Old Question Actualized by Sound Recordings: What is a Piece of Music in Narrowest Sense?
By the beginning of XX century, German writer Walter Benjamin was impressed by the processes of removing outer layer from art via technology, which he in his essay “Piece of Art in the Century of Technical Reproduction” considered, before all, on the example of visual arts, more precisely photography and movie. In this essay he introduces notions of “auratic way of existence” which referrers to a piece of art itself, embodied in it’s idea – the inner layer, and of “secularized ritual” as it’s outer layer, presentation, in the form of social and, in general, life context in which the piece of art is received. With technology, for the first time purely artistic impact of art could have been experienced without a “performing ritual”, as Walter Benjamin writes:
“/…/ technical reproduction of a piece of art for the first time emancipates it from it’s parasitic existence inside of the ritual.”
In quotation from the beginning of this chapter Hesse feels that music should not be listened or conveyed separated from live performances and some wider context inside of which that interpretation takes place − that is, independently from presentation. Benjamin agrees:
“When, namely,with appearance of the first really revolutionary reproductive device, photography (in the same time with birth of scientific socialism), art felt incoming of crisis, and which finally after hundred years became obvious, it reacted by teaching of l’art pour l’art-a, which is theology of art. From there then followed one negative theology in the form of idea of “pure” art, which not only rejects every social function, but also every identification through presentation. /…/ And it is of decisive importance that auratic way of existence never completely falls out of it’s ritual function. In other words: the unique value of a “real” piece of art is based on a ritual in which it had it’s starting and first functional value.”
Benjamin doesn’t mention music, however everything said applies to it even more. So while Benjamin recognizes that technical reproduction emphasizes the purely artistic – which he calls auratic existence – he still calls the absence of a ritual “a negative theology” and refuses that a piece of art has value outside of it’s “parasiting” in the ritual; he asserts that a piece of art can not be properly understood and appreciated outside of that ritual.
What is basically said is that outer layer of a piece constitutes a part of its inner value. But what would then be my experience as a child when I listened to the records of most famous classical music, like Beethoven's 5th and Mozart's 40th symphonies? After Benjamin, such listening did not give me insight in “unique value” of these works, because in order to have that insight it is necessary for me to take part in a cult which gave birth to them – theirs live performance.
But still, although obviously stripped of original ritual, these compositions completely impressed me and meant to me probably the same as for anyone who ever heard them, and I’d say I understood them as well as if I have hared them on a concert.
Simply, it is untrue that a ritual consists a part of the value of a piece. Those who say otherwise, are referring to something that is simply not heard, and therefore not music. A piece of lower artistic value will remain such through all rituals and vice versa. After all, how would these attitudes stand a comparison with literature, or painting? Obviously they wouldn’t. Benjamin doesn’t mention that in his own field – writing – there is obviously no ritual, that is, a piece of art always exists exclusively “auratically”, and he sees nothing bad in it. Is it important if a book is written by hand, by a type writer or on a computer? No. Words constitute the piece of art. Although one may attend reading sessions in some social situation, in literature there never existed inherent “social interactions”. Pieces of art can be presented in different ways, but the piece itself remains equated with its form. Why can’t we, as in these arts, make clear also in music what the final result is, beyond means? Beauty needs nothing outside of itself to show itself – no presentation, no performer, no context at all, apart from our nature Vic-a-verse which it is beautiful. This is why it is interesting in various presentations, or with no presentation at all; a good piece of music will be equally beautiful used as a background in some commercial, on concert, or without any presentation – listened from the record, with no context - at home, from “an armchair”.
One of the most concrete ways of neglecting the fact that a ritual is in the function of musical beauty and not vice-versa, is found among performing musicians themselves. “Only he has fun” say people on a rock concert when a drummer gets carried away soloing. It is very interesting beating the drums, but listening to the sound of it is something else. The same phenomenon can be found in all musical scenes, including electronic instrumental music, where people who like micro-chips and machines can be exalted only because music is made with machines they know and are intimate with. Again, they are not perceiving how good music is as music. Music as beauty and music as activity are not the same. And beauty functions, shows itself, principally independent of what is outside of it – that is one of the firm messages of this chapter. Aesthetic experience is completely there, and a value of a composition is completely defined, from the composition itself. If this is not acknowledged, that is if a ritual itself is promoted in a part of a piece of art, we are subverting the aim of creating pieces of as great beauty, perfection and splendor as possible, and then also the aim of the artistic scene itself and the ritual itself for which beauty is always a base. Presentation and ritual are important, because art doesn’t come down to aesthetic experience, and outer layer, social layer is needed. But it is important those things not to be mixed with purely aesthetic qualities of a piece.
Musical records offered aesthetic experience and musical composition in pure shape. Sound recordings, for the first time, transcend any particular way of presentation or usage of music - what other arts like literature and painting had from the very beginnings. We can reach for and listen to music as we can reach for and read a book. And that is very important, because of perfecting the cult of musical beauty and respecting the aim of musical art. Technology made us concentrate on essence, better understand music. Aural presence purified artistic role of sound in music, emphasizing its esoteric side of conveying atmospheres and emotions. Stripped of the performers and concrete presentation, listener concentrates only on the actual impact of music and on what composer actually says, so he will presumably be more receptive of both effect and formal structure of the piece. Hi-Fi devices made us more aware of the composition itself. Now when technology has made break-troughs, we must not anymore hide the fact, that ways of presentation have nothing to do with intrinsic value of compositions.
Herman Hesse continues in his “Stephen Wolf”:
“He observed my sufferings with true pleasure, he turned the damned buttons and adjusted sheet-metal funnel. Laughing he continued to release into the space the twisted, soulless, poisoned music. Laughing he told to me: – Please, no pathos! By the way, have you noticed the Ritardando? Brilliant idea, isn't’ it? Come one, inpatient man, let the thought of this Ritardando penetrate in you – do you hear the basses, they step like gods – and let this idea of old Handel penetrate your heart and calm it! Listen, small man, without pathos and sneer, how behind indeed hopelessly idiotic veil of this ridiculous device solemnly passes distant image of this godly music! Be careful, you can learn something by the way. Take notice how this mad sound tube seemingly does something most stupid, unnecessary and forbidden in the world, and how music played somewhere is, without any choice, stupidly and crudely, and with that miserably distorted, thrown in alien space – and still it is not able to destroy the ancient spirit of this music /…/ Listen well, small men, you need that! So, open your ears! That’s the way.”
While Herman Hesse acknowledges that lack of live performance does not lessen artistic idea, he can not accept that fact. And again he does not ask himself how comes than in his art – literature, nothing similar exists and everything evolves around the writers idea.
The things is, that he, in accordance with what Benjamin wrote, was accustomed to tie a piece of art for concert performance and everything that goes with it – and we can assume that Hesse had a lot of good memories from those “performance rituals” – while for the listening from the records he confusedly declares that technology which reproduces musical piece, although incapable of damaging the idea itself “…only proves its own confused technique and production without any spirit!” He simply isn’t used to reach for music on the same way as he reaches for the books – from a home armchair, and is not used to conceive music as a sort of literature from a shelf.
We can only say that thinkings of both Hesse and Benjamin come from what is conveyed by an aphorism from introductory page of this book: “we think in general, but we live in detail”. People, although they comprehend the essence, can not without what’s not that essence – they do not want to get free of non-essential. All Hesse's reasonings and conclusions have sense only in the eyes of the one who shares his habits and way of life; after all, he himself is aware of this. We can see this from the fact that he nowhere tries to argument any of his statements. Those lines are directed solely to his colleagues by experience, what I am obviously not, grown up with Hi Fi devices and enjoying electronic music.
But people who refuse “Hi Fi” music exist today still. Many audiences, musicians and musical critics and journalists insist that musical art is connected with technical mastery of live performing on an instrument and such mastery is an essential part of this art. This is reflected in composer John Williams recently writing a concert for a horn and saying that a horn player is displaying his mastery of an instrument by his ability to provoke different atmospheres and emotions with it, express himself with it, rather than through some technical mastery of an instrument in traditional sense. A musical critic, from whose article I learned of this, called this “something I would object”. Or when I once took part in a discussion on a Internet forum about classical music, and suggested that electronic sounds can greatly enhance our command over sound textures and therefore musical experience, I got the following answer from one of the participants: “it’s not about the sounds an instrument produces, it’s about what you can do with it”. Traditionally, music was before all immediate craft – it had to be. But art music since always was before all a thought. Today when technology has completely purified musical experience, we should view music as what it always essentially was – a spiritual language, language in sound, and not something that humans physically do to produce it.
However, many people feel confused and repulsed when put in front of a pure aesthetic experience that sound recordings brought. Again, it is thought that music has to include direct communication between people. This is another example of how little awareness there is of what piece of art is in the narrowest sense – its self-contented nature. One of the ways to refer to this quality of self-contentedness, is exactly to point towards unnecessarity of direct social communication between artist and the audience. It is precisely this lack of direct social interaction, this transcending of need for direct social interaction, that is one of the sources of power of art, and that make it both a cure and a delight. This can be seen easily from books, that connect us with long ago dead minds or distant people. Due to such transcendence of social, art presents a form of communication between people on a level more mystic, more spiritual then social – certainly not a replacement for it nor we will say more important then it – but one of the ways of connecting with “eternity and God”. It populates our lonely and void surroundings with rich company, the pleasant spirits, real spirits. Thanks to pieces of art we break the barriers of our being that are dividing us from the beings of others and the rest of the world, and time itself, and have the experience of which Erich From much spoke about, of overcoming our prison of individuality. Piece of art escapes time and space and makes people communicate by theirs spiritual presence, by theirs minds, although they don’t have to be physically on the same place.
And what makes art powerful, is that it achieves this aim without need for direct social interaction. Social activities only evolve around a piece of art, but do not constitute it. Mixing social interaction somewhere in there is wrong – although social part, as we have said, always goes with a piece of art on this or that way, it doesn’t constitute a part of a piece of art; what’s more, the more direct social interaction a piece of art needs in order to make its impact, the less art it is. A piece of art should inspire, initiate, fire up social interactions, and not need them to fire up it. People come on concerts to share together theirs delight with creations of the artist(s), and not to actually in a way make art by being there. Good music will be good in many different situations and rituals.
Simply, a piece of art is a thing; and a beautiful thing. That beauty is its power, its magical property that make it something different from other material objects. Artistic object touches us from inside, means something to us, which overcomes its physical appearance. It is actually not a material object, but a channel of communication between soul and soul, mind and mind; like soul-stones, pieces of art capture something that is not of the matter; they are like magical object scattered around the world and that we stumble upon and suddenly remain spellbound with the power contained within.
We could wonder, why these simple facts prolong for so long to be accepted? Well probably, the reason may be unpleasant for many traditional music lovers and musicians. Despite all the achievements of classical music, traditional musicians always deep down doubted in the power of the music language. They probably essentially don’t believe that music can be understood as a spiritual language in the first place; that is why so much emphasis is given on craft/practical/technical, sport-like aspects of music. Music was always seen as a kind of a sport, and “meaning” is eventually somewhere there, but not too much. But such notion is unfair, since musical language is in many ways the most powerful, the supreme artistic language. Then again, a number of people who indeed understand music was never too great, since it is an abstract art with no direct connections with materials of life. It is much easier to be impressed, and to analyze and speak about skill of interpretation, than with what music is actually saying as a language. That even people from artistic musical circles often don’t understand musical language too well, was pointed out by Stravinsky, who for example complained that the scenography of ballet Rite Of Spring had nothing to do with actual meaning and inspiration of the work.