Page 99 - Glasbenopedagoški zbornik Akademije za glasbo v Ljubljani / The Journal of Music Education of the Academy of Music in Ljubljana, leto 13, zvezek 27 / Year 13, Issue 27, 2017
P. 99
Paul Crowther, MUSIC AS VIRTUAL EXPRESSION
such a way that this simple formal device takes on the form of a dramatic yet, at the same
time, tentative outburst that both interrupts and complements the first subject.
Indeed, there is a wonderful and striking contrast. At the start of the movement, the
playing of the scales with a separation between each one serves, in effect, to both
introduce a presence and to ask questions of the context in which it finds itself. But, at the
end, the scales return in a climactic and continuous run over four octaves. They now assert
an acquired psychological authority.
Contextualised rightly, in other words, a simple formal device can be deeply evocative in
emotional terms. This is why music has a unique character. In it, emotion and, more
importantly, emotionally charged auditory narratives are expressed in virtual terms.
Whereas in the actuality of real life, emotions are enacted as states of persons, or are
described second-hand in purely linguistic terms, music offers a virtual expression of
them. This means that it is an image of emotional intonation and its narrative development
– one that is presented quasi-sensuously, but which is not tied to any actual emotionally
significant narrative of tones or gestures that ever existed. (Even in the case of programme
music meant to evoke some specific real life situation, how the music evokes this is open;
it cannot reproduce the emotional narratives involved in some kind of documentary way.)
When it comes to music as virtual expression or any other mode of art, what we identify
with is the possibility of experience that the work presents, and not those unknowable
personal states of the artist that were involved in its creation. In the Beethoven Piano
Concerto, what the composer is doing is not a report of his own feelings but the projection
of a range of structured emotional possibilities that develop and play out in a unique way –
just as the situations in life do. Precisely because the narrative emotional intonations of the
work as embodied in the music are not tied to any actual individual then all the
aforementioned parties can appropriate it, enjoy it, and even live it on their own terms to a
degree that other art media do not allow.
Other representational media, in contrast, tell stories about definite individuals and/or
represent them visually. Even if the individuals in question are not identified except in
schematic terms and even if they never existed in real life, they are still presented as
individuals - that is to say as beings presented as existing independently of the reader or
viewer of the work. Music, in contrast, involves expression which arises from particular
narratives of intonation that, nevertheless, are not assigned to any represented individual
either fictional or real. They represent a kind of purely imaginary possibility of
experience.
This is why one might say that, in music, the composer, performer, and listener inhabit one
another without significant restriction. The impression arises that we are actually ‘in’ the
music rather than merely encountering it as an object of auditory experience. Indeed,
whilst any artwork allows empathic identification with its creator’s style, the lack of
individual reference in the musical work allows this identification to attain a unique level
of phenomenological intimacy for the reasons just described.
99
such a way that this simple formal device takes on the form of a dramatic yet, at the same
time, tentative outburst that both interrupts and complements the first subject.
Indeed, there is a wonderful and striking contrast. At the start of the movement, the
playing of the scales with a separation between each one serves, in effect, to both
introduce a presence and to ask questions of the context in which it finds itself. But, at the
end, the scales return in a climactic and continuous run over four octaves. They now assert
an acquired psychological authority.
Contextualised rightly, in other words, a simple formal device can be deeply evocative in
emotional terms. This is why music has a unique character. In it, emotion and, more
importantly, emotionally charged auditory narratives are expressed in virtual terms.
Whereas in the actuality of real life, emotions are enacted as states of persons, or are
described second-hand in purely linguistic terms, music offers a virtual expression of
them. This means that it is an image of emotional intonation and its narrative development
– one that is presented quasi-sensuously, but which is not tied to any actual emotionally
significant narrative of tones or gestures that ever existed. (Even in the case of programme
music meant to evoke some specific real life situation, how the music evokes this is open;
it cannot reproduce the emotional narratives involved in some kind of documentary way.)
When it comes to music as virtual expression or any other mode of art, what we identify
with is the possibility of experience that the work presents, and not those unknowable
personal states of the artist that were involved in its creation. In the Beethoven Piano
Concerto, what the composer is doing is not a report of his own feelings but the projection
of a range of structured emotional possibilities that develop and play out in a unique way –
just as the situations in life do. Precisely because the narrative emotional intonations of the
work as embodied in the music are not tied to any actual individual then all the
aforementioned parties can appropriate it, enjoy it, and even live it on their own terms to a
degree that other art media do not allow.
Other representational media, in contrast, tell stories about definite individuals and/or
represent them visually. Even if the individuals in question are not identified except in
schematic terms and even if they never existed in real life, they are still presented as
individuals - that is to say as beings presented as existing independently of the reader or
viewer of the work. Music, in contrast, involves expression which arises from particular
narratives of intonation that, nevertheless, are not assigned to any represented individual
either fictional or real. They represent a kind of purely imaginary possibility of
experience.
This is why one might say that, in music, the composer, performer, and listener inhabit one
another without significant restriction. The impression arises that we are actually ‘in’ the
music rather than merely encountering it as an object of auditory experience. Indeed,
whilst any artwork allows empathic identification with its creator’s style, the lack of
individual reference in the musical work allows this identification to attain a unique level
of phenomenological intimacy for the reasons just described.
99
