The nature
of music as a meaningful language ……
Arthur Butterworth
One
of the more enlightening books on musical
philosophy, the meaning of music itself,
was published around forty years ago:
Deryck Cooke’s "The Language of
Music". This has often been referred
to. It points out that music is a language
quite capable in its own fashion of
communicating to those attuned to what
it has to say. Bertrand Russell once
commented that: "the telephone
directory communicates information without
emotion while music communicates emotion
without information". This is probably
for most purposes as neat a way as possible
of putting it. While we all realise
that words can be poetic or have a hidden
meaning, their basic usage is straightforward
enough; they mean precisely what they
say.
On
the other hand music, unless it be vocal
music which is called upon to enhance
the poet’s or the dramatist’s very specific
and meaningful words, is not capable
of being absolutely specific in meaning.
Music can – if the composer or the listener
chooses – mean just about anything that
the fancy of the moment suggests. All
this has been commented on before in
these columns. Perhaps it follows from
this that, notwithstanding Deryck Cooke’s
quite precise thesis about the language
of music, the listener can if he or
she chooses, read into the sound of
a piece of abstract instrumental music
anything that seems to be at that moment
suggested. Sometimes the mental or visual
images could, for the same piece of
music, from time to time be different.
Everyone is likely to have a personal
opinion as to whether this happens or
not. Closely bound up with this notion
is the matter of taste. Hearing a piece
of music for the first time might make
no particular impression: take it or
leave it, one might say. Some music
heard for the first time might not be
thought much of; only subsequent hearings
as it were finalise one’s favourable
or unfavourable impression. It can be
rather like meeting someone for the
first time; some we take an instant,
and perhaps inexplicable dislike to;
others perhaps romantically, we even
fall in love with at first sight. But
perhaps the majority of first acquaintances
we cannot later remember whether we
liked them or not. Probably a lot of
music we hear is like this, so that
it is unfortunate that much new music
only ever gets once chance to be heard.
This is not a new situation; probably
it was almost always so.
Apart
from a great deal of background music,
merely intended as a fairly bland "uncommunicative"
style meant as no more than a pleasant
aural accompaniment to whatever other
activity we are pursuing, the purpose
of serious music - and his does not
exclude light music - is that it should
be heard with attention; some "meaning"
heard in it. Music of this nature then,
as with meeting people, can lead either
to a positive dislike or to a pleasant,
and maybe lasting acquaintance, or even
love. With people it is more often than
not a fairly easy matter to give reasons
why we like or dislike another person:
they possess some quality that we recognise
positively or negatively. Perhaps music
can suggest such qualities too: ultimately
we can recognise, when we get to know
a piece, that we do or do not like it.
If with people it is fairly easy to
say why we like or dislike them, with
music it is often less so; perhaps no
truly rational explanation is forthcoming
that we can give to others, since, after
all music is so abstract.
Most
people who claim to respond to music
either say that they particularly like
one kind or another, or that they don’t
like this or that style. If they are
fortunate perhaps they can claim to
like many different kinds of music.
Among practising musicians I have often
wondered if tastes – compared with those
who merely like music as listeners –
are more restricted in their preferences
depending on the branch of music they
themselves are involved in. Do some
cathedral organists, perhaps a shade
improbably like jazz. Improbably? –
only because the two cultures seem so
wide apart. Do string quartet devotees
like opera? Do guitarists like symphonic
music, or the brass band? These could
be ridiculous questions to the majority
of people, who have a wide – even at
times apparently undiscriminating taste.
It was always a matter of bemusement
to know that Leonard Bernstein could
be so passionate about the great classics
and yet be capable of writing so effectively
and convincingly a popular stage-work
such as "West Side Story".
I don’t know how other composers regard
music in general; do we have wide tastes?
Perhaps because we have a distinctive
purpose and message of our own to promote
are we inclined to be somewhat narrow
in our liking for other music?
I
certainly do not know how I compare
with others – perhaps my preferences
are more limited than most other people,
both musicians and those who only listen
to music. There are certain styles and
periods of music that I admit to always
having been attracted to. Some of these
were certainly a case of "love
at first hearing" – such, as my
friends know only too well – my affinity
for the music of Sibelius which I believe
can be explained not only by the particular
quality of the sound world he invokes,
but by something far deeper in my own
psychic response.
Some
days ago I was approached by a total
stranger who wanted to persuade me to
buy a book on a very celebrated composer,
a world-renowned figure who has become
a veritable ikon of the concert hall
the world over; a composer who stirs
in perhaps a great majority of listeners
the very depths of ecstatic emotional
response. To me this composer is the
very antithesis of everything in my
own nature: From the very first occasion,
more than fifty years ago, when I had
to take part in a performance of this
composer’s music, I took an immediate
and violent dislike to it, and this
antagonism has remained with me over
the years. Why? Perhaps were I to lie
on a psychiatrist’s couch, he could
extract from the unconscious depths
of my mind some reasons for this. All
I can say is that, while I know that
I myself am not capable of finding words
to tell you why I feel this way, deep
down inside I think I do know; but I
cannot find the words to express it.
After all I am primarily a composer,
and we are generally better at telling
what we have to communicate through
music rather than words; as Deryck Cooke
pointed out, the "language of music"
needs no literary explanation.
Arthur
Butterworth
© August
2006
