David Christoffel, musicologist, poet and composer, is interested in the music located on the fringes, ignored, neglected or despised, and offers them a chance of rehabilitation, hence a questioning of the ideology of the masterpiece, inseparable from the cult of classical music.
How to be “ clever »Can he represent a quality for a composer ? Is it to designate his ability to climb, through diverted ways, to the rank of famous artists, or his ambition to access post mortem was a late consecration controversial ? Nourished by tasty anecdotes, funny digressions, this book multiplies the angles of approach without being limited to the promises of a title of nothing slices and provocative. An essential question, otherwise serious, constitutes the common thread: what becomes of the masterpiece if it is confused with its imitation, what happens if we discover that he is not in the hand of a great artist but of that of a composer who remained in the shadows ? What credit to give to the concept of value if it depends only on the name inscribed on the first page ? Exemplary if the author entered the Pantheon, mediocre if the dominant opinion classifies him among the little masters, the epigones, or if his name is unknown to all. Works on uncertain dates can also be victims or benefit from the domination of prejudices: the same score will be premonitory at a given moment, obsolete if we discover that it was designed half a century later.
Abusive imitations, usurped signatures
This book begins with a portrait of the impostors, the small composers who would like to pretend to be large by copying them in a shameless manner. Is it really “ clever »Of their part ? Yes, provided you are a clever plagiarism capable of stealing without getting caught, or skillfully thwart the expertise. If there is the slightest suspicion of fraud, specialists manifest themselves, and most do not be fooled. But others will unfortunately validate counterfeits, which raises many perplexities.
In the past, great masters have practiced admitted imitation. Ravel, to overcome an alleged lack of inspiration when completing Daphni and chloé,, was unscrupulous of the “ Party in Baghdad ” of Shéhérazade from Rimski-Korsakov. Is it a real flight ? When you ingenuously confess his La Larcin, his confession is not a sly spike addressed to all those who pride themselves on originality, reminding apprentice composers the virtues of imitation techniques ? Formerly, it was usual to deliberately draw inspiration from a composer worthy of admiration. Thus explain certain similarities of works by Bach with partitions of Vivaldi or Telemann, the imitations or transformations of pages of Johann Michael Haydn by the young Mozart, the concepts of copying or plagiarism not being relevant, even when the composer does not signal his sources. The border between unconscious reminiscence, borrowing or simple stylistic similarity is not so easy to determine.
Today, the question is examined in a more vetilious way. David Christoffel relates the trial of an ingenious composer having appropriated certain prokofiev finds in Romeo and Juliet without worrying about copyright. The practice of loans is certainly an ancestral tradition, but no one is immune to an excessive resemblance, and rare are the artists capable of making forget their model, especially if it is a famous page. And yet, who can judge for sure that there is an offense ? The verdict is less controversial when it comes to a joke: a “ smart ass “Would have tried to pass for a little -known work of Mozart a” fake »Concerto enough well done to please the public and interest renowned interpreters. Surprised by this unexpected approval, then eager to claim rights on its composition as soon as it was marketed, the author admitted to finishing his fun hoax, of which he had not measured all the consequences. David Christoffel also recounts the attempt of an eminent flutist to add six new sonatas for keyboard to the Corpus of Haydn, a discovery given a great excitement. As long as they bore a prestigious name, this discovery aroused the strongest interest. The merits of these counterfeit ingredients flew away as soon as the truth about their real signatory broke out. However, there remained a trace of this amazing experience: an emeritus musicologist had momentarily believed that it was authentic scores. Thus, David Christoffel does not deprive himself of pleasantly brocade his colleagues, by emphasizing certain mistakes. Sometimes it is simply a voice that rises to reveal an intriguing truth, like that of musicologist Martin Jarvis saying that it was Anna Magdalena and not Johann Sebastian who composed the six sequels for cello.
From the pastiche, the author explores the thousand and one nuances, the most significant being his lack of seriousness. The artistic issues are similar, however: it is also a question of composing according to a model, with maximum know-how. However, even a somewhat sloppy pochade can do the trick. In any case, adding a touch of humor is enough to disarm the censors or moralizers. When Fritz Kreisler publishes some of his works by making believe that these are rediscovery of composers of the past, he offers himself the luxury of writing as he seemed, without looking for the slightest originality. Today, his pieces all bear his name, and the pleasure of violinists who defend this repertoire is by no means tainted by the memory of a clever simulacrum. To deal without revealing your true identity is to assume a certain anonymity, out of modesty. But it may also be a disguised provocation. When random music still enjoyed a certain prestige, any partition designed according to its principles was welcomed with consideration. Some “ clever »Amused to sing this writing style, but without introducing an ounce of development, while making believe in the work of a specialist. With a few well-chosen examples, the author also points out the threats of computer programming capable of sowing confusion, by deploying resources located halfway between almost perfect imitation and embarrassing pastiche: listening to a work attributed to Bach, a group of musicians from a higher education establishment failed to distinguish the computer, the composer and his brilliant imitator with certainty.
Among these “ clever There are those who are tinning their work with application, and those who show casualness. Some of them can just as well do nothing, and request a colleague to compose under their name. The use of a ghostwriter is a practice little known in the classic musical world, rightly hidden because almost unavowable, even if there are sometimes good reasons to use it. There are many rumors concerning some contemporaries, enjoying great renown, having entrusted second knives with the realization of major scores of which they remain the signatories. The example chosen by David Christoffel, unexpected and atypical, has the merit of being unequivocal: he quotes a Japanese composer benefiting from a certain audience, and whose credibility has collapsed as soon as his duplicity has been revealed. The author restores us the stages of this anecdote, both tragic and laughable, which questions his readers about the validity of ephemeral recognition built on chimeras.
Fame is not a safe bet
You have to be careful not to limit this test to a simple inventory of creativity. Above all, this work of iconoclastic musicology is the malicious denunciation of a persistent masquerade. Some partitions have value only by their signature: important if it is prestigious and dubbed by the authorities, much less without these conditions. The author’s irony culminates when he evokes the case of Rosemary Brown, capable of noting new works by Liszt, Chopin, Schubert and a few others, dictated from the beyond, with disturbing likelihoods, according to some experts. Renowned performers did not hesitate to register these partitions in unusual Genesis in their repertoire. The claim by the composer of a spiritual approach – her role limiting himself to restoring what was dictated to her – has fed a large investigation, sowing embarrassment. No doubt it was sincere. However, if she had admitted to being a simple imitator her compositions would not have aroused the same craze.
On what the value of a composer is based: on his fame ? David Christoffel notes, on the facade of the Opéra Garnier, statues of musicians once very famous, such as Fromental Halévy or Gaspare Spontini, whose works have now fallen into oblivion. To illustrate the vanity of a pretension to notoriety, the author relates a burlesque skilled at the Institut de France, where a composer candidate for immortality struggles to list the past merits of his predecessor.
This book reserves us many other subjects of astonishment, rejoicing, and is interested in all forms of singularity, differences with the norm: “ Questionable similarities “,” Questionable processes “,” Uncertain skills “… to close the chapter of” Fictitious composers “, David Christoffel evokes the process of the intentional false in musicography, the art of deliberately introducing fictitious information to test the sagacity of the readers and extend a trap with possible plagiaries. It is not so easy to decide between the true of the false. Composers, impostors, real celebrities or illusory, proven or questionable scores, questionable sources, in all circumstances it is necessary to remain vigilant.
A salutary approach
The contribution of artificial intelligence applied to musical composition processes is at the heart of the news. Without ignoring the dangers of fraudulent use, without skepticism on the impressive capacities of this tool felt by some as worrying, the author favors his positive resources and offers his sympathy to all those who will use it to explore a new territory. He thus follows a guideline which led him to assert the compositions exclusively in major, deemed wrongly simplistic, the partitions for piano written for one hand, all being neither left nor clumsy, the female opus published formerly under a name of man, now freed from all discrimination, the works of young prodigies, necessarily suspected of being overcrowded, and those written under a Pseudonym, this concealment which can give birth to findings freed from any aesthetic judgment. In short, if David Christoffel is not interested here in recognized masterpieces, he does not plead more for the rehabilitation of forgotten pages. But, if its admitted design is to explore the margins, to inventory music that does not have the right of a city and suspicious practices, its approach is also a questioning of the concept of purity, of absolute, and an invitation to fight against a priori.