I can’t wrap up a season without touching on judgment, a tricky little bit of human brain work that allows us to appreciate as well as discriminate — it’s a constant tension that is as present in music as it is at a restaurant or in a schoolyard.
- Classical Music 101: What Does A Conductor Do? - June 17, 2019
- Classical Music 101 | What Does Period Instrument Mean? - May 6, 2019
- CLASSICAL MUSIC 101 | What Does It Mean To Be In Tune? - April 23, 2019
Has anyone in recorded history ever felt truly comfortable with delicate balance between being open-minded and being indiscriminate?
In music, alone, I face dozens of questions like these three nearly every day:
-As a listener, does it matter if I don’t like a piece of music that people I respect say is amazing — or, conversely, what if I like something that the experts say is a piece of kitsch?
-As a performer, when do I know something I’m interpreting is good enough?
-As a critic, do I focus on the positive in the hopes of getting other people interested in something I love, or do I point out the flaws in a performance?
There are no right or wrong answers; there is no black or white, merely endless shades of grey. Our focus on that spectrum shifts depending if we are the ones judging or the ones being judged, or whether we are having a good day or a bad one.
I mention this not to settle a score or a debate, but to celebrate the act of judgment and our freedom to make them dozens if not hundreds of times during our waking hours.
The secret to happiness here, as in so much else in life, is in moderation. Perhaps we should treat judgment like fashion accessories: Once dressed to go out, we should take a long, hard look in the mirror and perhaps remove one item — not everything and start from scratch — to help ensure balance and good taste.
Today’s thoughts were inspired by the late Torontonian Helmut Kallmann in Mapping Canada’s Music, a collection of speeches and essays collected and edited by composer John Beckwith and University of Toronto professor Robin Elliott. (The book was recently published by Wilfrid Laurier University Press. I reviewed it here.)
In a 1988 paper on Canadian composers from the 1920s to 1952, Kallmann included a simple, eloquent plug for the act of informed judgment by the scholar, but his words apply far more broadly than that.
In “Taking Stock of Canada’s Composers,” on p. 168 of the book, Kallmann writes:
Most of the work done by musical researchers — call them musicologists, historians, music scholars, or whatever you wish — has or should have three dimensions. In simple language, these are: 1) to clean up; 2) to search for gold; and 3) to observe connections.
1 To clean up is to assemble and verify the facts and to arrange them in some order […].
2 To search for gold is to judge the value of the music so that the good will be performed, become known for its beauty and its effect on the soul, and may become an inspirations for future composers.
3 To observe connections is to investigate the effect of one event, or current, or person upon another, the interrelationship of a given culture or society and music within it — in short, the dynamics of musical history.
The musicologist who does not keep all three dimensions in mind can get into deep trouble. To engage in nothing but the assembling of facts without concern for values and relationships will never lead to wisdom; to philosophize about music without having at one’s disposal a large bagful of solid information will soon lead to woolly thinking; and not to be searching for beauty, depth and excellence in composition, but to lavish as much time on bad music as on good music, just ‘because it is there,’ does no service to one’s community.
John Terauds
- Classical Music 101: What Does A Conductor Do? - June 17, 2019
- Classical Music 101 | What Does Period Instrument Mean? - May 6, 2019
- CLASSICAL MUSIC 101 | What Does It Mean To Be In Tune? - April 23, 2019
