# Describing the experience of music



## Guest (Jun 30, 2018)

I wondered whether, if we were to focus on one example of music (instead of music generally), we could consider the point where commonalities of description begin to diverge between us.

My example is the third movement of Sibelius' 4th Symphony, as performed by Davis/LSO (chosen because of its availability on Youtube).

https://youtu.be/opolY2qTzpc?t=951

I was going to suggest Karajan/Philharmonia, but since I spotted what I think is a key difference between them, I changed my mind.

My first observation is that whilst I assume we can agree on the use of the word 'slow' as a relevant descriptive term for the unfolding of the principal theme, 'the word 'hesitant' might provoke some disagreement as it steps away from factual description towards subjective interpretation. So, about which terms might we reach consensus?


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

MacLeod said:


> I wondered whether, if we were to focus on one example of music (instead of music generally), we could consider the point where commonalities of description begin to diverge between us.
> 
> My example is the third movement of Sibelius' 4th Symphony, as performed by Davis/LSO (chosen because of its availability on Youtube).
> 
> ...


Your Youtube starting point isn't at the beginning of the movement. Just saying.


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## Guest (Jun 30, 2018)

janxharris said:


> Your Youtube starting point isn't at the beginning of the movement. Just saying.


Fixed that, I hope. Thanks.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

As with much of Sibelius - he creates a unique sound world. The opening (ie of the 3rd movement) is almost without tonality to my ears - though, of course, that becomes clearer later. The opening flute melody shifts from A minor modulating immediately.

Fragmented, hesitant, anguished and tormented - building to a cathartic release near the end.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

I think a big divergence might begin before any descriptive terms are considered because the choice of terms is going to depend on the aesthetic fundamentals from which the choices are made. I can see where both you (MacCleod) and Janx are getting "hesitant" and why Janx says "fragmented" — the most complete melodic statements come late in the movement, the motives forming these statements sounding separately before coalescing into lengthier, more sinuous statements. And a progressively stronger sense of tonal grounding happens concurrently. But terms like hesitant, anguished and tormented seem to assume that the expressive qualities of the movement should be attributed to a single experiencing subject — that we are identifying with an individual persona whose expression the music is. Why? Why not a group dynamic where individual voices in the wilderness eventually become aware of one another and join in a unified chorus? That certainly fits the orchestration. Or natural processes like crystal formation or the gradual melting and cracking of ice until the floes give way and flow downstream as one? Or the suggestion of such natural processes as a metaphor for human experience in a broader, extrapersonal sense? These later interpretations seem better to me, more in tune with modern aesthetics rather than the hangover from romantic aesthetics anguished and tormented suggest.


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## Kjetil Heggelund (Jan 4, 2016)

Ah! Homework  It's a pleasant, beautiful dream. A bit surprising harmonies and a little rhythmic tension, but still calm to my ears.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

It's a side issue, but I'd be curious about how the movement was composed. For example, did the theme in its more complete statements gradually occur to Sibelius as he manipulated the material or did he start with the complete theme and then work backward toward the beginning, that is, break it down back to front so that it would sound like it was assembling itself as the movement unfolds?

Anyway, great movement and symphony!


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## Guest (Jul 2, 2018)

janxharris said:


> As with much of Sibelius - he creates a unique sound world. The opening (ie of the 3rd movement) is almost without tonality to my ears - though, of course, that becomes clearer later. The opening flute melody shifts from A minor modulating immediately.
> 
> Fragmented, hesitant, anguished and tormented - building to a cathartic release near the end.


Perhaps fragmentary would be closer to it - the main theme starts in small pieces, with additions as it repeats. 'Hesitant' is interesting. I would use it of the Davis, but not the Karajan, which is just slow - the difference I noted in my OP.

But anguished and tormented? Not for me, though I can hear how it might be that. It prompts the question, "Whose torment and anguish?" (and who or what is hesitant, come to that.) As soon as we move into the idea of agency - of someone or something represented in the music - we will struggle for consensus.

And then Edward posts this:



EdwardBast said:


> But terms like hesitant, anguished and tormented seem to assume that the expressive qualities of the movement should be attributed to a single experiencing subject - that we are identifying with an individual persona whose expression the music is. Why? Why not a group dynamic where individual voices in the wilderness eventually become aware of one another and join in a unified chorus? That certainly fits the orchestration. Or natural processes like crystal formation or the gradual melting and cracking of ice until the floes give way and flow downstream as one? Or the suggestion of such natural processes as a metaphor for human experience in a broader, extrapersonal sense? These later interpretations seem better to me, more in tune with modern aesthetics rather than the hangover from romantic aesthetics anguished and tormented suggest.


Exactly so, and you have taken my thinking forward about the 'who or what' with the idea of several 'whats' and their unification. It had never occurred to me that way.

It's very easy to assume that the composer is the agent in the composition. I'm reminded of that famous quote about Beethoven's 5th - 'Fate knocking on the door' and always want to know, "Whose door?" and the answer that it must be Beethoven himself. That leads us to wonder whether, if it is, Beethoven speaks only about his own experience, and how justified would the claim be that he presents his experience as something universal? Similarly, much is made of the experience Sibelius was undergoing at the time he wrote his 4th - operations for throat cancer. If we start to see his anxiety and fear, or recognition of his mortality in the symphony, does it become too personal, and less universal?


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

MacLeod said:


> It's very easy to assume that the composer is the agent in the composition. I'm reminded of that famous quote about Beethoven's 5th - 'Fate knocking on the door' and always want to know, "Whose door?" and the answer that it must be Beethoven himself. That leads us to wonder whether, if it is, Beethoven speaks only about his own experience, and how justified would the claim be that he presents his experience as something universal? Similarly, much is made of the experience Sibelius was undergoing at the time he wrote his 4th - operations for throat cancer. If we start to see his anxiety and fear, or recognition of his mortality in the symphony, does it become too personal, and less universal?


Edward T. Cone wrote a short, excellent book, _The Composer's Voice_, about these issues of agency and whose experience the music's expression is. It is largely comprehensible by musical amateurs. He argues that the expressive content of musical works, absent reliable biographical data for a composer-centered reading, should be attributed to a fictional persona indigenous to the work. This follows from the so-called New Critical literary theory of the 1950s, which proposed that the expressive and other experience in poems should be attributed not to the authors, but to fictional speakers who may or may not share experience with the poet.

As for Fate and Beethoven's Fifth, the quotation comes from Anton Schindler (_Beethoven as I Knew Him)_, Beethoven's personal secretary late in life, a notoriously unreliable fabricator. It is not unreasonable to think that Beethoven's personal struggles inspired him to compose works full of turmoil and tension, but I'm with Cone in preferring to attribute the Fifth's angst to the work's persona rather than to the composer directly.


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