Abstract

As we know, the auditory action of listening to music proper presupposes the perception of something that is becoming an increasing rarity in industrial society: silence, which here functions as a sort of "camera obscura" within which we wait for the music to appear, shattering the darkness with its forms and colours. The perception of this difference between silence and sound is essential in creating that expectation within which listening to music can take form as the surprising discovery of a previously unknown object of sound. Using the first movement of "Schubert's Unfinished Symphony", a method is here given for the teaching/training of listening which is based on the following fundamental principles: maintenance of vivid curiosity with regard to the sound that is about to arrive; description of the composition on the basis of listening in order to identify the main themes and formal structures; avoidance of literary metaphors in explanations that underline the inner dramas with in the music, in particular the contrast between rhythm and melody; "a posteriori" reconstruction of the sonata form (as the fruit of discoveries made whilst listening); exercise of the faculty of memory (students are required to recall at each point all that they have heard before); and, finally, an interpretation of the piece within the historical and aesthetic context of its time.