Music Aesthetics

Listening to Nothing in Particular: Boredom and Contemporary Experimental Music

by eldritch Priest

"Listening to Nothing in Particular" examines contemporary boredom through the lens of recent experimental... more "Listening to Nothing in Particular" examines contemporary boredom through the lens of recent experimental composition. While boredom is typically treated in the arts as a conceit of transcendence or radical indifference, this essay argues that the mood in contemporary post- Cagean compositional practices articulate a much more ambivalent feeling of being unjustified, a feeling whose low-level intensity is largely indistinguishable from the spins and stalls of everyday life. Drawing on Sianne Ngai's notion of the "stuplime," a stilted and undecidable response to expressions of an infinitely iterated finitude, and evoking alternative ways of suffering the passion of waiting, "Listening to Nothing in Particular" focuses the scattered rays of boredom on a conflict between contemporary culture's shrunken curiosity and its imperatives for constant individual self-invention.

I'm the Operator with the Pocket Calculator Some Reflections on Pure Data.

by Harald Wiltsche

"Kagels serielle Tonalität als Weiterführung von Liszts Konzept des 'poetischen Gedankens'", in: Vom instrumentalen zum imaginären Theater. Musikästhetische Wandlungen im Werk von Mauricio Kagel, hg. v. Werner Klüppelholz, Hofheim 2008, S. 129-140.

by Knut Holtstraeter

ISBN 9783936000467

Classicist Terms of Sublimity: Christian Friedrich Michaelis, Fugue, and Fantasy

by Keith Chapin

“Classicist Terms of Sublimity: Christian Friedrich Michaelis, Fugue, and Fantasy.” Ad parnassum: A Journal of Eighteenth and Nineteenth-Century Instrumental Music 4, no. 8 (2006), 115-139.

In his essay On the sublime in music (Ueber das Erhabene in der Musik, 1801), Michaelis applied theories of sublimity... more In his essay On the sublime in music (Ueber das Erhabene in der Musik, 1801), Michaelis applied theories of sublimity to explain the force of obstreperous musical techniques found in many instrumental genres of the time: swift runs, sudden pauses, brusque chords, long series of low tones, and so forth. He threw a kink into his argument, however, when he claimed that the 'sublime style' was also the simplest. At first glance, he seems to confuse the French classical theory of sublimity (directed toward pithy statements of a noble idea) with the many other theories that circulated at the time (most directed toward more prolix styles). However, Michaelis actually addressed an important issue in the production and reception of sophisticated and even seemingly disjointed music. In its sublime force, a well-written work can seem simple. It can overcome the artificiality of its construction. Through analyses of J.S. Bach's fugue in C minor (BWV 847) from Das wohltemperirte Klavier, Book 2, and of C. P. E. Bach's Freie Fantasie in F# minor, W. 67, an interpretation of forced arguments in Michaelis's essay is offered. If imprecise in his language, Michaelis was sensitive in his criticism.

‘A Harmony or Concord of Several and Diverse Voices’: Autonomy in 17th-Century German Music Theory and Practice.

by Keith Chapin

“‘A Harmony or Concord of Several and Diverse Voices’: Autonomy in 17th-Century German Music Theory and Practice.” International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music 42, no. 2 (2011), 219-255.

As a classic example of musica poetica, Christoph Bernhard’s Tractatus compositionis augmentatus exhibits a rhetorical... more As a classic example of musica poetica, Christoph Bernhard’s Tractatus compositionis augmentatus exhibits a rhetorical mode of thought. But while rhetoric informs an aesthetic in which music is bound to specific purposes, it also gives the foundation for theoretical, aesthetic, and social principles of musical autonomy. Autonomy and functionality are not mutually exclusive. This article tracks the emergence of concepts and practices of autonomy in the late seventeenth century, and, secondly, redefines aesthetic autonomy as linked to a particular type of function—the use of music to strive toward “the good life,” as Aristotle termed the goal of human existence.

Ut musica poiesis. Une redéfinition du principe d’imitation dans la théorie des « arts énergiques » de Johann Jacob Engel

by Charlotte Morel

Conférence prononcée au Deutsches Forum für Kunstgeschichte lors du colloque "La musique face au système des Beaux-Arts", INHA/ Deutsches Forum für Kunstgeschichte, Paris, 17-19 février 2010, org. Marie-Pauline Martin et Chiara Savettieri.

Social interactions, musical arrangement, and the production of digital audio in Istanbul recording studios

by Eliot Bates

PhD Dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 2008

Mixing for Parlak and Bowing for a Büyük Ses: The Aesthetics of Arranged Traditional Music in Turkey.

by Eliot Bates

published in Ethnomusicology 54(1), 2010

Busonis Rückkehr nach Berlin im Zeichen der Jungen Klassizität. Verkleidungen einer Idee, in Busoni. Ein Italiener in Berlin, atti del convegno internazionale di studi Berlino, giugno 2001 – a cura dell’Arbeitsstelle Busoni, FU Berlin, Gesellschaft fuer Musikforschung, Steiner-Verlag, Stuttgart 2004

by Anna Ficarella

Dissertation Prospectus

by Kathryn Etheridge

En busca de una estética musical: la creación de José Manuel López López, la profondeur du temps de Maurice Merleau-Ponty

by Pedro Ordóñez

La figura del compositor José Manuel López López (Madrid, 1956) ha alcanzado una solidez notable en la escena musical... more La figura del compositor José Manuel López López (Madrid, 1956) ha alcanzado una solidez notable en la escena musical contemporánea. Su posición como creador, con una trayectoria ampliamente reconocida y reafirmada por la concesión del Premio Nacional de Música en 2000, docente –ha sido profesor en el Máster de Composición del Conservatorio Superior de Música de Zaragoza y en el Máster de Musique et Musicologie del Département de Musique de la Université Paris VIII–Vincennes-Saint Denis, entre otros– y gestor, a través de su labor como Director del Auditorio Nacional de Música de Madrid, lo sitúan como una de las voces más significativas en la producción artística de hoy.
En el presente artículo me he propuesto relacionar la creación de este compositor con la esfera conceptual de Maurice Merleau-Ponty, filósofo esencial en el pensamiento de la segunda mitad del siglo pasado; esta perspectiva, posiblemente diversa a la habitual en cuanto al punto de partida y la metodología empleada para su definición, surge sin embargo del convencimiento de su pertinencia para afrontar el estudio de un planteamiento, el de López López, que integra de forma constante la reflexión estética –y técnica, obviamente– como parte del quehacer compositivo y artístico cotidiano.
En tal ejercicio comparativo se mostrará el estrecho vínculo conceptual que puede establecerse entre la posición de López López y la definición estética de Merleau-Ponty; este vínculo ampliaría las posibilidades hermenéuticas en el estudio de la creación del compositor hacia la ordenación de un vasto corpus estético conocido aunque aún poco analizado y aportaría una aplicación cuando menos diversa del pensamiento pontyniano, que sólo recientemente ha comenzado a ser considerado como un aparato estético sólido no sólo en cuanto a las artes plásticas se refiere sino también en lo que incumbe al arte sonoro.

The Debate on Musical Aesthetics around 1600 and the Defensa de la mvsica moderna by King João IV (1649)

by João Pedro d'Alvarenga

Published in 'New Music' 1400-1600: Papers from an International Colloquium on the Theory, Authorship and Transmission of Music in the Age of the Renaissance (Lisbon-Évora, 27-29 May 2003), ed. João Pedro d'Alvarenga & Manuel Pedro Ferreira (Lisbon, Évora, CESEM, Centro de História da Arte e Investigação Artística, Casa do Sul, 2009), pp. 239-50

Entendre comme. Réflexions sur un thème de Wittgenstein

by Alessandro Arbo

published in International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music
Vol. 33, No. 2 (Dec., 2002), pp. 149-169.

In what measure does the evidence of musical relationships depend on a form of "interpretation" of the sound... more In what measure does the evidence of musical relationships depend on a form of "interpretation" of the sound structure, both in its being listened to as well as its being performed? In the Bemerkungen über die Philosophie der Psychologie and in the Philosophische Untersuchungen, Wittgenstein suggests we start with the phenomenon of "hearing (something) as...". What happens when you hear a bar of music as an introduction or a passage as the variation of a theme? On the one hand, a process is necessary to obtain that result. The ear has to orient itself in a field of sound and seek for something. But when we finally manage to hear it, the figure alone seems to come towards us. It is not the product of our interpretation: compare it with exactly the same way we try to perceive something in Jastrow's two-sided drawings. Often a simple instruction like "Think it's a waltz and you'll perform it correctly" is enough to change its "appearance" and give it the right form. Nevertheless, this phenomenon does not always occur in every case. You could quicken or slow down the tempo so that it becomes a march or, there again, a dance. If the ability to hear something like a variation of a theme seems to depend on a certain degree of imagination, then here, too, it is more correct to say that we do not interprete but we succeed in hearing it. All these examples confirm that the aesthetic synthesis cannot be compared to an intellectual act, even if significant analogies can be observed on both levels. When we hear or see, the appearance of an image (a melodic outline, a structure etc.), can be regarded as an immediate state which is not modifiable. The linguistic and conceptual tools we use in order to produce it are of secondary importance with respect to what is produced (and reproduced) in the experience itself. The aesthetics cannot be reduced to hermeneutics: interpreting is not enough because hearing is necessary. It is true that in certain cases - or at certain levels - you have to interpret when you are either performing or listening. However, this does not mean everything we read or hear is interpretation and, above all, the performance of a musical piece does not automatically imply an interpretation. On the other hand, it could be described as reacting accordingly to the demands it makes upon us, an immediate reaction that nearly always depends on a long and constant familiarization process.

Herméneutique de la musique?

by Alessandro Arbo

published in International Review of Aesthetics and Sociology of Music, 31/1 (2000), p. 53-66.

Philosophers and musicologists who try to establish a hermeneutics of music are faced with a major problem: how to... more Philosophers and musicologists who try to establish a hermeneutics of music are faced with a major problem: how to identify a key for the relations which exist between a musical structure and its verbal description. Thus, reflections of authors such as Kretzschmar and Schering have not escaped the theoretical contradictions and, above all, point to the ambiguity of a discipline which aims to trace the intentions of historical musicology, having parallelly ambitions for a systematic musicology. A more reassuring paradigm has guided Dilthey's reflections, who considers art as one the forms of expression of life and individual sentiment. His work of reconstruction seeks to give relativity to historical periods owing to the specific character of the experiences (Erlebnisse) which enable the interpreter to define the essence of the musical experience of the past. In his work Die groβe deutsche Musik des 18. Jahrhunderts (1907-07; published only in 1933) the interpretation is not so much attached to works (which by their intrinsic aesthetical value constitute the main subject matter of Kretzschmar's propedeutics) as to musical forms which are much more representative for the "common consciousness" (Gemeindebewuβtsein). This perspective is, however, equally limited: once it cames across the positivistic horizon, the focalisation on one foreign psychism destroys the temporal distance and wipes away the most specific value of a historicity in which are registered the structural connections of the living units. The hermeneutics of the 20th century has searched for resolution of the apories of psychologism by casting aside the reflection at the ontological level. If music can really be considered as one of the linguistic forms and if human communication and interaction occur within it, it is possible to investigate a piece of music with the language and to subordinate oneself to the reading of a sound movement. The most direct consequence of this principle is the thematisation of the performing moment, already exploited as an example and application field by Luigi Pareyson's theory of formation, and by Emilio Betti's methodical hermeneutics. However, this solution also creates in itself numerous problems, among which the problem of heterogeneity of language in those who listen in relation to those who perform is not the least significant. In a short article in 1988, Gadamer noted that in the case of music the purpose of comprehension does not seem to appear in the interpreter's discourse as much as in the experience of the work, in its particular creating, i.e. in listening as well as in performing, both capable to correspond to the function of a "stop and stay" which characterises the forms of general comprehension.

Diderot et l’hiéroglyphe musical

by Alessandro Arbo

published in Recherches sur Diderot et sur l'Encyclopédie, numéro 30 (2001)

Diderot and musical hieroglyphs
With the notion of hieroglyph, Diderot tries to demonstrate that listening to... more Diderot and musical hieroglyphs
With the notion of hieroglyph, Diderot tries to demonstrate that listening to poetry and music involves a schematic indication that, as in a rough draft, helps to produce images. Pleasure is generated by the recognition of an ideogrammatical representation which is impressed on the memory thanks to the relationships it establishes between sounds. That is when the unity of the experience is stabilised, and the perception can be heard as a totality projecting meaning. The musical hieroglyph, which is a subtle and fugitive trace, highlights the intervention, in the organisation of sense data, of an intermediate residuum which merely suggests it. In fact, the growth of the expression is accompanied by an inevitable loss, an aberration or a drift of meaning, an insolubility of structure which opens sound to a multiplicity of depths.

Some Remarks on “Hearing-as” and its Role in the Aesthetics of Music

by Alessandro Arbo

published in 'Topoi' 28/2 (2009), 97-107.

Starting from the context in which Wittgenstein thinks of the concepts of “seeing-as” and “hearing-as”, the basic... more Starting from the context in which Wittgenstein thinks of the concepts of “seeing-as” and “hearing-as”, the basic relation is clarified between the question of representation, musical understanding, and the theory of musical expressiveness. The points of views of Wollheim, Scruton, Levinson, and Ridley are discussed, in a re-consideration of the notions of hearing and understanding within Wittgenstein’s “last philosophy”.

Musica, pensiero, linguaggio. Incursione nel mondo di Wittgenstein

by Alessandro Arbo

«Musica, pensiero, linguaggio. Incursione nel mondo di Wittgenstein», Kadmos. L’informatore mitteleuropeo: 45 (2007), p. 3-9.

De la" obra de arte total" a la" fusión interior": La música en la modelo de correspondencias artísticas de Camille Mauclair

by Sonsoles Hernandez Barbosa

Acta musicologica, vol. 81, 2009, pp. 275-300.

"Plus loin que la musique": evocaciones plásticas en el pensamiento estético de Claude Debussy

by Sonsoles Hernandez Barbosa

Quintana, nº 8 (issue's subjet "The voice of Galatea: sonorous images"), 2009, pp. 135-145.

What goes on: The double blind of theorizing rock.

by Theodore Gracyk

Literature and Psychology, 44:3 (1998), pp. 1-22.

Challenges the position that distinct critical vocabularies or "discourses" are opposed; argues that hybrid... more Challenges the position that distinct critical vocabularies or "discourses" are opposed; argues that hybrid vocabularies and concepts can, and do, develop and bridge the supposed opposition of "high" and "low" culture. Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground serve as a central example.