The Great Discussion

There has been some awesome discourse via Matt Wascher, who I did my undergrad with. I put up this post and he actually responded, which I'm not used to on this tiny, tiny blog. I think he and I share a lot of ideas about music in general, seeing as I am not butting heads with his comments. I thought I'd move the discourse to another entry and chime in again.

Matt asked what I made of the "cult of genius," where classical institutions label particular musicians in history as a "genius" It plays into antiquated ideas from German romanticism. Humanism was the big thing, and great works of art elevated those who created them. This in itself isn't a bad thing. But it also creates issues with categorization and leaves the rest of the composers, the "not-geniuses," in the dust (such as Salieri being thought of as not-Mozart instead of considered for his vast popularity in his day).

This is how I originally responded:
I don't know where I stand on it. Conflicted yet proud of my classical training. After all, the discipline inherent in the system is character-building. It's important to learn good technique so that you can have the freedom to move past it and make your own artistic decisions. And part of that has to do with the music you want to perform.

There's so much out there that it takes a long time to go beyond the indoctrinated canon, but that's ok. You have to start somewhere, and I do think that generally, cliches in music do happen for a reason. After all, it's Beethoven's 5th we know and love, but that doesn't mean we hold all his pieces in the same esteem. We do not generally hear his Wellington's Victory (which was really famous in its day but today is ignored as a piece with little substance). I think the classical canon has its faults, but the faults are more of exclusion than what has been chosen and validated. The pieces there are incredible works of art.

I do feel, however, that the classical canon reflects a disturbing point: musicology as a discipline originated in Germany, which could be partially to blame for the prominence of German composers in the canon. In reading about composers from other countries, I'm forced to ask what I've missed out on.

I guess my opinion of the cult of genius is that it, like everything, has been incredibly subjective. The bearded white dudes have decided the pantheon of composers and we've been along for the ride. I suppose one reason I want to be a musicologist is to examine the questions that nag me about music that I can't answer through performance. Another reason is because there are so many things about the institutions that uphold this music that I don't agree with...and upon which I like to ruminate through this blog and in my grad papers.


Matt gave a lot of response to this. One snippet I thought was particularly of interest:


I've come to think the reason we believe that Mozart should be played differently than Beethoven is that we place a premium on trying to understand the thinking and decipher the intent of composers. Is music about what a composer was intending or what I, with whatever notions and biases I might have, get from the music regardless of what the composer might have thought? Our training certainly leans toward the former, though a more cynical view might be that it is simply necessary as it makes music, which cannot really be objectively judged for value, more restrictive and better allows a class of elite musicians to have market value and survive.


To this, my most powerful example is that of violinists playing unaccompanied Bach. On one end of the spectrum, you get Rachel Podger, who plays on a period instrument with period tunings. Her reconstruction is beautiful. It has so much buoyancy and brings the spirit of the dance to the music.


But, in my training, I have had several teachers say they don't believe Bach needs to be historically accurate in performance. They place it outside of the burden of performance practice. Several teachers have said that the ultimate beauty of this music is that, although we're playing it at A 400 with a modern carbon fiber bow and steel strings, the music is just as effective when it's performed well. Certain things about the technique will not change; you still have to approach the chords the same way to give the proper voicing to the line, etc. So in some cases, the more things change, the more they stay the same. 


I agree with both sides. I like having variety, I like having a new approach to music I've known all my life. But just because I heard Rachel Podger doesn't mean I can't discredit somebody like Hilary Hahn, whose recording I heard first in the sixth grade. She captivated me and I will always hear the unaccompanied Bach through a Hilary Hahn filter because of the incredible impact that recording had on me.


And isn't that the point? She wasn't using Rachel Podger's authentic instruments and tunings, but both recordings completely resonated with me. In the end, sometimes I care about composer intent, and sometimes I just want to turn my brain off and just enjoy music in the present tense without the benefit of my academic thought process, because my teachers were right; there's something about certain pieces that does seem to transcend technique and intellectual schools of performance. The pieces survive regardless of how they are performed, so on some level, the end question is simply whether the performance was effective, not whether it was correct. There is no right answer, and yet most of the answers manage to be correct somehow.