PROGRAMME MUSIC

5 Programme Music

The term and its meaning

The term ‘programme music’ was introduced by liszt, who also invented the expression ’symphonic poem’ to describe what is perhaps the most characteristic instance of it. He defined a programme as a preface added to guard the listener against a wrong poetical interpretation, and to direct his attention to the poetical idea of whole or to a particular part of it, very few of the programme of liszt’s own symphonic poems are of a narrative character. He did not regard music as a direct means of describing objects; rather he thought that usic could put the listener In the same frame of mind as could the object themselves. In this way, by suggesting the emotional reality of things , music could indirectly represent them such an idea – already familiar in writings of rousseau – also expressed by bethoven when he described the pastoral simphony as ‘mehr empfindung als  malerey’ (‘more feeling than painting’).

The close connection in some of liszt’s thinking between ‘narrative’ and emotional’ depiction has led to confusion over the use of the term ‘programme music’ .some prefer to attach the term purely to instrumental music with a narrative or descriptive ‘meaning’ ( for examples , music that contains an extra-musical reference, whether to objective events or to subjective events or to subjective feelings. The responsibility for this broadening of the term lies partly with friedrich niecks, whose romantic enthusiasm caused him to over look in his influential work on the subject (1956), the vital authentic distinction between representation and expression. In this the narrow sense of the term which is the legitimate one. The other sense is not only so wide as to be virtually meaningless; it also fails to correspond to the actual usage of composers and critics since liszt invention of the term.

Programme music, which has been contrassed with absolute music, is distinguished by its attempt to depict object and events. Furthermore, it claims to derive its logic from that attempt. It does not merely echo or imitate things which have an independent reality; the development of proggrame music is determined by the development of its theme. 

 

 The music moves in time according to the logic of its subject and not according to autonomous principles of its own. As liszt wrote: ‘in programme music . . . the return, change, modification, and modulation of the motifs are conditioned by their relation to a poetic idea . . . All exclusively musical considerations, thought they should not be  neglected, have to be subordinated to the action of the given subject.

Liszt thought of himself as putting forward a new ideal for symphonic music , an ideal that had been foreshadowed in bethoven’s Pastoral symphony and in certain works of Mendelsoon , schuman and berlioz, but which he nevertheless thought to be absent from the body of classical music.  He considered the idea of exalting the narrative associations of music into a principle of compotition to be incompatible with the continuance of traditional symphonic forms.

The term ’programme  music ‘ came to be applied not only to music with a story but also music designed to represent a character (Straus don juan and don qouixote ) or to describe a scene or phenomenon ( Debussy ‘s la mer ) . what is common to all these is the atempt to ‘ represent’ object in music but a certain confusion has entered the use of the term by its application to any form of musical ‘depiction’ , whether instrumental, or vocal, or incidental to an action on the stage. Properly speaking, however, programme music music with a programme.  

 On that view it would be wrong to call, for example couperins piece is purely musical , event its thematic material is derived from the imitation  of a clock. By contrast, the logic of liszt  symphony poem Tasso is        ( according to the composer) derived from the events of tasso's life: it is the sequence of those events, and  their intrinsic nature , that dictate the development of the music. (but it should be said that Liszt own programme music did not always follow his own theoretical precepts.)

            However the term is used , is it clear that the idea of music’s representing something is essential to the concept of programme music. It is important to understand , therefore, what might be meant by ‘representation in music. The first distinction to make is that between representation and expression . It is only recently that attempts  have been made to formulate the distinction with any precision, and there is no agreement as to the relation between the terms.

   

Not be accompanied by an expression of feeling. Furthermore, there can be expressions of emotion that are not accompanied by representation. Mozart’s Masonic Funeral Music is certainly an expression of grief, but it contains no attempt to represent or describe the object of grief. It has been argued that all music expresses emotion. If that is so, then, unless some distinction can be made between representation and expression, all music would have to be regarded as representational. To say that would lead to the conclusion that there was no essential distinction between music and painting in their relation to the world.

  It is a matter of dispute whether music is capable of literally representing its subject, in the way that painting and literature represent theirs. what passes for representation might often of music mimics the sound of a cuckoo. That there is a difference between representation and imitation is clear. An architectural detail can imitate another’s manner without representing it. Representation is essentially descriptive:  it involves a reference to object in the world and an attempt to describe them. Imitation is merely copying, and its intention may be no more than decorative. Examples of musical imitation have abounded from the very beginning of music. Indeed, both Plato and Aristotle ascribed an imitative character to the music of their time. It is nonetheless datable whether music is made representational by imitation alone. Certainly Liszt had more than mere imitation in mind when he introduced the concept of programme music.

  It is seldom clear what is meant when it is said that music can represent things. The question arises whether music can actually describe the world or whether it is merely evocative. If representation in music were merely a matter of evocation, it would be misleading to class it as’ representation, for that would imply an unwarranted analogy with the descriptive arts of literature and painting. That is why Liszt insisted that true programme music had narrative of descriptive element which was essential to the understanding of it. In other words, for Liszt the subject has become part of the meaning of music; to listen to the music with false associations was, in Liszt’s view, actually to misunderstand it, whether or not here is ‘programme music’ in Liszt’s sense, it is clear that it would provide the most plausible example of representation in music. It is further clear that in its strictest sense programme music does not include music that is merely expressive, imitative or evocative. It is doubtful even whether Debussy’s La Mer is a description rather than an evocation of its subject, although the titles of the movements seem to suggest a certain ‘narrative’  component to its meaning (for example, one of the movements is entitled ‘De l'aube à midi sur la mer’       from dawn to noon on the sea  which prompted Satie to remark that he particularly liked the moment at 11.15).

  
           

Programme music must further be distinguished from the ‘representational’ music that accompanies words, whether in lieder, in oratorio or on the stage. While all these share devices with programme music and have influenced it continuously throughout the history of music, it is still necessary to distinguish music which purports to carry its narative meaning within itself, from music which is attached to a narrative arising independently, whether trough the words of a song or trough the action of dramatic work. The distinction is not absolute, but, unless it is made, the idea of programme music as a separate genre must remain entirely illegitimate.

Absolute Musik

4. Absolute Music

 The term ‘absolute music’ denotes not so much an agreed idea as an aesthetic problem. The expression is of German origin, first appearing in the writings of Romantic philosophers and critics such as J. L. Tieck, J. G. Herder, W. H. Wackenroder, Jean Paul (Richter) and E. T. A. Hoffman. It features in the controversies of the nineteenth century – for example, in Hanslick’s spirited defence of absolute Tonkunst againts the Gesamtkunstwerk of Wagner – and also in the abstractions of twentieth – century musical aesthetics. It names an ideal of msical purity, an ideal from which music has been held to depart in a variety of ways; for example, by being subordinated to words (as in song), to drama(as in opera), to some representational meaning (as in programme music), or even to the vague requirements of emotional expression. Indeed, it has been more usual to give a negative than a positive definition of the absolute in music. the best way to speak of a thing that claims to be ‘absolute’ is to say what it is not.

It is not word-setting. Songs, liturgical music and opera are all denied the status of absolute music. For in word-setting music is thought to depart from the ideal of purity by lending it self to independent methods of expressions. The music has to be understood at least partly in terms of its contribution to the verbal sense. It follows that absolute music must at least be instrumental music (and the human voice may sometimes act as an instrument, as in certain works of Debusyy , Delius and Holst). Liszt and wagner insisted that the absence of words from music didnt entail the absence of meaning. Liszt’t program-musik and Wagners Gesamtkuntwerks both arose from the view that all music was essentially meaningful and no music could be considered more absolute than any other. This view gives rise to a further negative definition of the absolute in music : it is music that has no external reference. So the imitation of nature in music is a departure from an absolut ideal ; vivaldi concertos the four season are less absolute than the art of Fugue. The symphonic poem is also tainted with impurity, as is every other form programme music.

The yearning for the absolurte is not yet satisfied. Having removed representation from the ideal of music of music, critics have sought to remove

 

Expression as well. No music can be absolute if seeks to be understood in terms of an extra-musical meaning, whether the meaning lies in a reference to external objects or in the expression of the human mind.  Absolute music is now made wholly autonomous. It’s raison d’etre lies entirely within itself, it must be understood as an abstract structure bearing only accidental relation to the movement of the human soul. Liszt and Wagner claimed that there could be no absolute music in that sense, it’s posssible that even Hanslick might have agreed with them.

It’s at this point that the concept of absolute music becomes unclear. Certainly  it no longer corresponds to what Richter and Hoffman had in mind. Both  writer considered the purity of music – its quality as and absolute art – to reside in the nature it’s expressive powers and not in their total absence. For Richter music was absolute in that it expressed a presentiment of the divine in nature, for Hoffman it became absolute trough the attempt to express the infinite in the only from  that renders  the infinite intelligible to human felling. To borrow the therminology of Hegel: music is absolute because expresses the absolute.  ( On that view, liturgical music if absolute of all ).

The notion of the absolute of music has thus become inseparably entangled with the problem of musical expression. It all music expressive, only some none of all? The answer to that question will determine the usage of term absolute in criticism. To define the term negatively leads at once to an intractable philosophical problem. A positive definition has therefore been sought.

An analogy may be drawn with mathematic. Pure mathematics can be defined negatively. It is mathematic  which is not applied. But that’s shallow; for what is applied mathematics if not the application of an independent and autonomous structure of thought? One should therefore define  pure mathematics in terms of the methods and structures by which it is understood. Similarly, it might be argued that music is absolute when it’s not applied, or when it’s not subjected to any purpose independent of own autonomous movement. Absolute music must be understood as pure form, according to canons that are internal to itself. Unfortunately, such a positive definition of the term raises another philosophical problem. What is meant by understanding music? And can there be a form of art which is understood in terms that are wholly internal to itself?

Attempts by the advocates of absolute music to answer those questions have centered on two ideas:  objectivity and structure. Their arguments have been presented in this century most forcefully by the Austrian theorist Heinrich Schenker and Stavinsky. Music becomes absolute by being an objective art, and acquires objectivity throught it’s structure. To say of music that it is objective is to say that it is understood as an object

 

In it self, without recourse to any semantic meaning, external purpose or subjective idea. It becomes objective throught producing appropriate patterns and forms. These forms satisfy us because we have an understanding of the structural relation which they exemplify. The relation are grasped by the ear in an  intuitive act of apprehension, but the satisfaction that springs there form is akin to the satisfaction derived for the pursuit of mathematics. It is not a satisfaction that is open to every one. Like mathematics, it depends on understanding, and understandings can be induced only by the establishment of a proper musical culture.

            It is such a conception of the absolute in music that has figured most largely in modern discussions. It is in the minds of those who deny  that music can be absolute, as of those who insist that it must be. It is has inspired the reaction against Romanticism, and sought exemplification in the works of Hindemith, Stravinsky and the followers of Schoenberg. Indeed, the invention of twelve-note composition seemed to many reveal that music was essentially a structural art , and that all the traditional effects of music could be renewed just so long as the new ‘language’ imitated the complexity of the classical forms. (Schoenberg did not share the enthuaism of his disciples for such a theory : for him music had been, and remained, an essentially expressive medium.)

It should be noted that absolute’ music, so defined, means ore than “abstract music. There are other abstract arts, including architecture and some forms of painting. To call the abstract is to say that they are not representational. It is not to imply that they are to be understood by reference to external  purpose and no subjective state of mind. An abstract painting does not have to lack expression. Yet ‘absolute’ music is an ideal that will not allow even that measure of impurity.

            As an ideal it certainly excited before the teutonic jargon of its name. under the influence to it , and even zarlino was instrumental music and the development of classical forms saw the temporary disappearance of the absolute ideal. Only after herder and his followers had introduced the word, and wagner (throught his opposition to it) the concept, did the ideal once more find expression in serious aesthetic theories.         

            The advocacy of absolute music has brought with it aview of musical understanding that is as questionable as anything written by liszt in defence of the symphonic poem. It is of course absurd to suppose that one understandsmetana’s vlatava primarily by understanding what in ‘means’. For that seems to iply the grasp of elody, development, harmony and usical relations are all subordinate to a message that could have been expressed as well in words. But so too is it absurd to suppose

 

That one has understood a Bach fugue when one has a grasp of all the structural relations that exits among its parts. The understanding listener is not a computer. The logic of Bach’s fugues must be heard: it is understood in experience and not in thought. And why should not the musical experience embrace pleasure, feeling and evocation just as much as pure structured sound? Hearing the chorus ‘Sind Blitze sind Donner’ from the St Matthew Passion may provide a renewed sense of the significance of the Art of Fugue, and that sense may originate in a recognition of the emotional energy that underlies all bach’s fugal writing. Cleary, however ‘absolute’ a piece of music may be, it can retain our interest only if there is something more to understanding it than an appreciation of mere patterns of sound.

The Aesthetics of Music

3. The Aesthetics of Music

There is a little literature in the history of modern philosophy that is more exasperating than that devoted to the aesthetics of music. When the standard of philosophycal competence is high enough to be taken seriously, the standard of musical competence is usually (as with kant and hegel) too low for the exercise to be worthwhile. Hardly any writer troubles him self with example or analysis ,and  almost  all rest their case in some vast and vague abstraction,such as ‘form’  ‘imitation’ or ‘expression without explaining how a work exemplifies it, or why it would matter if it did..

Musical aesthetic has shown itself almost entirely unable to acoount for the character of auditory perception,or to explain the simplest of musical categories,such as melody rhythm and harmony. A grain of philosophical sense would  suggest that no theory of musical expression, for example ,will be illuminating if unaccompanied by an explanation of those basic things. Yet even hanslick –after gurney, the most competent writer in the field ---failed to see that he had not given that explanation and that without it his theory of music as an absolute art was as unwarranted  as the theories which he  used it to attack.

Consider hanslick defination of music as tonend bewegte formen (forms moved in sounding ) what does it it mean to say that the forms of music ‘movie’ or are ‘moved’? it is fairly widely recognised that at some level the reference to musical moevement is inescapable (what would it be like to abolish ‘high’ and ‘low’ ,fast’,and slow,far and ‘near’ ‘approaching ‘ and ‘receding’ ‘hollow’and ‘filled’ ; from our description of musical experience? The result might still be a description of sound but if would  not be adescription of tones . itis also fairly widely recognized that this reference  to movement is it some sense metaphorical. For nothing in the word of sounds moves, in gthe way that music moves  if that is so, however , a theory of music at all it’explain’ its subject only by blocking the path to explanation . if we allow hanslick to get away with assuming  the existence of musial movement, why not allow his opponent  to get away with assuming the existence of musical emotion? For although hanslick is righ to say that what we hear is neither a sentient thing nor anything like a sentient thing, it is also true that it is not a thing in motion nor anything like a thing in motion again, consider the eighteenth

   

Century aesthetic of “imitation”. It is well to argue that music ‘copies’ the movements of the human soul, or the gestures of the body, or whatever. But if the only grounds for saying so are that music moves in a similar way, then these are no grounds at all. For music does not move, and therefore does not move ‘in similar way’. Or rather, it does move, but only metaphorically, which is just as unhelpful. (you might as well say that batteux did prove that music imitates, but only metaphorically; or that i have refuted him, but only metaphorically). At almost every point intraditional discussions this problem emerges, and nothing has been said to solve it, partly because everything has been said to prevent it from being perceived.

A related oversight or traditional musical aesthetics has been the failure to explain the all-important notion of musical understanding. Since eighteenth-century writers first began to replace the idea of musical ‘imitation’ with that of expression, the thought has been prevalent that music-or at least significant music-has ‘a’ content, and that this content is what is understood by the receptive listener. The attraction of the theory is evident: it enables us to say for example, why music moves us and why it is important. (by contrast it is almost impossible to say why we should be interested in the fact that a piece of music imitates, say, a clock, a cuckoo, or a pair of rutting camels.) but the disadvantage of the theory of expression, in all its forms, is that it means nothing until accompanied by an analysis of musical understanding.

Only hegel, hanslick and wittgenstein seem to have recognized this point, and to have seen that it is crucial. If you take the point seriously, you see at once how inadequate are currently fashionable ‘semantic’ and ‘semiotic’ theories of musical meaning. Any body who is ingenious enough can interpret music as a language, or a code, or a system of signs; for example, by taking individual parts, structures, motifs and connections, and then correlating them with the object, feelings and attitudes that they are supposed to symbolize. All that is required for this exercise is that the music should display syntactic structure ( i.e., separately meaningful ‘elements’ which can be combined into meaningful wholes, and a ‘field of reference’ with which it can be conjoined. To express would the be to signify or stand for some item in the field of reference, according to rules of musical semantics. But of course, while the correlation of musical signs and musical ‘meanings’ is a task that any critic can set himself, it is not at all clear that it bear on the understanding of music. The real question is not whether this programme can be carried through (say, in the  naive and illuminating manner of deryck cooke, or in the sophisticated and vacuous manner of Nattiez2), but whether it provides a genuine description of what is understood by the cultivated listener. An account of musical semantics

The real question is not whether this programme can be carried through (say, in the  naive and liluminating manner of deryck cooke, or in the sophiscated and vacuous manner of nattiez2), but whether it provides a genuine description of what is understood by the cultivated listener. An account og musical semantics

                Must also be an account of musical ‘competence’ : but without a theory of understanding it is quite uncertainly what musical competence amounts to. Maybe it has nothing whatsoever to do with the sematic analsis that have been proposed for it; maybe the relation between them is no closer than relation between ability to ride a horse, and the semantic interpretation of piebald markings ( which could be dressed up, if you chose, as a kind of horsey syntax ).

            What, then, should a serious musical aesthetics attempt to do? It seems to me that it ought first to tell us what sounds are; the preoccupation of modern philosophy with the visual has been so overwhelming that the nature of sounds, as objects of perception, remins almost completely obsicure. It ought also to tell us what tones are, and how, if at all, they are distinct from sounds. It should tell us what it is to perceive tones as organized, in the way that music is ( or appears to be ) organized: into rhythms, melodies, and harmonies.       ( what for example, a harmony, and what distinguishes it from a cluster of simulation tones?) it should also attempt to display the nature of musical understanding, and its relation to musical expirience, to musical analysis, and to aesthetic interes.

Only then, when all those foundations are laid, will it be possible to make sense of such terms as ‘expresion’, ‘emotion’, and ‘form’ as applied to music. However, a real begining could then be envisaged, in this subject  which has been for so long victim of philosophical impetuosity. The chapters in this section explore some of problems presented by such a ‘foundational’ approach to musical aesthetics. The first there – reprinted from the New Grove Dictional of Music – describemajor difficulties presented by the available ways of interpreting and criticizing wastern music. they survey the history of music theory, and attempt to summarize the present perspectives which a philosopher might take. There follws an article on reprentation in music, which argues that there are grounds for treating music in terms which distinguish it from literature and painting. It emerges tahat the crucial notion to be analyzed in a foundational aesthetic of music is that of musical undersatanding. The final chapter is devoted to a consideration of that idea.