Thought: Elements for an understanding of musical practice - Delalande (1996) "Listening as autonomous musical practice, and more particularly attentive listening, not developing socially and becomes the raison d'etre of the music gradually, from the 17th to the 19th century. The idea that music is meant to be listened to, so obvious to us, probably was not so much a musician of the early 17th century. If there are, as usual, three major musical circumstances at that time (at least for serious music), there is no proper for a form of listening as it is practiced in concert today.
The music festival, ballet and theater, especially opera, are intended for an audience but an audience which is given at least to listen much to see (and experience with film teaches us the rule of the visual over the auditory) and, moreover, reads, chats, etc.. We know the conditions of reception of the opera: "The boxes are so many intimate corners, where gossip and banter compete with the spectacle of the scene (...) [In Venice ] or elsewhere, the boxes are a sort second home of the aristocratic families. It receives at will, play cards or chess, and we made it serve, for the recitatives or air side, water ice, soft drinks and other food "(Barbier, 1989; 81). This is Venice in the early 18th century and is perhaps an extreme case, but to varying degrees and with few exceptions the description applies to the baroque spectacle in general.
In the church, the meeting is not supposed to concentrate specifically on music. Very gradually since perhaps the 12th century, music has taken a certain autonomy (criticism and regularly criticized the religious point of view) with respect to its religious function, but only in the second half of the 17th, with the introduction of instruments other than the organ for certain holidays, we may wonder if the church does not transform gradually into a concert hall.
Early this century, the situation closest to the concert and promote more listening is certainly that of the private meeting, and it is in this context we see a gradual shift to the to hear . In the new century chamber music is more aimed at those who play to those who listen. Late 16th, early 17th, the collegia musica are first meetings of musicians who practice together, and then only open to an audience. Much longer period ba roque, parts for some instruments meant to be played between friends are also more enjoyable to play than to listen, for example a pro ceded classic writing for two identical instruments (many sonatas two flutes) is to swap the two votes, which, listening leads to a simple repetition but is very pleasant for the players.
Say, for semi-joke that music does not develop in concert with the concert (and last infidelity made of baroque music in concert is to give a directory that was not intended for these conditions of approval) that is to say the 17th with the academies of music more or less open and only the 18th public concerts and Pay with pro gram announced. But these first truly public sessions of the old regime (as Spiritual Concert from 1725) are only the beginnings of true social development of the public concert in the 19th (8) that accompanies the parallel development of music criticism, sort of listening guide, and finally the emergence of the figure the listener , a true "client" for whom we write and when we interpret the music.
The recall of known facts is intended only to put them in perspective with other facts known to the more prolonged: the emergence of broadcasting and recording which makes listening musical practice by far the most common. Not only the act of playing music is no longer the preferred one of the purposes of the score, but it disappears from view. Ultimately the instrumental performance, backed up, in the case of the disc, through the techniques of "taken" from time to time and assembly work is no longer a backroom where the listener is not even informed. To describe this new listening situation, we know that Schaeffer gave in honor of the word acousmatic designating how Pythagoras addressing his disciples through a curtain. However, we are all acousmatic. Even for a public scholar and musician, the practice of receiving the most usual is the acousmatic listening , through loudspeakers. Do not speak no other: the vast majority of those who hear (if not listen) several times a week to music same "classic" on the radio or on disc have never seen even once in their life at a concert; the imbalance is overwhelming.
Viewed from an objective standpoint and neglecting exceptional behavior that could be argued as examples-cons, the story of the last four centuries of musical practice appears to be making a continuous evolution in a growing listening. In the late 16th, when most situations specifically musical (leaving aside the parties and shows where music is incorporated into an action that the mask part) consisted mainly do music, we went at the end of the 20th, a company musical where hear is the dominant practice. "
F. Delalande," the paradigm electroacoustic " Music. An encyclopedia for the twenty-first century , 1996.
