Brian Eno
Discreet Music

In 1984, Brian Eno presents 'Crystals' in Rome, an exhibition focused on optical and luminous effects inscribed on surfaces not immediately visible but perceivable through monitors that are part of the artistic architecture of the installation. As if to say the Vapor Drawings of Larry Bell, in short, only that “beneath” (Eno’s artistic forms are always endowed with great spatiality) there is the music created by a certain number of musical tapes in loop, constituent elements of the famous ‘ambient music’, which start each day according to non-preordained timings to create an ever-new backdrop, constantly in becoming.

For me, it’s not a backdrop, even if the volume is extremely discreet and requires attention and concentration, and silence. In fact, the rooms are like sanctuaries, white rooms in slight shadow to not disturb the artistic installations, there are some people walking slowly and no one speaks.

I spend a few hours in the multimedia exhibition rooms, purchase records and books by Eno and about Eno, and at the end of the day, I have the fortune to meet him near the exit, he has come to see how things are going. (I will later learn that he personally oversaw the complex installation of the material). I ask for permission to compliment him, he responds kindly with his calm voice, he is dressed very lightly in black and gray in the Roman February. A few words, I certainly do not allow myself to be intrusive, his gray eyes spark when I gesture to encompass the first room and comment: discreet music. He smiles and leaves, there’s a car waiting for him outside.

I often think back to the Crystals when I listen to Brian Eno’s ambient music, which is derived from many sources (even – mistakenly – from the Intonarumori of Luigi Russolo) but is born, in fact, from a striking intuition that Brian has in 1974, when he is more or less bedridden by a very cumbersome cast and receives visits from friends (who, of course, mainly bring him records and books). A friend arrives with a record of madrigals (it is said to be Judy Dyble), Brian asks her to put it on and they converse a bit, then the girl leaves and he remains on the bed with the record spinning; but the volume is very low and you can hardly hear anything, and the person taking care of him has left, and Brian does not feel like getting up to adjust it at that moment.

It will be the forced listening of those twenty minutes of almost inaudible music, which the composer will struggle to perceive with great concentration, that gives him the idea of a musical form fully blending with the surrounding environment, neutral in tone and mode (neither major nor minor), which can be listened to incidentally and mixed with the normal noises of life that flows, blending with it. ‘Ambient music’, indeed: music for elevators, music for waiting rooms, discreet music over all else (contrary to lounge, simply anonymous).

Of course, Eno, who notoriously has great classical culture, knows well the ‘furniture music’ of Satie (someone recently mentioned it on DeBaser) and knows the antecedents of his project, such as Stockhausen’s Helicopter-Quartett, in which the noise of the helicopter blades aboard which the musicians are located is an integral part of the composition as much as the string score, in itself rather ‘flat’.

Nonetheless, the 'Discreet Music' of over thirty minutes that comes out in 1975 on the first side of this vinyl presents unprecedented and very personal characteristics, and immediately starts the debate: music to listen to or not to listen to? Artistic vinyl or anonymous sound design of no musical worth? Nonsense or brilliant idea? The piece is very pleasing to the ear and probably no one enacts Brian Eno’s recommendations, whose authority no one dreams of questioning, and the piece in question is listened to like any other, at a normal volume and paying attention to the sound texture. Which is beautiful. Wanting to ‘subtract’ (notes, attention, and musical value) Eno ends up adding a conscious expressive form to the palette of research music, as our friend 'iant', first reviewer in 2008 of ‘Discreet Music’, seems to testify. He chooses to appreciate the music offered for what it is, without concerning himself with the composer’s intentions, thus contributing further to the ongoing debate about the enjoyment of art in general and so-called ‘modern’ art in particular.

My position – but it’s just a contribution – is that both perception schools have a solid point. If I went to a museum to contemplate the spine of a rose bush, I might not perceive the importance of the object before being informed that it is part of the Crown of Thorns from Golgotha, at which point I might perhaps ‘suddenly’ perceive a sense of admiration (in this case historical, not artistic). Many paintings seem simply well-crafted before reading that they were painted with the mouth or foot, after which they become masterpieces of skill if not of expression. It is also true that many artistic expressions are instead fully enjoyable (or at least fairly enjoyable) even without knowing the circumstances of the creative act and the artist’s purpose and message, as testified by the thousands of visitors who crowd the artistic sites of our cities without any guides. I believe that knowledge and awareness, and understanding represent added value to the enjoyment of the artwork, the lack of which does not, however – in most cases – undermine the enjoyment of the work itself.

The probably artistic intent of Eno, despite the premises, is instead testified by the composition recorded on the second side of the disc, a re-elaboration in three movements of Pachelbel's famous Canon according to carefully studied shifts, at different speed (induced or natural) of different parts of the original score. The enveloping and almost poignant effect of the composition is extraordinary (thanks to the famous, 'canonical' descending scales of Basso Continuo in D), like the slowed sound of the strings or that natural but of a slowed score, while the different parts fit together in a way that is not clear how carefully studied it is, but it is reasonable to suppose largely ‘accidental’ (albeit within carefully pre-established tracks, as is customary for a careful and scrupulous musician like Eno).

The system is therefore the one that Brian Eno will adopt for many years, both in recordings and sound installations, entrusting to chance the final effect of a sound mechanism designed to adapt to the most diverse combinations. ‘Music For Airports’, ‘Thursday Afternoon’, ‘Shutov Assembly’ are just the most well-known titles of an artistic trend that our own will continue to cultivate over time, achieving public success that undoubtedly owes much to the composer’s fame, but is not objectively easy to explain in relation to the limited accessibility of the overall musical offer. I know few people able to truly listen to thirty minutes of ambient music, but maybe it is precisely this that ultimately justifies Brian Eno, who had said from the beginning that it was not music to listen to, but to live with.