Universal Level of Music

On one occasion, I was playing Beethoven's ningth sympony in Walter Carlos arrangement, when my mom entered the room. She listened to the main theme for a while, and said: “This is beautiful”. But when Beethoven progressed in classical developments, she commented: “I don’t like this classical stuff, just that what was heard a moment before”. So she was intuitively aware of the established classical sound, and that nameless, purely musical this. Classical music is not equal to this transcendental substance of music. In every of established sounds there is the universal musical substance, and the stylistic and other chicles and canons of that field. Musical styles, broader or narrower, be it classical, jazz, Indian music, or be it sub-styles within these styles, or ultimately canonic forms – such as sonata, fugue or something third – all of that are superficial aspects applied over musical substance, which is independent of all these stylistic and canonic formal attributes. It is always possible to write music that is outside of all established styles. We talk about western classical, Indian, Chinese music, than about lower (pop) and higher (classical) music, dance and movie music; but before we recognize any particular feature of music that we like, we first recognize that it is good music. All those good pieces belong to the unified world of theirs own – of good music, and that transcends styles from which they come from. All those beautiful songs from different styles belong much more to this kingdom of good music than to theirs respective styles. It is of little interest if a piece is in classical or some other style. Lousy classical piece is much less music than a good ethnic piece. I remember when as a boy I listened to records which contained music throughout the world, and I loved one Japanese melody, although the rest of Japanese melodies meant little to me. The fact that they were stylistically similar to the one I liked didn’t mean much; much more important was this special beautiful one.

This quality of being good music, regardless of everything else, is in inside western classical music usually referred to as “musical substance”. This term is the very essence of musical art: all music possessing high degrees of musical substance belongs before all to the realm of good music, much more than to its respective style. All good music so forms a unified field of good music, traditional Japanese themes, Beethoven and Beatles all standing one next to each other. No established musical idiom is the same as this universal musical substance.

In what measure music is essentially not divided by styles, can best be seen from some of the works of XX century composers who were sublimating different styles. For example, Stravinsky used technically disparate materials for his “Oedipus Rex”, but they were fitting atmosphere-wise.

One of the peaks of Stravinsky output, this work shows his wonderful sense of style and power of drawing inspiration from every age of music, and leaving the whole a perfect shape… Benjamin Britten

Influences beside Verdi’s are apparent. The ’Gloria’ chorus at the end of Act One, the Messenger’s music, and the a cappela choral music in the Messenger scene are distinctly Russian, but the genius of the piece is in the unity that Stravinsky achieves with his seemingly disparate materials. Robert Craft, liner notes from a Naxos edition

Different styles were all coming together in the ancient style of this opera. Similarly, Carl Orff used any musical style that appeared appropriate to him to convey his messages, so in “Stetit Puela” from Carmina Burana, Orff will use a melody with flamenco rhythm and melisma to transport a listener to the underlying feelings and imagery of a XIII century poetry, that describes a maiden whose red dress rustles as she walks. Or, for a long time I couldn’t explain to myself how comes that rock rhythm and style, but played and arranged on a synthesizer, is no longer rock at all? Later I realized: used musical style in traditional sense doesn’t set the character of composition, but achieved atmosphere. Style in traditional sense is only in use, as a tool, but doesn’t identify a piece. That is to say, musical styles in technical sense – and that are based on certain abstract features, such as kind of rhythm, scales etc. – do not closely correspond to actual impact of the piece, where the starting point for setting real division lines in music are not these abstract styles, but the actual and unique impact that every piece achieves. So a piece that would be traditionaly classified as a flamenco piece, musically can have more to do with medieval spirit than with Spanish tradition. While analysis of particular layers reveals certain styles, a piece should not be identified on that basis, but solely on the basis of its overall musical effect – which solely says what it actually musically is.

During XX century there was a sharp dividing line between pop and classical music. This line was sharp primarily because pop music wasn't only about music but was bound with spoken lyrics, image of the performer, social purposes etc. However the term was soon unjustly stretched towards some purely instrumental musical forms, which created a big mess. Whether a child strikes three notes on a piano, or an elite orchestra performs a Shostakovitch symphony, both are music and nothing else; the former is not inside its “pop”, and the other inside its “classical” frame. The former is musically basic and the latter less so, and that is the only difference.

High presence of musical substance is what should differ high from low music. Since always this division was the basic one, and Germans even have separate names for higher and lower music, that don’t have to do with any other stylistic properties. At that, physical space and time in which pieces were created do not have to be decisive in how pieces will be experienced. As a child I didn’t know which composer is from which country and in which historical conditions he created; the world of music was ordered in my head on the basis of spirit that it emanates. So on many ways Beethoven sounded to me more ancient than Bach.

So while we commonly differ between genres of music, and have a habit of identifying certain music by the style, “sort of music” to which it belongs to, we feel that what makes any music interesting, good, is largely universal and independent of sorts of music. It is partially wrong to say that a composition of Mozart is an example of classicism or a composition of Bach of baroque; it is actually the reverse: Mozart's composition contains the classicism, and Bach's baroque. Its easy to superficially imitate stylistic properties of these pieces, but without geniality it is impossible to reproduce the spirit of classicism or baroque, which is captured inside of those precious combinations. So Edvard Grieg understood rules of baroque masterbass thanks to Bach’s pieces; he didn’t understand why these rules exist at all while he was studying on the examples of some other composers.

While I was at the conservatory, I couldn’t understand the rules of masterbass. On given bas I put accords, which I liked, and than I would be frustrated when professor would stop beside me and crossed my work with pencil. When I stood to my work he decisively said: in science of harmony there is no why. Afterwards I became even more stubborn, and would remain so if spirit of J Bach didn’t intervene. He was sitting in Bach’s cantor apartment with little hat on his head. He was looking carefully through my notes. He was called Moritz Hauotmann. Strict rules of harmony he showed me as a kind of natural laws, but on away not to out rule the exceptions. He was studying for a very long time one fugue of mine with which I completely dialed with other teachers. Finally he said: ’This must sound very good’. From “Der Himmel Voller Geigen” by Rudolf Thiel