The Ineffable (and Beyond)

2020 ◽  
pp. 739-761
Author(s):  
Carolyn Abbate ◽  
Michael Gallope
Keyword(s):  
Musical Language ◽  
Political Resistance ◽  
Musical Aesthetics ◽  
Musical Sound ◽  
Absolute Music ◽  
The Many ◽  
Previous Scholarship

Ineffability marks an intellectually productive, technologically mediated, and socially meaningful encounter with the experiential impact of musical sound. Repositioning ineffability in this way contests, in strong terms, previous scholarship associating ineffability with conservative conceptions of absolute music or prohibitions on speaking. In support of our argument, we foreground key elements of Vladimir Jankélévitch’s writings on improvisation and musical technique and stage a critique of Theodor Adorno’s treatment of the ineffable as needlessly attached to metaphors of language. We conclude by contending that this broadened conception of music’s ineffability may open a path towards a more inclusive musical aesthetics, one that is unmoored from normative conceptions of musical language, that is modest about music’s ability to enact scholarly ideals for political resistance, and that embraces the many ways music elicits vernacular forms of wisdom and speculation.

Dante’s Models in Romantic Music

2021 ◽  
pp. 70-81
Author(s):  
K.V. Zenkin
Keyword(s):  
Divine Comedy ◽  
Musical Language ◽  
Entire System ◽  
Musical Meaning ◽  
Musical Sound ◽  
The World ◽  
Romantic Music ◽  
Interdisciplinary Methodology ◽  
The Given

Dante’s impact on music has been studied completely enough, but so far mainly in an empirical and descriptive way. The article examines the works of romantic composers of the 19th - early 20th centuries, based on the plot of Dante’s “Divine Comedy”: Liszt’s fantasy-sonata “After reading Dante” and the “Dante-Symphony”, the “Francesca da Rimini” by Tchaikovsky (symphonic fantasy) and Rachmaninoff (opera). The author analyses compositional and stylistic models of the romantic music inspired by Dante’s poetry as a system, which is relevant for modern musicology, in particular, for the theories of musical language, style, and musical meaning. Along with the traditional musicological methods of analysis of form and intonational dramaturgy, an interdisciplinary methodology is applied, associated with the coverage of the entire system of musical compositional prototypes as a structuring of meaning. This has a pronounced narrative poetic nature in romantic music. The results of the study demonstrate a system of structural and semantic invariants (secondary, musical models) conditioned by Dante’s figurative world and manifested in melody, harmony, fret organization, composition. The conclusions of the article reveal the roles of Dante’s models of the world in the works considered in the following aspects: in the process of extreme intensification of the contrasts of romantic music in the semantic coordinates of “Hell – Paradise”; “Love – Death”; in the approval of the concept of Liebestod; in the creation of new, extreme expressive possibilities for the given style, which significantly expanded the idea of the boundaries of beauty and caused transformations in musical sound (harmony, texture, melody); in the formation of stable idioms of romantic music from Liszt to Rachmaninov; in the modification of the structures of a one-part sonata, of the cyclic symphony, and of opera, which have received the quality of a vectorial dramaturgical process and open dramaturgy.

‘The moral background of the work of art’: ‘character’ in German musical aesthetics, 1780–1850

2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Pritchard
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Fine Art ◽  
Musical Aesthetics ◽  
Work Of Art ◽  
Absolute Music ◽  
Thematic Unity ◽  
Music Aesthetics ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
Character Piece

ABSTRACTThe terms ‘character’ and ‘characteristic’ in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries have usually been thought of as having had rather limited significance, often being restricted in application to ‘picturesque’ or ‘realistic’ genres such as the romantic ‘character piece’ or ‘characteristic symphony’. Through a re-examination of Christian Gottfried Körner's 1795 essay ‘On the Representation of Character in Music’ and other contemporary texts, I argue that, on the contrary, these terms are conceptually fundamental to the classical German idealist project of defending music's dignity as a true and morally beneficial fine art. Although persistently misread during the twentieth century as a disguise for concerns with stylistic or thematic unity, the metaphor of ‘character’ was in fact a sophisticated hermeneutic tool and a means of equal discursive engagement for performers, composers and critics. It was only the rise of politically oriented criticism and Wagnerian polemics that undermined the legitimacy of the ‘characteristic’ – a concept that may have a better claim than ‘absolute music’ to be considered the leading idea of the classical and romantic eras in music aesthetics.

scholarly journals Transformative Readings: Harry Potter Fan Fiction, Trans/Queer Reader Response, and J. K. Rowling

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Duggan
Keyword(s):  
Reader Response ◽  
Digital Age ◽  
Harry Potter ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Fan Fiction ◽  
Political Resistance ◽  
Reading Practices ◽  
Contentious Issue ◽  
The Many ◽  
Harry Potter Novels

AbstractThe politics of children’s literature and the actors surrounding it have never been more visible than they are now, in the digital age. As one of the first children’s series to gain widespread popularity concurrently with the spread of the internet, the Harry Potter septet arrived on the global stage at the perfect moment to develop an avid, connected fandom. But the fandom has laid bare the many conflicting ideologies of the fans themselves and of the actors surrounding the texts. This article examines the contentious issue of gender nonnormativity and its relation to the Harry Potter texts, the queer/trans reading practices and political resistance common to the fandom, and the ongoing disagreements over gender, made visible on social media, between Rowling and the fans of her series. The article discusses the Harry Potter novels’ varied and conflicting ideologies; queer/trans readings of the Potter septet, including both invitations and resistances to queer/trans reading by Rowling herself; how gender is queered and queried in and through fan fiction; and finally, the recent hostilities between Rowling and her fans. It concludes by discussing the worsening relationship between Rowling and her fans and highlighting how fans are using their collective power to undermine Rowling’s gender politics through fan fiction. By doing so, the article traces the complex politics of the reception of books for young people in the digital age, demonstrating that authors’ powerful voices continue to shape readers’ responses to texts long after their publication but showing, too, that readers often resist authors’ attempts to influence not only their textual interpretations but their politics.

scholarly journals Embodied Objects: Chūjōhime’s Hair Embroideries and the Transformation of the Female Body in Premodern Japan

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (9) ◽  
pp. 773
Author(s):  
Carolyn Wargula
Keyword(s):  
Female Body ◽  
Japanese Women ◽  
Pure Land ◽  
Women's Bodies ◽  
Loved One ◽  
Devotional Practices ◽  
Time Periods ◽  
Premodern Japan ◽  
The Many ◽  
Previous Scholarship

The female body in medieval Japanese Buddhist texts was characterized as unenlightened and inherently polluted. While previous scholarship has shown that female devotees did not simply accept and internalize this exclusionary ideology, we do not fully understand the many creative ways in which women sidestepped the constraints of this discourse. One such method Japanese women used to expand their presence and exhibit their agency was through the creation of hair-embroidered Buddhist images. Women bundled together and stitched their hair into the most sacred parts of the image—the deity’s hair or robes and Sanskrit seed-syllables—as a means to accrue merit for themselves or for a loved one. This paper focuses on a set of embroidered Japanese Buddhist images said to incorporate the hair of Chūjōhime (753?CE–781?CE), a legendary aristocratic woman credited with attaining rebirth in Amida’s Pure Land. Chūjōhime’s hair embroideries served to show that women’s bodies could be transformed into miraculous materiality through corporeal devotional practices and served as evidence that women were capable of achieving enlightenment. This paper emphasizes materiality over iconography and practice over doctrine to explore new insights into Buddhist gendered ritual practices and draws together critical themes of materiality and agency in ways that resonate across cultures and time periods.

scholarly journals ‘#DifferenceMakesUs’: Selling Shakespeare Online (and the Commerce Platform Etsy)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Blackwell
Keyword(s):  
Mission Statement ◽  
Creative Work ◽  
Political Resistance ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
Midsummer Night's Dream ◽  
Journal Paper ◽  
A Midsummer Night's Dream ◽  
Predominantly Female ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Relationship

The mission statement of the online creative commerce platform Etsy declares its commitment to “using the power of business to strengthen communities and empower people”. Among the many handmade and vintage items sold on Etsy are 3,811 items quoting Helena’s description of Hermia from A Midsummer Night’s Dream (“and though she be but little, she is fierce”). This journal paper will examine the relationship between Shakespeare and the predominantly female crafts people who operate through platforms such as these as well as Shakespeare’s own depiction of female craft and handcrafted items. It seeks to explore the processes at work in Shakespeare-inspired merchandise and the relationship they claim to the play texts they adapt. The paper will continue by situating ‘female’ oriented creative work within the current political climate and exploring both the possibilities and limitations of craft as a vehicle for political resistance.

BAROQUE MINIMALISM IN JOHN ADAMS'S VIOLIN CONCERTO

Tempo ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 66 (260) ◽  
pp. 23-33
Author(s):  
Kheng Keow Koay
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Musical Language ◽  
Creative Imagination ◽  
Performance Practices ◽  
Musical Sound ◽  
Violin Concerto ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Creative Methods ◽  
Harmonic Language ◽  
Stylistic Unity

AbstractThis study explores Adams's interpretation of Baroque genres and his creative methods that draw on a relationship between past and present in the Violin Concerto. In this composition, Adams not only revives Baroque musical language through new performance practices, but also draws together diverse musical idioms, creating a way to communicate with our society. Repetition plays a large part in the Violin Concerto, but more in the sense of variation and sequences than of literal repetition. On the other hand, techniques such as the Lombard Snap and “unequal-note’ (notes inégales) are not treated in a traditional way. Structurally, although there is no trace of motivic connexion throughout the work, the music does not lack stylistic unity. The ‘harmonic’ language is generally consonant, which reflects Adams's honor of conventional musical sound. The Concerto certainly demonstrates the composer's creative imagination.

scholarly journals ORIENT В. А. МОЦАРТА: ВІД АЛЮЗІЇ ДО ЕТИКО- ЕСТЕТИЧНОЇ СТИЛЬОВОЇ МОДЕЛІ

World Science ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (4(56)) ◽  
pp. 14-20
Author(s):  
Тетяна Младенова
Keyword(s):  
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Musical Language ◽  
Musical Aesthetics ◽  
Aesthetic Style ◽  
History Of ◽  
Musical Traditions ◽  
Ethical Component ◽  
New Instruments ◽  
Magic Flute

Throughout the history of music, the dialogue of cultures in the West- East discourse has produced various Orientalism models. Introducing a fashion for oriental decorations in Europe, using new instruments, borrowing modes of musical expression, as well as alluding to signs and symbols of oriental religions and philosophies gave rise to reshaping European musical aesthetics as early as the 18th century. At that time, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and his work were undoubtedly pivotal for the art. One can retrospectively observe that Turkish Janissary musical traditions significantly freshened and enriched the composer's instrumental thinking. This can be seen most in the orchestration of Mozart's oriental operas – namely, his singspiels Zaide and The Abduction from the Seraglio. Being a synthetic genre by its nature, opera is primarily related to literary activity; therefore, its oriental colour and imagery need to be immersed in the philosophical world of oriental narratives and storylines that were very popular in baroque and classicism art. Moreover, on the example of The Magic Flute, Mozart's last opera, we can observe how the semiosis of Sufi texts explicitly present in this singspiel libretto gives the work new – Romantic – features. These new characteristics are not limited to the surface aesthetic level of decorations. As an opera reformer, Mozart reshapes the aesthetics of musical language, concurrently refining the ethical component of the genre. Thus, when analysing some instrumental, especially opera pieces by Mozart – namely, Zaide, The Abduction from the Seraglio and The Magic Flute singspiels, one can affirm that the synergy between all orientalism features in the composer’s works and established traditions of the European musical art resulted in the Viennese master creating a new ethical and aesthetic style model, which became seminal for the upcoming epochs.

Not a “Telephone to the Beyond”: Nietzsche's Early Writings on Music

2018 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-70
Author(s):  
Katherine Fry
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Musical Aesthetics ◽  
Musical Expression ◽  
Musical Culture ◽  
Music Making ◽  
Absolute Music ◽  
Birth Of Tragedy ◽  
History Of ◽  
Philosophical Writings

Much has been written about the importance of music and music making to Nietzsche's life and works as a whole, and the relevance of his philosophy for particular composers, repertoires, and works. Meanwhile, music historians and philosophers have approached Nietzsche's musical aesthetics by way of larger nineteenth-century paradigms such as “absolute” music or the history of “metaphysics.” This article explores Nietzsche's philosophical writings on music from the 1870s as they reveal the emergence of his critical outlook on Romantic aesthetics and the musical culture of his time. Against the backdrop of more recent debates about material culture and aesthetics in current musicology, it traces the development of his critical ideas about musical expression and listening as presented in his published and unpublished texts, concentrating on the period from Die Geburt der Tragödie aus dem Geist der Musik (The Birth of Tragedy out of the Spirit of Music, 1872) to the first volume of Menschliches, Allzumenschliches (Human, All Too Human, 1878). Rather than foreground Nietzsche's relationship with particular composers or works, it illuminates his double relationship with music as actual compositional practice in society and as an idealist metaphor for philosophy.

Intellectual Contexts of “the Absolute” in French Musical Aesthetics, ca. 1830–1900

2014 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 471-502
Author(s):  
Noel Verzosa
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Culture Wars ◽  
Musical Aesthetics ◽  
Music Criticism ◽  
Absolute Music ◽  
Auguste Comte ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
Ideological Tensions ◽  
Hippolyte Taine ◽  
Varied History

In 1895 the critic Édouard Dujardin reviewed a production of an Offenbach opera in a brief article titled “De la Périchole et de l’Absolu dans la musique.” That Dujardin invoked the term “absolute” in a discussion of a stage work suggests that, for him, “the absolute in music” was defined by something other than the presence or absence of texts. Moreover, that Dujardin uses the phrase “absolute in music” rather than “absolute music” suggests the terrain of the absolute was not exclusively musical. This article reveals that the word “absolute” had a rich and varied history in French intellectual discourse of the nineteenth century. By placing the writings of music critics alongside those of philosophers such as Victor Cousin, Auguste Comte, Hippolyte Taine, and Étienne Vacherot, I show that the word “absolute” evoked decades of ideological tensions—between Catholicism and secularism, between faith and positivism, and between monarchy and constitution—stemming from the culture wars of post-revolutionary France. Dujardin and his colleagues effectively made music criticism another arena where these battles were fought.

Resistance and Romans 13 in Samuel Rutherford's Lex, Rex

2013 ◽  
Vol 66 (2) ◽  
pp. 140-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan McAnnally-Linz
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Resistance ◽  
Literal Sense ◽  
Charles I ◽  
The People ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Governmental Power ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Church

AbstractThe many conflicts around the reformation of religion in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries drew the problem of political resistance to the forefront of European political thought. Thinkers in all of the various religious camps considered scripture to be politically normative. Consequently, both pro- and anti-resistance thinkers from a variety of traditions had to engage with Romans 13:1–7, Paul's apparently definitive pronouncement in favour of obedience and, therefore, against resistance. The opponents of resistance could cite Romans 13 with fairly little explanation, but the resisters and revolutionaries faced the challenge of working with the text to draw different political conclusions from it without violating the ‘literal’ sense that they almost universally held to be authoritative. Some even aimed to bring Paul forward as a staunch supporter of the sort of violent political resistance they advocated.Lex, Rex, the political tract of seventeenth-century Scottish theologian Samuel Rutherford (1600–1661), represents a particularly comprehensive early modern justification for violent resistance against a political sovereign. Rutherford was a member of the party of the radical covenanters, who vehemently opposed the church reforms of Charles I and, when hostilities began, fervently supported the war against the king. This article explores the series of arguments, distinctions and theological moves that Rutherford employs to incorporate Romans 13 as a central supporting text for his pro-resistance argument. Among these are: the distinction between God's immediate institution of governmental power and the constitution of particular governments mediately through the people, the positing of a conditional covenant agreed upon at the constitution of any government, the scholastic distinction between voluntas beneplaciti and voluntas signi in the divine will, and the distinction between the royal office in abstracto and its concrete occupant. Using these and other arguments and distinctions, Rutherford constructs a conceptual apparatus that is able, to a great extent, to appropriate Paul's exhortation to obedience in the service of a justification of resistance. In so doing, Rutherford illustrates some of the array of theological and philosophical resources that early modern resistance theorists could marshal in support of their cause, while still maintaining their fundamental theological commitments.

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