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Mark Austin  How we listen to music has changed considerably over time. The quasi-religious attitude to abstract music which emerged in the nineteenth century resulted in the dark, silent concert halls which to a large extent still hold sway. For many devotees the great works of the musical canon represented a mountain to be mastered: the summit offered an extraordinary view to those who reached it. This approach to the musical canon has shifted recently. Whereas music appreciation guides of the 1950s discussed musical works in terms of structure and the listener’s emotional response, now popularising commentators are likely to dwell on the identity of the composer, and indeed of the performer.
This shift is not something which interests Yiannis Gabriel, a retired social psychologist who held posts at Imperial College, Royal Holloway and the University of Bath. He has now added to his publications on organisation theory and psychology with a short book on music. Music and Story draws on multiple genres, mixing elements of memoir, musical criticism and psychological analysis. He recognises that his musical tastes are ‘mainstream and conservative’; the seventy years of the period performance movement remain suspect for their challenge to ‘beautiful sound’ and tradition. He is ‘loyal to many old-fashioned tried and tested interpretations’, admitting that they are ‘imbued for [him] with a certain nostalgia’. The book consists of a series of short chapters, which consider various aspects of Gabriel’s lifelong love of music. In a fashion which many will recognise, this love began at an early age thanks to the sustained musical advocacy of his father. Enjoyment of music, which commenced for him with Chopin’s Polonaise héroïque, is immediately associated with the idea of narrativity. ‘Much of the emotional power of music resides in the stories it tells, tacitly or explicitly’. This simple observation is an admirable way to bring music closer to the curious reader, and few would disagree that the whole range of composers' tools - harmonic relationships, melodic variation, orchestration, structural manipulation, programmatic narrative - can be considered a kind of tacit or explicit ‘story’. A reader looking for further detail on this approach may be disappointed. Gabriel chooses not to weave this idea consistently through the book, nor relate it in detail to music, which is a shame as he undoubtedly has interesting things to say. Ultimately some more clarity on the terms he uses might have been helpful. Phrases such as ‘what a composer intended to say’ are entirely subjective and may not mean much to some readers. He is most convincing when expressing his personal reactions to music. Many will share his response to hearing Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto for the first time: ‘the thrill of those opening bars in the horns, the piano’s huge fusillades followed by the mighty octaves, and the puzzle and disappointment of the magnificent theme’s quick disappearance never to be heard again’. The real story in this book is that of Gabriel’s own involvement with music. His appreciation is avowedly conservative, but in our age a position like this almost becomes a radical act. He bases his ideas mainly on recordings, with no sense that live performance may be a superior form of musical experience. Chapters comparing different recorded versions of Mahler’s Sixth Symphony, or Verdi’s Otello are interesting, and provide a model for an individual engagement with music. Gabriel is unafraid to judge, critique and relate personally to what he hears. He demonstrates in exemplary fashion how the most rewarding way to listen to music is to listen actively, relating it to one’s own personality and values. There is a valuable reminder how in the past, avid listeners would agonise over the choice of one LP and transport it home in nervous anticipation. Gabriel rues that fact that ‘record collecting is no longer the art it once was’. It’s certainly the case that the relative scarcity of recorded music must once have stimulated demand. A tried and tested route into musical appreciation - the gradual collection of a personal library - would take a particularly determined avoidance of technology in the streaming age. All the more surprising that Gabriel did in fact transfer his entire collection onto iTunes. He describes a frustrating experience which many will have shared. The final sections of the book contain many interesting observations on aspects of leadership elucidated through reference to opera. Simon Boccanegra yields the insight that ‘conflict lies at the heart of leadership’. Boris Gudunov illustrates how ‘the same qualities that account for a leader’s triumphs also account for his or her downfall’. Gabriel feels on stronger ground here, able to draw on his lifetime of academic work. His suggestion that charisma is hard to portray in opera due to the need to create complex characters who reveal vulnerability through their music is thought-provoking. Ultimately, the question of who this book is for remains problematic. It is not enough of a memoir to leave the reader with a full sense of a clearly fascinating man, nor does it provide a coherent approach to music that would speak to a novice. A music lover with similar tastes will enjoy a feeling of kinship with the author, but the content is thoroughly personal, making the book hard to situate within a non-fiction space. Gabriel's approach is hard to square with recent developments in the musical canon, nor the fact that classical music must nourish a teeming ecosystem of live performance to survive. And yet his love for music shines through and it is hard not to delight in his company. As a record of how someone expert in a different field can draw lifelong stimulation from music it is a powerful rebuke to our age, in which the sense that music is vital and edifying is terribly diminished.
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