Life, Death, and Representation in Pictures at an Exhibition

A single, unharmonized melodic line sounds to signal the entrance of the composer Mussorgsky into the exhibition featuring the pictures of his late friend Victor Hartmann. It is the opening Promenade; Mussorgsky is walking about, depicted in irregular meter. The time signature is shifting between 5/4 and 6/4, perhaps with the humorous intent of reflecting the awkward gait of the portly composer. It is, as its title indicates, a piece about walking—promenading to be exact—but there is nothing inherent in the notes to suggest that this might be the case. Only in conjunction with the title may this connection be made, and only after this is it possible to give further consideration to musical meaning. The notes have been contextualized; instead of asking why the time signature changes, the question becomes, why, in the context of promenading, should the time signature change? In other words, what might this represent? What we may derive from this are two spheres of extra-musical interpretation, the first, contextual sphere being established by the composer, the second sphere being the interpretive elaboration of the listener. Indeed, in the same way the listener may reason both that it is Mussorgsky doing the promenading and that he is doing so at the exhibition, simply because the title, Pictures at an Exhibition, contextualizes the music in such a way as to allow for this interpretation. In this way the whole work may be considered, as may any work which attempts to represent an extra-musical subject, in the context of the objective declarations of the composer, in another through the subjective, interpretive allowance granted to the listener.

Relatively speaking, the opening Promenade is a vibrant movement—Mussorgsky is walking about, alive until he reaches his destination and stops. Musically, a perfect cadence into a tonic B flat major chord concludes the movement; in other words, the music has reached its destination and stopped. Having done so, however, might be regretful. The end of the Promenade is labeled attacca, which indicates to the performer that the next movement should be played continuously with the one that has just been completed. Rather than connect these movements sonorously, Mussorgsky not only begins the next melody not only fortissimo, which is jarringly loud, but the next melodic note is a C flat, a major seventh below where the Promenade left off. Mussorgsky has shifted to a rather distant key signature in a very sudden transition that is not meant to be the least bit subtle. All this has been directed with the clear aim of shocking his listeners, and this effect, if performed well, cannot fail.

What is it that is supposed to be so shocking? It is the first picture, entitled Gnome, and this gnome is of such a grotesque and frightful variety to warrant such a scare as the one Mussorgsky depicted, the scare that he meant to depict of having first glanced upon the startling picture. Of course, these are subjective elements of the interpretation—in no place does Mussorgsky indicate that the opening jolt of Gnome is to be interpreted in this way, but it is admittedly an appealing and common view to take. Mussorgsky again only contextualized the jolt, first by lulling his listeners into the patterns of the Promenade, then again through the act of titling, which allows us to know not only that this is a picture of something, but also that it is a gnome that is so startling. The movement is far from traditional in any respect, from harmony to technique, and this only adds to the discomfort, and perhaps even anger evoked by this gnome.

Let the interpretation proceed further, into far more controversial territory. Arguably, the suddenness of this shock might be put in the frame of Hartmann’s sudden death. This would then imply a duality between these first two movements, the Promenade representing life, and Gnome at least in this one respect representing death, more specifically death in the immediate sense. The chromaticism and extensive use of dissonance, not to mention the jarring gestures that permeate the whole piece fit well with this idea. In a sense, the music comes in several fits, as fits of rage or of otherwise intense and undirected feeling. It is as if to show the force with which the loss of Hartmann struck Mussorgsky.

Consonant harmonies and even peacefulness return in the proceeding promenade, where the opening melody moves to the bass clef and modulates to a new key signature. Importantly, the dynamics are soft, never being marked above piano. In every respect, this second promenade, even marked “con delicatezza,” stands in stark contrast with Gnome. Mussorgsky is walking once more, but his walk is slower—Moderato instead of Allegro—and less pronounced, though the time signatures preserve his awkward gait. Mussorgsky is past the stage depicted in Gnome, and he is going elsewhere, arriving almost in tears at the transition. The promenade theme plays in harmony while first sustained notes are held in the bass, descending twice in fifths, the second fifth an octave beneath the first, E flat to A flat. The next two measures repeat the promenade theme, this time in a diminuendo toward pianissimo with quiet octaves hanging above. Could these possibly be a groan and a sigh, a tearful inhalation and exhalation? Though this might go a bit far, the lonely, pensive sadness of the movement may be uncontroversially interpreted at least. The subjective range of interpretation, however, allows the promenade to be viewed in this way. The minute it becomes subjective, it no longer needs to be universally true.

It has been noted that Mussorgsky was going somewhere in this promenade, and that is The Old Castle. Mussorgsky here depicts a lone minstrel of sorts at the titular location, whose song may be found in the treble-ranged melody. The other notes, those in the background and those in the harmonically richer A major theme that starts the twenty-ninth measure, are presumably those of his instrument, which would appear on a stylistic basis to be a guitar or some like stringed instrument. Two features pervade this movement. The first is the sense of abject loneliness to be found in this movement. The second, ironically, is the constant company of a pedal-point G sharp, which serves a significant role in imitating the Italian style, but given this contradiction, it may behoove us to seek more in this G sharp. Now, the loneliness as it relates to Mussorgsky has already begun to permeate since the prior promenade, but this G sharp lingers on, even where, as a non-chord tone, it is quite dissonant. A number of possible construals seem appropriate for characterizing this G sharp. It could be the sense of loss, or otherwise the sadness lingering with Mussorgsky. It could be taken as the spirit of Hartmann, remaining in Mussorgsky’s consciousness. Regardless, that G sharp is filled with a persistent mourning that cannot be shaken, and in this way the loneliness of The Old Castle may keep its company.

Fermatas on rests conclude The Old Castle, into which the melodic and harmonic movements began to break apart and diminish and diminuendo, and after a period of silence, another promenade takes Mussorgsky forcefully away, forte and Moderato, but this promenade follows in the key signature whence it came, but this is the relative major, B major. Something of The Old Castle remains with Mussorgsky, and at the end of this brief section of music, the melody, which had previously been in octaves in both hands, sheds its outer doublings, goes silent, and then plays only a bit of the melody in a solo fragment. Mussorgsky’s walk was interrupted. Something has caught his eye.

Tuileries maintains B major, and it provides yet another, far more thorough contrast with the movements preceding it. It depicts children playing and quarrelling, and it does so with great levity. The opening melody seems to mimic the sounds of a child’s taunt, which receives a retort in the form of a repeat. This basic structure advances up the keyboard a couple of times as the quarrel grows in intensity, only to quickly boil back down to a repeat of the initial material. New melodic material is introduced as the quarrel, for some reason, be it discipline or some kind of feigned or actual apology, subsides, but opening taunts quickly begin to assert themselves again, eventually reaching their climactic state before the ending, where the levity of the start takes hold again.

Could it be that Mussorgsky is approaching this light triviality as a distraction from the previous pervasion of death? Children, after all, are not exactly potent conveyers of death—quite the opposite, actually. Could this movement be Mussorgsky’s embrace of the trivialities of life, having confronted death? On a darker note, is Mussorgsky mocking death through this movement? The jump to the Tuileries palace in France, a sort of idealized and luxurious locale, is more suggestive of an escapist interpretation, that this movement represents a flight from the issue of death. Children, furthermore, suggest a flight to childhood, when quarrels were trivial, not at all like the quarrel with death that Mussorgsky has begun upon the loss of Hartmann. Indeed, if any of these interpretations is to be taken as best, the idea of flight to an idealized childhood apart from the idea of death seems to be the one, and this fits very well with the proceeding movement, Bydlo, which refers to an oxcart, specifically in Poland.

Childhood comes crashing down in the face of grinding labor, perhaps as Mussorgsky glances quickly from one picture to another, and the levity of Tuileries is crushed under the weight of a heaviness that might be unsurpassed by any other work for the piano. Bydlo consists of some very lowly pitched harmonies pounded out with perfect regularity as melodic material moves over it. The relative G sharp minor is resumed here, even though Tuileries and Byldo are not marked as continuous movements. Two primary interpretations of this movement are worth noting. The first is Rimsky-Korsakov’s, in which the listener is to hear the oxcart passing by, hence the especial volume of the middle section. This prompted the latter, in editing Pictures after Mussorgsky’s death, to make Mussorgsky’s opening dynamic much quieter. This is very disingenuous to the view of interpretation presented here. Mussorgsky provided the context of Bydlo in his title, and the interpretation of the music in context should not allow actual change to the music. Rimsky-Korsakov, as the self-appointed editor of the late Mussorgsky’s work, tried to objectify his subjective interpretation, and he had no right to do so.

The other interpretation, the one adopted here, places the listener on the oxcart, so that when the music is marked fortissimo until the end, it is loud because the bustle of the oxcart’s movement is in continual commotion. When the dynamics to drop to pianissimo and even ppp, it is because the oxcart has arrived where it is going and stopped. This is important, as the oxcart may be very well interpreted as the vehicle by which Mussorgsky is brought home to his conflict from his fanciful flight to France. Not to make too much of it, but this even works geographically, since Bydlo is Polish. Far more importantly, though, is the cultural aspect of this point. From the distant French movement, Mussorgsky passes through the rustic, closer-to-home Polish movement to get to where the oxcart takes him. Plainly, it takes him back whence he came, to his confrontation with death and loss. There is significance to the fact that the conclusion of Bydlo is marked perdendosi: dying away. Bydlo ends in death.

Following another indefinite period of silence, a promenade follows, at first marked “Tranquillo.” This promenade is significant in its variation on the promenading theme in such a way as to inflect it with a strong sense of melancholy, one which proceeds more into a sense of brooding as pitch drops, volume increases, and forceful octaves replace the tranquil harmonies. This promenade is also interesting in its contrapuntal arrangement of some of the promenade material. It is as if Mussorgsky is pondering to his full capacity how to confront death, not least Hartmann’s death, as he begins walking to some other picture. The promenade is interrupted by the opening chords of Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks, as Mussorgsky gets a glimpse of this peculiar image. The promenade is continuous with the “ballet.”

Musically, grace notes, trills, and leaps in range abound in a movement that can hardly be described without recourse to the idea of bounciness. Perhaps the most important thing to point out in this movement is the presence of a lone D flat, which sounds at a relatively high pitch and forte at the dividing point between the two sections of the piece. The emphasis placed upon it has led to the quite rational conclusion that it is supposed to represent the call of a newly hatched chick. In that respect it is a sound of life; it is a sound of birth itself. For Mussorgsky, Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks opens the door to an exploration of life that might answer the problem of death. In the music, this is a bit of a rebirth into the life that was found in the opening Promenade, but in order to see how this turns out, the proceeding few movements are in need of exploration. The chicks have called out in life, so let us see what it has to offer.

Immediately, Mussorgsky contrasts the naïve levity of the young chicks with the injustice and suffering of Two Jews: One Rich and the Other Poor. The opening strains of this movement depict the rich Jew, Samuel Goldenberg, in imposing fashion. After that, the poor Schmuyle is represented, and his theme could hardly be seen as anything but mimicry of the sounds of crying. What, though, can be the relationship between Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle? Though this could not work pictorially, Mussorgsky perhaps provides a musical clue in the synonymy of the names “Samuel” and “Schmuyle,” the latter just being the Yiddish variant of the former. It could be that these two characters are, in fact, one in the same, acting as a composite picture of the darker elements of life. This is perhaps supported by the combination of both characters’ themes at the end of Two Jews. Taken alongside the “ballet,” another duality arises. On the one hand is the good in life, as the chicks experience in hatching, as the Trio section of that movement illustrates. On the other hand, there is evil and there is suffering, but that is not all there is. The chicks have shown rebirth.

This is most arguable via the next Promenade that follows Two Jews. It is effectively the initial Promenade with a number of significant modifications. First, rather than state the opening melody as a solo line, it is stated more forcefully in octaves. The other difference is the unexpected restructuring of the music, often splitting formerly conjoined measures up and leaving others out, in addition to adding some new ones. Transitions, in other words, are strange in this Promenade, given the other ones. What this might mean is a growing crowd at the exhibition, which accounts for such features as the octaves at the start, in addition to the structural changes, which might derive their stranger points as Mussorgsky has to move around the crowd. This, however, is trivial compared to the fact that Promenade is restated in the style of the initial one, since it has been suggested that the Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks implies a rebirth to the vibrant attitude of that first Promenade, before the shock of Gnome. Does Mussorgsky’s promenading in that style once more, vibrant and perhaps untroubled indicate an embrace of life against death? Perhaps he is merely distracted or even fooling himself.

Just as the exhibition develops a din of activity, a parallel is found in the next picture Mussorgsky stops to see, Limoges, which depicts a busy marketplace in that French city. The conclusion of the previous Promenade, like the first one, indicates a deliberate stop at an intended goal because of a perfect cadence. Quite differently from the transition, or lack of transition, to Gnome, a comfortable modulation from B flat major to E flat major takes place, the Promenade ending and Limoges beginning melodically on B flat. The two points worth noting here are the frantic nature of the marketplace, as depicted in the music, and its location in France. It is beginning to look as if Mussorgsky has merely hidden from death once again, this time in the distractions of life in general. France might well be taken as Mussorgsky’s symbolic hideaway, where death and loss to not matter. Rather the inanities of “The Big News,” which is the feature of the events depicted in Limoges, are the issue of the day, and these may keep one away both from death and even from the troubles found in Two Jews. There is certainly a constant influx of sound to keep the listener busy in Limoges, and the conclusion of this piece seems to be the most desperate barrage of noise of all, all leading up to the sparsest and perhaps the most musically bizarre of all the pictures: Catacombs.

Catacombs opens with B’s across three octaves, taking up a whole measure in 3/4 time and being marked with a fermata and a fortissimo. This is the strike of death, bringing all the life and bustle of the marketplace to silence. Mussorgsky could not escape death, and death descended on him—or rather he descended into the catacombs, having strayed his glance to that picture, being struck once again by the reality of death. What exactly the notes in Catacombs are intended to convey is somewhat mysterious. An important clue might be the oscillation between extreme dynamics between many of its measures. Could this be the music of dying itself—music that itself dies? It is inherent in the nature of the piano that once a note is struck, when it is sustained it dies by diminuendo. The notes in this piece are generally held for extended periods of time, and they go from loud strikes to softer ones until there is no more. Each diminuendo is another death, and to resist death is futile. In the third measure, Mussorgsky asks that the pianist do the impossible: crescendo on a sustained note on the piano. This comes as the first diminuendo would reach its closing in silence. This crescendo is a futile demand to resist death, and after that one demand on the first instance of death, it is not asked of the pianist again. Mussorgsky’s descent into the catacombs, so understood, is his statement of resignation to death.

Having so resigned himself, Mussorgsky proceeds with Con mortuis in lingua mortua, which functions like a promenade, adapts the promenade melody, but is not quite a promenade. Here too, Mussorgsky at last confronts Hartmann’s death, and he is lead to his final understanding of confronting of death. This promenade melody is vastly different in this piece than in any other. The melody is different in that it is transposed to B minor, where before it had made exclusive use of major modalities. The harmonic structure, too, is changed as one ought to expect in such a transposition. Lastly, the rhythm is reduced to a quarter note pulse with the occasional half note or rest strewn in for phrasing purposes. For the latter, a particularly interesting point may be made about Mussorgsky’s movements, as this formulation would depict them. Specifically, they are slow and careful, so much so as to eliminate the awkwardness that has been supposed in the previous instances of this melody. The presence of half notes and rests only serves to corroborate this interpretation; these would be when Mussorgsky, among the dead, felt the need to stop, either for a single step (as in the presence of a half note), or for a longer period (as in a rest, especially if it is conjoined with a fermata).

Presumably Mussorgsky is walking among the dead in order to confront death, apparently having lost himself among Hartmann’s pictures, and based on Mussorgsky’s note in his autograph of Pictures, it seems Hartmann leads the way. It says, “Latin text: with the dead in a dead language. A Latin text would be suitable: the creative spirit of the late Hartmann…leads me to the skulls, summons me to them, the skulls have quietly lit up.”[1] Con mortuis in lingua mortua is divided into two distinct sections, the first having been described above. The second section oscillates between dissonances and F sharp major chords with a small, chromatic melodic figure in between and F sharp major arpeggios following. Eventually, F sharp major proceeds to the tonic B major, and that harmony approximately follows the pattern established by the F sharp major figures into a high register B major chord to close out the piece. Importantly, this second section lacks both the promenade theme and the eeriness of its quality in this piece. Mussorgsky is no longer walking. Hartmann has led him through the underworld with his pictures, and the peace that permeates this section may very well be taken as Mussorgsky’s newfound peace with the loss of Hartmann. He and Hartmann brought together still in Hartmann’s work, and this is how Mussorgsky determines death is to be transcended—through creativity.

It should seem peculiar, that if this interpretation is accurate, that Baba Yaga, a folkloric witch who lives in a hut on chicken’s legs, should follow, but let us not forget that it was the other folkloric picture—Gnome—that struck Mussorgsky in the first place. As Gnome forced Mussorgsky into conflict with death, Baba Yaga shall whisk him away from such conflict in her hut chicken’s legs, much like the oxcart carried him out of Tuileries. It is symmetrically important, therefore, for this movement to take place as the final transition before the transcendence of The Great Gate. The continuity between these two movements is important, as Baba Yaga leads directly into The Great Gate, almost as if the hut itself entered Kiev through it. Both folkloric images are frightening ones; Baba Yaga, like Gnome, is a dark and intense piece of music. The difference is where each proceeds. Gnome leads to mourning, Baba Yaga to transcendence.

At last Mussorgsky lays eyes on The Great Gate, the grand finale of Pictures. In this movement, two sections are particularly noteworthy for our purposes. The first has two subsets, and these are the expressionless arrangements of the Russian Orthodox hymn, first piano then fortissimo. The inclusion of this section is not particularly curious; it provides a contrast to the grandness exhibited in the rest of the piece. What is curious is the designation “senza expression,” without expression. Why should Mussorgsky make such a demand, unless some characterization is to be derived from these sections? In addition, why should this section modulate upward and change its dynamic so dramatically? It is almost as if the second time, the voice behind this theme is trying desperately to be heard, but is drowned out by the rest of The Great Gate. If indeed The Great Gate is about transcendence through creativity, namely Hartmann’s transcendence, then it is clear that the “creative spirit” of Hartmann lives on in grand form, while the ordinary voice behind an ordinary hymn cannot overpower the force of his creations, which sound through Mussorgsky’s music.

The Great Gate seems to imply that Hartmann somehow transcends death though his creative endeavors, as has been suggested several times already. In the middle, in the section that can hardly be taken to represent anything but the bells of the Great Gate, among these bells sounds the promenade theme one final time. This theme has already been associated with life, but up to this point it has only been applied to Mussorgsky. Here, in the ringing of the bells on the Great Gate of Kiev, is Hartmann walking among us, or at least his “creative spirit” is, and as long as this is so, he has transcended death. In this artistic transcendence, Mussorgsky retains a link to his dear friend through what he left behind, and this is what Pictures at an Exhibition is about. Death is indeed central to this work that was largely a response to Hartmann’s death, but in the end, death is not the victor.

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[1] Modest Moussorgsky. Pictures at an Exhibition and Other Works for Piano. Pavel Lamm, ed. Dover, New York: 1990.

Foucault on Panopticism and Progress

Technological advances may be taken as a means by which progress is attained, or at least that technology is a manifestation of such progress, and in either case this progress is assumed to be good. Roughly, the idea is that progress correlates to increase in knowledge, which allows for technological developments. Michel Foucault challenges this account of progress, and he does so in his Discipline and Punish by presenting an alternative view through the window of the Panopticon. For Foucault, the so-called progress found in human history does not so much reflect the summation of knowledge, but rather it reflects the amplification of power, and technology is a substantial means by which this is achieved.

The Panopticon is an architectural structure first proposed by Jeremy Bentham, consisting of a central tower encircled by blocks of cells. In each cell an inmate is isolated but fully visible, for on the inner wall of the circle, each cell has a window that faces the tower, and on the outer wall, another window allows light from the outside to illuminate the cell. Though the tower is very visible, it is never clear whether or not anyone is watching from the tower, so an inmate must act as if he or she is being observed at all times. Panopticism, says Foucault, inverts the principle of the dungeon exactly by assuring the visibility of the inmate. The dungeon was meant to cast a prisoner into the darkness to be unseen and forgotten, but the Panopticon does the opposite. The former represents one extreme of discipline, that of “the discipline-blockade,” and Panopticism itself is the other extreme, and it is closely bound with progress.

Nowhere is the relationship among progress, technology, and power better manifested than in the Panopticon. In fact, Foucault states that the Panopticon is “the diagram of a mechanism of power reduced to its ideal form”. The Panopticon is not in the least bit limited to architecture, but rather when the principles of Panopticism are severed from the spatial structure of the Panopticon, one should be left with the essentials of this mechanism of power. For this reason, Panopticism may be applied universally, wherever power is so manifest. Quoth Foucault, “it is in fact a figure of political technology that may and must be detached from any specific use”. Bentham had not stumbled upon a clever building at all, but rather an entire power structure; indeed, precisely the power structure that, for Foucault, was to be found in the world all too soon thereafter.

Foucault places the development of Panopticism in the context of history, and this history turns on the person of Napoleon, whose “character probably derives from the fact that it is at the point of junction of the monarchial, ritual exercise of sovereignty and the hierarchical, permanent exercise of indefinite discipline. The Napoleonic character is unique insofar as it at once embraces the spectacle in all the outward appearances of royal power surrounding the emperor and also effects the surveillance on which Panopticism depends, thereby “extinguish[ing] one by one” the elements of that former imperial pomp. With the French Revolution and the Napoleonic era, the ancien régime as well as the European Enlightenment could be said to come to their end, and with their developments came also the end of the dungeon.

Foucault apparently divides his history, at least for the present purpose, into two distinct periods, the older defined by the “discipline-blockade” of the dungeon, and the current defined by Panopticism, with the shift occurring in the Enlightenment and as stated, being represented by the character of Napoleon. As stated, it was after Napoleon that the spectacle of power that had defined the old monarchies ceased to be. The spectacle refers essentially to the ideas inherent in Greek theatre or an ancient temple, which presented a few actors or relics to many spectators or worshipers. The Panopticon, rather, allows a few to observe many at once. Both are manifestations of power, but each is different, especially insofar as Panopticism is closely tied to progress.

The Panopticon at once strengthens power and facilitates progress, something the “discipline-blockade” could never achieve. To place personify power in an individual, such as the king, is to make a spectacle of it and to localize it. The Panopticon as ideal form pervades the mind of each member of the entire society, since its function as a machine of power is, in fact, to internalize that power structure within the individuals. This is the importance of surveillance to Panopticism. In Bentham’s design, this is the tower with its unseen and possibly present, possibly absent observers. The same goes for surveillance in the abstract. In a Panoptical power structure, each individual in the multitude understands his or her place possibly under surveillance, and each individual becomes the spectacle for some few to perhaps watch. The internalization of power that this produces is the instilment of discipline, “a type of power, a modality for its exercise, comprising a whole set of instruments, techniques, procedures, levels of application, targets; it is a ‘physics’ or an ‘anatomy’ of power, a technology”. Panopticism, by this technology of discipline, is able to “amplify” power, through which progress is accelerated. Technology and progress, then, are means of amplifying power.

Returning again to the historical angle, for after all, progress as we know it must range over history, Foucault posits three “historical processes” through which to explain “the formation of the disciplinary society.” These are the “economic, juridico-political, and…scientific”. Starting with the economic, Panopticism can be explained as being the mechanism that effects discipline on a populace—indeed, by the Enlightenment an increasingly large populace—over the greatest number and at the least cost. There is still another consideration beyond this, though, and that is progress, “to link this ‘economic’ growth of power with the output of the apparatuses…within which it is exercised”. The idea is, on the one hand, to ensure that the power structures are strengthened—that the individuals do not resist the structure—and on the other hand to strengthen the utility of each individual within the structure, hence progress for the structure. Such is the economic, and such is readily apparent in the rise of capitalist economies, in whose later assembly lines it became absolutely necessary for a few to have disciplinary control over the multitude of workers completing their appointed tasks on that line.

Of the juridico-political, Foucault argues that there is a separation between the laws and rights found in a given social structure and the disciplines by which the individual members of that society operate. Specifically, while the laws are established under egalitarian pretenses, the disciplines cannot be, since they derive from a power structure that is certainly not egalitarian. “The disciplines should be regarded as a sort of counter-law”, Foucault says. Of modern society, “its universally widespread panopticism enables it to operate, on the underside of the law, a machinery that is both immense and minute”. Hence disciplinary power derives from Panopticism, from the power to observe, and this alongside the law makes for the coexistence of supposed rights as well as the power structures of the Panopticon.

When it comes to science, Foucault emphasizes that Panopticism is itself a technological development, though it is not generally considered as such, and that like any technology, it may be used for the purposes of power. Of the former point, Foucault compares Panopticism to “the development at about the same time of many other technologies,” but that “It is regarded as not much more than a bizarre little utopia, a perverse dream—rather as though Bentham had been the Fourier of a police society”. Alas, Panopticism, as it has been seen, was a pervasive technology, and its institutional manifestations are many, ranging over the gamut from the narrow world of a prison to the broader domain of the state. For Foucault, this is the only means by which something like a modern army could be controlled—through the discipline instilled by this technology of the Panopticon. So the Panopticon is obviously a technology of subjection in Foucault’s view, but so too is any other technology, hence he notes that in a disciplinary society, “any mechanism of objectification could be used…as an instrument of subjection, and any growth of power could give rise…to possible branches of knowledge”. This link between knowledge and power, namely that growth in knowledge is directly linked to growth in power, is demonstrative of Foucault’s view of progress. Knowledge is a function of power, and from knowledge is technology and thence progress, thus progress is merely the growth of power.

Foucault has ventured far from any positive account of progress, and apparently away from any objective account of it, either. If progress is merely growth in power, and if technology is a means of internalizing power, even subtly, then it is very difficult to ascribe any special goodness to progress. In a disciplinary society operating in the structures of Panopticism, or at least so it is in the world of Foucault, one must be very wary of all technological advances, especially with regard to their uses and must take apparent progress with more than a little salt. After all, we cannot see into the tower, but we are wholly visible.

Romeo and Juliet and Representation

By representing William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet in musical form, Hector Berlioz and Sergei Prokofiev confronted a problem that is necessarily common to all who attempt to convey one mode of expression through another, quite different one. It is the problem of translatability, the question of how the speech and other dramatics on the stage relate to the music. This is an especially piquant concern when the musical production is to be taken apart from the theatrics whence the music came. This supposed correspondence between the common subject of the works Berlioz and Prokofiev, Romeo and Juliet, and the representations thereof provided by the aforementioned composers is central to the whole artistic enterprise. If music cannot be taken to represent non-musical, even non-auditory subjects, then all the history of Western music—perhaps all ballet—is littered with utterly meaningless analogies between musical works and their intended subjects, for the very intention of such a subject would be impossible. Beethoven’s “Pastorale” Symphony shall have to go right out alongside both attempts at Romeo and Juliet here considered. If, however, an account of this correspondence may be given, then perhaps music may coherently represent the non-musical, after all. Let Berlioz and Prokofiev stand before this test.

In any theatrical production, the element most closely linked to music is the verbal text, excluding the potential for music itself. The setting of texts to be sung has always been extremely important for Western music, from the earliest medieval chants to the leider of Schubert to the operas of Wagner. There are effectively two musical parts to this enterprise, which are approximately analogous to simple melody and accompaniment. There is, on the one hand, the musical line or lines actually appointed to present the text, and then there are usually other lines to augment this presentation. The deviations from this approximation are twofold. For one, the text itself need not be sung to be represented musically, as Berlioz and Prokofiev shall demonstrate. In addition, one need not directly represent the text at all, setting only the context alongside which it is uttered. That is, if a composer chooses not to take the lead of the text, it should be possible to simply accompany the scene, granted the possibility of the representation in question. Of course, it should also be perfectly possible—indeed, this is likely the most desirable option—to do both together in varying degrees, depending on the composer’s intention.

Berlioz makes the most avid use of text, and this can be said for the glaringly obvious reason that his score contains numerous scenes in which verbal texts are sung, providing a significant link to the dramatic source material. Interestingly, though, only a small bit of the text actually derives directly from Shakespeare’s characters, and none of it is given to Romeo and Juliet, whose parts Berlioz chose to represent instrumentally. The function of the sung text, then, is not what is to be expected from its traditional uses in, for example, opera. Rather than conveying the words of the characters, for Berlioz the text is appointed simply to bolster the real action that is taking place in the orchestra, hence his designation of Romeo and Juliet as a dramatic symphony, not an opera or anything else. This music is practically an inversion of expectation when it comes to representation. It is almost as if Berlioz means to say that verbal text is not enough to say what he wants his music to convey, that music can represent something beyond the text and yet is inextricably linked to it, for after all, departing from the story would disallow the music to be Romeo and Juliet. How can these things be?

Perhaps the purely instrumental representation found in the music of Prokofiev, whose choice to set the play as a ballet precluded somewhat the idea of song, can indicate something about this relationship that Berlioz boldly declared. Taking the music by itself, consider the movement in the first suite entitled “Romeo and Juliet,” which comprises the very famous balcony scene. Near the beginning of that movement, after what sound like a tip-toeing Romeo in the woodwinds, the strings begin to play in a very high pitch register; apparently to represent Juliet’s devoted musing about Romeo. This is followed by some short, menacing harmonies in the lower register, to indicate that Juliet has noticed the presence of another, namely Romeo, in the area, but Juliet does not know that it is he, and so this upper register theme interacts with the lower register, effectively paralleling the interaction that Juliet and Romeo exchange in the play itself. For Prokofiev, then, there is some literal representation taking place, namely the difference in voice registers, and there is also the possibility for a non-verbal strand of sound to convey something in a verbal communication.

Returning to previously mentioned case of Berlioz, then, the parallel should be amply apparent, and it shall be further amplified by Berlioz’s treatment of the same scene. Berlioz, according to Ian Kemp, represented nearly every line in the balcony scene as music, taking Prokofiev’s approach to the extreme. In general, after the singers enter and depart the score of Berlioz’s “Love Scene,” an interchange ensues between the upper and lower registers of the strings and woodwinds, formally very much like Prokofiev’s treatment in that sense, but stylistically entirely distinct. Where Prokofiev portrayed, for the most part, the events of the scene, Berlioz seems to try and present in the music the emotion behind each and every thing Romeo and Juliet say to one another. Romeo’s ascent to the balcony is not difficult to spot, though, with an ascending figure in the music, followed by Romeo and Juliet’s further interactions together on the balcony. In short, Berlioz went for a greater depth in his representation, while Prokofiev, writing a ballet, pursued representations more relevant to that medium, namely events. In a broad sense, then, the parallels can be drawn, in that passages in the music can be very well attributed to parts of the source text, some even to an extraordinary degree. It seems that a descriptive solution the problem of representation is at hand; that by example, clearly musical representation of non-musical text is possible.

Mentioned in the context of Prokofiev’s “Romeo and Juliet” were the “tip-toeing” woodwinds that open the movement. This designation is strengthened by the fact that they also end the movement, bookending a scene which, in Shakespeare, begins and ends with a sneaking Romeo. Thus the power of music to convey non-musical ideas apart from a text is seen. This example is interesting because it is relatively concrete—is is not an emotion or other such abstraction. It is the same idea as word painting in song, wherein the music to which a verbal text is set makes movements that imitate what the words say. If, for example, the text mentions ascent, one might expect an ascent in the melody or accompaniment. If the song mentions birds, perhaps a bird-like trill is to be found simultaneously someplace in the score. This case is different in that the text is not directly associated with the music that represents it. That is, the music is to be heard without it, as in accompaniment without melody—context. How then is the audience to appreciate this gesture if it does not know Romeo and Juliet?

This is the importance of the Prokofiev piece being a ballet. Not only does Prokofiev have music at his disposal, he also has dance, and no doubt any choreography should make use of such musical gestures as a tip-toeing Romeo in its visual representation of the plot. Importantly, between the music and dance in this case, a clear and scarcely deniable link can be established, this being between two different modes of expression, music and dance, though like music and verbal text, the two very often accompany one another. How is it, though, that Prokofiev’s notes should so strongly suggest that the dancer portraying Romeo tip-toe as part of his movement? The only possible answer is the mediation of Shakespeare’s text, which is the commonality between the two representations—it is what the two of them both, together represent, but which each could represent alone, as Prokofiev’s music frequently does. If the mediation of the play links these two modes of expression, could some mediator link the play and the music or the play and the dance?

It is not acceptable to use the dance to bond the play with the music or the music to bond the play with the dance, since the music and the dance proceed from the play, and the play proceeds from neither the music nor the dance. The mere claim that any two are Romeo and Juliet is not enough, either, since that comparison is only nominal and can be applied to any two things that have no commonality whatsoever. There must be an intentional representation of ideas between the representation and its source, and it must be understandable at some level to its intended audience. This, then, is the mediator: the audience, whether it is just the composer, just the composer’s friends, or all the world. It is a matter of intensionality—“aboutness.” It is up to the perceiver of the representation to attribute a musical line or a movement in dance to something that is to be found in Romeo and Juliet or whatever happens to be represented. When choreography is linked to Prokofiev’s music, then the link is made about Shakespeare’s play, to which both refer, necessitating agreement in referral. When Shakespeare’s words are bonded to the music, this is done about the listener, since the listener must consider, say, the tip-toeing woodwinds to be tip-toeing. This gesture is about the listener in that the listener is likely prone to make such a connection anyway—the musical gestures cater to common predispositions of the audience, so music shall to a point be about the audience.

On a more fundamental level, this is true of representations of abstractions, such as happiness, sadness, love, and so forth. The supposed minor-sad association is about the listener, which is not to comment on the ontological status of that association. Surely both Berlioz and Prokofiev are dependent on these sorts of associations. As it is, Berlioz portrayed Mercucio’s humorous and lewd remarks concerning Queen Mab as a scherzo, a musical “joke,” with much (but not complete) musical levity in the way of trills, pizzicati, a light and bouncy mostly major melody, and woodwinds that seem to laugh on occasion. Obviously he could not have written something akin to the Confutadis maledictis of Mozart’s Requiem, even if there were some kind of correspondence. It would not be about his audience because of the common stylistic and emotional associations. Just the same, Prokofiev could not have written his “Death of Juliet” in a way much resembling Berlioz’s Scherzo at all; rather, he wrote something slow and minor, with brooding, high pitched violins, a percussive jolt when Juliet seems to stab herself, and descending notes as she falls and dies. What else could a listener of Prokofiev expect? These associations allow for commonality between the listener and the subject that the music portrays.

Berlioz and Prokofiev both went to great lengths to associate their music with their source text, both depicting specific, concrete events and emotional content through music. In so doing, they demonstrate not only the commonalities demanded of all musical coherent representations of non-musical subjects, but also the different approaches composers are able to take in presenting their representations. As Berlioz attempted with much toil to convey the emotional content beyond the Shakespearean text, Prokofiev for the most part placed moods on the scenes of his ballet. Indeed, there is and must be much in the way of the expected in these musical works, but these must be unique to stand out not only against one another, but also against all the other musical depictions of Romeo and Juliet that have emerged over the years.

Humorism

Beloved,
be of balanced humors all.
Away, O blackest bile of the spleen,
and no more of this melancholic pall,
so spirits sound in harmony again.

Be sanguine,
be of beauty by the blood
(but e'en aghast, fair beauty does not fail).
Enliven, liver, let pure colors flood,
and let no leeching parasite avail.

Be happy,
be of blessed consonance,
and yellow gall begone of fulsomeness.
Ill-tempered tunes become exuberance,
for then no humor is replete or less.

Be balmy,
be of fit phlegmatic store,
and let the lungs be laden with fresh air,
but breathe enough and certainly no more
than thoughtful reason calls the nose to care.

Beloved,
pray the humors balanced be,
as are the spheres, to be in harmony.

Beltaine Again

Happy Beltaine, my friends! This, after all, is the single most important day of the year! Let the memory of last year suffice.

Let me also include this arbitrarily chosen picture of Ambrose Burnside from my hard drive:

An Interwebby Garden in the Shade

My friends, a weblog is in some ways like a garden, and in other ways it is not at all like a garden. On the one hand, it requires love and care if it is to grow. On the other hand, a garden usually grows in the spring, while a weblog should grow in winter when the weblogger is inside keeping warm instead of outside in the sunshine, possibly gardening. I do not really garden. There are gardens around the good ship house, but I hardly garden in them. That is, my contributions could hardly be considered gardening. Still, this weblog has not grown in the spring, but it did reasonably well in the winter, as it should. In this way, it is rather unlike a typical garden.

Insofar as a weblog requires love and care to grow, I note that I have been giving the weblog love and care during my rather lengthy silence. I have begun and left unfinished a number of postings, most of which I would love to finish one day. I even have one from last year, regarding certain adventures in the West. The problem, then, is not that I have not had anything to say. I have found a number of things worth saying. Rather, the problem is that I have not been able to concentrate on them long enough to see them through. Some of them also deal with topics that I wish to address with a degree of sincerity, and so I must consider them rationally, which is difficult. Others are incomplete verses (if indeed I choose to present them here), repeated attempts at the same project, a classical ballade. I shall likely be embarrassed that the obsessive extent of my labor produces only the product that it eventually does, but actual quality is partly beside the point. I am not trying to be a great artist; I do not even want to be called an artist (I think would prefer "human being"), but I do the best I can. At any rate, the weblog has received love and care, but it has not grown. It seems I have planted seeds and not watered them, to push the analogy a bit. So the weblog is somewhat like a garden, without being entirely so.

At the last, it has always been a great pleasure to make the writings I put here, and I have not abandoned doing so. I hope to resume with reasonable fervor soon, but I happily note that I do a good many more things than ever before, so time for me to sit and bond with a computer screen is very limited. As someone who in former years, generally before 2007, would spend hours daily before such a screen, mostly gaming, I am happy to note the change. It was a bit lonely.

Until next time, my much beloved friends, it is always a pleasure to ramble for you.

The Romance of Naming

Good evening, O dearest of friends. Today I wish to speak to about naming. All of us, O friends, have been named, and in general we have not named ourselves. Indeed, we were never meant to name ourselves. This is because having name bestowed is a romantic gesture, in the fullest Chestertonian sense. Recall that, for Chesterton, romance is essentially the unexpected together with the comfortable, adventure and homeland at once. Having a name could hardly fit this mold better. Let us consider the birth of a child. At this time, it is up to the parents of the lad or lass to bestow a name upon him or her, and so they do. The newborn has absolutely no say in the matter; the name is chosen, and that is what he or she is called. This is the element of adventure in having a name; that the child enters into his or her name without willing to do so, just as that child had not willed to be born, birth itself being a grand adventure. It is unexpected, for what is there to expect? Yet the fact that one has no name but one's own and knows of having no other name, this is homeland. It is comfortable to be called by the name that one has always had precisely because one has always had it. In fact, if other human beings are at all like me, there is some meaning in being called by one's own name, especially if it comes in the voice of a well-beloved comrade. It is to say, "I am speaking to your own self, not to an uncertain 'you.'"

Being born is not the only time a name is bestowed on someone by others. If you happen to be a Roman Emperor and you conquer a people or a region, such as Germany or Africa, you might earn the epithet Germanicus or Africanus thereafter. On the other hand, if you are a failure as a leader, you might wind up like Antiochus IV Epiphanes (god manifest), mocked as Epimanes (the mad one), or like Aethelred the Unready. Though many an emperor would bestow these titles upon himself, this is mere pomp. There is no romance in such a willful act because willful choice negates the adventure. It is all comfort. It is a dull homeland, which is as bad as an aimless adventure, which turns out to be no adventure at all, only poor errantry. The naming of oneself removes all the romance from having a name. A name, in order to be romantic, absolutely must be given by another, perhaps because it is earned as in a great military conquest, or even better if it is given out of love, because the lover finds the object of naming lovely. William the Bastard became William the Conqueror because he earned his epithet on the field of battle. A mother who calls her children by diminutive forms of their names or a lover who refers his beloved as Dearest or something of that kind are both giving unearned names to those they love, names that are bestowed only out of love, neither by the will nor the inherent worth of their objects. That which is loved becomes lovely. The name and all it carries are a pure and romantic gift.

What is in a name? A name can only be an expression of the love or disdain of its bestower for its object. Names, unless they are invented, carry meanings, and these can be powerful when applied to a person. Parents presumably seek to give their children names that reflect something true, fine, and beautiful. This could mean naming the child after an admirable person, or it could simply mean finding a name that means something excellent. In the ancient world, names tended to have clear meanings, and they would either tell something about the bearer or something about what the bearer is supposed to be, perhaps ironically. Abram means "exalted father," which is something Abram clearly was not. Abraham means "father of many nations," which is exactly what Abram would become when he became Abraham. When a name is changed, especially Biblically, some significant change has taken place. Similarly, Saul of Tarsus, meaning "asked for," became Paul, meaning "humble." Naming is a serious business, very closely related to identity, so it makes sense that such a change would accompany repentence.

Could an individual not name himself or herself in such a context as this? The answer to that is clearly affirmative, but does it take the romance out of naming? Naming oneself for the mere sake of choosing a name is unromantic. Only an assumed identity can be named by the individual, for this is not just a matter of name changing. If I am a superhero, I have every right to give myself a superhero name, and with respect to the superhero identity, romance is retained. This is because, as a superhero, I must actually be or pretend to be the named character. I must assume the identity associated with that name. I am making no pronouncement about my self as a whole, only about the identity that receives the name. Interestingly, the romance is merely reversed. The comfort in this case comes from the choice of the name, and the unexpected comes with actually bearing it. Imagination, therefore, is quite romantic, as well.

What fun it is to accumulate names from friends and loved ones! How splendid and whimsical it is to assume a new name! Such weight and profundity is denoted by a true change of name. For these reasons I wish that any children of mine shall bear no fewer than four names, at least one of which shall be highly unusual and wonderful. It all makes me wish that I could think of more names by which I am known, but those I have fill me with glee.