Music (like books, or medicines) can do harm, as well as good. The example of Mahler

Following-up on my post of a couple of days ago, where I described authors who did me some harm by being the wrong books at the worst time for me; the same can apply to music. 

This is all-too-obvious with respect to pop music - especially because it is most targeted at youth, and adolescence is the time of greatest vulnerability. 

From 1967 onwards, a great deal of pop music was calculated to manipulate youth into amplifying the spiritual harm of culture generally. This can clearly be seen in the lyrics, and even the music itself, of the most culturally significant group of that era in the UK, i.e. The Beatles. 

But just as some people regard books as A Good Thing, so people regard Classical music as necessarily beneficial - yet this is absurdly untrue - at least for those who are engaged-with and sensitive to music. 

The classical music culture in the UK is one in which it is regarded as high status to be able to appreciate all the great composers of all eras; and as a late teen and early adult I went along with this, such as always to be trying to appreciate all the high status composers - even when their music seemed to work on me like a poison, or made me (more or less) feel spiritually ill.  

This was the case for Gustav Mahler. In the 1970s, he was being rediscovered as a composer (during his life he had been famous mainly as a conductor) - and promoted to the status of Great, as Wagner's premier successor. 

But for all its musical excellences and strong effects; Mahler's music seemed to me then, as it still does when I occasionally hear it, toxic and cloying. Nonetheless I persevered, attentively working through his symphonies (especially) on LP, and attending a couple of live concerts. 

This stopped after I had bought a recording of Mahler's Tenth Symphony (completed by Deryck Cook) and fell asleep while listening to the slow movement; waking with a profound and powerful mixture of revulsion and misery. 

After this, I was forced to acknowledge that Mahler was bad for me. And that by persisting with listening I was pushing myself towards a feeling of hopelessness and despair. 

This was a realization that all Great Composers were not good - some were harmful by my intuitive estimation! 

More generally; this fits with the observation that anything which has a powerful enough effect that it might do good, for the same reason may do harm. 

This applies to drugs (and other treatments) in medicine; which is why there is no qualitative distinction between therapeutic effects and "side effects" - to be of possible benefit, a drug must have an effects on the body, much change physiology; and because it has an effect, it will do harm to some people nearly-all the time, and other people some of the time.   

It is only because Mahler is a powerful and effective composer, that his music was able to do me harm. 

To generalize again; it is talented artists, authors, musicians; who can do us the most harm. So, for our own good; we need to be able to distinguish between matters of virtue, and matters of ability and effectiveness.   

Evil in classical music

Independent of its musical quality; there is a fair bit of classical music since the later 19th century that communicates to me an atmosphere of evil. 

Before this era, it seems either that music lacked the ability to communicate evil (due to its much greater formality and lesser subjectivity), or perhaps composers were not evil at the times when their music was actually being composed (because genius itself to some significant entails an alignment with divine creation). 

Evil in classical music is an aspect of the phenomenon of 'the evil genius' which Ed Dutton and I discuss in our book The Genius Famine, and which Ed has gone-on to elaborate in his subsequent work. 

Since classical music does not operate in the same way as prose, the way that evil comes-through is various - but I will list three of the best composers whose work I regard as evil in this musical way: Mahler, Stravinsky, Carl Orff. 

As I say, this is substantially a different matter from aesthetic appreciation. With Mahler, however, I find the taint of rottenness too strong to allow me fully to enjoy anything of his. But I can appreciate Stravinsky's Rite of Spring; and Orff's Carmina Burana is one of my favourite 20th century pieces - to which I have listed scores of times. 

But I was listening this morning to Orff's 'follow-up' cantatas - Catulli Carmina and Trionfo di Afrodite (which I have both known for over 40 years); and in them (despite thrilling musical moments) I rapidly become overwhelmed by the evil, to a Mahlerian degree. In the end they make me feel so dysphoric, that I cannot really enjoy them. 

Evil 'in' music (not just 'verbally', in terms of the subject matter - as with Richard Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier; nor in terms of the music's non-musical associations, eg. with youth cults or wicked regimes) is an interesting phenomenon that I have not seen discussed - probably because most people cannot recognize evil, and would not acknowledge it if they did). 

I wonder whether readers have experienced anything similar?

Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Finzi - nice sounds but going nowhere, nothing to say.

I was at a concert the other day which had several pieces of late 19th/ early 20th English music by Elgar, Vaughan Williams and Finzi - and the overall impression was of a musical tradition going nowhere - and (in my judgement) that is exactly where it went since I regard the European tradition of classical music as a closed canon.

The sounds were pleasing, and there were some nice effects. But the structure of the music had become a matter of pattern-making without forward dynamics - the music (at this point in history) had become a matter of small phrases (not melodies) which were passed through the sections of the orchestra, the voices or registers - up and down, through various keys - deftly done but why?

Bernard Shaw memorably said that an artists style was effectiveness of assertion and that was it. And attempting to focus on style in and for itself was trivial- yet this is a particular danger for music because it is hard of impossible to say in words what is being asserted - what is the meaning of music.

Yet the meaningfulness of music is vital to its artistic status. Of course it is good to have music that is pleasant, or exciting, of evokes a mood - but it is not enough to constitute an artistic tradition. Properly (in my opinion!) the canon of an art goes between the meaningful artists - those whose mastery is of meaning not style.

The reason Beethoven is so much greater than Brahms is not so much a matter of technical pioneering but that Beethoven had - perhaps above all others except Bach and Mozart - a great soul, so much to 'say' in his music, so much struggling for expression and being expressed.Whereas Brahms simply did not, and his music cannot escape from a core flaccidity.

From this perspective I would rank (for example) Michael Tippet far above Benjamin Britten because (in his early works, only) Tippet was saying something - whereas Britten had nothing to say - or at least nothing interesting. Britten was simply a shallow man of great musical ability. Tippet was a throwback to the late 19th century. 

This effectiveness of assertion is ultimately what gives music its forward impulsion. Lacking which a certain stagnant quality cannot be concealed. This differentiates - say - Richard Strauss from Mahler. For all his great qualities Mahler is stagnant, torpid; for all his vulgarities, Strauss was dynamic, energizing. And all who came after Strauss have either been less great musicians, or else tended towards stasis.

Indeed, I would regard the two supposed geniuses of twentieth century music - Schoenberg and Stravinsky - as knowing perfectly well that they had nothing to say, and knowing perfectly well their inability to escape the centripetal pull of stasis - but faking-it, disguising the fact, by explicit experimentalism.

This matter of 'having something to say' is the most subtle and in that sense subjective matter of judgement. And hearing a poor piece by a great composer can be deceptive - in most of what he wrote, Mozart had nothing to say, but was just making patterns of sound on autopilot - and the same applies to pretty much everybody.

One can only judge artists by their best work - and greatness of artistic status requires several great works or at least one very big great work (big to prove that it wasn't just a lucky fluke).

And, at the bottom line, if I personally cannot perceive the artist has something to say, then I cannot, will not, and should not grant them greatness - this is not something that generally ought to be taken on trust from other people.

Especially since most musicians are so shallow! - and this equally applies to critics and scholars. But what applies to music also applies to poetry, drama, novels... all arts.

And it is to be able and adept to perceive and to evaluate meaning of expression for oneself, that one explores and learns an artistic tradition.

Two types of art: imagination-stimulating/ open-structured versus virtual-reality/ manipulative

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The arts (and some other phenomena) come in two basic types which affect the imagination differently.

Some of the arts are like an alternative, virtual reality - they take the mind and draw it through an experience of stimuli and emotions. For example, cinema is of this type - the movie-goer is taken-into the world of the movie and moved-through the experiences.

Other arts of this type include theatre and opera, and most primitively the narrative song.

Such an experience does not allow, is not intended to allow, much space or scope for self-awareness or freedom - the ideal is an immersion in the sub-world of the art.

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But there are other kinds of art which allow space for the participant to become self-aware, aware of his own agency - these arts demand the use of imagination.

For example, the written poem - which historically was abstracted from a performed song, has a quite different effect on the imagination; relying far more on the reader than does the song on the listener. The written poem may be delayed, paused, re-read in part or in whole, in written sequence or any other sequence...

It seems that Shakespeare only became recognized as a great imaginative poetic writer (in the eighteenth century) when his plays were printed and read (indeed, the translation into German seems to have been a vital step in his recognition); this greatness was (presumably) not apparent when the plays were seen only in performance, because the audience were simply drawn-into the play, and experienced it as an alternative world in real time.

The novel, invented by Samuel Richardson with Pamela in the middle eighteenth century - was a major technical breakthrough in stimulating sustained activity of the imagination. On the one hand the novel provides considerable structure and guidance for the reader, on the other hand there is a necessity for the reader to provide a great deal from his imagination (e.g. character and setting visualizations, the 'acting' of the participants, much of the motivation and emotional responses).

In sum, the novel could be summarized as a play or movie that has been 'realized' by the novel-reader - who must take on roles of producer, actors, director, scene painter, costumier, editor etc.

Furthermore, compared with a play, the novel reader is in world 'out of time'; the play-watcher is necessarily drawn-through the play at the rate and pace of the performance - his mind filled throughout; but the novel reader proceeds at whatever pace he feels - and may pause or break away for any period, think and imagine, and then resume.

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Some music provides scope for imagination, space for the autonomous mind to know itself; but other music - especially songs and operas - take-over the mind, and draw it through a particular sequence, and at a set pace.

So, listening to instrumental music by JS Bach may provide a context for self-awareness of the autonomous soul; while attendance at Das Rhinegold by Wagner at Bayreuth would hope to be an immersive and overwhelming experience, a living of the world being depicted.

Some music (Debussy and Delius spring to mind) is very obviously designed as a background-tapestry for contemplation (or, in a more debased fashion, as mood or ambient music.) But other music is designed to overwhelm us, to control us, to compel us to recapitulate a fixed linear experience - outwith of vocal music, this was more a feature of later classical music, such as the 'late romantic' symphonies of Mahler or Bruckner or Tone Poems of Richard Strauss.

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This distinction applies to some church services as well. (Bearing in mind that some church services are not intended to be emotional or imaginative experiences, but function at a much more low key and matter-of-fact level.)

Some services take the participant through a particular set sequence of experiences and emotions which (more or less) 'fill the mind'. A successful Anglican liturgy is more or less of this type - and the effect of great language (from the Book of Common Prayer and the Authorized Version of the Bible)can be emotionally as overwhelming as any opera or symphony. But there is not much space for the imagination - nor is there intended to be.

At the other extreme was an experience of a full-on Greek Orthodox service on the island of Tinos back in 1978. I could not understand the language, and the meaning of the service was seen only in the very slow changes of visual theme (also, I was not a Christian then). But the service provided a backdrop or 'tapestry' of consisting of sonorous male-vice chanting, rich clothing and objects, ritual movement and music...

I experienced this as a sustaining context for a high level of awareness and the knowledge of freedom, with scope for the free imagination to work-within.

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Another way to think of this is that some (but not all) arts have (when they are working properly) the ability to wake us up!

It is this feeling of 'coming-to' in the world - when we have previously been 'asleep' or non-conscious.

This can be regarded as an emergence of the real self, coming out from behind the false/ phony/ social/ mass media or 'robot' self of trained/ instinctive/ automatic responses.

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The activation of the imagination (the real self) is certainly not confined to 'arts' - but can (and indeed should) be a feature of philosophy (in the board sense of the word - also including theology).

Real philosophy is of this type - and this explains why real philosophy is something that happens essentially in solitude, during reflection - not in company, not during teaching, and only seldom during discussion (when attention is usually grabbed, and the mind is usually filled, by the social context).

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My thesis here is that:

1. There is a need for stimulation of the imagination, because adult modern man is nearly always starting from a situation of alienation - and imagination is the destined cure.

2. Imagination needs structure, but it also need space.

3. Overwhelming experiences, immersive experiences (drama, movies, TV, etc)... these may be mistaken for imagination-stimulating, but they essentially keep-out the imagination. This is important! because sometimes they feel like imagination; and in a sense they are... but this is somebody else's imagination!

3. Imagination is more often about reading (in solitude), and landscape, and brooding-meditation and the like; in a nutshell, imagination is usually a start-stop business.

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William Boyce: a third rate, derivative composer - I like him!

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William Boyce (1711-1779) was born 26 years after GF Handel, but wrote exactly as if he was Handel; I, at any rate, cannot distinguish the styles.

Boyce would only be placed in the third rank of composers, since he is neither one of the greats (e.g. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven); nor one of the rank below, who include many originators (e.g. Vivaldi, Haydn, Weber) - but he would be among the likes of Locatelli, JC Bach, and Hummel - that is to say composers who retain a lasting but minor place in the concert and recording repertoire.

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To be exact - the best of Boyce is as good as second rank Handel - which is very good indeed; but he cannot rise to the stratospheric heights of Handel, especially in lyrical mode (examples of the stratosphere: the slow movement of 'Oboe concerto' No. 3 in G min; the solo aria 'Ombra mai fu' from Xerxes; or the trio 'The flocks shall leave the mountains' from Acis and Galatea).

But, despite all this, I like Boyce very much - specifically his 'symphonies' and overtures; and listen to them often, with delight and without getting bored - something which certainly does not apply to the likes of JC Bach, Thomas Arne, or even Charles Avison (for whom I have a special and parochial affection as the best composer from Northumberland).

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Boyce therefore presents an interesting case study - as an example of just how good you can be when creating within the constraints of a great artist - almost as a pastiche; and the answer is very good indeed.

My preference would be for third rate composers to do what Boyce did, be unoriginal but very good - rather than trying, via formal innovations or 'novelties', to pass themselves off as 'great'/ first rank composers in the way of most 20th century classical musicians and also perhaps some of the earlier romantics such as Lizst, Mahler; or even Richard Strauss in his 'experimental' modes such as Salome, or Verdi in Falstaff.

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(Parenthetical Explanatory Note: I would put Strauss and Verdi in the second rank, except in their experimental work; when I would drop them down to the fourth rank, due to as acting as cleverly pretentious betrayers of their own genius!)

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Some litmus test questions

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Most evil: Fascism or Communism?

Mormonism: good or bad thing?

"Archbishop Rowan Williams is well-intentioned, but..." True or False?

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James Joyce or JRR Tolkien?

T.S. Eliot or Robert Frost?

Gustav Mahler or Richard Strauss?

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The Bonferroni correction: experimental rigour or scientific illiteracy?

The null hypothesis is just common sense? Yes? No? (delete as appropriate)

Statistical significance has something to do with truth. True or False? 

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On encountering Glenn Gould playing Bach's Partitas - 1978 to 2024

 

A boxed set of Glenn Gould playing JS Bach's Partitas, obtained by mail order (uniquely for me) seared itself into memory as a key event in my life. 

This came near the beginning of my discovery of Glenn Gould, at a time when he was regarded with almost uniform hostility in Britain (insofar as he was known at all) - and most of his records were (to me) impossible to obtain (I got most of them when working or on holidays abroad - in the USA, Canada, Paris). 

The Partitas are associated with the long, hard winter of 1978-9; which I experienced in an unheated, drafty, seedy flat. But the association is a good one! It is of lying in bed cocooned inside a sleeping bag, inside another sleeping bag; with blanket and sheet below and four blankets above - listening to the first of these Partitas (and my favourite) the B-flat Major. 

And really listening - with total concentration, so that I was inside the music, following the mind of the musician note for note. 

The intensity with which I listened to my small collection (building to about eight LPs by the end of the year) Gould's Bach recordings at this time was something seldom matched throughout the rest of my life. 

What did I get from it? That's what intrigues me now. To some extent it was simply time spent sampling a higher world, and thus an enjoyably ecstatic experience in its own right. Yet the music also pointed beyond itself in a way that was partly inspiring, but partly frustrating. 

I might briefly return home at lunchtime to collects stuff for for, and listening to some Bach - maybe one of these Partitas, some of the Golberg Variations, or a prelude and fugue from "the 48" - and then I had to return to my lectures, practical classes, and dissections at medical school. 

But it wasn't just the problem of sublime aspirations versus worldly practicalities; it was much deeper - because, even with time, energy and opportunity to do whatever I wanted... Just what was it that I wanted to do, in consequence of listening to Gould play Bach? 

It was like having an answer, but not the question! 

All of this fitted with the general direction of my life; in that this was when I began reading Colin Wilson's The Outsider series and other manifestations of the 1950s movements, James Joyce's Ulysses and other works, discovering Jung; as well as performing (as a singer) and generally exploring classical music - including the late Romantics such as Wagner, Richard Strauss, and Mahler. 

It was a very "existentialist" period in my life!

I desired and sought the kind of life that I imagined Glenn Gould lived; one in which (as I supposed) intensity and ecstasy were normal and continuous.

Of course this was not really true. At least not in a qualitative sense. Gould surely lived that way more often and more completely than most people - but he did not inhabit a higher form of consciousness. 

Gould did not solve the core problem of this mortal life: nobody ever has, because it is impossible to do so! 

It took a long time, several decades, before I recognized that. 

Sometimes the obvious is the hardest thing of all to recognize - at least for modern Men. 

All of this, and more, was brought to memory in a kind of flashback, when I found the above YouTube posting of Gould's Partitas, began to listen with half-attention to the B-flat major; then found that I could not stop listening nor do anything else, until it had ended!