REAL MUSIC …. OR JUST FOR SHOW?
... Arthur Butterworth
Many opera composers of the golden
age of ‘bel canto’ were more or less
successful according to how willing
they might be to subjugate their personal
creative individualities to the demands
of the vanity of prima donnas. This
would involve devising musical show-pieces
that, before anything else, would be
specifically intended to allow the singer
to indulge in vocal antics to demonstrate
how good she was. It was sometimes said
that singers would sulk and throw tantrums
if the solo role allotted to them lacked
opportunity to show off. This gave rise
to lots of vapid, empty operatic
music that might well have pleased an
undiscriminating, empty-headed audience
(like so many of those at pop concerts
today), but much of it was ephemeral
and soon consigned to oblivion. But
the music of truly great operas composers
- Mozart, Puccini, Verdi perhaps - always
had something more than technique for
its own sake, and this is why we still
remember it.
Instrumental music also has had its
prima donnas: especially pianists and
violinists. In the concerto repertoire
there has always been an element of
virtuosity for its own sake and, it
would seem, obsequious composers who
have been willing to satisfy this vanity.
Sometimes of course the composer has
done this to show off his own dazzling
- but often empty - technical wizardry.
Paganini and Liszt come to mind in this
respect. Some instruments, by their
nature and essential function, (the
violin has already been mentioned) such
as the ’cello, flute, clarinet and horn
are natural exponents of melody, and
are appropriate for the purpose. Other
instruments, again by their individual
nature, appear to have evolved primarily,
not so much for a leading melodic purpose
but to provide an equally essential
foundation — a bass part — or other
inner harmonies.
However, these instruments demand equal
technical prowess as does the violin,
’cello or flute. Their specialised functions
require just as much mastery. It is
just as necessary to have accomplished
performers on these less demonstrative
accompanying instruments. This is required
in much the same way that it is essential
to have reliable and competent anaesthetists
as well as distinguished surgeons. At
one time players on these instruments
were content enough to fulfil such subsidiary
roles although they have always felt
the challenge of what might be achieved
with their instruments were opportunities
forthcoming. Such performers have become
celebrated in the history of music,
notable among them being Prospère,
the ophicleide player in the 1840s who
made his instrument remarkably popular.
Probably the most celebrated of all
such performers were the double-bass
players, Dragonetti (1763-1846) and
Bottesini (1821-1889) both of whom were
able to demonstrate that the double-bass
could do more than just provide the
fundamental "base" of the orchestral
edifice. Both were composers for their
own instrument, Bottesini contributing
some well-known solo pieces still played
to this day, as well as operas and oratorio.
With the general evolution of technique
in recent decades there have arisen
solo roles for other instruments that,
in earlier times, might not have been
thought of as melodic soloists: brass
instruments more especially so. Many
of the composers providing such new
solo material have themselves been accomplished
performers on the instrument for which
they have written. The prime purpose
might well have been to furnish good
teaching material.
In this respect the Paris Conservatoire
probably led the way in demanding specialised
and original music for all the instruments
taught there. However, by their very
nature specialists have always had an
enthusiasm for their particular instrument
that it is perhaps unreasonable to expect
the general music lover to have. A lot
of this solo music is only of interest
to the player: it is designed with technical
rather than purely musical purpose in
mind. Consequently, being motivated
by the exploration of technique rather
than true musical inspiration, it often
leaves the listener unmoved. There exists
music of this kind even for the piano,
such as the volumes of technical studies
by Czerny, Burgmüller and other
pedagogues, though few of these composers
aspired to acclaim as composers for
the concert hall. Some virtuosic executant
artists however, certainly did: Paganini’s
violin concertos provide dazzling displays
of what is possible on the violin, but
this in no way means that it is good
as music.
In the field of brass music the trumpet
was, in baroque times, a melodic instrument
of the very front rank, leading the
ensemble in heroic paeans of sound.
In the same way the trombone had a long
and venerable heritage especially in
association with ecclesiastical choral
music. Their decline in the classical
age that followed must have been perplexing.
Only the horn, that most romantic of
instruments, was felt to be appropriate
to the new age once the high-flown baroque
had become unfashionable. The gradual
emergence of a new brass ethos from
about the latter part of the nineteenth
century took a rather different direction:
One of the results of this was the
emergence of the brass band.
The cornet and euphonium are the prima
donnas; the counterparts of the violin
and ’cello in the orchestra. Apart from
its older, outdoor indigenous martial
associations, the brass band, curiously
enough, has tended to be possessed of
a lyrical nature, which, at first sight,
perhaps would not be thought characteristic
of the robust sounds of brass. As a
consequence some of the music frequently
associated with it sometimes seems incongruous.
This might be particularly the case
with solo music rather than that for
full ensemble. Much of this gives the
impression of being designed — like
the early operatic arias for Italian
divas — merely to show off technique
rather than for a genuinely emotional
and expressive purpose.
Some years ago I was accosted by a
well-known brass player who remarked
that my music was "not of much
appeal to bands because it lacked technical
challenge". I suggested that perhaps
he considered that Paganini was a better
composer than Mozart because Paganini’s
concertos were full of dazzling fireworks,
which Mozart’s did not possess. To see
the purpose of music as being primarily
one of empty technical display to gratify
a performer's vanity is to miss the
whole point of music as an art; it indicates
a shallow, vapid intellect.
Throughout musical history there have
been virtuoso-performers who have written
display pieces for their own instrument,
essentially to show off their own accomplishment.
Many of these have continued to hold
fascination and offer challenges to
later devotees of a particular instrument,
but they ought to be seen for what they
are: mere technical studies. Real music
has always had a deeper, profound and
more ‘telling’ purpose; it is not necessarily
technically demanding.
The Brahms piano concertos constitute
some of the most difficult and technically
demanding of all works for the piano,
but they were written by a composer
who was not only himself a most prodigious
pianist, but also one of the greatest
composers who ever lived. His utterances
are profound and lofty in the extreme.
By comparison Liszt, who was undoubtedly
one of the most accomplished pianists
of the 19th century, was a third-rate
composer, dazzled by his own ego. Similarly,
Bottesini, whose bass playing astonished
audiences of the mid-nineteenth century,
composed music, although of dazzling
virtuosity, which ultimately has not
been found to be of much memorable substance.
There is always a place for some measure
of virtuosic display in a concerto:
it is the means whereby a solo voice
can be pitted against the crowd, like
the single orator appealing to the masses.
The solo part in a concerto demonstrates
what a lone adventurer can do: extending
the possibilities of development of
a musical theme, much in the same way
that the polar explorer, being capable
of determination and stamina, can achieve
things not possible by the package-tour
crowd. But, like the political orator
who needs to have true eloquence to
persuade his listeners, the soloist
needs to have something of musical significance
to contribute, not just empty rhetoric.
Arthur Butterworth © January
2004
Arthur
Butterworth Writes....
