Didier de Fontaine

British composer Jonathan Harvey's interesting little book apparently grew out of his doctoral thesis back in 1964. Its subject, inspiration in music, was surely a difficult and unusual one to treat, and the text of Harvey's dissertation was not published until recently when a musicology student, Michael Downes, agreed to help with the editing task. The main ideas, of course, are Harvey's, and indeed the whole flavor of the work clearly reflects the author's personality, as all those who are fortunate to know Jonathan personally can attest: the approach is clear, direct, honest, with not a trace of posturing or hollow profundities. In addition, the book is beautifully written and the material carefully researched. In fact, the text resembles the author's own musical compositions which are skillfully crafted and which, to a greater degree than most contemporary compositions, displays seriousness of meaning and depth of feeling.

The text of Music and Inspiration is subdivided into four chapters: "The Composer and the Unconscious", "The Composer and Experience", "The Composer and the Audience", "The Composer and the Ideal". These chapters are followed by a more recent "Postscript" in which the author discusses solely his own music, its source of inspiration and its personal meaning. The format of the original four chapters is that of short excerpts of writings by noted composers, both ancient and modern, classified, linked together and commented upon by Harvey. In so doing, our author has provided us with a rich source of material which those of us who enjoy listening to music by the masters generally have little time to read and to assemble. How enlightening it is to learn what composers such as Beethoven, Berlioz, Boulez, Debussy, Mahler, Schoenberg, Stockhausen, Stravinski, Tippett, Wagner, and many others have to say about their own music. That recent composers are more copiously represented than ancient ones should come as no surprise: classical composers such as Bach, Haydn, Mozart by and large let their music do the talking, whereas more contemporary ones increasingly seem to justify themselves in writing as their music becomes more hermetic.

Jonathan Harvey's approach is perhaps reminiscent of that of Aldous Huxley in Philosophia Perennis, in which that author presents a wide-ranging collection of texts from philosophers and mystics who appear to share a remarkably similar view of the world in terms of their own unconscious, experience, relation to others and quasi-mystical ideal (I purposely chose the topics of Harvey's chapters). Surely, composers will also share deep and universal sources of inspiration and motivation in composing their scores. Are we not all made of the same stuff? Hence, my own feeling is that the quality of what we conventionally call inspiration is much the same for all, an almost built-in characteristic of the human condition. Perhaps what distinguishes great from merely good music has more to do with the composer's predisposition and skill at exercising his craft, than from messages "coming from above", as it were. But Jonathan Harvey says it better himself (on pages 143-144): "The artist, then, is distinguished less by his desire for transcendental experience, than his ability to create a beautiful object which goes some way towards satisfying that desire. His job is to lead the way for his fellow human beings. He is an ambassador for mankind in the world of the ideal , ..."

In summary, Jonathan Harvey has performed an invaluable service in providing a glimpse into the minds of illustrious composers, a glimpse that only a brilliant composer who is also a gifted writer could have brought us.