Thread: Absolute or Programmic Music

I like both equally but I prefer the supporters of programmatic music to the supporters of absolute music, so I chose the former! People like Berlioz, Liszt, Wagner inspire me. Also, I prefer literature over mathematics.

Originally Posted by Xaltotun

I like both equally but I prefer the supporters of programmatic music to the supporters of absolute music, so I chose the former! People like Berlioz, Liszt, Wagner inspire me. Also, I prefer literature over mathematics.

I really like this last clause of yours. A very good point. So much of what I like about programmatic music is the literature.

Originally Posted by Lukecash12

I really like this last clause of yours. A very good point. So much of what I like about programmatic music is the literature.

A specious argument.

If we were regard a piece of music as analogous to a literary text the act of turning the music into a narrative (whether or not it can be expressed in words) still ignores the fact that this can be achieved through the listener post-factum to hearing the music. It doesn't need to be explained by the composer - who in anycase is going to be equally as subjective if not as arbitary as the listener is in his/her narrative spin.

But what the heck... let's refocus on the more important issues raised in this forum. Who is better - Mozart or Beethoven? Better still - let's have a poll!

Originally Posted by KRoad

A specious argument.

If we were regard a piece of music as analogous to a literary text the act of turning the music into a narrative (whether or not it can be expressed in words) still ignores the fact that this can be achieved through the listener post-factum to hearing the music. It doesn't need to be explained by the composer - who in anycase is going to be equally as subjective if not as arbitary as the listener is in his/her narrative spin.

But what the heck... let's refocus on the more important issues raised in this forum. Who is better - Mozart or Beethoven? Better still - let's have a poll!

And are our stories better because they're easier? Well, let me rethink that and put it this way: Can our stories so easily be as good or better? I honestly don't think that I come up with stories as good as those literary masterpieces. Why is this hard focus on the subjective experience so prevalent nowadays? What is so stifling about the program? I think the program should be given it's fair due as well.

What's not so arbitrary about the composer's story, is that the composer well, composed the music. Our narratives maybe tie on to a couple of different elements in the music, and more but I guess that depends and I wouldn't know what you guys are capable of thinking up. But oftentimes the composer absolutely permeates the music with narrative references. Motifs are characters, rhythmic progressions are specific types of development, there abound examples of onomatopoeia... Some pretty novel stuff once you get to know your fair share of it. I like their narrative. Really, I don't see how my narratives compare to theirs, when theirs were a part of processes that possibly took years, and my little narratives take such a miniscule fraction of that kind of time.

They soak up books with their work, make characters jump out of the notes, while I come up with vague, really haphazard in comparison, kind of stuff. I like being in my head, listening to really pleasant stuff, but I find their heads even more fascinating. I want to fill my head with theirs, you see? That's always been my favorite thing to do, ever since the first time I dived into a program.

But really, I'm not talking in terms of the distinctions between programmatic music and absolute music, as critics would define it. I've been rambling on about all the music out there that has narrative references, and calling it all programmatic, because in a sense it really is. I don't need actors on stage making faces and running around and singing to get what Beethoven's 9th is, although I'm really into that unification of the arts concept that opera has championed. I don't need to see any real people to see Beethoven ask us those those questions, and see him come to meet God face to face at that famous burst towards the end. For this piece, for me, it's essential to know the text and to educate myself about the narrative, to watch it unfold. How could I just think up something this marvelous:

O friends! Not these sounds!
But let us strike up more pleasant sounds and more joyful!
Joy, o wondrous spark divine,
Daughter of Elysium,
Drunk with fire now we enter,
Heavenly one, your holy shrine.
Your magic powers join again
What fashion strictly did divide;
Brotherhood unites all men
Where your gentle wing's spread wide.
The man who's been so fortunate
To become the friend of a friend,
The man who has won a fair woman -
To the rejoicing let him add his voice.
The man who calls but a single soul
Somewhere in the world his own!
And he who never managed this -
Let him steal forth from our throng!
Joy is drunk by every creature
From Nature's fair and charming breast;
Every being, good or evil,
Follows in her rosy steps.
Kisses she gave to us, and vines,
And one good friend, tried in death;
The serpent she endowed with base desire
And the cherub stands before God.
Gladly as His suns do fly
Through the heavens' splendid plan,
Run now, brothers, your own course,
Joyful like a conquering hero.
Embrace each other now, you millions!
The kiss is for the whole wide world!
Brothers - over the starry firmament
A beloved Father must surely dwell.
Do you come crashing down, you millions?
Do you sense the Creators presence, world?
Seek Him above the starry firmament,
For above the stars he surely dwells.

Originally Posted by Lukecash12

I like their narrative. Really, I don't see how my narratives compare to theirs, when theirs were a part of processes that possibly took years, and my little narratives take such a miniscule fraction of that kind of time.

They soak up books with their work, make characters jump out of the notes, while I come up with vague, really haphazard in comparison, kind of stuff. I like being in my head, listening to really pleasant stuff, but I find their heads even more fascinating. I want to fill my head with theirs, you see? That's always been my favorite thing to do, ever since the first time I dived into a program.

But the real/ authentic literary/aural experience comes when, using your own powers of interpretation, you take ownership of the piece through it's relating to you on a personal and individual level. At the point of interpetation we, as listeners and readers, bring with us social, psychological,cultural and musical presuppositions which shape and colour our interpretation. The way best to approach a poem or piece of music is not to ask "What does it mean" but "What does it mean for/to me". From this perspective, it is not necessary for a composer to spell it out for us, as it were. As I mention above, to do so tantamount to truncating the listeners experience (and imagination). Now, about that poll...

Originally Posted by KRoad

But the real/ authentic literary/aural experience comes when, using your own powers of interpretation, you take ownership of the piece through it's relating to you on a personal and individual level. At the point of interpetation we, as listeners and readers, bring with us social, psychological,cultural and musical presuppositions which shape and colour our interpretation. The way best to approach a poem or piece of music is not to ask "What does it mean" but "What does it mean for/to me". From this perspective, it is not necessary for a composer to spell it out for us, as it were. As I mention above, to do so tantamount to truncating the listeners experience (and imagination). Now, about that poll...

But you are making a division between "it's about me and what I think" and "it's about them and what they think". There is nothing wrong with a healthy relationship between the two. My being me, and being my own brand of listener, is most pleasant when I focus on them. That is me using my power of interpretation. Come now, there is nothing inauthentic about the text of Beethoven's 9th. It's simply rapturous. I take the story and then interpret it from there, instead of interpreting it before that point.

Originally Posted by Lukecash12

I take the story and then interpret it from there, instead of interpreting it before that point.

This is not in dispute.

Though the universality of its meaning is. And we are discussing music, not poetry. However, since we are predisposed to refer to music as a language - it can serve as a useful heuristic device for this discussion. But, I come back to my point concerning programme music and that is: by effectively guiding our understanding as what I piece represents, the composer has channeled our thinking in a certain direction - at the expense of other possibilities. When I listen to R. Strauss and "A Heroes Life" (my translation) S. has focused the context of the music to that of a persons existential experience. Yes, he does this very well and I, like you, enjoy the piece just the same. But his titles to the individual segments, in themselves not indicated by any pause in the music, has limited somewhat the powers of my imagination to understand it completely on my own terms. This is regrettable. I have a powerful imagination that functions best in the open and wide vistas of unencumbered thought - my thought. The composer has done his duty when he has fired up our cerebral loins through aural stimulation. Surely, we don't want him/her pointing us in any particular direction. But perhaps that's just me.

Originally Posted by KRoad

Absolute music!

Aural Landscaping (e.g. Strauss & Alpine Smphony) or creating a piece with preconceived notions as to what it should represent or portray (e.g. Mahler and life) truncates our personal response to a piece. If we ascribe metaphorical trials, tribulations, feelings or scenery to a piece, it is best manufactured in the mind and heart of the listener post factum to the event of listening and not apriori as an invention of the composer. IMO.

So the artist shouldn't express themselves? They should just leave it totally ambiguous?

Originally Posted by BurningDesire

So the artist shouldn't express themselves? They should just leave it totally ambiguous?

But they are expressing themselves - through the music.

Originally Posted by KRoad

But they are expressing themselves - through the music.

But you said that the subject of the work shouldn't be chosen by the composer. Thats a pretty big element of the expression.

Look at it this way, I think Programme music would be better without the programme - of course I suppose it wouldn't be programme music then would it?(rhetorical question).

I voted for absolute music but not because I actually prefer it over program music. The reason is simply, that even with the "program", I tend to not think about the ideas in the program when listening. I usually am busy picturing an abstract realization of the notes in my head such as the intervals between notes in a chord, or an abstract mental image of how dissonant or consonant the piece it. I guess I have a strange imagination as I never really picture "scenery" or "situations". I have tried, but I just can't keep the abstract images of the music out of my head. Kind of creepy actually.

I'm very fond of pieces such as The Sunken Cathedral and Girl with the Flaxen Hair and I do try to allow pictures to enter my head that match the programme (easier with the former than the latter). But I find it almost impossible to listen without adding my own baggage anyway, usually to do either with the period (wigs and gentility if it's from the Classical period, turmoil and Modernism if its from 1890-1920) or personal memories...

In other words, whatever the intent of the composer, this listener (and others I'll wager) is not some neutral receiver.