Politics of Politics: Fretwork Recreates the Cosmopolitan Vision of England ca. 1600

Humanism believes in a far-reaching program that stands for the establishment throughout the world of democracy, peace, and a high standard of living on the foundations of a flourishing economic order, both national and international.”
  —  Corliss Lamont, Humanism Defined.

In 1540, Henry VIII requisitioned musicians from Italy to compose and perform at his court. Two families came—they were not only Italian but clandestine Jews (marranos, or nominally converted ‘New Christians’). The Lupo and the Bassano families thrived in England and served the monarchy for over a century. Yesterday, the ensemble Fretwork performed a program of their music, ‘Birds on Fire: Jewish Musicians in the English Court,’ at Wigmore Hall in London:

• Augustine Bassano: Pavan and Galliard No. 1;
  
• Heironymus Bassano: Fantasia No. 1 in 5 parts;
  
• Joseph Lupo: Pavan in 5 parts;
  
• Thomas Lupo: Two Fantasias in 6 parts; Pavan in 3 parts*; Fantasia for three trebles; Fantasy for three basses; Fantasia in 6 parts; Two Fantasias in 6 parts;
  
• Van Wilder: Fantasia, con e senza pause (“Emmentaler vs. Gruyere”);
  
• Duarte: Two Symphonies in 5 parts;
  
• Salmone Rossi: Hashkivenu; Shir hamma’ a lot (Psalm 128);
  
• Gough: Birds on Fire;
  
• Various: A suite of dances from the Lumley Part Books: Desperada, Pavan and Gallyard, Seconda desperada, Pavan and Gallyard of Albarti, and Terza desperada.

    [50-sec clip, Thomas Lupo, Fretwork Ensemble, ‘Pavan in 3 Parts’, 0.9MB MP3]

The program notes assert that these pieces illustrate the cosmopolitan atmosphere of the Tudor and Stuart courts, drawing upon the idioms of Franco-Flemish or Italian music. Although the Jews had been banished from the kingdom of England since 1290, the Italian-Jewish Bassano and Lupo families became composer dynasties, dominating English music between 1550 and 1650. But this program is, I think, far more than nominally ‘cosmopolitan.’ It is a story of international relations and the perennial pitfalls of international politics. More on that below...

Formed in 1986, the group consists of six players. Its repertoire consists primarily of music of the Renaissance period, in particular that of Elizabethan and Jacobean England, arrangements of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, plus contemporary music composed for them.

Fretwork

• Richard Boothby
  
• Richard Campbell
  
• Wendy Gillespie
  
• Asako Morikawa
  
• Richard Tunnicliffe
  
• Susanna Pell

with Jeremy Avis singing the Salmone Rossi Ebreo pieces, ‘Hashkivenu’ and ‘Shir hamma’ a lot’.

In 1997 Fretwork won the French Grand Prix du Disque for their recording ‘Lachrimae, or Seven Teares’ by John Dowland. Fretwork performed for the soundtracks of two Jim Jarmusch movies, ‘Coffee and Cigarettes’ (2003) and ‘Broken Flowers’ (2005). Their other film performances include ‘The Da Vinci Code’, ‘Kingdom of Heaven’, ‘The Crucible’, and ‘La Fille d’Artagnan’. Fretwork’s members’ versatility and musicianship are impressive. And last night the warmth of their playing delighted the Wigmore Hall audience of about 500.

The program was bookended with ‘Birds on Fire’, a three-part piece by Orlando Gough composed for Fretwork in 2001 and based on the novel by Aaron Appelfeld ‘Badenheim 1939.’ The novel is about a group of Jews at a spa outside of Vienna in the spring of 1939. With the Nazi regime’s actions the town gradually becomes a ghetto, and the musicians abandon Viennese schmalz and play klezmer tunes (‘Kandel’s Hora’ and ‘Odessa Bulgarish’) in secret. According to Gough’s program notes, they persuade themselves that the sinister changes around them are ‘improvements’, until summer turns to autumn, the food runs out, and they are reduced to eating absurd delicacies from the abandoned hotel pantry. “A pair of twins give a reading—their words were like birds on fire.”

Visiting England from the U.S. as I am, the Fretwork ‘Birds on Fire’ program was especially apropos and poignant. I imagined the precariousness of the Lupos and Bassanos in English society—this was a backdrop to my comprehending these compositions. The Tudor and Stuart courts—and the broader English society—were, I think, hardly congenial to the clandestine cosmopolitan views conveyed in these compositions. Parallels to today abound in them. To this day it is necessary to be clandestine. The recent postures of the U.S. bring into question whether the low-information voter can ever be persuaded to support a humanistic and cosmopolitan international relations: respect for reason, belief in the possibility of a democratic peace based on discourse rather than military might, the peaceful effect of trade, non-provocative defense policies; the obsolescence of conquest and universal respect for human rights.

A cosmopolitan outlook has also though sometimes been associated in the past with an inclination toward ‘messianic’ interventionism. Thomas Walker (then at Rutgers, now at SUNY Albany) wrote an as-it-turns-out ‘premonitory’ paper on this back in 2000 (see link below).

So cosmopolitans may be sophisticated, world-wise, urbane, intrigued by other cultures, and extroverted—but they may be delusional as well. Radical humanists position themselves opposite realism’s fundamental conception of the international system as inherently anarchical. The idea of international anarchy simply provides justification and ‘cover’ for states to pursue selfish national interests to the detriment of international interests, especially those of developing countries. Regrettably, it’s the idea of the sovereign independent state pursuing its own interests that continues to dominate world politics.

An ‘emancipatory’ discourse on international politics, rather than a rationalizing one, ought to critically analyze the conservative stance of foundational International Relations (IR) theories such as realism (the politics of power) and international liberalism. In particular, such discourse ought to analyze their lack of theoretical focus on the oligarchic structure of IR. With regard to the global, anti-democratic nature of current IR, emancipatory discourses such as feminism and radical humanism differ, for example, on how to replace the present (oligarchic) structure with a fairer system.

Realist views embracing the concept of sovereignty (of the state) and opposing anarchy tend to argue for the “inevitability” of today’s world where a small grouping of states are dominant. According to realists, even a state’s external security is safeguarded by the anarchic politics, since it leaves the state free to defend its security either independently or by becoming a member of a multinational alliance. This conservative and pro-status quo ideology of IR runs counter to critics of the oligarchic structure of IR who see a potential for real change; that is, for international democracy where all are equal participants in a democratic world.

The “one world” liberal humanist call for the democratization and empowerment of the U.N. as a first step to toward democratization lacks real emancipatory potential if the unjust international world economic order is left in place. The scholar Jayantanuja Bandyopadhyaya typifies the humanist critique of the prevailing mode of IR–a pro-democratic ideology of IR. Bandyopadhyaya is Professor Emeritus of International Relations at Jadavpur University, Calcutta. Previously he was on the faculty at Columbia University and Professor of International Studies at the American University. The Asiatic Society conferred on him the Biman Bihary Majumdar Award (2006) for his contribution to Political Science and the West Bengal Bangla Academy awarded him the Manas Roy Choudhury Award (2006) for his contribution to Bengalie prose. He has been actively engaged in fighting fundamentalism in India.

T he [realist] paradigm of international anarchy is only an ideological camouflage for the rationalisation, legitimisation and perpetuation of this undemocratic and grossly unjust international sysytem.”
  —  Jayantanuja Bandyopadhyaya, World Government for International Democracy, p. 9.

What makes this perspective a humanistic one? I think it is especially the optimism that human beings possess the power to solve political problems by relying on reason and political will. It also encapsulates humanism’s stress on freedom and development (economic, political, cultural) of all humankind, regardless of nation, ethnicity or religion.

Listen to the music of the Lupos and Bassanos as rendered by Fretwork and you will hear these strains—a cosmopolitan IR stance embodied by Jewish musicians in England in the late 16^th and early 17^th Centuries. The use of democratic procedures and civil liberties throughout all areas of economic, political, and cultural life is still a feature in humanist discourse today, and the chamber music of the Lupos and the Bassanos contains discursive musical evidence of this. Such humanism today promotes an egalitarian socio-political program and a flourishing economic order. The radicalism of this humanist viewpoint is today positioned outside of liberal internationalism, which is critically viewed as being “blind” to imperialism and its own ethnocentrality. But in 1540, under the auspices of King Henry VIII and others after him, the compositions were not nearly so “blind”.

The virtually unlimited support extended to this oligarchic international system by those very states which proclaim democracy to be a universal principle of political organisation in human society is the most glaring paradox of international relations…The oligarchic international system brought into existence by the ruling classes of the militarily and economically powerful states does not, however, enjoy the support of all sections of world public opinion.”
  —  Jayantanuja Bandyopadhyaya, World Government for International Democracy, p. 22.

Radical humanist ideology shaped by emancipatory rhetoric is today more problematic than ever, particularly so during the reign of the neo-cons in the U.S. Fretwork’s ‘Birds on Fire’ program is historically-informed and commendable for its aesthetic beauty. But it is also apropos in yet more ways because of the relevance of the political context that gave rise to these pieces—relevance to species of IR today. ‘Birds on Fire’ would make an ideal program for fund-raising by IR organizations and NGOs concerned with the current situation in international politics.

• Fretwork website
  
• Askonas-Holt Management Ltd
  
• Wigmore Hall website
  
• Pliable. Lone voices: Jewish composers. On An Overgrown Path blog, 23-JUL-2008.
  
• Thomas Walker page at SUNY Albany
  
• Walker T. The forgotten prophet: Tom Paine’s cosmopolitanism and international relations. Intl Studies Quart 2000; 44:51-72.
  
• Fretwork. Birds on Fire: Jewish Music for Viols. (HarmoniaMundi, 2008.)
  
• Archibugi D. The Global Commonwealth of Citizens: Toward Cosmopolitan Democracy. Princeton Univ, 2008.
  
• Bandyopadhyaya J. World Government for International Democracy and Justice. Manuscript India, 2002.
  
• Bandyopadhyaya J. IR and Global Equilibrium. Bagchi/JU, 1992.
  
• Beck U, Cronin C. Cosmopolitan Vision. Polity, 2006.
  
• Cabrera L. Political Theory of Global Justice: A Cosmopolitan Case for the World State. Routledge, 2006.
  
• Games A. The Web of Empire: English Cosmopolitans in an Age of Expansion, 1560-1660. Oxford Univ, 2008.
  
• Moellendorf D. Cosmopolitan Justice. Press, 2002.
  
• Walkowitz R. Cosmopolitan Style: Modernism Beyond the Nation. Columbia Univ, 2007.
  
• Valerie Barber PR
  
• Viola da Gamba Society U.K.
  
• Henner Harders viols at ViolWerks.de
  
• Lu-Mi Chinese viols (Wendy Gillespie) at LazarEarlyMusic.com

Stalking: An Occupational Hazard for Chamber Musicians?

I  am not absolutely certain that I’m being stalked. But I’m pretty sure somebody was following me after our quartet’s last performance. What should I be doing about this? I don’t know who to talk to or call about this.”
  —  Anonymous.

This is outside the scope of things I have any personal expertise in. The links below may be helpful to you, though.

Current U.S. statistics on stalking are here. More than one million women and almost 400,000 men are stalked annually in the United States. Eight percent of women and two percent of men in the United States have been stalked in their lifetime. Although stalking is a gender-neutral crime, most victims (78 percent) are female and most perpetrators (87 percent) are male. In the course of managing a stalking episode, 28 percent of female stalking victims and 10 percent of male victims obtained a court protective order. Sixty-nine percent of female victims and 81 percent of male victims had the protection order violated. Eighty-one percent of women who were stalked by a current or former husband or cohabiting partner were also physically assaulted, and 31 percent were also sexually assaulted by that partner.

The average duration of stalking is 1.3 years. Most stalking, however, lasts about one month. Statistically, the median (31 days) is way lower than the mean (470 days in the U.S.). The statistical distribution has a long tail toward the right (longer durations). Two-thirds of stalkers pursue their victims at least once per week. Seventy-eight percent of stalkers use more than one means of pursuing, contacting or interfering with the victim. Have a look at this article by Mullen’s group in Australia for more information. (The stats are qualitatively similar in other countries, although duration distributions by stalking type, comparative prevalence by stalking type, and other details differ quantitatively from country to country, or even by region within each country.)


There are no statistics maintained on epidemiology of classical musicians as targets of stalking or as stalker perpetrators, although undergraduate musicians or conservatory students probably experience stalking rates comparable to other university students (about 20%). Possibly members of small chamber music ensembles might be more vulnerable on account of the small number of members in the group, and the absence of budget such as a large orchestra may have for security and other services.

Stalking behavior is not motivated by any one thing, and therefore no one strategy is effective protection against all the various types of stalking and types of stalkers. Effective strategies are ones that take into account the particular circumstances and identity, if these are known (that is, the history of any prior relationship with the pursuer; the chronology of events; the methods the pursuer is using).

R  isk assessment in stalking situations is currently limited by a lack of prospective studies of representative samples. Clinicians and the legal decision-makers do not, however, have the luxury of deferring action until such evidence emerges. They must, for the present, depend on integrating knowledge from stalking research, borrowing from the systematic studies of risk in other areas, and drawing on clinical experience... The longer stalking has lasted, the longer it is likely to persist. Nearly 50 percent of stalking situations amount to a short burst of intrusive behavior lasting only a few days and not extending beyond two weeks. This form of harassment is typically perpetrated by a stranger. In contrast, stalkers who persist for longer than two weeks usually continue for many months.”
  —  Paul Mullen et al., 2006.

Even if no physical violence has occurred, the anxiety and fear and implied threats are a form of harm. You do not know what the stalker might do next.

B  eing stalked can induce depression, anxiety, and chronic stress. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) describes the psychological sequelae of stalking... To our knowledge, however, the utility of [PTSD] treatments in the management of stalking victims has yet to receive empirical support.”
  —  Paul Mullen, Michele Pathé, and Rosemary Purcell, Stalkers, p. 221.

Don’t assume that there is just one pursuer. Some celebrities attract multiple pursuers, either serially or concurrently. Classical musicians may not have as great a likelihood of this as other celebrities, but the risk of it is surely not zero.

Do inform others about what is happening and what you are concerned about. Neighbors, co-workers, friends, and other ‘proxies’ who are not aware of the victim’s situation and who think they are being helpful can unwittingly disclose the information that a stalker wants to know.

If you have children who could be potential secondary targets for the pursuer, do have a calm, serious discussion with the children about the subject and instruct them how to be safe. In the U.S., you can contact VictimServices.org’s 7x24 hotline at 1-866-689-HELP (4357) for advice.

The Mullen-Pathé-Purcell book is especially good. It covers strategies to defend against and manage stalking behaviors; protecting personal information; declining and terminating contact; classifying different types of stalking and stalkers and risks associated with each; false stalking and delusions of being stalked; stalking-by-proxy, such as ordering/cancelling goods and services. Proxies utilized by stalkers may include your current or past employers, doctors, lawyers, pharmacists, hairdressers/cosmetologists, gyms/fitness clubs, banks, schools, churches/synagogues, and other intermediaries.

The book provides comprehensive discussion of morbid infatuations and other psychopathologies; incompetent suitors and intimacy seekers; acquaintances and friends. It counsels us to avoid any further discussions or correspondence with the pursuer—do not indulge them in argument or negotiation; do not deliver your termination message incrementally, in ‘let them down slowly’ instalments. The imperative is to be decisive, be firm.

The 12-page 2006 paper by Mullen and co-workers is excellent. The pdf is downloadable free here.

Recognizing possessiveness, hypersensitivity, dependence, jealousy, and mood swings in friends or business acquaintances can help to identify the potential for stalking and may be instrumental in your decision to terminate contact with the person, as a means of preventing stalking by someone who is known to you. According to Mullen and Pathé, ex-intimates are the stalking victims most likely to be threatened and assaulted. A history of domestic violence and/or jealousy before separation have been reported to increase the risk of violence in this group. Statistically speaking, and despite some famous examples to the contrary, stranger stalkers present the lowest risk of assaulting their victims.

Do be selective about disclosing personal details, including home address or phone numbers or email addresses. A post-office box provides security to prevent theft of confidential materials from a private letterbox at your home.

Do get an electric shredder for your home and be careful to shred all of your mail before placing it in the recycling or rubbish bins. Don’t take the same route to work or concert hall or other destinations; don’t do anything that’s readily monitored, in which your routine daily patterns can become known in a manner that may make it easier for a pursuer to harrass or attack you.

Do get a whistle. Get a small mace or pepper spray if legal in your area.

Do avail yourself of some musician-specific guidance for your use of MySpace, FaceBook, and other social networking sites, available on pages 206-208 of Frances Vincent’s book. Her blog is here.

Do consider hiring under-cover security services, such as Bo Dietl & Associates, for at least a few days or for covering your next several performances. They can discreetly monitor the performance venues and monitor your comings and goings, to ascertain whether there is or is not suspicious stalking-type activity. On a short-term or intermittent engagement basis such services are not tremendously expensive, and the reassurance that can come from their expert observations (esp. if they find no evidence of stalking) is huge. And, if in fact there is someone stalking you, they are expert in engaging law enforcement, the courts, forensic healthcare, and other appropriate authorities to deal with it in an expeditious, definitive way. With far more flexibility than the authorities can muster, an under-cover security service can devise counter-measures to stop the person, or to precipitate circumstances and evidence that will make the pursuer chargeable under the anti-stalking laws. Tremendously good value. Here are some more suggestions:

• If you are arriving or departing from a performance in separate vehicles, make sure each person is accompanied/escorted between the performance venue and the transportation.
  
• If you are not accompanied while en route, be sure and phone someone to let them know when you are departing and when you expect to arrive.
  
• Leave your mobile phone turned on. If it has a GPS feature, leave that turned on as well.
  
• If no one will be home when you get there, arrange to go to someone else’s house/apartment and stay with them, instead of going directly home to an empty house.
  
• Let doctors, lawyers, hairdressers, dentists, etc., know the importance of maintaining your security. They may be able to arrange off-street parking so that you are less visible. Ask them to instruct the receptionist not to allow any information about you to be leaked out.
  
• Check to be sure the library, gym, video shop, etc., will not give out information about you.
  
• Sell your car and buy a different one if feasible, so that the stalker will not recognize you (for awhile).
  
• Make sure you check the car before you get in, to make sure no one is in it.
  
• If you are being followed drive directly to the nearest police station.
  
• Don’t always drive the same way home. Don’t always take the same subway or bus home.
  
• Put the car away immediately when you arrive home, out of sight if possible.
  
• If you believe someone is stalking you, call the police.
  
• Arrange for your mail to be redirected to a post office box. You will need to fill in a Mail Redirection form from the Post Office.
  
• Call ‘fire’ instead of ‘rape’ or ‘help’.
  
• Put 911 into your mobile phone directory so that it can be speed-dialed. Note that, when contacting 911 from a cellular phone, you must identify where you are (i.e., tell the dispatcher your exact address or location). From a hardwired landline phone, the address pops up on the dispatcher’s computer automatically. But with cell phones, the computer doesn’t know where the phone is. 911 calls placed from cell phones are routed to the closest 911 operations center based on cell tower site location that’s closest to where you are calling from. And although technology has made advances in getting cellular phone calls to the appropriate police/fire agency, the process is not 100-percent accurate. If you call 911 on a cell phone, it will be associated with the nearest mobile phone repeater cell antenna tower, which may be miles away from where you are. The software will not route to the correct 911 center closest to you but instead will route to the 911 center that is closest to that cell tower. Then, if you are not able to speak freely or if you hang up or an attacker damages your phone, the dispatcher will not have your address information available, and it may take many minutes to locate the approximate address where your cell phone transmissions came from to send you help. Help would be dispatched from a 911 center needlessly further away from you, possibly some miles beyond that cell tower, to a destination that is so vague as to offer minimal chance of locating and assisting you in a timely way. Uggh.
  
• For the reasons noted in the previous point, put other emergency numbers into your mobile phone, for each of the cities where you perform.

Please be safe. Don’t ignore or discount what’s going on or pretend that it’s not happening or that it will go away. Contact one of the social services agencies in your area who have responsibility for sexual harassment prevention and management, or one of the national services whose URLs appear in the list below. Bo Dietl & Asociates provide a number of security and investigative services to performing musicians. Thank you for your CMT comments and questions!

• Beau Dietl & Asociates webpage
  
• U.S. National Center for Victims of Crime, Stalking Resource Center
  
• SafeHorizon (VictimsServices.org) Stalking page.
  
• U.S. DoJ Office of Violence Against Women
  
• Bates L. Safety for Stalking Victims: How to Save Your Privacy, Your Sanity, and Your Life. Writers' Showcase, 2001.
  
• Davis J, ed. Stalking Crimes and Victim Protection: Prevention, Intervention, Threat Assessment, and Case Management. CRC, 2001.
  
• Glass D. Stalking the Stalker: Fighting Back with High-tech Gadgets and Low-tech Know-how. iUniverse, 2006.
  
• Meloy J, ed. The Psychology of Stalking: Clinical and Forensic Perspectives. Academic, 2001.
  
• Mullen P, Mackenzie R, Ogloff J, Pathe M, McEwan T, Purcell R. Assessing and managing risks in the stalking situation. J Am Acad Psych Law 2006; 34:439-50. [1MB pdf]
  
• Paul Mullen page at Monash Univ
  
• Centre for Forensic Behavioural Science, Forensicare, Fairfield, Victoria, Australia
  
• Mullen P, Pathe M, Purcell R. Stalkers and Their Victims. Cambridge Univ, 2000.
  
• Mullen P, Pathe M, Purcell R, Stuart G. Study of stalkers. Am J Psych 1999; 156:1244-9. [500KB pdf]
  
• Pathe M. Surving Stalking. Cambridge Univ, 2002.
  
• Proctor M. How to Stop a Stalker. Prometheus, 2003.
  
• Snow R. Stopping A Stalker: A Cop's Guide To Making The System Work For You. daCapo, 2001.

Chamber Music Is Intimate How?

T  hese four kinds of intense experience—longing, rapture, doubt, and the sense that one is in touch with the source of all value—these define the romantic vision of love.”
  —  John Armstrong, Conditions of Love, p. 3.

There is a new book by Diane Jeske at University of Iowa that helps to explain what we mean when we talk about intimacy in chamber music and why it matters.

There are many aspects or facets of ‘intimacy’, of course. Some have to do with a spontaneity of ‘discourse’ between the parts, and the fact that there is no ‘conductor’ imposing a singular will over the production. Other facets have to do with the intensity of affect, the solitariness/autonomy of gestures rendered by each part, or a certain ‘enclosedness’ of ensemble such that the musical dialogue is amongst individuals addressing each other—as contrasted with broader expository addresses in symphonic and other musical forms.

Most chamber music manifests a strong connection/touch between the parts, or evokes a solidarity or ‘belonging’ in ensemble—reveals inter-relationships that have social duties of continuing and maintaining continuity among the members; of promising to complete a coherent and satisfying musical statement; of exposing mutual secrets; and of maintaining parity in valuing and trusting each other. In chamber music, we see recursive/fractal generation of meaning through durative and enduring sequences of interactions that arise out of individual players’ discharge of their ‘moral duty’ in ensemble.

The intimacy in chamber music also usually connotes a ‘protectedness’ or security, relative freedom from fear and uncertainty, and the relative absence of conflicts with regard to values. Microcosm.

In essence, the intimacy is a result of an ethics of care and sharing—and Diane Jeske’s recent writings significantly extend the philosophical theory of so-called ‘ethics of care’.

Why is the intimacy of chamber music so attractive these days? I suppose it is because the world has become a big globalized hotel, quite detached and impersonal and commodified. And so we crave, more than in earlier times, face-to-face contact and belonging. Post-modern intimacy is about identity. Post-modern life is atomizing and impoverished of self-revelation (and impoverished of ‘other-revelation’ as well). Relationships are a process of self-revelation. Intimate music enables us to witness the artists (and the composer) engaging in the process of mutual self-revelation. Besides deriving pleasure from the results, we vicariously enjoy seeing (hearing) that the process can still in fact be done. We enjoy learning or being reminded of some of the ways in which we ourselves might do it.

The whole human experience is a giant quest for harmony amid persistent, dysharmonious forces. We realize that our quest is something like Sisyphus’s—the stone we strive to roll up the hill keeps on rolling back down. We are attracted to the intimacy of chamber music, in part, because it nourishes and informs and enlivens our quest, which we cannot undertake or sustain alone.

A necessary condition of our undertaking it together with others (family, friends, acquaintances) is that the friends each care about the other, and do so for her/his own sake. Although many accounts of friendship do not analyze such mutual caring any further, among those that do there is considerable variability as to how we should understand the kind of caring involved in friendship. Caring about someone for her/his sake involves both sympathy and action on the friend’s behalf. That is, friends must be moved by what happens to their friends to feel the appropriate emotions: joy in their friends’ successes, frustration and disappointment in their friends’ failures, and so on. Friends must normally be disposed to advance the other’s good for her own sake and not out of any ulterior motive. This is inherent in chamber music compositions’ structure, and it is what we witness in performance that leads us to say the music is ‘intimate’.

The relationship of friendship differs from other interpersonal relationships, even those characterized by mutual caring, such as relationships among colleagues: friendships are, in some sense, ‘deeper’ relationships. The question facing any philosophical account is how that characteristic intimacy of friendship is to be understood. The intimacy of friendship takes the form of a commitment friends have to each other as unique persons, a commitment in which the friend’s successes become occasions for joy; her judgments may provoke reflection or even deference; her behavior may encourage emulation or an endorsing response in a subsequent phrase, and so on.

I realize that the philosophical theory of care and intimacy may not interest all CMT readers. But in response to a couple of emails that complained about what the writers felt was “nebulous, vague, lazy” use of the word ‘intimacy’ as an attribute of chamber music, I thought I’d gather together here a few of the recent references that address the topic in crisp, analytical fashion (links below). I don’t dispute that the term ‘intimate’ may be over-used or lazily used. And I don’t dispute that other musical forms besides chamber music can also exhibit qualities of intimacy.

I do, though, think that ‘intimacy’ is a descriptor that’s valid—characteristic of most of what we regard as ‘chamber music’. Scholarly music theory analyses of inter-part exchanges provide plenty of evidence for the validity of ascribing intimacy to chamber music in terms of an ethics of care, which provides reasons for the exchanges, as Diane Jeske shows—and which uncovers the mechanics of why the compositions ‘work’ as they do, to enable us to perceive the musical discourse and sharing as embodiments of ‘intimacy’. Thanks for your comments, and for your interest in this topic!

C  hamber music is the most intimate kind of music. Intimate means personal, close, emotionally revealing and honest. In chamber music, each player plays alone and yet together with others. How can you play alone and yet together? It’s very much like basketball where the players have their own special and unique roles, and yet teamwork is vital at every moment. But unlike sports where the players are trying to win against opponents, in chamber music there is nothing to work against and everything to work for. The goal is to bring to life a work of musical art.”
  —  Bruce Adolphe, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, 2006.

• CMA. Chamber Music Defined
  
• Friends of Chamber Music - The Intimate Voice of Classical Music
  
• Annis D. The meaning, value, and duties of friendship. Amer Philosophical Quarterly 1987; 24:349–56.
  
• Armstrong J. Conditions of Love: The Philosophy of Intimacy. Norton, 2003.
  
• Badhwar N. Friends as ends in themselves. Philosophy & Phenomenological Research 1987; 48:1–23.
  
• Badhwar N, ed. Friendship: A Philosophical Reader. Cornell Univ, 1993.
  
• Clement G. Care, Autonomy, and Justice: Feminism and the Ethic of Care. Westview, 1996.
  
• Cocking D, Kennett J. Friendship and the self. Ethics 1998; 108:502–27.
  
• Cocking D, Oakley J. Indirect consequentialism, friendship, and the problem of alienation. Ethics 1995; 106:86–111.
  
• Gilbert M. Sociality and Responsibility: New Essays in Plural Subject Theory. Rowman & Littlefield, 2000.
  
• Groenhout R. Connected Lives: Human Nature and an Ethics of Care. Rowman & Littlefield, 2004.
  
• Halling S. Intimacy, Transcendence, and Psychology: Closeness and Openness in Everyday Life. Macmillan, 2007.
  
• Hankivsky O. Social Policy and the Ethic of Care. Univ BC, 2004.
  
• Held V. The Ethics of Care: Personal, Political, and Global. Oxford Univ, 2005.
  
• Jeske D. Rationality and Moral Theory: How Intimacy Generates Reasons. Routledge, 2008.
  
• Jeske D. Friendship and reasons of intimacy. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 2001; 63: 329-46.
  
• Diane Jeske page at University of Iowa
  
• Kasulis T. Intimacy or Integrity: Philosophy and Cultural Difference. Univ Hawaii, 2002.
  
• Larrabee M. An Ethic of Care: Feminist and Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Routledge, 1992.
  
• Noddings N. Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education. 2e. Univ California, 2003.
  
• Pettersen T. Comprehending Care: Problems and Possibilities in The Ethics of Care. Lexington, 2008.
  
• Slote M. The Ethics of Care and Empathy. Routledge, 2007.
  
• Snyder J. Flying Lessons: The Psychology of Intimacy and Anxiety. AuthorHouse, 2005.
  
• Tronto J. Moral Boundaries: A Political Argument for an Ethic of Care. Routledge, 1993.
  
• Tuomela R. The Importance of Us: A Philosophical Study of Basic Social Notions. Stanford Univ, 1995.
  
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