# Classical vs. popular: Convergence?



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Another thread makes me think....

Classical music has been considered "music made permanent in written form, which must be reproduced by performers." However, now there is an increasing body of electronic and perhaps other music that doesn't fit this description, that's recorded but can't really be reproduced. Essentially, it's "music as artifact."

At the same time popular music, which has in the past been closer to pure "performance art" and not dependent on a written score, now is often "frozen" in form by recordings. Again, "music as artifact."

Is there some kind of convergence here? Does "classical" vs. "popular" mean anything now? In ten years?

What do you think?


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## crmoorhead (Apr 6, 2011)

I think that your original definitions are too rigid and don't adequately describe the differences between classical and popular music. 

'Written' down in the form of recordings is not the same thing as a written and published score. The very intention of creating a 'classical' work is to have it performed by other groups of people and the score enables this, along woth all helpful instructions made by the composer. Even aleatory works that are different with every performance are based on some initial set of instructions. Like a board game that is essentially the same but different every time. With popular music, recordings are made so that people can enjoy the music created by that group of people. There isn't really the suggestion that a band wants to write a song so that everyone else can perform it. There is a very string link between composer and performer. Whether the music is written down or not doesn't really make a lot of difference - popular musicians are simply a lot more 'literate' than they were in the past, but the link between performer and composer is still the strongest difference, IMO. Classical composers write music that is, in most cases, beyond them to perform. Even in the case of solo pieces where the composer possesses the talent, the preference is towards a professional musician to do the performance/recording. 

There are, however, perhaps half a dozen characteristics of popular music that seperate it from classical. I won't discuss them all here and will instead say that there are other significant gulfs between each divergent characteristic that would have to be bridged for the two to merge. Music is, and always has been, more of a multi-dimensional Venn diagram where genres are defined loosely but where portions of overlap are accepted as not breaking the definition. Popular music has an appeal to a different demographic than classical music for a number of reasons which invalidate neither. Each has evolved to serve a purpose and, as in nature, they cannot become the same creature once their paths have parted.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

crmoorhead said:


> ...Each has evolved to serve a purpose and, as in nature, they cannot become the same creature once their paths have parted.


I disagree to the extent that there are _"universal goals"_ in the creation of all music, be it popular or classical, which reflect basic human needs: the need to succeed, the need to belong, the need to be liked, and so on.

Classical music has a much longer history than popular music (meaning recorded popular music), thanks to notated scores.

In terms of attaining "artistic status," this gives classical a distinct advantage, because a score is a _"DNA blueprint"_ of a *musical idea* (not just a particular performance of that idea), which transcends any performance, and is presented as almost Platonic "pure idea" before the fact of its realisation in performance.

...whereas a popular song, as a recorded artifact, is more restricted, and meant to be _that particular performance by that artist,_ including every gesture, nuance of phrasing, vocal quality and/or ability, and so forth, such as the recorded legacy of Frank Sinatra or the Beatles.

Also, the particular artifact (record) which becomes a radio hit will be the one which is "enshrined" as a best example (not a K-Tel imitation).
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In certain circumstances, popular songs might transcend those boundaries, and become "blueprint" songs, such as the "American Songbook" songs of Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hart, Ellington, the Gershwins, Arlen, Kern, Mercer, etc, and attain "higher art" status than a run-of-the-mill pop song.

Although this is popularity is based in large part on "hit parade" sales, this also appears to be an accurate reflection of a song's quality, as well as its ability to be effective, and hold up under different interpretations. Of course, experts might unearth obsure "gems" which escaped this accolade of being "hits." This is a matter for serious critics and history to decide.

Also, the adoption of these "standards" by jazz players mimics the "score blueprint" of classical, and sets them up as "higher art" vehicles for performance.
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A song might attach itself to a social movement, as with _This Land Is Your Land, If I had A Hammer, Blowing In the Wind, or Give Peace A Chance._ This gives it "universal appeal" as an "anthem" and higher-art reflection of some aspect of the human condition.

In short, once any musical idea attains status *solely on the basis of its being an artistic or musical idea*, then it has transcended whatever context or performance it may have emerged from.

So, yes, there has been a "convergence" of sorts, and the playing field between classical and other genres has leveled-out somewhat, thanks to recordings and mass media consumption; yet, the universal principle has always been present: *a good musical idea is a good musical idea,* (or vehicle for effective artistic impact) and will translate effectively into many forms of performance.

I could go on and on...


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## LordBlackudder (Nov 13, 2010)

not everyone can have an orchestra in their front room.

the definition of it being written down has to change. it cant be a definition of classical music now people buy CDs and digital downloads.

anyway why cant you write down pop music or reggae.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

LordBlackudder said:


> not everyone can have an orchestra in their front room.
> 
> the definition of it being written down has to change. it cant be a definition of classical music now people buy CDs and digital downloads.
> 
> anyway why cant you write down pop music or reggae.


You could transcribe the notes, but not the "song" as people think of it, which is either a single performance or a group of performances that would differ in their transcription. In the Beatles' music, when John Lennon sings a little out of tune, that becomes part of the song by virtue of it being part of the performance. If a violinist playing the Berg concerto finds that a blue note in one part is more expressive, that's fine, but it isn't suddenly considered an integral part of the work. Pop/Rock and Jazz are about performances more than compositions, though some fine examples of the latter have of course been created.

Likewise, there's an argument to be made that some musique concrete and electronic works lie potentially outside of this definition, despite having come out of the classical tradition, produced by trained composers, as they are not scores to be interpreted, but specific realizations that, if duplicated, are always identical. So that's a bit of a grey area.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

LordBlackudder said:


> ...anyway why cant you write down pop music or reggae.


I agree with Mahlerian; with popular music, the written-down will almost always come _after_ a definitive recording, if it needs to be. Pop music revolves around "personalities" more than classical: the distinct timbre of John Lennon's voice, the sound of Jimi Hendrix's guitar; and timbre in general seems to be more important in pop; and "gesture" of stylings. Much hip-hop and related musics rely on sound-samples, so in this regard it is like electronic music.

I think the main difference with classical is the "pure musical idea," as I mentioned; a "Platonic" representation with purely "musical" meaning, eschewing gesture, styling, timbre, and other "extra-musical" trappings. This is why a score is still relevant, because it embodies a musical idea in the most basic, pure form.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

KenOC said:


> ...
> Is there some kind of convergence here? Does "classical" vs. "popular" mean anything now? In ten years?
> 
> ...


For me, and many I know, it means nothing or not much. I've constantly talked of this on TC, but here it is in a nutshell:

- Many non-classical musicians & composers have classical training either formally or grow up playing some instrument (its been going on for ages)
- Classical genres like film music becoming just as popular/widely known as non-classical music
- Many genres have mixed 'high' and 'low' arts, eg. cabaret, musicals
- Non-classical gaining elements of notation (eg. 'crossover' genre) and classical loosening up and including improv again (eg. playing improvised cadenzas largely died out after Beethoven but was revived with the HIP movement in the 20th century) & also as noted contemporary classical including chance and electronic elements
- Classical and non-classical influencing eachother, collaboration between musicians of both 'camps.' Eg. Glass with Shankar, Menuhin with Shankar and also Grapelli, Jon Lord (of Deep Purple) focussing on classical composition late in his life, and so on.

I would say that although musicians don't seem to be bothered, some fans do, we got it on this forum eg. people suggesting classical is being diluted and all this. Well I don't care, there's great music coming from the exchange between different types of music and its not new. Go back farther and farther and it was already happening centuries ago to some extent.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

Movie scores is probably the closest to a convergence between the classical and the popular. Movie scores can be immensely popular today. 50-100 years from now, movies scores of today will be classics just as much as the Prokofiev Lt. Kije Suite, or Bernstein's Symphonic Dances from West Side Story.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> Movie scores is probably the closest to a convergence between the classical and the popular. Movie scores can be immensely popular today. 50-100 years from now, movies scores of today will be classics just as much as the Prokofiev Lt. Kije Suite, or Bernstein's Symphonic Dances from West Side Story.


Yes, cinema once again unites music with drama, the way it was with the Greeks. The severing of music into "sound only" was, I think, intended for Kings' chambers and banquets, not the concert hall, where people just sit there. Now opera is on DVD, so it's come full circle.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> Yes, cinema once again unites music with drama, the way it was with the Greeks. The severing of music into "sound only" was, I think, intended for Kings' chambers and banquets, not the concert hall, where people just sit there. Now opera is on DVD, so it's come full circle.


In the mean time, the Romantic period in particular created "instrumental dramas" that have a narrative behind them, whether programmatic or more general. Of course, this gave people the mistaken idea that these narratives could be explicitly read into every piece, even those from the Classical and Baroque eras, which is simply mistaken. A Bach fugue does not express anything; it is more like a musical mural of patterns woven together. People taking the Romantic narrative structure as a model for music in general may also have something to do with the general lack of comprehension of 20th century music that was not explicitly programmatic.


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## Arsakes (Feb 20, 2012)

I recently (for two years) begun to like early pop of 40s and 50s and also later pop of 60s and 70s and few portions of 80s. The most interesting aspects of pre-80s pop music is using of instruments (Piano, Violin, Trombone, Sax, Flute etc.), but maybe they're mixed with Jazz & Blues, Country, Soul etc. Frank Sinatra's 'Moonlight' or early Tom Jones songs are quite interesting... 
Now everyone wants 'the beat' and its dominance and next to nothing effort in creating a pop song ... you may call 80s a glorious decade for music but It was a downfall in many aspacts of pop music and other genres.

I should also write something for 'Classical' in this topic, but maybe later.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Mahlerian said:


> ... People taking the Romantic narrative structure as a model for music in general may also have something to do with the general lack of comprehension of 20th century music that was not explicitly programmatic.


There's also the tenet of Modernist ideology, as expressed by STravinsky, that music is about nothing but itself. Eg. an extreme formalist position. I think this didn't do much good for Modern music, honestly. But I've ranted on this many times on TC. We can blame the audience or analyse some of the issues people holding various ideologies have about music that does reach out to people - could be with stories, but it doesn't have to be, eg. is Minimalist music always based on some narrative? is Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue? and so on.

The old blame the listener game does not wash with me, but of course nor is it wise to blame the composer. I think its a complex issue, but at the heart of this is what I call hard-core Modernist ideologues view that most music of the past that is popular now was not popular in its time, or took a long time to be popular. Well, that is on the whole incorrect, but it certainly is very comforting for people who value certain types of music of today that are not popular now and have little chance of being popular in the future. I like a wide variety of music, incl. more 'esoteric' kinds, but I'm not deluded that its the same as say Tchaikovsky's 1st piano concerto was back in his time, or Bizet's Carmen, or Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, which all took very little time to be popular. So what I'm saying is if Modernist ideology is negative about popularity, its shooting itself in the foot. Its doing a disservice to classical music by claiming it has to be and forever was 'highbrow.'


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Sid James said:


> There's also the tenet of Modernist ideology, as expressed by STravinsky, that music is about nothing but itself. Eg. an extreme formalist position. I think this didn't do much good for Modern music, honestly. But I've ranted on this many times on TC. We can blame the audience or analyse some of the issues people holding various ideologies have about music that does reach out to people - could be with stories, but it doesn't have to be, eg. is Minimalist music always based on some narrative? is Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue? and so on.


If you look at Stravinsky's statement literally, what he means is what we've (me & Mahlerian) been saying: music is not, _literally,_ about any particular "narrative." This doesn't mean it has no _other meaning,_ such as _evoking strong "emotional states,"_ as in Schoenberg's _Transfigured Night, Five Pieces_ and Mahler's symphonies. I think that singling-out the modernist aesthetic and the mention of ideologies is your dilemma, not ours.



Sid James said:


> The old blame the listener game does not wash with me, but of course nor is it wise to blame the composer. I think its a complex issue, but at the heart of this is what I call hard-core Modernist ideologues view that most music of the past that is popular now was not popular in its time, or took a long time to be popular. Well, that is on the whole incorrect, but it certainly is very comforting for people who value certain types of music of today that are not popular now and have little chance of being popular in the future.


Huh? I don't think this has anything to do with modernism, just naive listeners. Maybe sitting there in the concert hall listening to instrumental music gave them too much idle time to think. Music gradually divorced itself from drama over several centuries. Look at the rise of instrumental forms: the symphony, the concerto, tone poems, etc. How is _that_ traceable to modernism?



Mahlerian said:


> In the mean time, the Romantic period in particular created "instrumental dramas" that have a narrative behind them, whether programmatic or more general. Of course, this gave people the mistaken idea that these narratives could be explicitly read into every piece, even those from the Classical and Baroque eras, which is simply mistaken.


I can agree with this, and point out that it's the audience's need for "story," narrative," and "entertainment" (or as Frank Zappa said about Broadway, "**** and ***") that is the problem, not "modernist composers."



Mahlerian said:


> A Bach fugue does not express anything; it is more like a musical mural of patterns woven together. People taking the Romantic narrative structure as a model for music in general may also have something to do with the general lack of comprehension of 20th century music that was not explicitly programmatic.


A bad connection, Mahlerian, very questionable! I disagree with this, and by your logic, Baroque and Romantic music are just as "guilty" as modernism. Bach's music _does express_ general emotional states.
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The "problem" is that instrumental music, "musical sound", when divorced from "literal action" and drama, lost its connection to _explicit _meaning, and was revealed for *what it is:* _ a non-representational medium, the abstract evocation of "inner" states of being,_ *which, coincidentally, is exactly what "abstract art" does:* it reveals the artist's, and by empathy, the viewer's inner emotional state of being.

Is this the "modernist" connection that Sid James is seeing? _It's not "modern" at all; music has always been "abstract expressionism" when divorced from drama and opera._ If this is the way you feel about "abstraction in music," stick to opera, and lay off the modernists.



Sid James said:


> I like a wide variety of music, incl. more 'esoteric' kinds, but I'm not deluded that its the same as say Tchaikovsky's 1st piano concerto was back in his time, or Bizet's Carmen, or Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, which all took very little time to be popular. So what I'm saying is if Modernist ideology is negative about popularity, its shooting itself in the foot. Its doing a disservice to classical music by claiming it has to be and forever was 'highbrow.'


Huh? Where did this "popularity contest" come from? What disservice? What are you talking about? Sheesh...


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Also, I think the problem is that in instrumental Romanticism, although it was music divorced from drama, still had residual traces of drama, expressed as "dramatic gestures." Still, this is not a requirement for music to be expressive of emotion or states of being.

So where does this leave the Baroque? In Bach's organ music, which certainly gives the impression of emotional drama, perhaps there is an "assumed" drama, or unspoken, unconscious "narrative," which was the religious significance of his music. Still, can this be applied to the WTC and other similar keyboard works? It's more of a stretch; but still, I feel that Bach conveys emotion, even in his "didactic" pieces. Also, look at the Prelude No. 1, and its subsequent transformation by Gounod or whomever into "Ave Maria."

Concerning modernism, it's true that in many instances the "evoking" of dramatic emotion, and dramatic gesture is absent (but certainly not always). Stockhausen evokes, for me, a sort of "Platonic classicism" in his Klavierstücke; with modernism, we must put aside our need for drama and overt emotion, and listen on the level of "pure abstraction," an enjoyment of color, sound, and timbre itself. Perhaps the "emo-boys" out there are incapable of this; at any rate, they seem to whine about it incessantly.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> A bad connection, Mahlerian, very questionable! I disagree with this, and by your logic, Baroque and Romantic music are just as "guilty" as modernism. Bach's music _does express_ general emotional states.


I agree that at least some of Bach's music has expressive content. Some of the religious works certainly align the text and the music in a very precise way, and there was a whole theory of emotional "affect" at the time. As for the fugues and the abstract works, the minor ones we at least hear as expressive/dramatic in a way, but this could be simply due to the nature of minor keys in general. I'm not sure that there's a specific expression of emotion of any kind, and probably not a narrative. It certainly _evokes_ emotion, though.



Sid James said:


> There's also the tenet of Modernist ideology, as expressed by Stravinsky, that music is about nothing but itself. Eg. an extreme formalist position.


Not at all. I only meant that _some_ music is about nothing but itself. I would never say that programmatic music is defective by design. My name is Mahlerian!* Even Stravinsky "indulged" in tone painting more often than he liked to admit.

*And yes, I know he said "Down with all programs", but that was after writing four explicitly/implicitly programmatic symphonies, and there was latent programmatic content in most of his following works as well.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Mahlerian said:


> I agree that at least some of Bach's music has expressive content. Some of the religious works certainly align the text and the music in a very precise way, and there was a whole theory of emotional "affect" at the time. As for the fugues and the abstract works, the minor ones we at least hear as expressive/dramatic in a way, but this could be simply due to the nature of minor keys in general. *I'm not sure that there's a specific expression of emotion of any kind, and probably not a narrative.* It certainly _evokes_ emotion, though.


Judging from what you have just said, I'm not sure what you are saying about Bach's music. You posit "specific expression of emotion" as being (possibly) absent from Bach's preludes & fugues; if this is because it was not part of an explicit Baroque aesthetic procedure, misses the point entirely.

To consider _explicit "narrative" meaning_ as being part of, or accompanying _"dramatic gesture" in instrumental music in which the literal dramatic elements have already been removed _ is a more explicit connection than I am comfortable with. I see the two elements as operating separately, the narrative being literal, with accompanying music as functionally descriptive and apparent, while "dramatic gesture," without a narrative, is by definition more vague.

This "splitting" of drama from music opened-up a new can of worms, giving us the whole range of the non-specific "feelings" evoked by music, which are by their very "non-narrative nature" fleeting, transitory, and ephemeral, unclear, evocative, vague, and indefinable (meaning non-narrative).

To take matters even further into the fog, when we get into more modern music, I think "emotion" as a descriptive term begins to fail us. For example, in Schoenberg's Five Pieces for Orchestra, the "emotional gestures" expressed are so complex that we begin to experience them as "states of being," like anxiety, foreboding, fear, tension, awe, etc., creating in our minds, empathetically, a reflection of our own, and the artist's, "inner state of being."

So, in a sense, this is an "internal narrative" we share with the composer, but indefinable in _literal_ narrative terms, because these are transitory, fleeting states by nature; simply "gestures of meanings."


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> Judging from what you have just said, I'm not sure what you are saying about Bach's music. You posit "specific expression of emotion" as being (possibly) absent from Bach's preludes & fugues; if this is because it was not part of an explicit Baroque aesthetic procedure, misses the point entirely.


This is likely an indication that I don't really know how to fit these concepts together myself. I can't form a neat, coherent theory about how all of these things fit together. There are intersections and interactions between music, emotion, and drama that go throughout its history, and as there are so many approaches, there are many degrees and shades of connection between them.

I know that some composers have created one-to-one correspondences between texts and instrumental ideas. In some cases, these have involved tone painting, in others, a sort of association that is only relative. For example, a listener versed in the tradition of Western classical music can recognize when a storm is more or less depicted in the orchestra, as in Beethoven's Pastoral, Berlioz's Fantastique, or Strauss's Alpensinfonie. General associations of feelings and moods, however, as in Beethoven's 5th, Mahler's 5th, or Schoenberg's 5 Pieces, are far more individually interpreted. These do not convey any specific narrative, but they have an explicitly narrative-like structure (less so with each of these examples, until the Schoenberg is a series of gestures the effect of which never adds up to a completed structure). That probably what I was trying to get at.



millionrainbows said:


> So, in a sense, this is an "internal narrative" we share with the composer, but indefinable in literal narrative terms, because these are transitory, fleeting states by nature; simply "gestures of meanings."


I really don't think we disagree too much here.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Mahlerian said:


> I really don't think we disagree too much here.


I don't, either; I just wanted to make sure that we were both unable to define it.:lol:


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

I think you've got something like two different topics moshed into a near syllogism.

Electronics in music and recording engineering, and the electronic medium of reproducing those works, including classical recordings, is very much with us. 

1.) Your conjecture is that now much pop music, jazz, and other non-notated music is in a recorded format of some degree of permanence, ergo -- people may be listening to Elvis and The Beatles and John Coltrane one hundred or more years after the fact.

2.) is 'classical and popular' etc. -- The fact that a recording may keep some pop music alive as long as some classical has been in play in no way changes the genre - the classical will remain 'classical' the pop, 'pop.'

Put it this way, if 2% or less of the population is listening to it, it is either classical or progressive jazz  All the rest would be pop.

No 'convergence' in sight, at all


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

PetrB said:


> I think you've got something like two different topics moshed into a near syllogism.
> 
> Electronics in music and recording engineering, and the electronic medium of reproducing those works, including classical recordings, is very much with us.
> 
> ...


You're assuming an awful lot there; and you have not defined what your criteria for classical music is, or if it differs from mine. But I do think we have established that the playing field is more level now, and that the criteria (unnamed) which gave classical music dominance in the past may not be as crucial to its survival as was once assumed. That is, if we're talking about the same criteria here.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

millionrainbows said:


> If you look at Stravinsky's statement literally, what he means is what we've (me & Mahlerian) been saying: music is not, _literally,_ about any particular "narrative." This doesn't mean it has no _other meaning,_ such as _evoking strong "emotional states,"_ as in Schoenberg's _Transfigured Night, Five Pieces_ and Mahler's symphonies. I think that singling-out the modernist aesthetic and the mention of ideologies is your dilemma, not ours....





Mahlerian said:


> ...
> 
> Not at all. I only meant that _some_ music is about nothing but itself. I would never say that programmatic music is defective by design. My name is Mahlerian!* Even Stravinsky "indulged" in tone painting more often than he liked to admit.
> 
> *And yes, I know he said "Down with all programs", but that was after writing four explicitly/implicitly programmatic symphonies, and there was latent programmatic content in most of his following works as well.


I think those are good points. I was being too reductionist in my thinking. Of course it goes both ways. There was music of the past that is now warhorse material that has no explicit narrative. Brahms is a very good example, in contrast of course to Wagner. But in post-1900 music there are examples also of non-narrative type music. Eg. Rhapsody in Blue by Gershwin as I mentioned, also Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra, or (as its often performed as a concert hall piece with no staging/dance) Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. The issue is manifold, and I think Mahler is a good example (and also Schoenberg, Berg and even on occassion Webern) of how context and autobiographical elements impinge on their music. I mean where would their music have been without the advent of psychoanalysis, of the whole thing of the subconscious, of Freud? Its hard to imagine their music as devoid of any contextual roots, but of course that's not strictly narrative, its more context and what currents informed and maybe inspired their music.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Sid James said:


> I think those are good points. I was being too reductionist in my thinking. Of course it goes both ways. There was music of the past that is now warhorse material that has no explicit narrative. Brahms is a very good example, in contrast of course to Wagner. But in post-1900 music there are examples also of non-narrative type music. Eg. Rhapsody in Blue by Gershwin as I mentioned, also Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra, or (as its often performed as a concert hall piece with no staging/dance) Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. The issue is manifold, and I think Mahler is a good example (and also Schoenberg, Berg and even on occassion Webern) of how context and autobiographical elements impinge on their music. I mean where would their music have been without the advent of psychoanalysis, of the whole thing of the subconscious, of Freud? Its hard to imagine their music as devoid of any contextual roots, but of course that's not strictly narrative, its more context and what currents informed and maybe inspired their music.


I agree totally; our general knowledge, and the historical context of a work can provide a source of "general narrative content" which can add greatly to the meaning of a piece, if only in our own minds. This always happens for me with Shostakovich (images of Soviet Russia) and with Webern's Op. 6 (Six Pieces for Orchestra), which always evokes in me grey images of Europe immediately preceding the World Wars. With Mahler, the Sixth Symphony snare-drum always evokes images of some malevolent military presence marching through our once-peaceful existence.

I think in many cases, the composer actually _is_ composing with a specific narrative in mind, from his own emotionally-charged experience of events in his life, and then leaving it up to us to interpret it as we will; but we will never know for sure. That's the beauty of poetry; it is open-ended in meaning.

That's a useful distinction, I think; instrumental non-narrative music (containing "dramatic gesture") is more like poetry, whereas the explicit meaning and narrative of opera is like a story or novel.

Perhaps that's the reason opera seems to lend itself to an audience more easily; the "poetry" of instrumental music is an "inner" experience, more solitary in nature, like reading a book of poems by yourself.


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