Enjoy reading? Consider buying the framework as an e-book on Gumroad:
https://sonatasecrets.gumroad.com/l/howmusicworks

13. The Extra-Musical-Contextual Level: Program as Experience Booster

Up until here we have only dealt with the actual music itself. Even its conventional forms on the structural level have only had an impact in what they mean by themselves and as part of the purely musical context of style. But these forms often come with names that provide titles for the music in question. A Symphony or a Sonata not only hints that the form has a relation to other musical works in applicable style and history, but actually provides the smallest amount of extra-musical context by explicitly grouping these works together. I piece titled “Symphony” comes with large hidden potential relations and associations to the big symphonies in the canon, those by Beethoven, Mahler and more, even before the first note has sounded! That is, when we include the extra-musical context in the equation. I think it’s important to make the point that music should for some purposes be evaluated without this, because that is how we can come closest to capturing its purest form and content in description, commentary and analysis. But any and all actual musical performances and experiences are unavoidably tied to some classes of extra-musical context, and sometimes makes use of other sources as optional extra classes as well.

Titles

Let’s start with the unavoidable classes, of which we already have seen the role of the Title. Similar to painted art, even a piece with no title makes a point by the absence of a title. To take a musical example, the Norwegian composer Grieg composed collections of short “Lyric pieces,” and some of them are called “Albumblatt” or “Album leaf,” meaning just a page out of a book. But this also comes with unavoidable associations – it’s probably a short piece that has some amount of freedom in its character.

The generic forms as titles have been popular throughout history. Other than Sonatas and Symphonies we have Suites, Themes with Variations and Concertos. And then we have titles that are forms to a looser degree but still say quite a lot about the type of music and/or musical character due to historical conventions: Prelude, Etude, Fantasy, Fugue, Impromptu, Intermezzo, Ballade, Arietta, Scherzo, Nocturne, Romance, Overture, Poeme. Not to speak of all kinds of dances as foundations for a musical presentation: Waltz, Mazurka, Polonaise, Minuet, Bourrée, Gigue, Saraband, Ländler, Tango, etc.

Finally we have the option of a completely Individual title that is not part of larger specific tradition of forms, most extensively used in the French tradition by Debussy and Ravel. Such painting titles that they use work by pointing our Imagination in a clear direction. Then when we hear the music, we make connections of whatever features within the music to this domain where our imagination is directed. For example in Debussy’s “Jardins sous la pluie” it is easy for us to hear the staccato notes as rain drops hitting the ground. If the title hadn’t been there, there would be no guarantee that our imagination would have gone there by itself. We might as well have thought about tin soldiers doing an energetic dance, or nothing specific at all. This lies within the domain of the listener to decide or be persuaded in whatever way. People have different dispositions and preferences to how they hear and listen to music in regard to this. Some have a more active imagination than others, who in turn might be more open to purely musical-internal relations. This issue has its final solution within each single listener, which lies just outside of this framework.

The composer still has a privileged position, however. If you have composed something, you have the right to attach whatever context you wish to it, and some form of expectation is put on the listener to at least consider it. Most often, the context is very fitting if it was also the inspiration when composing it (like in “Jardins sous la pluie”). But the composer may change his mind after completing the work, like Beethoven who dedicated his 3rd Symphony to Napoleon only to tear away the dedication after the dedicee had declared himself emperor. Sometimes our culture changes and redeems previous contexts but lets the music survive, as with Wagner and his anti-Semitism.

Origins Context

This brings us naturally to the class of context that is included in a piece’s inception and history: that of the composer’s life circumstances, the purpose of composing it, the cultural, social and historic milieu around it, as well as the way it was received by its own time. The trend started by Beethoven of an independent artist creating art for the sake of expressing something artistic stands in contrast to earlier traditional ways that composers lived and worked, typically exemplified by J. S. Bach who wrote liturgic music for the church and Haydn who was employed by an aristocratic court. This trend has played an important role for our appreciation of music as art ever since (see also chapter 11): it gives a primary position to this kind of music because of that context, and Bach’s and Haydn’s music has entered into the canon somewhat artificially by playing their music in a way they did not themselves perhaps conceive of. For example Bach was “revived” by Felix Mendelssohn who performed the mass in B minor in 1829 for the first time in almost a century.

Music history is full of stories and anecdotes in this class of context because we are disposed to regard anything that involves people in the personal and social realm as highly worthy of interest (which is also why gossip is popular). Take the “scandalous” premiere of Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” where the audience according to the story almost started rioting after hearing the irregular rhythms – it is now an essential part of the context of that piece that still has an effect on modern audiences. Or all quasi-self-biographical accounts approaching myth status of composers writing music that seems to suit their own lives as if it were a dramatization: Mozart’s Requiem for his own death; Beethoven’s Piano sonata Op. 110 about an episode of sickness and recovery; Chopin’s “Revolutionary” Etude commenting on his compatriots’ struggles back in Poland; Paganini’s virtuosic showpieces as evidence of the devil himself; any one of Mahler’s symphonies… the list goes on and on. These stories work amazingly well because humans are configured to care a lot about other people, and music that fits onto a narrative about the actual composer just seems extra fitting.

Notwithstanding these extreme cases, there are extra-musical parts of the context of genres that are important for how we approach the music (see further about situational aspects below). The symphonic tradition grew from Baroque ensembles to the Viennese court orchestras and then expanded tandem with the rise of modern concert halls. When, in this history, a symphony is composed says something about the music that is not fully discernible in the music itself. Piano music was probably at its apex in the 19th century as a natural component of the living room in most bourgeoisie homes. Similarly the genres of opera, oratorio, string quartets, wind instruments etc., all have their own particular history through the centuries, which still comes with music of their respective genre in our time. There are many levels to this class of context ranging from the composer to the world around him and from the moment of inception through time all the way to present day. But let’s get back to the level of the actual piece again to consider some other, much more tangible types of contexts.

More than Titles

There is an inherent field of tension whenever there are larger amounts of context imposed on music than titles and small bits of inspiration. There are no definite rules of when the music can be divorced from its context successfully (surely Mozart’s “Kegelstadt” trio and probably Scriabin’s theosophic mysticism) and when the context is essential for the artistic value of the music (arguably but not definitively Ravel and Debussy’s impressionism and Liszt’s poetic piano music), so every music event needs to handle it on an individual basis.

Further down the road in this direction comes music that has a program attached to it in a more detailed manner, and here we have a few different types of interesting composites.

• Epigraph or Poem attached to the music, filling out the title

• Planned Programmatic intent running through the music, for example Berlioz’ Symphony fantastique, Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker, or Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf

• Song, with text emphasized and exemplified by the music, or in dialogue with it

• Opera and Oratorio, basically songs with orchestra for a wider range of dramatic and narrative expression

• Musical, a modern version of opera

• Film, where film music is more of a serving role to the visual drama, often musically not discursive in itself but rather made to emphasize desired emotional states.

The more context we add in this way like film with theater and visuals, the smaller part music accounts for in relation to the whole experience. Even with songs, some amount of attention is reserved for the text, and the total experience takes that into account. Song and film are beautiful art forms that can provide just as deep and meaningful experiences, but they are ever so slightly less musical than instrumental music. So let’s get back on track and use instrumental music as a good case for exploring the effect of musical experience in the following.

Situational and Other Aspects

The next class of context sources which is also unavoidable is that of the actual performance specificities (this includes recordings where the performance is split between the studio and the playback). We are now more firmly in the domain of Situational aspects as presented back in chapter 3, with the previous contexts as not directly pertinent to the music event, although importantly indirectly.

Human musicians play the music. If visible, they have certain clothes, hair styles and appearances. When heard they play on certain instruments, and with a certain personal touch or timbre that is recognizable to a certain extent. The venue of the performance looks a certain way and has lighting, stage, seats and curtains in a certain way. This might be easily disregarded as not being part of the music, but it is unavoidably part of the experience of listening to music at that moment. Special features that make attending a classical symphonic concert a memorable experience is to see the orchestra dressed up in black tie, to follow the dance-like expressive movements and postures of the conductor, and to hear the music sounding in a hall with exceptionally good acoustics.

Music can also be used for other purposes than solely for creating a musical experience, most importantly Commercial and Political ones. From the perspective of this framework we will call them Imposing contexts. If the primary purpose for a musical event is to persuade a prospective customer to buy a product, or a prospective voter to form an opinion, the music does not speak freely anymore. It can still be done with great effect, using both iconic coding of basic emotions as well as intrinsic coding of various cultural elements, but the music is fundamentally only a medium for that purpose.

A final type of imposing context is that of a Personal one. For example if a musician tells a story of hearing a piece of music in a special situation in their lives and having a special relation to that piece, this is a context that is not tied to the music in any other way than the particular musician and his or her life. But it can often provide a powerful experience for the audience when they hear the musician play the piece with this context in mind. And here the music is not hijacked the way it is with political or commercial purposes because the music still constitutes the primary purpose as itself. Another example would be a deceased person’s wish for a particular piece of music at his or her funeral: the musical experiences of the attending will be heavily affected by the context that the deceased had a special relation to that piece.