There was an article in the paper the other day about the sale of a valuable private collection of art works, some of which hadn’t come onto the art market for a long time. It got me thinking about art and how a collector can buy a painting and keep it somewhere inaccessible to the public if they wish to do so.
The original of an art work is what art lovers travel miles to see. They may have postcards, posters, and high-quality reproductions of it in books about art, but they are still keen to go to Paris, London, New York or Madrid to see their favourite paintings ‘for real’.
There’s nothing quite like that in the world of music, where the composer’s original autograph manuscript is not the equivalent of an artist’s original painting. The score is not in itself music – it’s a set of symbols and notation from which a musician or musicians can translate it into sound. Pick up the original score of a Beethoven symphony or a Mozart opera and hold it to your ear – you will hear nothing.
Without the original manuscript, of course, we don’t have the piece. It’s invaluable as a record of the composer’s thoughts and wishes. Were a private collector to buy it and put it in a bank vault before anyone had played it or heard it, that would be a dreadful loss.
But throughout music history, almost as soon as a score was written by a well-regarded composer there have been copyists ready to copy it and write out parts for the various instruments involved in playing it. Once these are in circulation, re-copied (and later reprinted) for other orchestras and ensembles, the original manuscript plays no part in most musicians’ lives. Scholars and historians might consult it, to glean extra layers of information from the composer’s handwriting and so on, but most musicians have never seen the original manuscripts of music they perform day after day or week after week.
Even if they were to be given the manuscript as a present, it wouldn’t help with the actual work of bringing the notes to life in the world of sound. The score is a sort of recipe, not a dish you can actually eat.
What a delightful way of comparing the two. I would never have thought of that non-analogy! Thank you for such a creative perception!
Kindest,
There was an article on line last week about Schnittke’s last symphony and someone posted a link to the manuscript which was almost illegible. I was amazed just how bad it was.
Back in the 2000s, I saw Sam River’s big band on tour and got to glimpse at his handwritten scores after the gigs. They were really untidy too. It just made me think how much credit you sometimes need to give to the publishing houses when presented with a manuscript.
I personally dislike reading hand written music on the few occasions this has been necessary.
Some composers have very characterful handwriting, though, and the handwriting of certain composers is a pleasure to read …. Judith Weir’s being a prime example.
The question of whether music ‘is’ the permanent but silent score or the sounding but transient performance is fascinating. Certainly no such question arises as to what art is. I think this is why seeing a painting can be so special, because there is only one (usually) of each. You have to be there, in the presence of an object the artist actually touched – a uniquely intense experience. There is also the awareness that unless the painting is in the permanent collection of a gallery you visit often, the chances of your paths crossing again are remote. I remember visiting an exhibition of Renoir landscapes in London and being oddly touched by the thought that, despite the existence of reproductions, I would probably never see most of them again. In that sense both music and literature are more accessible, but rare or one-off experiences can be precious. Would we really wish to re-play yesterday’s sunset? Personally, I am not sure that I would…