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I find I have many passionate
interests in life I try to follow a bit.
One of them is to try and
understand classical music better. I enjoy an extremely wide range of music but
my musical education has always been extremely limited.
Over the years I discovered
BBC Music, a British magazine dedicated to classical music that also includes
CD’s with complete works (unlike other classical music magazines that have CD’s
with pieces to try and get you to buy those CD’s). I find it very interesting to gain some more
knowledge about things I enjoy.
The May 2004 issue has an
article “the Final Score – can a score ever tell us exactly what the composer
intended us to hear” by John Rink that I feel incredibly parallels many issues
in the transmission of Karate, especially on the question about a kata’s
original composer.
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Consider how exacting music
has been transcribed for hundreds of years.
Exact notation in infinite detail, much more than the shape of kata. Yet
the article suggests other issues worth considering. From page 30.
“Performers often say their goal is to realize ‘the composer’s intentions’. On the face it seems noble enough, but can such an ambition ever be achieved, and if so to what avail? And which composer’s intentions’ do they mean: those at the time of the music’s conception, or when the first manuscript was finished, or when proof sheets of the first edition were corrected, or at the first performance, or after years of performances and if so corrected by whom? What if those intentions conflict – and what if the composer’s view of the music was less fixed than our own might be, whether as listeners or performers.”
“These questions are
difficult to answer, and they challenge any simple truths we might choose to
hold about how music “should” sound. The
fact of the matter is that when it comes to composer’s intentions, we believe
what we want to believe – and our beliefs are inevitably based on knowledge
that is less than complete. Taking hold of someone else’s music, whether in
words or in performance, requires educated guesswork on the one hand and our
own creativity on the other. That partly
explains why no account of the music could ever conform to what the composer
intended: we as interpreters and co-creators get in the way. And for all the
convictions we might have about how composers X and Y wanted their music
performed, no one has the requisite insight or authority that some have
proclaimed over the years…..”
“Chopin offers a particularly
interesting case study of how ‘composer’s intentions’ can change over time. His
artistic convictions were more or less immutable and passionately, if quietly, held,
and with few exceptions, he dismissed those performances of his works violated
the aesthetic principles that he professed.
But he was far from rigid when performing his own music. ……we know from
Alfred Hopkins… that Chopin never played his own compositions twice alike, but
varied each according to the mood of the moment.’…..”
“…his creative genius was irrepressible
and forever engaged. To that extent he
continually modified his compositions on paper as well as in performance…..
Chopin reveled in the music’s creative potential by indulging in all manner of
variants, whether in a given piece or at successive stages of the compositional
process.”
“… So which reflects of the
two extant manuscripts best reflects Chopin’s intentions: the earlier of the
two, prepared when he was most alert and his ideas freshest, or the later one,
copied out more of less mechanically but with the opportunity to refine initial
thoughts and introduce new ones?”
Think how this parallels so
many questions we hold about the origins of the Okinawan arts? What was the right version of Seisan kata?
The original created one? Or later
versions on the theme?
I think that a link such as karate to Chopin’s music may suggest
the study of the kata may never have been a fixed shape as much as a theme to
work with.
If the originator of a kata could return today? Would they be distressed that kata drift occurs, or would they be thrilled their original theme continues with new life generation after generation.
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