Función de producción portuarias: variables

Specific Bach-related examples are dealt with below in the Methodology, but it is worth noting that composers (who compose their solutions for their particular—and even sometimes self-imposed—problems) often choose to express themselves in the blunt tools of words. There is a view that music is best talked about in musical terms (e.g. by Stravinsky, quoted in Mitchell 1999: 113-4), and that composers should be confident to let their music do the talking for them. However, it is arguable that their status as composers does not privilege their opinions over anyone else's over their compositions, except in a

51

purely localised sense of how they might have derived musical materials or, more accurately, how they perceive they derived the material. Even then, a psychologist or musicologist might have further insights into motivations and reasonings which elude the composer. Some readily acknowledge their sources, such as Bartók who attributed his tone- clusters to the innovations of Henry Cowell in 1923 (Cooper 2015: 264). There is, however, something to be said for dividing composers into two camps, which is similar to views on the differences between English law and Scots law (see Palmer ed. 2001: 215). In this framework, one modus is based on precedent, and so composition becomes a question of reaction and explication against a previously acknowledged background; and on the other hand, there is the modus which is not overly anxious as to whether things have been tried, but is concerned with exploring matters with a particular principle in mind. Composers may well shift between the principle or precedent mode, but such notions can enhance any analytical discussions, and may be a useful prism through which to view Op. 48.

Burrowing away in the past (à la Holloway, see Hewett 2003: 250-1) can run the danger of merely crafting repetitious regurgitation. Holloway himself (in Griffiths 1985: 120) says that he does not simply want to do things that have been done before but do them in his own way, which is surprisingly similar to Brahms's approach according to the obituary by Schenker (Cook 2007: 55). Yet even formulaic music, based on the myriad Vivaldi-style sonatas that can be written in, say, F# major could have conversational and subversive potential. Scruton (2009: 221), talking of Samuel Beckett, suggests that it is the use of cliché that provides a sort of renewal, though his musical examples—Strauss, Berg and Ravel— might be said to offer just one particular avenue of hyper-romantic self-knowing (from the short period of the fin de siècle) at the end of a long line of experiments. The harmonic side- slips in Don Quixote (1898) do not, to my mind, bring fresh insight to cadences. Cervantes's picaresque creation demands more subversive treatment than Strauss's picturesque depictions of parts of the story which ultimately cave in to a smug tonality. Indeed, Scruton fails to mention that the clichés which abound in Mozart can possess the same questioning potentiality of Beckett. Mozart's notes satisfy the legal requirements (of voice- leading and progression) as well as the subversive, underground movement of design which is a hallmark of artistry rather than artisanship. The Andante from the Prague Symphony of 1787 (with repeats in both sections) is a parallel to Beckett's 1953 Waiting for Godot

52

(described by its author as a 'tragicomedy'). Vivian Mercier's famous review of Beckett's play said, "nothing happens, twice" (The Irish Times, 18 February, 1956, p. 6) and Mozart, too, makes the 15-minute enactment of the Prague Symphony perfectly diverting yet curiously indecipherable and confoundingly meaningless. Kafka's oppressively unintelligible Prague was, arguably, similar to Mozart's, for the melodies are conspicuously trivial and have a memorable forgettability (arguably a similar quality in some of Bax's music) which Muir encapsulates well over Walter Scott: "I experience the full shock of his imagination, but in a while I find it has made no lasting impression" (1949: 64). Yet amidst the procedural nothingness is an undiluted enjoyment in music-making. As Marva Dawn puts it in her 1999 book on worship, this type of presence is (in the best sense) a "waste of time", for this is not subject to cost-based analysis, and permits the seemingly localised, ephemeral and inconsequential to speak incommensurably and universally.

The other approach to originality is to shut oneself off from listening, as Ives says he did in order to work "more naturally" (1973: 137). Yet among Ives' formative influences was a considerable spell studying music at Yale University as well as, unusually, being taught about Bach when only 15 (see Ives 1973: 264). While it may be true that he was studiously ignorant of parallel European developments, he still had a large reservoir of standard classical music to draw on in forging his particular voice. All composers work, to some extent, in ignorance and it is not surprising that certain features will crop up that have mutated in a similar fashion despite no seeming contact between them. The composition of

Op. 48 has witnessed occasions where I later discover a peculiar resonance with another

piece of music of which I had been unaware. This does not of itself prove that the precise piece in question is 'good', merely that the approach has been tackled similarly.

Ligeti in 1983 (see Whittall 1999: 296) already admits that, rather than offering linear outworking of musical ideas, he loves "allusion, equivocal utterances, things that have many interpretations, uncertainties, background meanings". Berio though, in 1985, prefers to explore a "coherent discourse that unfolds and develops simultaneously on different levels" (Whittall 1999: 300). These two approaches are not mutually exclusive though, for composers, like Henze, see some incompatibility as a productive force, saying (in 1996) that

53

he sustains "a double life, a contradiction, a dualism within myself" (Whittall 1999: 318). Herbert Marcuse asserts that art "creates another universe of thought and practice against and within the existing one" (in Chaikin 1972: 23), which is also noted in the title of Stephen Spender's autobiography World within World (1951). This dual existence of both being 'in the world' but not 'of the world' has a prophetic and inspirational dimension that is appealing, for it allows musicians' new worlds to exist in a way that can critique other music while remaining part of the fabric of discourse. As Cook shows in his book on Schenker (2007: 30), music theory might masquerade as coldly objective, but its mystical dimension can aid musicians in grappling with deeper truths about music and themselves.

John Donne's comment "no man is an island", from his Meditation XVII (Donne 2012: 315), is echoed in Fred Everett Maus's article in Rethinking Music (ed. Cook & Everist 1999: 171-192) which talks of "worlds" in a discussion entitled 'Musical Unity'. Yet Steiner's image of the corona in an eclipse helps identify that difference is critical to perceiving identity (1989: 175). If true identity involves discovering some entity's uniqueness, then it can never have an identical partner. Sacks's analysis of the dignity of difference further suggests that identity involves a promise of relationship between non-same things. That connections can be made between differing territories (as shown in the references between works and composers throughout Op. 48) opens up fresh avenues for further exploration and establishes that many aspects play a part in contextualising a work. Although competing notions of Werktreue and Texttreue arise, it is worth noting that some 50 years ago Alfred Brendel called for these terms to be banished from discourse (2001: 26) as being unhelpful and even destructive. Yet the manifestation of originality is deeply embedded in music through the peculiar relationships which emerge as a piece unfolds, so how the 'text' is arrived at and what a 'work' is or does are important parts of the discussion.

This chapter drew together various matters which showed that music's building blocks are extremely potent. Appreciating that the material itself often suggests ways forward does not make a composer redundant but affirms the importance of judgement in artistic endeavours.

54

Section IV Research Context

Chapter 3

Text

In this chapter I explore how texts can accommodate a range of meanings, and suggest ways of understanding interrelationships which can provoke further compositions and creative performances.