International Music Conferences - the Exchange of Ideas
- Arthur Butterworth
Recently I attended an international meeting of devotees and
informed authorities on the music of a famous twentieth century
composer. It is re-assuring to know in these times of a seemingly-declining
interest in the great European classics, beset as they are by
so many threatening aspects of cheap populism in the arts, that
there are still many discerning people who go to great lengths
to encourage and preserve their heritage. Not just to preserve
it, but to explore and seek further enlightenment by research.
This is perhaps the raison d’être of all academic pursuit:
to find out more, to seek out reasons, to pass on to others
what careful intellectual exploration might have revealed.
Music is a unique - indeed universal - means of communication;
it is a language. It is unique inasmuch as that it is quite
unlike any other spoken or written language; for it cannot be
translated but exists only in its own terms. While it is true
that, in association with the written or spoken word, in whatever
other language, music can, by mere association with that language,
take on something specific which the written or spoken word
so clearly and unmistakably conveys. All vocal art then; be
it opera, oratorio, lieder, folk-song, popular music of every
kind, imbues the music which is its hand-maiden with a specific
or emotional meaning which, by itself, pure instrumental sound
is not capable of achieving, although by implication and symbolism
it might appear to possess this desirable asset; but
this is never more than a subjective quality dependent on each
listener’s own interpretation. Bearing in mind these fundamental
differences between written and vocal languages and that of
otherwise purely abstract, non-vocal music perhaps it needs
to be accepted that attempts to explain how and why a composer’s
music functions as it does can never truly be explained: for
it is a unique, untranslatable language.
However, it is the purpose of academicism to try to find explanations;
to offer new insight into how the situation has appeared to
musical philosophers. Such international gatherings of those
seeking to know more have this ardent purpose: sharing ideas
about a common interest.
Musical academics, historians, philosophers, or whatever other
term might describe their intellectual pursuit of the art do
not necessarily imply that they are themselves practical musicians
who actually use musical language in the sense that they are
performers - as it were “speaking” the live language of music.
For many academics it would appear that their own pursuit of
music takes on something in the nature of a passive one: commenting
on, reviewing, speculating upon known or unknown historical
facts about this or that composer or a particular musical work.
Conferences - especially high-flown international ones - can
become exalted intellectual affairs in which highly-qualified
persons often from world-wide academia express personal opinions
evolved from their own profound contemplation of a favoured
branch of the art of music.
Now there could be a parallel with musical performance itself:
At a concert, especially one with a celebrated conductor, soloist
or group of performers, whether they be a string quartet, solo
pianist, or a large orchestra, one assumes that such performers
will be so familiar and assured of what they are to offer to
their audience that they will be able to perform with absolute
self-confidence. Soloists in particular are almost invariably
assumed to know their concerto so well as not to need
to read a copy of the music in front of them, their eyes glued
to it so that they know what comes next. They can perform from
memory. They remember Schumann’s famous phrase: “To perform
with the score in their heads and not with their heads in the
score”. Any conductor worth his salt does this too; for while
the score might well be on the desk in front of him, he does
not really need it; it is there only as a kind of safety-net
should something untoward happen in the course of the performance.
It might surprise many listeners to know that even rank-and-file
orchestral players more often than not know their parts so well
that they do not need the band part on the music-stand. It is
said that at one time - maybe in the early 1900s - one German
orchestra invariably played from memory, not just the conductor
but the whole band.
But what of academics lecturing in public? They are surely in
a similar situation to the concert-performer. Their earnest
dissertations and august theses which get them such lofty academic
distinction (all those high-sounding doctorates!) are all well
and good when, after much careful research they are written
for us to read. However, it is not unusual for academics at
prestigious conferences to read - in other words themselves
to “read out” in their own spoken presentation - their papers
to an audience of earnest and often critical colleagues. Unfortunately
it seems often to be the case that these learned academics,
undoubtedly capable as they are of writing their theses,
are less good at using their own, unskilled voices in actually
speaking or lecturing to an audience. They lack the natural
oratory of an actor, public speaker or political personality,
and that extrovert, inborn mesmerising ability of the capable
orchestral conductor to communicate. It is largely a matter
of personality. At such international conferences one can make
allowances for foreign speakers grappling with a language which
is not their mother tongue; for the most part they speak English
excellently so that one admires their abilities to put over
to the listener the essence of what they want to communicate.
Ironically at a conference I attended recently it was those
whose mother-tongue is English who seemed least effective: there
was a mumbling instead of clear-cut articulation, poor projection
of the voice, hurried, un-modulated expression, un-smiling facial
expression.
One wonders what their university students thought of them when
having to attend dreary lectures. Most of all I found several
who, seemingly, just had to rely on reading from their own voluminous
prepared notes. What would we think of the concert soloist who
had to rely on having his eyes glued to the copy in order to
perform a forty minute concerto? It is my belief that a lecturer
should never need notes; he or she should be so absolutely
assured of his subject that he can speak with a reassuring spontaneity
that proclaims to his listeners that he really knows what he
is talking about. I am myself not primarily an academic although
I spent a few years lecturing at a university music department,
but I never once lectured from notes. I have also been a conductor
and have conducted many complete concerts from memory, because
I took the trouble to learn thoroughly, the works I was to perform
- including some years ago the Beethoven 9th Symphony.
The usual practice is for the full score to be on the conductor’s
desk, so that one can flick over the pages when really necessary.
There is also perhaps a codicil to much of this: it concerns
what has come to be known as “body-language” - how one appears
to one’s auditors. It is now universally recognised that male
attire has become quite casual - “sloppy” if you like. Does
this in itself quietly suggest how culture is remorselessly
declining? Lecturing to a distinguished audience would, it seems
to me require a certain etiquette and expression of the sense
of occasion, a gesture to one’s listeners perhaps? The distinguished
Danish academic of the early twentieth century - Georges Brandes
- invariably appeared at his public lectures in full evening
dress. To appear in attire more suited to a casual barbecue
down at the local pub on a Saturday night seems somehow incongruous.
Arthur Butterworth
