Aida and the Empire of Emotions (Theodor W. Adorno, Edward Said, and Alexander Kluge)

This essay investigates how Theodor W. Adorno, Edward Said, and Alexander Kluge read Verdi's opera Aida with respect to the theme of being buried alive, where being buried alive can occur not only to characters in an opera but, according to a discourse of fate, also to the opera itself. To write about being buried alive but living as it were tot tell the tale, the three critics ask whether a residue of resistance in the opera remains that allows the opera to escape a totalizing discourse of fate or fatality that threatens to destroy it. Goehr begins by presenting the more familiar views of Adorno and Said, although hopefully in a new light. After, Goehr presents and develops the less familiar view (in an Anglo-American musicological context) of the Frankfurt filmmaker and critical theorist, Alexander Kluge

Tres ratones ciegos : Goodman, McLuhan y Adorno sobre el arte de la música y del escuchar en la época de la transmisión global

Este ensayo investiga el discurso global a la sombra de la década de 1960. Se basa en los puntos de vista de Nelson Goodman, Marshall McLuhan y Theodor W. Adorno para explorar tres conceptos centrales para la música en la época de la transmisión global: concordancia, corriente y virtualidad.This essay investigates global discourse in the shadow of the 1960s. It draws on the views of Nelson Goodman, Marshall McLuhan, and Theodor W. Adorno to explore three concepts central to music in the age of global transmission: compliance, current, and virtuality

Les Lumières à Manhattan

La Dialectik der Aufklärung in Amerika n’est pas la même chose que la Dialectique des Lumières aux États-Unis. La différence tient sans doute au fait qu’on regarde les choses de l’extérieur ou de l’intérieur du pays. Le titre de cette conférence est volontairement ambigu. Il nous invite à considérer la réception aux États-Unis du livre d’Horkheimer et Adorno, Die Dialektik der Aufklärung, et son rôle dans la définition du concept d’« Amerika » avec un k à la Kafka. Et à nous demander s’il a v..

Virtual Works – Actual Things

"Beyond musical works: new perspectives on music ontology and performance What are musical works? How are they constructed in our minds? Which material things allow us to speak about them in the first place? Does a specific way of conceiving musical works limit their performative potentials? Which alternative, more productive images of musical work can be devised? Virtual Works – Actual Things addresses contemporary music ontological discourses, challenging dominant musicological accounts, questioning their authoritative foundation and moving towards dynamic perspectives devised by music practitioners and artist researchers. Specific attention is given to the relationship between the virtual multiplicities that enable the construction of an image of a musical work and the actual, concrete materials that make such a construction possible. With contributions by prominent scholars, this book is a wide-ranging and fascinating collection of essays, which will be of great interest for artistic research, contemporary musicology, music philosophy, performance studies and music pedagogy alike. Contributors: David Davies (McGill University, Montreal), Andreas Dorschel (University of the Arts Graz), Lydia Goehr (Columbia University, New York), Kathy Kiloh (OCAD University, Toronto), Jake McNulty (Columbia University, New York), Gunnar Hindrichs (University of Basel), John Rink (University of Cambridge)

Virtual Works – Actual Things

"Beyond musical works: new perspectives on music ontology and performance What are musical works? How are they constructed in our minds? Which material things allow us to speak about them in the first place? Does a specific way of conceiving musical works limit their performative potentials? Which alternative, more productive images of musical work can be devised? Virtual Works – Actual Things addresses contemporary music ontological discourses, challenging dominant musicological accounts, questioning their authoritative foundation and moving towards dynamic perspectives devised by music practitioners and artist researchers. Specific attention is given to the relationship between the virtual multiplicities that enable the construction of an image of a musical work and the actual, concrete materials that make such a construction possible. With contributions by prominent scholars, this book is a wide-ranging and fascinating collection of essays, which will be of great interest for artistic research, contemporary musicology, music philosophy, performance studies and music pedagogy alike. Contributors: David Davies (McGill University, Montreal), Andreas Dorschel (University of the Arts Graz), Lydia Goehr (Columbia University, New York), Kathy Kiloh (OCAD University, Toronto), Jake McNulty (Columbia University, New York), Gunnar Hindrichs (University of Basel), John Rink (University of Cambridge)

Virtual Works – Actual Things: Essays in Music Ontology

"Beyond musical works: new perspectives on music ontology and performance What are musical works? How are they constructed in our minds? Which material things allow us to speak about them in the first place? Does a specific way of conceiving musical works limit their performative potentials? Which alternative, more productive images of musical work can be devised? Virtual Works – Actual Things addresses contemporary music ontological discourses, challenging dominant musicological accounts, questioning their authoritative foundation and moving towards dynamic perspectives devised by music practitioners and artist researchers. Specific attention is given to the relationship between the virtual multiplicities that enable the construction of an image of a musical work and the actual, concrete materials that make such a construction possible. With contributions by prominent scholars, this book is a wide-ranging and fascinating collection of essays, which will be of great interest for artistic research, contemporary musicology, music philosophy, performance studies and music pedagogy alike. Contributors: David Davies (McGill University, Montreal), Andreas Dorschel (University of the Arts Graz), Lydia Goehr (Columbia University, New York), Kathy Kiloh (OCAD University, Toronto), Jake McNulty (Columbia University, New York), Gunnar Hindrichs (University of Basel), John Rink (University of Cambridge)

Virtual Works – Actual Things

Beyond musical works: new perspectives on music ontology and performance. What are musical works? How are they constructed in our minds? Which material things allow us to speak about them in the first place? Does a specific way of conceiving musical works limit their performative potentials? Which alternative, more productive images of musical work can be devised? Virtual Works – Actual Things addresses contemporary music ontological discourses, challenging dominant musicological accounts, questioning their authoritative foundation and moving towards dynamic perspectives devised by music practitioners and artist researchers. Specific attention is given to the relationship between the virtual multiplicities that enable the construction of an image of a musical work and the actual, concrete materials that make such a construction possible. With contributions by prominent scholars, this book is a wide-ranging and fascinating collection of essays, which will be of great interest for artistic research, contemporary musicology, music philosophy, performance studies and music pedagogy alike. Contributors: David Davies (McGill University, Montreal), Andreas Dorschel (University of the Arts Graz), Lydia Goehr (Columbia University, New York), Kathy Kiloh (OCAD University, Toronto), Jake McNulty (Columbia University, New York), Gunnar Hindrichs (University of Basel), John Rink (University of Cambridge

Händels Musik und Programmgestaltung in Londons Kristallpalast, 1859–1874 [Programming Handel’s music at the Crystal Palace, 1859–1874]

Dieser Aufsatz beleuchtet die Funktion gemischter Konzertprogramme im Hin-blick auf den historischen Aufführungskontext Händelscher Musik sowie den Kanonisierungsprozess verschiedener anfänglich wenig bekannter Werke. Das Hauptaugenmerk liegt dabei auf den Konzerten im Kristallpalast im Londoner Vorort Sydenham in den Jahren 1859 bis 1874, wobei sowohl die regulären Samstagskonzerte als auch die ‚Selection Days‘ des Triennial Handel Festival berücksichtigt werden. Die Untersuchung zeigt, wie einzelne Nummern aus Händels großen Werken Einzug in die Samstagskonzerte fanden und wie ­Händels Musik für die Aufführungen an den Selection Days, den Herzstücken des Festivals, neu zusammengestellt, aufgeführt und anschließend veröffentlicht wurden. Aufführungsgeschichte – weniger die in der historischen Aufführungspra-xis bedachten spezifischen spieltechnischen Nuancen, sondern die eigentliche Biographie eines Werkes auf der Bühne – wird häufig im Prozess des „Kontex­ tualisierens, Inszenierens und Vermittelns“ übersehen, der laut Lydia Goehr einen entscheidenden Anteil daran hat, den Rang eines Werks dem Publikum näherzubringen. Meist rückt die besser erforschte kritische und wissenschaft-liche Literatur in den Vordergrund. Die im 19. Jahrhundert gängige Praxis, klangliche Vielfalt durch thematisch gemischte Konzertprogramme und die Einbeziehung diverser Genres herzustellen, wird besonders oft als Verstoß gegen die ‚Absichten des Komponisten oder der Komponistin‘ abgetan oder als Ver-such verstanden, den scheinbar richtigen Aufführungskontext eines Werks zu finden. Dennoch wird eingeräumt, dass diese Vorstellungen oft nicht mit der Erfahrung des Komponisten oder der Komponistin im Einklang stehen. Je-doch ermöglichen derartige Untersuchungen interessante Einblicke in Kanoni-sierungsprozesse sowie in Kräfteverhältnisse zwischen KomponistInnen (heute und in der Geschichte), MusikerInnen und dem Publikum. Wie dieser Aufsatz zeigen wird, herrschte in der Musikkritik des 19. Jahrhundert keine Einigkeit über die flexible Programmgestaltung, aber sie hatte dennoch einen Anteil an der „weitverbreiteten und umfassenden Vertrautheit“, die ein kanonisiertes Werk ausmacht.5 Obwohl eine derartige Flexibilität in der Programmgestal-tung – zum Beispiel das Ersetzen oder Neuzusammensetzen von Gesangsnum-mern oder die Aufführung ausgewählter Ausschnitte eines Werks – heutzutage in der Aufführung Händelscher Werke kaum noch anzutreffen ist, war sie zu Händels Lebzeiten die Norm und hatte auch einen Einfluss auf den komposi-torischen Schaffensprozess.*******This essay explores the role of nineteenth-century miscellaneous concert programming in the history of Handel performance and the canonisation stages of various initially little-known works. It focuses on the concerts at the Crystal Palace in the London suburb of Sydenham in 1859–1874, both the regular Saturday concerts, and the Selection Days of the Triennial Handel Festivals. It reveals how individual numbers from Handel’s large-scale works were presented in the Saturday concerts; and how Handel’s music was reassembled, performed, and subsequently published in the Selection Day concerts, the central concert of the vast Handel Festivals. Performance history – not so much the individual nuances which usually preoccupy historical performance practitioners, but the actual concert programming – is a much overlooked part of the ‘framing, staging and placement’ which Lydia Goehr has argued is a crucial way of communicating a work’s status to audiences; it is usually overlooked in favour of the far better scrutinised critical and scholarly literature. Miscellany programming – the widespread nineteenth-century practice of ensuring timbral variety by mixing genres in a concert in an unthematised way – is especially often dismissed as a contravention of the ‘composer’s intentions’, or a stage on the way to a ‘correct’ understanding of how to perform a work, even while acknowledging that those intentions often have little to do with the composer’s experience. However, it can reveal an enormous amount about necessary processes of canonisation, as well as the complex power balances between composers (living and dead), performers and audiences. As is shown below, nineteenth-century critics were inconsistent in their responses to such flexibility, but it was nevertheless part of the ‘widespread and multivalent familiarity’ which ensures a work’s canonical life. Furthermore, while flexibility – for instance, replacing or recomposing vocal numbers, interpolating instrumental numbers, or performing just sections of a work – is now rarely encountered in Handel performance, it was the norm in his day and clearly underpinned compositional thought. Loose ties between movements become a positive advantage for nineteenth-century programming. Ultimately, the act of appropriation that performers undertook when they selected fragments which suited their needs from a longer score is worth reconsidering today, as concert practices become increasingly stagnant and rule-bound

Tres ratones ciegos : Goodman, McLuhan y Adorno sobre el arte de la música y del escuchar en la época de la transmisión global

Este ensayo investiga el discurso global a la sombra de la década de 1960. Se basa en los puntos de vista de Nelson Goodman, Marshall McLuhan y Theodor W. Adorno para explorar tres conceptos centrales para la música en la época de la transmisión global: concordancia, corriente y virtualidad.This essay investigates global discourse in the shadow of the 1960s. It draws on the views of Nelson Goodman, Marshall McLuhan, and Theodor W. Adorno to explore three concepts central to music in the age of global transmission: compliance, current, and virtuality