# Performance vs. Composition



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

What matters more to you in classical music, performance or the composition/composer? If it's not a black and white issue, how does one affect the other, in what aspects, and why?

Myself, I'm beginning to place more and more importance on performance.


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

I have some folders with recordings grouped purely on the merit of conducting, but they contain only pieces I like in the first place.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

It's all about the music. A great performer can add something special, open our ears to things we hadn't heard before, but it all comes down to the music - that's always foremost. I've collected thousands of cds over the years of obscure, and wonderful, music performed by lesser orchestras and conductors simply because no major orchestra or maestro will take it up. And that's ok with me. The performances are usually good enough. 

Now, when a major group does take on something unusual, the results can be electrifying. Take Furtwangler's 2nd symphony. A long, seemingly dull, turgid slog. It's been recorded a number of time, even by Wilhelm. It was interesting but that's about it. Nothing special to hear. Then along comes Barenboim with Chicago - it was a revelation! It was exciting, cogent and wonderful. But this happens all too rarely. I still hope that some big time orchestra and conductor (there aren't many of those left) will make first class recordings of the Amy Beach symphony, the two Kalinnikov symphonies, and a whole lot more.

There are a lot of people who will go hear a concert just because of the performer. The Star System. I hate it, but it happens and I must confess I do it from time to time, too. I guess I can't blame them. I'd rather hear a third class orchestra play the Balakirev first symphony over a first class band do any Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky or even Mahler. It's all about the music.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Both for me. Sometimes I don't even like a work, but the performance makes it all worth hearing. Sometimes I like a certain work, but I don't feel any performance captures what I think is there.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

A spectacularly good performance of a not so great piece can make it sound worthwhile once or twice or even three times, but eventually intrinsic quality will out. On the other hand, I've always been capable of listening around a flawed performance of a great work. I don't always enjoy it, but I'm at least able to appreciate the work's merits.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> What matters more to you in classical music, performance or the composition/composer? If it's not a black and white issue, how does one affect the other, in what aspects, and why?
> 
> Myself, I'm beginning to place more and more importance on performance.


I'm very much thinking about this question right now because I'm exploring Cornelius Cardew and Christian Wolff. Both these composers tried to create scores which would force performers to give more of themselves.

Here's an interpretation of Cardew's Autumn 60






The score consists if 16 sections which look like this









Each musician composes a piece which fits the two bars with their time signature. He has to observe all but two of the other indications.

Why did Cardew do this? Simples. He wanted to get the musicians to engage more thoroughly with the music they were creating together.

The first performance in Cambridge was the occasion of a huge altercation between Cardew (conducting) and the instrumentalists -- he accused them of entering superficially into the spirit of the score because they composed sections which sounded like conventional classical music. They weren't avant garde enough.

Clearly there are elements of this type of thinking in some pieces by Cage, Stockhausen and Feldman also.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

What a piece of (classical) music is remains a problematical consideration. Does the "music" exist as the score written by the composer? Or, is music rather something that must be heard to be real? And, interpreting a score brings up issues of difference and change so much so that every performance of a written score will be different from every other one. Recording certainly solidifies a performance, but is that really what the music is if what is there on the recording differs from what is there on another recording or in the next live performance of the piece? Though the "music" of the score doesn't change, the "music" of the various performances will be various. So what are we left with?

In some sense we can only cherish a work of music by way of its performance, which can render it pleasing or non-pleasing, invigorating or discouraging, lovely or ugly …. Yet, I grimace at that very remark having spent time studying Bach scores on the page and appreciating the wonders and beauties of intervals, harmonies, and technical nuances of compositional construction -- all without ever actually hearing a performance (outside of what I hear in my head). Too, I know I can be deeply moved by staring at notes on a score page, as I can be deeply moved by the sounds flowing from a symphony orchestra, an instrumental soloist, or from my stereo speakers.

If I do hear a piece of music in my head, is that real? I can imagine unicorns and purple spacemen, too. 

I have thousands of records and CDs. (Yes, I'm one of those folks -- but you all know that already!) Do I possess these discs as music? In other words, can I hold Beethoven's nine symphonies in my hand, or is the music only rendered when the needle is set to the groove or the machine translates 0s and 1s into sound waves?

What exactly music is boggles me enough that the initial question of this thread seems distant. I often wonder what exactly I am hearing when I experience, say, the Mahler 2nd. I can only ever hear a single moment of the music, so how is it that I somehow comprehend this giant work as a unit? If my memory completely collapses, will my appreciation of music end with it? Does hearing a musical work as a unit depend on memory at all? How is it that I can comprehend a theme when I can only ever hear the slightest, smallest moment of it at any given time? At least when I looking at the score I can take the piece in as I would a painting or sculpture -- in a kind of "single vision". 

This is all mysterious to me. Which perhaps explains why I continue on exploring music. I've always loved a good mystery.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Regarding performance:

Why are there so many ways to perform the same piece of music? What is interpretation?


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Some pieces respond well to a wide variety of interpretations and some don't. It is the composition that makes the difference. And compositions come first for me. I don't mean everything has to be a great towering masterpiece - just that it has to be what I experience as a successful and worthwhile work. It can be light and fun or big and deep, good music or great music. Then comes the performance, the interpretation. The more I get to know a work the more demanding I become. And some works are just not worthwhile unless they are played well. With works that are rarely played or recorded and that I do not like very much I do often wonder if my lukewarm response is down to a poor performance and how much is the composition.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

There's a model of music which I sometimes think underlies people's thinking, it goes like this.



> _1. The composer has a conception in his head about what a piece of music sounds like, an aural vision.
> 
> 2. He tries to write this aural vision down in a score.
> 
> 3. When the performer plays it's his job to recreate the composer's aural vision into real sound. _


So basically what we have is a concept of musical work as a set of rails, a framework, which the performer has to follow. And the performer's job is essentially one of decoding.

I don't say this is a good or bad model yet, I just want to articulate it correctly first.


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## mrdoc (Jan 3, 2020)

No doubt at all it has got to be performance, each interpretation adds or subtracts from the composition.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Perhaps I am being too romantic but I feel many performers try to get under the skin of a piece, to bring it to convincing life. And perhaps for better known pieces they might even seek something new and individual (to them). Even composers who also play or conduct are often not noted for performing their own music as written.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

mrdoc said:


> No doubt at all it has got to be performance, each interpretation adds or subtracts from the composition.


So, a poor piece of music can be made great by a performer?


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## Haydn man (Jan 25, 2014)

Performance can have a significant impact on a composition both positive and negative. However I don’t think any performance however good can make a poor composition great.
So for me it’s the composition that is more important, given the proviso that there is at least one good performance out there for me to hear


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Mandryka said:


> There's a model of music which I sometimes think underlies people's thinking, it goes like this....basically what we have is a concept of musical work as a set of rails, a framework, which the performer has to follow. And the performer's job is essentially one of decoding...I don't say this is a good or bad model yet, I just want to articulate it correctly first.


What the composer puts in the score are simple musical elements: pitch, rhythm, and some vague dynamics. There is _so much more_ to music as a "living thing" (an embodiment and expression of 'being.'



Haydn man said:


> Performance can have a significant impact on a composition both positive and negative. However I don't think any performance however good can make a poor composition great.


I do. Music I would normally not have any interest in can be made palatable by the player, including music I'm presently engaged with, such as the piano music of Giuseppe Martucci (1856-1909). In fact, I see the larger part of being a "classical" music listener as being concerned with this very point.

Remember how the mundane Goldbergs were suddenly illuminated by Glenn Gould in the 1960's? This poses a question:
If an "Inherently great" tree fell over in the woods with nobody around, would anybody recognize its inherent greatness?


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

One has to hear and/or know music to know if they like it. I've heard many great performance of music I don't like; none of them are with me any longer. Some of that music I liked at first but not in the long run. So I'd have to say it's the music that makes the difference, not the performance.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

SONNET CLV said:


> What a piece of (classical) music is remains a problematical consideration. Does the "music" exist as the score written by the composer? Or, is music rather something that must be heard to be real?


Music exists in score, but the score is only a way of conveying ideas precisely to a player or group; it is basically a "recording" of a musical idea, but _in abstract form, _not actual sound.

By contrast, since the advent of recording technology, we can now "record" musical ideas which are also exact reproductions of performances. We have it all.

Recording has shifted the bias of "score/idea" and "performance" in favor of performance. Thus, music is becoming more ear-oriented, rather than score/idea oriented.

Thus, the "idea" of a work in score is becoming increasingly outmoded as a criteria, since we have recording. "Score" is becoming increasingly specific to the musical "ideas" of a work. I doubt that many listeners choose music on the basis of "abstract" ideas, except in the most _general_ way, or to prove how smart they are.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

larold said:


> One has to hear and/or know music to know if they like it. I've heard many great performance of music I don't like; none of them are with me any longer. Some of that music I liked at first but not in the long run. So I'd have to say it's the music that makes the difference, not the performance.


But how can you tell which is which? Maybe all the performances you rejected are because they were poor performances, and the music you kept is because it is a good performance.
If you "liked it at first but not in the long run," aren't you really refining your selection of performances? The "work itself" is a vague notion, but aren't you "refining" the performances to an ideal one which reflects the work?


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> Music exists in score, but the score is only a way of conveying ideas precisely to a player or group; it is basically a "recording" of a musical idea, but _in abstract form, _not actual sound.


What do you make of that score by Cornelius Cardew I posted? I could find others even more open ended - Cage Song Books, Christian Wolff's Burdocks, things by Stockhausen whose name I forget . . . This isn't new experimental music at the avant garde, it's two generations old at least, by established composers who have become canonised.

A friend of mine who composes once said to me that a major part of it is deciding what's important and what isn't. If you don't care about, for example, tempo or the instruments used or how many performers, you don't write it in. Well I think that there's another approach - the thing that matters to you most when you compose is to free up the performers' creative juices, to give them the freedom to create. This is what Cardew and Wolff were about. The boundaries between composed music and improvised music have been blurred for the past 50 years.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Here's a comment Feldman made in three performances of Triadic Memories, it's obvious that he has no fixed conception of what the music should sound like. It's in _Goodbye to Eighth Street._ And this is Feldman, who was writing pretty conservative music at that time - I mean, the notation is the usual notation.



> David Tudor: amazing reflexes,
> focused on just one mosaic at a time,
> a nondirectional approach of equal
> intensity and clarity, regardless of what
> ...


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Mandryka said:


> What do you make of that score by Cornelius Cardew I posted? I could find others even more open ended - Cage Song Books, Christian Wolff's Burdocks, things by Stockhausen whose name I forget . . . This isn't new experimental music at the avant garde, it's two generations old at least, by established composers who have become canonised.
> 
> A friend of mine who composes once said to me that a major part of it is deciding what's important and what isn't. If you don't care about, for example, tempo or the instruments used or how many performers, you don't write it in. Well I think that there's another approach - the thing that matters to you most when you compose is to free up the performers' creative juices, to give them the freedom to create. This is what Cardew and Wolff were about. The boundaries between composed music and improvised music have been blurred for the past 50 years.


I see what you mean; in Cage and others, there is an increasing emphasis on performance. With Cage, this is not surprising, since he wanted to get away from mind-constucts, abstract notions, 'masterpieces', and ideas, and get back to "real sound."


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## bharbeke (Mar 4, 2013)

I liken it to ice cream. The different pieces are different flavors, and you either like them or not at some basic level. If you ask 100 chefs to make chocolate ice cream, you will get 100 different executions of it. Some will be subtly different, and others will have major differences. Some may even put sprinkles on top! That is the performance quality.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> I see what you mean; in Cage and others, there is an increasing emphasis on performance. With Cage, this is not surprising, since he wanted to get away from mind-constucts, abstract notions, 'masterpieces', and ideas, and get back to "real sound."


Freshness. There was a feeling that "professional" music making had become routine, uninspired. And that the European avant garde had made the situation worse, with complex scores which provided rigorous rails for the performer to follow. The musicians thought it was their job to play the notes!

I very much recommend John Tilbury's biography of Cornelius Cardew to you, it's very much your sort of thing. Expensive on amazon, but in London there's a place called Cafe Oto which sells it cheaply enough given its size -- though it may be expensive to import into the States.

http://matchlessrecordings.com/book/cornelius-cardew-life-unfinished


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## Haydn man (Jan 25, 2014)

Still don’t think greatness can be made from mediocre ingredients 
Adages spring to mind about silk purses and sows ears etc


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

There are a few exceptions, but I am a firm believer in the idea that a transcendental performance is the key to really understanding and loving a piece of music. I never cared much for Beethoven's 9th until I heard Furtwangler/Bayreuth. To this day it remains my favorite recording of anything. Ditto for Bruckner and Gunter Wand (even though I've since explored other, better performances), Szell's Mozart symphonies, Gieseking's Debussy, etc. With the case of lesser-known music that is perhaps of less quality than the core repertoire, we simply haven't had the requisite amount of performances to really bring such music to life. When I've listened to, say, the symphonies of Berwald and Raff on Naxos; I've wondered if we had a Bernstein, Barbirolli, or Furtwangler to conduct them, how much more convincing they would be. I recently listened to Joshua Weilerstein's Sticky Notes Podcast (an absolutely amazing podcast BTW) on Florence Price's 1st Symphony, and he spoke about the significance of "inventing" performance traditions for music that is out of the repertoire. I think that's a very important thing to consider.


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## Tikoo Tuba (Oct 15, 2018)

In this forum I'd rather read the music than listen to a recording . Attending a live-event , I prefer to engage with performance musicians over conversing with a composer . Hmm , perhaps I've taken the question oddly .


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

SONNET CLV said:


> What a piece of (classical) music is remains a problematical consideration. Does the "music" exist as the score written by the composer? Or, is music rather something that must be heard to be real? And, interpreting a score brings up issues of difference and change so much so that every performance of a written score will be different from every other one. Recording certainly solidifies a performance, but is that really what the music is if what is there on the recording differs from what is there on another recording or in the next live performance of the piece? Though the "music" of the score doesn't change, the "music" of the various performances will be various. So what are we left with?
> 
> In some sense we can only cherish a work of music by way of its performance, which can render it pleasing or non-pleasing, invigorating or discouraging, lovely or ugly …. Yet, I grimace at that very remark having spent time studying Bach scores on the page and appreciating the wonders and beauties of intervals, harmonies, and technical nuances of compositional construction -- all without ever actually hearing a performance (outside of what I hear in my head). Too, I know I can be deeply moved by staring at notes on a score page, as I can be deeply moved by the sounds flowing from a symphony orchestra, an instrumental soloist, or from my stereo speakers.
> 
> ...


Memory has a lot to do with it, which is the only way repetition, contrast can work. Without memory, music would be just sounds. Music exists even if you hear it only in your head, and is different than unicorns, since it can be brought to reality as long as it's worked out in your head, not just a vague impulse or sketch


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Mandryka said:


> ...Well I think that there's another approach - the thing that matters to you most when you compose is to free up the performers' creative juices, to give them the freedom to create. ....





Haydn man said:


> Still don't think greatness can be made from mediocre ingredients
> Adages spring to mind about silk purses and sows ears etc


If the role of the "composer" is to "free up the performers' creative juices, to give them the freedom to create", then in essence the composer has relegated his position to that of a nonessential element in the chain of music-making. One will come to realize that a skilled, experienced, knowledgeable and imaginative performer will likely always out-perform (or out-create) those performers possessed with "mediocre ingredients." With consideration of the role of the composer as given above, one would think the best a "contemporary composer" with such a philosophy can attain is to become a kind of agent selecting performers to present his compositions. If the composer wants the composition to be skillfully done, imaginative and varied, he will have to pick a highly competent performer. The whole notion seems somewhat absurd, even though I recognize that such is often the case in modern scores where performers are given quite a bit of leeway. Maybe Cage did it correctly when he wrote the 4'33": the skill level of the performer becomes moot, and the final result is rather similar no matter who does the performance!


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

SONNET CLV said:


> If the role of the "composer" is to "free up the performers' creative juices, to give them the freedom to create", then in essence the composer has relegated his position to that of a nonessential element in the chain of music-making.


No, equal partner in the chain.


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## mrdoc (Jan 3, 2020)

Enthusiast said:


> So, a poor piece of music can be made great by a performer?


No of course not but it can make it sound different, but a poor performance can spoil good music.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

mrdoc said:


> No of course not but it can make it sound different, but a poor performance can spoil good music.


A good performance is a good performance, and a bad performance is a bad performance (or recording of one).

What I'm wondering is how one can distinguish between the two, in separating the music (rudimentary unrealized ideas in the abstract) with a performance in sound (actual performance experienced or captured in a recording by real players), good or bad, enough to make a value judgement about the "work itself "in score, or abstract form.

That person would have to have a very vivid imagination, and an uncanny ability to see a score, or its main ideas, in their mind.

Ideas are ideas, and if they are realized well, or badly, seems to be more importantly a matter of real sound, not an unrealized abstract notion of a 'work.'

I can see that, _maybe,_ after repeated listening to various performances, one could gain a _sketchy_ idea of what constitutes a "good work from a "bad" realization of it, but even the most brilliant conductors must refer to a score.

And as listeners, we must have different performances to conclude what is a "good" work (?); but again, what is it we are distinguishing? To me, the value judgement is too inextricably interwoven with performance for the criterion to be meaningful, if at all.


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## Tikoo Tuba (Oct 15, 2018)

I am an artist with no regard to consumerism . That's it . I will ignore the Cultural Ambassador from France who notes I am a great one in my city . I'm at this meeting for the free food .


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

A person who declares "the work itself" in the abstract sans performance is going by theoretical music theory knowledge, as well as having a good ear and ability to recognize such structures by ear as well. A non-trained person, if they have a good ear, can do this aurally as well, using intuition instead of academic training.

But this is possible only with harmonic progressions and melodies which lie within the parameters of "recognizable music." It would get more difficult as we get into more modern music.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> What I'm wondering is how one can distinguish between the two, in separating the music (rudimentary unrealized ideas in the abstract) with a performance in sound (actual performance experienced or captured in a recording by real players), good or bad, enough to make a value judgement about the "work itself "in score, or abstract form.
> 
> That person would have to have a very vivid imagination, and an uncanny ability to see a score, or its main ideas, in their mind.
> 
> ...


You have a point. Experienced musicians may underestimate just how much experience, knowledge and imagination it can sometimes take to be able to separate in the mind an unfamiliar work from its performance. It's especially challenging with music in an unfamiliar style; Wagner, despite his love of Beethoven, said that he had difficulty grasping fully some of Beethoven's late piano sonatas until he heard Liszt play them. That we tend to depend on performance to form our idea of a work is shown by the fact that we often have difficulty breaking our attachment to the first recording of a piece we own. However, I'm sure it's a fairly common experience to feel that the performance we're hearing is unimaginative or uncommitted, and that the piece might be more impressive if better performed. After a while - a short while, for me and other practiced musicians and perceptive listeners - one learns not to trust performers to get everything out of a work, and not to rest one's view of what a piece is about on any interpretation of it. The ability to hear a work for what it is and can be, and to guage the success of a performance, develops with time and experience.

Since music is written to be heard, the performer is a necessary co-creator with the composer, but in most classical music the composer's creativity is still primary. Without him there is nothing to perform.


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

Performance is just the variance in composition from where the composer left off; a conductor's additions. It's no doubt that composition is way more important. Kind of a no-brainer.


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## mrdoc (Jan 3, 2020)

Ethereality said:


> Performance is just the variance in composition from where the composer left off; a conductor's additions. It's no doubt that composition is way more important. Kind of a no-brainer.


Elgars Cello con by du Pre is the one that I consider the best that I have heard, compare this with a performance by the *average* Cello from a provincial orch and the difference would be obvious to most people so it is a matter of interpretation by the performer not just a '"variance'' in composition. Agreed that it would not be possible without the composers work is obvious. :tiphat:


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Ethereality said:


> Performance is just the variance in composition from where the composer left off; a conductor's additions. It's no doubt that composition is way more important. Kind of a no-brainer.


That's true literally, but as was said above, but performance becomes more important if the work is unfamiliar or in unfamiliar harmonic territory. 
How do we form a "gestalt" conception of a work, apart from performance? Answer me that, if you please.

The composer is conveying the most crucial information: pitch, rhythm, some dynamics, and accents, but compare this to a word-text as read by a computer voice: the computer voice can convey the words and information, but it still sounds mechanical.

To be more, the performance is more important than you are saying: not a "no-brainer" if you want to explain anything about how we arrive at a "gestalt" understanding of a work.

Part of this split on the question is that music is intended to be heard, not merely seen. The degree to which one emphasizes the written score is the degree to which one is biased visually, as opposed to aurally. Our whole culture is biased visually, according to McLuhan.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

SONNET CLV said:


> What a piece of (classical) music is remains a problematical consideration. Does the "music" exist as the score written by the composer? Or, is music rather something that must be heard to be real? *And, interpreting a score brings up issues of difference and change so much so that every performance of a written score will be different from every other one.* Recording certainly solidifies a performance, but is that really what the music is if what is there on the recording differs from what is there on another recording or in the next live performance of the piece? Though the "music" of the score doesn't change, the "music" of the various performances will be various. So what are we left with?


This isn't complicated: The score is a script, a performance is the music. That's why it's called a performing art.  Every performance of a play is different, but one can still look at the written words and say "this is a great script." Same with music. One can enjoy reading Ibsen on the page because in ones head one creates a performance, or enough of one to appreciate the play's essential qualities. Same with reading a score. It's generally not as satisfying and it's more work, but some people can create musical performances in their heads.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

EdwardBast said:


> This isn't complicated: The score is a script, a performance is the music. That's why it's called a performing art.  Every performance of a play is different, but one can still look at the written words and say "this is a great script." Same with music. One can enjoy reading Ibsen on the page because in ones head one creates a performance, or enough of one to appreciate the play's essential qualities. Same with reading a score. It's generally not as satisfying and it's more work, but some people can create musical performances in their heads.


To say "some people can create musical performances in their heads" is somewhat misleading and conflates "the idea of music" in one's cognitive memory with "performance as actual sound." Let's try to keep those two things separate.

The view which emphasizes the score works to a degree in gaining an understanding of a work as an abstract form, unrealized as sound, but begins to fail us if a work is unfamiliar, or as works become less familiar harmonically and otherwise, usually with more modern works.

The comparisons with 'words in a script' or 'words in a play' are inappropriate, since words convey more concrete meanings than music; and "reading words" conveys precise meanings better than "reading music" from score if it's not played.

To "read a score" and understand the full meaning of music seems to be conflating the visual sense (reading) with the aural sense (hearing), and I don't think there is a one-to-one correspondence with reading words. 
For example, I could read something written in French, and have no idea of what it means, even if I speak the words.

The whole agenda behind emphasizing the score is to convey to other people that "Yes, I'm so intelligent and musically knowledgeable that I can create a musical performance in my head, so who needs a performance," which is hard for me to believe except in the most elementary examples.

Yet, I've heard of concert pianists who can practice note-for-note in their heads. Many players (even guitarists) can do this to some extent; but this way of imprinting on music has more dimensions than just reading a score alone.

If such fragmentary "performances in the head" exist, it is probably more due to repeated years of playing music and/or listening to performances; after all, I'm saying that _real and complete musical meaning_ is conveyed aurally, not visually by score.

Musical knowledge would not be necessary if the person has an exceptional "ear" and memory. I'm sure there are some "savants" out there who have an extremely accurate "gestalt" of a work in their heads, intuitively and aurally, without any musical knowledge of terms and names of things. Many "ear" players have proven this (like Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson, etc.), i.e. "the ear is king."

"Music is sound, not an idea." What presumptuous intellectual would argue with this? I'm sure John Cage would agree.

_"This is not at all what I wrote, but play it like this. Do play it this way!" exclaimed Dmitri Shostakovich after Yudina performed the freshly written 24 Preludes and Fugues. This exclamation contains the key to understanding of Maria Yudina's performing art_


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

You've missed the main point of my post, which was: The score is a set of directions for creating music, the performance is the music. What you've written ^ ^ ^ is irrelevant to my point and just obfuscates simple issues. The score/script versus a musical or dramatic performance is Aesthetics 101.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> "Music is sound, not an idea." What presumptuous intellectual would argue with this? I'm sure John Cage would agree.


Maybe a presumptuous intellectual like Beethoven. He couldn't listen to Op.131. All he could do is put ideas on paper, and maybe tap his foot or wave his hands to help the ideas flow. I'm sure he thought his ideas were music.

Asking someone to sit at a piano making no sound for 4'33" and hoping that a hundred people who came to hear music will listen appreciatively to throats being cleared and planes flying over sure looks like an idea. So does "composing" using the I Ching or computer algorhythms. The irony of Cage is that the notion of expanding the definition of music to include sound divorced from communication, or even from the act of composing, has made him better known for his ideas than for his music. It makes him the supreme ideologue among composers, and it puts him in the same category as the abstract painters who claimed that representational painting was "impure" and that painting was "about paint" and must abandon the "lie" of perspective and cultivate "flatness."

It's ALL "idea," and it's all so very New York 1960s.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

I think a good example of how a performance makes or breaks a piece can be found here in Scriabin's Etude Op. 8 No. 5, one of my favorite etudes for piano:

Listen in this order 
Magaloff: 



Richter: 




If I had never heard Richter's wonderful interpretation I would have never even liked the piece...


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

EdwardBast said:


> You've missed the main point of my post, which was: The score is a set of directions for creating music, the performance is the music. What you've written ^ ^ ^ is irrelevant to my point and just obfuscates simple issues. The score/script versus a musical or dramatic performance is Aesthetics 101.


Well, maybe I _did _miss your point, because you're right, the performance IS the music, and the score is just instructions.

The point I question is how value judgements about a work can be made unless there is a performance to go by. I have doubts about how credibly this could be done "abstractly" by saying something is "a great work" apart from any performance, which is the impression many here seem to be under, with statements like:

"I have some folders with recordings grouped purely on the merit of conducting, but they contain only pieces I like in the first place."

"It's all about the music. A great performer can add something special, open our ears to things we hadn't heard before, but it all comes down to the music - that's always foremost."

Don't statements like this seem to contradict what you are saying, Edward, that the "performance is the music?" They are speaking as if "music" was somehow removed from performance. There's more:

"I've always been capable of listening around a flawed performance of a great work. I don't always enjoy it, but I'm at least able to appreciate the work's merits."

"Does the "music" exist as the score written by the composer? Or, is music rather something that must be heard to be real?"

"It is the composition that makes the difference. And compositions come first for me...it has to be what I experience as a successful and worthwhile work. It can be light and fun or big and deep, good music or great music. Then comes the performance, the interpretation."

What are all these people talking about, Edward? You yourself said "The score is a set of directions for creating music, the performance is the music."


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> Maybe a presumptuous intellectual like Beethoven. He couldn't listen to Op.131. All he could do is put ideas on paper, and maybe tap his foot or wave his hands to help the ideas flow. I'm sure he thought his ideas were music.


Now, suddenly, you're conflating "music" with "idea." this is one of your favorite distorting techniques in argumentation, to slip things like that by so fast we barely notice.



> Asking someone to sit at a piano making no sound for 4'33" and hoping that a hundred people who came to hear music will listen appreciatively to throats being cleared and planes flying over sure looks like an idea. So does "composing" using the I Ching or computer algorhythms. The irony of Cage is that the notion of expanding the definition of music to include sound divorced from communication, or even from the act of composing, has made him better known for his ideas than for his music. It makes him the supreme ideologue among composers, and it puts him in the same category as the abstract painters who claimed that representational painting was "impure" and that painting was "about paint" and must abandon the "lie" of perspective and cultivate "flatness." It's ALL "idea," and it's all so very New York 1960s.


But all the conservative Classical listeners here are saying the same thing: that their favorite music is somehow "an idea" that exists apart from a performance of actual sounds. Where is this "idea" of music? In their heads?

Actually, from what you've said, you seem to agree with Beethoven: that music is an idea, not sound, which puts you in disagreement with EdwardBast who said "The score is a set of directions for creating music, the performance is the music."

John Cage said "Music is just sound" as I recall. The piano itself makes no sound in 4'33", but there are sounds occurring as you pointed out: "throats being cleared and planes flying over."

"Composing" with the I Ching is the same thing as EdwardBast said: a set of instructions.

"Perspective" in painting is based on ideas and geometry; it's not "painting" itself. All of this seems quite logical to me.

It sounds to me like you, Edward, and the the conservative Classical listeners quoted here are just as much in "la-la land" as John Cage is: you seem to think that music is an "idea" of some sort that is "in your head," removed from sounds.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> Now, suddenly, you're conflating "music" with "idea." this is one of your favorite distorting techniques in argumentation, to slip things like that by so fast we barely notice.


Nya hah haaaaaah! :devil:

No, I'm not conflating anything. I'm rejecting a dichotomy. Music is _both_ sound _and_ idea - but idea is primary. Music without sound is incomplete, but without an idea it doesn't even exist (Monsieur Cage aux Folles au contraire). The idea is the fundamental part of music: sound without an idea is just sound, but a musical idea is an _idea of sound_ and implies sound. The idea thus contains both aspects; sound alone doesn't.



> But all the conservative Classical listeners here are saying the same thing: that their favorite music is somehow "an idea" that exists apart from a performance of actual sounds. Where is this "idea" of music? In their heads?


In the heads of both the composer and the listener - or, without a performance, the score reader. Brahms said that his best performances were enjoyed at home with the score in his lap.



> Actually, from what you've said, you seem to agree with Beethoven: that music is an idea, not sound, which puts you in disagreement with EdwardBast who said "The score is a set of directions for creating music, the performance is the music."


The performance is the completion or fulfillment of the music (but see Brahms above). That isn't to deny the creative contribution of the performer, but she too must have an idea to express.



> John Cage said "Music is just sound" as I recall. The piano itself makes no sound in 4'33", but there are sounds occurring as you pointed out: "throats being cleared and planes flying over."


"There are sounds ocurring" is not equivalent to "music is playing," unless one is persuaded by an IDEA of what music is. That's the irony: the attempt to redefine music as "just sound" reaffirms the primacy of "idea."



> "Composing" with the I Ching is the same thing as EdwardBast said: a set of instructions.


So is "walk across the stage with your head stuck in a euphonium."



> "Perspective" in painting is based on ideas and geometry; it's not "painting" itself. All of this seems quite logical to me.


Dichotomies are not logical. Saying "this, not that," when the reality is "this _and_ that," is not logical.



> It sounds to me like you, Edward, and the the conservative Classical listeners quoted here are just as much in "la-la land" as John Cage is: you seem to think that music is an "idea" of some sort that is "in your head," removed from sounds.


At least you admit that Cage is in la-la-land.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

A quotation from Feldman which I just remembered -- he said that there's an old saying "man makes plans, God laughs" but what's the case is that the composer makes plans and music laughs.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> ...a musical idea is an _idea of sound_ and implies sound. The idea thus contains both aspects; sound alone doesn't.


This makes no sense. "The idea (of music) thus contains both aspects (idea and sound)" is nonsensical and contradictory. Sound either exists as vibrations in the air, or it doesn't.

An "idea of sound" is just an idea. You seem to be implying that some sort of metaphysical transformation is happening. It appears that I've discovered beneath the rational facade of Woodduck a "metaphysical" side that believes "ideas" are "sounds called music."



> "There are sounds ocurring" is not equivalent to "music is playing," *unless one is persuaded by an IDEA of what music is. *


Another contradiction! If I listen to Cage's Atlas Eclipticalis, which I know was composed by star-charts, and I consider it to be "a legitimate idea of music," then by your criteria, it is music! By my criteria, the actual sounds are what makes it legitimate music, as well as being from John Cage.



> That's the irony: the attempt to redefine music as "just sound" reaffirms the primacy of "idea."


AHA! Conversely, the attempt to define "just sound" as music reaffirms the ephemeral quality of "idea" as well as the "primacy of sound."



> The performance is the completion or fulfillment of the music *(but see Brahms above). *


Another contradiction! You can't have it both ways, unless your definition of "music" is some metaphysical idea that is simultaneously "actual sound". This requires re-defining "performance," "actual sound," and "idea."

Brahms *erroneously* (probably facetious joking) called score reading a 'performance' which conflates "idea" with "actual sound" which is what a performance is, by definition. Woodduck, your misguided definitions are all over the place!



> That isn't to deny the creative contribution of the performer, but she too must have an idea to express.


Sure, let's put everybody on the "idea bandwagon" of music, except John Cage! And sound? What happened to sound in all of this? I suppose sound has become an idea as well! :lol:



> So is "walk across the stage with your head stuck in a euphonium."


That's a stage direction, probably for some theatrical content of a piece.



> Dichotomies are not logical. Saying "this, not that," when the reality is "this _and_ that," is not logical.


You can't even get your definitions straight! That's totally illogical. Sound is sound, and ideas are ideas. What's illogical about that?



> At least you admit that Cage is in la-la-land.


Ah, yes, YOUR la-la-land where "ideas are sounds."


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Concerning the nature of Beethoven's "idea" scores after his hearing had failed, and how this impacts the question of 'performance vs. composition.'

The differences between 'music one imagines in one's head' and an actual performance should be obvious on one level. The 'music in your head' is not actual sound, of course. It's based on memory, as anyone who has experienced 'earworms' knows. How precise is memory? It's not as precise or complete as an experience of actual sound.

Since memory is based on experience, we can assume that Beethoven had heard many performances of music, had written lots of scores, was thoroughly familiar with, and had mastered the Classical tonal music he was immersed in.

So it's no great wonder that Beethoven was able to write scores in his familiar musical syntax while deaf. It's not much different than someone who knows their spoken language, an is able to write it down, even if deaf.

Yes, these scores are 'musical ideas' insofar as they convey instructions; the degree to which he was familiar with the language of music in score form is what made these scores as 'musical' as they are, even before performance.

So in this sense music can be said to have a dimension of 'idea' associated with it; but this is not equal to, or as precise, or useful except as a guide to writing it as instructions, as an actual performance would be. Let's not forget that the 'idea' of music depends entirely on memory.

In this sense, the musical process is not so different than spoken and written language, in which music has no one-to-one meanings such as "chair," but _does_ have one-to-one _correspondences_ between written notes and pitches.

So this brings us to the next question: what is 'musical meaning,' and why does this always emerge when John Cage's music comes up?

This must mean that the "musical meaning" that many Classical/tonal music lovers demand and define as "music" is music of a certain kind, mainly tonal. And this requires that the music use a certain syntax, and that this music conforms to a particular kind of "musical meaning" which we call "idea."

Thus, the dichotomy between "the idea of music" and "sound itself as music" are become congruent and meaningful if the "idea" is of a certain kind and uses a certain syntax.

We can see from this state of affairs that "music" as most people think of it is dependent for meaning on an "idea"of what music "is" by their definition. This seems like an "idea waiting to be exploded" to me.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

One composition where the composer tries to give very detailed instructions about how to perform is John Cage's 101, there's a lot of instructions, for example, this to the wind players



> Play it as loud as possible. One breath only. The quality of the tone should be "ragged" or imperfect, that is, not turned on and off as one does an electric light, but brushed into existance as in oriental caligraphy where the ink (the sound) is not always seen, or if so, is streaked with white (silences).


And that raises questions as to what he was trying to achieve, his intention, his meaning. Why demand ragged sounds? Is it because he means his music not to be seen as an art object? Because he wants to avoid conventional beauty?


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Mandryka said:


> One composition where the composer tries to give very detailed instructions about how to perform is John Cage's 101, there's a lot of instructions, for example, this to the wind players...And that raises questions as to what he was trying to achieve, his intention, his meaning. Why demand ragged sounds? Is it because he means his music not to be seen as an art object? Because he wants to avoid conventional beauty?


Conventional notation and scoring's _main _concerns are pitch, and rhythm; and I think in Western harmonic music, rhythm is not at the forefront, and is really serving the pitch domain, in phrasing melodies, defining themes, etc.

_Play it as loud as possible. One breath only. The quality of the tone should be "ragged" or imperfect, that is, not turned on and off as one does an electric light, but brushed into existence *as in oriental caligraphy* where the ink (the sound) is not always seen, or if so, is streaked with white (silences)._

Cage's concern is not harmonic, so his instructions are geared to produce expressive nuances, most likely oriental.

Cage also, in The Freeman Etudes, gives notation so complex that Paul Zukofsky declared it unplayable, so Cage shelved it until Irvine Arditti said he could do it. I think Cage's main revision was the instruction "_As fast as humanly possible" _or something like that.I think it was an ironic comment on "the new complexity" type of scoring.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> This makes no sense. "The idea (of music) thus contains both aspects (idea and sound)" is nonsensical and contradictory. Sound either exists as vibrations in the air, or it doesn't.
> 
> An "idea of sound" is just an idea. You seem to be implying that some sort of metaphysical transformation is happening. It appears that I've discovered beneath the rational facade of Woodduck a "metaphysical" side that believes "ideas" are "sounds called music."
> 
> ...


Let me try to summaize this.

Music is an art. Art consists of ideas and the physical embodiment of those ideas. Music consists of ideas and the sounds that embody them; it may also consist of a visual embodiment, a score. Musical ideas which are not physically experienced through the sense of hearing are still music. The melody playing in my head is music. As a "sort of" composer (improviser for dance), I have original music playing in my head much of the time. You may say that it's only a "musical idea," but that is a semantic argument of an unhelpful sort. To say that what I'm doing in my head is not making music is just silly; if you'd told the deaf Beethoven that you'd have got a face full of bratwurst and sauerkraut, and you'd have deserved it. I'm also a visual artist, and I create pictures in my head which may or may not (mostly not) become paintings. In both cases, what I'm doing in my head is art: in the one case the art of music, in the other case the art of image-making. As every artist knows, sometimes the idea is better than the physical product, and the imagining can be the most vital and exciting part of the process. My greatest pictures have never been painted. Sorry, world.

I've said that I consider the musical idea the fundamental and indispensable part of music. I've said that even music that never gets a hearing still exists as music, whereas sound that doesn't represent a musical idea is not music. I've said that Cage's attempt to remove the composer - the musical idea - from music and redefine music as "just sound" ironically reaffirms the primacy of the idea, since in 4'33" there is nothing by John Cage EXCEPT an idea.

I can't imagine how any of this could be so confusing to you as to result in the above remarks. I must have screwed up badly. I hope it's all clearer now.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> This makes no sense. "The idea (of music) thus contains both aspects (idea and sound)" is nonsensical and contradictory. Sound either exists as vibrations in the air, or it doesn't.
> 
> An "idea of sound" is just an idea. You seem to be implying that some sort of metaphysical transformation is happening. It appears that I've discovered beneath the rational facade of Woodduck a "metaphysical" side that believes "ideas" are "sounds called music."
> 
> ...


I agree that music contains both idea and sound. The "idea of sound" remains important, for in order to _know_ a sound (i.e., to be able to recognize that what one hears _is _a sound) one must have an idea of what a sound is. If one does not know what a sound is (as an idea) one will not be able to recognize it. Just as anyone reading this will likely be unable to recognize a gzüyétišçh upon encountering it.

Of course, a memory of a sound is not a sound itself, but simply a memory. And one's idea of a sound or idea of what a sound is is also not a sound itself.

But a sound or even a series of sounds is not music unless one recognizes it as such, and to do so one must have an idea of what music is (no matter how personal the definition of that idea is). Yet, the memory I have of Beethoven's Fifth playing in my head, or of my own First Symphony playing in my head, is also that of music playing in my head in that odd way that the mind has of creating a reality out of an abstraction. By the same way I know that Truth, Hope, Justice, and Love are real things.

If there is contradiction spotted here, it is that paradoxical contradiction that comes with being a sentient being. To know that one exists is to exist. Yet, something may exist without knowing so. But, can anything exist if there is nothing to know it exists?

I liked this board back in the day when it didn't make my head ache with philosophical blather.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> Let me try to summaize this.
> 
> Music is an art. Art consists of ideas and the physical embodiment of those ideas. Music consists of ideas and the sounds that embody them; it may also consist of a visual embodiment, a score. Musical ideas which are not physically experienced through the sense of hearing are still music. The melody playing in my head is music. As a "sort of" composer (improviser for dance), I have original music playing in my head much of the time. You may say that it's only a "musical idea," but that is a semantic argument of an unhelpful sort. To say that what I'm doing in my head is not making music is just silly; if you'd told the deaf Beethoven that you'd have got a face full of bratwurst and sauerkraut, and you'd have deserved it. I'm also a visual artist, and I create pictures in my head which may or may not (mostly not) become paintings. In both cases, what I'm doing in my head is art: in the one case the art of music, in the other case the art of image-making. As every artist knows, sometimes the idea is better than the physical product, and the imagining can be the most vital and exciting part of the process. My greatest pictures have never been painted. Sorry, world.


Yes, there is an 'idea' aspect to music; but it is limited, and is not real, sounding music. Even random sounds with no idea are more "real" than ideas about sound. That just underscores another difference: musical ideas are Platonic by nature; they are unrealized "music." They must always be called 'ideas,' or scores, or instructions, not music. All else is subjective speculation: what makes a "good" musical work, etc.



> I've said that I consider the musical idea the fundamental and indispensable part of music. I've said that even music that never gets a hearing still exists as music, whereas sound that doesn't represent a musical idea is not music.


That's simply a case of 'ultimate rationalism' which says that 'real, sounding music' must be attached to objectified "ideas" (which are in reality subjective imaginings and thoughts). You're trying to 'objectify' the subjective.
That reply also belies a bias against certain kinds of music, which I will soon go into.



> I've said that Cage's attempt to remove the composer - the musical idea - from music and redefine music as "just sound" ironically reaffirms the primacy of the idea, since in 4'33" there is nothing by John Cage EXCEPT an idea.


But you've forgotten that John Cage's focus is on the listener (the subjective) rather than the 'composer' or 'score' (the objective). All Cage has done is remove the unreliable, subjective "idea" of music, and let real sound be defined by the listener as "music," thus bypassing all of the standardized definitions of what music is supposed to be.



> I can't imagine how any of this could be so confusing to you as to result in the above remarks. I must have screwed up badly. I hope it's all clearer now. I was clarifying some things through argumentation and logic, that's all.


You've objectified everything, that's all. 
Still, to call the music in your head "music" requires an elementary one-to-one correspondence of musical syntax, reducing it to simplistic and language-like literal meanings (the label "a chair" works largely because we already know what a chair is). This works to a limited degree in scored music. Even Frank Zappa's scores represent "musical ideas" in that elementary, idealized way. But to find musicians who can actually play _The Black Page_ is quite another story, and underscores the Platonic idealized nature of musical idea in score. I think music turns out to be more than ideas on paper. Admittedly, music can be represented by rudimentary "ideas" which correspond to pitches and rhythms.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> I've said that I consider the musical idea the fundamental and indispensable part of music.


As long as your musical idea is simplistic enough to create a one-to-one correspondence to real sounds from instruments, as instructions.

Music created without score, as a performance of improvised or "sounded" music i_s also created from ideas_ of the player,

Music which depends on the interpretation of instructions, as in Cage's music, is also idea music, only the "ideas" which emerge as musical sounds are in the performer's subjective interpretation.



> I've said that even music that never gets a hearing still exists as music...


Yes, you've made that clear...



> ...whereas sound that doesn't represent a musical idea is not music.


But you have specified _where _you think this idea must come from: a score, a composer's idea. But a musical idea can originate as performer's idea, interpretation, or even as "muscle memory ideas" of performers on their instruments, which becomes sound, which is _heard and defined by a listener as music._



> I've said that Cage's attempt to remove the composer - the musical idea - from music and redefine music as "just sound" ironically reaffirms the primacy of the idea, since in 4'33" there is nothing by John Cage EXCEPT an idea.


That's objective thinking. Cage did not 'remove the musical idea' in his music; he simply moved it into the subjective realm. In Cage, the idea is now in the listener, or performer as listener & interpreter. The listener hears the sound, and defines it as music. You do the same thing when you improvise on your piano.

Just because the idea doesn't originate from an outside source like a score or composer doesn't invalidate it as a musical idea.



> I can't imagine how any of this could be so confusing to you as to result in the above remarks. I must have screwed up badly. I hope it's all clearer now.


It's not so much that "I'm confused" as it is that you are "stuck in objective, rational thinking" which excludes the subjective.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Above, I said _"You have specified__ where you think this idea must come from: a score, a composer's idea. But a musical idea can originate as performer's idea, interpretation, or even as "muscle memory ideas" of performers on their instruments, which becomes sound, which is heard and defined by a listener as music."
_
John Cage's 4"33", which has no "performer" and consists of whatever random sounds occur within that time-frame (with no musical intent or idea behind them), is always used as an example of music with "no idea" behind it. This is not true; the musical intent is John Cage, and he intends for the listener to use his/her own intent, and consider these sounds as music.


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## Dimace (Oct 19, 2018)

Enthusiast said:


> Some pieces respond well to a wide variety of interpretations and some don't. It is the composition that makes the difference. And compositions come first for me. I don't mean everything has to be a great towering masterpiece - just that it has to be what I experience as a successful and worthwhile work. It can be light and fun or big and deep, good music or great music. Then comes the performance, the interpretation. The more I get to know a work the more demanding I become. And some works are just not worthwhile unless they are played well. With works that are rarely played or recorded and that I do not like very much I do often wonder if my lukewarm response is down to a poor performance and how much is the composition.


Only with Beethoven, I'm VERY severe with the performance with Piano Sonatas, Symphonies and Piano Concertos. And this happens, because the compositions are of the highest possible level and, with our performances, we MUST meet these enormous composer's expectations. With Bach, I have also the same opinion. With other composers, as you have written, I look first at the composition (is it good, or it isn't) and after the performance. As I have written there is no performance I didn't like it with works of Faure or Franck, because of their wonderful music masterpieces. Also with my Master, with the exception of B Sonata, I'm not very severe with the performances. It is OK to have RESPECT for the score. I firmly believe that no performance can save a bad music score.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Additionally, Woodduck's view effectively "limits" the meaning of acceptable musical ideas, and as we have already seen in his rejection of John Cage's work, is revealed to be something else: the same old conservative opposition to 'modern' kinds of music.

The use of the deaf Beethoven writing "ideas" into score is biased and misleading. Beethoven had mastered the tonal harmonic language, so he was doing what he had been doing for years before with his kinds of musical ideas. 
The Beethoven metaphor doesn't apply to all music, and it doesn't "prove" that 'music is idea' except in a very specific and way, and applies only to the tonal syntax.

For example, in 12-tone and serial music, the compositional procedures are 'hidden' from the surface manifestation of the music. The ideas which determine the pitches & rhythms might be based on mathematical or intuitive procedures which are not 'imagined' _per se_ as 'musical thoughts' like Beethoven's. Yet, does anyone here deny that Webern and Berg are 'real music?'

It still seems to me to be the same old dilemma: "music is sound" seems to be an insurmountable obstacle for most conservative listeners & thinkers.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Enthusiast said:


> With works that are rarely played or recorded and that I do not like very much I do often wonder if my lukewarm response is down to a poor performance and how much is the composition.


Confusing, isn't it? As much as some here would have you believe otherwise, it's a complex issue worth discussing and questioning.


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## mrdoc (Jan 3, 2020)

millionrainbows said:


> Yet, does anyone here deny that Webern and Berg are 'real music?'
> 
> .


It's music Jim but not as we know it.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> Let me try to summaize this.
> 
> Music is an art. Art consists of ideas and the physical embodiment of those ideas. Music consists of ideas and the sounds that embody them; it may also consist of a visual embodiment, a score. Musical ideas which are not physically experienced through the sense of hearing are still music. The melody playing in my head is music. As a "sort of" composer (improviser for dance), I have original music playing in my head much of the time. You may say that it's only a "musical idea," but that is a semantic argument of an unhelpful sort. To say that what I'm doing in my head is not making music is just silly; if you'd told the deaf Beethoven that you'd have got a face full of bratwurst and sauerkraut, and you'd have deserved it. I'm also a visual artist, and I create pictures in my head which may or may not (mostly not) become paintings. In both cases, what I'm doing in my head is art: in the one case the art of music, in the other case the art of image-making. As every artist knows, sometimes the idea is better than the physical product, and the imagining can be the most vital and exciting part of the process. My greatest pictures have never been painted. Sorry, world.
> 
> ...


The model seems to be that the composer has musical ideas. I'd rather say say that the composer creates something which gives the performer ideas about which sounds to make. Things like Cornelius Cardew's _Treatise _make the latter a better conception I think. In _Treatise_ it's graphic. Here's an example of a bit of the score with an interpretation in sound.






Strange to think that _Treatise _is nearly 60 years old now, and just looking on spotify and youtube I can see it has received many performances, many recordings too. There are, I think, more recordings of _Treatise _than of Beethoven's _contredanses _.

Another interesting composition to think about in the respect is John Cage's _Variations_ cycle.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

My thinking is probably too crude for this thread but I do not see how it can be controversial that composer have ideas (musical ideas) which they explore and realise through their compositions. You can use another word - *perhaps *a more precise one - instead of ideas but in the end they are ideas. They must surely be the products of the composer's cognition? The alternative is that the composer receives them passively and whole from some divine being. That the work is an idea or set of ideas does not close down possibilities for how listeners might respond to the work and many musical ideas are at least partly about engaging with the listener in the hope of receiving some sort of response.

There are parallels in client-centred psychotherapy and student-centred education: the therapist or teacher plans and executes methods (ideas) for getting the client/student to go through a process (made up of their own ideas) that will result in some form of growth.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Enthusiast said:


> The alternative is that the composer receives them passively and whole from some divine being.


The alternative is that the _musical _ideas are created by the interaction of the musicians and the thing the composer creates.

Consider a spectrum. At one extreme you have some free improvisation, and then some free improvisation inspired by a landscape or a picture . . . . and eventually something like Cardew's Treatise . . . and eventually some music which allows performers some limited choices about f.e. instruments or durations or order of sections, many things by Cage are like this, but also Boulez . . . . and eventually a highly detailed score like a piano piece by Ravel.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

^ I get that but the process that is used to get to this interaction involves planning and this involves musical ideas, too. Yes, my point is that shallow! But I was disturbed by some posts that have sought to prohibit the use of the word idea (or the phrase musical idea) for describing composition. And performance, actually. And probably listening, too.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

> I was disturbed by some posts that have sought to prohibit the use of the word idea (or the phrase musical idea) for describing composition. And performance, actually. And probably listening, too.


For conventional tonal/harmonic music that is scored, 'musical ideas' are a perfectly acceptable term.

Sorry if you are disturbed by the "prohibition" (reexamination) of terms like 'musical idea.' Actually, it's the more open-minded thinkers around here who should be disturbed by limited and exclusive definitions of terms such as "musical idea."

If terms like this (in their more limited definition) are thrown around and used as 'conceptual bludgeons,' then this is more correctly called 'disturbing' to many composers, performers, and forum listeners.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Anyway I want to get you people to think about graphic scores, about Cardew!


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Mandryka said:


> There are, I think, more recordings of _Treatise _than of Beethoven's _contredanses _.


Desperation time.  I bet not.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> Yes, there is an 'idea' aspect to music; but it is limited, and is not real, sounding music.


Music in the mind or on paper is perfectly real. It's merely not yet sounding.



> Even random sounds with no idea are more "real" than ideas about sound.


They may be more "real," but not more REAL. Putting quotes around words can be an intellectual escape hatch or con game.

A mental image of sound, or a musical score, is perfectly real.



> That just underscores another difference: musical ideas are Platonic by nature; they are unrealized "music."


That's not ANOTHER difference. That's THE difference: the difference between music in one form and music in another.



> They must always be called 'ideas,' or scores, or instructions, not music.


They're called music all the time. That's the way the word is used, like it or not.



> All else is subjective speculation: what makes a "good" musical work, etc.


That makes no sense. Inventing a melody in my head and writing it down are not "speculation." They are the process of creating music. Whether or not it's good music is beside the point.



> That's simply a case of 'ultimate rationalism' which says that 'real, sounding music' must be attached to objectified "ideas" (which are in reality subjective imaginings and thoughts). You're trying to 'objectify' the subjective.


This is pseudo-philosophical bunkum. There is no such thing as "ultimate rationalism" (you need to stop using that term, which you invariably misuse and misattribute). Sounding music is not "attached to" ideas; it's the embodiment of them. "Objective/subjective" is irrelevant and obfuscatory.



> That reply also belies a bias against certain kinds of music, which I will soon go into.


No one's musical preferences are relevant.



> But you've forgotten that John Cage's focus is on the listener (the subjective) rather than the 'composer' or 'score' (the objective).


I haven't forgotten anything.



> All Cage has done is remove the unreliable, subjective "idea" of music, and let real sound be defined by the listener as "music," thus bypassing all of the standardized definitions of what music is supposed to be.


There's no such "unreliable, subjective idea of music." There never was. What Cage did was not to LET "real sound" be redefined as music, but to redefine music himself. Listeners were not clamoring for a new definition of music. People experiencing 4'33" are not compelled by the mere experience to define environmental noise as music. Poets have always used the metaphor of the "music" of wind and waterfalls, people have always enjoyed the sounds of nature, and no one for millennia needed to "bypass" the definition of music and create a new one until John Cage decided that they ought to.



> In Cage, the idea is now in the listener, or performer as listener & interpreter. The listener hears the sound, and defines it as music. You do the same thing when you improvise on your piano.


Improvising at the piano is in no way similar to what the imaginary listener does in your scenario. I don't have to redefine music in order to make it. Your imaginary listener isn't going to redefine it either unless John Cage tells him to - and why should he give John Cage that authority? Whether I'm playing the piano or listening appreciatively to the sounds around me, the fake problem of redefining music is the farthest thing from my mind.



> Still, to call the music in your head "music" requires an elementary one-to-one correspondence of musical syntax, reducing it to simplistic and language-like literal meanings (the label "a chair" works largely because we already know what a chair is).


There is nothing "literal" or "simplistic" about the music in my head. Those words don't even mean anything relative to the music in my head. Or relative to this discussion.



> This works to a limited degree in scored music. Even Frank Zappa's scores represent "musical ideas" in that elementary, idealized way. But to find musicians who can actually play _The Black Page_ is quite another story, and underscores the Platonic idealized nature of musical idea in score. I think music turns out to be more than ideas on paper.


Well, of course music is more than ideas on paper. No one thinks otherwise. A score is a more or less incomplete representation of the composer's mental music, and he hopes that performers can flesh it out in a manner that approximates his intentions.



> Just because the idea doesn't originate from an outside source like a score or composer doesn't invalidate it as a musical idea.


Is there an _inside_ source? There has to be a source somewhere. Music doesn't create itself.



> It's not so much that "I'm confused" as it is that you are "stuck in objective, rational thinking" which excludes the subjective.


Oh the horror! To be stuck in rational thinking, that oppressive realm where we're constrained by reality and not free to Humpty-Dumptyize words into meaning anything we want them to mean! How terrible, to be unable to redefine the world to fulfill our own wishes and never be held to account! Is that what John Cage wanted? To redefine music so that he could make, or not make, any sort of noise that struck his fancy, anything his skills would actually enable him to produce, and never be required to make music with meaning or merit that people would be able to judge and find wanting? And is that what you want? The freedom to use perfectly serviceable words to mean anything, so that you can characterize your opponents with fictional labels, never be pinned down, and never lose an argument?

This whole debate was never anything more than playing with words. "Music" is a word that has always had meanings clear to everyone. We have always been able to say, correctly, "I'm composing music," "I need to buy the music for this piece," and "I'm listening to music." Three aspects of the same phenomenon, the phenomenon we call "music." All your "objective-subjective-rationalist" stuff is just a way of making a frivolous non-issue seem important and keeping a useless argument on life-support.


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## Guest (Mar 14, 2020)

Composition and performance complement each other, but if composition fails, performance cannot save it.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Enthusiast said:


> My thinking is probably too crude for this thread but I do not see how it can be controversial that composer have ideas (musical ideas) which they explore and realise through their compositions. You can use another word - *perhaps *a more precise one - instead of ideas but in the end they are ideas. They must surely be the products of the composer's cognition? The alternative is that the composer receives them passively and whole from some divine being. That the work is an idea or set of ideas does not close down possibilities for how listeners might respond to the work and many musical ideas are at least partly about engaging with the listener in the hope of receiving some sort of response.
> 
> There are parallels in client-centred psychotherapy and student-centred education: the therapist or teacher plans and executes methods (ideas) for getting the client/student to go through a process (made up of their own ideas) that will result in some form of growth.


I think the simpler answer is that musical ideas as they originate in the mind of a composer do not _necessarily_ have to represent sounds in a one-to-one correspondence, or even represent sound at all in a literal way.
Anybody who says they *must* has a definition of music which *could* be used in discussion to reject and exclude 'atonal' (or any music not based on a harmonic schema) or serial music, or the music of Xenakis (uses mathematics), Wuorinen (fractal ideas), Stockhausen, Boulez, and many other composers too numerous to mention. Musical ideas can be used to determine and generate the pitch, rhythmic, duration, overall form or content of a work in other, less literal, ways.

But even so, I don't think all music (even some jazz) originates as "ideas," especially music that is performed and created by someone "doing" something on an instrument or voice. Some of this kind of music would be more aptly heard as an expression of 'being,' not "musical ideas" and thinking _per se._

The overall agenda in _limiting_ the definition of 'idea' and its function in creating music is obviously to exclude those kinds of music outside of that limited definition.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Composition without a doubt. Sometimes I like to listen to different renditions of a piece I particularly like, but in general I definitely prefer to listen to ten pieces than I don't know than ten versions of the same piece to find my favorite one.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Enthusiast said:


> ^ I get that but the process that is used to get to this interaction involves planning and this involves musical ideas, too..


But only in a very limited sense. Take, for example, Cage's piece from 1958, Variations 1. Cage has had an idea for providing a structure for the performer to make music, but I think it's really pushing it to say he had a musical idea. Here's the wiki description - there are some beautiful results by the way, see if you can find Roberto Fabbriciani's lyrical performance, or Steffen Schleiermacher's sparse, Satie-esque performance.



> The first piece in the series is dedicated to David Tudor and was a belated birthday present. The score consists of six transparent squares: one with 27 points of four different sizes, five with five lines each. The squares are to be combined in any way, with points representing sounds, and lines used as axes of various characteristics of these sounds: lowest frequency, simplest overtone structure, etc. Said characteristics are obtained by dropping perpendiculars from points and measuring these perpendiculars. The piece is to be performed by any number of performers on any kind and number of instruments.


This is like Cardew's treatise in a way, it's a score designed to get the performer to make music, rather than a score designed to tell the performer what music to make.


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## DaddyGeorge (Mar 16, 2020)

It's an easy answer for me. There was just one Beethoven (Bach, Mozart,........) and there were/are/will be thousands let's say pianists trying to play his works (better or worse). Great pieces I can (and do) enjoy in many interpretations. As for me, I can rather imagine the music world without Brendel than without Beethoven...


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

_



I get that but the process that is used to get to this interaction involves planning and this involves musical ideas, too..

Click to expand...

_


Mandryka said:


> But only in a very limited sense. Take, for example, Cage's piece from 1958, Variations 1. Cage has had an idea for providing a structure for the performer to make music, but I think it's really pushing it to say he had a musical idea. Here's the wiki description - there are some beautiful results by the way, see if you can find Roberto Fabbriciani's lyrical performance, or Steffen Schleiermacher's sparse, Satie-esque performance.
> 
> This is like Cardew's treatise in a way, it's a score designed to get the performer to make music, rather than a score designed to tell the performer what music to make.


That's illuminating, Mandryka. This illustrates how any method of "recording" music (either in a score, or by audio recording) can make musical ideas permanent, or consistent, so they don't change. 
We should understand this in terms of the pre-recording era, when (unscored) music originated from performers and players of instruments, and all the ideas were created and exchanged by ear. This aural process tends to 'morph' ideas, because they are not written down or recorded.
One reason music notation and scoring was developed is so musical ideas could be presented exactly, and large groups could be controlled.
There are differences in written scores and audio recordings, in that a notated score records an_ idea,_ while an audio recording records a performance or sounds.
Since John Cage is not interested in musical ideas _per se,_ as unchanging, but is interested in sound itself, it makes sense that he would score in novel ways, so that music would be created which constantly changed and was always subject to the performer's decisions in the moment.
That's why I'm saying that the performer is very, very important in listening to Cage CDs.

All of this underscores Marshall McLuhan's ideas about visual-biased culture (based on writing) and aurally-based cultures which are hearing/speech based.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

DaddyGeorge said:


> It's an easy answer for me. There was just one Beethoven (Bach, Mozart,........) and there were/are/will be thousands let's say pianists trying to play his works (better or worse). Great pieces I can (and do) enjoy in many interpretations. As for me, I can rather imagine the music world without Brendel than without Beethoven...


It's easy for me, also, when I listen to jazz. There's only one John Coltrane, one Jim Hall, one Oscar Peterson...the performer, and his expression of his being through improvisation, is more important in jazz than an unchanging Platonic idea of a "song" or composition. We listen to John Coltrane play "My Favorite Things" for his performance, not for an "idea" of it.

So this notion of "performance or composition" illustrates the differences between aural and visual biases of perception.

Music is something we hear, and is also _recorded_ as _ideas_ in scores or as _sound_ when using recording technology.

As listeners here, the experience of sound is paramount to us even 'getting' a musical idea, so sound is the predominant means of transmitting musical ideas.
Written scores are instructions, and as such are more of interest to musicians who play & read music.

Scores are _not_ primarily 'conveyers of musical ideas' to listeners; scores simply record the ideas precisely, in an unchanging consistent manner, for the player. The actual sound and the musical ideas are still transmitted by ear, by the performer.

Writing music in score (composition) simply records ideas so that performances will be generally consistent and adhere to a certain idea.

To say that ideas are "in" scores is a misunderstanding of the _priorities_ of a score's purpose: to _instruct_ performers and to keep ideas _consistent_ for possibly large numbers of players.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

After what I've said in my post #74 above, I think that the way of considering classical music as "works" is somewhat pretentious, and has its proper priorities reversed.

The idea of a "work" in CM gives us info about its era and style, and it identifies an unchanging, consistent 'record' of a musical idea, but all of this is Platonic and abstract. 
When someone likes a work based on the "idea" of it, this is really a preference based on knowledge of an idea, and has less to do with the actual sound of a work being performed. 
This is why many listeners from other areas of music (jazz, pop) (which are performance-based) are mystified or confused, even alienated, by talk of "works" in CM. It appears overly-cerebral and intellectual, since to listeners, music is really about sound and listening, and performances of artists. The notion of "Beethoven" as a composer of ideas is rather abstract to them.
This also accounts for the attraction of listeners to certain performers; pianists and players, most obviously and directly.

I see the preference for conductors (in classical circles) to be more pretentious than pop music's preference for players and performers, since conducting is about ideas, and their conveyance. Conducting is not _creation_ to the degree that composing is. Conductors are 'take it or leave it' figures to many.

All in all, I see classical music's notion of "musical ideas" in scores as a more Platonic, intellectual, and pretentious approach than simply listening to the sound of the music.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

I really think the idea that scores are instructions is glib. This is what the idea seems to involve:



> A player reads the score and makes himself a picture of the sound in his mind -- the hypothetically imagined sound.He then attempts to reproduce that picture in sound. He plays, and then listens to the sounds he made. He compares it with the picture of the sound he had in his mind beforehand, and he may make a few changes, reducing the most glaring discrepancies, correcting wrong notes quickly, reducing the notes he finds too loud etc.


But on what basis does the player imagine the sound? On the basis of the notation? But the _process of imagining_ cannot be included in the notation!

Each player interprets a score according to his own acumen and sensibility. He may be guided by many things -- by the internal structure of the score itself, by his personal experience in music making, by reference to various traditions, by the action of other musicians working on the piece, by conversations with the composer. This is a form of life, a whirl of organism, which give rise to musical expression.


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## DaddyGeorge (Mar 16, 2020)

millionrainbows said:


> The idea of a "work" in CM gives us info about its era and style, and it identifies an unchanging, consistent 'record' of a musical idea, but all of this is Platonic and abstract.
> When someone likes a work based on the "idea" of it, this is really a preference based on knowledge of an idea, and has less to do with the actual sound of a work being performed.
> This is why many listeners from other areas of music (jazz, pop) (which are performance-based) are mystified or confused, even alienated, by talk of "works" in CM. It appears overly-cerebral and intellectual, since to listeners, music is really about sound and listening, and performances of artists. The notion of "Beethoven" as a composer of ideas is rather abstract to them.
> This also accounts for the attraction of listeners to certain performers; pianists and players, most obviously and directly


It's interesting and I really like your philosophical approach. But I don't think so... The work, the score is very concrete and real for me (my favorite scene from Forman's Amadeus is how Salieri studies, imagines and enjoys Mozart's music from score, he can find the beauty just in those sheets of paper).

If we (for a while) change music e.g. for drama, the literature is basic for me again. Actors and director can do great (excellent) job, but without Shakespeare? I can even read Shakespeare's plays myself.

If we switch to music again, I can play parts from Mozart's clarinet concerto using my piano, violin or guitar (it won't be very good). Especially in the past, people usually played music themselves, interpretation was (in the best case) average but they could listen e.g. to Chopin.

I don't listen to jazz music, but I understand that interpret is the most important in this genre. Most of the pop music listeners don't care who the author is, even who the interpret is. In the show "Your Face Sounds Familiar" famous actors can sing popular songs (it's said by the jury) better than original and everybody is happy.

That means that composers and interprets are equally important to create music in my opinion... But I would rather listen to masterpiece in average interpretation than to average work great performance.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

DaddyGeorge said:


> It's interesting and I really like your philosophical approach. But I don't think so... The work, the score is very concrete and real for me (my favorite scene from Forman's Amadeus is how Salieri studies, imagines and enjoys Mozart's music from score, he can find the beauty just in those sheets of paper).


But Salieri was a composer who could read music; and nobody but he could say 'how real' his experience of 'music' was by reading a score. It's a subjective experience. Listeners who can't read music don't share this; to them, music is real sound, objective, or, less credibly, is hinged on a very general notion that it's a "great" work.

It's funny, I don't see many CM listeners presenting subjective experiential issues such as 'the idea of music' and 'music in one's head' as real, objective arguments rather than just opinions. Members are usually so rational and objective in their answers. The notion of a "masterpiece" seems to be accepted as fact, not an idea.



DaddyGeorge said:


> If we (for a while) change music e.g. for drama, the literature is basic for me again. Actors and director can do great (excellent) job, but without Shakespeare? I can even read Shakespeare's plays myself.


Again, I think that's a bad metaphor to use with music. A script is instructions. If the ideas in the script (plot) are good ideas, we only have to judge them as ideas, and this holds up better than a music score, because a script is dealing with more literal ideas.



DaddyGeorge said:


> If we switch to music again, I can play parts from Mozart's clarinet concerto using my piano, violin or guitar (it won't be very good). Especially in the past, people usually played music themselves, interpretation was (in the best case) average but they could listen e.g. to Chopin.
> 
> I don't listen to jazz music, but I understand that interpret is the most important in this genre. Most of the pop music listeners don't care who the author is, even who the interpret is. In the show "Your Face Sounds Familiar" famous actors can sing popular songs (it's said by the jury) better than original and everybody is happy.
> 
> That means that composers and interprets are equally important to create music in my opinion... *But I would rather listen to masterpiece in average interpretation than to average work great performance.*


I see where you are coming from, but to an extent you are 'pretending' to be basing your listening experience on the idea of a 'masterpiece', but to do this, you must have listening experience of 'average' and 'mediocre' performances. (unless you can read a score and 'experience' the music in your head well enough to make a judgement, which I doubt).

Myself, I doubt Salieri's ability to do this as well, and I interpret that movie scene differently. He already knew that Mozart was a genius, by hearing the works. His perusal of the scores was a way he was 'getting closer' to the genius, holding the actual hand-written score in his hands.

I still maintain that value judgements based on reading scores, or on 'notions of masterpieces' are tenuous and questionable, unless they are formed by actual listening experiences. Even after that, any "idea" of a work's value is inextricably tied to the listening experience of actual sound. Scores are more rightly seen as instructions, not as replacement for listening, and not credible enough for value judgements that are worth anything.

Likewise, for listeners who can't read scores and who make value judgements about works, the opinions are tenuous and questionable, unless they are formed by actual listening experiences. Unlike in pop or jazz, whose listeners seem to be more influenced by artists or performances, the "idea" of a musical idea as a "masterpiece" is much more a 'meme' that is passed around in elitist, specialized factions of experts.

Thus, for me, music is not an "idea" in any credible way; only in very general ways, such as: I know who the composer is, what era he's from, what I might expect generally from listening. Then, if I deem it a "great" work, such a notion _must be connected to an actual experience of sound _to emerge.


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