Saturday, May 24, 2008
Music matters today
I'm on BBC Radio 3's Music Matters today, in a panel discussion about music in fiction. Fellow panellists are Richard Coles and Philip Hensher, presenter is Petroc Trelawny, and Ian McEwan and Patrick Gale are quoted at some length. The programme begins at 12.15 but will also be available online at Listen Again for 7 days.
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3 comments:
An insomniac extraordinaire, I was all ready for this over here at 4.15 a.m. PST, and very interesting it was. It all went by in a bit of a rush and, as it's a subject I've recently been discussing in another context, I must listen to at least one of the repeats, the better to apprehend some of the salient points made and think thereon. I rather hanker after the days when the Beeb allowed, e.g., the two Freds -- Ayer and Coplestone -- a well-lubricated hour or so to take care of the existence of God. But I shall seek it out again tomorrow.
And indeed I have had a second listen and I have a few thoughts. In a sense, I thought the first part, the readings, was rather a waste of time. The producer, perhaps reflexively, chose to accompany the readings with the music discussed, so it was very difficult, thus influenced, to tell if the words work by themselves. That he/she did that is a statement in itself: the readings will make more sense if we play the music so people know what he's going on about. I did agree with the observation, which you endorsed, Jessica, that musicians are singularly interesting characters to write about. This is certainly a great strength of Hungarian Dances, and I think the use of gypsy music works as well, not least because that is a genre of music that I should think all your readers have at least a sense of. I thought the counter-tenor example worked for the same reason. But when other participants said that music can evoke time, mood and place, I had a suspicion that, if asked how, they would discuss specific works, which means that really they are thinking of the music, not the words they might use in an effort to give voice to the ineffable. I don't think I've ever come across an example of an attempt to evoke a particular work verbally that did not strike me as
quite futile and irritating, the more so the better I knew the work. And I do think it will leave the reader who does not know the work at all high and dry. The work grounded entirely in Strauss' Sinfonia Domestica made me wonder, unless he meant that the story is structured like the symphony -- I have a vague recollection of a novel written in sonata form that worked rather well. At bottom, I think in fiction one can write about musicians with great success, and perhaps, with limitations, about the nature and effect of music in a general way, but not about specific works. In truth, I'm not at all sure what a novelist expects a reader to make of a verbal expression of a purely personal reaction to something essentially ineffable that the reader may not know at all or may have apprehended in an entirely different way.
Interesting comments, Philip - thank you! Of course I thought of all sorts of interesting things to say the minute I was out of the studio and back on the tube, so here's one.
It's possible to feel slightly fazed when a Radio 3 presenter suddenly presents you with the idea that writing about music is like writing about sex. Especially if you're sitting next to a fellow in a dog collar at the time (the delightful Richard Coles is chaplain at the Royal Academy of Music). Petroc's point was that both music and sex lend themselves to appalling writing. I came up with some crap about being ruthlessly self-critical. But he's right to draw a parallel: perhaps both things only work if they deliver a revelation about a character, or otherwise drive events forwards. Gratuitous music and gratuitous sex don't do much for anyone (though maybe the latter does more for some than the former!).
The musical descriptions in Hungarian Dances tell you about the characters and their responses to each other. You can see that Julian and Karina's marriage will run into problems through watching their different uses of music - Julian's competitive and collectorial (if there's such a word), Karina's emotional and familial. Rohan's violin playing is described at some length because it's a giveaway of his inner self - this charming, idealistic fellow is, underneath, driven as hell, and it's only when Karina recognises this in his playing that she realises maybe he's not the answer to all her problems.
Personally I don't feel comfortable slagging off Ian McEwan. And when I dried up at the question 'what's the worst example of musical description you can think of?' I wasn't actually sifting through a million pages: I just couldn't think of any! Let he who has committed no sin cast the first stone...
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