Signal to Noise ratio

One venerable opinion in aesthetics is that "all art aspires to the condition of music."

Those words are Walter Pater's. The idea has many other expressions from many other adherents though.

An aphorism similar in intent that that of a venerable put down of music critics, "It is like dancing about architecture." (Why might one not create a ballet about architecture? "Blueprint for the House by Swan Lake" perhaps?)

Part of the idea here is that music is a collapse of matter and form. The matter is the sound wave passing from instrument toward a human ear. The form is -- the wave of sound passing from instrument to human ear. With every other art there is a duality. The matter of painting is the paint and the canvas. The form is the image imposed upon the canvas. As for writing, the matter/form distinction has become a hopeless mess there since glowing screens have replaced paper and ink.

An idea related to Pater's is that music should not seek to mean or refer to anything other than itself. It should not seek, for example, to tell a story or follow a program.

Indeed, in the romantic era "program music" became a term of abuse in some circles.

George Santayana did a riff on all of this. He wrote, "If all art aspires to the condition of music, all science aspires to the condition of mathematics." Note the important word "if" there. Santayana was not trying to say anything about science, he was trying to show the absurdity of a then-prevalent notion about the arts.

And indeed, the signal-to-noise ratio on this whole line of thought is very high. Do we think less of the music composed by Sullivan for Gilbert's words, or by Rodgers for Hammerstein's words, than we would if the music had reached our ears without that baggage?

My personal view is that this is exactly wrong. A more plausible assertion is that all art aspires to the condition of song LYRICS. Lyrics are the abomination of the advocates of "pure music." they deliberately introduce the duality of which music is supposed to free. Music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein??? Blasphemy! Program music!

Yet it is Oscar Hammerstein who is the greatest artist of those two.

As the kids say today, "prove me wrong."

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