Ayant fait récemment l'acquisition d'un vieux bouquin en anglais de Leonard Bernstein : The Infinite Variety of Music (Plume Books, 1966), j'ai décidé de publier ici l'introduction de cet ouvrage (sans l'autorisation des éditeurs, j'espère que je n'irai pas en prison pour ça mais ce texte est introuvable maintenant). Ce livre est très intéressant par ailleurs mais là ce qui m'intéresse c'est l'avis de Bernstein sur la musique de l'époque (1966). L'époque est pleine de bouleversements artistiques de toutes sortes (depuis le début du XXème siècle), l'Art abstrait, Dada, Fluxus, l'Art conceptuel, Land Art, events, happenings, rock'n'roll, pop music, performances etc etc… Et Bernstein dans tout ça ? Il est un peu perdu, comme une grande majorité du public, et il va nous livrer ici son sentiment sur toute cette "agitation". Et il le fait avec brio, comme toujours. C'est un grand pédagogue (Concerts for Young People) et il sait trouver des arguments percutants ;-) D'ailleurs, il me semble que l'Histoire est en train de lui donner raison non ?
Bref, je vous laisse avec ce texte, les commentaires sont là pour en débattre si vous le souhaitez.
Bonne lecture
Jack
The Infinite Variety of Music
INTRODUCTION
An Open Letter
Everyone says that this is a critical moment in the history of music. I agree, but double in spades: it is a scary moment. The famous gulf between composer and audience is not only wider than ever: it has become an ocean. What is more, it has frozen over; and it shows no immediate signs of either narrowing or thawing.
It has been claimed that the above mentioned gulf first appeared as a tiny fissure the moment a composer first set down his personal message, conceived in his own unconscious rather than in the collective unconscious of the sacred secular community. This may well be; and, if true, makes our gulf hundreds of years old. But throughout this period — even in the wildest years of Romanticism — there has always been some relation between composer and public, a symbiotic interaction that has fed both. The composer has been the manipulator of musical dynamics, responsible for change and growth, creating the public taste and then satisfying it with the appropriate nutriment; while the public, quid pro quo, has nourished him by simply being interested. Any new opera, by Monteverdi, Rossini, Wagner or Puccini has in its time invariably been an occasion for curiosity, speculation and excitement. Likewise a new symphony of Haydn or Brahms, a new sonata of Scarlatti or Chopin.
This is no longer true, nor has it been true in our century. The First World War seemed to mark a full stop: Debussy, Mahler, Strauss, and the early Stravinsky barely made the finish line; they were the last names in that long era of mutually dependent composer and public. From then on it became a hassle: composer versus public. For fifty years now audiences have been primarily interested in music of the past; even now they (you) are just catching up with Vivaldi, Bellini, Buxtehude, Ives. The controversy backs and fills about Wagner, as though he were Stockhausen. We (you) are still discovering Haydn symphonies, Handel operas. And it still requires a monumental effort of concentration for the average concert-goer to absorb the Eroica as a full, continuous formal experience. To say nothing of Elektra, Pelleas, or Mahler's Seventh. Gentle Reader, be frank and admit it.