Page 131 - Composing Processes and Artistic Agency

120 Musicological perspectives on composing

response he put the concepts of “inspiration” and “invention”, which played
a central role in all of the surveys cited, in quotation marks (see Katzenberger
1993: 66). These quotation marks certainly suggest that he was knowingly
deviating from the predominant way of thinking, which understood inspiration
and invention to be an exclusively internal process that was quasi-atemporal
and possibly connected to an agitated emotional state. In sharp contrast to
the widespread cliché and to Hausegger’s question on the topic, Strauss
revealed that he was never internally agitated when composing. Ideas, Strauss
claimed, were never to be interpreted as isolated phenomena, but rather as the
continuation of mostly unconscious processes. However, he also saw ideas as
directly corresponding to the level of (prior) education, and as being followed
by a rather deliberate elaboration. In turn, that elaboration could be viewed
as the basis for further ideas. In contrast with Pfitzner’s mystification of the
process of composing and Hindemith’s conception of inspiration and artistic
vision as something unconditionally given (see Schubert 1993: 219), Strauss
once again displays a different and more modern understanding of inspiration.
He deems it to be intertwined with the technical-composition and aesthetic
conditions of the day – thus explicitly reflecting his own historical position.
Similar attitudes can be found in Ernst Krenek’s or Arthur Honegger’s responses
to Bahle’s survey, for example.
Strauss’s remarks are also interesting in terms of another period-specific
discourse, which comceptualised the artist – that fleet-footed producer of
music – and the composer – labouring at the creative process – as polar opposites.
Krenek portrays this polarity in his opera “Jonny spielt auf” (“Jonny Strikes
Up”, 1926). The autobiographical figure of the composer Max personifies the
second type – to whom Strauss could no doubt relate as well. In the Paris
music world, Krenek had discovered the relaxed side of things not only through
the upcoming jazz music, but also through the aesthetic attitudes of Jean
Cocteau and the Groupe des Six (Honegger, Milhaud, and others). It is possible
that he also knew Erik Satie’sidea of “musique d’ameublement”, according to
which music should just be present and delightful, like a handsome piece of
furniture. Milhaud’screativeprocesses – and Hindemith’s – were often short
and apparently unproblematic: Hindemith’s “Sonata for Violin op. 31/2” came
into being on the train journey from Bremen to Hamburg.
Iannis Xenakis’ work serves as an exemplary case for the two decades post-
1950, when broad swathes of the avant-garde considered a composition, its
structures and the underlying musical materials as independently as possible
from the artist. In his book Musiques formelles, Xenakis (1963) not only
informs the reader about the manifold formalisation processes that structure
his works, but also about the specific phases of his process of composing – one
of the few composers of his day to do so:

1 Initial conceptions (intuitions, provisional or definitive data);
2 Definition of the sonic entities and their symbolism communicable with
[in] the limits of possible means (sounds of musical instruments,