Communicating what one perceives when listening to a musical work, while remaining ‘within it’ with a tension aimed at grasping its meaning, one must take courage and expose oneself to judgment, knowing that no one can fully judge themselves. I think it is better to leave others to provide a more objective evaluation of what is rigorous and what is arbitrary. In this regard, as much as one obviously tries to perform a personal screening, it is not possible – perhaps not even useful – to attempt in person a perfect distinction between what is the result of reasonable deduction and what goes too ‘far’ into the landings of one's own reflections.
These ‘landings’ – never definitive, never properly ‘conclusions’ – are however, in their own way, ‘retrospective stops’ on the personal and incessant journey that leads to the heart of a work of art. I think it is better to leave it to others to also evaluate the encroachments, whether owed or undue, from the “purely musical” toward the “extramusical”. But I accept such judgment serenely; besides not being convinced that there is a continuous wall – high, solid, and blind – on such a boundary, I consider the possibilities of dialogue between these two terrains to be as delicate as those between different positions regarding faith (always hoping they do not culminate, as has happened in the history of musical criticism, in religious war). I therefore try to question, to stand before the work of art, sometimes admitting that I understand nothing at all.
In the rare cases in which I sense ‘something’ – while still considering it prudent to start from the assumption that a musical piece in itself does not intend to mean anything – , I prefer to risk contestable assertions, in the firm conviction that the value of a work is not only circumscribable “legally” with phrases proven on a technical level, but also (which is much more desirable) susceptible to being understood through assertions capable of openings, of tears into the human specificity of the single work, which constitutes the place of the ‘sharing’ of the human experience between composer, performer, and listener.
I realize that chasing music with words on its own terrain is an indecent action. In part, it certainly is. Especially for those who, like me, are convinced of the total expressive autonomy of music, not only from the word or poetic concepts, but also from suggestions related to everything belonging to the visual realm: whether pictorial, chromatic, graphic, or scenic.
However, I try to overcome this discomfort in the conviction that every musical piece, even those conceived to follow a ‘program’, has nonetheless been created following necessarily ‘absolutely musical’ logics and that the most intimate content of every work, even Bach's most “absolute” fugue, is deeply linked ‘to the human’. I therefore try to overcome the embarrassment of speaking of a musical work by touching upon “extramusical” concepts, convinced that the profound meaning of music – of works in which a sense truly lies hidden – is ‘human’ and not asseptically “musical”.
If the idea of “absolute” music proves to be devoid of substance in relation to the expressiveness of many masterpieces, even instrumental ones, which are certainly ‘music’ but not “pure” and are not foreign to the human struggle of the author, on the other hand, it does not seem correct, in the face of a musical piece, to seek the root of its truest contents outside of music. The latter are certainly not extramusical in the sense of some proclamations, however noble they may be, perfectly decipherable albeit with difficulty, which however have little to do with music and of which music would constitute a sonic reduction. However, as just stated, such contents are linked deeply – not explicitly – to the human struggle of its author: to this ‘beyond’ toward which the musical work mysteriously alludes in its simply posing as nothing other than music.
In this light, I feel drawn to the highest respect for the absolute expressive independence of music from the word and from every other perceptive realm, considering it therefore – only with respect to such interferences – in its musical purity.
But I think – without the rigidity that is often masked as “rigor” – that ‘independence’ does not necessarily mean the impossibility of ‘analogical relationships’. One must distinguish between attempts to translate content from music to words, which are always clumsy, and attempts, perhaps necessary, to bring words closer to music by touching upon its meaning. Neither these latter, in my view good although destined for an inevitable partiality, nor the former, destined instead for complete failure, would be undertaken by anyone if, in the depths of the soul, one did not sense arcane correspondences: mysterious but concrete analogies, between the expression
verbal and that musical.
For the sake of correctness, one should then clean up, or enrich, the vocabulary of musical reflections. The various languages are not even provided with terms adequate to deal with music 'in purity'. Expressions such as 'sound fresco', 'sound image', 'dramatic gesture', 'narrative tone', 'grand scene' etc. are common currency even in the propositions of the fiercest supporters of absolute music. This fact, far from being proof of impurity or dependence of music on the verbal realm – and all the less an indication of an actual need for lexical reforms, heaven forbid! – is sufficient to establish among all forms of artistic expression (not only between music and word) true relationships, not of dependence, but of original kinship. The soul is like a river that bathes these 'banks' of expression. There are no 'bridges' that establish a full and tangible contact between them, but sometimes they are visible to one another with an 'analogical gaze'.
Obviously, it can never be recommended enough that everyone takes care of the decency of their own gazes.
