Reflections of an American Harpsichordist Unpublished Memoirs, Essays, and Lectures of Ralph Kirkpatrick

144 ❧ chapter fourteen
More on the individualistic side are mannerisms, which no individual can
avoid having. They are as personal and as unique to him as fi ngerprints or
handwriting. So-called style criticism in literature and in art history concerns
itself with the analysis of the formal and expressive language of a given artist or
of a given school, with the codifi cation of these qualities in such a manner as
to permit attributions. Then there are the so-called exercises de style, the con-
scious exercises in the manner of a given school, or a given composer. Various
French writers, among them Raymond Queneau, have done very amusing
pieces of parody in the styles of various writers and, of course, there immedi-
ately springs to mind that splendid episode in James Joyce’s Ulysses in which
one is given a capsulated history of English literature in parodies of major
styles of English prose. This could easily be called an “exercise de style.”
Up to this point I have mentioned absolutely nothing that does not have its
parallel in the art of music, although all my examples have been drawn from
outside music. These parallels exist both in terms of style and of styles, and also
of stylishness in composition and in performance. All these categories have a
quality in common, diverse and confusing as the examples were that I cited.
And this quality can be at least vaguely described as being something that
arrests the attention, something which is easily identifi able, something which
is consistent with itself, concentrated, cultivated, and communicative. No idea
communicates itself better than a fully formed one, one that is formed with
style. No form or shape communicates itself better than when it has complete
intelligibility, consistency, inner coherence, and all the qualities that we associ-
ate with style. Style might be called an effi cacy of meaning as well as an effi cacy
of performance.
Let us go on to a few more examples in our tour through this labyrinth.
One now hears much less frequently the complaint from young composers
that they are in search of a style. This appeared to be a common problem in
the early thirties, coming as one did at the end of an age of eclecticism and of
historical consciousness, overburdened with masterpieces in successful styles
by other composers. Which of these styles was one to choose as a basis from
which to evolve a style of one’s own? This latter—the achievement of an origi-
nal and personal style—was considered the highest desideratum. The problem
of style always arises at moments of maturation and achievement in cultural
history. We see it in Italian painting of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth
centuries, in the architecture of the nineteenth century, and certainly in the
music of the turn of the twentieth. At these times the search for genuine style
is rendered diffi cult by an inability to see style for the styles, so to speak, and
inability to see the wood for the trees. In more defi nitely revolutionary periods,
there are fewer questions about choice of style. One hears much talk about the
evolution of style in connection with certain individuals. The careers of some
artists maintain a remarkable constancy; the style changes very little from the
Kirkpatrick.indd 144Kirkpatrick.indd 144 2/8/2017 9:58:32 AM 2 / 8 / 2017 9 : 58 : 32 AM