The
Direct
Communication of
Truth from the
Composer to the
Listener
Interpretation and
Musical Truth
The Secret Radiance
of the Musical Truth
Structural
Fundamentals of the
Musical Description
Higher Languages
in Music
To
convey a composer’s message to the cognizing listener, to communicate truth
through music, insight is not necessarily required on the side of the performer.
And it proves the farsightedness of our great classical composers that they
succeeded not only in forming a language which is, for the most part, independent
of the individual insight of an interpreter, but also in making it the accepted
standard.
An
analogy may further explain this statement: a Turk, who grew up in America,
reads Goethe’s “Faust” to a German in China.
Indeed, the Turk has learned reading by common methods. However, the excerpts
he reads out from “Faust” will not always be readily understandable, and the
German listener, not quite enthused about the pronunciation, will not regard
it as a piece of art.
But even despite the shortcomings of the pronunciation, the words reach the
listener, and Goethe’s message comes through.
In
the same manner, our time clads the messages of the great composers of the
past into the language of today’s interpretation which breathes the clatter
of machines.
And from the very fact that the performer is so successful among the masses
today one may conclude that he applies the machine-language of our time particularly
obtrusively.
Skilfully and inconspicuously he blends the noises of day-to-day routine into the language of the orchestra. But even then, truth manages to shine through this machinistic language so popular today even if only like a very little candle in a very big dark room.
The description of each level of nature requires its own degree of perfection,
that perfection which is typical for the level of nature being described.
Unfortunately, the orchestral language of today is therefore only qualified
to describe, to some extent authentically, the world of physics or chemistry
i.e. the world of unenlivened ecology and, at most, the structure of that
which medicine deals with today in the field of physiology.
In the orchestral routine of today, the higher musical orders that are represented in the musical scores of the great composers can be applied just as little as a big hoist with its huge booms is suited to show someone a fine golden ring, decorated with subtly cut diamonds, without destroying the ring and moreover, without dragging the whole scene into the grotesque.
So, the musician must structurally and functionally adapt his outer means of describing the truth, his articulation to the structural organization of the composition in order to adequately render the message.
