Mimi's post, to which I'd previously written a reply that was more a
comment than a response, got me to thinking a bit more about a thread
to which I haven't paid much attention since reading its original post.
The joys Mimi so eloquently describes that are experienced by lovers of
music who also have musical training are indeed beyond question, especially
by those of us who are "musical illiterates". Perhaps, however, it
responds to an argument that wasn't (or shouldn't have been) really raised.
Proceeding from the "illiteracy" analogy, I could conceivably enjoy
many, if not most, works of literature if I were illiterate and had
the works read to me. Some works, admittedly, lose something in the
oral transmission. Puns may be lost. So may allusions to words of
similar spelling in another language, or even in the language of the text.
Sometimes, even typography or text arrangement may be an integral part of
the text that cannot be transmitted orally. But, frankly, very little of
my reading extends to Joyce, Nabokov, e.e. cummings, and a few others
who endow their texts with various forms of verbal counterpoint; the
overwhelming remainder would probably give me the same pleasure if read to
me as it would if I read it myself. Continuing the analogy, were I a poet
or a writer of literary prose, that ability would give me an additional
measure of enjoyment that mere passive lovers of literature do not
experience. (Let's leave out of consideration, for the moment, the
illiterate poets [Homer, maybe?], just as we're not considering untrained
musicians who nevertheless play and compose.)
And so I, untrained as I may be, get what for me is a full measure of
enjoyment listening to J.S. Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert,
Brahms, as well as Mahler, Bartok, Prokoffiev, Shostakovich, and Britten,
and also Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, Sessions, Rorem, plus a host of others
I've left out because I'm not intending to make this post a list of my
faves. Yes, w/ more training, I'd no doubt have greater insight into some
of these composers' works than mere listening can provide, just as more
erudition would give me a greater appreciation for Joyce's "Anna Livia",
hearing which, especially when read by Joyce (as I have on a recording),
can be a delight.
I envy David Runnion the joys of playing Ravel, and Mimi, those of
playing Haydn. But while these are pleasures I can never experience, this
doesn't prevent me from enjoying my Haydn and my Ravel at my level and even
from doing so critically. In my college days, I practically knew every
Beethoven symphony, concerto and quartet, every Handel Concerto Grosso (Op.
6), Mozart Quintet, Bartok Quartet, Haydn Op. 76 Quartet, every Brahms
symphony concerto and quartet, among other works, almost by heart and
could place these works from hearing only a few notes from anywhere in a
performance. I've lost much of that as I got older and maybe I wouldn't
have with more musical training although I doubt it.
Thus, while I wouldn't label those who argue the pleasures uniquely
enjoyable by those w/ such training as "Puritanical" (I believe Puritans
were opposed to pleasure on principle anyway), I disagree with them to the
extent they argue that an inability to experience those pleasures
forecloses full enjoyment of music, even if such enjoyment is of another
sort.
Walter Meyer
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