Page 286 - ESSENTIAL LISTENING TO MUSIC

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We began this book by stressing the emotive power of music. Music is a form of personal expression in which a creator (the composer) sends his vision of the human experience to another human being, the listener. That vision comes not in the form of a painting, a story, or a poem, but rather as a carefully organized aggregate of sound produced by musical instruments of one sort or another. Music, like language, is a rational form of discourse that speaks to us. Once musical sound reaches the auditory receptors of our brain, it is processed more or less like linguistic sound. In the brain, sound is sound, and we react positively or negatively to the music, just as we react to good or bad news.
The emotive power of music as language is exemplified in the Academy Award–winning film The King’s Speech (2010). The climax of the film comes to- ward the end and centers on a speech that the reigning king of England, George VI (father of the present Queen Elizabeth II), delivered on September 3, 1939. In this radio broadcast, the king must rally the English-speaking world as England de- clares war on Nazi Germany at the beginning of World War II, a conflagration that will result in the deaths of tens of millions of people. To be effective, King George must overcome his speech impediment: severe stuttering. The reenactment of the speech in the film is accompanied by the beginning of the second movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7. The movement is in theme and variations form with the theme initially sounding four times. The music starts quietly but grows in volume and emotional force with each successive statement of the theme. In the film, the voice of the king (actor Colin Firth) starts haltingly but grows progres- sively more forceful and secure, thereby syncing with the music of Beethoven. But at the end of the speech, the makers of the film—perhaps knowing that the power of music is potentially greater than that of speech—do something remarkable: The volume for the king’s voice is turned down, and the audience hears primarily Beethoven’s music. Here Beethoven, not the king, speaks to us. The film says, in effect, words can do no more, only the power of music can carry the human spirit to this higher realm of intense feeling.
Similarly, in 2014 the music of the film Gravity won an Academy Award for Best Musical Score. Composer Steven Price had impressed the judges by elec- tronically enhancing the sounds of traditional strings and voices to represent ob- jects hurtling through space. The irony, of course, is that in outer space there is no sound, musical or otherwise—there are no air molecules to compress or refract, which is how sound is created and moves around this earth. Yet having a movie without music to enhance the emotional impact is, apparently, unthinkable.
Most viewers, of course, do not realize the important but subliminal role played by classical music in these films. Nor do most people realize that classi- cal music continues to play an important part in Western culture every day. Even in times of economic recession, symphony orchestras, opera productions, cham- ber music festivals, and regular concert series continue to draw eager audiences. Films, TV commercials, and video games are accompanied by classical music or newly created music in the classical style. Classical music sounds among the chatter of the coffeehouse, shopping mall, and hotel lobby. Around the world the importance of Western classical music continues to grow. While some things Western are considered “decadent,” our classical music is increasingly held in high esteem by other cultures. This development is part of the globalization of music.
264 the enduring power of western classical music
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