Music, Language, and Cognition: And Other Essays in the Aesthetics of Music

260 Pages·2007·2.46 MB·English

by  Peter Kivy

MUSIC, LANGUAGE, AND COGNITION
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Music, Language,
and Cognition
And Other Essays in the Aesthetics of
Music
PETER KIVY
CLARENDONPRESS·OXFORD
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Preface
This is the third collection of my essays on what is now called in the
profession‘‘thephilosophyofmusic’’.Itincludessomeofmymostrecent
contributions to journals, anthologies, and conference proceedings, as
wellasoneessayneverbeforepublished,andtwofrommyearliestwork
inthefield.
The collection has quite naturally fallen into four sections: papers
on the history of, broadly speaking, ‘‘musical aesthetics’’; papers on
musicanddrama;papersontheconceptof,andphilosophicalproblems
surrounding,musicalperformance;andpapersonwhatso-calledanalytic
philosophyconstruesasproblemsinitsdomainthatWesternartmusic
may present. But there is no historical paper that is bereft of critical
analysis, and no analytic paper that is not informed by the histories of
philosophy and music. I have reason to believe, therefore, that all of
them will be of interest both to philosophers and to music historians.
Furthermore,sinceIhavetriedasmuchaspossibletokeeptheseessays
free of technical jargon (which wasn’t difficult, as I know very little
of it), I have some reason to hope that they will also be of interest to
anyone who likes not only to listen to music, but to think about it
aswell.
The essays comprising Part I reflect my early interest in the history
of music aesthetics. Chapter 1 is a spin-off, really, of my research in
eighteenth-century British aesthetics and philosophy of art, pursued
whileagraduatestudentinphilosophyat Columbia University.I was,
at the time, more fond, perhaps, than I am now of Handel’s music,
and deeply fascinated, as I still am, by his relation to the cultural
and intellectual life of Enlightenment London. I later returned to this
theme in my book on genius, The Possessor and the Possessed, in which
Handel and Mainwaring play prominent roles.¹ But the present essay
still stands on its own as the commemoration of an important pair of
eventsinmusichistoryandmusicaesthetics:thepublicationofthefirst
book-length biography of a composer, and the anointing of the first
recognized composer-genius.
¹ PeterKivy,ThePossessorandthePossessed:Handel,Mozart,Beethoven,andtheIdea
ofMusicalGenius(NewHaven:YaleUniversityPress,2001),chs.2and4.
viii Preface
‘‘HerbertSpencerandaMusicalDispute’’,Chapter2ofthepresent
collection, dates back to my earliest research, as a graduate student
in the history of music program at Yale University. My work there
centered on what at the time was (and still I think is) an obscure
incidentinthehistoryofmusicandphilosophy:theattempttodiscover
music’s‘‘origins’’,fuelledbythespeculationsofSpencer,Darwin,other
evolutionists,andtheircritics.Itwasanattempttoputanoldquestion,
pursuedbyRousseauamongothersduringtheeighteenthcentury,ona
new—whichistosayscientific—footing.Ofcoursetheyfailed,perhaps
because the question itself is too vague and ill-formed for us to know
exactlywhatananswertoitwouldlooklike.Nevertheless,onecanlearn
alotfromthedisputeabouthowtheyviewedtheartofmusic,andhow
weviewitnow,particularlywhattheyreferredtoas‘‘primitivemusic’’,
aphrasethatwouldmakeanyself-respectingethnomusicologistcringe.
The essays in Part II concern opera and film. Whereas Chapter 1
presents my earliest (published) ideas about Handel, the man, and his
music,Chapter3presentsthelatest.Itwaswrittenastheinvitedkeynote
address for a meeting in Siena, Italy, devoted to Handel’s operas. The
reason for inviting me was that in my book on what I suppose might
becalled ‘‘thephilosophy ofopera’’, I had presenteda spiriteddefense
of Handelian opera seria as a ‘‘solution’’ to what I represented there
as ‘‘the problem of opera’’. The invitation to speak in Siena provided
mewithanopportunitytoreturntomydefenseofHandel’sworksfor
the operatic stage, about which I was beginningto have some nagging
doubts, and to revise it accordingly. But the essay is brief, and the
case for (or against) Handel’s operas by no means closed, either in the
seminarroomorintheoperahouse.
Chapter 4 was written as a response to an article in the Cambridge
OperaJournal onthesupposedanti-SemitismofWagner’sMeistersinger.
Isubmittedittothatjournal,anditwasrejected—anadversejudgment
which I did not then,and do not now, agree with (obviously). But as,
at the time, I could not think of another place to publish it, I put it
awayandforgotaboutthething,onlytorecallitagainwhenplanning
this collection. It is an attempt to vindicate a great work of art, and
a great, though deeply flawed, artist, against a false indictment. It is
not a vindication of the distinctlyunpleasant person whom the genius
inhabited.
ThetopicofChapter5concernsthemediumofexpressioninopera.
Ofcoursethemediumismusic,andinparticular(butnotsolely)singing.
Thisisalltooobvious.However,thepeculiarnatureofsungdramahas
Preface ix
posedintriguingproblemswithregardtowhatmight,looselyspeaking,
be termed operatic ‘‘metaphysics’’. This is my second attempt to deal
withtheseproblems.²AndIhavemadethissecondattemptnotbecause
Ihavegrowndissatisfiedwiththefirst,but,rather,becauseIthoughtit
requiredamplificationandclarification.Nodoubtthissecondattempt
will, in its turn, require amplification and clarification as well. And so
itgoes.
The essay on music in the movies was commissioned by the editors
of a volume devoted to what analytic philosophers of art might have
tosayabouttheartofthecinema.Mynamewasproposedtothemby
my good friend, and world-famous expert on the philosophy of film,
Noel Carroll. I am grateful to the editors for having faith in Carroll’s
recommendation, and to him for having faith in my ability to write
about an art form I had never written about before. All three were of
immensehelptomeinrevisingtheessayIproduced.Itcontainsanidea
Ihadactuallybeencarryingaroundwithmelongbeforetheinvitation
towritetheessay.SoitisnotasifIhadtobegindenovo.Nevertheless,
the essay was written with a bare minimum of technical knowledge of
film, or its music, although with plenty of experience of ‘‘going to the
movies’’, from the age of 5. The results of my one and only (so far)
venture into the philosophy of film I am sure are tentative, at best.
But I hope that they tempt other philosophers to give some thought
tothepeculiar placeofmusic inthemovies(although,ofcourse,Iam
by no means the first to do so). It is, it seems to me, an important,
andintriguingtopic,andrelativelyunexploredasyetinthephilosophy
ofart.
The two essays on musical performance, which comprise Part III,
have very different motivations. Chapter 7 was the result of informal
commentsmadewithregardtomybookAuthenticities,whichhadsome
criticalthingstosayaboutso-calledhistoricallyauthenticperformance.³
I was told, in effect, that I was beating a dead horse; that nobody
talkedanymoreabouthistoricallyauthentic performance;rather,itwas
historicallyinformed performancethatwasatissue,andsomycritique
wasquiteirrelevanttothepresentstateoftheart.Iwasverysuspicious
ofthismaneuver,fortheeasiestwaytoimproveatarnishedreputation
² PeterKivy,TheFineArtofRepetition:EssaysinthePhilosophyofMusic(Cambridge:
CambridgeUniversityPress,1993),ch.7.
³ PeterKivy,Authenticities:PhilosophicalReflectionsonMusicalPerformance(Ithaca,
NY:CornellUniversityPress,1995).