CGF Newsletter 44: Summer of Schopenhauer Vol. I
Opera: an unmusical invention for the benefit of unmusical minds
Name That Tune
This week’s Name That Tune was submitted by Listener Eric. Here’s your hint: this composer once said, “Music is the only religion that delivers the goods.” No Googling!
As always, your goal is to provide as much accurate analysis as possible. First try to get the nationality, year, and genre, then make educated guesses about the composer and — if possible— the piece. If you know the piece immediately, send us an email at classicalgabfest@gmail.com instead of commenting so the rest of us can have fun guessing.
Last Week’s Results
CGF Newsletter 43
Amy Beach, “Le Secret” op. 14, no. 2
I guessed Saint-Saëns, Rubinstein, and MacDowell, the last of which was the closest. Had I extrapolated further by one historical figure, I may well have ended up at Amy Beach.
I’m off galavanting for the next two weeks, so this newsletter and the next one have been pre-scheduled. I’ll do a roundup of any other guesses / commentary when I return later in July.
Think you can stump your fellow Listeners? Go ahead and try!
Head to our Google Form to upload a 30-second clip of an unidentified piece of classical music for us to try to identify.
Summer of Schopenhauer
Most classical music people will be at least vaguely familiar with the name Arthur Schopenhauer as the 19th century philosopher whose work so enraptured Richard Wagner that it turned him from the antisemitic, velvet-clad, Teutonic-mythology-loving socialist of Tannhäuser and Lohengrin into the slightly less antisemitic, velvet-clad, death-obsessed proto-Buddhist of Tristan and Parsifal.
Well, it turns out that I (Will) am a pretty big Schopenhauer guy too, and since I’m traveling these couple weeks, I’m going to take the Newsletter totally off the news cycle and do a little Schopenhauer club. Enjoy the ride!
Grand opera is not really a product of the pure artistic sense, it is rather the somewhat barbaric conception of enhancing aesthetic enjoyment by piling up the means to it, by the simultaneous production of quite disparate impressions and by strengthening the effect through augmenting the masses and forces producing it; while music, as the mightiest of the arts, is capable by itself of completely engrossing the mind receptive to it; indeed, its highest products, if they are to be properly comprehended and enjoyed, demand the undivided and undistracted attention of the entire mind, so that it may surrender to them and immerse itself in them in order to understand their incredibly intimate language.
Instead of which, the mind is invaded through the eye, while listening to a highly complex piece of operatic music, by the most colorful pageantry, the most fanciful pictures and the liveliest impressions of light and color; and at the same time it is occupied with the plot of the action. Through all this it is distracted and confused and its attention is diverted, so that it is very little receptive to the sacred, mysterious, intimate language of music. All these accompaniments are thus diametrically opposed to the attainment of the musical aim.
Strictly speaking one could call opera an unmusical invention for the benefit of unmusical minds, in as much as music first has to be smuggled in through a medium foreign to it, for instance as the accompaniment to a long drawn out, insipid love story and its poetic pap: for a spirited compact poem full of matter is of no use as an opera text, because the composition cannot be equal to such a poem.
The mass and the symphony alone provide undisturbed, fully musical enjoyment, while in opera the music is miserably involved with the vapid drama and its mock poetry and music try to bear the foreign burden laid on it as best it can. The mocking contempt with which the great Rossini sometimes handles the text is, while not exactly praiseworthy, at any rate genuinely musical.
In general, however, grand opera, by more and more deadening our musical receptivity through its three-hours duration and at the same time putting our patience to the test through the snail’s pace of what is usually a very trite action, is in itself intrinsically and essentially boring; which failing can be overcome only by the excessive excellence of an individual achievement: that is why in this genre only the masterpieces are enjoyable and everything mediocre is unendurable.
Discuss!
I chose this quote for the first Schopenhauer edition for a few reasons: 1) It’s late Schopenhauer, and he’s more than happy to exhibit his crankiness. 2) You get some indication of his actual taste in music (he loved Mozart and Rossini, was less enthused by Haydn and Beethoven.) and 3) It’s a great conversation starter, and I know this because Joseph and I were recently chatting about this very subject.
As is my wont, I was telling Joey that he needed to listen to a certain Sondheim cast album (I believe it was Company) and he said he didn’t like listening to the scores of musicals disconnected from their presentation on the stage.
I told him that I felt exactly the opposite way—that the staging of a musical (or by extension an opera or a ballet) could only ruin the music (or at the very best, just live up to it.) That’s an opinion I’ve long harbored, but it wasn’t until quite recently that I came across the above passage and found that Schopenhauer quite agreed.
Consider this an episode of Coffee Talk and talk amongst yourselves (in the comments.)
Classical Mixtape
Rossini, L’Italiana in Algeri, Act I finale
Arthur Schopenhauer, the most dour pessimist who ever lived, singled out this number as one of his favorites, an example of solving the unmusicality inherent in grand opera. It’s nice to know that even he had a little fun every once in a while.
The Classical Gabfest Newsletter is a spin-off of the now-defunct Classical Gabfest Podcast. It is a co-production of William White, Joseph Vaz, and the Listeners (i.e. you.)
NTT: I accidentally cheated and so am recusing myself.
Schopenhauser and Grand Opera: Whew, I don't think I can get anywhere close to getting all my thoughts out here. In general, I disagree with Schopenhauer here (though I do love me a good cranky curmudgeon). But, opera is an incredibly difficult medium to pull off well in production as so many different arts and skills need to come together to make it work...so there are going to be times (even a lot of times) when the drama and production will fail to live up to the music. If you're giving primacy to the music, which I generally do (as I think that is partly the why of opera), then there are going to be disappointments. Prima la musica e poi le parole.
However, even if the music comes first, the words are still there, and I have had too many experiences where the music has been enhanced by the interaction with the words and the drama to not recognize the affecting power opera has when it all comes together. Focusing solely on Schopenhauer's beloved Mozart...I've been to productions where both his great music (Figaro) and his...less great music (Lucio Silla) have been served by the production in a way that made the music better. When it comes together, opera is an artistic marvel.
Like Joseph, I am wary of the notion of absolutes (and I think any mention of purity is a red flag for me). I also don't really buy into the whole concept of pitting musical and artistic genres against each other to find the greatest form. Give me diversity of art.
Of course, all that being said, music for the clarinet is superior to everything else and everyone knows it.
First of all, hilarious that Schopenhauer lumps together the symphony and the *mass* as his ideals of undisturbed musical enjoyment - as if mass settings are abstract music!
Overall, though, though I don't agree with Schopenhauer (and Will), I recognize it as a matter of taste. He favors artistic experiences that are confined to a single medium - one sense at a time. Old Art is not a fan of stir fry - he wants his food groups separate upon his plate. I disagree with him only in the sense that our tastes are different - I quite enjoy a well-put-together Gesamtkunstwerk! (I suppose I also disagree with him that such mixed media is "not really a product of the pure artistic sense." I mean c'mon!)
As for not listening to the scores of musical theatre disconnected from a theatrical performance, I think that's also a matter of taste for me - I simply don't like that particular musical genre enough to enjoy it exclusively as sound art. On the other hand, I'd rather listen to the 4 Sea Interludes from Britten's "Peter Grimes" without watching whatever machinations an opera director has drummed up for scene changes in that opera - because I like the genre.
Schopenhauer's conviction in absolutes is a very 19th century approach - can't we all have it our own way??