Hamlet and
Beethoven's 5thBoth inform the intellect and the emotions. I could never place one above the other. However, I've listened to the 5th by far more times than I've read
Hamlet And I've thought more about the 5th probably more than I've thought about
Hamlet, including a wide range of thoughts and emotions, from tragic to comic, for both have been poked fun at!
There's mental meat in both of them. Sure, you can pull the language out of
Hamlet and dicuss very easily the language, the history, the references, Shakespeare's use of facts and how he modified fact. You can discuss the poetry, the emotions conveyed, the way the play has been staged and could be staged. Endless conversation.
But you could also discuss the 5th in detail: arrangement of orchestral voices, use of meter, accent, dynamics, phrasing (what a debate!), form, chord structure, and so on. You could discuss various interpretations by different orchestras under batons of different conductors. You could discuss the performances of individual performers in those different orchestras.
We could easily construct here very long, seemingly endless lists, of what the two experiences of seeing
Hamlet and hearing the 5th could provide us--and, yes, hearing
Hamlet and seeing the 5th
. The depth of our conversations would only be limited by our depth of knowledge about theatre and orchestral performance, to use two very broad terms that don't begin to show the many ways in which our thoughts and emotions are drawn into the two disciplines.
Unfortunately, language has the edge here. In order to talk about Beethoven's music, we use the medium of language. And Shakespeare is already comfortably resting in that medium. That's why it may appear, first thoughts turned that way, that there's more to think about. Shakespeare has already provided all those thoughts! And, why, Beethoven? We must translate what happened musically into language.
However, think about what those musicians are doing to produce the sound to finally cause emotional response in an audience, and you move into an area that can so often be highly intellectualized by musicians and certainly very thoughtfully emotionalized.
I move through an experience. My mind recalls a phrase from
Hamlet. I move through another. My mind recalls a musical phrase from the 5th. There is such a pool of response from those two great works from which either my intellect or my emotional being can draw--may be informed--may find coincidence.
I could never place one work above the other for either intellectual stimulation or emotional. I find it to be absurd to try to do so. And I would suspect any serious lovers of both literature
and music would find it absurd to try to do so. The more I learn about one discipline, the more I appreciate the art of those I value as the masters. Both my mind and emotions are informed, and equally informed, but in different ways. And I believe it is impossible to pluck out certain mental processes from these two disciplines and say that some are not intellectual simply because they may seem to be emotional or not directly related to language.
I've seen
Hamlet performed live a few times, and a few more in films. I've studied it in depth one time. I've certainly listened to the 5th countless times, but it doesn't take as long to perform as
Hamlet. Certainly the artists in both performances can be equally engaged in bringing about the effects they hope to realize in their audiences. Both types of artists exercise their minds and hearts if they are the best kinds of artists. And the best kinds of audiences, I would argue, equally engage their minds and hearts.
The 5th feeds me immediately right where I am in thought and emotion.
Hamlet requires that I must concentrate. The 5th requires varying degrees of concentration from me, some greater than others depending upon how much I want to concentrate. But I could write as much about one as the other, and I could write about each intelligently, especially with some good sources by my side. Each gives me cause for celebration that human beings, so creatively gifted, could rise to such heights, could produce such artistic works of such depth, complexity and intensity that future artists could lay their hands upon them and interpret them anew.
No, I could not put one discipline above the other, even though language is so readily available to us and certainly our writing on a word board may give an immediate, if questionable, advantage to language. But not in the minds of, at least, musicians. Mozart wrote a great deal of text. Ask Mozart, if we could, how he had best exercized his mental capabilities: in his letters or in his music. I don't think there's any doubt how he would respond.
But I know how I spend my hours--I know how much I listen to music--and I know what thoughts that listening inspires. Sometimes there's great good that comes from getting away from just words into a place that informs us of mental imagery, memory, and anticipation that all spring from musical arrangement of sound.
That's a bit of my take on the subject.
Best regards,
WW
- Music transcends poetry and prose in essence. Music is not written for musicians. Music is written for mankind. A gift from the gods. As I write I listen to Richard Strauss's opera "Elektra". The human who is a human has not yet been born who can listen to this emotive work and not be transformed by it's dramatic expression of the tragedy and grandeur of being alive. Words are tyranny. Music frees the soul to reach our destiny and the stars.
