Hell, no -- not that Kivy volume. Read "Philosophies of Arts: An Essay in Differences". It goes much beyond music. The text runs only 220 pages or so (plus notes, bibliography etc). You can buy a good used copy of the paperback on Amazon for $20.)
I shouldn't have said "Read". START to read. As we in publishing used to say, "You do not have to eat all of the egg to know that it is bad." What attracted me was the title and the alleged aim. But it's very possible Kivy blows it throughout. (I am unencouraged to see the book is dedicated to Frank Sibley.) In a message dated 9/26/09 8:08:00 PM, [email protected] writes: > this doesn't seem appropriate since this list doesn't primarily concern > itself with music. It is also very expensive for something rather > offtopic. Miller isn't very enthusiastic about it either. Perhaps we > can > skip > this and go on to Conger's proposed discussion of facture. > Kate Sullivan > 2009.09.21 > PETER KIVY > Antithetical Arts: On the Ancient Quarrel between Literature and Music > Peter Kivy, Antithetical Arts: On the Ancient Quarrel between Literature > and Music, Oxford UP, 2009, 240pp., $55.00 (hbk), ISBN 9780199562800. > Reviewed by Peter Rinderle, University of T|bingen > > ? > The title and subtitle of Peter Kivy's new book might be considered as > slightly misleading, as it is the meaning of pure or absolute music and > its > value which are really its main concern. Kivy is not at all interested in > the > respective merits of two different art forms, and he doesn't deny the > possibility of successfully combining meaningful words and beautiful > noises in > songs > or operas. So there is no general antithesis between literature and music. > His central question is what to make of the strange phenomenon that > developed in the late 18th and early 19th century and which we call > 'absolute > music'. How are we to understand those beautiful noises made by a symphony > orchestra, a string quartet or a piano player? And why do we value them so > highly? > It is the quarrel between two opposing traditions about how to understand > music to which the title alludes. The narrativists, as Kivy calls them, > use a > literary analogy. They attribute meaning to a piece of instrumental music > as they attribute meaning to a novel or a theatre play. For them, in music > as > in novels we are mainly interested in the representation and arousal of > certain emotions. The formalists, on the other hand -- and Kivy is the > leading > musical formalist of our times -- are strongly opposed to this way of > "reading" absolute music. It is the formal composition in which the > meaning of > music resides and it is an ecstatic or even mystical experience to which > music, > if attended to appropriately, might lead that is the true source of its > value. > As far as its own formal composition is concerned, the book might first > appear as a collection of eleven separate essays, three of which have been > published already. But Kivy, by amply providing little summaries of his > claims > and transitions between the individual chapters, manages to create a > well-organized whole. The book has three parts: Part I provides an account > of > the > historical origins of the quarrel between the narrativists and the > formalists. > Part II is primarily concerned with a critique of the leading narrativists > in musicology and music philosophy in the present debate. In Part III, > Kivy > tries to present a more positive account of the value of absolute music. > In the first part, Kivy shows that the quarrel between literature and > music > has historical roots that reach back at least to the 18th century. Back > then, the question was how to understand the relation between words and > music, > particularly in operas. Most people thought that music ought to be the > servant to the text and that the meaning of a piece of music is always > finally > pre-established by the words to which it is put. But others, among them > Mozart, accorded music the primacy, and there was an accepted, although > not > widespread, practice of putting words to previously composed music. Here > we > have a > philosophical puzzle: if music is accorded the primacy or a complete > independence from words, how do we know which words will fit its meaning? > Hanslick, the radical formalist, argues that music doesn't have any > extra-musical > content in the first place. Words and music are two completely different > sorts > of beasts. > Although Kivy certainly wants to accord a primacy to music, Hanslick's > position seems highly implausible to him. Even if, as a formalist, he > denies > that music has any representational or semantic content, Kivy doesn't > deny, as > Hanslick does, the expressive properties of music. A melody doesn't > represent any particular emotion and is not able to arouse emotions in an > aesthetically relevant way, but it might still appear as sad or joyful. > These > emotive > appearances, however, do not give any content to absolute music -- they > just > enrich its formal structure. Kivy speaks of an 'enhanced' version of > formalism, and it might thus be perfectly reasonable to ask whether the > words > fit > a certain melody. Kivy observes that Hanslick, in the foreword to the > eighth > edition of Of Musical Beauty, already had a glimpse of the truth in this > matter and missed a great opportunity. Hanslick there remarks that we > speak of > the fragrance of a rose -- as a perceptual property -- taking this quality > to be a representation of fragrance. > His extension of formalism notwithstanding, Kivy still finds himself in > sharp disagreement with the narrativist. The latter assumes that the music > itself contains all the material of a story we possibly could need and > that > music can be understood like a novel. So in Part II of his book Kivy turns > to > the present scene and gives a detailed account of several recent attempts > to > interpret Brahms' Intermezzo in B-flat Minor, Op. 117, No. 2 (by Jenefer > Robinson), Beethoven's String Quartet in F-Minor, No. 95 (by Fred Maus), > the > second movement of Mahler's 9th Symphony (by Anthony Newcomb) and > Shostakovich's 10th Symphony (by Gregory Karl and Jenefer Robinson). > First of all, he distinguishes two distinct groups among those using the > literary analogy to interpret absolute music. Some authors -- they are in > the > smaller group -- tend to describe absolute music in all kinds of details > including proper names. Kivy dismisses this first approach right away, > without > paying sufficient attention to the fact that the difference between those > approaches might just be a gradual difference rather than a categorical or > qualitative one. Then he focuses on those authors who proceed much more > cautiously and merely speak of an indefinite persona that the attentive > and > cultivated listener might discover in a piece of instrumental music. > Today, > this > approach is usually called the persona theory of musical expressiveness > and is > defended by philosophers such as Aaron Ridley, Jerrold Levinson and > Jenefer > Robinson. > The main aim of the persona theory is to give an account of the expressive > properties of absolute music. The claim is that while listening to a piece > of music, the listener imagines an indefinite person who expresses his or > her > emotions in the music. A piece of music thus might appear to be sad > because > the musical persona is imagined to be sad. While imagining a hypothetical > persona to be sad the listener also responds emotionally to the music: he > either identifies with the persona and feels sad himself, or he > sympathizes > with the person and feels pity for her. In this manner, the persona > theorist > isn't merely able to tell us what a piece of music means; he also can give > an > account of why a piece of music can be of so much interest and value to > its > listener. > Most of the doubts Kivy raises about the literary analogy are, by now, > quite well known as they have been discussed extensively in the > literature: > Why > should we be interested in all the repetitions we find in absolute music > and
