Aristotle views any work of art as having a beginning, middle, and end, which of course make up the totality. (Poetics 7.) I've alluded to something similar when discussing a performance of a piece of music. A composition, even a so-called “static” work of Morton Feldman, has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Even if the beginning is constructed to seem like a part of the middle, as if it is a point of color that the eye falls on first when viewing an abstract canvas, there is still a sequential orientation of notes in time.
The entirety of the piece is made up of the individual notes. A performer of course knows the overall structure of the composition and the roll of each of the notes: in a Bach Violin Partita each note contributes to the melodic and/or harmonic logic of the piece. While each note is not the whole, the performer shapes and delivers each as a totality within itself lending proper interpretation and emphasis to the note in light of the total composition. Significance of each note is predicated on its place in the structure, but is also accorded its own significance of tone, overtone series, and blend with other pitches, as colors in a canvas may be juxtaposed and blended.
In a sense this is how I view the experience of my own life: a memory of past events, the vital present, and the anticipation of an overarching structure that hopefully will have some sort of meaning. I’m attaching a very quickly made home recording of me playing my arrangement, on banjo, of the Andante from J.S. Bach’s Sonata II in A minor for solo violin. Thanks for reading!
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