Interesting Quote from Dahlhaus

[Richergar]

"What an opera represents in itself in the immediate, aesthetic present is not the determining factor, but rather its ability to insert itself in an innovative way into the evolution of compositional methods and musical throughout. And in the end, the operas that do not do this become superfluous."

I don't have the source of the quote, but in the context of our group, I think it's fascinating. I would say it has some limitations, and my own view is that he has a view of historical determinism that I don't, and a view of an 'unseen hand' (as evidenced in implied passive voice of 'ability to insert itself"), but for all that I think it's suitably thought provoking.

[Alan Howe]

(as evidenced in implied passive voice of 'ability to insert itself')

There's no implied passive here - the verb is reflexive...

[Richergar]

Yes, totally correct. I agree. But I think the bigger issue is not that the work inserts itself - which is what Dalhaus is suggesting (assumably because of something intrinsic in the work that will 'out'), but that in my view at least there is something of a random 'natural selection' element going on in terms of what works get inserted into the canon at any different point. To me that is the more interesting and controversial (maybe) question. Dalhaus seems to be suggesting a kind of historical inevitability and 'progress' in which works insert themselves, and I am saying that I am not sure that this is true, and that, even to the extent it is true, it is true for a period of time only and then it is no longer true.

All best

[Alan Howe]

I think that the reasons why particular works enter the canon and others don't are so complex that they can't be subsumed into some overarching quasi-philosophical notion of historical inevitability. In any case the rediscovery and re-assessment in recent times of so much great music from the 19th century fully equal to that in the established canon leads me to question any such notion...

[jerfilm]

I expect that having a very good friend who is a Music Director of a major orchestra back then has a lot to do with what we still hear today......

J

[Mark Thomas]

Gorecki's Third Symphony looked a few years ago to have been "inserted" in the canon as a result of having been taken up by a newly-established UK radio station (Classic FM). Nothing inevitable about that, more pure chance, I'd say. My impression is that it is quickly becoming "uninserted", which of course is inevitable 

I'm afraid that Dahlhaus hasn't had much credibility with me since I read of his claim that there were no worthwhile additions to the symphonic canon between Schumann and Brahms. What simplistic tosh!

[Alan Howe]

By the way, it's Dahlhaus - so will all contributors please remember to do some careful inserting of their own when they reply...

[petershott@btinternet.com]

Hum, I think I have a not unreasonable understanding of Hegel, Marx, Darwin and others and am therefore familiar with notions such as 'historical inevitability', natural selection, the relativity of truth and all the rest of it. But put them all together in the Dahlhaus quotation and I very happily confess that I haven't the foggiest idea what he means. Doubtless the failure to do so is entirely due to the shortcomings of the grey squidgy matter occupying the space between my ears.

But no matter for I'm tickled pink by the image of poor hapless Gorecki becoming uninserted, and moreover the uninsertion being inevitable. Ouch, wonder if it hurts? I think you've created here, Mark, a wonderful little classic.

Apologies for my frivolity. And in the meantime whenever a quotation is supplied could folk observe the convention of providing a reference? It then enables others to know the context, source or whatever of where and how the claim was made.

[mikehopf]

Ah! Pseuds Corner still flourishes!

[semloh]

I think it would have been helpful to know the origin of the quotation, because it has a couple of problems as far as the English is concerned which may be a consequence of translation. Firstly, it refers to "the determining factor" .... but in determining what?  The phrase " ...the evolution of compositional methods and musical throughout" doesn't make sense to me, likewise to declare that an opera is "superfluous" is somewhat bizarre.

Maybe the statement is claiming that unless an opera is successful (i.e. has inserted itself in an innovative way into the evolution of compositional methods) it will ultimately be set aside (i.e. unsuccessful) ........ which appears to me to be rather tautologous. 

And, if failure to insert itself into the evolution of compositional methods was actually the touchstone of longevity in the repertoire we would have lost most of it long ago (surely one Donizetti opera would be enough, one Rossini, one zarzuela, one G&S, etc etc, and the others would be "superfluous"?)? 

[Richergar]

As I said, unfortunately I did not have a direct source for the quote, although I googled it before I posted to see if anything popped up. The source I had was what was apparently a private article (a very good one) on Wolf-Ferrari (who is, if not unsung, sung far too rarely) by Carlo Todeschi, but that was the only reference I had for the quote.

[Gareth Vaughan]

"What an opera represents in itself in the immediate, aesthetic present is not the determining factor, but rather its ability to insert itself in an innovative way into the evolution of compositional methods and musical throughout. And in the end, the operas that do not do this become superfluous."

This is the sort of sentence which, had I written it in one of my undergraduate essays, would have produced the sarcastic marginal comment "Wow!" from my tutor, Dr Stephen Gill - and justly so.  It is verbal miasma. If Mr Dahlhaus cannot express himself clearly he had better refrain from expressing himself at all.
First of all, however, we DO need to know the context in order usefully to comment on what he appears to be saying and it is, perhaps, unfair to do so while we remain in ignorance of that context. Semloh is right to point out that "determining factor" is obscure through no fault of the writer - we don't know of what the noun clause is not the determining factor. In the first sentence "immediate" is redundant (you can't have a present which is not immediate); nor am I sure that the phrase "What an opera represents in itself" has much meaning - at least, not out of context.  The idea of an opera inserting itself, particularly "in an innovative way" produces some highly comic images: Beethoven's "Fidelio" rudely elbowing its way into a sedate queue of Handel operas seria!   "musical throughout" must be a misprint for "musical thought" - otherwise the sentence makes no grammatical sense (whether it makes any sense per se is another question).

Semloh succinctly sums up the pretentious emptiness of Mr Dahlhaus' paragraph when he writes:

Maybe the statement is claiming that unless an opera is successful (i.e. has inserted itself in an innovative way into the evolution of compositional methods) it will ultimately be set aside (i.e. unsuccessful) ........ which appears to me to be rather tautologous.

Although I have spent some time on this, to me, arid piece of verbiage, I have done so to illustrate (I hope) the utter pointlessness of discussing it any further.

[Alan Howe]

Thing is, what Dahlhaus wrote was philosophy, not musicology.

[petershott@btinternet.com]

But philosophy (or at least traditional philosophy before the glib idiots took over) had a reputation for an exacting clarity and precision in thought and expression! I'm firmly on Gareth's side.

[Richergar]

Well, at least two comments from me.

First, I think that there are obviously a lot of 'threads' in the history of philosophy, and precision of description is only one of them. There are few names more important to the later 19th and early twentieth century composers, as a philoosper, than Schopenhauer, and I don't think anyone would say that his work embodies clarity and specificity of description. Philosophy is a very broad field of activity (note - I did not say 'inquiry') and empiricism is one important element of it, but hardly the only one. This is like saying that science which doesn't fit Popper's proscriptions isn't 'science'.

The greater frustration is obviously that we don't have (and I can't find) and context for the quote, and we'd obviously be better of (perhaps <g>) if we did. But I think the gist of the statement remains viable as a point of view - even though  it's one I disagree with - and that it that there is a sense which some have in all of the arts in which there is a historical inevitability to the technical development of that art, and that however frequently the canon is rearranged, it's rearranged along lines of a certain internal inevitability. There is a specific notion of harmonic (to take one example) "progress', and works which ultimately forward that progress are 'major' works, while those which don't are not. That is not saying (assuming I understand the quote correctly) that such other works are 'bad' - it is saying that there is a 'reason' why they are at best side shows.

My own view doesn't quite extend to the physicists' view today of multiple universes (which I find laughable and primitive philosophically), but I think we have way too much of a world view today of different kinds of music in different cultures to assume that there is one specific way, even within a culture, that music 'had' to turn out. At its best, I personally think that quote is a tautology - works that are important historically are important because they are important today - and that doesn't tell us any more than 'explaining' evolution by relying on natural selection as a pat answer.

So, in summary, I don't at all endorse the perspective I think exemplified by the quote. In fact, I would put myself at the other end of that spectrum. But I think the quote, even without context, is a succinct and well put exemplar of a point of view which is perhaps way too dominant today, and which distorts our abilities to really understand and appreciate unknown (sic) composers and compositions.