Some Common Causes of Compositional Shortcomings

We can say that musical piece is naturally developed, if it stops as soon as it can stop, and continues only if it must. Natural music works like that: the initial idea instantly catches our imagination, and then tends not to prolong artificially, but on the contrary, to finish itself off - following composer's feelings about when the unity of the piece is achieved, when the whole message has been conveyed. After every sentence – every musical phrase – something is said, but also something is asked; that is, something is expected to be said further. That asked question, that premonition, rings in our consciousness and demands the answer; because of this musical phrase cannot be stopped; only when a phrase that doesn’t ask a question, a musical sentence is finished.

A good piece ask these questions all the time, keeping us in state of wanting to hear more, still not being satisfied with what is said; we feel there is more to be said until the natural end. So every next move answers on a question with which previous move left us. It is continuing to say to us what we want to hear. If a piece continues after the listener has no premonitions of the continuation and no questions to be answered, then that feeling of forced out, dull prolongation appears, so often in classical music. This problem has driven Stravinsky to say his famous sentence: "the problem with most of the pieces, is that they finish much after the end ".

So development is not there to be as huge and complicated as it can be, but on the contrary, to round and finish main idea as soon and as simple as possible. From here follows that development can only be as evolved as the strength of the starting idea allows. It also follows that repetitiveness (when we get again and again one and the same instead of more), or understatement (we are left wanting for more) are to be avoided. Especially the former - repeating a single phrase (eventually freely altered on the way) – was abused during XX century. Without the vision of the whole, number of repetitions and the nature of eventual variations of the repeated pattern is basically arbitrary. Especially often abused are rhythmic patterns, usually played with aggressive sounds, supposedly to serve for dancing, or more soft sounds when they aim for some kind of mental trance. This should be differed from structured repetition, that can be present in a composition - but number of repetitions is commanded with the rest of the composition, as well as by the nature of the repeated phrase.

The most common causes for not working in natural form are the following:

Partial Progressions

Compositions with partial progression give the sense of constantly moving somewhere; it's meaning in one moment is one thing, to continue to completely different meaning with next development. It’s like a voyage composed of many different ideas. With partial flow, composition does not evolve it’s meaning, but promiscuously strives away. This we will call partial flow, as opposed to total flow. We could try to describe difference between partial and total flow like this: first, let’s ask ourselves what is a flow in general, as opposed to lawless frippery “progression”? Let's put on the table any sequence of notes; our task is to find a sequence of notes that continues them logically. This initial arbitrary group of notes we will call a set of the flow; the development is the progression that evolves in some direction. Now, composing means constantly finding next developments for previously stated group of notes. In total flow, every time all the notes that were stated are again and again viewed as a new set to be continued; where with partial flow, only more recent notes are viewed as what should be carried further away. So in total flow the starting set remains in the logic of the piece to the end (that’s where its name comes from), and a composer and a listener never forget the very beginning. In partial flow, a composer and a listener after a while agree to "forget" where they were, throwing off certain amount of previously said, so despite a piece is fluent in all it’s parts looked on shorter spans, it is not an utter whole – it is partially lawless, to a measure just a heap of ideas. Essentially, partial flow is just a collection of separate pieces, artificially put together to form a false whole.

Stockhausen:”…and that is a sort of French-Italian tradition to write a lot of small movements. Ligeti still does it today. I call this "cookie music" - they write small cookies. What is necessary is to build one musical composition which has an ever-expanding arch, because that expands our sense of evolution, of development. And that is very, very important.”

A good example of both these kinds of progressions is Jean Michel Jarre’s Magnetic Fields I. The piece begins with an idea in total progression, where over a polyrhythmic net of sparkling electric sounds comes chord progression that form a single long thought, composed from many steps; impacting us as almost as a single phrase. But after completing this first section, JM Jarre decides to take us on a sound voyage. He introduces some parts that don’t have much to do with the opening, so that a piece takes on a collage structure, like some wild musical journey. That is partial flow.

This lawlessness can be smoothened out so that it is partially hidden: this is why it is called partial flow, and not lawless flow – it is composed of passages that have total flow for themselves, and that are additionally smoothened out where they touch. Because of this smoothing, every moment of composition sounds flowing effortlessly, while still it does not create a real impression of the whole. In Magnetic Fields 1, JM Jarre did this smoothing with fade-ins and fade-outs; in classical music, there are melodic and harmonic methods, often sophisticated, to do this, so they can even completely hide those sharp transitions, at least to a less keen ear. Mozart sometimes used this technique. Having great number of melodic ideas, he didn’t always think how to connect them naturally, but was using partial progression to present them in a single piece.

His music was not universally admired. There were those who found it turgid, too complicated, hard to follow. Even such professionals as Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf (1739-1799), an eminent violinist and composer who on the whole admired Mozart, was worried. His conventional mind was shaken, even shocked, and he wrote: “I have never yet met with any composer who had such an amazing wealth of ideas. I could almost wish he were not so lavish in using them. He leaves his hearer out of breath, for hardly has he grasped one beautiful thought than another of greater fascination dispels the first, and this goes on throughout, so that in the end it is impossible to retain any of those beautiful melodies”. (We in the late XX century, with recordings and radio concerts in which Mozart is a staple of repertory, are apt to forget that in the 1780’s even a professional musician could not be sure that the first time he was hearing a work might not also be the last. There were not that many concerts. A new piece of music had to be grasped immediately…). From “The Lives of Great Composers” by Harold C. Schoenberg

Take notice of the usage of the word “dispels”. A next beautiful melody should not dispel, but affirm the previous one, so that they all together at the end form a single idea of that piece. What Dittersdorf tries to say, is that Mozart's piece which he comments on is not functional as a whole: “impossible to retain” – read a piece is not a real organic whole. “I could almost wish he were not so lavish in using them” – read, I like if he would not be so arbitrary in using them.

Here we also see how musical institutions (now embodied in the book from which the quotation is taken) take us away from truth. They assure us how with time, and advancement of understanding, all the genius of the author has been understood and that the criticisms from his time were the result of misunderstanding. In this book the author wants to persuade us how seventeen century listener was “conventionally minded” and was in fear he will never again hear the music. But the truth is, these first reactions are usually truthful and listeners forever share those impression. Such opinion of Mozart was repeated hundred years after by Debussy, who used to say that Mozart made a “bad influence on the world of music”.

In relation to this subject, I encountered somewhere on the Internet a case of a guy admiring a singular moment of the piece more than the whole piece, and his sister being angry about it… how can he like one part more than the whole? He naively says that it is because she is musically educated so knows to appreciate the construction of the whole piece, while he as an ordinary listener and can not. But he as an “ordinary listener” was probably more strict than she was as an “educated listener”. Maybe he admires one part more than the whole because that whole is not standing true to that single beautiful part, or else he would probably like the whole even more; so then, as in the case of some Mozart pieces, that part in isolation is more articulated, more worthy than the whole to which it belongs.

A masterpiece must be beautiful as a whole, to than recursively reveal beauties of it’s parts. Through whole diversity, a sole thought must run through the whole piece.

While there is nothing wrong with more casual developments, through which a musician can present much of his ideas, not having to think about full functionality of the whole, total flow of music must be recognized and appreciated above anything.

Pop music is in this sense often purer than classical music. Because canonic frame is simple – usually chorus-verse – pop musicians often achieve the true functionality of the whole, total flow, that make pop songs be true pieces of art, gem-like. Problem with pop music is over-simplicity; but if this purity of pop music is wedded with certain complexity, the result are the best pieces of music.

Filling in canonic frames

Characteristic of classical frame of mind, but also XX century recording industry (two sided album format). Composer is expected to fill-in certain length and/or structure so he strives away from natural form.

Ambitiousness that causes a work not to come out or not to be finished

If very ambitious, in any direction – even the rightest – composer, even the most powerful and devoted one, can fall short. One critic from the beginning of XIX century describes his impressions of the premiere of Beethoven's Eroica symphony with these words:

This long composition, extremely difficult of performance, is in reality a tremendously expanded, daring and wild fantasia. It lacks nothing in the way of startling and beautiful passages, in which the energetic and talented composer must be recognized; but often it loses itself in lawlessness… This reviewer belongs to Mr. Beethoven’s sincerest admirers, but in this composition he must confess he finds much that is glaring and bizarre, which hinders greatly one’s grasp of the whole, and a sense of unity is almost completely lost”. From “The Lives of Great Composers” by Harold C. Schoenberg

Wide audience also found Eroica alien, and once (was it a premiere?) in the middle of it’s interpretation a cry could be heard: “I give a dime, only for you to stop!” They say Beethoven heard this cry, although he was already a bit deaf by that time. He continued with interpretation, but on the end he left angered, followed by a scarce applause.

Later and in our time Eroica is discussed differently. In the book from which the quote is taken it is said how critics of that time “recognized the power of the Eroica, but very few could grasp its stringent logic and organization”. But I myself, when hearing it for the first time, experienced it on this same way, and to that impression I believe now when I almost memorized by heart first 7-8 minutes of Eroica. At my opinion, the old critics precisely described problems of Eroica. Not only the impression of the whole, unity of the work, was harmed, but usage of the words “tremendously expanded” speaks of rambling quality, and “wild” about it’s frippery, lawless character. In the words of this long ago dead critic I recognized the exact impression I had while, as a musically innocent listener, listened to Eroica for the first time. It must be Eroica before all that made Rossini accuse Beethoven (and a few others in the same breath) for “artificial devices” they use in their’s compositions. Beethoven certainly had an idea about what he wants, probably based around his ideas about concentration; but whatever Beethoven wanted to achieve with this organization, it is simply not functioning too well. Eroica is tiresomely long and frippery - which however could be remedied since it “lacks nothing in the way of beautiful passages”.

Particularly common ambition is tendency towards epic proportions – “pencil-happy” state of mind. It is conscious (or not?) drive to make compositions as lengthy and developed as possible, length and development as a kind of a fetish. For example, Anton Bruckner harmed the laws of dynamics and naturalness of developments by prolonged meanders. Bruckner wanted to produce the sense of spaciousness and grandiosity, to make listener feel lost in super-ornamented piece, but instead he hurt a few of the aesthetic laws. He prolongs the piece for the sake of prolonging.

Overloading compositions with ideas beautiful for themselves but which do not belong to the main idea of the piece

On this way composer spoils the basic idea and diverts attention away from it, lessening the aesthetic impression of harmonious whole and a completed message. In order development to stand true to the potential of the initial idea, one has to say exactly what one has to say and skip everything that is not closely related with main idea; omit everything that is not inevitable for the piece to be a whole. There has to exist a clear idea about what is currently being said and concentrate only on that, and eliminate all other on the first look fitting lines, but which actually don’t belong there. And what on the first glance could look to belong there, could be shown never to should have been there, or that it should be in some other part of the composition.

Tendency to introduce unrelated and free digressions and ornaments often appears exactly at the place of the most gifted composers, who often introduce themes and developments beautiful for themselves, but which, in the sense of the whole, only make it uglier because they draw attention away from the main line. A piece then produces an impression of self-damaging; it ends more watered-down then if a composer remained on the basic line.

Tendency to make a kind of story through music, where musical composition is perceived in an analogy with non-musical structures, such as literary or movie stories, while over-ruling innate musical logic

This is sometimes found in classical music, usually in what is called symphonic poems, or even in some symphonies (ex. Gustav Mahler).

Faulty “musical literature”

Classical composers often tried to be dramatic writers through music. The idea of music to tell a story like a book, and a composer to be writer's colleague was especially prominent during romantic period. Wagner was going down these lines with his concept of Gesamtkunst-werk, a concept of unified art work of all arts – it would be called multimedia art today. Music was here expected to stem directly from libretto, from words that describe dramatic action. In Wagner’s operas every single dramatic motion is commented through music; “psychological changes of the character, their’s motivations, drives, desires, loves, hates are all underlined” (From “The Lives of Great Composers” by Harold C. Schoenberg). But is music right medium to express this?

The answer is neither no nor yes. Music can express a dramatic movement; yet it has it's own, purely musical logic. Writing music that is meant to function down the lines of literal stories is a common source of faultiness of many classical pieces. Critics of Wagner (who was taken very seriously) were talking about characterization in his music, that comes close to none other – than to Shakespeare. Romantics were going too far in their’s understanding of music as a kind of literature. Richard Strauss composed symphonic poems which described just about everything, from ordinary family life to Nietzsche's philosophy.

This growing need to see music like literature brought a tide of program music, soon to be coupled by big mess and a lot of embarrassing mystifications, and often silly exaggerations in reading into meanings of musical peaces. So Wagner saw the conflict between a man and a women in Beethoven's Eroica, which is inspired by medieval warship and conquests. One critic explained that Chopin describes hitting his own head with a hammer in one part of his piece.

This longing of composers to be musical writers and inclination of serious lovers of music to see music as a kind of literature is still very alive, especially at the place of those close to romanticism. One Serbian composer tells how, while he was young and getting ready to become a composer, well known Serbian writer Danilo Kis explained to him how he is his “colleague, and I grew from pride”. But why a musician wants to be a writer?

It is clearly from wish to speak as concretely and about as humanly and historically important things as possible. Only beauty, and nothing else, as it is wonderful and great, is also looking not very important. People think of politics, history, science, religion, philosophy as more important.

The most pure in beauty is music. Painting and poetry have more ability to be a mixture of beauty and something “more important”. And literature, starting with dramas such as Shakespeare’s all the way to novels of Dostoevsky, is of all arts the most close to what people consider important. A man of pen is not only an artist, only a creator of beauty; he uses artistic language to tell politics, history, philosophy. This is why books are being read also from the side of those who have no great interest in arts, and that is why of all artist it is writers who most often give names to streets. Therefore all other artist take writers as models in this respect and want to be able to, like them, tell stories about most important things. Musicians of all epochs had some inclination to unite the divine, pure beauty of their’s art with ability of literature to overcome pure beauty for it’s own sake.

Of course it is a dream to make music more able to speak, but by pursuing it one must preserve all it’s primary values, namely the perfection of form. While the composer tends to apply that language on as human and concrete themes as possible, if he harms primary values of music he betrays his art. Since always this drive to make a music piece into a book were very contrived. It started with Berlioz and symphonie fantastique. These tries to make music into some literature in sound mystified music and made it into a pretentious, incomprehensible “literature” in sound. Philosopher Schopenhauer, who was also a music lover and amateur player of flute (and a part-time critic), and whose views on musical art left big impression on Wagner (who even sent him a copy of his works for evaluation) called Wagner “a musician without ears”, and even saying things like “I admire Wagner as a poet, but a musician he is not”. Many “composers-writers” even delivered stories for their’s music, like Gustav Mahler, who however retracted them later.

Free improvisation

Listener is expected to follow composer on his wild trips and moods, instead of following articulated music. An example is free jazz. This is simply lazy music and can be accepted only as superficial entertainment.

Tired with music, composers stop recognizing the true, original impact of their’s basic musical ideas

Composers become more and more receptive on some secondary ideas; less and less they see the basis and more and more the evolution. On that way they depart from divinity and lose themselves in elaborations and again their’s composition loses organic unity, the feature of growing out of itself, because they stop feeling the original impact of individual parts.

This is maybe the primary error, at least with honest and experienced musicians. This often happens when a composer spends a lot of time trying to perfect his composition. It looks to him that it can be done better, the there is more potential, but then he loses that basic force of the piece, he partially forgets that on which everything started, which means he tends to give advantage to secondary above primary, and so he ruins the piece. Maybe one of the hardest things for a gifted composer is to preserve this freshness of spirit and innocence of perception while he tries to finish his work. It’s very difficult to keep this freshness of spirit, this contact with original meanings while working on a complex whole, because a man gets tired of his own ideas and becomes unreceptive towards them, while – often rightfully so – he tries to perfect them. Searching for that precious final form of a work, that glimmers somewhere in it’s present shape, he however never finds it but forgets what is already there. And all of this can happen without him noticing it. But it will be noticed by any musically sensitive child.

In the eyes of experienced musicians, tired of their’s jobs, the distances between beautiful and ugly, good and bad, natural and unnatural become smaller. So a little child can notice an illogical or crude place, and an experienced artist not. He often does not see the differences in quality and excitability of certain phrases; he loses sensitiveness on atmospheric nuances and so the aesthetic compass in his own work. He ruins top ideas unnecessarily mixing them with average; he doesn’t emphasize the most beautiful places, or even subdues them to less interesting ones; he writes long, ambiguous overtures; embeds beautiful partitures with uncaptivating ones, makes premonitions of great themes with boring long variations, add ornaments etc. and wants to think that he rounded the piece and aesthetically enrichened it. What he actually achieved is lowering it’s beauty. Composers often under-rate impact of their’s owns themes to an innocent ear. They introduce work-outs and additions that sound to them interesting, but that actually spoil the splendor of the basic idea to the innocent ear.

Finally, doing music their whole lives, exactly because they are too close to it, looking in the same spot for too long, musicians lose sight of a lot of meaning of their's own music.

Gustav Mahler: This is what has just happened to me in the _Scherzo, with one passage which I had already given up and cut out, but then after all I included it on an inserted sheet. And now I can see that it is the most essential, the most powerful passage of the whole thing… From “Mahler: His Life, Work, & World”

Audiences also reacted the most on this movement. Brahms, whole his life engrossed in bulky musical structures, in his sixties, after one Italian singer (Alis Barbi) singed his love songs from his youth, stormed into the room and exclaimed: “I didn’t know that my songs are so beautiful! If I were young, I would write only love songs!” He completely lost consciousness of his own musical ideas.

In extreme case, composer completely loses any aesthetic sense; saturated with musical beauty – which initially drawn him to the world of music – beauty becomes irrelevant to him. For such a composer we can say that he ate music, and what we hear is burping. Often he thinks that he overcame the basic level of taste and beauty. Indeed there are different levels of musical taste and beauty, but the case may be that the composer aroused not above basic sensitivity, but above any sensitivity whatsoever.