From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Fri Feb 13 2004 - 13:37:15 GMT
Hi Mark,
I don't think a conceptual analysis of Mozart's music (or art in general)
does much to enhance the aesthetic experience which, in the end, is the
purpose of creating music in the first place. I agree with Wordsworth who
wrote:
Our meddling intellect
Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things
We murder to dissect.
There are certain things, like reality itself, that intellect cannot
explain. But we understand it anyway.
Regards,
Platt
> Dear forum,
> I have been following the recent 'excellence in music' thread and hoped
> someone would utilise SQ-SQ tension as an MoQ explanation? The following
> may give an indication of how this is done:
>
> Exceptional SQ-SQ coherence in Mozart's Symphony No. 38 in D major.
> Music has been analysed as a branch of rhetoric. The tool used in such
> analysis is semiotics - the study of signification. (I am going to ignore
> this and merely note patterns of value which such analysis may indicate.)
> Below is an analysis of Mozart's Symphony No. 38 in D major by Leonard G.
> Ratner from Classic Music: Expression, Form and Style. (New York: Schirmer,
> 1980.)
>
> Ratner: 'The most impressive introduction in classic music opens Mozart's
> Symphony No.38...Mozart here has achieved an exquisite rhetorical balance
> between the two principal sections':
>
> Part I, mm. 1-15
>
> D major
> Irregular rhythm
> Changes of affect
> (French overture, coups d'archet, exordium
> Sensibility, antithesis - Transposition
> Singing style, antithesis, circumlocutio, gradatio
> Hint of learned style, anadiplosis, antithesis
> Fanfare, peroratio
> Cadence, distributio
> Sensibility, dubitatio
> Fanfare, peroratio)
>
> Deceptive cadences.
>
> Part II, mm. 16-36
> D minor
> Regular rhythm
> Single affect (ombra)
>
> Drive to half cadence.
>
> Mark: My understanding of semiotics in music analysis is rudimentary to say
> the least, but there are interesting observations to be made in the above
> account which will be familiar to readers of both ZMM and Lila. The phrases
> i have highlighted are, 'The most impressive introduction in classic
> music...' and '...exquisite rhetorical balance...' Quite a claim you may
> agree? What may be said to justify such claims? If we apply SQ-SQ
> tension/coherence it appears clear: Mozart discovers exceptional coherence
> in his static repertoire of patterns - this is a Dynamic creative activity.
> The static notated music can then be experienced by us as a sympathetic
> harmonisation with the static patterns, moving us into a similar state of
> coherence as that experienced by Mozart himself. (One may remember the
> master archer of Zen in the art of archery could raise the quality of a bow
> by merely stretching it a few times for his pupil.) When we listen to
> Mozart, his static patterns give us a Dynamic jolt as we experience the
> beauty of our static repertoire in SQ-SQ tension/coherence
>
> It's that simple - life lives in the event stream, and at the same time
> moves closer to DQ. When this process is exceptional, as it is here with
> Mozart's introduction to his Symphony No. 38 we experience beauty. Where
> ever we find such harmony - coherence - tension in a static repertoire we
> discover ourselves moved to a higher quality state.
>
> All the best,
> Mark
>
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