Book Review

[kenjari]

Bach's Cycle, Mozart's Arrow: An Essay on the Origins of Musical Modernity
by Karol Berger

This sophisticated book makes the argument that during the eighteenth century music's perception and expression of time moved form the cyclical and eternal to the linear and finite, and that this shift signaled the advent of musical modernity. Berger further argues that this musical shift was also part of a larger cultural shift in the way educated Europeans conceived of time, which was part of the change from a pre-modern Christian worldview to a modern, secular one. Berger uses pieces by Monteverdi, Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven to illustrate his points.
Despite the extremely scholarly and intellectual nature of this book's content, it was a pleasure to read. Berger's prose was always clear and elegant, and his arguments were persuasive. Best of all, his insights into the pieces he discusses were wonderful and thought-provoking - the kind of analyses that will make you listen to and play the music differently. I was particularly enchanted by his discussions of imaginative and contemplative digressions in Beethoven's piano sonatas. I also loved his discussions of how Bach evokes timelessness. And the discussions of narrative and character motion and stasis in Mozart's operas was fascinating. Placing all of this in the context of the religious, philosophical, political, and literary trends of the 18th century was masterful and tied everything together beautifully.

Comments

[apintrix.livejournal.com]

Did you buy his argument? I tend to find arguments that attempt to read formal changes through ideology unconvincing, especially when compared with political, practical, and economic accounts of formal changes. Like, I buy that the new emphasis on dwelling on emotions in Purcell or Monteverdi (iirc) reflects a change in the emotional role people thought music SHOULD play (i.e. an essentially political argument), but when it comes to moving toward "linear and finite" - which I assume marks things like adding time signatures, for the authors? - I might instead look to the practical advantages of notation that includes set bar lines, and look at that in the context of more amateurs playing chamber music and having musical literacy.

Of course this is ex recta, but I would come at a book that had this kind of stakes with a heavy, heavy skepticism! Curious about your evaluation of the probability of the causal argument itself, since you're the one who actually read it...

[kenjari.livejournal.com]

I bought his argument as far as the shift in the music goes - I do think he's found something there. The shift he is talking about is not that of bar lines and meter, but the way the music itself is organized with respect to time. According to Berger, with the eighteenth century and the emerging classical style, we get music in which the order in which ideas and developments are presented is important in a new and different way and in which things go forward in a way they didn't before.
As for the way he ties it to various ideologies, I think his perception of a relationship is valid, but I'm kind of skeptical about how causal and concrete he seems to think that relationship is.