Blurring the Boundaries

Transcription

1 Tafelmusik Listening Club Blurring the Boundaries Patrick G. Jordan and Hannah French May 2, 2018 Trinity-St. Paul s Centre tafelmusik.org

2 Terms, Labels, Boundaries

3

4 The Imperfection of Modern Music Giovanni Artusi Vario: Signor Luca... It pleases me at my age to see a new method of composing, though it would please me much more if I saw that these passages were founded upon some reason which could satisfy the intellect. But as castles in the air, chimeras founded upon sand, these novelties do not please me; they deserve blame, not praise. Luca: In light of what little experience I have in this art, these things do not seem to me to entitle their authors to build a four-storey mansion (as the saying goes), seeing that they are contrary to what is good and beautiful in the harmonic institutions. They are harsh to the ear, rather offending than delighting it, and to the good rules left by those who have established the order and bounds of this science they bring confusion and imperfection of no little consequence. Instead of enriching, augmenting, and ennobling harmony by various means, as so many noble spirits have done, they bring it to such estate that the beautiful and purified style is indistinguishable from the barbaric. And all the while they continue to excuse these things by various arguments in conformity with the style.

5 Claudio Monteverdi ( ) The New York Times, Public Domain,

6 Foreword: Il quinto libro de' madrigali Claudio Monteverdi (1605) Do not marvel that I am giving these madrigals to the press without first replying to the objections that Artusi has brought against some very minute details in them, for being in the service of His Serene Highness, I have not at my disposal the time that would be required. Nevertheless, to show that I do not compose my works at haphazard, I have written a reply which will appear, as soon as I have revised it, bearing the title, "Second Practice; or the Perfection of Modern Music". Some, not suspecting that there is any practice other than that taught by Zarlino, will wonder at this, but let them be assured that, with regard to the consonances and dissonances, there is still another way of considering them, different from the established way, which, with satisfaction to the reason and to the senses, defends the modern method of composing. I have wished to say this to you in order that the expression "Second Practice" may not be appropriated by anyone else, and further, that the ingenious may reflect meanwhile upon other secondary matters concerning harmony and believe that the modern composer builds upon the foundation of truth. Farewell.

7 From the commentary on this foreword, by the composer's brother (1607) My Brother says that he does not compose his works at haphazard because in this kind of music, it has been his intention to make the words the mistress of the harmony and not the servant... the writings of [My brother's] adversary are not based upon the truth of art... let his opponent show the error of others... with a comparable practical performance with harmony observing the rules of the First Practice, disregarding the perfection of melody, considered from which point of view the harmony, from being servant, becomes mistress... let us compare apples with apples... For as the sick man does not pronounce the physician intelligent from hearing him prate of Hippocrates and Galen... so the world does not pronounce the musician intelligent from hearing him ply his tongue in telling of the honoured harmonic theories.

8 Niccolò Jommelli ( ) Unidentified painter18th-century portrait Public Domain,

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19 The great musical Pan is dead If richness of thought, glittering fantasy, inexhaustible melody, heavenly harmony, deep understanding of all instruments, and particularly the full magical strength of the human voice if great art affects entirely each chord of the human heart, if all these yet combined with the sharpest understanding of musical poetry constitute a musical genius, then in him Europe has lost its greatest composer. (Christian Schubart, 1774)

20 Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach ( ) By Franz Conrad Löhr - Public Domain,

21 CPE s Autobiography "Since I have never liked excessive uniformity in composition and taste, since I have heard such a quantity and variety of good things, since I have always been of the opinion that one could derive some good, whatever it may be, even if it is only a matter of minute details in a piece: probably from this and my natural, God-given ability arises the variety that has been observed in my works." (Autobiography Trans Paul Corneilson) "He is not only one of the greatest composers that ever existed, for keyed instruments, but the best player, in point of expression; for others, perhaps, have had as rapid execution: however, he possesses every style; though he chiefly confines himself to the expressive. He is learned, I think, even beyond his father, whenever he pleases, and is far before him in variety of modulation; his fugues are always upon new and curious subjects, and treated with great art as well as genius. (Charles Burney of CPE, The Present State of Music in Germany (1775))

22 Jan Dismas Zelenka ( ) By Ivan Rozkošný - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0,

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34 He belongs to a band of mavericks in musical history whose experiments with harmony seem to catapult them into another generation. Damian Thompson (2013)