Supremacy in music

If I answer you, we will end up fighting.

I consider your "introductory hat" absolutely delusional. (Claudio)

I know Claudio's writing well enough and I am only just starting to get to know yours; you both seem to me like capable people of a certain caliber, and I am sure that in the future you can respect one another in your exchanges of opinions (I have already learned to know Claudio: he is a very good person who can sometimes seem more fiery than he actually is, but you understand well that if he had called you "little Daniel," you would probably have been taken aback too).(...)

Harmony!! Let's remember that we are talking about music! (Simone)

Dear Daniele, you have managed to make me write some less serene responses, since even with me you had an overly insolent approach. And yet, nothing could have personally disturbed you, and if something has offended you intellectually, well, we are here to discuss it. Irritating a person like me, believe me, is not a problem. Irritating Claudio is a titanic feat. If you did it unintentionally, it is my duty as a friend to ask you please to be less arrogant. (Armando)

Dear Simone and Armando, what leaves a slight bitter taste in my mouth is observing your partiality in judging. We often talk about friendship and, therefore, I would like to remind you of an old proverb that goes: "Clear terms, long friendship," and thus, considering frankness and sincerity essential in a correct friendship relationship, I will be such with you.

Music is made of Harmony, which can also be dissonant, and of atonality.

I would therefore like to remind you that the one who started to "offend" — note the quotation marks — was Claudio when he replied to me that he wasn't answering me before so as not to fight — a fight he would have started himself, for that matter — but then he added that my writing was a delusion. Now, always giving unto Caesar what is Caesar's, in my house, to delude is more or less to say crazy things, to be off the beaten path — which in itself is not always a bad thing — and finally, he used the term "old" towards me. As a result, putting the two things together: I am a "delusional old man." For my part, I limited myself to responding in kind by calling him a "youngster who also says enormous nonsense" — please note "also."
All in all, it seems to me he fared better, did he not?

As for Claudio's writing, I have known it since 2009 and I know well how much "fieryness" he has, but also how much cultural preparation and intelligence lies behind it, something I have told him several times.
The problem with Claudio is that the combination of all these characteristics, joined with the legitimacy of his title as a musicologist and a strong personal ego, leads him to have an attitude of "having the truth in his pocket," with the consequence of saying indeed even nonsense, or boutades if you think that is more correct.

To claim, as Claudio has done at various times on this forum, that Bach is old or irrelevant from a historical point of view, is to say boutades in the style of "Bach is not superior to Telemann, but only different," a phrase that went on air in the 60s of the last century. As Piero Buscaroli would say—a music critic with whom I am separated by only a few kilometers in terms of space and light-years in terms of thought, but who every now and then says something shareable: the Bach we are talking about is the genius of music Johann Sebastian Bach and not one of the many "usual" Bachs!

Your partiality does not surprise me in part: as in all communities that respect themselves, a circle is formed around one's own people, since Claudio is a moderator. It doesn't surprise me, but I do not justify it because it is nonetheless an error on your part.

What surprises me even more, if not to say it leaves me astounded, is my friend Armando, who is capable, from studying brewery receipts, of reconstructing Beethoven's movements in Vienna on the afternoon of 22.04.1817, but who misses the exact chronological succession of certain messages from Claudio and, consequently, mine.

But what ultimately leaves the most bitter taste in my mouth is this veiled — but not too much — threat of yours, Armando: "If you did it intentionally, which I don't believe, it is my duty as a friend to tell you that you are not quite in the right place, in my modest opinion, to express your ideas in this way."

Of course I did it intentionally, Armando, and for the reasons I have already explained, but I send the threat back to the sender. I invite you to read the regulations set by Simone for this forum and if you have a good memory, you will realize how you, clearly, did not respect them, responding to me not here, but elsewhere, in violation of a rule without anyone calling you out for it. Let it be clear, Armando, personally I don't care at all and the matter hasn't affected me in the slightest; however, I believe it is appropriate to be careful about casting anathemas while looking at the speck [in another's eye]."

in the eyes of others without noticing their own beam.

As for my haughty attitude towards you, frankly it did not seem so to me and, if you feel like pointing out where I have been such, I will be grateful and will not hesitate to apologize.

For my part and from my point of view, I have limited myself to being critical of certain of your writings – which is moreover obvious when one decides to feed these to a forum – in an educated and correct manner but, I repeat, if I have not been such, I ask you the favor of telling me where and why.

Dear Daniele, my remark already contained in part the motivations you were seeking from me (which, among other things, you provided in your subsequent post, whether you wanted to or perhaps did want to). To simplify, I do not want to speak about the musical field, but I feel it necessary to draw a parallel in the footballing field where we want to compare the greats of football (a sporting sector in which I have no expertise but which I chose only for statistical convenience). "Who is stronger, Pelé or Maradona?". Trying to draw up a ranking of the greats is always a difficult thing but above all subjective, and past experiences within the forum have made me observe that talking about certain topics can be interesting on a cultural level but perfectly useless in terms of discursive purpose; in short, an experience that enriches us but leads nowhere.

If I had to choose three composers to bring to the island, I might say Bach because he was the first to put "architecture into music," Mozart for his mockery of society through his music, and Chopin because he strikes a romantic chord within me. You might tell me: "and where do we put Beethoven?". Or Brahms as you rightly recalled... I don't know if my list will change over the years, probably it will, I only know that right now I live this reality and no one can ever give me sufficient reasons to change my mind, and this simply because it has to do with something deeper than the usual comparisons of an objective nature regarding what one person did that another did not; it has to do with the field of emotions. Emotions can only be modified by time and probably tomorrow I will see it as you do or perhaps not, I cannot say. Therefore, do not take it as an offense if I did not want to continue the discussion with you, the fact is that I would repeat myself for the hundredth time. However, I notice that every time these "best of" discussions are reopened, new points of view always emerge; this is the reason why I preferred to listen in silence to what you had to say (one always learns something new). (Simone)

Dear and kind Simone, reading you I must state that I certainly have not been clear both here and in the other topic and, therefore, I hope to succeed now, while remaining that you can, naturally, continue to be in total or partial disagreement with me, also because, believe me, the last of my intentions and possibilities is to convince someone of something. I have the utmost respect for others' opinions to claim the right – duty and the ability to be able to convince someone; my raving should be framed solely and exclusively within the context of a discussion in which I express my points of view and that's it.

Talking about "The primacy of music" does not mean absolutely drawing up rankings or similar things. Making rankings makes sense and has its logic, only within the scope of discussions concerning our personal tastes, such as, precisely, what we would bring to a desert island or similar things.

"The primacy of music" is a discussion and a study that originated after Beethoven and which continues to this day, rightly or wrongly. Musicians, the emerging phenomenon of musicology and, more generally, all classical music listeners, had the need to provide an answer as to who was the most genius, the most gigantic among composers.

To demonstrate to you that it is not my "delirium," I will quote some extracts from two musicologists, where it is clearly discussed and the term "primacy" is used. The first is taken from "A Brief History of Music" Einaudi publisher (1963), by Massimo Mila: « Only in recent days has the attention of critics begun to turn toward the strictly musical values of Beethovenian art and to try to fully understand its linguistic mechanism, in its lexical relationships with contemporary production and in its driving force towards the future. And the conviction is beginning to take hold that even if – to put forward an extreme hypothesis – one wanted to consider Beethoven from the visual angle of so-called pure music, perhaps his primacy would remain unshakable. »

Giovanni Carli Ballola, to whom we owe a Beethovenian biography dating in its first draft to 1968, who concludes his book like this: « Today"

Beethoven's primacy, as it was understood during the 19th century, has definitively faded through a kind of "Copernican revolution" that has placed the Master of Bonn in a firmament of peer stars, if not more brilliant: Bach, Mozart, Schubert, Wagner and perhaps someone else. (...) »

Ballola is certainly making a major oversight by not mentioning Brahms among those greats but, a major oversight, I made it too by not mentioning Franz Schubert among the greatest composers of the 19th century.

I will therefore see to remedy this lack by proposing to you a piece by Piero Rattalino that you will know well, as he is, besides being a music critic, a celebrated piano teacher. It was 1997, which coincided with the bicentenary of the birth of Schubert and Donizetti and the centenary of the death of Brahms. On that occasion, Rattalino, in his "Symphonia" series, proposed a piece dedicated to Schubert that began by summarizing in a few lines what had been the history of the "primacy."

« (...) Everyone knows that the 19th century did not equate Schubert with Beethoven, nor Mozart with Beethoven.

Viennese classicism had a giant, Beethoven, and two precursors, Haydn and Mozart, who had prepared the ways of the Lord. Schubert was a Romantic, very dear to Schumann, and later to Brahms, who had written beautiful things, and who was not a dwarf, but who was valued above all as a melodist and as a master of small forms. (...)

The 20th century, which is about to expire, has redesigned the historical picture, and from its youth, in its twenties, it began to say no, that Mozart is not only a precursor to Beethoven, and then said that ultimately Mozart is better than Beethoven (and that Bach is better than both) and then said that ultimately Beethoven is not so bad and that even Bach is not the Only One, but that Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven are all three great magnificent spirits of humanity. And Schubert? Schubert has been relocated from Romanticism to Viennese classicism and from Viennese classicism he has become the fourth man (or the fourth apostle). And for the 20th century, this is a certain result. (...) »

And indeed in 2009 the philosopher Eugenio Trias associates the name of Schubert with the Viennese "Holy Trinity," composed of Haydn the Father, Mozart the Son, Beethoven the Man: "But there are no three without four, in the sense that there is no trinity that does not always postulate the presence of a fourth: he who reveals, alongside the apotheosis of the Hero, the loss and the defeat, or his journey without remission in the dead of winter. They are four unique voices, equally singular in their relevance in style and language."

Dear Simone, in proposing this theme in this forum I would have expected something quite different from Claudio's response. I would have expected a critique, yes, but of this kind: Daniele, talking about primacy today is now obsolete if not for other reasons, at least certainly, in light of the knowledge we have of pre-Bach music and the historicization of the 20th century. This, I would have expected!

To which I would have replied: I agree, and this, if you have read well, is already implicitly in the premises of my introduction. But that said, regardless, there are few certainties in life and one of these is that there are three musical giants who, because of their characteristics, because of their peculiarities, reached unreachable heights and at the same time succeeded in proposing an absolutely unique artistic path within the history of music.

What makes Bach so absolutely gigantic and unique and what is not found in any other composer before and after him? Bach is the absolute architect of music; works such as his Passions and his Mass in B minor, like all his speculative-type work, unite extreme beauty with equally extreme architectural heights but, what makes him truly absolutely unique in his genius, is how he knew – and this obviously we can say in hindsight – to unite his past with his present and his future. A titanic undertaking this, Simone! Bach in the height of the 18th century and in the full galant style – that is to say one of the lowest moments in the history of music – by preferring ancient music, that which was far in time and remained a superior model of formal perfection, that which in the 1400s had been Flemish and in the 1500s European, that of the great school of counterpoint, brought it back to his present, updating it and building absolute monuments upon it and, doing all this, he was also capable of sensing the future. From the 70s of the last century, Pop music groups – above all Jethro Tull with their magnificent "Bourrée" which has its roots in the Lute Suite BWV 996 – and Jazz music groups have taken inspiration from pieces by this immense genius. And this despite his music being old!

Mozart was truly the maker of the most beautiful, clear, elegant music,

as harmonious as one can imagine, and from the fearsome comparison with Bach and Beethoven, he emerges due to these peculiarities with his head held high, on equal footing even within the differences. If Beethoven was the Michelangelo of music, Mozart was the Raphael for having known how to keep his Art within the limits of nature, truth, verisimilitude, classical measure, and exact proportion.

Finally, Beethoven, dear Simone. In vain will you search, in the centuries of centuries, for a composer who in only 36 years, like him, starting from a late classical style, bypassed the entire coming century – and thus the Romantic one - and who, in his third phase, composed works of architectural height equal to those of Bach, projecting them directly into the following century.

This journey was well summarized and explained by Massimo Mila: « Let us take three quartets: Mozart's Dissonance Quartet K 465 in C+, Beethoven's Quartet in D+ Opus 18 no.3, and the Quartet in C#- Opus 131. Let us tell the truth: which are the most similar in terms of stylistic affinity? The two by Beethoven or rather the Mozart quartet and that of Beethoven's youth?

Let us continue to make suppositions: an atomic bomb, the destruction of libraries, and then one begins to rediscover, here and there, isolated works, upon which one strives to reconstruct the history of music. One finds by chance and without a date the aforementioned Quartet Opus 131 and, dated, Bartók's first Quartet Opus 7 (1907) and Hindemith's first Quartet Opus 10 (1918). What reproach could one make to our colleague from the year 3970 if, having no other knowledge of Beethoven's life and works, he were to place this composer at the beginning of the twentieth century, given the extraordinary affinity of contrapuntal writing that characterizes his Quartet and those of Bartók and Hindemith? And what will be his astonishment, into what puzzle will he find himself debating when other discoveries return to him, for example, that Quartet Opus 18 no.3 in D+ by that same Beethoven, of which he knows nothing, and Mozart's Dissonance Quartet, of which we suppose that, by a lucky chance, he knows the date! Will he not be tempted to attribute to Beethoven an existence of 120/130 years, say as if he were born in 1770 and died around 1900? Or to suppose the existence of two composers of this name? »

Mila himself, in defining the Great Fugue Opus 133, expressed himself thus: « It is the most difficult contrapuntal piece ever seen, with a breadth of conception and such freedom of dissonant harmonies as to still cause serious difficulty today. An extraordinary intellectual adventure of an artist that has reached such a height as to be able to contemplate, like a god, past and future. »

Tell me Simone, what other composer in the history of music can boast such an artistic journey, such genius?

Wilhelm Furtwängler said of Beethoven: « Not only storms and tempests but the creator of the deepest and most beneficial peace, and as a result, is exceedingly new. He is truly complete. He is not predominantly cantabile, like Mozart; he is not predominantly architectural, like Bach; he is not dramatic-sensual, like Wagner. He is – and in this lies his originality – all of this together, and every element has its particular place. »

Ciao Simone and excuse me for everything!

With affection for all of you!

Daniele

Hi Daniele, I am sincerely sorry that you took my words as a "protective shield" towards Claudio. I consider myself an absolutely impartial person and above certain bickering. I assure you that I have never held back with anyone here or elsewhere, from collaborators to moderators (one of whom was kicked out with boots and I would have been willing to do so in the literal sense if he had been within reach), and even Claudio can testify that when he crossed the line, he could testify that I took offense with him too; I say what I think, always! I believe that "respect," understood as respect for ideas but above all for the politeness that guides us in social relationships, should be independent of age. Going to perform a chronological analysis on who was the first to pick a fight seems to me, forgive me if I say so, quite infantile, on both sides. What's done is done; certain attitudes here are not acceptable and entire topics cannot be consumed just to post personal issues and quarrels. I still hold the view that certain things should be resolved privately and not where another 2000 people can read the contention of who is attacking whom... It has often happened to me too to engage in arguments with trolls, spammers, or simply people pressured by a disappointing life that put them in a position where they had to vent on others, and once the discussions were over, I promptly deleted the topics—not because I have something to hide, but because I would prefer that we talk about music here. And come on, Claudio has certainly been tactless, as he often is, but I know that the things he says are not said with malice, and this transpires from many of his posts; you should know this even better if you have known him since 2009, but honestly, the remark with the poem by Quasimondo really felt like being mocked... Besides, he started by expressing his own idea. In your last message, you practically treated him as if he were a baby in diapers who needs to take lessons from the master, who feels like the master of the world since graduating in musicology, whereas he openly declares that in some cases he talks bullshit. They might be bullshit for you, perhaps not for others. It doesn't seem to me that in these lines you set the example of respect that you so much extol; in fact, if I weren't acting in good faith, I might perceive a subtle desire for protagonism hiding behind what you reproach Claudio for. Furthermore, regarding the chronology... it is fine to see who attacked first, but a good "judging commission" such as the one you are investing in me and Armando should also look at the motives. I don't know now if the Quasimondo poem, which reflects on the thought of solitude and the brevity of life, was cited to be directed at Claudio or at yourself; one thing is certain... The "dedication" remains very ambiguous...

As you can see, for the umpteenth time, I have limited myself to giving my point of view; I want to avoid arguing and would like to try to put things to rest once and for all.

Now please, can we all stop arguing and instead go back to music? Thank you...

Ok Simone, your answer was given in probabilities. Among the many you could have written.

On my part, I only add a small consideration: in my previous writing, music is already mentioned... and what music.

It is a pity once again that in this forum no one knows how to - or wants to - take responsibility for it!

And so... once again, a shame!

Ah, as far as Quasimodo's poem is concerned and, just to continue the childish game, it was a response to someone who had offended me and to remind them that it is not really worth fighting over so little and that at the end of the day... life is short and art is long.

LucaCavaliere wrote:

I like ‘talking about music’ and reading critical essays. And even ‘talking about music’ for me is culture.

But I want to specify that I consider both rigorous analyses and more emotional expressions to be equally serious.

There is not just one way of talking about music (and about art in general). It is correct to ‘contextualize’ but, personally, I find ‘decontextualizing’ more beautiful. Obviously, one can disagree but, for me, the writings of Romain Rolland deserve the same respect as Hanslick's analysis: not out of benevolence but due to equal seriousness.

Hi, my dear Luca, only now am I unfortunately able to pick up this important part of your discourse which deserves much more interest than that encountered so far.

In reality, you and I have spoken about this topic on numerous occasions and therefore, it is unlikely that I will tell you thoughts that you do not already know.

Thoughts that are certainly influenced by my strong passion for history tout-court and for biographies but, the fact is, today as ever, I am increasingly convinced that the opposition between contextualizing and decontextualizing no longer makes sense, but rather that both things are necessary to be able to truly delve into the complex meanders of the great masterpieces of art from the past.

The watchword could therefore be “contextualize to decontextualize” and, let's see why from my point of view.

Let's start from this part of your writing: « the writings of Romain Rolland deserve the same respect as Hanslick's analysis: not out of benevolence but due to equal seriousness. » which is sacrosanct: all reasoning must be respected if, however, it is reported within its historical-cultural niche.

Rolland, anchored in late-Romantic schemes, linked, to summarize very briefly, the function of music to that of a universal language capable of uniting all men. Today, I think no one would dare define music as a language in the most orthodox sense of the term but, it remains a fact that it is we who can, from time to time, depending on how we use it, attribute to it also the function of a language which, precisely because it is understandable at every terrestrial latitude and longitude by anyone, performs, or helps to perform, the function of uniting all men: see in this regard Bernstein's speech which I reported elsewhere in the forum.

Hanslick, on the other hand, was ante-litteram, an anti-Romantic who, in antithesis to Wagner who pushed his music to the descriptive symbolism of his themes and, in perfect agreement with Brahms, of whom he was always a great friend, maintained that music is not capable of expressing feelings but only intrinsic values of musical construction and therefore, like every art, must be traced back to its technique.

On this aspect, once again, I think the most correct things were written by our Massimo Mila in “Musical Experience and Aesthetics” which you know very well and which could be summarized in this small extrapolation: « In reality, are not these our identifications and attributions determined by the historical use made of them by the greats in their masterpieces? On its own, a fifth means nothing at all to do with pastoral horizons, deep calms and boundless serenity and (...) since Beethoven has made use of the fifth in this way in the context of the Pastoral, we are induced to irresistibly associate this complex of sensations with such an accord. »

There is, however, another alternative to Hanslick's thought that I would like to draw your attention to, and this is given by the philosopher Ernst Bloch – not to be confused with the composer, almost namesake, Ernest Bloch – who laid the foundations of his philosophy of utopia and hope on music, as, according to him, a true form of thought.

Two of the premises of these texts are to be found in the illustration of the great myth of Pan and, therefore, in Ovid's “Metamorphoses” and in Beethoven's “Fidelio”, an opera constantly paced by the light of hope: just think of the moment of the trumpet blast announcing from afar the arrival of the Governor, saving Florestan from Pizarro who wants to kill him.

Bloch argued forcefully with Hanslick himself: « Great individuals are incomparable and are truly born for something different from technique. One need only think of Hanslick's false chatter, which opposes Gluck to Mozart, Mozart to Rossini, Rossini to Meyerbeer. We will then understand how, in this game in which one musician is set against another on a purely technical level, everything reduces to a mean, superficial and irreverent formula, especially as in this case, the critic suddenly stops precisely at the point where the procedure is most modern, violates the norm of banal progress, and uses history solely for this game, remaining"

...only in its meanness."\n\nAnd if the criticisms Bloch leveled were not even spared to his rivals, Hanslick's "extreme Wagnerians," he placed at the center of his philosophical and musical analysis the importance of history: « No art is so socially conditioned as music, which is presumed to be automatically, even mechanically, self-founded; it teems with historical materialism, and historical specificity. (...) Nothing Haydn and Mozart, Handel and Bach, Beethoven and Brahms without their social task, varied precisely from time to time (...). Handel's oratorios in their solemn pride reflect the imperialistic rise of England, the attitude of being a chosen people. Nothing Brahms without the bourgeois concert society and even no music of the claimed inexpressiveness, without the gigantic increase in alienation, objectification, reification in late capitalism. It is the layer of consumers and their task, it is the world of sentiments and the goals of the class that is dominant from time to time, which expresses itself in music. And music, by virtue of its capacity for expression so immediately human, has at the same time more than other arts the property of accommodating the conspicuous pain, the desires and the bright spots of the oppressed class. And no art in turn has such an abundance in relation to the time and ideology in which it is found from time to time; an abundance, certainly, that never falls below the human level. It is the abundance of the material of hope, even in the sonorous suffering for time, society, the world, even death (...) »\n\nLet us return then, dear Luca, to the importance of "contextualizing to decontextualize," which in the field of musical art becomes even more pressing if we agree with what Bloch stated: contextualize to fully understand the historical, cultural, artistic and psychological reasons that led that great composer to make certain choices rather than others and, only after having done so, decontextualize him to project him into our time and understand how current his message can still be and, to us, humanity of the 21st century, what it can still give and what makes that music immortal.\n\nBut someone, at this point, might ask: what does all this have to do with the "primacy of music" that should be written about in this topic?\n\nIt has everything to do! It certainly does! Not only or not so much because Bloch insisted precisely and above all on names such as Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, but it matters to assert, in my view, "the primacy of music" over all other arts."

Thank you for the response Daniele,

you give me the opportunity to reiterate one of my obsessions regarding the enjoyment of art in general.

I agree: it makes no sense to oppose contextualizing and decontextualizing.

I would add that not only does it make no sense today, but it never has, and that it is a false problem.

You assert that "both things are necessary in order to truly delve into the complex intricacies of the great masterpieces of art from the past". I feel the need to make a clarification (I don't know if you will agree). Namely, that contextualizing the reading of a work of art really serves to enter its intricacies (as you say). Decontextualizing serves – where it is possible to do so! – to see a bit of what comes out of those aforementioned intricacies: what comes out today, what it tells me today, this text, this music, this fresco, from five centuries ago.

I'll keep it brief because I realize I am rewriting your thought in my own words. To be precise, where you write: "Let us return then, dear Luca, to the importance of 'contextualizing to decontextualize' (…) what it can still give and what makes that music immortal".

I will only make two small points.

The first is about good Mila: a down-to-earth man!

In the short quote you provided – on the use of the perfect fifth interval in the Pastoral Symphony – it is clear how he always gave precedence to works of art as an "observation field" and how 'aesthetics' with its theorizations arrives subsequently to works of art (and in sub-order to them).

The second is on Bloch's statements regarding the social conditioning that music "undergoes". In particular, I find the parallel Handel's Oratorios < > England's imperialistic rise curious (in the sense that I find it interesting),

as well as all the others reported there.

Truly interesting but . . . I won't go any further.

As you already know, I am inclined to decontextualize. And, here yes, I could really get lost in it!

But don't you think that contextualizing and decontextualizing are a bit like a dualism (a concept dear to you) in the relationship with a work of art?

And that we must serenely accept that some of us lean toward one or the other while recognizing the importance of both?

A warm greeting to all!

Luca

As you already know, I am prone to decontextualizing. And here, yes, I could really get lost in it!

But don't you think that contextualizing and decontextualizing are a bit like a dualism (a concept dear to you) in the relationship with a work of art?

And that we must serenely accept that some of us tend toward one or the other, while still recognizing the importance of both? (Luca)

Of course Luca, one can lean towards one or the other – or even other ways if one thinks it is right to do so! - also, and above all because the approach to a work of art is, first and foremost, a subjective matter and each of us chooses the path they believe best for doing so.

Regarding dualism, however, I don't think that contextualizing and decontextualizing are exactly a "perfect" dualism like Shakespeare's "to be or not to be" or "necessity and free will" which the writer Roberto Cotroneo attributes to the Great Fugue Opus 133. I see them as consequential actions provided that one first contextualizes and then decontextualizes: the opposite would be unfeasible. Whereas in other cases, even by reversing the order, I don't see how one could achieve its contrary.

The second is on Bloch's statements regarding the social conditioning that music "undergoes". In particular, I find the parallel between Handel's Oratorios and England's imperialistic rise curious (in the sense that I find it interesting),

as well as all the others reported there.

Truly interesting but . . . I won't go further. (Luca)

I remember that in school I was given an essay topic with which, through the history of wool, I had to link myself to some salient historical facts: the purpose was to demonstrate how, through wool, one could write history.

If this is possible with wool, imagine how much it is possible through all the arts and thus, also through the history of music.

Without going too far, we can take the reason Simone gave for his preference in bringing Mozart to a desert island: "for his mockery of society through his music". If you think about it, this is closely linked both to historical factors of the period in which the Salzburg native lived, and to character and psychological factors, as well as to his genius.
Haydn, his contemporary, could never, ever have done this.

But if Mozart had lived just a few years earlier, with the same character and the same genius, he would never have thought of or dared to make this kind of choice. Living in the Enlightenment period with the French Revolution at the doorstep allowed him to rebel against Colloredo first and then to mock the powerful through his music.

But think also of Beethoven himself, who lived in the post-French Revolution period and was completely imbued with those Enlightenment values. Of course, if he hadn't had that character and that absolute certainty of his greatness, he wouldn't have been able to rise to the same level as the nobles and shout at Prince Lichnowsky in that way; but if he had lived a few decades earlier, he would never have dared to do so.

Much to my regret, I must still partially agree with Buscaroli, when in his ugly and highly questionable Beethoven biography he states: "The appearances of a Virgil, a Michelangelo, a Beethoven are so prodigious that posterity, when it is not yet as corrupted as today, thanks fate for the gift received and calls it a miracle. The miracle has an explanation for those accustomed to scrutinizing certain mysteries. Compared to a Donatello, Michelangelo is not greater, as they say in the crude scale of values we use; Beethoven is not greater than Sebastian Bach. But Michelangelo's era and Beethoven's era beat on the dials of epochs when the languages and forms of the arts reached their meridian peak (...). The 'thin crest' is a brief moment (...)"

Why partially? Because Buscaroli, being a good reactionary, attributes importance only to art in determining that "thin crest", without giving any importance to the highly relevant historical facts that accompanied and made the "miracle" possible for these geniuses.

I confess that for the maturation of the idea of historical contextualization within me, reading from a very young age a book from my father's library that I still cherish, "How Music Expresses Ideas" by the American Sidney Finkelstein, from 1955, had a great importance.

Finkelstein was an art scholar and, in strong polemic with those who maintained that music was an abstract art, pure from any contamination, wrote this book which aimed to summarize the history of music by linking it to history, demonstrating how, in reality, it is closely tied to the fates of humanity and is imbued with the ideas that, throughout the course of centuries, have characterized human thought. The

The book today, from various aspects, is dated, but many pages still possess a current freshness. I propose a passage from the beginning because it reflects my thinking: « The history of music is, first and foremost, the history of the transfiguration of human representations into sounds; it is the history of technique which, by means of the voice, the fingers, the body, and musical instruments, succeeds in bringing these images to life with an ever-increasing richness. Such evolution is always social, as it is produced by countless acts and discoveries, each of which adds to the previous one and belongs to the complex of a people (...)

To understand music, it is necessary to situate it within the framework of the real life in which it flourished. »

But let's come to Handel specifically! In England, Handel abandoned Italian opera to compose English oratorios, deriving themes from the Protestant Bible, which served as an ideological weapon for the revolution of the middle classes. They contain truly dramatic music permeated by tragic feelings and, at the same time, by a festive joy of living, to a much greater extent than the melodramas of his era. England at that time, but also Victorian England, held these oratorios close to its heart, as they enjoyed extraordinary success from their very first performances. Oratorios like “Israel in Egypt” sing the glory of the chosen people, but behind the Israeli one, in reality, the chosen people was the English. The “Messiah”, the most famous among Handel's oratorios, though not the best musically speaking, actually speaks of the division in Ireland between the Catholic majority and the Protestant minority, and its ultimate meaning lies in illustrating the comparisons of a wise religion – that of Protestantism – optimistic beyond and above every dogmatic issue, supremely charitable and understanding. In “Judas Maccabaeus”, the story of this great Jewish military leader actually hides a historical fact of the moment: the forces of the then King of England George II achieved a great victory against the Scots at Culloden. The final part of the oratorio, with that chorus of joy that begins softly, could not have been overlooked by Beethoven when composing the finale of the Ninth Symphony.

And here, as you say... « I won't go any further », rather, I'm going to bed!

Hello everyone!

Dear Daniele,

How curious the difference between your position and mine!

Just think, your phrase - "the opposite would be unthinkable" - I would take it, exactly as it is, to refer to what I am convinced of.

That is, that it seems more spontaneous to me to decontextualize and then, if necessary, contextualize.

I have surely already said this in another post, but I think it is a good thing to reiterate what I mean by 'decontextualization'.

I mean a relationship between me (anyone) and the work of art that is as 'free' as possible: not mediated by listening guides, various exegeses (more or less authoritative, more or less "poetic" or "technical"), and not even mediated by externalizations and listening guides coming from the author of the work itself.

Forgive me if the example I am about to give is banal, but it is what it is: my personal experience.

PASTORAL SYMPHONY. When it was first proposed to me, at twelve years old, it wasn't that it was so heavily contextualized for me. I mean, I don't remember any discussions – not even vague ones – about the feeling of Nature, of the Divine, in Beethoven or his era.

But this music fascinated me. I com-prehended it. I took it with me: as a good part of my affective world.

Now, for about five years, I have been a little more interested in historical, biographical Beethovenian things... [Interested but not too much... only the metronome marking is missing!], and I feel I have well contextualized this symphony. Also thanks to your writings.

But it doesn't seem to me that this erudition has led me to a greater com-prehension, to a greater emotional impact.

Speaking of 'decontextualization': how interesting would the experience be for someone hearing it for the first time without knowing the titles Beethoven gave to the various movements! (unfortunately I can no longer).

In short: decontextualizing might be, if we want, naive. But it seems to me the most natural and spontaneous thing.

Contextualizing is a good, useful, and necessary thing, but it does not necessarily lead to a greater understanding of a work of art.

And having said all this, it seems evident to me that I cannot in the slightest share the statement that

"To understand music, it is necessary to situate it within the framework of the real life in which it flourished"

bye!

Luca

Hello dear Luca and hello to everyone reading!

When you are twelve years old listening to music – whatever it may be – it doesn't matter whether it was composed in those days or in an indefinite time. What only matters is that the music sounds good to our ears, moves us, conveys pleasure to us because, ultimately, music must give us this. Whether it is a song that, like a sort of hit, is pushed upon us by the radio countless times a day, or a symphony someone has made us listen to, depends on the child's nature.

But this, from my point of view, does not mean decontextualizing music; it simply means listening to the music and seeing the effect it has.

Decontextualizing a work of art is an entirely different matter, much more complex and articulated, which requires a certain knowledge of the work and which, above all, cannot be approached by a childish mind.

To decontextualize a work means to ask oneself what this music, composed and conceived with methods completely different from those in vogue today, can say, first and foremost to us personally and then, to all humanity.

You, Luca, have the privilege of being able to read a score and follow the music with it. Well, if you do not contextualize the music in its era and do not compare it with composers contemporary to it, how can you then assert that this one and not another, that one and not another, is the music, the greatest composer or, whatever you prefer?

But setting aside this privilege, even just by listening to it and having an idea of the evolution of sonic matter within the history of music, how will you ever be able to give convincing answers if you do not know that particular historical period, or the psychological personality of the composer, at least summarily?

Let's take some of the infinite examples I could make to support my conviction and to better explain what I mean.

Let's say you decide to listen in order to all the symphonies from Haydn onwards and thus, you have noticed that they all end, essentially, with an Allegro. Then suddenly you find yourself facing Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony "Pathétique" Opus 74 of 1893, which ends with a wonderful "Adagio lamentoso", while the third movement, usually a Scherzo, is instead that Allegro molto vivace that should be the last movement – it often happens that, in performances of this Symphony, the audience applauds after the third movement as if it were the end - A long pause and then here begin the splendid notes of this "Adagio lamentoso".

To the inevitable question of why Tchaikovsky, who was anything but an innovative or revolutionary composer, made this choice, he himself, for what was his last Symphony, given that he died only a few days after the performance of his first, one can only find the answer by contextualizing it within the life of the composer, his sexual choices, the terrible mentality – which is unfortunately still very rooted – in an Orthodox Russian and widely bigoted society.

Let's think about the symphonic cycle and, more generally, all the music of Gustav Mahler. But how can we try to understand this music without framing it in the historical climate of the late 1800s/early 1900s, characterized by a substantial sense of existential malaise and the feeling that immense catastrophes would soon follow? And how could we do it without knowing anything about the composer, his being Jewish and converting to Catholicism, his terrible childhood, his disastrous marriage to Alma, his subsequent impotence, and finally, the premature death of his beloved little daughter? If we fail to know these things, we will never be able to answer why this great composer chose to write Symphonies that were "the construction of a world, through all the possible means and devices available to me". Symphonies that, due to their length, became true musical novels, "stained" – note the quotation marks – by military bands of trumpets and trombones, percussion responding to the irrepressible sounds of a march mostly composed of brass and woodwinds, gongs, celesta, drums and tambourines, castanets, xylophone, triangle, cymbals, and even cowbells.

The same applies to Shostakovich: is it possible to approach this 20th-century giant without knowing anything about his troubled relationship with Soviet power, and Stalinist power in particular? Because a symphony like his fourth – which is genius – for example, he decided not to present in 1936 – the year of its conception – but only in 1957. Only by entering into his psychological meanders can we understand why he, unlike Stravinsky, decided, despite sharing nothing with that power, to remain in the USSR, to adhere to the

PCUS and to submit oneself to the point of conditioning one's own way of composing and, despite this, producing immense masterpieces.

But then finally Luca, let's step out of music and go to that magnificent pictorial bridge with music, which is Gustav Klimt's "Beethoven Frieze," which we admired together at the Vienna Secession in August 2009.

We could enter there and admire it based on « a relationship between (us) and the work of art that is as 'free' as possible: not mediated by listening guides, various exegeses (more or less authoritative, more or less "poetic" or "technical"), and not even mediated by externalizations and listening guides coming from the author of the work themselves. », giving vent to our instincts and our imagination. But, I repeat, this is not decontextualizing a work; it is just a healthy game of spontaneity and comparison between two or more sensibilities.

Think about it for a moment Luca, we did decontextualize it Luca, but only when? After having understood that that triptych descended from Wagner's words on the Ninth, framing it in its historical and artistic time, and we did so by writing pages and pages of blog posts! Therefore Luca, allow me and forgive me if I insist very amiably: "contextualize to decontextualize"; its opposite is out of the question.