Musicologists…

“There are people who understand music but don't like it. These are the composers. There are people who do not understand music, but like it. These are the listeners. And then there are people who neither understand nor like music. These are the musicologists."

Igor Stravinsky.

“I am in the smallest room of the house. I have your review in front of me. Soon it will be behind me.”

Max Reger.

In my previous blog entry Stravinsky got “burned” and now it is his turn and he goes after musicologists. I don’t entirely agree with him, although I am biased here since I myself dabble in writing about music, which is, basically, what musicology is. I mean, I am writing about music right now. Wait, so is this post musicology? And who was it who said that writing about music is like dancing about architecture? Should I have put this quote next to Stravinsky’s and Reger’s?

Returning to the main thread, would Stravinsky really advocate for abolishing the profession in earnest? I doubt it—music needs musicologists like literature needs philologists. And it makes us the composers feel more important. Any publicity is good publicity, right? Why are then the people who write about music are the favorite target of composers and performers?

Here’s my thought. In every profession there are people who are brilliant, who are adequate, and those who are less so. 90% of everything is crap, right? When I hear the latter notion, I am tempted to add “and the remaining 10% is utter crap” not because I really think so, but because this is just a perfect punchline, and doing standup is one of the things I would’ve liked to do in my life if I had unlimited time and energy. And this post, among other things, is a good example of how ADHD brain works. Anyway, to return to the primary train of thought here, when we hear a performer play or sing poorly, or hear a piece that’s not very good, we don’t take it as a personal affront, we just take a mental note to never listen to them again and move on. However, a musicologist trades in opinions and those we do take personally. We don’t necessarily think “this music critic is just not very good at what they do, so I guess I won’t read anything else they write.” In this case, we are bothered (or at least I am and I’d guess so was Stravinsky, and Reger definitely was) that whether we read their stuff or not, this person will go on to publish it and influence other people who don’t know better and think that whatever is printed must be right. 

Another thing that is interesting is that Stravinsky seems to be of the opinion that it is impossible to both understand and love music. Is it about “knowing how the sausage is made”? Is it even possible to love “music”? Here’s another tangent—I’ve recently watched a Kenny G documentary (which might be a subject of a separate post, it certainly deserves to be) and the interviewer asked him why he loves music and he was actually stumped by this question and said he wasn’t sure if he even could say he loves music. What I am trying to do in music is very different from what Kenny G does, and, as of today, he’s has taken his career just a bit farther than I have taken mine (for the improbable Gen-Z reader, that was self-deprecating irony), but if somebody cared to ask me why I love music, my response just might be not too different from his. It's sort of like asking a fish why it loves water.

I think one loves specific pieces of music, and if a composer has produced a lot of pieces one loves, it is natural to feel affection towards the composer. Music as a whole though is hard to conceive of. The kind of stuff that passes for music these days… That’s a whole different conversation though, one that I won’t take part in since I fear sounding too much in the “get off my lawn” mode, and I am not nearly old enough for that. Or so I would like to think. So I am signing off now, but presumably more to come. Cheers!