dep@allegra.UUCP (Dewayne Perry) (05/21/85)
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I just ran across an interesting set of lectures given by Roger Sessions
in 1949 (summer) at Julliard: "The Musical Experience of Composer,
Performer, Listener" Princeton University Press (hb: 1950, pb: 1971).
The toc is as follows:
The Musical Impulse
The "Musical Ear"
The Composer
The Performer
The Listener
Music in the World Today
There are a few bits that I have gleaned from a quick scan that have
some relevance to topics that have arisen from time to time on this
part of the net.
"Each category [of music] contains its own particular types of good
and bad music. The good music demands in each case the complete
participation of those whose talents and inclinations place them
in that particular category; ... But past and present music alike
furnish many an example of striking failure when a composer has
temporarily stepped out his chosen category -- when a 'popular'
composer tried his hand at 'serious' music, ..." [pg 44]
"The performer's work is, of course, begun by the composer. The
latter not only composes the music, i.e. he conceives a coherent
and meaningful pattern of tones and rhythms, but he translates the
music he has thus conceived into symbols which enable the performer
to bring it into actual, i.e. physical, being" [pg 68]
{there then follows a very good discussion of the relationship between
composer and performer}
"This brings me back approximately to my starting place. Music is
by its very nature subject to constant renewal, and the performer is
not in any sense either a mere convenience or a necessary evil. By
the same token, the idea of the 'ideal' or even in any strict sense
the 'authoritative' performance is an illusory one." [pg 85]
"We may say also that precisely the greatest music is the most many-
sided. It is capable of presenting different aspects to different
generations and of retaining its vitality through all the different
interpretations which these generations give to it." [pg 86]
In the chapter on the listener, Sessions posits four stages of
in the development of the listener:
first, listening;
second, enjoyment;
third, musical understanding;
fourth, discrimination.
"Composers, like poets, are born, not made; but once born, they
have to grow. It is in this sense that a culture will, generally
speaking, get the music that it demands. The question, once more,
is what we demand of the composer. Do we demand always what is
easiest, music that is primarily and invariable entertainment, or
do we seriously want from him the best that he has to give? In
the latter case, are we willing to come to meet him, to make
whatever effort is demanded of us as listeners, in order to get from
his music what it has to give?" [pg 106]
Worthwhile picking it up if you can find it - Dewayne
i