The Larousse Encyclopedia of Music [antikvár]

Introduction To begin the introduction to an encyclopcdia with the statement that facts are overrated and often irrelevant may seem perverse and paradoxical; yet the response to music is so much a matter of emotion and intuition that it is true to say that for the average listener, at any rate, his enjoyment is little affected by considerations of fact. If, as the result of a misprint in a programme, an entire audience in a concert hall was misled about the date of a composition, its key or its opus number, would it really affect individual reactions to the music The performance would either succeed or fail in generating enthusiasm; emotions would be stirred or left dormant; the musical scholar might enjoy a moment of self-congratulation in detecting the error but otherwise it would pass unnoticed. These may seem strange words to come from someone who spends the greater part of his professional life exhorting music-lovers to use their minds more actively as they listen; but to be aware of a composer's creative processes, to follow the line of a musical argument, to recognise thematic relationships and transformations-these are not the same as to know facts garnered from a book of reference. Even if one's first realisation of these greater musical truths has been found in an analytical essay, it is still something that must be experienced in terms of sound and emotion to have its full impact. Music is music, and though we may speak or write a million words about it, nothing will change the fact that in the long run it must stand or fall by its ability to move us, to stimulate us, to entertain, to bore, to perplex, to illumine, to delight, to arouse hostility or to enlarge our capacity for spiritual experience. The purpose of this book then is not to change music by simplifying in some mysterious way; it is to change us, the listeners, so that we may be better equipped to rise to music's challenge. I use the word challenge on purpose, for it is only too easy to be seduced by the sound of music without making any attempt to grasp its sense. A great composer is a master of a highly specialised language, and it is foolish of us to imagine that we are likely to comprehend that language unless we are prepared to make some effort commensurate with the intensity with which it states its message. We live in an age when the entire currency of music is in danger of being devalued since so much of our listening is done through machines, and machines do not complain if we treat them rudely. The gramophone or the radio are sufficiently impersonal for us to be able to talk while they are playing without feelings of guilt. We adjust their volume to our convenience, taming Beethoven's titanic voice when he prevents us hearing marital commands from the kitchen, or cutting off Mozart in mid-flight when the telephone rings. If there were no other argument in favour of preserving the live artist, I would still feel that at least he justifies his existence by ensuring that we do not forget our manners while he plays. Even though we may dislike the music, we respect the presence of the performer. Yet though I may be wary of the machines, they have also helped to propagate music to an extraordinary degree unimaginable half a century ago. The long-playing record in particular has brought into being a new audience for the music of over five centuries and many cultures. We can now experience in our own homes performances of instrumental music of the Renaissance or t