—— Yang
one
There is a consensus in western academic circles that Charles Rosen's Classical Style: Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven is the most influential and cited music works in the last 50 years-none (at least in the English-speaking world). This book was published in 197 1 and won the National Book Award the following year. It is still the only music book that has won this honor. From this point of view, regardless of "folk word of mouth" or "official recognition", "classical style" has an unshakable "spire" position in music books.
The "unique" quality of "being above others" first comes from the unique and highly developed mental ability of the author Charles Rosen (1927-20 12). In the words of pianist Fu Cong, the author used the metaphor of "Qian Zhongshu in music" to position Rosen, which would make China intellectuals feel close. [1] Witches' encyclopedic mastery of music art and encyclopedic understanding of western cultural traditions have long been legendary in the western music and cultural circles. Rosen was born in an architect's home in new york and studied piano since childhood. When I was a teenager, I studied under the famous pianist and Liszt disciple [Moritz Rosenthal (1862- 1946)], which can be called a "biography" of Liszt's distinguished pedigree. His official professional status is concert pianist. After becoming famous, he frequently appeared in important music stages and festivals in Europe and America, leaving a large number of records. Incredibly, however, he entered Princeton University from 1940s to 1950s, and his major (bachelor, master and doctor) was actually French language and literature! According to legend, Rosen didn't enter the music department because he thought all the teachers in the school music department were acquaintances, and he already knew more about the theory and history of music than the graduate students in the music department. Besides language and literature, he is deeply interested in mathematics and philosophy, and has taken many courses. Of course, he must practice the piano after school-his career ideal is to be a pianist.
He is very proud. As a doctor of French literature who is not a musician, he won the favor of professional brokers and record companies by virtue of his own strength, and thus embarked on a professional piano playing career, which lasted nearly 60 years. He is the first pianist in history to record Debussy's complete piano etudes. Classical piano pieces, from Bach to Bartok, have long been familiar to him. Critics agree that his performance is famous for his serious and thorough [intellectual] talent, especially Bach's Variations on Goldberg, The Art of Fugue and Beethoven's later sonatas. At the same time, Rosen is famous for his excellent performance of complex modern and contemporary music-he is an outstanding pianist of Schoenberg and Weber's piano works; Famous composers such as Stravinsky and Bret often invite him to play or record together. And he and the contemporary American composer [Eliot Carter (1908-20 12)] are "friends for many years" (classical style dedicated to Mr. and Mrs. Carter), and have commissioned and premiered many piano works by Carter.
Such a professional pianist with strict academic training in liberal arts will become a very famous music writer and critic in the future, which is also reasonable and just accidental. According to Rosen's own recollection, he started writing after playing the piano because after his first Chopin album was published in 1960, he was very dissatisfied with the track description on the album cover and felt that his words failed to convey his meaning. After that, he began to write his own introduction to the tracks on the album cover, which always incorporated his own understanding and critical opinions into his own works. Soon, someone noticed that these words were wonderful and special. One day, a publisher came to Rosen and promised to publish his music and anything he wrote. [2] So Rosen started another career besides his busy playing career-music writing.
two
Rosen's first book is classical.
This is a great book, only strangers can write it. Hundreds of pages, the object of discussion is the well-known three masters of Vienna classical music school-a special field where previous research results are overwhelming and it seems difficult to express any new ideas. This book is actually written in a casual prose style, which seems casual, but the logic of academic theory is hidden, but it is not revealed. Even flagrantly violated the format norms of academic circles, and rarely gave the sources of relevant arguments and data in his writing (in the new version of 1997, Rosen explained the sources of comments in more detail), as if ignoring the steady and seemingly rigorous conventions of academic circles-but paradoxically, when Rosen discussed academic issues, however, it showed that he was familiar with the cutting-edge musicology research literature and could grasp what he had learned keenly. Rosen seems to be showing some attitude. As a musician, he stayed away from the academic circle, but made a guest appearance in the field of musicology with unquestionable authority, and went deep into the "deep water area" of the research core of historical musicology with his first work, which became an instant hit and won academic praise. From a certain point of view, this is simply an academic stunt of genius-the word "[exquisite]" is not derogatory here, it just means our sincere admiration and surprise in the face of rare spiritual miracles.
We can first look at the qualitative evaluation of classical style by academic authorities, so that our discussion can have a more objective premise and foundation. In the famous New Grove Music and Music Dictionary, an outstanding British musician, Mozart authority and editor-in-chief of the dictionary [Stanley Sadie, 1930—2005] wrote an entry by Charles Rosen himself, in which he made the following general comments on classical style:
Rosen's main contribution to music literature is classical style. On the basis of absorbing the latest analysis methods, his exposition not only focuses on analyzing a single work, but also on understanding the style of the whole period. Rosen didn't pay much attention to the music of young composers, because he "insisted on a seemingly outdated position: only by taking the achievements of these three masters as the standard can the music language of this period be best defined." Therefore, Rosen constructed a context for the music of classical masters; Relying on the genre that masters are best at, he examines their music from the perspective of composition, especially the relationship between form, language and style. All this is supported by (Rosen)' s familiarity with the literature of music theory at that time, his mastery of various musical styles in the classical period, his incisive views on music itself and his profound understanding of the creative process.
This is an almost unreserved compliment. Interestingly, the New Grove has changed a lot from the version of 1980 to the new version of 200 1 (from 20 volumes to 29 volumes, a large number of new articles have been added, and many original items have been greatly adjusted or even completely rewritten), which in itself is a true reflection of the progress and transformation of music academics. However, the above-mentioned evaluation of classical style remains unchanged, indicating that the academic circles' high recognition of this book has remained stable-although we can also learn from Rosen's "new preface" to this book that the debates and opinions in western academic circles have sometimes reached a rather intense level.
[Joseph Kerman (1924-2014), one of the leading figures in American musicology, made a critical summary of the present situation and problems of musicology in the west (mainly in the English-speaking world) in his book, which is regarded as a "watershed" in the development of musicology in Britain and America. Among them, he criticized the positivism tendency that British and American musicology only paid attention to "[hard facts]" for many years, and called on musicology to strengthen the "critical" research on the aesthetic significance and artistic value of musical works-and Charles Rosen was Coleman's model and ideal. Coleman commented on the classical style with sufficient space and highly appreciated style, and clearly pointed out that "Rosen provided the most influential model in the transformation of American musicology to critical paradigm in the 1960s and 1960s."
[1] Yang, Qian Zhongshu in Music-A Record of Charles Rosen, Wen Wei Po, 20 12,12,65438.
[2] See the interview with Charles Rosen in the Guardian on April 9, 201/kloc-0.