What Music is Not (Part 2)

Music is not denotative. In conversation, I would describe this property in this way, “the F sharp major seventh chord does not mean loneliness”. Music, as such, does not have the representative power that spoken language does. The word “hippopotamus”, for example, pertains to a single, precise concept. Unless you have absolutely no idea what a hippopotamus is, you will know exactly what I mean when I say “look out for the hippopotamus in the river over there”. Music, by contrast cannot do this. A chamber piece for two violins, a cello, and a flute will never be able get across the concept of the aforementioned hippo in the river no matter how hard the composer tries.

What then of the Romantic period programme music? Hector Berlioz’s Symphony Fantastique, for example, recounts the story of a love-sick fellow and his subsequent rejection at the hand of the girl of his dreams. There are details in this story that can get as explicit as ‘a witch dancing a sick dance in a graveyard with a parade of strange creatures as part of one of the smitten gentleman’s dreams’. It must, however, be noted that we only have this information because at the time he wrote the symphony, Berlioz wrote an accompanying concert programme that outlined everything to do with the details concerning each movement and the part of the story each movement was alluding to. As such, the elements that Berlioz used do not denote a particular image of concept but rather imply them using the techniques available to him. Finally, even without any prior knowledge of the story that Berlioz was attempting to tell using the music, one can still appreciate and enjoy the music he made.

Another example of music that is misleading in that the average listener will think of it being denotative of something is Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. Given this title, one might be inclined to think that through this piece of music, Beethoven was trying to give his listeners the image of the moon. What isn’t very commonly known, however, is the fact that the so-called Moonlight Sonata was actually originally entitled Sonata Quasi Una Fantasia. The original title was, more than anything else, a description of what the piece is in terms of form. Basically, it is a sonata that is sort of like a fantasy. The form, in other words, is the content in itself.

The title that we know the piece by was inadvertently coined by one of Beethoven’s poet friends describing how he felt about the piece. Moonlight Sonata is much easier to say than Sonata Quasi Una Fantasia and as such, the name stuck. The piece in itself, however, no matter how we cut it and no matter how we look at it can never and will never be an explicit portrayal of the moon or moonlight even if we listen very closely and try really hard. Though the piece may give us the impression of the aura of the moonlight, that is a product of the way in which we perceive the piece subjectively and as such isn’t a reflection of the music in and of itself.