"The Lives of Ingolf Dahl"

I have been reading The Lives of Ingolf Dahl by Anthony Linick, Ingolf's stepson and my old friend. The book is especially interesting to me because I knew Ingolf and his wife Etta quite well when I was a boy and a young man. The book is a portrait of a very unusual family, but it is also a view into the the community of artist-immigrants to Southern California that included not only Ingolf but Arnold Schoenberg, Igor Stravinsky, and Tomas Mann.

Ingolf was very talented musically, and was known as a composer, pianist and keyboard artist, conductor, musical educator (at both the University of Southern California and Tanglewood), lecturer on music, author of articles on music, and educational and orchestral administrator. He worked with an amazing range of musicians, including Gracie Fields, Victor Borge, Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, Igor Stravinsky, Arnold Schoenberg, and Richard Wagner. (He was also an enthusiastic outdoorsman, spending a lot of time hiking, skiing and mountain climbing, as well as a traveler.)

In terms of this blog, however, I want to consider the construction of a view of Ingolf's contributions to music. Anthony makes clear that Ingolf thought of himself primarily as a composer. His diaries, which are quoted extensively, are full of reports of the agonies that Ingolf went through in producing works of modern music that met his exacting standards of quality. Yet I must suppose that the other people thought of him differently. For many he must have be seen primarily as an educator, for others as a performer or conductor. He would record as a studio musician and fill in at concerts as soloist or conductor when the scheduled artists could not appear for some reason, which makes me think that a few people saw him as a musical "utility outfielder". He was an executive for a number of musical organizations. And, of course, he was a friend who helped many musicians to do their own work better, and must have been so regarded by people from Igor Stravinsky to his students such as Michael Tilson Thomas.

Anthony has done marvels in portraying the many facets of Ingolf's musical career, but I think must think of Ingolf first as his loving stepfather -- from Anthony's first memories about 1940 until Ingolf died in 1970. I hope that his book will serve as an important primary source for other writers of the history of American music and indeed of the artistic community in Southern California in the 20th century, and I am sure that those authors will have their own ideas about Ingolf's life and musical importance.

We know that tastes in music change over time. Stravinsky, whose saw early performances of his works met by riotous opprobrium is now recognized as a master with few equals in the realms of classical music. Wikipedia informs us with regard to Johann Sebastian Bach:

While Bach's fame as an organist was great during his lifetime, he was not particularly well-known as a composer. His adherence to Baroque forms and contrapuntal style was considered "old-fashioned" by his contemporaries, especially late in his career when the musical fashion tended towards Rococo and later Classical styles. A revival of interest and performances of his music began early in the 19th century, and he is now widely considered to be one of the greatest composers in the Western tradition.

On the other hand, some composers who were once very highly regarded are now seldom if ever performed.

The obvious conclusion is that there is a social process that takes place that determines the importance ascribed to composers, musicians and their works, and that results in decisions as to the compositions that conductors, soloists, orchestras and audiences choose to preform or to attend. That process must include individual study of the works and performances by experts, critical comment, the willingness of performers to master the works, and the willingness of audiences to attend (and pay for) their performance. The process must include elements of the education of the musical audience and its exposure to forms and works of music. It also seems to me that the social judgment at any moment of history is subject to revision by later generations.

Thomas Kuhn, in his Structure of Scientific Revolutions, made the point that there is a social process for the construction of science (albeit not in those words). At a given time there is a paradigm in which a community of scientists work, producing a body of scientific knowledge which is shared and taught. That paradigm includes the problems that are thought important to address, the evidence that is considered credible and important, the theory that interprest the evidence, etc. The process by which the scientific community and public construe the contributions of a scientist must be seen within this larger social construction process leading to paradigms. It also seems similar to the process by which the contributions of a musician are construed socially.

The big difference, of course, is that there is the gold standard of experimental verification in science. There is objectively verifiable evidence that a the predictions of a theory are validated or not, while it the aesthetic judgments of music seem much less objective and verifiable.

We do at least have the hope that ideas that are out of fashion at this time may be revived and recognized as important in the future. Ingolf, who wanted to be recognized as a great American composer may achieve that distinction by some future generation. And if not, we may still comfort ourselves with the understanding that the process of social construction is necessarily not "failsafe".