A DECEIVING MIRROR
by Arthur Butterworth
Despite the altruism and self-sacrifice of many
saintly beings, there is a fundamental instinct in all living
things to seek for themselves the best place in the sun. The most
insignificant weed that grows struggles towards the light, trying
as best it can to overcome other growing organisms in its way.
The lowliest of animal life seeks to overcome its siblings and
other rivals. Humans, perhaps most of all, are acutely conscious
of this basic instinct for self-promotion so that it is perhaps
worth pondering the lines written by Philip Massinger (1583-1640):
.......... "View yourselves in the
deceiving mirror of self-love
Many years ago, having written the programme
note on the occasion of the premiere of the First Symphony at
the Cheltenham Festival, a performance which first brought recognition
as a composer, I was taken to task the following morning by a
distinguished critic who, whilst praising in the most lavish terms,
the work itself and the excellent performance it had received,
commented: . .. " It is not seemly for a young composer
to tell us how astonishing his last movement is, that is for the
listener to decide; a composer ought not to praise his own work"....
I took this to heart and have tried ever since
to avoid as far as possible. the use of the first person singular
when writing or commenting on music of my own creation. Since
self-praise is no honour, few things are more tedious to others
than to read or hear, people talking about their own achievements
..... "My first string quartet...."I wrote my second
opera"... ..."My harmonic language",...etc. The
expressions "I", me", "my", "mine"
can be the most irritating and boring words in the language, and
perhaps ought to be avoided like the plague.
Whether he or she be a thrusting, go-getting
politician seeking approval from the electorate, autobiographical
writer, television personality, football star, media correspondent,
celebrated opera singer, concert pianist (or even a mere composer),
it seems far more modest and less self-seeking if what needs to
be said can be expressed in an impersonal way. So that instead
of writing (say):
..... The first movement of my quartet is in
sonata form ...
better to write instead:
... "The first movement of this quartet
is in sonata form"...
Over the years, since the premiere of the First
Symphony, from time to time people have shown an interest in this
and the other symphonies that have followed. Composers often feel
ambivalent about explaining how they came to create their music.
There is obviously a desire to express something of how they feel
and this is the prime reason for creating their music in the first
place, but going further than that and trying to enhance or clarify
their meaning further by the written word is both a natural urge,
yet paradoxically no little matter of feint embarrassment at having
to be specific about deep personal emotions too. Yet composers
are so often asked to provide the first programme notes of a new
work. Perhaps it would be better if someone else should always
do this for them.
There is a parallel here with composers conducting
performances of their own music. Berlioz is reputed to have disdained
all other conductors of his music, asserting that none of them
knew better than he, just how his music should go. Certainly Berlioz
himself was a most technically competent and inspired conductor
in an age when the art of conducting was a relatively undeveloped
technique.
In a later age with the rise of the truly "professional"
conductor - the musician specialising in directing performances
by others rather than actually singing or playing himself - the
composer-conductor, perhaps, seems less necessary. Despite this,
there would still, on the face of it at least, seem to be a good
case for composers directing their own music: for who can know
better than the composer himself how a work ought to be interpreted
? Some composers have indeed been capable conductors - Berlioz
himself, probably most of all — along with Mendelssohn, Wagner,
Richard Strauss, Hindemith, Sibelius, Mahler, Elgar, Walton, Britten
and many others. If none of them have been so-called "professionals"
in the sense that conducting has been their prime musical accomplishment,
they have certainly known the niceties and conventions of working
with other performing musicians; able to be effective, inspiring
"personnel managers" as much as head-in-the-clouds creative
artists.
However, there is another side to all this. Like
the composers writing his or her own programme notes (after all
who knows the work better than he or she?), is the composer invariably
the best person to interpret his or her own work? On the face
of it, the answer would seem to be "yes", but on closer
consideration it might seem otherwise. Composition, like any other
creative function is by its nature subjective, so that one cannot
get outside oneself to see how it really appears to others. The
composer writing his or her own programme analysis, or directing
the performance of his own work cannot be other than subjective,
unable to see the wider, objective view of it. Another person
— the professional conductor — is often, though not necessarily,
better able to interpret and thus be able to communicate to other
performers what the essence of a work really is; able to bring
it out more effectively than an inward-looking, subjective approach
that can only be that of the composer himself or herself. On a
more practical level, the composer can often feel peculiarly embarrassed
when trying to persuade others, as it were, to enter his own very
personal emotions, whereas when he directs someone else’s music
- and composers often are excellent, equally competent professional
conductors in this respect - he has no inhibitions in exhorting
performers to give of their best. Conducting one’s own music can
lead to a feeling of exploiting one’s performers and wallowing
in self-preening - looking into that "deceiving mirror of self-love"
that Philip Massinger so perceptively remarked on. Better to eschew
"I", "me", "my" or "mine"
whenever possible.
© Arthur Butterworth
80th Birthday Celebrations 2003
Congratulations to Arthur on being 80 years young.
Concerts
22 October 18.30 Symphony 5 (world premiere) BBC Philharmonic
Manchester Studio 7
9 November 19.30 Ragnarök Sheffield Philharmonic St
Marks Broomhill
15 November 19.30 Mill Town (world premiere) Huddesfield
Philharmonic Town Hall
23 November 19.30 Concertante Haffner Orchestra St Martin's
College, Lancaster
29 April 19.30 Concerto alla Venezia (Trumpet Concerto)
Orchestra of Opera North Huddersfield Town Hall