Mauler Rant [Razzi]

“If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music.” –Gustav Mahler


This statement from Mahler suggests that art is non-transferable. It suggests that Music is a higher art form than the written word. Can an artist truly rank forms of art? Does one form of expression express more than another or is it merely taking the easy way out? At a recent performance of music set to Blake’s poetry a Muhlenberg student asked about the process of writing—How did the music come to you? I laughed and began, “I wish I could be one of those artists who looks up at the ceiling and says, ‘It just comes to me. I don’t know how.’” A Jonathan Franzen. A Bridgette Mulligan. Interesting that I should pick writers instead of musicians. Typically I think of musicians taking the easy way out when explaining their art form. As if there’s some sort of stigma to discussing how the composition was created. As if they will lose their muse if they discuss it too much.

Writing on the other hand, is traditionally a more analytical art form. We analyze characters, we analyze plot, setting, the history behind the text, the motive for writing it. There is an analytical component to music but it’s more readily based on form rather than the reason for that arpeggio in the second bar. Interesting…it seems as though we do opposite types of analyses on music and writing. What if we flipped these? What if I were to analyze the form of writing—say the number of words per sentence on a page of Faulkner—and the character of music—say the implications behind the use of a harmonic e versus a regular e in the opening of de Beriot’s Concerto No. IX in a minor?

Mahler’s statement implicates that one art form cannot speak the same language as another. I beg to differ. The Blake performances were based heavily on music—as we were charged with writing music—however they were also heavily based in text. Music is an auditory art form. It immediately appeals to the senses, vibrates through your bones, and speaks to the rhythm of your body. Reading is more internal. Both are comprehensive—they evoke images, they have rhythms, they can be auditory. I don’t know what I’m getting at here. I guess if I go back to the first sentence in this paragraph I can turn back to what I was originally getting at, that art forms can speak the same language. A song like Human Abstract can butt right up to the poem and say and mean the same exact thing. They can also play with each other and stretch meanings.

Another topic (I’m jumpy today—hence why this is merely a rant or stream of consciousness)—if music truly were a higher art form and if we need not use writing if we could just say it in music, then why would we choose to add lyrics to a song? Thinking back to Renaissance Imagination/Collegium. Why would John Dowland be interested in writing a lyric poem and fitting it to music? Why would churches use Gregorian chant? History begs to differ with Mauler’s comment.

-->Clearly I need to come back to this because my thoughts are coming out in blips and are not fully developed.