Page 126 - Composing Processes and Artistic Agency

Musicological perspectives on composing 115

“Source Studies” that have emerged from the Foundation equally emphasise
that the research interests markedly transcend any purely philological dimension:
“Only where the philological findings are successfully related to the compo-
ser’s creative-poetical and aesthetic conditions is it possible to come close to
the complex process of creating” (Meyer 1993: 7). In contrast to Adorno’s
verdict, these studies likewise champion the belief that knowledge about the
process of composing does contribute to a more comprehensive understanding
of the finished composition. Thus, a great variety of sources can show the
different ideas or even fractures that may develop over the course of the different
phases of the process of composing, which substantially relativise the very
persistent notion of a piece of music as an “inevitable result of musical planning”
(Meyer 1993: 8 – our translation). Every result could always also have looked
different. This underlines the question of where to locate the “actual act” of
composing, if the intention is to differentiate such an act from precompositional
phases of organisation.
Friedemann Sallis’ most recent research (Sallis 2015) also far exceeds mere
philological interests. His case studies, which extend over the past 400 years
of the history of composing, are more closely focused on the processual aspect
of composing than his previous appraisals. This is partly shown in the fact
that he both takes into account the relevance of objects used during composing
and delineates the problem areas that might arise due to the integration of
sketches into music-analysis practice.
Regardless of all the afore-mentioned transformations and expansions of
research perspectives, however, contemporary musicology still overwhelmingly
focuses on gaining a deeper understanding of the finished product, rather
than on the specific nature of the creative process. The fixation with written
sources remains just as marked, even in cases where it would be possible to
interview their creators.

4.1.2 Asking the composers
Friedrich von Hausegger, the music critic and lecturer in aesthetics and the
history of musical art, was probably the first scholar to deal extensively and in
several publications with artists’ creative processes by using more than just
the available scores and work sketches. He still credited the genius, whom he
contrasted with “smaller minds” (Hausegger 1903: 356 – our translation),
with finding his path independently of direction, environment or zeitgeist.He
did not, however, regard this as an insurmountable obstacle to rational
examination. In view of the emerging psychology of music, Hausegger (1903:
369) saw the “psychic state of the artist” as a suitable research topic, which
might give listeners a closer understanding of the essence of a piece than the
then-predominant approach of the “formal aestheticians”, who used art
objects. As he argued: “The artist speaks to us through his musical work, and the
work appears to us as the revelation of his essence, but only if the performing
artist does indeed know how to put this essence into the work. However, that