Yes, but I can PLAY Mozart
(I began composing this posting back in March, and am going ahead and publishing it with the intention to complete it gradually as time permits. The crux of this posting (which really wants to be an essay, as most of the postings on Academy of Readers do) is the parallel I draw between this passage from The Republic and the question of who has and who ought to have the authority to determine what art should be. In the absence of the explication of that parallel, the passage from The Republic stands side-by-side with the beginnings of my posting, inviting you to draw your own parallels. In turn, as always, I invite you to share your thoughts on this subject—both when this posting is complete, and now, in its unfinished state.)
From Plato’s Republic, Cornford transl., Part V, Chapter XXXV (Book X, 595 A – 608 B), pp. 329-333:
...Have the good poets a real mastery of the matters on which the public thinks they discourse so well?
It is a question we ought to look into.
Well then, if a man were able actually to do the things he represents as well as to produce images of them, do you believe he would seriously give himself up to making these images and take that as a completely satisfying object in life? I should imagine that, if he had a real understanding of the actions he represents, he would far sooner devote himself to performing them in fact....
Quite so.
Here is a further point, then. The artist, we say, this maker of images, knows nothing of the reality, but only the appearance. But that is only half the story. An artist can paint a bit and bridle, while the smith and the leather-worker can make them. Does the painter understand the proper form which bit and bridle ought to have? Is it not rather true that not even the craftsmen who make them know that, but only the horseman who understands their use?
Quite true.
May we not say generally that there are three arts concerned with any object--the art of using it, the art of making it, and the art of representing it?
Yes.
And that the excellence or beauty or rightness of any implement or living creature or action has reference to the use for which it is made or designed by nature?
Yes.
It follows, then, that...the man who uses any implement will speak of its merits and defects with knowledge, whereas the maker will take his word and posess no more than a correct belief, which he is obliged to obtain by listening to the man who knows.... But what of the artist?
...he has neither.
If the artist, then, has neither knowledge nor even a correct belief about the soundness of his work, what becomes of the poet's wisdom in respect of the subjects of his poetry?
It will not amount to much.
In my teens when I pursued a career as a violinist, I never doubted that the richest use of a passion for music is to learn to make music--by mastering an instrument, composing, or becoming a pedagogue. I was certain that anyone set aflame by music would yearn to become a musician, that naturally a passion for music would urge one to do music, not to be content with gaping and swooning in the audience like (so it seemed to me) a lover cowering beneath his beloved's balcony, never to offer a serenade. So the day my stepfather, a locally respected music critic, interrupted my practice of Mozart's Violin Concerto in A to inform me, "That's not how to play Mozart," with chilly confidence I retorted, "Yes, but I can play Mozart."
Never mind that he was right. He advised me to be lighter, less lush, and I did tend to play Mozart as though it were Brahms--an infraction akin to wearing dark, heavy make-up on a summer morning. What infuriated me was that my stepfather had never trained as a musician, had never once tried his hand at an instrument, and in a house with an accomplished violinist and pianist (my mother), he issued decrees: "Mozart must sound light, crystal-clear." "This part of the Wieniawski Concerto, Carroll, needs to sound more gypsy-like." "Dolores [my mother], your Chopin was a little lackluster today, a little too labored." Granted, he had studied musicology, could identify a piece of music on the radio after hearing only a few bars, and hum--unmusically--the prominent themes of almost any symphony upon request. Snot of a stepdaughter that I was, I even tested his ear once and was shocked to discover that he had very good relative pitch, better, even, than some of the students with whom I had ear-training class at Juilliard. He wrote reviews of all the important performances for one of our state's most widely circulated papers. But what, I wondered, gave him the authority to give not merely his personal opinion of a performance, but to declare a standard of how compositions should be performed?
In my teens, the answer to this question was obvious: nothing. I granted that my stepfather was a born listener who had honed his skill attending concerts religiously since adolescence, but I was convinced that I knew more about music than he did. After all, not only did I too attend concerts and listen to recordings, I performed, as well--and on Saturdays at a conservatory pre-college program studied music history and theory, both elements of knowledge that influenced the nature of my performances as much as the violin practice, lessons, and rehearsals did. Furthermore, his being a born listener could not trump my formal music studies, since apart from those I, too, had an excellent ear--perfect pitch, in fact--demonstrated at an early age, which was one reason why my mother enrolled me in music lessons.
From Plato’s Republic, Cornford transl., Part V, Chapter XXXV (Book X, 595 A – 608 B), pp. 329-333:
...Have the good poets a real mastery of the matters on which the public thinks they discourse so well?
It is a question we ought to look into.
Well then, if a man were able actually to do the things he represents as well as to produce images of them, do you believe he would seriously give himself up to making these images and take that as a completely satisfying object in life? I should imagine that, if he had a real understanding of the actions he represents, he would far sooner devote himself to performing them in fact....
Quite so.
Here is a further point, then. The artist, we say, this maker of images, knows nothing of the reality, but only the appearance. But that is only half the story. An artist can paint a bit and bridle, while the smith and the leather-worker can make them. Does the painter understand the proper form which bit and bridle ought to have? Is it not rather true that not even the craftsmen who make them know that, but only the horseman who understands their use?
Quite true.
May we not say generally that there are three arts concerned with any object--the art of using it, the art of making it, and the art of representing it?
Yes.
And that the excellence or beauty or rightness of any implement or living creature or action has reference to the use for which it is made or designed by nature?
Yes.
It follows, then, that...the man who uses any implement will speak of its merits and defects with knowledge, whereas the maker will take his word and posess no more than a correct belief, which he is obliged to obtain by listening to the man who knows.... But what of the artist?
...he has neither.
If the artist, then, has neither knowledge nor even a correct belief about the soundness of his work, what becomes of the poet's wisdom in respect of the subjects of his poetry?
It will not amount to much.
In my teens when I pursued a career as a violinist, I never doubted that the richest use of a passion for music is to learn to make music--by mastering an instrument, composing, or becoming a pedagogue. I was certain that anyone set aflame by music would yearn to become a musician, that naturally a passion for music would urge one to do music, not to be content with gaping and swooning in the audience like (so it seemed to me) a lover cowering beneath his beloved's balcony, never to offer a serenade. So the day my stepfather, a locally respected music critic, interrupted my practice of Mozart's Violin Concerto in A to inform me, "That's not how to play Mozart," with chilly confidence I retorted, "Yes, but I can play Mozart."
Never mind that he was right. He advised me to be lighter, less lush, and I did tend to play Mozart as though it were Brahms--an infraction akin to wearing dark, heavy make-up on a summer morning. What infuriated me was that my stepfather had never trained as a musician, had never once tried his hand at an instrument, and in a house with an accomplished violinist and pianist (my mother), he issued decrees: "Mozart must sound light, crystal-clear." "This part of the Wieniawski Concerto, Carroll, needs to sound more gypsy-like." "Dolores [my mother], your Chopin was a little lackluster today, a little too labored." Granted, he had studied musicology, could identify a piece of music on the radio after hearing only a few bars, and hum--unmusically--the prominent themes of almost any symphony upon request. Snot of a stepdaughter that I was, I even tested his ear once and was shocked to discover that he had very good relative pitch, better, even, than some of the students with whom I had ear-training class at Juilliard. He wrote reviews of all the important performances for one of our state's most widely circulated papers. But what, I wondered, gave him the authority to give not merely his personal opinion of a performance, but to declare a standard of how compositions should be performed?
In my teens, the answer to this question was obvious: nothing. I granted that my stepfather was a born listener who had honed his skill attending concerts religiously since adolescence, but I was convinced that I knew more about music than he did. After all, not only did I too attend concerts and listen to recordings, I performed, as well--and on Saturdays at a conservatory pre-college program studied music history and theory, both elements of knowledge that influenced the nature of my performances as much as the violin practice, lessons, and rehearsals did. Furthermore, his being a born listener could not trump my formal music studies, since apart from those I, too, had an excellent ear--perfect pitch, in fact--demonstrated at an early age, which was one reason why my mother enrolled me in music lessons.
~To Be Continued~
posted by Carroll, Violinguist @ 11:15 PM
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