20th Century European Modernism

Por uma Historiografia do Modernismo: O Caso da Competitividade nas Literaturas Anglófonas

by Gustavo Vargas Cohen

The present text brings and comments on a series of dichotomies and conflicts that ravaged the English language... more The present text brings and comments on a series of dichotomies and conflicts that ravaged the English language modernists. The context of creation of their works is introduced
and external conflicts are highlighted, such as the world wars and their social, cultural and artistic implications, so as to reach the internal conflicts, those motivated by the anxiety and the disorientation that stemmed from that turbulent era and that generated a number of injurious observations among writers, i.e., the invectives which are the focus of this investigation. Based on oral and printed documents, this sagacious, oftentimes unhealthy, competition explored by Anglophone Modernists the likes of Virginia Woolf, Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, James Joyce, T. S. Eliot and William Carlos Williams, among others, is presented through the search of a balance between historical-scientific rigor and good humor.

Systemet og musikken. Om den analytiske resepsjonen av 1950-tallets nye verktyper

by Håvard Enge

Published in Studia Musicologica Norvegica 34, 2008, pp. 26-50

This article criticizes the analytical reception of the new forms of musical works arising in the 1950s, notably... more This article criticizes the analytical reception of the new forms of musical works arising in the 1950s, notably integral serialism and aleatoric music. How has the discipline of musical analysis coped with the «automatism» of these works? In his often-cited article «On the Analysis of Recent Music» from 1977, Robert P. Morgan tried to bring musical analysis up to date. Noting a blurring of the distinction between compositions and compositional systems, he found a shift of analytic emphasis inevitable: from the work to the compositional system. Here, I question the inevitability of leaving the musical work behind in the analysis of these compositions. Understanding the elaborate systems mainly as compositional tools, introduced for the purpose of creating ever more original and unexpected soundscapes, as Erling E. Guldbrandsen proposes in his Boulez dissertation, renders the aesthetic autonomy of the «automatistic» works less improbable. In my opinion, taking the listener’s perspective in analysis can supply new and valuable insights to the integral serialist and aleatoric works. I conclude by demonstrating how the notorious «textbook example» of integral serialism, Pierre Boulez’ Structures 1a, could be analyzed from a listener’s perspective.

The politics of listening – Luigi Nono’s Fragmente-Stille, an Diotima

by Håvard Enge

Trial lecture for the PhD degree, University of Oslo, 07.09.11.

The string quartet Fragmente-Stille, an Diotima from 1979 is described as a turning point not only in Luigi Nono’s... more The string quartet Fragmente-Stille, an Diotima from 1979 is described as a turning point not only in Luigi Nono’s oeuvre, but also in the history of musical modernism. Often, the reception focuses on the surprise of having these introvert sound fragments and silent Hölderlin quotations presented by a composer who had had a reputation for three decades of producing intense, confrontational music with revolutionary political intentions.
However, Nono’s use of silent Hölderlin quotations in the quartet can be understood as a continuation of an approach to texts and extra-musical meaning which characterises his works in all of his periods, an approach where conveying a text is less important than creating an engaging human context.
And while Nono’s quartet clearly signals a heightened emphasis on musical self-reflection, the overarching context is no less political than before:  it is concerned with the utopian transformation of the act of listening.