Describing
Lovers
of art history books of course
know the exquisite sensation of reading insightful words that match the
pictorial evidence. The exhilarating
interplay of seeing and understanding.
Describing paintings, there’s a whole
body of literary texts and poems devoted to it , and a venerable word to
consecrate the habit: ekphrasis.
And how about describing what we hear?
For sure, there are lovely poems built entirely around onomatopoeia’s. And language is sound of course.
Clattering rain – thundering thunder – twittering birds (1). So yes,
obviously, we can describe what we hear
– but can we describe music?
While in
art history there is a well established, long standing relationship between evocative
descriptions on the one hand and the visual arts on the other ,
this seems less so in the history of
music where descriptions tend to be either technical (and reserved for the musically
initiated) or limited to the review of a performance. (2)
Descriptions
of works of visual art are both very
precise and very imaginative, immediately conjuring up a scene or an image while also evoking emotional and philosophical meanings & associations.
But a
description in words that effectively evokes a piece of music for the
non-initiated? Well, there are the
CD-sleeve notes that give a blow-by-blow
account of the musical progression in terms of instruments, motives, rhythm,
melody – sometimes mixed with indications of “emotional” pitch.(3) And yes, there may be program music where
even an accompanying story can be told.
However,
in musical history there seems to be no equivalent (at lease not on the same scale) of the formidable tradition of "written-out art history", be it in the form of those innumerable “Ecrits sur l’art”
(by many a poetically inspired
writer or artist), or as libraries full of lavishly illustrated and copiously
written art history books.
A quick
Google search yielded an interesting article (“Some Thoughts Towards a Theory
of Musical Ekphrasis “ ) about Musical Ekphrasis, but tellingly enough it dealt
not with the poetic description of pieces of music, but rather
with the opposite question, i.e. whether music can describe scenes.(4)
Moved to silence
Perhaps
music is indeed too abstract and “springing from [...] depths of the human
psyche” that are too deep to fathom?(4)
Maybe we should really follow “Einstein’s summary advice” about Bach’s
music (and about music in general) : “listen, play, love , revere –
and keep your trap shut” (5) .
Luckily, John Eliot Gardiner, for one, did not shut up but wrote a wonderful 600+ pages book on Bach. With insights and formulations that nearly
belie the impossibility of describing music.
How well he does justice to the intricate evidence of Bach’s music itself: its mystifying
complexity, sure, but also its
“rhythmical elasticity and buoyancy”, its dancing qualities, its empathy and
emotional depth, “so full of poignant emotion that we are moved to the very
core of our being “.
Each of
us has experienced the shattering effect music can have, musical reception is highly subjective and the
sheer depth of the accompanying emotions could make us (us = uninitiated but
sensitive souls) believe that we each have some personal, special insight in “the truth” of the music.
This is most likely not the case, the emotion may very well be not at all relevant to the composer’s aims,
let alone to other musiclovers, it is a secret
garden not to be shared. (6)
So, not
being a distinguished musical connoisseur, I shall hereby “shut my trap” – and
finish with Auden’s words (7)
“All the others translate: the
painter sketches
A visible world to love or reject;
Rummaging into his living, the poet fetches
The images out that hurt and connect.
From Life to Art by painstaking adaption
Relying on us to cover the rift;
Only your notes are pure contraption,
Only your song is an absolute gift.
Pour out your presence, O
delight, cascading
The falls of the knee and the weirs of the spine,
Our climate of silence and doubt invading;
You, alone, alone, O imaginary song,
Are unable to say an existence is wrong,
And pour out your forgiveness like a wine.”
Non-musical
notes
1) Word-examples inspired by the
impressive electrical storm we had here at noon : first an oppressive
stillness, then a bang and a flash, heaven’s floodgates opened, and the rain
started pouring down: first aggressively clattering, then turning into a
soothingly purring noise. And soon a few
courageous birds started signing again, while the first sirens started wailing ( a medley of car
alarms and fire engines).
2) of course there are many many reviews, of concerts, of CD's, songs and tunes , both classical and pop/contemporary - , just as there are private testimonials/love declarations to certain pieces of music : but they are not an imaginative, literary genre in their own right
3) There’s an app from Touch Press editions that offers a “multi-media” guide to Beethoven’s 9th
Symphony. Quite impressive – while the music plays you can follow the progress on the score, you get
to see the instruments taking their turns to perform, and there’s a continuous written
comment running on what exactly is happening. All very instructive and
insightful – but not qualifying as ekphrasis ...
4)
“As I understand it,
what must be present in every case of ekphrasis is a three-tiered structure of
reality and its artistic transformation:
A. a scene or story--fictitious or
real,
B. a representation of that scene or story in
visual form (a painting or drawing, photograph, carving, or sculpture (or, for
that matter, in film or dance; in any mode that reaches us primarily through
our visual perception), and
C. a rendering of that representation
in poetic language.
The poetic rendering can and should do more
than merely describe the visual image. Characteristically, it evokes
interpretations or additional layers of meaning, changes the viewers' focus, or
guides our eyes towards details and contexts we might otherwise overlook.
Correspondingly, what must be present in every case of what I will refer to as
"the musical equivalent to ekphrasis" is
A. a scene or story--fictitious or
real,
B. its representation in a visual or
a verbal text, and
C. a rendering of that representation
in musical language.
5) John Eliot Gardiner – Music in the
Castle of Heaven http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/30/music-castle-heaven-js-bach-john-eliot-gardiner
6) Gardiner has this lovely habit of
not only having copious references at the end of the book , but also plenty of illuminating
quotes at the bottom of the page (it’s surely not an accident that he refers to
Walter Benjamin’s constellations), such
as this one by Peter Williams: “ The exquisite world of imagination opened up
by any powerful music is itself problematic, for it tempts listeners to put
into words the feelings it arouses in them and so to visualize a composer’s
priorities and even personality. There must be few people who have played,
sung, listened to or written about Bach’s music who do not feel they have a
special understanding of him, a private connection, unique to themselves, but
ultimately coming from their idea of what music is and does. This might be
quite different from the composer’s “
7) Trust WH Auden to write as
insightfully about paintings (Le Musée des Beaux Arts) as he does about music
(The Composer).
