Madame Crommelynck invites Jason to her house to talk about Eliot Bolivar's poetry. In their discussions, they stumble across the definition of beauty and the inception of a poem. Basically, what Crommelynck is saying is that a creation doesn't really count as beautiful if it is made from pretty ingredients. The pretty ingredients trick a casual observer into seeing beauty that is really just a superficial facade. True beauty exists where words fail to exist. Something that is purely beautiful fills in a sentiment or expression that isn't articulate-able.
For me, this is especially true in music, particularly music without words. I find that words often become too cumbersome to express precise things. Also, a lot of the time, words just make music less international and meanings are lost in translation. For the most part, words tend to be the cosmetics used to dress up the music. Really good lyrics add to music in a way that doesn't compromise the independence of the piece but are hard to come by. Words are far more tolerable in poetry written by good poets because poets have no tune to hide behind; they are forced to make a tune with pitchless syllables. Anyway, inspiring music leaves a some sort of paradoxical void full of something that you can't really describe and that thing you can't describe is exactly what Madame Crommelynck is talking about. Words fail but the feeling still exists and a the opus becomes the definition.
I think that the progression of classical musical periods shows this well. Each period is a reaction to the period before. It's sort of like rebellion, yet a bit like an homage, and the contemporary periods always build off the one before. It's hard to express exactly how and why composers choose to do what they do but the music speaks for itself as composers add allusions to their mentors and foreshadow to future themes. Good music both becomes timeless and marks a period of time that is embodied in no other way.
As for the existence of poetry before the pen actually touches the paper, I have to say I am intrigued. I am, by no stretch of the imagination, a poet. It'd be cool to have poems descend on me, but for the most part, they steer clear of me. However, I do write a lot of vignettes. They aren't consolidated in any way because I don't really plan them out but they usually just take shape. Initially, I thought I could make the picture in my mind and then save it for later to record but after many lost scenes I just take a second to write them down in the moment. They are something that exists before, in my previous experience or observation, and I have been mulling over in the back of my mind but they don't take shape until I stumble across a context that embodies them.
I like how you explore the concept of art existing before it is physically embodied in some form or another. It reminded me of how there are certain songs that I've never heard before, but in the first time hearing them, I feel like I've known them my whole life. Sometimes an artist does something so right that it's as if their piece must have been around forever.
ReplyDeleteYour comments about music as an art form that can't be quite captured in words is echoed by Jason himself in this chapter. When Mme. Crommelynck is playing the (fictional/imaginary) sextet of Robt. Frobisher, Jason takes a pretty good stab at describing its complex and ambiguous mix of tones ("jealous *and* sweet . . . sobbing *and* gorgeous"), but then concedes that "if the right words existed the music wouldn't need to."
ReplyDeleteI like that you mention lyrics in this post. I think a lot about lyrics, and I've found that if music doesn't have good lyrics, I don't like it as much (unless it doesn't have lyrics at all, which is fine). As someone who (unhealthily but unhelpably) values good writing above most things, music with bad or innocuous lyrics irks me to no end. Usually, if I'm by myself, I can only listen to music with good lyrics. (I listen to a lot of rap for this reason.)
ReplyDeleteI'd disagree that Madame Crommelynck is saying that true beauty exists where words fail to exist. When she quotes (and agrees with) Eliot as saying that "a poem is a raid on the inarticulate", she is saying that words can, in fact, express what is perceived to be inarticulate. As someone who writes a lot of poetry, I *firmly* agree with that sentiment. Often, when I want to express something most people would find difficult to express, I find that the *only* vehicle accurate enough for expressing it is language.
I believe that *all* art is an expression of truth (often obscure, unrecognized truth). But when unexpected words crash together, something happens that doesn't happen with music or any other art. The (so-called) inarticulate not only is expressed, it is articulated. With words. Poetry is my favorite art because it achieves what most would call impossible. I find I'm further moved by well-written poetry than by well-written music. Music is always expressing something inarticulate. Outside of literature, words are often expressing something unremarkable. When something is well-written, it's surprising. It's cunning. It's magical.
(This is why I'm a poet and not a composer. I think there's something integral in a person's nature that prefers one art to another. I could never marry someone who loved composing or painting or choreographing more than writing.)