Musical Aesthetics
October 16th, 2007 | Theory | No Response | By Pierre-Arnaud
Often I see my collegues being surprised when we pronounce certain words or names. Adorno, Badiou, Deleuze, names that should not appear in the middle of a musical discussion. However philosophy has its role in music, and has strongly influenced History of musical creation.
While musicians are generally not trained in this discipline, aesthetics becomes very important when you deal with contemporary repertoire. Aside from the fact that it represents one of the best tools for understanding and controlling easily “irreducibles” claiming that contemporary music is just noise, it allows us to better understand the way taken by the composer and to resolve some issues of interpretation in a music which does not benefit from historical interpretation and specialists.
The interpreter actually little arises a fundamental question of aesthetics: What is music? Questioning a bit about what the music is helps us to understand views of certain composers. For example, the use of noise in music may seem absurd, but finally does the beauty of music only resides in tonal harmony, in sounds of instruments? Why could the composer use only specific types of sounds and not others? It must be clear that when a composer uses quarter-tones, it is not an eccentricity but a aesthetic way which drove him to the use of so-called quarter tones. Understand why quarter-tones, of course, is interpreting the composer’s music with a faithfull thought.
Of course, the aesthetics can renew “technical composition” or currents, by looking for, for example, the essence of music. If we take an emblematic figure of contemporary music that has a lot theorized as Pierre Boulez, you can easely notice that he had to develop a coherent system to counter to the attacks of older currents.
“The requirements of the current music go hand in hand with some of the mathematical currents or contemporary philosophy,” said Boulez. Of course! Thinking music is a priority especially for its craftsmen. If I go on with quotes from Pierre Boulez I will also use this piece of interview by the Figaro:
“Le Figaro: What do you think about a certain “neotonal” aesthetic which now seems to have the wind in its sails?
P .Boulez : This is a total waste of time. We are celebrating this year the 50th anniversary of the Domaine Musical’s first season: by consulting the works which were played at this time, I found that no major composer of my generation missed. And those I have chosen are still played. The netonal composers, who you refer to, prefer the Institute: it is their place. That does not worry me at all: their power can not exceed the ring road. These are ow-wage earner, unimpressive. Do you think that London or New York are interested in them? Who is invited abroad? It is not them, it’s me. If at least this current gave us masterworks, as neo-classicism of the 20’s, but there is nothing, it’s vacuum. “?
From the side of the composer, the aesthetic will play a key role in his musical process. It is the way of thinking which influences the music he composes, and is used to justify what he writes. Neotonalism against serial writing, Boulez here stigmatises neotonal composers whose aesthetic is diametrically opposed to Boulez. More than a simple parochial quarrel, this debate is crucial for the future of musical creativity, and influences the younger generation of composers.
You understand that musical aesthetics plays a big role on the music stage, mainly in the contemporary world, and I deplore that only musicologists are trained in a discipline which is also necessary for musicians and composers or more generally to all music artists, not just the theorists.
This article is also available in english at http://blog-en.pierre-arnaud-dablemont.com/esthetique-musicale-140
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