In the former, his or her style may very
well appear in your work; in the latter, his or her style will become your
work. Let's use your example of Chopin and expansion of harmonies beyond
an octave. You could certainly find that type of harmony in composers
other than Chopin, and, if I were to compose something, I might use it
myself. But that alone make it the style of Chopin -- to make you think it
is Chopin, it would take a lot more than just a specific type of harmonic
voicing.
And I doubt that, as Chopin wrote his pieces, he thought to himself, "I
wonder if I can patent this," just as I doubt that Picasso thought that as
he painted, or Dickens as he wrote. Can I be certain? No. But I would
like to believe that creation is not as cold-blooded as patents and
"non-transferable rights."
Again, learning from Chopin's gorgeous harmonies, or Picasso's use of
color, or Dickens's prose, is not anything to be ashamed of -- indeed,
it is something any aspiring musician, artist, or writer should do. But
shamelessly imitating one of the above masters will not prove original
thought (or provide it to the rest of the world) and it will certainly not
contribute to the living tradition (as one lister put it, IMHO eloquently)
that is classical music.
In discussing the Etudes of Chopin, Bill Pirkle then wrote:
>Do we really know what Chopin was trying to teach?.
Well, that is one way to avoid discussion. No, we can never be certain of
what Chopin was trying to teach. But it is remarkably convenient to notice
that each etude presents a specific pianistic problem, and the mastery of
each etude effectively solves that problem. Are you saying that this was
an accident, and Chopin was not planning on using these Etudes to help his
students? I think that those with better reference material than I could
easily deflect that argument.
Mimi Ezust wrote:
>> Somehow I doubt that the really great composers were thinking about
>> teaching while they were composing.
And Bill Pirkle responded with:
>Surely they realized that someone was going to "learn" something from
>them.
Mimi's distinction stands -- was teaching first in their minds while
composing? There isn't a whole lot of argument that, if our hypothetical
Bach or Chopin were to think about it, he would have figured out that
someone would learn something from his works. But I think that in most
cases, they were not thinking about teaching. But this is where we
disagree:
>Surely Bach was trying to teach something. What they were trying to
>teach us is how to composer music in their style and I think that it was
>implied that it is OK for use to use it.
Do we really know what Bach was trying to teach (to use your own
line against you)? I am not in agreement here. Yes, Bach was trying
to teach something. But not necessarily was he attempting to teach his
compositional methods, and I disagree that he handed over the "rights" to
his style merely by writing in that style.
(I hope that, if I were to write a novel, you would not then tell me that
by writing it, I had been attempting to teach you my style and that I
implied that it was OK for you to use it. That hardly seems fair, no less
legal.)
I think that Bach developed his style and that will be his, forever. You
are certainly free to study his music and his methods and learn from them,
but I do not believe that anyone would create something merely to give
others the right to imitate him. I don't think that was Bach's purpose.
>It is not only OK to write varitations on a Beethoven theme,
>its OK if they sound like Beethoven wrote them.
This is the distinction between writing a set of variations and discovering
that it sounds like Beethoven wrote them and writing them with the goal of
Beethoven in mind (see below).
>Why can't one compose a symphony today that sounds like
>it came from the 19th century?. What's wrong with that?.
There is a difference in composing a symphony and finding that it sounds
like it came from the 19th (or 18th, or 17th) century, and composing a
symphony *so that* it sounds like it came from that century. You mentioned
earlier that you are interested in the future of classical music, but now
you are talking about living in the past. Music must progress -- and if,
in that progression, it appears to regress, then perhaps that is good. But
to start out with the past in mind, that doesn't bode well for the future
of classical music.
Finally, Bill Pirkle wrote (in two different posts):
>>> As I have said before (on this list, I think) The only question concerning
>>> a piece of music is "did you enjoy hearing it, and would you like to hear
>>> it again sometime". What else matters? ...
>
>I would like you to offer MCML a long list of what matters except the music
>itself - enlighten me.
I believe that you are skipping an important semantic distinction. There
is a difference between my perceived enjoyment of the music and "the music
itself." I don't think that many MCML members would say that the music
doesn't matter (that seems ridiculous to me, personally), but my feelings
of a piece the moment I hear it -- those are not always relevant. My
feelings at the time of listening, the time of day, the way in which I hear
it (in the car, while doing homework, at a concert, from a friend, etc.),
and more can all impact my answers to the questions, "Did I enjoy hearing
it?" and ":Would I like to it again?"
The difference between the questions you mentioned and the music is the
difference between a subjective and an objective measurement. And as much
as I would love to base all my opinions on spur-of-the-moment subjective
measurements, I hardly think that is the way to gain long-term enjoyment
and fulfillment from classical music.
I apologize for the length of my post, and, if you made it this far, hope
it wasn't too painful.
Sincerely,
Jeff Grossman
<[log in to unmask]>
|