Soul vs. intellect

Here is a interview clip from Mitsuko Uchida's Debussy Etudes recital. Somewhere in the 22-min interview, the discussion somehow went on a wonderful tangent about how the human soul and intellect contribute to the creative process. What do you think?

http://www.cygnusdei.com/uchida.html

I don't do the whole "soul" thing, so I'm obviously only for the intellect portion. Of course, that's a huge and vague term by itself, lol.

Musicians sure love the "woolly, overblown" concepts, no?

I just thought I should mention that the subtitles aren't very exact here. She actually never mentions the "soul", just his "Innerlichkeit", i.e. his "interiority" - even though those are of course related subjects.

Anyways, it may be true that some composers were more "constructive" than others and that for some intellectual structural processes played a greater role, whereas others wrote more directly, with less conscious planning. It's also very typical that she uses Schubert as an example for the latter.

But I think it's wrong to separate those two, as if they were contrasting approaches. Every form of "intuition" has backgrounds in things we have intellectually perceived, and every intellectual process is to some degree internalised and interfused with things we "just do" without thinking much about them. In the end it's always our mind that makes every compositional decision - the question is merely how consciously we make the decisions and what decisions we lay our focus on.

Every piece by Mozart, Schubert and Chopin is very carefully created and has a long background story of learning, experimenting, self-critical reflection, and meticulous work. They didn't just come into existance magically through "inspiration" in a moment. George Sand for example has described how exhausting it could be to live together with Chopin, who would work for several days on a single bar of music, trying out new variants over and over again until he was finally pleased.

Likewise the structures of Webern, Boulez or Palestrina may seem "purely intellectual" on the first glance, but they come from very personal, sensual views on music, which are far from mere mathematical experiments. Webern for example was very fond of collecting mountain flowers and crystals, and his compositions were an equivalent to his love for such small, structural elements in nature. And Xenakis rarely talked about mathematics when asked about his music, but about sensuality, beauty, nature.

Dividing music into two contrasting poles like that doesn't do any composer justice, in my opinion.

Dividing music into two contrasting poles like that doesn't do any composer justice, in my opinion.

I agree with you.

What's more interesting to me is the question: what drives the creative process in music composition? Based on her experience performing and studying music, Uchida makes a distinction between one's intellect and this other entity (soul, inner-self, etc.) that shines through the music. When I first heard this a couple of years ago it didn't make much sense to me, but now I think there is some truth in what she said.

Now I understand why Chopin's Piano Concerto no. 1 is so special, considering myriads of other piano concerti of similar styles from the same period. I think it's because Chopin poured his soul into it (my totally subjective opionion). Take the second theme leading to the bravura passage for example (attached pdf).

Wow. To me (like Uchida said), that can't have been his intellect at work - that's his soul shining through. Of course, the following bravura passage is now purely intellectual construction.

Perhaps it's also helpful to remember music in the greater context of art. If art is all about intellectual, I think something's amiss.

chopin.pdf

Talking about "soul" in music makes me think of some weird magic type thing. I prefer to think of it as just composition with less of the "composing" part- similar to what one does when improvising, if that makes any sense.

Uchida is a tad eccentric herself, so lol.

initially i thought - what? soul vs. intellect?where is intelect if not in soul? and where is soul if not in intellect?

then - where are both of them if not in mind? where is mind if not in brain?

so - what was the distinction about? using different intellectual ways of achieving the goal? using different brain parts achieving the goal? both?

if you really want to think this distinction as having some truth and power, well, then you should take 'soul' as impasse of intellect, a gap, an edge of a void, like madness of reason. and that would be controversial dark waters.

certainly, this distinction has no meaning whatsover if you take it as simply 'more analysed' vs 'less analysed'.

you gotta have soul! if you aint got dat soul, you might as well go home! DAS WUTS UP!... intellect is good too