It’s tempting to try to describe the music we love, and we can build up a battery of seemingly useful vocabulary to do so. We might describe a melody as brash, exuberant, lush, rhapsodic, kitsch, lyrical or poignant. Textures can be “close-knit”, “expressively demanding”, and can “explore remote harmonic regions”. We can proclaim that Bach’s cello suites are “a profound examination of the human condition”. In making such statements we feel that we are communicating meaningfully. But there’s a fly in the ointment: it is totally impossible to describe in words the real essence of music.
We can discuss the objective structural aspects of any passage – the key, the harmonic progression, the choice of instruments. We can discuss the ‘sonata form’ employed in a sonata or classical symphony and discuss the exposition, development and recapitulation. But none of this helps us enjoy the piece. Think how many possible melodies there are in C major – some will be catchy, some will be nondescript. Every melody is unique and cannot be captured in words. The exact rise and fall of the melody and how it plays with our emotions is the only really essential thing about it, not the key or the number of bars or any other objective fact.
Let me give a couple of examples. First, here’s a paragraph taken at random from “The Rough Guide to Classical Music”. It is a description of Mendelssohn’s second string quartet:
“Mendelssohn wrote his remarkable String Quartet in A minor whose harmonic richness and subdued melancholy reveal a debt to the late quartets of Beethoven… After a slow opening, the first movement is developed with a contrapuntal vigour that is typical of early Mendelssohn in the way an initial yearning quality is built to a passionate height. The slow movement possesses a quiet dignity in which the main theme is treated fugally; it is followed by a classically elegant intermezzo, with a bustling central section, and a remarkably dramatic finale that reprises material from other movements before ending with the quartet’s opening Adagio”
It is admirably done, there’s no doubt, and it can be enjoyable to read such a description if one already knows the music. But if one doesn’t know the piece, it is a total waste of time. Such an enticing description provides no guarantee as to whether it will move you or bore you.
For our second example let’s consider the violin sonata by Vinteuil, this famous but fictional piece mentioned several times throughout Proust’s “Le Temps Perdu”, whose “petite phrase” was the emblem of the love between Swann and Odette. The description of this little phrase seems so precise:
“D’un rythme lent elle le dirigeait ici d’abord, puis là, puis ailleurs, vers un bonheur noble, intelligible et précis. Et tout d’un coup, au point où elle était arrivée et d’où il se préparait à la suivre, après une pause d’un instant, brusquement elle changeait de direction, et d’un mouvement nouveau, plus rapide, menu, mélancolique, incessant et doux, elle l’entraînait avec elle vers des perspectives inconnues. Puis elle disparut. Il souhaita passionnément la revoir une troisième fois”
The description is exquisitely detailed. Several candidates for the piece have been proposed – sonatas by César Franck, by Brahms, Saint-Saëns, Debussy, all very different from each other.
Similarly, we will hit problems when trying to link music with sociology. Here a snippet from the otherwise excellent article “Ludwig van Beethoven: revolutionary composer” by Sabby Sagall in a recent edition of International Socialism :
“There is a certain homology or structural correspondence between society and music. For example, the 18th century classical style’s bass line has become the treble line’s equal partner in melodic development; the French Revolution’s values of “liberty, equality and fraternity” seem to liberate the bass from its role of service to the upper instruments, a process already evident in Johann Sebastian Bach’s late baroque style.”
Terms can of course help dissect and discuss the structure of a piece. Consider the moment in a classical concerto after the whole orchestra (the ‘tutti’ section) plays along in one key, but then finishes on an ‘unresolved’ key marking the entry of the soloist who then embarks on a virtuoso cadenza, before finishing on a trill at which point the orchestra returns to wrap up the movement. This “unresolved” chord is a “tonic 6-4” chord, the tonic being the root home note. Having this structure pointed out to us clearly, even if we will probably have noticed it before, can probably enhance our listening enjoyment. But in general, descriptions are only of interest to the musicologist.
There have been some exceptional commentators who have managed to write well about music. And perhaps in the case of some avant-garde music, we can still benefit from explanations as to what the composer was striving for. Boulez would go to great pains to present and explain a new piece of music to his audience, sometimes performing the same piece twice in the same concert. However, in general terms let us agree with Duke Ellington that “too much talk stinks up the place“.