Taking the Notes Seriously

Joseph Kerman in his book on the Beethoven string quartets talks about how they seem to have a special quality that sets them aside from most other music. This quality is a personality, a character, like that of a person. This gets me thinking...

Sure, music has a personal quality because it is a bridge of communication between persons. How else? But a lot, perhaps the great majority, of communication between persons consists of rather mundane things. There is a special category of conversation that really just serves as a kind of social lubricant: "hi, how ya doing?" Other kinds of communication are necessary, but humdrum: "meet you at 11 for coffee." Or necessary, but cold and factual: "the quarterly report will show a 17% drop in earnings." It is just a small part of communication that is weighted with real personal contact and seriousness. When you are falling in love with someone, for example, every word carries with it levels of meaning that are not present in ordinary conversation.

This brings us to music. Just like other forms of communication, music comes in various levels. A lot of it is like social lubricant: light forms of dance music like the waltz:

Or most of today's music videos:

As it does not have the same semantic content as language, we don't use music to arrange appointments or report earnings. Though George Harrison did use one song to complain about tax policy. (I know I have put this song up before, so different version this time: live, with Eric Clapton!):

Music can have, potentially at least, the emotional weight or subtext akin to a person you are close to saying "I really want to see you." While a lot of music by a lot of composers never feels intimate in that way, some composers seem to have a particular gift for it. Take the opening of this quartet by Beethoven:

The music is so urgent, so compelling that it feels the equivalent of a tsunami warning, or a court summons. Something you really have to hear! Other music by Beethoven can feel like you are cast into a deep pool of mourning:

Few composers are this gripping, but another is Shostakovich who with just a couple of notes, compels your attention so thoroughly that you can't turn away:

To play this music, you have to take every note seriously, just as you take every word seriously in a communication from someone you are in a close relationship with. Another mysterious and magical aspect of music...