jwilzewske: What’s the Story: Blogging Classical Music Criticism as Narrative

Much chamber music refuses to satisfy the function of creating a mood. Its frequent shifts make it bad mood music and very bad background music. And its cultivated autonomy resists the listener making of the music what she/he will. It lacks what, in Baroque music, is called a ‘unity of affect’. Julian Johnson maintains that it is this feature—the discursive aspect of classical music in general and chamber music in particular—that makes it attractive primarily to audiences who know that that is what such music does, that is how it works, and that is what they want. By contrast, people who are unprepared for the discourse, or who do not like an ‘active’ authorly/composerly stance, or who do not wish to engage music as conversation or exert the effort and attention to apprehend what is being said—are unlikely to enjoy or be deeply excited by this music.”
— Julian Johnson, Who Needs Classical Music? p. 35

DSM: I love the Julian Johnson statement above and also this one: “In some ways, [chamber music] is comparable to a rather involved novel or a film. If you skip a few chapters or leave the theater for awhile, you will lose the plot or narrative thread.”

CMT: Almost all chamber music is structured along discursive lines. This has to do with its use of harmony and musical forms and phrasing—long-range developments that are analogous to literary narrative. The sonata is, in many ways, comparable to the novel. The plot and meaning are impossible to ‘get’ if details are missed. In chamber music, more than in symphonic music, the conciseness is tremendous. This puts an even greater demand on the listener—more concentration and understanding are needed, or else the listener feels like a child observing an elegant conversation among grown-ups—an attractive conversation that she/he can’t comprehend or participate in.

DSM: This is partly what limits audience growth. Chamber music developed with an aesthetic and social context that required focused attention.

CMT: But our attention needn’t be ‘rapt’. I’m not arguing for the correctness of a certain approach to chamber music, or of the necessity of one kind of listening over another. Rather, I’m suggesting that discursive music is unlikely to serve its natural functions if it’s approached non-discursively. Besides, it’s unlikely to be very meaningful if approached as if it had some unity of affect that it doesn’t have. It will disappoint the listener/reader if the listener/reader expects it to contain one simple, unambiguous, unchallenging thought. It’ll disappoint the listener/reader if she/he is wanting to experience the music passively or distractedly.

DSM: Well, program notes and critics’ reviews and bloggers’ posts ought to guide the listener, stimulate the reader. Even this blog! Each post is a memento of one of our conversations, each one we hope may have some value to readers—especially the bulletized lists of links/resources that we gather together at the bottom of each one. But the conceit of a ‘conversation’ is an unusual format for criticism or program notes, don’t you think?

CMT: Maybe so. But, to me, it’s natural—entirely consonant with the discursive/conversational nature of chamber music.

DSM: And it’s entirely consistent with the ad hoc, extemporaneous, serious-amateur, non-specialist, “thrown” character of our own dialogues. There’s no doubt we could instead construct most of our posts here as essays.

CMT: But that’d be bogus. We’re just talking—we’re not laboring over manuscripts here! Soi-disant…

DSM: The RILM Manual of Style is a wonderful resource. It counters the typical eurocentric perspective—with diversity and sensitivity to a variety of cultural views and linguistic approaches. It counters the ‘relevancy-obsessed,’ dumbed-down populism of the typical American perspective—with honest excitement decorated by just enough erudition to explain what the excitement is about. In other words, it’s the epitome of the elegant, civil tradition of good music journalism. Well worth having—even the impromptu music blogger should have a copy I think, not just the professional music critic or journalist!

CMT: Nice to be reminded of what we should aspire to, even if our tendencies are to the ‘raw’ or still bleeding, rather than things that are ‘cooked’.

DSM: Controversial or exotic drum-beating, instead of well-settled exposition. And nobody would think me capable of being elegant!

CMT: A critic’s value is not determined by whether he/she’s right or wrong but whether he/she’s a good read. That’s one reason Martin Bernheimer is one of my favorite classical music writers. His review of Fabio Biondi conducting an obscure Scarlatti oratorio below was the sort of classical-music writing I like.

DSM: Despite Bernheimer’s high-brow taste for fine music-making, which irritates those who think that preserving the classical music audience must involve dumbing things down or focusing only on the familiar composers and works, his stylish prose has the common touch. He could easily write mandarin criticism. But he is a paragon of simplicity, clarity and vigor. Against all those who complain that serious music has lost its audience, I claim that serious music critics themselves are as much to blame as anyone else. Bored readers aren’t about to storm the concert halls or buy subscription season tickets.

CMT: And, instead of regressing to ever-less-challenging familiar works, audience growth might more likely be achieved by enabling the hearing and understanding of less-celebrated pieces, be they old or new ones. Make the experience of classical music into—more than anything!—an exciting process of discovery! You’re selling the experience, not a ‘product’! The effect you want is for the attendees to be so engaged in the narrative and in the experience that they spontaneously comment about it in ordinary conversations with their friends. “What did you do last night?” “I heard X performing Y! It was incredible!”

Alessandro Scarlatti’s ultra-obscure ‘Oratorio per la Santissima trinitàhas’ been something of an obsession - a magnificent obsession, if you will - for some time with Fabio Biondi. The enterprising Baroque specialist from Palermo, primarily a violinist but an able conductor too, exhumed this musical musing on the Most Holy Trinity two years ago in Spain. On Thursday night, 288 years after the Neapolitan premiere, he mustered a performance heralded as the first in the US. The stylish ensemble on duty was Europa Galante, founded by Biondi in 1990. The suitably intimate locale was Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, and the no doubt grateful host was the Mostly Mozart festival. Biondi claims that ‘talking about Santissima trinità is rather like walking about an archaeological site without knowing what the objects sticking up through the earth actually are.’ The identity of the hack librettist is a mystery, and only one manuscript score has survived. The musical manoeuvres, in many ways advanced for 1715, seem more operatic than ecclesiastical. Although the structure relies on period formulas, much of the execution is imaginative. Five vocal soloists - personifying faith, theology, infidelity, time and divine love - discuss the nature of the Trinity in recitatives, arias and duets that vacillate between narrative simplicity and expressive virtuosity. The tiny accompanying ensemble, strings plus elaborate continuo, is essentially subservient, occasionally dominant. The climactic gesture takes the form of an astonishing quintet. Biondi led a superbly propulsive, exquisitely nuanced performance with little fuss, fiddle in hand. Enrico Onofri, the tenor entrusted with the arguments of infidelity, suffered a bit of interpretive affectation, but his colleagues turned out to be musical and dramatic paragons. Marta Almajano sang the soprano lines sweetly, with flexibility and point. Laura Polverelli and Sonia Prina exulted in the light and shade of contrasting mezzo-soprano assignments, while Roberto Abbondanza brought dark authority to the basso foundation. This was a night of revelations.”
— Martin Bernheimer, Financial Times, 11-AUG-2003

DSM: Amazing what can be done in 300 words! Excellent example!
. . . You know, earlier this month, I tried something that I had never done before. Normally, I make notes during a performance, and refer to them as I anticipate our next meeting or phone call. But note-taking is a distraction—it gets in the way of listening. So for the Pomerium performance, I decided not to take notes and see if that affected my experience of the music and my sense of it—my recollections about it, and how they figured in our conversation afterwards. My little experiment led my mind to wander to the architecture and singers’ faces—the performance was excellent for the same reasons I probably would’ve recorded had I been taking notes—but I doubt that I would’ve attended to the elements of physical performance in the way that I did.

CMT: One reason I like Martin Bernheimer of the Financial Times is that he’s vehemently opposed to the pompous, paternalistic idea of the critic as a cultural ‘educator’: “The critic shouldn’t be a salesman. I’ve always had a problem with being [simultaneously a – ] drum-beater and consumer guide. When the critic has to play both roles, I think there’s a problem.” Bernheimer lets the chips fall in exactly the way you’re referring to when you describe your experiment during the Pomerium performance.

DSM: The ‘educator’ stance is not just a pretentious position; it’s a loser’s position. It implies defeating a nameless, faceless enemy. And the opponent is in fact the reader who’s not a fan. Why should that reader read such a thing!? What you’re better advised to do with your comments is to win a place at the reader’s damned table! This doesn’t mean you give up objectivity or become a PR agent for the business or dumb things down so the reader feels comfy. It means, instead, that you write with more urgency, more immediacy. The writing is—and always will be—crucial. You’ve got to matter to people!

CMT: Don’t you get tired of going to the same concert over and over again? Beethoven, Schubert, the Appassionata being played a little bit differently?

DSM: Well, yes. Oh, each year there’re the next crop of fresh young faces—there’re more layers of discovery and appreciation in a familiar opus than we’ll ever know. But, yes, I do wish we had the chance to hear more under-played older works and more new and experimental music. And if some new music and experiments turn out badly, then it’s a music critic’s or a blogger’s job to say so!

CMT: Several years ago Joseph Horowitz, author of Classical Music in America, concluded that the critic’s role is inherently one of advocacy. He charted criticism’s shift from focusing on composition to focusing on performance. Horowitz argued that the culture of performance—which came to the fore with the celebrity of Arturo Toscanini—sidelined critics, not to mention composers, and reduced reviews to little more than bland descriptions and quibbling. He called for a return to a time when the critic was “an organizer, a doer” on behalf of classical music.

DSM: Classical music has an actual audience and a potential audience. The way we talk to each other, it’s clear that we have both fanatical and unconverted readers in mind. The trick is in finding a language that intrigues both.

CMT: The probability that a concert will be exceptionally good doesn’t necessarily justify writing about it. The question is: What’s the story?

DSM: Criticism needs to get outside itself. Movie reviews aren’t just about acting and cinematography. Music reviews should be about more than just notes. And critics can take the lead in showing where music should go.

CMT: There’s nothing shameful in enthusiasm. If I’m thrilled, I tell you about it, even if somebody reading this might smirk. If I’m disappointed or incensed, I tell you about that, too!

jwilzewske

Saturday, December 30, 2006

What’s the Story: Blogging Classical Music Criticism as Narrative

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