Obedience and liberty in creativity

A great work, I believe, is made out of a combination of obedience and liberty. Such a work satisfied the mind, together with that curious thing which is artistic emotion. Stravinsky said, “If I were permitted everything, I would be lost in the abyss of liberty.” On the one hand he knew the limits, on the other he ceaselessly extended them.

If we look at the history of human production we note that there is a kind of tacit and profound accord between what has been achieved and what has been transcended. Take a work of the importance of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier; the obedience is such that when Bach makes a decision, it always corresponds to a rule, to a convention that can be explained in clear terms. Thus he begins by obeying. But within that obedience, he is absolutely free. He doesn’t submit to obedience, he chooses it.

Mademoiselle: Conversations with Nadia Boulanger, ed. by Bruno Monsaingeon, trans. by Robyn Marsack. Cited in: O. Strunk, Source Readings in Music History: The Twentieth Century, New York, W. W. Norton & Company, 1998, p.218.

— Nadia Boulanger

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