What is a musical work?

Le Regard Libre N° 18 - Jonas Follonier

Philosophy, as we understand it here, likes to ask questions and provide rational answers. Many philosophical questions begin with «What is...?». In such endeavors, we're looking for the kind of reality possessed by the thing we're studying, to make a ontology. The aim of this article is to propose an ontology of the work of art, and more specifically of the musical work.

There are many theories proposing an ontology of the work of art. The first of these, the most primitive we might say, is the physicalist theory. This identifies the work of art with an object possessing physical properties. Let's try to think like physicalists. Two physical objects are available to describe the reality of a musical work: either it is identical to a score, or it is identical to an interpretation.

Let's take the first hypothesis and look at the problems it poses. Firstly, if the partition of La Bohème was destroyed, it would mean that Aznavour's song would be destroyed: that's absurd. Secondly, a musical work is listened to, whereas a score is read. Secondly, which score should be used to identify a musical work for which there are several? If it's its manuscript, this would imply that those lucky enough to have seen the manuscript know more about the work in question than others. Such a possibility is implausible.

As for the second hypothesis, according to which a musical work is identical to its performance, it is just as problematic. In fact, a musical work has an intermittent existence: Papaoutai would exist when Stromae sings it, and cease to exist between different interpretations. What's more, the theory fails to explain the fact that people can love Four seasons of Vivaldi and not like a performance of this work. Finally, it has to be said that an interpretation can be more or less faithful to its work; it can therefore not be considered to be the same as the work itself. be this work.

This theory has many irremediable flaws, and it is therefore entirely appropriate to reject it. Let's look at a radically opposed theory that proposes to identify the work of art (and therefore also the musical work) with another kind of object: a mental object.

The idealist theory postulates that a work consists of an entity in our mind. It is therefore something private, not public. Croce, an Italian idealist, defines a work of art as a «lyrical intuition», a psychological experience made up of both images and emotions. The artist himself would have this lyrical intuition, and his work would consist in producing a material support capable of making us, in turn, feel this lyrical intuition.

If this theory were true, there would be as many musical works as there are people who experience them. There would therefore be millions of A hymn to love. What a curious way of looking at things! Similarly, we'd fall back on the problem of intermittent existence we encountered with physicalism: the work would begin to exist several times. There are many other reasons to reject idealism: for example, it's hard to accept that a work of art cannot be perceived by our senses, but only by our mind, when we know that the etymology of the word «aesthetic» already refers to sensitive perception (aesthesis).

It's time, then, to embark on a third path, that of Richard Wollheim and his distinction between «types» and «particulars». According to him, a musical work is a type, and its interpretations are particulars. The Crooner's voice of Francis Cabrel as a type and the interpretations of this song as individuals will have properties in common (for example, the fact of beginning in do); in addition, there will be properties specific to the type (e.g. being composed by Francis Cabrel) and properties specific to individuals (e.g. being performed at the Geneva Arena on March 18, 2016 at 8:00 pm).

Nicholas Wolterstorff makes a relevant modification to this theory. He notes that a type cannot have physical properties, such as starting in do, because a type is an abstract entity. Therefore, the true meaning of «start in do»to be such that nothing can be a correct interpretation of this work without beginning in do». Moreover, Wolterstorff adds an essential characteristic to the musical work that distinguishes it from other works of art: the norm (embodied in the score), which determines a sound sequence. This means that the interpretation of a work must necessarily be after its composition.

Here we come up against an intriguing situation. A sound sequence is a mathematizable object, and a mathematizable object exists from all eternity. We haven't created the number pi, we have overdrawn. It would seem that, in the same way, a composer doesn't create a sound sequence, but discovers it. Jerrold Levinson is a philosopher who resents this conclusion. That's why, in his 1991 article «What a Musical Work Is», he argues that a musical work cannot exist before it is composed.

He would add to Wolterstorff's theory the condition that the aesthetic properties of a musical work depend on the historical context of its creation (the avant-garde character of a piece, for example, is intimately linked to the period in which it was composed). Similarly, Levinson considers the instrumentation to be essential to the work. To satisfy the condition that a work must not exist before it is composed, Levinson will define the musical work as a triadic relationship between an artist, a sound and instrumental structure and a given moment in time. Thus, when an artist composes a work, he or she does not’invent not a sound and instrumental structure: it fixed over time.

Certain events in the history of music suggest that Levinson's new definition has touched on a profound reality, leading us into realms of understanding that border on the divine and the inexplicable. Such is the case, for example, with the context of the creation of the masterpiece Goodbye Marylou. The melody of this track from the album Kâma-Sutrâ, conceived by Polnareff when he was beginning to go blind, is built on a harmony that had never been used on any song before. Polnareff has said on several occasions that he was inspired to write this song, which he discovered in 1988. something that didn't yet exist, but which nevertheless wasn't his... The singer writes in his autobiography:

«Some music was dictated to me. When I listen to them, I know I didn't make them, even if I am the composer. They're nobody else's, they didn't exist before I composed them, but I know they're not mine. I already mentioned this strange phenomenon in 1972 in an interview with Point-blank range, about Who killed Grandma. It was dictated. It's true that I wrote it for Lucien Morisse, whose suicide had affected me greatly.

I verified this again years later when I composed Goodbye Marylou. [...] When I listened to that thing, I had the impression that someone else had written it. I was even afraid I might have copied someone or listened to something while I was asleep. It was as if a higher force had dictated the melody to me. Because it didn't belong to any harmonic system I knew.»

Write to the author: jonas.follonier@leregardlibre.com

Crédit photo: philsbook.com