Diana Grgurić

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143SAÆECI MAGISTARSKIH I DOKTORSKIH RADOVA, ARMUD6 39/1 (2008) 143-146SAÆECI MAGISTARSKIH I DOKTORSKIHRADOVA U MUZIKOLOGIJI  — SUMMARIESOF M.A. AND Ph. D. THESESIN MUSICOLOGYMUSICAL DISCOURSE IN THE WORKS OF MILUTIN CIHLAR NEHAJEVAND NEDJELJKO FABRIO1Diana GRGURI∆ (Rijeka)The interdisciplinary topic of the thesis has been accorded with the syllabusof the post-graduate course entitled Literature and Social Context at the Faculty ofArts and Sciences, University of Rijeka, in Rijeka. The nature of the source materialrequired research at two parallel levels: intermedial and historiographic.The literary work of Milutin Cihlar Nehajev (1880-1931) and Nedjeljko Fabrio(1937) researched in this thesis belongs to a remarkable artistic practice of literaryintervention into the realm of music. Thus, this research has been additionallymotivated by a desire to comprehend the artists whose inspiration stems fromdifferent sources.The first part considers intermedial achievements on the theoretical plane elabo-rated by Steven Paul Scher, Werner Wolf, Aaga A. Hansen-Löve and other au-thors, who developed the notion of appropriation of music by literature fromaesthetical and other aspects. In its theoretical considerations, the study offers aninsight into the intermedial origin of music and literature in the framework of theManneristic outlook of Gustave René Hocke, and the spirit of yearning and desirein the morphology of the irregular. The theoretical plane is supported by literaryexamples of European and Croatian writers in a historical cross-section.1 Summary of the Ph. D. thesis, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, University of Rijeka, September 21,2007. Thesis supervisor: Senior Researcher Ennio StipËeviÊ; Thesis Advisor: Prof. Dr. Darko GaπparoviÊ.144 SAÆECI MAGISTARSKIH I DOKTORSKIH RADOVA, ARMUD6 39/1 (2008) 143-146Intermedial contacts of literature and music are considered to be expressionsof a special aspiration towards abstract worlds. The emphasised dialectics, the unityof differences, and the variance of unity include the variants of relationships whosenature itself is detrimental to the possibility of transgression into another medium.According to the theoretical propositions, there are three variants in the foreground,namely, literature and music, literature in music and music in literature. The firstone is the oldest and the most widespread and dates back to the times of synergeticcohabitation of spiritual expressions; the second has been harmonized with theattempts to render the music mimetic; and the third represents the intention oftransgression of music into the verbal media, or, to put it more precisely, into lit-erature. Hence, the involvement of music in literature presupposes a monomedialform of a work of art, which is especially intriguing since the language and creativ-ity of the author are scrutinized on the same level.The sources of this thesis are music reviews, music articles, a novel and li-bretto translations. The music reviews and articles have been identified as belong-ing to the intermedial type of telling (the distinction being telling vs. showing) viewedas a basic form of the verbalization of music.Fabrio’s novel Berenikina kosa [Berenice’s Hair], subtitled familienfuge, is beyondthis distinction. It is an example of turning fiction into music. This is why theintermedial analysis of the novel includes the study of analogous points in thefugue structure and the novel itself, with the aim of searching for intermedial show-ing effects. The conclusion is that the showing effects of music can be found on thelevel of the narrative quality, regardless of noted similarities on the plane of struc-ture. Namely, the interesting points on the plane of the narration game and experi-ential reception of the work are focused on the field of the emotional and affective.The narration adopts the form of a fugue and further develops as a cosmic dis-course directly referring to the un/predictability and universality of human fate asthe leading motif of the novel.Since it is the interest in music that employs the literary abilities of the writers,especially in non-fiction texts, historiographic reading proved to be inevitable andthe outcome of such reading has complemented the process of rewriting history.In that respect, music reviews and some other articles by Nehajev have contrib-uted to the historic review of the Croatian Moderna stylistic movement in music.The reading of Nehajev’s reviews from yet another angle led to conclusions abouthis critical discourse and the impressionist critique centred on the author himself.It appears that the reviews left little room for the music, since writing about it onlycame later, when it was all over; namely, the description of the creation of thework as well as the structure of the spirit of the times in which flit« has been em-bedded forever. Interpretation and reception of music, a posteriori reflections, comeas a second point of interest to Nehajev, so two composite levels can be identifiedin his reviews:1. Expounding of a piece of music through the personality of the author,2. Performance — interpretation.145SAÆECI MAGISTARSKIH I DOKTORSKIH RADOVA, ARMUD6 39/1 (2008) 143-146Nehajev’s thoughts and demands clearly highlight and point to his vision ofthe development of Croatian music. In these visions, the life of the Croatian nationin its totality should be a guideline to Croatian composers. It was not a matter ofmere demonstration of the national element, but of a complex notion that aimed atcomprehending the spirit and character of a Croatian man. Here we deal with acritic whose assessments and endeavours breathe in the spirit of Romanticist aes-thetics and the philosophical thinking of Hyppolite Taine. The objectivity of hisjudgements has been verified by comparison with the current official views on thehistory of Croatian music.Commissioned by the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb, Nehajev trans-lated twenty operas from four different languages. Only three of them have beenpreserved and the thesis analyses Puccini’s La Fanciulla del West [The Girl of theGolden West]. In fact, it is more about a certain type of testing of the four examplesof meaningful poetic entities that enables us better to feel Nehajev’s poetic andtranslation sensibility.Musical chronicles called Maestro i njegov πegrt [Maestro and his Apprentice] byNedjeljko Fabrio (submissions to the Republika magazine in the period between1986 and 1993) are primarily poetic and autobiographical, and research work. Sucha complex concept had to be distinguished by means of a theory of quotation, sinceFabrio’s research method necessarily includes quoting authentic material and, con-sequently, different strategies of exploiting the quotes. In the text there are notionsdetermining the relationships between the author’s text, quotations and the subtextserving as a cited source, while as for the conclusions, the chronicles are examplesof the quotational type of a non-artistic text, which is close to professional textsthat are mainly setting up the referential quotational function. Related to this, onefinds the static and pragmatic perspective of the quoted text addressed to the readerand his culturological comprehension.For a sound approach to Fabrio’s music discourse, it was important to takeinto account his Postmodernist traits based on an elaborate linguistic performance,experimentation with forms and editing of the plot, simulation of a chronicle dis-course, playful treatment of the fantastic motifs and elements, documentarism etc.They pose a constant threat to the text because, being unconscious procedures ofthe narrative game and construction, they very easily penetrate it. From the view-point of narrative theories it was possible to elucidate the textual meaning andnarrative strategies.While considering Fabrio’s approach to music, one becomes aware ofdeconstructivist principles. That is why his texts offer new views on the verbalisa-tion of music, very often quite irrelevant for any classic considerations of music.Actually, they encourage the destruction of differences between the essential andirrelevant in such a way that what is marginal now opens new horizons of musicin the verbal mediation.While dealing with historic work, Fabrio collects proof about flthe artistic vo-cabularies«. Thus, he joins the scientific-anthropological practice in which, in the146 SAÆECI MAGISTARSKIH I DOKTORSKIH RADOVA, ARMUD6 39/1 (2008) 143-146framework of a complex artistic discourse, an artist is believed to be a vital linkwithin a network of cultural memory. The chronological results of the historic dis-course have indicated a variety of sources: diaries, non-fiction material, writings,scores, literary works on music and musicians, personal entries on performances,etc. Besides, there are translations of Italian literature, interviews with artists, andpersonal reminiscences. For the sake of the history of music, a systematisation ofthe data on the performances of Mahler’s works, collected by the author himself,has been carried out. In addition, there is a list of sources, articles and authors usedin the chronicles at the end of the work.Fabrio’s work in his chronicles and critical texts on music can be divided into:1. research of music discourses in literature by Croatian and foreign authors,2. research of Croatian music history,3. research of reception of music in Croatia.An interesting proposal is that Fabrio does not advocate the syntagma of his-tory being the flmagistra vitae« and has thereby subordinated the positivist scien-tific platform of a historian to the artistic one. History is flfutility, madness, evil« inwhich arts, and particularly music and literature, have therapeutic power (a com-forting power according to Schopenhauer). Consequently, art is a genuine drivingforce of life and its cosmic metaphor of meaningfulness.Literary vocabulary is a field of optimised expansion of verbal planes in mu-sic. In the chapter entitled Interpretation and Identification of Music, verbal discoursesby both Nehajev and Fabrio are analysed separately, in the light of issues of non/signification of the music code, giving the results of the types of narration andexpressions of personal judgements on music pieces, with a comprehensive effortto grasp and often to assign meaning to the music. On the other hand, a high-powered field of music non/signification has stimulated the development of thenarration and construction of metaphors. Where music metaphor is researched,recent studies of critical musicology and metaphor have been applied with specialemphasis on Ricoeur’s interpretation.The thesis concludes with considerations of the historiographic discourse anda proposal that Nehajev communicates with history through a piece of music, whileFabrio maintains a dialogue in two layers, between history and the present in abroader sense, and music and literature in a stricter sense.The music and literary discourses of Nehajev and Fabrio form a complex andimportant component of the creative personalities of their authors and their inter-est in the art of music. Their descriptions crystallised the music and simultane-ously freeze-framed the image of their times: a fllive« present for the future flaware«past.

Musical Discourse in the Works of Milutin Cihlar Nehajev and Nedjeljko Fabrio

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