Inaudible Music, Invisible Conducting Some Sociological Reflections.

大音希聲指揮無形

Inaudible Music,Invisible Conducting

— Some Sociological Reflections

大方無隅大器晚成大音希聲大象無形

老子《道德經》第四十一章

Heard melodies are sweet …

… but those unheardAre sweeter; therefore,

ye soft pipes, play on,—

Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d,

Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone …

John Keats (1795–1821), “Ode on an Grecian Urn”

The Reality

• Music isolated– e.g. Toscanini on the “Eroica”

• Conductors idolized– e.g. Incongruity between social/financial

prestige and artistic performance

Arturo Toscanini (1867–1957)

B. Walter A. Toscanini E. Kleiber O. Klemperer W. Furtwängler

Berlin 1929

Toscanini on the Eroica

“To some it is Napoleon, to some it is a philosophical struggle, to me it is allegro con brio.”

cf. Guernica (1937) in Taipei 101as Front Door Decoration of a Restaurant

Pablo Picasso 1881–1973

Incongruity between social/financial prestige and

artistic performance

80 years vs. 4 months!

Norman Lebrecht, The Maestro Myth: Great Conductors in Pursuit of Power (Secaucus, NJ: Carol Pub. Group, 1991), 321-22.

Great music is inaudiblegood conducting is invisible

• The present problems and their consequences– “star” system: wrong model for us and the

next generations– unnecessary dislike of music and music

making• music as craft, not art• musician as career, not vocation• masters, masterworks, maestri

– “Land of hope and glory” (and power, and money…?)

Some Sociological Reflections

1. Adorno’s Critique

• Background• The paradoxical

nature of conducting

2. Some Practical Suggestions

Further Reading

Adorno, Theodor W. Introduction to the Sociology of Music. Translated by E. B. Ashton. New York: Continuum, 1976.

[translation faulty!]

Bowen, José Antonio, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Conducting. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno (1903–69)

• early training included study of piano in Frankfurt and of composition with Alban Berg in Vienna (1925-27)

• returning to Frankfurt in 1927 to study philosophy, nevertheless wrote extensively about music as editor of Anbruch (1928-31)

• taught philosophy at the university in Frankfurt from 1931, but was removed by the Nazis and went first to Oxford in 1934 and then, in 1938, to the U.S. at the invitation of Max Horkheimer, who had earlier moved the Institute for Social Research to New York from Frankfurt.

Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno (1903–69)

• 1949 returned to Frankfurt with Horkheimer to reestablish the institute there

• a central figure in the Frankfurt School, refused to be associated with any practical political program, and his sociology of music championed the music of Schoenberg and related composers while disdaining mass culture

– except from The Harvard Biographical Dictionary of Music (2003)

The Frankfurt

School

Max Horkheimer (1895–1973)

from left to right:Herbert Marcuse

(1898–1979)Theodor Adorno

(1903–69)Jürgen Habermas

(1929–)

The Frankfurt School of Critical Theory

• […] to uncover the structure of underlying social practices and to reveal the possible distortion of social life embodied in them (Shawn Rosenberg)

• ultimate goal […] is to link theory and practice, to provide insight, and to empower subjects to change their oppressive circumstances and achieve human emancipation […] (James Bohman)

Introduction to the Sociology of Music

• Lectures 1961/62, new edition 1968• Chapter 7, Conductor & Orchestra:

Aspects of Social Psychology– conductors, orchestra and their

relationship as microcosm in which social tensions recur and can be concretely studied

– aesthetical problems as symptoms of social wrong (macrocosm, bigger picture)• also implications for us, though difference

between orchestra/choir, professional/amateur

Conductor as Imago of Power for the Audience

• conducting figure and striking gestures– provide “fantasies of power” for the audience

• costume– as whip-wielding (the baton) ringmaster in a

circus– as member of the master class– as head waiter (‘What a gentleman—and here at

our service)

• back towards audience– deceptive detachment (cf. Berliner Philharmonie

1963 for Karajan)

Conductor: Unnecessary for the Musicians

• Just air magic– “the orchestra […] distrust him as a

parasite who need not bow or blow an instrument and makes music at the expense of those who do play the notes.”

– e.g.• Vienna Philharmonic under dilettante

conductor in Mahler’s 2nd

• test with mislabeled records

Conductor: Necessary for the Musicians

• paradox: polyphony demands monocracy– complex division of labor– spatial distance between parts– alienated, deceptive unity

• rendering audience amenable to authoritarian rule– e.g. the young Wagner: “not to be an

emperor or king, but to stand like a conductor.”

Critique of Adorno’s Critique

• only ideal types, unsupported by empirical studies

• prescriptive, risks being “authoritarian”?– but the readers are challenged to see

the phenomena with new eyes and then free to decide for themselves

Some Sociological Reflections

1. Adorno’s Critique2. Some Practical Suggestions

• air magic yes, leadership unavoidable, but…

2. Some Practical Suggestions

• Hans Swarowsky (1899–1975)– conductor and pedagogue,

studied theory with Schoenberg and Webern and conducting with Weingartner and Richard Strauss

– director of the conducting class at the Vienna Music Academy, 1946–75

• students included Mehta and Abbado

2. Some Practical Suggestions

• Swarowsky: 4 requirements for a conductor– knowledge of the texts and their

contexts– understanding of the performing forces– identification with the composer in

form and expression– personality

• Wahrung der Gestalt (1979)

2. Some Practical Suggestions• professional in standard, amateur in heart

– from Latin amator lover, from amare to love

• know each members, develop a non-instrumental and non-dominating relationship

• “we” instead of “you” and “I”• invite participation in programming• humane rehearsal schedule and realistic

performance expectation• stage etiquette• share the podium• …

Fazit

• As perfect music is inaudible, ideal conducting is invisible

• make music and make sense of music

• make music and make friends with music– „Vom Herzen, möge

es wieder zu Herzen gehen“ (Beethoven, Missa solemnisop. 123)