Stirling Newberry <[log in to unmask]>:

>If Doctor Chasan needs more material on Mahler's philosophical and
>sociological bent, it isn't hard to come by.  But this should not be
>strange - many artists of that period had expressly sociological ideas, and
>some even melded them with their work.  No one has problems understanding
>that Strauss' "Also Sprach Zarathustra" has a philosophical subtext, or
>Wagner's Ring.

I think Wagners Ring is a bad example, as studying the Ring is a lifelong
project.  The Ring is so complex with its duration, the plots all knots,
the web of leitmotifs....and many ideas influenced Wagner in this work,
which he used more than 20 years for composing.  It is certainly not so
you just "understand the philosophical subtext"!  Schopenauer, Socialism
and Communism, and ethics, so much influenced Wagner under all those years,
and he managed to bake in a whole world in Niebelungen.  You can study
everything that Wagner thought for a whole life, and also everything that
he did not think, as a work of this caliber and complexity, inholds
automatically so much material that opens for even more interpretations.
I'd like to say "Everything I know, I have learnt from Niebelungen".

>Brahms had sociological ideas, but felt that it was important that music
>*not* participate in that discourse, because it was one of the signs of
>musical radicalism that he held in a certain contempt.

I think this absolutism in music is simply meek.  And I like better those
composers who reflected the thoughts and philosophical streams of their
time.  That is for me a certian kind of greatness, as it requires much
intellecual work, to take where Schubert in his symphonies and songs,
illustrate the GoetheZeit (possible Haydn too), Beethoven, Wagner, Mahler,
Sjostakovitj....but not in Brahms, Chopin, Bach and those boys.

Bernard Chasan <[log in to unmask]> writes:

>Perhaps, but listening to "Zarathustra" isn't precisely like reading the
>book.  I challenge Stirling to pass a quiz on the book on the basis of the
>tone poem.  And to understand The Ring*, I assume that you have got to go
>through all those dwarves and gods and listen to all that great music.  You
>don't just read a book.

I tend to very often nod when I read Stirlings thoughts, but this time I
have to agree with mr.  Chasan, the Ring certainly needs the music as
propulsor, and it lets more be said and more thoughts come out.

The libretto of the Ring is very well thought through, and I can enjoy the
Ring just reading the libretto.  But there are so many subtilities that the
music bring, it strengthens and enriches the story in every centimeter.

>The point is that of course, music can express all kinds of things, but in
>its own difficult to pin down way.  I find it odd and intriguing that some
>members of this list deny that music can express emotions while others are
>quite sure that it can communicate the most subtle, specific, and complex
>sociological and philosophical ideas.

That is why art seems so rich, although its "universal" values not solely
is counted.  I don't find it strange that people percieve art so different,
because people are different.  We need, and I know some people will look
up in the ceiling when they read this, consider the genetic codes, as a
first element.  Look in peoples faces; are many people looking the same or
different? Every human being has what we define as a face, but all faces
are different.  This is thanks to the genetic coding, and why shouldn't the
same be valid for the brain? Then there is the input of course, which also
is determined by cutural heritage, what can be different not just for
different people, but also for just subcultures.  No one will have hte same
coding nor the same inputs.  There are as many ideas about art as there are
people.

Mats Norrman
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