# Music and collecting art



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I had a friend who couldn't understand why somebody wouldn't just forge a Beethoven symphony and make a lot of money. I tried to explain that he'd have to be as great a composer as Beethoven to do this, but I don't think he quite got it. Of course people have been forging the great painters for centuries, often with success.

But anyway there's not much of a market for classical music, at least for the manuscripts. The most famous are worth a fair amount but will never bring in the tens of millions of dollars that great paintings will.

Why do you suppose this is?


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

I suppose one obvious reason is that if you hang a Beethoven manuscript on your wall it won't look very impressive and all that your guests will say is "what the heck is _that_?"


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Yes, a picture of a tomato soup can might do better.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

The value of music is what it sounds to listeners not the manuscript other than for historical show if you want to hang a music sheet by Louis on the wall. But I rather look very closely at Louis' music sheets on the wall or even his period pianos than a tomato soup can painting by Andy Warhol, who I regard as a fake artist.


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

From the BBC website:

Beethoven's autographed music manuscript - a sketchleaf for the slow movement of the String Quartet in C, op.59, no.3 - has fetched £241,250 at auction. Thomas Venning, Christie's senior specialist of books and manuscripts told the BBC's Radio 3 In Tune that the auction is the second highest price paid for a Beethoven sketchleaf. Mr Venning said the sketchleaf which was purchased by a European private collector. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-20442135 22 November 2012

it would hardly seem worth the effort to forge a sheet of music for only a few hundred thousands - a forger of handwriting could make much more money forging a pop-star's autograph


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

A painting is an art work; a score is merely directions for producing an art work. I don't think any further explanation is required.


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## Fugue Meister (Jul 5, 2014)

Uh, I don't know how I feel about the idea the "score is merely the directions for making art", that seems a rather blasphemous statement, insinuating only the sounds that come from a score is actual art. As a person who can read music I frequently play the music in my head while reading along with the score and I'm fairly certain there are others of this ilk who are just as happy studying the notes on the page as they are with listening to the players. 

You may love the the cake and wouldn't eat the individual ingredients but that delicious cake wouldn't be there if not for those individual ingredients and that recipe.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

^ I have to agree with Mr. Bast: an abstraction of a thing in not the same as its instantiation.


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## Guest (Oct 6, 2015)

Marschallin Blair said:


> ^ I have to agree with Mr. Bast: an abstraction of a thing in not the same as its instantiation.


^^ I agree with Ed and MB: I also have this facility (to a point, depends on the complexity of the score) whereby I can read through the pages and hear it. However, Beethoven had this to an extraordinary degree (and there can be little doubt that this applied to Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Bruckner etc etc etc as well ) but do you think for one moment he (LvB) wasn't bothered about being deaf? No, even though he knew *exactly* how it sounded, he would have given his right testicle to physically hear the works he wrote. It is surely the same with our visual faculty: I can very well imagine (with my inner eye) a scene from nature or a painting I have seen but nothing - *nothing*, *nada* - will replace the sheer physicality of seeing the object in real life and real time.


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## Guest (Oct 6, 2015)

Why the favouritism, what had he got against the right one?


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## Guest (Oct 6, 2015)

Fugue Meister said:


> Uh, I don't know how I feel about the idea the "score is merely the directions for making art", that seems a rather blasphemous statement, insinuating only the sounds that come from a score is actual art. As a person who can read music I frequently play the music in my head while reading along with the score and I'm fairly certain there are others of this ilk who are just as happy studying the notes on the page as they are with listening to the players.
> 
> You may love the the cake and wouldn't eat the individual ingredients but that delicious cake wouldn't be there if not for those individual ingredients and that recipe.


But if that recipe and those ingredients didn't ever come together, you wouldn't have a delicious cake!


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## Guest (Oct 6, 2015)

dogen said:


> Why the favouritism, what had he got against the right one?


Well, he was right handed, innit?


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

TalkingHead said:


> ^^ I agree with Ed and MB: I also have this facility (to a point, depends on the complexity of the score) whereby I can read through the pages and hear it. However, Beethoven had this to an extraordinary degree (and there can be little doubt that this applied to Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Bruckner etc etc etc as well ) but do you think for one moment he (LvB) wasn't bothered about being deaf? No, even though he knew *exactly* how it sounded, he would have given his right testicle to physically hear the works he wrote. It is surely the same with our visual faculty: I can very well imagine (with my inner eye) a scene from nature or a painting I have seen but nothing - *nothing*, *nada* - will replace the sheer physicality of seeing the object in real life and real time.


But doesn't that mean that Schubert's Ninth, as a work of art, didn't exist until several years after Schubert's death?


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Or that Mozart's improvisations never existed as art at all?


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Whatever we think of "ordinary" scores, some certainly can be works of art:


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

I never understood the concept of forgery, for art or anything else. If you have a level of skill to be really convincing, you should be able to make a living on your own merits and get recognition for your own work.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Weston said:


> I never understood the concept of forgery, for art or anything else. If you have a level of skill to be really convincing, you should be able to make a living on your own merits and get recognition for your own work.


IMO, far more people have the talent to forge a Picasso than would ever be able to have enough fame to sell their own work for that kind of poundage. Forging a work just takes some artistic talent, but making a big name for oneself in one's own lifetime takes that plus a great talent for self-promotion, the ability to charm the right people.


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## Polyphemus (Nov 2, 2011)

Weston said:


> I never understood the concept of forgery, for art or anything else. If you have a level of skill to be really convincing, you should be able to make a living on your own merits and get recognition for your own work.


As the vast majority of artists would not be in the richest list may I suggest that if one had the 'talent' to knock out a convincing forgery and sell it for money it would be more profitable investment of time, than ones own unknown masterpieces.

Before the TC morality brigade condemn the above I wish to point out that I am *not* condoning forgery.

So the answer would be money just like any other criminal enterprise.


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

Weston said:


> I never understood the concept of forgery, for art or anything else. If you have a level of skill to be really convincing, you should be able to make a living on your own merits and get recognition for your own work.


I suspect there's quite a profitable underworld business happening, with buyers (commissioning or otherwise--Mid-East, China, Russia, Japan, USA?????) being fully aware of the forgeries.

It's harder work being creative and forging a career.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Nereffid said:


> I suppose one obvious reason is that if you hang a Beethoven manuscript on your wall it won't look very impressive and all that your guests will say is "what the heck is _that_?"


Beethoven? No. Crumb? Yes.

See the thread Science started.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Fugue Meister said:


> Uh, I don't know how I feel about the idea the "score is merely the directions for making art", that seems a rather blasphemous statement, insinuating only the sounds that come from a score is actual art. As a person who can read music I frequently play the music in my head while reading along with the score and I'm fairly certain there are others of this ilk who are just as happy studying the notes on the page as they are with listening to the players.


It would have been more fastidious of me to use the term "aesthetic object" rather than "art work," which is what an aesthetician would do, but it makes for a bad sentence and sows confusion. Anyway, when reading a score and hearing it in ones head, the aesthetic object (that is, the performance in the case of any work of performing art) is the imagined sounds, not the score one is reading it from.



KenOC said:


> Or that Mozart's improvisations never existed as art at all?


No, it would mean they only existed as an art work for a single, unrepeatable performance.



Mahlerian said:


> But doesn't that mean that Schubert's Ninth, as a work of art, didn't exist until several years after Schubert's death?


This is the instance where the difference between aesthetic object and art work becomes significant. In practice, however, the answer to your question is no. Schubert, I'm guessing, performed it on piano for friends and heard it in his head. So, an incomplete public rendering and a more or less complete private one?



science said:


> Whatever we think of "ordinary" scores, some certainly can be works of art:


Yes! But the scores are different works of art from the sound. (Welcome back Science!)


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

EdwardBast said:


> It would have been more fastidious of me to use the term "aesthetic object" rather than "art work," which is what an aesthetician would do, but it makes for a bad sentence and sows confusion. Anyway, when reading a score and hearing it in ones head, the aesthetic object (that is, the performance in the case of any work of performing art) is the imagined sounds, not the score one is reading it from.


I disagree. The score is an instantiation of the work of art, which is also manifest in sounds, whether heard in the mind or using the ear.

A work of art (in this case, music) can exist without a score, but it can also exist without ever being performed. The score is not directions for creating a work of art, but rather a manifestation of that work of art.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Mahlerian said:


> I disagree. The score is an instantiation of the work of art, which is also manifest in sounds, whether heard in the mind or using the ear.
> 
> A work of art (in this case, music) can exist without a score, but it can also exist without ever being performed. The score is not directions for creating a work of art, but rather a manifestation of that work of art.


Try playing the score through your speakers to your friends in order to demonstrate the timbre, textural balances, and interpretative nuances.

-That is to say, if texts are self-interpreting.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Mahlerian said:


> I disagree. The score is an instantiation of the work of art, which is also manifest in sounds, whether heard in the mind or using the ear.


I talked about this case above.



Mahlerian said:


> A work of art (in this case, music) can exist without a score, but it can also exist without ever being performed. The score is not directions for creating a work of art, but rather a manifestation of that work of art.


_The composer's contribution to the aesthetic object_ can exist without a performance. The aesthetic object proper, a performance, requires another contribution (or additional contribution of a different kind from the composer.) One can read a play by Ibsen, but the written word is not the aesthetic object. The actions and spoken words and the visual impressions of movement are. The existence of a score assures the potential existence of instances of the art object. But, returning to the issue of this thread: If an artist left a precise verbal description of a painting, with directions as to the underlying sketch work, what kind of brush strokes to use and what colors go where, this would not be a painting. The question of value turns, in part, on the fact that anyone with a score can produce a valid instance of a Schubert sonata, whereas there is only one valid instance of a painting or sketch. Uniqueness in this sense translates into value.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Marschallin Blair said:


> Try playing the score through your speakers to your friends in order to demonstrate the timbre, textural balances, and interpretative nuances.
> 
> -That is to say, if texts are self-interpreting.


Once again, this conception of music requires that you accept either that:

A) Schubert did not create Schubert's Ninth Symphony, which is a piece of music
or
B) Schubert's Ninth Symphony is not a piece of music
or, as EdwardBast seems to imply
C) Schubert's Ninth Symphony is not a single piece of music, but infinitely many aesthetic experiences
or, most bizarrely
D) Schubert did create Schubert's Ninth Symphony, which is a piece of music, but it did not exist until after his death


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Mahlerian said:


> Once again, this conception of music requires that you accept either that:
> 
> A) Schubert did not create Schubert's Ninth Symphony, which is a piece of music
> or
> ...


_Au contraire_, my point only underscores the Fallacy of Reification.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reification_(fallacy)


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Marschallin Blair said:


> _Au contraire_, my point only underscores the Fallacy of Reification.
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reification_(fallacy)




How, exactly?

Are you saying that a work of art is a concrete entity?

When did Schubert's Ninth Symphony come to exist? Answer that question.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Mahlerian said:


> Once again, this conception of music requires that you accept either that:
> 
> A) Schubert did not create Schubert's Ninth Symphony, which is a piece of music


Schubert conceived and composed his Ninth Symphony. It is _created_ as conceived and composed, that is, as a sounding structure in the air of a concert hall, only when an orchestra performs it.



Mahlerian said:


> or, as EdwardBast seems to imply
> C) Schubert's Ninth Symphony is not a single piece of music, but infinitely many aesthetic experiences


This has nothing to do with anything I "implied." Schubert's Ninth is a single piece of music with many instantiations (performances), each an instance of the work as conceived and composed by Schubert.



Mahlerian said:


> or, most bizarrely
> D) Schubert did create Schubert's Ninth Symphony, which is a piece of music, but it did not exist until after his death


This one was your idea and indeed a bizarre one.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Mahlerian said:


> How, exactly?
> 
> Are you saying that a work of art is a concrete entity?
> 
> When did Schubert's Ninth Symphony come to exist? Answer that question.


How else?- through the instruction manual.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

EdwardBast said:


> Schubert conceived and composed his Ninth Symphony. It is _created_ as conceived and composed, that is, as a sounding structure in the air of a concert hall, only when an orchestra performs it.


I don't think that performance is an act of creation, although it involves creative aspects in interpretation. You are correct that the fullest instantiation of a work of music is with its performance, but it existed as a piece of music before then.



EdwardBast said:


> This has nothing to do with anything I "implied." Schubert's Ninth is a single piece of music with many instantiations (performances), each an instance of the work as conceived and composed by Schubert.


So the music does exist outside of and apart from any and all performances, correct? Are you saying, then, that a piece of music is not a work of art, or is something to which we do not have access?



EdwardBast said:


> This one was your idea and indeed a bizarre one.


It's a necessary consequence if Schubert's Ninth Symphony is a piece of music and a piece of music cannot exist without performance.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Mahlerian said:


> How, exactly?
> 
> Are you saying that a work of art is a concrete entity?
> 
> When did Schubert's Ninth Symphony come to exist? Answer that question.


It is a concrete entity if it is a painting or a sculpture. The score came to exist when Schubert finished it. The work as he conceived it, that is, as a sounding structure in a concert hall, came (and continues to come) into existence when it is performed in a concert hall.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

EdwardBast said:


> It is a concrete entity if it is a painting or a sculpture. The score came to exist when Schubert finished it. The work as he conceived it, that is, as a sounding structure in a concert hall, came (and continues to come) into existence when it is performed in a concert hall.


Yes, but what is the piece of music? The work that we are discussing. When did it come into existence? When the score was written, when that score was first performed, or at some other time?


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## Fugue Meister (Jul 5, 2014)

Well I for one would like to know how you arrive at this notion that the sound an orchestra makes is non-abstract and the "instruction manual" (the score, that I can physically pick up and read the marks another person made) is the abstraction?


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Mahlerian said:


> I don't think that performance is an act of creation, although it involves creative aspects in interpretation. You are correct that the fullest instantiation of a work of music is with its performance, but it existed as a piece of music before then.


Yes it existed in several colloquial senses. But it only exists as the art object Schubert conceived and intended when it is performed in a concert hall. Everything about the way the work is orchestrated, phrased, and dynamically regulated is designed for that kind of venue and the forces that commonly perform in it.



Mahlerian said:


> So the music does exist outside of and apart from any and all performances, correct? Are you saying, then, that a piece of music is not a work of art, or is something to which we do not have access?


I think I have explained with perfect clarity the relationship between a score and the sounding work of music. Philosophers have done this one to death as well.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Mahlerian said:


> Yes, but what is the piece of music? The work that we are discussing. When did it come into existence? When the score was written, when that score was first performed, or at some other time?


Colloquially, a score is often identified as a piece of music. I hand you a score and say: Here is Schubert's Ninth. We both know it isn't Schubert's Ninth; it is a score for Schubert's Ninth. The aesthetic object is a performance. Always.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

EdwardBast said:


> Yes it existed in several colloquial senses. But it only exists as the art object Schubert conceived and intended when it is performed in a concert hall. Everything about the way the work is orchestrated, phrased, and dynamically regulated is designed for that kind of venue and the forces that commonly perform in it.


But which one of these senses defines Schubert's Ninth Symphony?



EdwardBast said:


> I think I have explained with perfect clarity the relationship between a score and the sounding work of music. Philosophers have done this one to death as well.


Yes, I know, I've read many of them. I wrote a lengthy paper dealing with this topic in college.



EdwardBast said:


> Colloquially, a score is often identified as a piece of music. I hand you a score and say: Here is Schubert's Ninth. We both know it isn't Schubert's Ninth; it is a score for Schubert's Ninth. The aesthetic object is a performance. Always.


I am not saying that the score is the piece of music, I am saying that the score represents the piece of music which is instantiated in performance.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Music, IMO is an interesting case... Neither the score nor the performance is the thing. We all know that scores are inevitably under-specific (the technical term skips my mind just now), leaving room for interpretation. But if the performance were the object, we'd never criticize a performance for not being true to the score. 

We seem to regard the music itself as existing somewhere "between" the score and the performance.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

science said:


> Music, IMO is an interesting case... Neither the score nor the performance is the thing. We all know that scores are inevitably under-specific (the technical term skips my mind just now), leaving room for interpretation. But if the performance were the object, we'd never criticize a performance for not being true to the score.
> 
> *We seem to regard the music itself as existing somewhere "between" the score and the performance*.


The artwork which is Schubert's Ninth (like any other piece for which a score exists) exists in a meaningful sense even if it is never performed. An unperformed piece of music is not nonexistent, but merely incomplete. It can be brought closer to completion not only by a physical performance, but by a mental one: a score can be read and enjoyed by one capable of reading music. That the composer wished for the work to be physically heard doesn't negate his artistic achievement or the actual existence of something which, even without sound, can be experienced and appreciated as musical art. It is merely a partial experience of the work.

It's also the case that no particular performance of Schubert's Ninth is, in a full sense, Schubert's Ninth. Every performance of it is different, and none fully represents what Schubert had in mind, which can never be precisely known. A score is a set of instructions, more or less specific; the instructions have to be carried out by others, those others will have to bring their own ideas to bear in doing so, and those ideas will determine what the music sounds like, regardless of whether they are near to or far from what the composer imagined when he wrote the instructions. The artwork which is a piece of music is therefore something different from, and transcending, any particular attempt to realize it, or even the sum total of all attempts to realize it. A physical performance of Schubert's Ninth, like a mental imagining of the sounds suggested by the score, is therefore also a partial experience of the work.

I would differ with science and say that a musical work which is written down, a "piece of music," is not somewhere "between" the score and the performance but rather implies and includes both - implies and includes, in fact, the ideas of a composer, a score, the ideas of an interpreter of the score, a performance physical or imagined, and the hearing or imagining of the performance. None of these, and no combination of them or the sum of them taken together, "is" the artwork - that is, constitutes the whole of the artwork which is that piece.

A "piece" of music is an abstraction; it does not exist as a concrete entity, and all embodiments of a work, physical or mental, are merely "pieces of a piece" - pieces of a puzzle, in a way, since music is a phenomenon the full dimensions of which can never be known or made apparent to the mind or senses.

A bit like life itself.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

I am not convinced that music is significantly different from an artwork in that a music score needs a performance to realize it for the audience, and a work of art needs to be displayed for people to see. The performance of a score requires interpretation as does the viewing of art. An unperformed score is hardly different from an artwork which is never displayed, it exists and, to use a physics concept, has a potential energy. Performing/viewing converts that potential into kinetic energy.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Screenplay is to movie as (instruction manual) score is to symphony being performed.

This



















isn't this


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Marschallin Blair said:


> Screenplay is to movie as (instruction manual) score is to symphony being performed.


An exceptionally poor analogy that differs in the only way in which it is relevant to this discussion.

A single score, faithfully interpreted, can produce countless performances, all of which are different and yet the same piece of music.
A single screenplay, faithfully interpreted, can likewise produce countless films, but they will all be completely separate works.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Mahlerian said:


> *An exceptionally poor analogy *that differs in the only way in which it is relevant to this discussion.
> 
> *A single score, faithfully interpreted, can produce countless performances, all of which are different and yet the same piece of music.*
> A single screenplay, faithfully interpreted, can likewise produce countless films, but they will all be completely separate works.


Exceptionally poor 'analysis' you mean- your own, of course.

"Different" yet the "same." Who are you?- Hegel?

A Bruckner score doesn't self-interpret itself. Rubati, balances, rhythms, accents, tempi, phrasings, and myriad other interpretative approaches make the emotional, ambient, and architectonic feel of each musical performance completely distinct.

Bruckner can sound like 'Karajan Bruckner' or 'Furtwangler Bruckner' or even- Goddess forbid- 'Boulez Bruckner.'

The same 'notes' are on the page- but yet there's a rugged chasm of difference between the performances.

Compare Callas' _Norma_ with Joan Sutherland's and you can tell me all about how there about as similar as Orson Welles and Alfred Hitchcock approaching the same screenplay.

Its hardly "the same piece of music" once the score is instantiated by an artist.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

I never said that the score was itself the piece of music, merely that the same piece of music is reproduced in countless performances. You seem to be saying that Karajan's Bruckner Eighth is a single thing, but under your outlook, it would be as many separate things as there are performances.

Yes, things can be different in some aspects and not in others. All humans are human, but they are not all the same height, weight, or skin color.

Likewise, all performances of a piece of music are the same piece of music, despite all of their myriad surface differences.

Conversely, Hitchcock directing Vertigo and Welles directing Vertigo, even from the same screenplay with the same actors, would be completely different films, despite having some aspects in common.

I stress that different performances of a single work may be evaluated separately, but that the work itself can also be evaluated independent of any performance.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Marschallin Blair said:


> Exceptionally poor 'analysis' you mean- your own, of course.
> 
> "Different" yet the "same." Who are you?- Hegel?
> 
> ...


I agree that the analogy between a score and a screenplay is fundamentally sound. Scores are more specific than screenplays, in general, but both are sets of instructions to be realized by performing artists, who may be very different in their approach to the same work.


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## Guest (Oct 7, 2015)

This wrangling seems akin to the old one about angels and heads of a pin, and drifting far from Ken's question, simply answered for the common man (not by philosophers): the painting is the artefact; the score is not (whatever its relationship to a performance).


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> I agree that the analogy between a score and a screenplay is fundamentally sound. Scores are more specific than screenplays, in general, but both are sets of instructions to be realized by performing artists, who may be very different in their approach to the same work.


Well, there's screenplays and then there's 'screenplays'- like the ones Hitchcock used- which covered myriad detail, like say, 'in a score.'

That's the reason I chose to use _Vertigo_ by way of analogy.


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## Fugue Meister (Jul 5, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> I agree that the analogy between a score and a screenplay is fundamentally sound. Scores are more specific than screenplays, in general, but both are sets of instructions to be realized by performing artists, who may be very different in their approach to the same work.


If we're really going to embrace this analogy it really should be plays not screenplays. Hardly ever (if then, I cannot think of an instance) does a studio or a maverick for that matter remake the same screenplay. If a film is remade it is always rewritten to be something else. So I do see how a play fits the idea of different artists interpreting it differently but not screenplays.

Even so, I still maintain my point using the flawed screenplay analogy:

If you never had the screenplay for Vertigo, the film wouldn't exist...but quite honestly another reason why this whole screenplay thing doesn't work is the film would most likely exist anyway because like 98% of everything that comes out of Hollywood, Vertigo is based on a novel. Most movies are not original conceptions, even an original screenplay is likely a familiar story, or setup, ect. Yes, there are some startlingly original movies once in a blue moon, but then it's takes a village to make a film. Many, many people are involved over the course of eight months to a year. A screenplay is not usually the go to if you want to read the story or share it with others, the source material is sought after for that intimate happening. Now with that in mind with the score, I can have my pianist pal Tim go sit at the keys and play you the music, and it's just Tim playing.

I don't believe a screenplay can get the mileage a score can.


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## Fugue Meister (Jul 5, 2014)

I meant to put up this pic

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4d/Living_and_Dead.jpg/220px-Living_and_Dead.jpg

which is the source material for Vertigo.

And as you can see when it comes to inserting pics I fail quite a bit of the time.


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## Faustian (Feb 8, 2015)

Becca said:


> I am not convinced that music is significantly different from an artwork in that a music score needs a performance to realize it for the audience, and a work of art needs to be displayed for people to see. The performance of a score requires interpretation as does the viewing of art. An unperformed score is hardly different from an artwork which is never displayed, it exists and, to use a physics concept, has a potential energy. Performing/viewing converts that potential into kinetic energy.


I agree I think. The experience of a work of art is a fundamental aspect, and it goes some way in answering Ken's question. While a painting is a work of art that has been created and is waiting in a sort of latent existence until it is experienced by an observer, a work like Schubert's 9th had been composed and created and was waiting to be experienced until it was finally performed. But while a painting is a visual art form, music obviously is not, so the score is not the complete aesthetic object.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

MacLeod said:


> This wrangling seems akin to the old one about angels and heads of a pin, and drifting far from Ken's question, simply answered for the common man (not by philosophers): the painting is the artefact; the score is not (whatever its relationship to a performance).


My only disagreement with this is that what you have called an answer "for the common man (not by philosophers)" is pretty much the short summary of what philosophers actually say on the issue (although "art object" would be a better word than "artifact"). It appeared as such rather early in the thread.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

MacLeod said:


> This wrangling seems akin to the old one about angels and heads of a pin


That is exactly what I was thinking yesterday!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

EdwardBast said:


> My only disagreement with this is that what you have called an answer "for the common man (not by philosophers)" is pretty much the short summary of what philosophers actually say on the issue (although "art object" would be a better word than "artifact"). It appeared as such rather early in the thread.


Brahms, an _uncommon_ man, said that his favorite performances of music were the ones he enjoyed sitting in his armchair, smoking a cigar, with the score in his lap.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Faustian said:


> But while a painting is a visual art form, music obviously is not, so the score is not the complete aesthetic object.


But no one here has argued that it is.


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## Guest (Oct 7, 2015)

EdwardBast said:


> My only disagreement with this is that what you have called an answer "for the common man (not by philosophers)" is pretty much the short summary of what philosophers actually say on the issue (although "art object" would be a better word than "artifact"). It appeared as such rather early in the thread.


Yet bears repeating, following 40 posts of debate around the subject, and a slew of (IMO)distracting analogies.


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## bharbeke (Mar 4, 2013)

We might ask ourselves what gives art value? In the painting world, it is the actual original painting. It may be enjoyed through reproductions and photographs, but the original is the product that was created by the artist and is esteemed by collectors. For music, the value for most people is hearing a great performance of a great piece of music. These can be recorded, and lots of people will pay for that experience. They can also be experienced live, which is another thing people pay for. The actual score is necessary for the performance to happen at all (leaving improvisations out of the discussion), but the score is not the performance. If someone has a mind that can translate a score into a wonderful imagined performance or can perform it themselves, that score has more value for them. However, even those people probably would prefer to hear the music performed well with their ears.

Unless one is a historian or artifact collector, a transcription or reproduction of the score is as valuable as the original.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Weston said:


> I never understood the concept of forgery, for art or anything else. If you have a level of skill to be really convincing, you should be able to make a living on your own merits and get recognition for your own work.


If you don't know of him already, you must read about Han van Meegeren, perhaps the 20thc's greatest art forger. He was good enough that there is a steady trade in forgeries of his forgeries today. Highlights: Having been snubbed by famous critics for painting in an archaic style reminiscent of the Dutch Masters, van Meegeren took revenge by creating forgeries of Hals and Vermeer, among others, that fooled the critics. One of these forgeries alone allowed him to build a large house. He was tried for treason after WWII for having sold a Vermeer to Hermann Goering. His only viable defense was to claim and prove it was a forgery. To escape the death penalty he had to forge another Vermeer in prison. In the 1970s supposedly authentic Vermeer's were still being discredited and removed from the walls of museums.

William Gaddis's first great novel, _The Recognitions_, is about the life of one Wyatt Gwyon, an art forger with some resemblances to van Meegeren.

Anyway, those two sources are enough to confuse anyone's preconceptions about forgery and its motivations.


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