Kevin Holm-Hudson | Mussorgsky: The Picture Exhibition of the ELP Band as Open Works

2022/03/2719:40:37 hotcomm 604
Kevin Holm-Hudson | Mussorgsky: The Picture Exhibition of the ELP Band as Open Works - DayDayNewsKevin Holm-Hudson | Mussorgsky: The Picture Exhibition of the ELP Band as Open Works - DayDayNews

Author | Kevin Holm-Hudson

Translator | Yang Xiaorui Romantic music . This so-called ' progressive rock ' (also called ' art rock ' or 'classical rock') stemmed from a response to the Beatles' "Sgt. (Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart Club Band, 1967) for "serious" acceptance. The most successful progressive rock bands include Yes, Jethro Tull, , Pink Floyd, (Pink Floyd), Genesis and ELP (Emerson, Lake and Palmer). Although prog rock received a lot of criticism from the critics, in the first half of the 1970s, they still achieved great commercial success.

The music theorist John Covach points out in his essay "Progressive Rock, 'Near the Edge', and the Boundaries of Style" that "the borrowings that appear in all progressive rock are often borrowed from draw freely from styles that other experts seem to differ widely” (1997: 8). The article cites a number of stylistically disparate elements, such as "the counterpoint of the Baroque period, the playing technique of the Romantic period, the syncopated rhythm and juxtaposition of modernism," which "coexist freely without any diachronic Dissonance." This surface splicing effect of progressive rock led rock critic Lester Bangs to assert that "everyone knows that classical-rock (or classical-jazz) fusion was never real. succeeded” (1974:43).However, although rock critics denounced progressive rock for being sophisticated, and some people skilled in art music looked down on progressive rock's ambitions on the grounds of lack of education, the borrowing of progressive rock styles largely reflects the post- World War II The side marketed to middle-class consumers as "classical music". As Mrs. Kovacs commented, "The 'classical music' that progressive rock tends to borrow is familiar to people, and it embodies the cultural significance of promoting a new image of the artistic music tradition, which is closely related to musicologists and theories. The family understands it completely differently.” (Covach 8)

Progressive rock and classical music

Progressive rock's stylistic borrowing of "classical music"—and occasionally the direct recontextualization of certain artistic music works—constitutes many, many interesting cases worthy of study, and these The case is well suited to be explained by Umberto Eco's concept of "open work". Eco's conception was originally intended to construct an aesthetic theory explaining that certain avant-garde music had to be done by the listener (1989; see also 1994b:47-49). Yet again theoretically he goes further, arguing that "every reception of a work of art is an 'interpretation' and a 'performance' of it, because in each reception the work itself got a fresh perspective." (1994b: 49) analyzed in this way, it can be seen that each piece of progressive rock is not only a stylistically heterogeneous "performance" of a piece of music, but also a populist "interpretation" of Western music history. ".

1969 to 1973 can be said to be the "identity formation" period of progressive rock. After 1973, the stylistic characteristics of progressive rock had mostly matured, and its commercial viability had prevented further substantial innovation, especially in the United States.The first mainstream commercial success of prog rock was in 1972, and in 1973, in fact, the two most successful releases of the decade were two prog rock albums. Ironically, what defines the "avant-garde" style comes at a time when neck rock stagnated after 1972. Paul Stump describes the years 1969-1973 as a period of transition "to convert the ideology of progressive rock into a sacrifice of cultural consumption goods" (1998: 108). In late 1973, Stump wrote, "The ideology of the counterculture is a thing of the past, replaced by vague bourgeois possessiveness and romantic rhetoric. While not an artistic throwback, it represents progressive rock at its end. the main thrust of a decisive, decisive and destructive stage of development.” (156).

When exploring progressive rock's borrowing of 'classical' music during this period, it is useful to first examine Robert Hatten's concepts of 'style intertextuality' and 'strategic intertextuality' (1985:70) . Style intertextuality, which refers to an early style "used strategically without regard to other individual works within its style" (1985: 71). This is to say that styles borrowed not only from art music, but also from folk songs and jazz are characteristic of many progressive rock. For example, the bariolage technique, originally a feature of baroque strings, became a feature of Tony Banks (Genesis) and Rick Wakeman (Yes) A fixed component of the style of keyboard improvisation, however no specific Baroque work is mentioned or cited.

Strategic intertextuality, on the other hand, refers to the intentional borrowing of one or more specific earlier works (Spicer 2001: 21).Hartan emphasizes that, in the case of strategic intertextuality, "contrast with earlier works is unavoidable, and one can examine the nature of this relationship along the following sequence: from mere citation as a tribute, to development with earlier works What continues may be an ironic dialogue, or a challenge to earlier work.” (71).

However, the nature of this relationship is open to interpretation. ELP's adaptation of Mujeste Mussorgsky's picture exhibition is a prime example. Although ELP drummer Carl Palmer once defended the band's arrangement on the grounds that "if we are encouraging anything, we want children to listen to better music" (Bangs 1974: 44). Yet most critics see their Picture Exhibition as the musical equivalent of Marcel Duchamp. Toussaint painted a beard on a print of the famous painting "Mona Lisa". This contrast between intent and reception can be contrasted with Eco's distinction between interpretation and use: "Critically interpreting a text means finding read it with our reactions to it. To use a text means to obtain something from it in order to obtain something else, even at the risk of semantic misreading. (1994a: 57). ELP's "Picture Exhibition" is closer to the "use" of an art-music text than to its "interpretation".

The Picture Show was an early 'showcase' for the young ELP band, making their famous debut at the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival main part of the show.Drummer Carl Palmer told Bunce: "When we first got together, musically, we were looking for something different from that era, and Keith connected that to classical music. We were together. The first piece that was played was 'Picture Fair.'...We spent a lot of time learning how different instruments were used to do different things in an orchestra. We tried to create a kind of The Sound of a Miniature Orchestra" (Bangs 1974: 43).

In 1972, ELP's album "Picture Exhibition" was released, which, along with Yes's "Tales from Topographic Oceans" (Tales from Topographic Oceans 1973), became the most criticized progressive rock album. Critic Bruce Malamut rated it 'worthless' in The Rolling Stone Record Guide:

As far as Picture Exhibition goes, it doesn't make sense excuse. It's hard to accept the spirit in which it was made (that is, if you look at it as a serious work), and if you look at it as a comedy, at least it's...not funny. (Marsh and Swenson 1979: 121)

One might think that this review was written in 1979, after punk rock (punk rock) swept progressive rock to basically outdated crap, but after the release of this album A similar repercussion was soon to be found in Lester Bunce's original Rolling Stone review:

If poor old Mussorgsky and Ravel could hear what the ELP did to their music For that, they risk retching up in the sky; however, strictly speaking, as an Mussorgsky and Ravel fan and ELP contempt so far, I can say that I laughed out loud that night with Fist hitting the floor and listening to it twice, I found my joy.(Bangs 1972: 57)

Pictures and Walks

A similar taunt can be found in the live version of "Pictures" directed at the ELP band. For example, in London's Times , known for its more conservative coverage of popular culture, Karl Dallas wrote about the ELP's debut 'The Picture' at the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970:

due to a certain For some reason, (Emerson) seems to have a particular love-hate relationship with fatter Russians... On its debut, ELP turned its attention to Mussorgsky's "Pictures" Exhibition". In a performance, sometimes the visual excitement and special effects attract more attention than the musical treatment of "Picture", with a Moog synth and two cannons to add to "Picture". (5g)

Later comments in The Times were more blatant. Later that year, Michael Wale commented on a festival auditorium performance of "Pictures": The audience stood up and cheered at the end of

, it was difficult to say whether it was because of Emerson's motor skills or because of the music... but he may have Be the first to shoot from the bass tube of the Albert Hall pipe organ . If it was possible, he would do it. As a dazzling night, it was fascinating. Who cares about music? Certainly not the audience. (15f)

At the end of the year, another Times critic labelled the ELP band "highly successful but aesthetically hilarious" (Williams 1970: 11g).

Eco's reaction to Derrida (Derrida 1976) deconstructivism in explaining the contrast between the serious intentions of the ELP band's adaptation of The Picture and the interpretation of the critical community (swinging between comedy and daring) can provide some inspiration.Eco reminds us that Peirce's "unlimited semiosis" must still be confined within a socially constructed public framework:

According to Peirce, it can be asserted that the interpreter of any community, They can often agree on this (though not absolutely, and in a fallible way) when they ask what the text they read is about. (1994a: 41)

bassist and frontman Greg Lake told Bunce in defense of the band's arrangement, "We try to play something like 'Picture' in the way we do music, more than we can imagine. more lively and dynamic, Mussorgsky had no electronic instruments after all” (Bangs 1974: 44), but ELP bands seem to have moved significantly away from the realm of tone and texture, going beyond what Eco (1994a) said “ Limits of Interpretation". All those songs that the author clearly signed to Mussorgsky - "Promenade", "The Gnome", "The Hut of Baba Yaga", "The Gate of Kiev (The Gnome)" Great Gate of Kiev)" - closely follows the original score. Only "The Old Castle" (discussed below) deviates from the pattern of "arranging" this ( orchestral ) work more or less verbatim for rock performance. Of course, (in "Adaptation") there are deviations of one kind or another. These deviations are discussed in turn below.

In the interlude entitled "Conversation with the Dead in the Language of the Underworld (Cum mortuis in lingua mortua)", except as a recapitulation at the end of "Kievgate", "Wander" in Mussorgsky's It also appears five times in the original piano suite.In addition to the reenactment of "The Gates of Kyiv", the ELP Band version also retains three "walking" fragments (seen in the opening movement, as well as before the "Castle" and "The Market of Limoges" in Mussorgsky's original previous interlude). Although Lester Bangs likens it to "smashing the biggest organ in the oldest church in Vienna " (Bangs 1972: 57), the opening "Wander" of Keith Emerson's organ solo, is More faithful to the original performance. Conversely, the second track "Walk" is transposed into B-flat major, with lyrics by frontman Greg Lake, while the texture of the third track is covered by a rather delicate drum and miniature violin part (drum-kit part). Bunce, familiar with Ravel's orchestration for "Picture," describes the third track, "Wander," as "majestic as hell, slams down on the bass drum, and could play this at your high school graduation." (1972: 57). It is this movement that is omitted in Ravel's orchestration, but the earliest orchestration of Michail Tushmalov's (1861-1896) "Picture" gives this "Wander" a kind of A quirky martial character that, if not timbre, is at least more similar in spirit to what an ELP band would play. In fact, Tushmalov opened the suite with this unique "Wander"—with its irregular omissions—in contrast, ELP used the opening "Wander" as the recap, This is reminiscent of Tushmalov's interpretation.

Wild Stuff

Palmer, who co-composes "The Gnome", Palmer gives a distinct drum stop that consistently repeats the melody of the piece.The rest is exaggerated, as the piece is clearly a demonstration of the playing sympathy between Emerson and Palmer (the ELP video recording of "Picture" at the Lyceum Theatre in London makes this particularly clear, It appears that Emerson and Palmer are in healthy competition). Bars 19-28 in the original piano version are not repeated by the ELP band (although they are repeated by Mussorgsky and Ravel); bars 29-34, on the other hand, are repeated several times in an incrementally fast tempo , punctuated by electric bass in a call-response pattern [0:31-0:54] from time to time. Bars 38–39 are also repeated, making possible a short synth solo of Emerson from [1:02–1:16] (the synthesizer's first appearance in the ELP version). The slow chromatic descent from the upper octave is characteristic of bars 66-71 of Mussorgsky's original work, and in the ELP band version it is reproduced as a synthesizer harmony part, with the addition of a mixed technique. The furthest departure of

from the Canon form is the solo by Keith Emerson's vernacular. A fairly free synth solo, finished with a broad portamento from C5 to the next note. This solo occurs at [2:51–3:21] of "The Gnome," a timing corresponding to bars 71 and 72 of Mussorgsky's score. A broader, more dissonant cadenza, used to lead the band's "Castle," "Blues Variation," was played by Emerson with a ribbon controller. Finally, the rapidly descending scales of "The Gate of Kyiv" 111—bar 113—which in their original context are like cadenzas themselves—are replaced by a feedback oscillation by a Hammond organ The resulting Huacai segment [3:15-4:00].

Although the extroverted performance style shown in these passages is not without precedent in rock music, consider that at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, Jimi Hendrix (Jimi Hendrix) called the The famous feedback oscillating introduction from Wild thing". But such performances are widely interpreted as expressions of self-indulgence. Bunce, for example, described Emerson's "Castle" overture: "Whizz! Whoosh! Ahhh! It's an electronic psychedelic full of slaps, bumps, vomits, hiccups , and the lad has the audience cheering it on. Exclamation..." (1972: 57). The

"Castle" finally breaks away from the pattern that clearly follows the original "Picture". As Bunce put it, "I looked at the record sleeve and I saw that there was one of Mussorgsky's original themes listed, 'The Castle' (I think Emerson gave some details). He must have told Al about this. Aldebaran explained it clearly, because I hear no trace of the original 'castle' anywhere on this record" (1972: 57). Likewise, when Allan Moore (2001) discusses "Blues Variation", instead of mentioning that it was developed from Mussorgsky's original, he declares that "the ELP band only absorbed about eleven of the original. the first two and the last two of the composition, and also add my own to it” (91). It is true that when adapting "Wander", the ELP band adopted a way of adapting Mussorgsky's original work word for word, but it is difficult to say that the same is true for Emerson's version of "The Castle", but Mussorgsky Both of the themes of (Theme A, mm. 8-15; Theme B, mm. 29-37) do still exist.

's title "Blues Variations" is perhaps a hint that Emerson's approach is presumably similar to that of jazz musicians, often simply borrowing part or "beginning" of a piece as a springboard for improvisation. The second theme is audible, in the middle of Emerson's synth solo [0:21-0:35], which is played very quickly twice. The first theme is the "beginning" of Emerson's organ solo in the blues progression (blues progression). Interestingly, the first time Mussorgsky's theme appears, it becomes the opening of the first chorus of Emerson's solo, with the theme starting with the ∧1-∧5-∧1 melody line (see Mussorgsky in The original work mm.51-54) appeared for the second time after the revision, and it became the basis of Emerson's second chorus.

Due to the limitations of the double-sided LP (LP) format, Moore interpreted the "Blues Variations" as the ELP's song "Nut Rocker" (the "March ( March)” of the 12-bar blues version) of an end-single-sided analogue (“end-single-sided”, originally “side-ending”. On the double-sided LP of ELP’s Picture Exhibition,” "Blues Variation" is the last song of the first side, and "Walnut Rocker" is the last song of the second side, and the two correspond in position. Translator's Note). This contributes to the album's "conceptual consistency" (91). In the context of this record, however, "The Nutcrackers" is clearly a sideshow (before playing it, Lake even asked the audience "Would you like to hear some more music?"). When Moore made the album, he clearly made it into a live concert format.

"The Cabin on Chicken Feet" is one of the more successful adaptations of the ELP band, because the original has the same musical characteristics as heavy metal rock - such as lowering the lead, the dominant of the locrian mode (mm.9- 16) and the fixed pattern (mm.17-32) of the ascending chromatic scale like a "riff". The ELP band played the first part of this piece (mm.1-94) more faithfully to the original, but added some "rock" features. The main "riffs" of the first part are repeated four times. Other rock features include bass for syncopated rhythm and drum "fills" at [0:40-0:49], in the section corresponding to the "House on Chicken Feet" ensemble [0:31- 0:40], these insertions are enhanced by a quick organ portamento. The middle part of Mussorgsky's "House on Chicken Feet" (bars 95-122) is only partially used, but mostly used in "The Curse of Baba Yaga" by ELP replaced. This "original" song, however, is based on Mussorgsky's material, such as bars 38-39 of "The Gnome" (which similarly emphasizes tritones) is used as the song's signature riff. When asked by an interviewer about his borrowings of classical music, Emerson said:

I like these pieces. I want to play these pieces, but I want to play them in a way that is acceptable to our audience. And spark new interest in the original. You know I've been doing this since the '60s, that's my intention. But it's clear that listeners have become sensitive and smart since then... so I'm not going to insult the public's intelligence by saying I play "Fanfare for the Common Man", I hope they Listen to the original.That was probably the case [in 1971], but since then it's become part of what people expect from me... My music has been labelled "classical rock" and I guess that's fine... it's based on certain Rhythm playing classical music. That sounds good, like calling a garbage collector a waste handler instead of a garbage collector. It sounds a lot more polite...I call it a classical music performance that focuses on rhythm (a direct, hard rhythm, a rhythm different from the composer's original intention). Or, to put it rudely, grunge classic rock. (Milano 1977/1984a:140-141)

Franz Lisztmeet Umberto Eco

In these traditional times, adaptations often provide a work with wider exposure than its original audience. For example, Franz Liszt arranged Beethoven symphony and Wagner opera excerpts into piano pieces, and his piano arrangements made those works popular in some European regions where there was little opportunity for symphony concerts, and Made those pieces (through amateur piano performances) into countless homes in the pre-gramophone record era. And through live performances and the mass medium of gramophone records (later CDs), ELP's "Picture Exhibition" achieved the same. As Lake told Bunce, “If listeners can appreciate The Picture Exhibition through us, it’s just as great as they can appreciate The Picture through Mussorgsky. In fact, many people will never hear it any other way. to it. So you compromise a little, and you open that door for many” (44).

progressive rock, in its heyday, walked a tangled line between art and commerce.It strategically incorporates features of 19th and 20th century art music, sometimes introducing general styles, sometimes alluding to (or even explicitly citing) a specific piece of music, all while using the performance, recording and distribution of the popular music industry technology. It is "rock" music in terms of playing style, audience atmosphere, broadcast form, and media coverage; yet it is a rock that thrives on the large-scale form and texture of symphony. Theodor Adorno (Theodor Adorno) insightful critique of "pseudoindividuation (1989:25-32)", in a sense progressive rock is one of the most resistant to this critique. popular music; however, on the other hand, its shallow reference to "classical" corroborates Adorno's similarly sharp criticism of the cultural industry.

Perhaps one way of reconciling rather than compromising the aesthetic contradictions of progressive rock is to walk with Umberto Eco on what he calls an "inferential walk". Readers are "encouraged to activate interpretive activity through a number of pre-recorded narrative situations (intertextual frames). To identify these frames, readers have to 'walk' outside the text to gather intertextual support ( a process of pursuing similar concepts, themes, or motives)” (1994b:32). Eco points out that "a text can act on the basis of embedded multiple themes" which are not necessarily obvious and "the reader has to guess where the real theme is hidden" (26).

This article takes a closer look at some of the "art music" techniques favored by progressive rock, and finds that they are used in the same way that Eco describes them. For example, according to Eco, a text frequently "establishes its theme by apparently repeating a series of sememes belonging to the same semantic domain... In this case, these semes haunt and repeat throughout the in the text.(1994b:26) The Baroque mixes used by Rick Wakeman undoubtedly employ this effective method. "At other times," Eco points out, "these semes cannot be obtained statistically because they are not disseminated in large numbers, but strategically located” (1994b:26). As a model for being strategically located, we can see that King Crimson’s “dinosaurs” use steroids The Stravinskian melody, or "Castle" as Emerson indiscernibly referenced in ELP's "Blues Variations" (so ethereal that Lester Bunce and Alan Moore was unaware.) Other themes function as isotopies, which Greimas described as "a set of repetitive semantic categories that enable consistent reading of stories" (1970:188). In progressive rock, the allotopic theme is usually formalized, and the allotopic theme moves into the rock realm. Examples include the fixed-note accompaniment derived from the "dwarf" in "Curse on the Chicken Feet", and Emerson's extended version of the organ. Solo is set against this background. "Castle" uses the 12-bar blues piece used in "Blues Variations." The latter (use) is a less appealing, or even degraded, textual reading. Eco, however, defends use in textual borrowing:

use and interpretation are abstract theoretical possibilities. Each experience Sexual reading is always an unpredictable mix of the two. It is possible that a performance begins with use and ends with the launch of a fruitful new interpretation—or vice versa.Sometimes using texts means liberating them from previous interpretations, discovering new aspects of them, recognizing a new and more interpretive textual intent in which they have been misinterpreted before. Too much unconstrained reader intent (perhaps under the guise of faithfully pursuing the author's intent) contaminates and obscures the intent of the text. (1994a:62)

Compared to what the Portsmouth Sinfonia called 'popular classical', progressive rock cannot be said to be corrective—and from the standpoint of establishing classical music, often the opposite is true— —but fruitful new interpretations do emerge. Progressive rock's obsession with "classic" did sometimes lead to a new fusion of rock styles with new organizational methods leading to large-scale forms. Among the many models that can be cited, Yes's "Tales from the Terrain Ocean" (1973) and Henry Cow's "Living in the Heart of the Beast" are two A very unique template.

Open Works

In the 1970s, progressive rock was a commercial presence in the music industry, although it is no longer, but its characteristic "art rock" impulse continued in other manifestations. Martin (2002) investigates a number of recent developments that appear to be a continuation of the progressive rock spirit, if not the stylistic language; however, these developments are not part of the mainstream.

In more experimental pop groups like Stereolab, references to art music are more varied and vague than in the 1970s.For example, Stereo Lab has absorbed the "classic" minimalism (the "classic" minimalism) of composers such as Philip Glass (Philip Glass), Steve Reich, and In their song titles, Stravinsky's "Monster Sacre", Schoenberg 's "I Feel the Air [of Another Planet"], and the Second Viennese School's "I Feel the Air [of Another Planet"] Retrograde Music Forms". Band member Tim Gane acknowledged the band's conscious historicism, emphasizing "I believe you have to absorb the best of the past and the best of the present to be the best" (quoted in Martin 2002 :131). In Stereo Lab's subsequent releases, their sense of the "past" continued to stretch back. In 2001, the opening song "Black Ants in Sound-Dust" from the album Sound-Dust began with an unfolding complex rhythmic texture composed by Alexander Alexander Scriabin's (1872-1915) "mystic chord" pitch collection.

If in 1977 Keith Emerson was right: "audiences have become sensitive and intelligent," then perhaps members of the Stereo Lab would have expected their average audience to recognize such transtextual Quote. Singer Laetitia Sadier once affirmed that "there is always something missing in our music, which is left for the listener to fill" (cited in Martin 133). This argument is similar to Eco's thesis on the "open work", and it is indeed possible, in Peirce's model, to trace a more profound and varied spiral of citations.

Nonetheless, for Eco, open work does not constitute complete freedom of interpretation.He aptly argues for what he describes as "hermetic drift" in symbolic processes:

In the end, there is no common property that unites A and E, except for one: they belong to the same network of family resemblances. ...but in such a chain, at the moment we know E, any notion of A has disappeared. The connotation spreads like a tumor, the symbols in front of each step are forgotten, erased, because the joy of drift is given by the drift from symbol to symbol, and there is no other purpose than to enjoy the journey through the labyrinth of symbols or things. (1994a:31)

In contrast, while open, the work is paradoxically closed ("as a balanced organic whole in its uniqueness") (1994b:49). The openness of the work of art is conditional: Eco argues that the work is open "because it allows an infinite number of different interpretations that do not infringe upon its pure uniqueness" (1994b:49). Furthermore, the semiotic process is bound by a socially constructed "common frame": "In the semiotic process we only want to know what is relevant to a given universe of discourse." Then, in other words, Eco means that before a text can be "opened", it must first be protected (1994a:54).

Symbols are therefore not monolithic and fixed; a work may indeed be more or less "open" depending on the influence of social consensus. While the idea of ​​the "pop avant-garde" made the record label and producer function very much like the manager of an art music orchestra in the 19th century, the mass music medium of the early 21st century was undoubtedly the same as it was in the sixth and seventh centuries of the 20th century It is more conservative compared to the decade (Martin 1998:96-97). As a result -- given that the average consumer's tastes are more or less determined by the mass media -- audiences may also be more conservative.This means that some "open" works from the 1960s and 1970s are now less open because their public frame has narrowed. Bradley Smith recounts a listener's reaction to Pink Floyd's "Atom Heart Mother" (1970): "While playing the piece, he looked at me apprehensively and said, 'I don't understand. What is it about? What should I be thinking about?'" (14).

Any semiotic study of mass media is also, to a certain extent, a study of the history of reception—what Molino (Molino 1990) calls the aesthetic level. The musical intertextuality characteristic of progressive rock can tell us a lot about how the identity of classical music was constructed in the postwar "concert culture that promoted Western art music" (Covach 1997:8), and in popular culture.

Comments :

1 Emerson, Lake & Palmer's "From the Beginning" and Yes's "Roundabout" were the top 40 hits of 1972 (39th and 13th respectively) ); ELP's "Lucky Man" was also a relatively successful single the year before. Progressive rock's success is even more pronounced on the album charts: Yes's "Fragile" and "Close to the Edge" at No. 4 and No. 3; ELP's "Trilogy" ) ranked 5th. Jethro Tal's most progressive rock album, "Thick as a Brick," came in at number one.

2 Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells" sold 3 million copies in the United States alone, and by 1981 had sold over 10 million copies worldwide. Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" eventually sold over 20 million copies and remains one of the best-selling albums in rock history.

3 Development of the genre (progressive rock) generally stagnated after 1973, with the most notable exception being the more experimental, and as a result, a commercially unsuccessful offshoot of progressive rock known as "opposition rock" (Rock in Opposition), which was pioneered by Henry Kao.

4 "Bariolage" is a special string performance technique that describes the rapid transition between open strings and frets. In keyboard music, it can be used to describe any rapid transition between a stationary "pedal sustain" and a moving "melody note" (see J.S. Bach's "Toccata" and "Fugue in D Minor" fugue theme, a famous example of the common-practice canon). When it appears in a non-string medium, it can be understood as an adaptation of a string work (Williams 1981 concluded this when studying the adaptation of Bach's BWV No. 565) or at least an indication of a string performance characteristic of a subject.

5 Ravel's famous orchestral version omits the "Wander" before "The Market of Limoges" in the piano version, probably because it is too similar to the opening movement. However, the phrase structure at the end is not the same.

6 In the later performances of the ELP band, the original A-flat major was retained.

7 Acceleration and echo-response modes, as virtuosos, work across cultures. Examples in rock music include: Ray Charles' "What'd I Say" (1956), where the soloist sings with the background singer, and Jimmy Page and Robert Plant's interaction of guitar and singing in Led Zeppelin's "You Shook Me" (1969).While the presence of the echo-response pattern in rock music almost certainly originated in Africa, in raga performances in North India, similar audience-pleasing shifts are often played on the sitar and tabla. between (tabla). The

8 control bar is a performer interface that allows for touch glissando. Emerson's device looked like a stick, attached to the synthesizer with a length of makeshift electrical cord. The Control Strip Overture is incorrectly labeled "Castle" on some CDs, see Note 10.

9 Moore cites movements as "Wander," "Gnome," "House on Chicken Feet," and "Kyiv Gate." The earlier orchestral version of The Picture also omitted some movements, although other pieces were indeed omitted from the ELP Band's version. A CD reissue of

10 ELP's Picture Exhibition (Atlantic 191222-2) has at least one error in this regard. Emerson's wild Moog ribbon-controller solo before the actual "Castle" was seen as "Castle," recording a time of just 1:03. The song that follows (which alludes to the addition of Palmer drums (drum kit entrance)) is titled "Blues Variations". In fact, "Castle" includes this control strip solo, and the first part of the orchestra's performance, an A-flat minor dance step featuring a synth solo. The second part of the song (1:29 on the CD, labeled "Blues Variations") is the real "Blues Variations", at which point Emerson switches to the organ and the jazz becomes a 12 Bar blues in C minor.

11 Among the jazz classics, "My Favorite Things" by John Coltrane in 1961 is a good analogy. In his performances, Coltrane used only the first part of the song as the basis for his own improvisation, keeping the ending ("When the dog bites") as something of a coda.

12 "Walnut Rockers" was originally recorded by B. Bumble and the Stingers in 1961 and was the UK's No. 1 bestseller.

13 The Portsmouth Symphony Orchestra, an orchestra open to musicians of all skill levels, performs only the most famous pieces from the most famous classical works. Its first performance (with Rossini's William Tell Overture) was in May 1970. Its first album, Portsmouth Sinfonia Plays the Popular Classics (UK Transatlantic 275; US Columbia KC 33049), was released in 1974. Rock musician Brian Eno is part of the band and plays the clarinet.

14 Robert Shelton's comments in The Times of London made it particularly clear about Yes' Tales performance at the Rainbow Theatre (1973:11d). He coined the term "rockophonic" to describe "a nameless music that fuses elements of rock, jazz and college music into a whole new genre that has never been tried before," he compared the group and Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" premiere, wrote:

This is where history plays, because it's not just a step past Sergeant Paber, it's a path to Finally crossing the threshold of the gap between college music and disco music... It is an extraordinary work, but by no means pretentious. Its imitation of contemporary classical music works, not in theme and form, but only in inflection, rhythm changes, and deep texture... It can be predicted that in the next 25 years people will study it as an important part of modern music. The third movement of the turning point.(11d)

For more on the "organized" approach to Yes's form, especially Legends, see Rycenga 2002.

15 This title refers to the opening sentence in Stefan George's text. Arnold Schoenberg composed this text, the final movement of "String Quartet no. 2" Opus No. 10 (1909), Schoenberg's first decisive non- Attempt to tune.

16 As commonly stated, Scriabin's mysterious chord consists of pitches C3-F#3-Bb3-E4-A4-D5. This chord is a characteristic sonorous tone of Scriabin's later works, especially the 1911 "Prometheus" symphony. Stereo Lab's track "Black Ants in Sound Dust" begins with an incremental introduction of C4-F#5-Bb4-E5-A5-D6 pitches.

17 For example, the increasing texture at the beginning of "Black Ant in the Dust", and the accompanying momentary camouflage of the tonal center, also reminds me of Mozart's "Dissonant" String Quartet, K .465. However, I doubt that this is an intentional quote.Kevin Holm-Hudson | Mussorgsky: The Picture Exhibition of the ELP Band as Open Works - DayDayNewsKevin Holm-Hudson | Mussorgsky: The Picture Exhibition of the ELP Band as Open Works - DayDayNews

Author | Kevin Holm-Hudson

Translator | Yang Xiaorui Romantic music . This so-called ' progressive rock ' (also called ' art rock ' or 'classical rock') stemmed from a response to the Beatles' "Sgt. (Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart Club Band, 1967) for "serious" acceptance. The most successful progressive rock bands include Yes, Jethro Tull, , Pink Floyd, (Pink Floyd), Genesis and ELP (Emerson, Lake and Palmer). Although prog rock received a lot of criticism from the critics, in the first half of the 1970s, they still achieved great commercial success.

The music theorist John Covach points out in his essay "Progressive Rock, 'Near the Edge', and the Boundaries of Style" that "the borrowings that appear in all progressive rock are often borrowed from draw freely from styles that other experts seem to differ widely” (1997: 8). The article cites a number of stylistically disparate elements, such as "the counterpoint of the Baroque period, the playing technique of the Romantic period, the syncopated rhythm and juxtaposition of modernism," which "coexist freely without any diachronic Dissonance." This surface splicing effect of progressive rock led rock critic Lester Bangs to assert that "everyone knows that classical-rock (or classical-jazz) fusion was never real. succeeded” (1974:43). However, while rock critics denounced progressive rock for being sophisticated, some people skilled in art music also looked down on progressive rock's aspirations on the grounds of lack of culture.However, the style borrowing of progressive rock largely shows the side of that was marketed as "classical music" to middle-class consumers after World War II and . As Mrs. Kovacs commented, "The 'classical music' that progressive rock tends to borrow is familiar to people, and it embodies the cultural significance of promoting a new image of the artistic music tradition, which is closely related to musicologists and theories. The family understands it completely differently.” (Covach 8)

Progressive rock and classical music

Progressive rock's stylistic borrowing of "classical music"—and occasionally the direct recontextualization of certain artistic music works—constitutes many, many interesting cases worthy of study, and these The case is well suited to be explained by Umberto Eco's concept of "open work". Eco's conception was originally intended to construct an aesthetic theory explaining that certain avant-garde music had to be done by the listener (1989; see also 1994b:47-49). Yet again theoretically he goes further, arguing that "every reception of a work of art is an 'interpretation' and a 'performance' of it, because in each reception the work itself got a fresh perspective." (1994b: 49) analyzed in this way, it can be seen that each piece of progressive rock is not only a stylistically heterogeneous "performance" of a piece of music, but also a populist "interpretation" of Western music history. ".

1969 to 1973 can be said to be the "identity formation" period of progressive rock. After 1973, the stylistic characteristics of progressive rock had mostly matured, and its commercial viability had prevented further substantial innovation, especially in the United States. The first mainstream commercial success of progressive rock was in 1972, 1973, and actually in this decade,Among the most successful releases were two progressive rock albums. Ironically, what defines the "avant-garde" style comes at a time when neck rock stagnated after 1972. Paul Stump describes the years 1969-1973 as a period of transition "to convert the ideology of progressive rock into a sacrifice of cultural consumption goods" (1998: 108). In late 1973, Stump wrote, "The ideology of the counterculture is a thing of the past, replaced by vague bourgeois possessiveness and romantic rhetoric. While not an artistic throwback, it represents progressive rock at its end. the main thrust of a decisive, decisive and destructive stage of development.” (156).

When exploring progressive rock's borrowing of 'classical' music during this period, it is useful to first examine Robert Hatten's concepts of 'style intertextuality' and 'strategic intertextuality' (1985:70) . Style intertextuality, which refers to an early style "used strategically without regard to other individual works within its style" (1985: 71). This is to say that styles borrowed not only from art music, but also from folk songs and jazz are characteristic of many progressive rock. For example, the bariolage technique, originally a feature of baroque strings, became a feature of Tony Banks (Genesis) and Rick Wakeman (Yes) A fixed component of the style of keyboard improvisation, however no specific Baroque work is mentioned or cited.

Strategic intertextuality, on the other hand, refers to the intentional borrowing of one or more specific earlier works (Spicer 2001: 21). Hartan emphasizes that, in the case of strategic intertextuality, "contrast with earlier works is unavoidable, and one can examine the nature of this relationship along the following sequence: from mere citation as a tribute, to development with earlier works Continued, possibly sarcastic dialogue,Or a challenge to earlier works. (71).

However, the nature of the relationship is open to interpretation. The ELP Band's adaptation of Mujeste Mussorgsky's picture exhibition is a prime example. Although ELP The band's drummer Carl Palmer once defended the band's arrangement on the grounds that "if we are encouraging anything, we want children to listen to better music" (Bangs 1974: 44). Most critics see their Picture Exhibition as the musical equivalent of Marcel Duchamp on a print of the famous Mona Lisa Draw a beard. This contrast between intent and reception can be contrasted with Eco's distinction between interpretation and use: "Critically interpreting a text means We read it in order to discover something related to its essence, with our reaction to it. Using a text means starting from it for something else in order to get something else, even at the risk of semantic misreading. (1994a: 57). The ELP Band's "Picture Exhibition" is closer to the "use" of an art-musical text than its "interpretation".

For the young ELP band, "Picture Exhibition" The Meeting was an early "showcase" that formed a major part of their famous debut at the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival, drummer Carl Palmer told Bang S: "When we first got together, musically, we were going for something different from that era, and Keith connected that to classical music. The first piece of music we played together was 'Picture Exhibition. ' . . . we spent a lot of time,Learn how different instruments are used to do different things in an orchestra. We tried to create a kind of micro-orchestral sound from our band" (Bangs 1974: 43).

In 1972, ELP's album "Picture Exhibition" was released, which was paired with Yes's "From Terrain Ocean" Tales from Topographic Oceans (1973) became the most critically maligned progressive rock album. Critic Bruce Malamut gave it in The Rolling Stone Record Guide of "no value":

There are no plausible excuses as far as Picture Exhibition is concerned. It is difficult to accept the spirit in which it was created (that is, if it is taken as a seriously produced work ), if you look at it as a comedy, at least it’s not… After rock basically swept into outdated crap, a similar repercussion could also be found in Lester Bunce's original Rolling Stone review shortly after the album's release:

If poor old Mussorgsky And Ravel could hear what the ELP band did to their music and they could retire in the sky; however, strictly speaking, as a mussorgsky and ravel fan And the ELP contempt so far, I can say I found my joy in listening to it twice that night while laughing and punching the floor with my fists. (Bangs 1972: 57)

Drawing and walking

Against ELP A similar mockery can be found in the band's live version of The Picture, for example, in London's Times , known for its more conservative coverage of pop culture,Karl Dallas writes about ELP's debut at the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival, The Picture:

For some reason, (Emerson) seems to have a particular love-hate with fatter Russians Relationships... On its debut, ELP turned its attention to Mussorgsky's Picture Exhibition. In a performance, sometimes the visual excitement and special effects attract more attention than the musical treatment of "Picture", with a Moog synth and two cannons to add to "Picture". (5g)

Later comments in The Times were more blatant. Later that year, Michael Wale commented on a festival auditorium performance of "Pictures": The audience stood up and cheered at the end of

, it was difficult to say whether it was because of Emerson's motor skills or because of the music... but he may have Be the first to shoot from the bass tube of the Albert Hall pipe organ . If it was possible, he would do it. As a dazzling night, it was fascinating. Who cares about music? Certainly not the audience. (15f)

At the end of the year, another Times critic labelled the ELP band "highly successful but aesthetically hilarious" (Williams 1970: 11g).

Eco's reaction to Derrida (Derrida 1976) deconstructivism in explaining the contrast between the serious intentions of the ELP band's adaptation of The Picture and the interpretation of the critical community (swinging between comedy and daring) can provide some inspiration. Eco reminds us that Peirce's "unlimited semiosis" must still be confined within a socially constructed public framework:

According to Peirce, it can be asserted that the interpreter of any community, When they asked what the text they were reading was about,There is often agreement on this (though not absolutely, and in an error-prone way). (1994a: 41)

bassist and frontman Greg Lake told Bunce in defense of the band's arrangement, "We try to play something like 'Picture' in the way we do music, more than we can imagine. more lively and dynamic, Mussorgsky had no electronic instruments after all” (Bangs 1974: 44), but ELP bands seem to have moved significantly away from the realm of tone and texture, going beyond what Eco (1994a) said “ Limits of Interpretation". All those songs that the author clearly signed to Mussorgsky - "Promenade", "The Gnome", "The Hut of Baba Yaga", "The Gate of Kiev (The Gnome)" Great Gate of Kiev)" - closely follows the original score. Only "The Old Castle" (discussed below) deviates from the pattern of "arranging" this ( orchestral ) work more or less verbatim for rock performance. Of course, (in "Adaptation") there are deviations of one kind or another. These deviations are discussed in turn below.

In the interlude entitled "Conversation with the Dead in the Language of the Underworld (Cum mortuis in lingua mortua)", except as a recapitulation at the end of "Kievgate", "Wander" in Mussorgsky's It also appears five times in the original piano suite. In addition to the reenactment of "The Gates of Kyiv", the ELP Band version also retains three "walking" fragments (seen in the opening movement, as well as before the "Castle" and "The Market of Limoges" in Mussorgsky's original previous interlude). Although Lester Bangs likens it to "smashing the biggest organ in the oldest church in Vienna " (Bangs 1972: 57), the opening "Wander" of Keith Emerson's organ solo, is More faithful to the original performance. to the opposite,The second "Walk" was transposed into B-flat major with lyrics by frontman Greg Lake, while the texture of the third was covered by a rather delicate drum and miniature violin part (drum-kit part) strengthened. Bunce, familiar with Ravel's orchestration for "Picture," describes the third track, "Wander," as "majestic as hell, slams down on the bass drum, and could play this at your high school graduation." (1972: 57). It is this movement that is omitted in Ravel's orchestration, but the earliest orchestration of Michail Tushmalov's (1861-1896) "Picture" gives this "Wander" a kind of A quirky martial character that, if not timbre, is at least more similar in spirit to what an ELP band would play. In fact, Tushmalov opened the suite with this unique "Wander"—with its irregular omissions—in contrast, ELP used the opening "Wander" as the recap, This is reminiscent of Tushmalov's interpretation.

Wild Stuff

Palmer, who co-composes "The Gnome", Palmer gives a distinct drum stop that consistently repeats the melody of the piece. The rest is exaggerated, as the piece is clearly a demonstration of the playing sympathy between Emerson and Palmer (the ELP video recording of "Picture" at the Lyceum Theatre in London makes this particularly clear, It appears that Emerson and Palmer are in healthy competition). Bars 19-28 in the original piano version are not repeated by the ELP band (although they are repeated by Mussorgsky and Ravel); bars 29-34, on the other hand, are repeated several times in an incrementally fast tempo , punctuated by electric bass in a call-response pattern [0:31-0:54] from time to time. Bars 38-39 are also repeated,Enables a short synth solo of Emerson from [1:02-1:16] (the synth's first appearance in the ELP version). The slow chromatic descent from the upper octave is characteristic of bars 66-71 of Mussorgsky's original work, and in the ELP band version it is reproduced as a synthesizer harmony part, with the addition of a mixed technique. The furthest departure of

from the Canon form is the solo by Keith Emerson's vernacular. A fairly free synth solo, finished with a broad portamento from C5 to the next note. This solo occurs at [2:51–3:21] of "The Gnome," a timing corresponding to bars 71 and 72 of Mussorgsky's score. A broader, more dissonant cadenza, used to lead the band's "Castle," "Blues Variation," was played by Emerson with a ribbon controller. Finally, the rapidly descending scales of "The Gate of Kyiv" 111—bar 113—which in their original context are like cadenzas themselves—are replaced by a feedback oscillation by a Hammond organ The resulting Huacai segment [3:15-4:00].

Although the extroverted performance style shown in these passages is not without precedent in rock music, consider that at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, Jimi Hendrix (Jimi Hendrix) called the The famous feedback oscillating introduction from Wild thing". But such performances are widely interpreted as expressions of self-indulgence. Bunce, for example, described Emerson's "Castle" overture: "Whizz! Whoosh! Ahhh! It's an electronic psychedelic full of slaps, bumps, vomits, hiccups , and the lad has the audience cheering it on. Exclamation..." (1972: 57). The

"Castle" finally breaks away from the pattern that clearly follows the original "Picture". As Bunce said, "I looked at the record sleeve,I saw one of Mussorgsky's original themes listed 'The Castle' (I think Emerson gave some elaboration). He must have explained this to Aldebaran, because I hear no trace of the original 'castle' anywhere on this record" (1972: 57). Again, Allen When Allan Moore (2001) discussed "Blues Variation", instead of mentioning that it was developed from Mussorgsky's original work, he declared that "the ELP band only absorbed some of the eleven or so pieces of the original. The first two and the last two, and adding their own stuff to it” (91). Indeed, in their adaptation of “Wander,” the ELP band adopted a word-for-word adaptation of Mussorgsky’s original, however Emerson's version of "The Castle", it is difficult to say that the same is true, but Mussorgsky's two themes (theme A, mm. 8-15; theme B, mm. 29-37) are indeed still Exist.

titled "Blues Variations" is perhaps a hint that Emerson's approach is presumably similar to that of jazz musicians, often just borrowing part or "beginning" of a piece as a springboard for improvisation. Second theme You can hear it being played very quickly twice in the middle of Emerson's synth solo [0:21-0:35]. The first theme is Emerson's organ in the blues progression (blues progression). The "beginning" of the solo. Interestingly, the first time Mussorgsky's theme appears, it becomes the opening of Emerson's first chorus of solo, the theme begins with the ∧1-∧5-∧1 melody line ( Seen in Mussorgsky's original work mm. 51-54), the second appearance after the revision has become the basis of Emerson's second chorus.

Due to the limitations of the form of double-sided LP (compact record),Moore interprets "Blues Variations" as a closing side of ELP's "Nut Rocker" (a 12-bar blues version of "March" from Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite) ("Ending One Side", originally "side-ending". On the double-sided LP of ELP's "Picture Fair", "Blues Variation" is the last track of the first side, " "Walnut Rockers" is the last song of the second side, and the two correspond in position. Translator's Note). This contributes to the album's "conceptual consistency" (91). In the context of this record, however, "The Nutcrackers" is clearly a sideshow (before playing it, Lake even asked the audience "Would you like to hear some more music?"). When Moore made the album, he clearly made it into a live concert format.

"The Cabin on Chicken Feet" is one of the more successful adaptations of the ELP band, because the original has the same musical characteristics as heavy metal rock - such as lowering the lead, the dominant of the locrian mode (mm.9- 16) and the fixed pattern (mm.17-32) of the ascending chromatic scale like a "riff". The ELP band played the first part of this piece (mm.1-94) more faithfully to the original, but added some "rock" features. The main "riffs" of the first part are repeated four times. Other rock features include bass for syncopated rhythm and drum "fills" at [0:40-0:49], in the section corresponding to the "House on Chicken Feet" ensemble [0:31- 0:40], these insertions are enhanced by a quick organ portamento. The middle part of Mussorgsky's "House on Chicken Feet" (bars 95-122) is only partially used, but mostly used in "The Curse of Baba Yaga" by ELP replaced. However, this "original" song, based on Mussorgsky's material,Bars 38-39 of "Gnome" (which similarly emphasizes tritones) are used as the song's signature riff. When asked by an interviewer about his borrowings of classical music, Emerson said:

I like these pieces. I want to play these pieces, but I want to play them in a way that is acceptable to our audience. And spark new interest in the original. You know I've been doing this since the '60s, that's my intention. But it's clear that listeners have become sensitive and smart since then... so I'm not going to insult the public's intelligence by saying I play "Fanfare for the Common Man", I hope they Listen to the original. That was probably the case [in 1971], but since then it's become part of what people expect from me... My music has been labelled "classical rock" and I guess that's fine... it's based on certain Rhythm playing classical music. That sounds good, like calling a garbage collector a waste handler instead of a garbage collector. It sounds a lot more polite...I call it a classical music performance that focuses on rhythm (a direct, hard rhythm, a rhythm different from the composer's original intention). Or, to put it rudely, grunge classic rock. (Milano 1977/1984a:140-141)

Franz Lisztmeet Umberto Eco

In these traditional times, adaptations often provide a work with wider exposure than its original audience. For example, Franz Liszt arranged Beethoven symphony and Wagner opera excerpts into piano pieces, and his piano arrangements made those works popular in some European regions where there was little opportunity for symphony concerts, and Made those pieces (through amateur piano performances) into countless homes in the pre-gramophone record era. And through the mass medium of live performances and gramophone records (and later CDs),The "Picture Exhibition" performed by the ELP band achieves the same purpose. As Lake told Bunce, “If listeners can appreciate The Picture Exhibition through us, it’s just as great as they can appreciate The Picture through Mussorgsky. In fact, many people will never hear it any other way. to it. So you compromise a little, and you open that door for many” (44).

progressive rock, in its heyday, walked a tangled line between art and commerce. It strategically incorporates features of 19th and 20th century art music, sometimes introducing general styles, sometimes alluding to (or even explicitly citing) a specific piece of music, all while using the performance, recording and distribution of the popular music industry technology. It is "rock" music in terms of playing style, audience atmosphere, broadcast form, and media coverage; yet it is a rock that thrives on the large-scale form and texture of symphony. Theodor Adorno (Theodor Adorno) insightful critique of "pseudoindividuation (1989:25-32)", in a sense progressive rock is one of the most resistant to this critique. popular music; however, on the other hand, its shallow reference to "classical" corroborates Adorno's similarly sharp criticism of the cultural industry.

Perhaps one way of reconciling rather than compromising the aesthetic contradictions of progressive rock is to walk with Umberto Eco on what he calls an "inferential walk". Readers are "encouraged to activate interpretive activity through a number of pre-recorded narrative situations (intertextual frames). To identify these frames, readers have to 'walk' outside the text to gather intertextual support ( a process of pursuing similar concepts, themes, or motives)” (1994b:32). Eco points out that "a text can act on the basis of embedded multiple themes" which are not necessarily obvious,"The reader has to guess where the real subject is hidden" (26).

This article takes a closer look at some of the "art music" techniques favored by progressive rock, and finds that they are used in the same way that Eco describes them. For example, according to Eco, a text frequently "establishes its theme by apparently repeating a series of sememes belonging to the same semantic domain... In this case, these semes haunt and repeat throughout the in the text." (1994b:26) The Baroque mix used by Rick Wakeman certainly employs this effective method. "At other times," Eco points out, "these semes cannot be obtained statistically because they are not scattered in large numbers, but strategically located" (1994b:26). From being strategically positioned, we can see that King Crimson's "Dinosaurs" employ Stravinskian melodies, or Emerson's ELP's "Dinosaurs" The indiscernible reference to "Castle" in Blues Variations" (so ethereal that Lester Bunce and Alan Moore didn't even notice it). Other themes function as isotopies, which Greimas describes as "a set of repetitive semantic categories that enable consistent reading of stories" (1970:188). In progressive rock, the sympathetic theme is usually formalized, and the sympathetic theme moves into the realm of rock. Examples include the fixed-note accompaniment derived from "Dwarf" in "Curse on the Chicken Feet," against which Emerson's Extended Organ Solo is set. "Castle" uses the 12-bar blues piece used in "Blues Variations".

Eco distinguishes between interpretation and use, and in earlier discussions in this article, it was suggested that the latter of the two (use) is a less attractive, or even demeaning, reading of the text. However,Eco, however, defends use in textual borrowing:

use and interpretation are abstract theoretical possibilities. Every experiential reading is always an unpredictable mixture of the two. It is possible that a show begins with usage and ends with the launch of a fruitful new interpretation—or vice versa. Sometimes using texts means liberating them from previous interpretations, discovering new aspects of them, recognizing a new and more interpretive textual intent in which they have been misinterpreted before. Too much unconstrained reader intent (perhaps under the guise of faithfully pursuing the author's intent) contaminates and obscures the intent of the text. (1994a:62)

Compared to what the Portsmouth Sinfonia called 'popular classical', progressive rock cannot be said to be corrective—and from the standpoint of establishing classical music, often the opposite is true— —but fruitful new interpretations do emerge. Progressive rock's obsession with "classic" did sometimes lead to a new fusion of rock styles with new organizational methods leading to large-scale forms. Among the many models that can be cited, Yes's "Tales from the Terrain Ocean" (1973) and Henry Cow's "Living in the Heart of the Beast" are two A very unique template.

Open Works

In the 1970s, progressive rock was a commercial presence in the music industry, although it is no longer, but its characteristic "art rock" impulse continued in other manifestations. Martin (2002) investigates a number of recent developments that appear to be a continuation of the progressive rock spirit, if not the stylistic language; however, these developments are not part of the mainstream.

In more experimental pop groups such as Stereolab, art music references are more varied than in the 1970s,more blurry. For example, Stereo Lab has absorbed the "classic" minimalism (the "classic" minimalism) of composers such as Philip Glass (Philip Glass), Steve Reich, and In their song titles, Stravinsky's "Monster Sacre", Schoenberg 's "I Feel the Air [of Another Planet"], and the Second Viennese School's "I Feel the Air [of Another Planet"] Retrograde Music Forms". Band member Tim Gane acknowledged the band's conscious historicism, emphasizing "I believe you have to absorb the best of the past and the best of the present to be the best" (quoted in Martin 2002 :131). In Stereo Lab's subsequent releases, their sense of the "past" continued to stretch back. In 2001, the opening song "Black Ants in Sound-Dust" from the album Sound-Dust began with an unfolding complex rhythmic texture composed by Alexander Alexander Scriabin's (1872-1915) "mystic chord" pitch collection.

If in 1977 Keith Emerson was right: "audiences have become sensitive and intelligent," then perhaps members of the Stereo Lab would have expected their average audience to recognize such transtextual Quote. Singer Laetitia Sadier once affirmed that "there is always something missing in our music, which is left for the listener to fill" (cited in Martin 133). This argument is similar to Eco's thesis on the "open work", and it is indeed possible, in Peirce's model, to trace a more profound and varied spiral of citations.

Nonetheless, for Eco, open work does not constitute complete freedom of interpretation. For what he describes as "hermetic drift" in symbolic processes,He aptly argues:

In the end, there is no common attribute that would unite A with E, except for one: they belong to the same network of similar families. ...but in such a chain, at the moment we know E, any notion of A has disappeared. The connotation spreads like a tumor, the symbols in front of each step are forgotten, erased, because the joy of drift is given by the drift from symbol to symbol, and there is no other purpose than to enjoy the journey through the labyrinth of symbols or things. (1994a:31)

In contrast, while open, the work is paradoxically closed ("as a balanced organic whole in its uniqueness") (1994b:49). The openness of the work of art is conditional: Eco argues that the work is open "because it allows an infinite number of different interpretations that do not infringe upon its pure uniqueness" (1994b:49). Furthermore, the semiotic process is bound by a socially constructed "common frame": "In the semiotic process we only want to know what is relevant to a given universe of discourse." Then, in other words, Eco means that before a text can be "opened", it must first be protected (1994a:54).

Symbols are therefore not monolithic and fixed; a work may indeed be more or less "open" depending on the influence of social consensus. While the idea of ​​the "pop avant-garde" made the record label and producer function very much like the manager of an art music orchestra in the 19th century, the mass music medium of the early 21st century was undoubtedly the same as it was in the sixth and seventh centuries of the 20th century It is more conservative compared to the decade (Martin 1998:96-97). As a result -- given that the average consumer's tastes are more or less determined by the mass media -- audiences may also be more conservative. This means that some "open" works from the 1960s and 1970s are less open now,Because their common frame has narrowed. Bradley Smith recounts a listener's reaction to Pink Floyd's "Atom Heart Mother" (1970): "While playing the piece, he looked at me apprehensively and said, 'I don't understand. What is it about? What should I be thinking about?'" (14).

Any semiotic study of mass media is also, to a certain extent, a study of the history of reception—what Molino (Molino 1990) calls the aesthetic level. The musical intertextuality characteristic of progressive rock can tell us a lot about how the identity of classical music was constructed in the postwar "concert culture that promoted Western art music" (Covach 1997:8), and in popular culture.

Comments :

1 Emerson, Lake & Palmer's "From the Beginning" and Yes's "Roundabout" were the top 40 hits of 1972 (39th and 13th respectively) ); ELP's "Lucky Man" was also a relatively successful single the year before. Progressive rock's success is even more pronounced on the album charts: Yes's "Fragile" and "Close to the Edge" at No. 4 and No. 3; ELP's "Trilogy" ) ranked 5th. Jethro Tal's most progressive rock album, "Thick as a Brick," came in at number one.

2 Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells" sold 3 million copies in the United States alone, and by 1981 had sold over 10 million copies worldwide. Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" eventually sold over 20 million copies and remains one of the best-selling albums in rock history.

3 Development of the genre (progressive rock) generally stalled after 1973, with the most notable exception being the more experimental,The result was a commercially unsuccessful offshoot of progressive rock called "Rock in Opposition", pioneered by Henry Coe.

4 "Bariolage" is a special string performance technique that describes the rapid transition between open strings and frets. In keyboard music, it can be used to describe any rapid transition between a stationary "pedal sustain" and a moving "melody note" (see J.S. Bach's "Toccata" and "Fugue in D Minor" fugue theme, a famous example of the common-practice canon). When it appears in a non-string medium, it can be understood as an adaptation of a string work (Williams 1981 concluded this when studying the adaptation of Bach's BWV No. 565) or at least an indication of a string performance characteristic of a subject.

5 Ravel's famous orchestral version omits the "Wander" before "The Market of Limoges" in the piano version, probably because it is too similar to the opening movement. However, the phrase structure at the end is not the same.

6 In the later performances of the ELP band, the original A-flat major was retained.

7 Acceleration and echo-response modes, as virtuosos, work across cultures. Examples in rock music include: Ray Charles' "What'd I Say" (1956), where the soloist sings with the background singer, and Jimmy Page and Robert Plant's interaction of guitar and singing in Led Zeppelin's "You Shook Me" (1969). While the presence of the echo-response pattern in rock music almost certainly originated in Africa, in raga performances in North India,Similar audience-pleasing transitions often occur between the sitar and the tabla. The

8 control bar is a performer interface that allows for touch glissando. Emerson's device looked like a stick, attached to the synthesizer with a length of makeshift electrical cord. The Control Strip Overture is incorrectly labeled "Castle" on some CDs, see Note 10.

9 Moore cites movements as "Wander," "Gnome," "House on Chicken Feet," and "Kyiv Gate." The earlier orchestral version of The Picture also omitted some movements, although other pieces were indeed omitted from the ELP Band's version. A CD reissue of

10 ELP's Picture Exhibition (Atlantic 191222-2) has at least one error in this regard. Emerson's wild Moog ribbon-controller solo before the actual "Castle" was seen as "Castle," recording a time of just 1:03. The song that follows (which alludes to the addition of Palmer drums (drum kit entrance)) is titled "Blues Variations". In fact, "Castle" includes this control strip solo, and the first part of the orchestra's performance, an A-flat minor dance step featuring a synth solo. The second part of the song (1:29 on the CD, labeled "Blues Variations") is the real "Blues Variations", at which point Emerson switches to the organ and the jazz becomes a 12 Bar blues in C minor.

11 Among the jazz classics, "My Favorite Things" by John Coltrane in 1961 is a good analogy. In his performances, Coltrane used only the first part of the song as the basis for his own improvisation, keeping the ending ("When the dog bites") as something of a coda.

12 "Walnut Rockers" was originally recorded by B. Bumble and the Stingers in 1961,It was the number one selling song in the UK.

13 The Portsmouth Symphony Orchestra, an orchestra open to musicians of all skill levels, performs only the most famous pieces from the most famous classical works. Its first performance (with Rossini's William Tell Overture) was in May 1970. Its first album, Portsmouth Sinfonia Plays the Popular Classics (UK Transatlantic 275; US Columbia KC 33049), was released in 1974. Rock musician Brian Eno is part of the band and plays the clarinet.

14 Robert Shelton's comments in The Times of London made it particularly clear about Yes' Tales performance at the Rainbow Theatre (1973:11d). He coined the term "rockophonic" to describe "a nameless music that fuses elements of rock, jazz and college music into a whole new genre that has never been tried before," he compared the group and Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" premiere, wrote:

This is where history plays, because it's not just a step past Sergeant Paber, it's a path to Finally crossing the threshold of the gap between college music and disco music... It is an extraordinary work, but by no means pretentious. Its imitation of contemporary classical music works, not in theme and form, but only in inflection, rhythm changes, and deep texture... It can be predicted that in the next 25 years people will study it as an important part of modern music. The third movement of the turning point. (11d)

To learn more about Yes Band's formally "organized" approach, especially Legends,See Rycenga 2002.

15 This title refers to the opening sentence in Stefan George's text. Arnold Schoenberg composed this text, the final movement of "String Quartet no. 2" Opus No. 10 (1909), Schoenberg's first decisive non- Attempt to tune.

16 As commonly stated, Scriabin's mysterious chord consists of pitches C3-F#3-Bb3-E4-A4-D5. This chord is a characteristic sonorous tone of Scriabin's later works, especially the 1911 "Prometheus" symphony. Stereo Lab's track "Black Ants in Sound Dust" begins with an incremental introduction of C4-F#5-Bb4-E5-A5-D6 pitches.

17 For example, the increasing texture at the beginning of "Black Ant in the Dust", and the accompanying momentary camouflage of the tonal center, also reminds me of Mozart's "Dissonant" String Quartet, K .465. However,I doubt this is an intentional quote.

References

Adorno, Theodor. 1989. Introduction to the Sociology of Music. trans. E. B. Ashton. New York: Continuum.

Armbruster, Greg, ed. 1984. The Art of Electronic Music. New York: Quill/GPI Publications.

Bangs, Lester. 1972. “Pictures at an Exhibition”: Emerson, Lake & Palmer (review). Rolling Stone 103 (March 2): 57.

—1974. “Blood feast of Reddy Kilowat! Emerson, Lake & Palmer without insulation! And you wonder why there's an energy crisis.” Creem (March): 40-44, 76-78.

Covach, John. 1997. “Progressive rock. 'Close to the Edge', and the boundaries of style.” In:Understanding Rock: Essays in Music Analysis, ed. John Covach and Graeme M. Boone, 3-32. New York: Oxford University Press.

Dallas, Karl. 1970. “Soundtrack for a lifestyle.” The Times (London) 57, 958 (August 31): 5g.

Derrida, Jacques. 1976. Of Grammatology. Trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Eco, Umberto. 1989. The Open Work. Trans. Anna Cancogni. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

——. 1994a. The Limits of Interpretation. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

——. 1994b. The Role of the Reader: Explorations in the Semiotics of Texts. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University press.

Greimas, Algirdas J. 1970. Du Sens. Paris: Seuil.

Hatten, Robert. 1985. “The place of intertextuality in music studies.” American Journal of Semiotics 3 (4): 69-82.

Holm-Hudson, Kevin. 2002. Progressive Rock Reconsidered. New York: Routledge.

Macan, Edward. 1997. Rocking the Classics: English Progressive Rock and the Counterculture. New York: Oxford University Press.

Marsh, Dave, and Swenson, John, eds. 1979. The Rolling Stone Record Guide. New York: Rolling Stone Press/Random House.

Martin, Bill. 1998. Listening to the Future: The Time of Progressive Rock 1968-1978. Chicago: Open Court Press.

——. 2002. Avant Rock: Experimental Music from the Beatles to Björk. Chicago: Open Court Press.

Milano, Dominic. 1977/1984a. Keith Emerson. In: “The Art of Electronic Music,” ed. Greg Armbruster, 136-145. NewYork: Quill/GPI Publications.

Molino, Jean. 1990. “Musical fact and the semiology of music”. Trans. J. A. Underwood. Music Analysis 9(2): 113-156.

Moore, Allan. 2001. Rock, the Primary Text: Developing a Musicology of Rock. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Press.

Rycenga, Jennifer. 2002. “Tales of change within the sound: Form, Lyrics and philosophy in the music of Yes.” In: Progressive Rock Reconsidered ed. Kevin Holm-Hudson, 143-166. New York: Routledge.

Shelton, Robert. 1973. “Yes--Rainbow Theatre.” The Times (London) 58, 944 (November 21):11d.

Smith, Bradley. 1997. The Billboard Guide to Progressive Music. New York: Billboard Books.

Spicer, Mark. 2001. British Pop-Rock Music in the Post-Beatles Era: Three Analytical studies. Ph.D. dissertation, Yale University.

Stump, Paul. 1998. The Music's All That Matters: A History of Progressive Rock. London: Quartet Books.

Wale, Michael. 1970. “Emerson, Lake and Palmer--Festival Hall.” The Times (London) 58, 008 (October 28): 15f.

Williams, Peter. 1981. “BWV 565: A Toccata in D minor for organ by J.S. Bach?”. Early Music 9 (July ): 330-337.

Williams, Richard. 1970. “Reincamation oFKing Crimson.” The Times (London) 58,054 (December 22): 11g.

Kevin Holm-Hudson | Mussorgsky: The Picture Exhibition of the ELP Band as Open Works - DayDayNews

This article is from “Music, Medium and Symbols – Anthology of Musical Semiotics”,Sichuan Education Press, June 2012 edition, the article has been edited.

hotcomm Category Latest News