Musical Museums: Traditional Canons Essay

The extensive history of the development of music makes it one of the oldest art forms in the world. However, compared to other art forms, music and its audience in modern times are significantly different as the old classic works still dominate concert hall scenes. Classical music proved to have several positive effects on people’s mental and physical states, such as increased memory and brain activity, stress and pain relief and decreased blood pressure. However, there could be other factors that determine the popularity of old and revered pieces in modern times. Burkholder suggested that concert halls present “musical museums” focused on preserving the works of long-dead composers, while contemporary pieces are displayed in modern musical museums.¹ Thus, the established musical canons and scale requirements do not allow more modern musical pieces to be played in the same musical museums or concert halls. This paper will explore the emergence of the musical canon and define how it affected the music produced after the works of Ludwig van Beethoven.

Firstly, in pointing to the musical mainstream’s historicist aspect, Burkholder emphasizes the audience for which composers after Beethoven wrote their works. Burkholder defines that as a part of the audience familiar with music from the 18th and 19th centuries, composers’ primary objective was to produce pieces in traditional European form while distinguishing their own style. The author determines that the defined mainstream tradition spreads across different styles, presenting an intellectual tradition rather than a combination of stylistic choices. In other words, Burkholder’s definition of musical mainstream presents the traditional canon of musical masterworks.

The traditional canon’s emergence is primarily centered on the works of Beethoven and their reception. Beethoven’s work significantly influenced other composers’ works in the aspects of composition, performance, and reception.² Beethoven’s legacy presented an example and a guide for new composers; however, the example was also a constant competitor for new composers. Beethoven’s massive influence on the music industry even caused a wave of Beethoven mania.³ After Beethoven’s death, many composers tried to mimic Beethoven’s works and create a great symphony, a large scale piece for an orchestra usually including four movements. Orchestras preferred symphonies because they had a greater effect on the public than other performances by instrumental ensembles.⁴ Furthermore, great symphonies created after Beethoven were compared with his works, which negatively influenced the pieces’ reception and intimidated young composers, preventing them from making symphonies to avoid being compared with Beethoven.

The comparison presented a natural reaction from an audience highly familiar with Beethoven’s pieces. Beethoven’s works dominated the repertory of orchestras in the mid-19th century, with more than half of the orchestra’s repertory consisting of Beethoven’s works. ⁵ For example, Brahms expressed his frustration by saying that he would never compose a symphony because of the competition of new works in orchestras with the works of the musical “giant.”⁶ Even when orchestras decided to introduce more new symphonies to the public by performing one new piece in a season, Beethoven’s works comprised more than a quarter of the orchestras’ repertory.

Furthermore, a part of the public’s decision to compare new compositions with Beethoven’s works was sourced from the developing concert culture. The development of concert culture was closely connected with the rise of the educated middle-class population. Then the character of concerts switched from primarily social occasional events to regularly shared musical experiences. When Beethoven’s works dominated the repertoire of the concerts, it was harder for new composers to get positive reception for their works. Furthermore, many composers targeted their works to the audience of concert culture, which limited them within the traditional canon. However, when concert programs started introducing more new works, the concert culture provided new composers the platform for press coverage and high exposure. Therefore, there is a traditional canon of musical museums, which changes the way composers write music and symphonies to target the audience of concert culture and withstand the comparison s with Beethoven’s works.

One of the examples which illustrates how composers were forced to follow the traditional canons of European art music while developing their own distinguished style is Igor Stravinsky’s Octet. Therefore, Stravinsky’s works followed the initial European traditions while also making progressive changes by assimilating cultural musical traditions from Russia. While European composers such as Brahms could not avoid being in the shadow of Beethoven’s work, others composers drew their inspiration from different cultures. Furthermore, Stravinsky emphasized that his Octet is “not an emotive work,” denying the Octet’s connection with Romantic music, commonly associated with Beethoven’s works. ⁷ The changes in style Stravinsky conducted to distance his works from Beethoven’s legacy resulted in a neoclassical style of his further works. The Octet uses an unusual combination of instruments and has significant traces of the influence of Russian musical culture in the third movement while maintaining the classical form of a sonata.⁸ Thus, the reaction of some composers to the traditional canon of musical masterworks consisted of drawing inspiration from other sources and adding unique details that made their work incomparable to Beethoven’s.

Lastly, a significant example of how the traditional canon of music masterworks affected people’s opportunities focuses on expectations of gender roles. There is not much information about women in music besides their participation in creating the folklore genre, and there are no significant pieces written by women composers. In all other fields of arts, such as painting, poetry, and writing, women were relatively equal to men, which raises many questions. In addition, most women were educated to play the piano even if they did not have a natural talent. The lack of women was explained by gender expectations in which women, as the more emotional gender, are less likely to control their emotions and fit them into the limitations of music. ⁹ After the significant social change, women gained more rights and became free to choose music as their career. ¹⁰ However, the increased number of women in orchestras and gender transition of instrumental performances still do not detract from the fact that musical museums’ canon imposed gender expectations on the process of music writing.

In conclusion, this essay explored how traditional canons of musical museums affected the music produced after the works of Ludwig van Beethoven. In order to withstand the comparisons with Beethoven’s works, composers had to fit their works to the limitations of canon shaped by concert culture while also defining their own distinct styles. Some composers learned to draw inspiration from other sources and change their style resulting in the introduction of the neoclassical genre, while others were forced to live in the shadow of Beethoven. Lastly, the traditional canon of musical museums negatively affected women’s opportunities by imposing gender expectations associated with musical writing skills.

Bibliography

Burkholder, J. Peter. “The Historicist Mainstream in Music of the Last Hundred Years.” The Journal of Musicology, no. 2 (1983): 115-134.

Frisch, Walter. “Concert Culture and the “Great” Symphony.” In Music in The Nineteenth Century, 174-178. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2013.

Goehr, Lydia. “After 1800: The Beethoven Paradigm.” In The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works: An Essay in the Philosophy, 205-208. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.

Spitzer, John, and Neal Zaslaw. “Corelli’s Orchestra.” Chap. 4 in The Birth of the Orchestra: History of an Institution, 1650-1815, 105-131. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Stravinsky, Igor. “Some Ideas about my Octuor (Octet).” The Arts 6, no. 1 (1924): 1-2.

Tick, Judith. “Passed Away Is the Piano Girl: Changes in American Musical Life.” Chap. 13 in Women Making Music: The Western Art Tradition, 1150-1950, edited by Jane Bowers, and Judith Tick, 325-348. London: Palgrave Macmillan Music Division, 1986.

Upton, George P. Woman in Music. 5th ed. Chicago: A. C. McClurg and Company, 1895.

“Wind Octet – Igor Stravinsky.” YouTube video, 16:29. Posted by Germán Yagüe. 2015.

Footnotes

1. Burkholder, J.P. “The Historicist Mainstream in Music of the Last Hundred Years.” The Journal of Musicology, no. 2 (1983): 115-134.
2. Lydia Goehr, “After 1800: The Beethoven Paradigm,” in The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works: An Essay in the Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 205-208.
3. Goehr, “The Beethoven Paradigm”, 208.
4. John Spitzer and Neal Zaslaw, “Corelli’s Orchestra,” chap. 4 in The Birth of the Orchestra: History of an Institution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 105-131.
5. Walter Frisch, “Concert Culture and the “Great” Symphony,” In Music in The Nineteenth Century (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2013), 174-178.
6. Frisch, “Concert Culture”, 178.
7. Igor Stravinsky, “Some Ideas about my Octuor (Octet),” The Arts 6, no. 1(1924): 1.
8. “Wind Octet – Igor Stravinsky,” YouTube video, 16:29, posted by Germán Yagüe, 2015. Web.
9. George P. Upton, Women in Music, 5th ed. (Chicago: A. C. McClurg and Company, 1895), 23.
10. Judith Tick, “Passed Away Is the Piano Girl: Changes in American Musical Life,” in Women Making Music: The Western Art Tradition, 1150-1950, ed. Jane Bowers, and Judith Tick (London: Palgrave Macmillan Music Division, 1986), 325-348.