Experience and Consciousness: Enhancing the Notion of Musical Understanding

Disagreeing with Jerrold Levinson's claim that being conscious of broad-span musical form is not essential to understanding music, I will argue that our awareness of musical architecture is significant to achieve comprehension. I will show that the experiential model is not incompatible with the analytic model. My main goal is to show that these two models can be reconciled through the identification of a broader notion of understanding. After accomplishing this reconciliation by means of my new conception, I will close the paper by discussing some reasons to accept an enhancing notion of musical understanding that includes levels and degrees of understanding. /// En desacuerdo con la afirmación de Jerrold Levinson: que ser consciente de la forma musical a gran escala no es esencial para comprender la música, sostendré que nuestra conciencia de la estructura musical es significante para alcanzar comprensión. Mostraré que el modelo experiencial no es incompatible con el modelo analítico y que ambos pueden ser reconciliados mediante una noción de comprensión más amplia. Después de llevar a cabo está reconciliación mediante la nueva concepción que propongo, concluiré discutiendo algunas razones para aceptar una noción de comprensión musical enriquecida que incluye niveles y grados de comprensión

Brahms\u27s Fugal Sonata Finales.

The final movements of Brahms\u27s Cello Sonata in E Minor, Op. 38 and String Quintet in F Major, Op. 88 epitomize Tovey\u27s description of Brahms\u27s style, from the outset almost evenly balanced between the most dramatic sonata form and the highest polyphony, in combining fugue with sonata form. Although previous authors have discussed Brahms\u27s treatment of various genres, and there are multiple studies of individual movements of Brahms\u27s chamber music, there has been no specific genre study of Brahms\u27s fugal sonata movements. These two movements represent a unique and important aspect of Brahms\u27s music in that they most explicitly illustrate the balance between counterpoint and sonata form. Brahms systematically explores certain types of compositional issues throughout his career, as exemplified by the twenty-year span encompassing the composition of the Sonata (1862-65) and the Quintet (1882). The first chapter of this monograph documents the significance of these issues, as follows: (1) Brahms was a traditionalist, but although he revered his predecessors, and his music represents a vital continuation of the classical tradition, he was also subtly progressive; (2) Brahms made prodigious use of counterpoint in his music; (3) Brahms had an affinity for early music; and, (4) Brahms often alluded to the music of other composers. The final two chapters of this monograph consist of analytical investigations of the two movements, illustrating the highly concentrated way in which they address all these issues. Although the two movements are outwardly similar in format, each achieves its own unique solutions to the compositional problems inherent in that format

Irony and ambiguity in Beethoven's string quartets

This thesis explores the view that many of the difficulties and apparent eccentricities of Beethoven's Late Quartets (particularly Op. 130, 132, 133 and 135) may be understood in terms of irony, in the sense that it appears in the philosophical and aesthetic writings of the early German Romantics. A chain of influence is demonstrated between Beethoven and Friedrich Schlegel's philosophy of Romantic irony, through significant inter -personal relationships as well as through Beethoven's exposure to Schlegel's written works. This connection provides a firm hermeneutic basis for considering the composer's work in terms of irony.The A minor Quartet Op. 132 is given as an example of Beethoven's Romantic irony, and considered in terms of the constitutive elements of Schlegel's Romantic irony - Paradox, Parabasis and Self -consciousness. However, this thesis also demonstrates that the irony within the Late Quartets goes beyond the confines of Romantic irony. The paradoxical structures of the Cavatina and Grosse Fuge are considered as examples of "general" or "existential" irony -a form closely related to Schlegelian irony. Moreover, the replacement finale of the Op. 130 quartet is shown to constitute a striking instance of satire: a bitter ironic comment upon the musical conservatism of Beethoven's critics.This thesis therefore explores the philosophical background and the nature of irony itself, relating all of its forms to one underlying structure and to one fundamental process. This process - "objectification" - is derived from the work of Mikhail Bakhtin, and forms the theoretical basis for the structural approach of the analyses of irony within the thesis. The thesis also considers the relationship between irony and related phenomena such as wit and humour. It suggests that the differences between these concepts correspond to those between Beethoven's Romantic irony and the wit and humour of his predecessors.Finally, the relationship between irony and ambiguity is also considered. Ambiguity is frequently elided with irony within theoretical writing on irony; indeed the terms "irony" and "ambiguity" are often used synonymously. Since ambiguity is a significant element of the harmonic and formal practices within the Quartets this elision is important: if ambiguity and irony are elided then each instance of ambiguity may be considered ironic - a reductio ad absurdum. This work distinguishes ambiguity and irony as separate phenomena, approaching this division through the semiotic concepts of "immanence" and "manifestation ". I argue that ambiguity occurs as a particular effect of the immanent level of discourse, whilst irony occurs entirely within the manifest level. In addition to this difference in function, different structures are demonstrated for these phenomena. This distinction is applied to the third movement of the Op. 130 Quartet, which is considered as a confrontation of Classical aesthetics with the equivocal and ambiguou

Musicality of a Literary Work

This book represents an attempt to capture different links between modern literature and music. The author examines strict intertextual correlations, the phenomena of musicality and musicality of literary works, the musical structure in literature, so-called musical literary texts. He focuses on the novel Le Cœur absolu by Philippe Sollers, the poem Todesfuge by Paul Celan, the Preludio e Fughe by Umberto Saba and the drama Judasz z Kariothu [Judas Iscariot] by Karol Hubert Rostworowski. The analysis also includes Stanisław Barańczak’s cycle of poems Podróż zimowa: Wiersze do muzyki Franza Schuberta [Winter Journey: Poems to the Music of Franz Schubert] and a fragment of Scène from Hérodiade by StéphaneMallarmé in Paul Hindemith’s composition «Hérodiade» de Stéphane Mallarmé

Music and the word in the works of T.S. Eliot and James Joyce

This thesis describes primarily the influence of music on the works of T.S. Eliot and James Joyce. This is undertaken in four chapters, framed by an introduction and conclusion. The place that music had in the lives and artistic convictions of Eliot and Joyce is discussed initially, together with the aesthetic background to the period during which these authors worked, with reference to the ways it encouraged artists generally to think across disciplines. The changing beliefs and conventions of Modernism are particularly important in this respect. Selected works by Eliot and Joyce are then examined for the effect that musical sound and musical structures had on their composition. Following this, more specific analogies are drawn between particular composers and pieces of music, and significant texts by Eliot and Joyce. The extent to which analogy is possible, or even desirable, is also considered. Some assessment is made of the critical background to both the structural and analogical aspects of musical influence. Finally, a representative survey of some musical settings of work by Eliot and Joyce is offered in an attempt to show how the exchange of ideas between the two disciplines is bi-directional. An audio tape has been appended in order to further the reader's appreciation of particular examples under discussion

Commentary on the Portfolio of Compositions submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Composition

John Goodenough Doctor of Philosophy by Composition Durham University Department of Music 2014 Portfolio Contents 1. Ubi Caritas 2009 - for Violin & Piano 4.36 2. String Quartet 2010 - for String Quartet 5.15 3. Echoes of Poems & Prose 2010 - for small ensemble 32.45 4. Fountains 2011 - for String Quartet 4.45 5. Stato di Cambiamento 2012 - for large ensemble 5.10 6. Triptych 2012 - for small ensemble 5.20 7. Divergenza 2013 - for large orchestra 33.12 Total time 91.03 Other musical examples (not part of the portfolio) Sette archi spezzati 2013 - for small ensemble 5.28 This portfolio has three principal themes. The first, explored with the discussion of Ubi Caritas and the (2010) String Quartet, concerns the interpretation of harmony; that is harmony, plainly being the vertical component in music but having an inbuilt propensity for horizontal movement, including line and counterpoint. In echoes of Poems & Prose, there is a disregard for any horizontal reasoning, harmony is constrained to the point of isolation and focus fundamentally shifts to the chord as 'object'. I consider this 'objective' sense in detail, in subsequent music in this portfolio. A second theme hinges on a discussion of 'musical material' (the term devised by Theodor Adorno); this considered alongside Samuel Beckett's description of a relationship, between 'mess and confusion' (Beckett's terms for material) and the 'form' that contains it. In Echoes of Poems & Prose, I consider material explicitly, in particular the singular sound. With Fountains and Stato di Cambiamento control of the sounds and their overall architecture become increasingly obscure, with issues around form, substantively re-defining the compositional process. A third theme is the consideration of aspects of structure, which become of particular significance in the final pieces Triptych and Divergenza (the term 'structure' being as defined by John Cage). In Triptych, exploration is made of a confining form into which structural material grows; material that yields intensely colourful musical moments. In the final piece Divergenza, the Fibonacci sequence applies a vice-like grip on the material, but as I remove the conceptual dependence on this sequence, the music's intrinsic characteristics of rhythm and character grow to become of central importance

The Acoustic Self in English Modernism and Beyond

Drawing on the analogy between musical meaning-making and human subjectivity, this book develops the concept of the acoustic self, exploring the ways in which musical characterization and structure are related to issues of subject-representation in the modernist English novel. The volume is framed around three musical topics—the fugue, absolute music, and Gesamtkunstwerk—arguing that these three modes of musicalization address modernist dilemmas around selfhood and identity. Varga reflects on the manifestations of the acoustic self in examples from the works of E.M. Forster, Aldous Huxley, and Virginia Woolf, and such musicians as Bach, Beethoven, Handel, and Wagner. An additional chapter on jazz and electronic music supplements these inquiries, pursuing the acoustic self beyond modernism and thereby inciting further discussion and theorization of musical intermediality, as well as recent sonic practices. Probing the analogies in the complex interrelationship between music, representation, and language in fictional texts and the nature of human subjectivity, this book will appeal to students and scholars interested in the interface of language and music, in such areas as intermediality, multimodality, literary studies, critical theory, and modernist studies

Disciplining Knowledge in Music Theory: Abstraction and the Recovery of Dialectics

A critical rethinking of disciplinary tendencies in music theory reveals several important historical moments when the process of abstraction has reshaped aspects of tonal theory in profound ways, notably in the areas of counterpoint, harmony, and form. These moments of abstraction prioritize one musical feature over others, and frequently involve a discursive process of dissociation to solidify the legitimacy of the abstraction and resolve lingering logical contradictions. This often leads to a theoretical and historical distancing from the contexts in which certain practices emerged, and risks severing aesthetic connections between technique and meaning. The resulting imbalance in one or more of three dialectical pairs has additional disciplinary consequences, and invites renewed interest in three theoretical perspectives that can recognize changing musical concepts and at the same time recover some of the latent meanings buried in tonal music. These perspectives have received some attention in recent music analysis; in this article I wish to call attention to their deeper disciplinary role in compensating theoretical abstraction and dialectically mapping our theoretical field