Review: “Talks with Great Composers” by Arthur M. Abell

(Original posted on January 23, 2009)

(*This book is a revised and re-edited version of “I Shall Teach Thee What To Do.” The following text was written based on the previous edition.)

This book contains valuable interviews with renowned composers from the late 19th century, such as Brahms, R. Strauss, and Grieg, asking them about “inspiration.”

At first glance, the content and expressions might seem nothing short of anachronistic. However, it is a laborious work that directly confronts the question of what happens inside a composer when they compose. The composers featured speak in their own words about the source of their flashes of insight, inspiration, and creativity.

As a collection of words from composers of this era on this very theme, it can be said to be a valuable resource.

However, given that they were people from the Christian world, theological elements are strongly present in the background, so Japanese readers may find some parts difficult to digest. But by interpreting these broadly as a sense of faith and reading from the perspective of awe towards a transcendent being, I believe it is possible to understand their attitude toward creation.

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The subtitle is “When Composers Get Inspiration,” which gives a spiritual impression right from the start. However, as the translator also notes, I believe one can understand the main theme by reading “reikan” as “inspiration.” In other words, what is a “flash of insight,” and where does it come from?

Brahms says: “I am in a state of trance, wandering between sleep and wakefulness. I am still conscious, but on the very verge of losing it, and it is at such times that inspired ideas come to me. All true inspiration comes from God, and only through the radiance of the inner divinity can God reveal Himself. This radiance is what modern psychologists call the subconscious.”

—Reading this and other similar expressions reminds me of what Csikszentmihalyi calls the “flow state.” This flow state usually accompanies the results of mental activities achieved through high levels of concentration or immersion. It is different from excitement, intoxication, or frenzy; rather, it is the opposite state of consciousness.

Regarding the process of how ideas emerge, “A Technique for Producing Ideas” by James Webb Young is famous as a guide derived from empiricism. It also seems that brain science considers the process of “a period of thoroughly thinking through the theme,” “a period of forgetting it,” and “the moment of a ‘flash’ of a new idea” to be a valid one.

Reading this book, I got the image that a work is born as a happy result of the fusion of the flow state of immersion in the task at hand, thorough deliberation and its forgetting (temporary setting aside), and “highly trained skill,” which tends to be slighted in fields that emphasize “flashes of insight.”

Brahms’s words, “I want you to realize that if you wish to write something of eternal value, you need both inspiration and craftsmanship,” appeal to the necessity of advanced skill to embody inspiration, alongside its importance. When I reflect on Brahms’s creative stance, I also sense his frustration and grief toward the composing world of his time.

However, the power of this book does not let you stop at such impressions. What was striking was that Brahms and R. Strauss both stated, in different words, that “only a few percent of composers compose with inspiration.”

“Written only with the conscious mind. Purely created in the head, utterly lacking inspiration” — they say such works are quickly forgotten, citing this as the reason for the failure of the works of popular composers of the time. Behind this lies a reverence for the “power of something beyond human intellect” that good music possesses, and for the beings (God, the Muses) that bring it forth. Perhaps for this reason, a sense of “humility” is consistently exuded from the words of the featured composers.

It serves as a warning against falling into the kind of composition that merely handles existing skills superficially to create “something in the form of music.” At the same time, it brings one back to the humility of feeling that it is not I, the composer, who is creating the music, but that I am allowed to participate in “a place where the power of music manifests itself.”

It is easy to relativize and distance oneself from this type of book from a historical or cultural-historical perspective, but for me, I felt an attraction that was hard to dismiss, hard to part with. When reflecting on the literal meaning and significance of “creation,” perhaps confronting the domain this book deals with is, in a way, unavoidable.

Table of Contents for “Talks with Great Composers”

About the Author

Arthur M. Abell

The author, Arthur M. Abell, came from a family of journalists and himself became a music correspondent for the “Musical Courier.” In 1890, at the age of twenty-eight, he was posted to Vienna. He was also an amateur violinist, fluent in German and Italian, and had friendships with many performers and music critics in Boston and New York. Among them were Arthur Nikisch, conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Walter Damrosch, conductor of the New York Philharmonic, and Philip Hale, a prominent music critic on the East Coast.