Technique, Musicians, and Expression of Emotion In Music

Technique, Musicians, and Expression Of Emotion In Music

Dear Friends,

Last week I read in a thread that some members felt that performing musicians tend to loose sight of the emtional message in music, and concentrate on the technical aspect somewhat at the expense the emotional side.

I thought it might be interesting to start a Thread discussing this premiss, which I naturally disagree with to a large extent.

I think it certain that some musicians are technicians first and foremost, whose talent and interest happen to be in the technical area. Sometimes these individuals reach the very top of the profession, but I don't think they represent all the is most interesting or engaging in musical performance practice, and certainly they do not represent the majority of performing musicians. Occasionally, there is a tendency for non-musicians to judge musicians on what they say rather than how they perform music, and of course this is wrong as some of the greatest musicians are and were famously inarticulate when faced with speaking or writing. Furtwangler had to work very hard indeed to express himself clearly, and his methods of rehearsing were markedly non-vocal!

Some others are and were indeed very lucid in language, but it still was not their first means of expression, so to judge them on that basis is still somewhat flawed, I would think.

So how has the confusion arisen? I think mainly because musicians have to analyse what it is that they do when they perform a piece. Firstly they have to comprehend what the piece is about, and in the process work out all the technical aspects and the those aspects (of expression and emotional content) to do with what the music means beyond the notes. But once they have grasped the meaning of a piece, the technical side then extends to involve methods of expressing this through the medium of their instrument. It is no good thinking that a piece has a nervous, quick expressive content, for example, if the sonority employed is then soft, smooth and mellow; so the expressive sonority must be fitted to the expressive effect desired. On strings, for example this nervous effect can be achieved by bowing the string nearer the bridge, and using relative short bows strokes, among other things, so the issue becomes one of technique and analysis, but this does not actually mean the musician has lost sight of the expressive meaning ( and by now having analysed the situation, also, the technical expressive means). He is employing his technique for expressive means, which is different to obsessing about technique. This is why an adequate technique is a pre-requisite if successful performance in music.

A truly great artist will leave the impression on his audience that he is playing the music impromptu, in the apt expressive and stylistic way, without a hint that the performance is a long way from being so artless or simple. He will use his technical armoury totally at the service of the music, where as the lesser artist may be tempted to show what a phenomemnal technique he has, because he cannot fully probe the depths and meanings of the music at the emotional expressive level, and wishes to divert attention from that deficit. The range of performers will soon be seen as being rather large in this variation, as soon as you actually listen to the resulting readings of a number of artists in the same piece.

The idea that any performance stands much chance of being a success as the result of being improvsed on the spot, without preparation and thought, will soon seem obvious. [Boehm said that improvisation was the enemy of the great recreative artistry, and anyone who thinks that Furtwangler was an improviser need only to listen to two performances of the same music ten years apart to realise that the details were in fact completely organised, and the structural perception the same in all but small details. What varies is elements that vary for all artists and in other circumstances for all people, such as the mood on the day, and the conditions of performance or work. That causes a lot of variation for most musicians over time]. There are so many decisions to make, the simplest being speed, dynamic, and expressive tone colour of the very start! The end of the piece must be almost heard in the first notes! Thus the actual time spent performing a piece is rather small compared to the time considering it from so many angles. The different personal characteristics of the musicians inevitably come out in this process, for every individual perceives things differently!

There is no reason to suppose that soloists, conductors, or principal players have a monopoly on this either. Orchestral musicians are often the equal of their most famous, high-profile cohorts. Some of the most musical players never make it beyond rank and file, but given the moment will bloom in way thought hardly comensurate with their actual level of technical ability, or the demands of musical job they occupy as a living!

The problem arrises when a musician is asked to talk or write about a piece of music, and then sets off on a mainly technical discussion! Of course, he has already done the expressive consideration and comprehension work, and his description is apt to centre on how, technically, he will bring the music to life. Thus the listener may find himself quite sure that the consideration of the music in hand is all technical, and that the musician has less contact with the music than the listener. This is quite clearly very often, completely wrong. The musician will have spent far longer on it it and thought far more penetratingly on the musical expressive content than all but a tiny minority of his listeners. Most musicians would rather play a piece having done the ground-work, than attempt the fruitless task of describing its emotional effect in words. If musicians were literary giants and could do this effectively, then we would not find music had anything to add to the beautiful words used to describe it! Even great literary men like GB Shaw utterly failed to adequately describe the music they loved!

Of course there are listeners who may think themselves more expert on one piece or another than this artist or that, but I would think the listener is in the wrong job in that case!

Any thoughts, dear Friends? All the best from Fredrik