scholarly journals The Pen as Camera

2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Beaudoin
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Musical Borrowing ◽  
History Of Photography ◽  
Solo Piano ◽  
Piano Works ◽  
Tonal Function ◽  
History Of ◽  
Compositional Practice

The photographic effect of overexposure is analogous to Michael Finnissy’s technique of selective musical borrowing. Just as a photographer uses the camera to allow an overabundance of light to wash out pictorial details, Finnissy uses his transcriptive pen to allow an overabundance of silence to alter and fragment his borrowed sources. Case studies demonstrate Finnissy’s borrowing of cadential phrases by J. S. Bach, Beethoven, and Bruckner in his solo piano works Wenn wir in höchsten Nöthen sind (1992) and The History of Photography in Sound (1995–2001). Comparing original sources, unpublished sketches, and published autographs reveals the composer’s precise transcriptive mechanisms. Measuring the alteration of tonal function enacted by specific harmonic and rhythmic distortions illuminates Finnissy’s pre-compositional practice while celebrating the sonic experience of his music on its own terms.

ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE SELF: MICHAEL FINNISSY'S ‘FOLKLORE’

Tempo ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 57 (223) ◽  
pp. 46-56
Author(s):  
Maarten Beirens
Keyword(s):  
Instrumental Music ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
History Of Photography ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
Solo Piano ◽  
Piano Solo ◽  
History Of ◽  
Extended Duration ◽  
The Subject

The compositional output of Michael Finnissy includes several major cycles for piano solo, which stand out by reason of their dimensions and their scope. English Country-Tunes (1977/1982–85), Verdi Transcriptions (1972–92/1988–95/2002-), Gershwin Arrangements (1975–88) and Folklore (1993–94) are all long, technically demanding and full of expressive potential. Yet they have been outdone by Finnissy's most recent piano cycle: The History of Photography in Sound (1995–2001), a phenomenal endeavour, lasting over five and a half hours and employing every conceivable means of articulating musical expression and intellectual significance. Speaking of the scope of these works, however, does not merely entail their unusual length – although the extended duration, in comparison to what is considered customary for a solo piano piece, is indeed one of their prominent features. What is more significant here is their scope in terms of the wide array of ideas, concepts and statements that make up the musical text. In that respect, Folklore (like the other pieces mentioned here) is an unrelenting statement, reflecting upon or formulating a critique of many issues that are crucial to late-20th-century human existence. This article tries to demonstrate how all these layers of significance can indeed form the subject of a piece that is supposed to be ‘abstract’ (because textless, instrumental) music.

Messiaen the Borrower: Recomposing Debussy through the Deforming Prism

2016 ◽  
Vol 69 (3) ◽  
pp. 699-791 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yves Balmer ◽  
Thomas Lacôte ◽  
Christopher Brent Murray
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Musical Borrowing ◽  
Pelleas Et Melisande ◽  
Piano Works ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Entire Career

This article shows, through a new reading of Messiaen's Technique de mon langage musical and examples of his composing with elements found in the music of Debussy, that borrowing plays a more central role in his compositional practices than has previously been recognized. Messiaen's conscious reuse of Debussy's music spans his entire career, and primarily involves passages from Pelléas et Mélisande and a handful of piano works. Using his descriptions of Debussy's influence, his analyses of Debussy, and his own theoretical writings, we examine examples of Messiaen's musical borrowing in terms of compositional strategy. Four groups of case studies show how he transforms borrowed harmonic material, creates meaning, borrows gesture, and composes texture and form by combining different types of borrowed material.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James McElvenny
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

This chapter sets the scene for the case studies that follow in the rest of the book by characterising the ‘age of modernism’ and identifying problems relating to language and meaning that arose in this context. Emphasis is laid on the social and political issues that dominated the era, in particular the rapid developments in technology, which inspired both hope and fear, and the international political tensions that led to the two World Wars. The chapter also sketches the approach to historiography taken in the book, interdisciplinary history of ideas.

Entangled Trees and Arboreal Networks of Sensitive Environments

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-126
Author(s):  
Birgit Schneider
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Tropical Trees ◽  
Atmospheric Change ◽  
Media Study ◽  
Gutta Percha ◽  
History Of ◽  
Study Perspective ◽  
Nature Perception ◽  
Technological Perspective ◽  
Tall Tower

The article discusses how current mediated conditions change nature perception from a media study perspective. The article is based on different case studies such as the current sensation of atmospheric change through sensible media attached to trees which get published via Twitter, the meteorologist Amazonian Tall Tower Observatory and the use of gutta percha derived from tropical trees for the production of cables in the history of telegraphy. For analysing the examples, the perspective of »media as environments« is flipped to »environments as media«, because this focus doesn’t approach media from a networked and technological perspective primarily but makes productive the elemental character of basic »media« like air, earth and water

Light and Sensitivity: Love in the Time of the Daguerreotype

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Czeczot
Keyword(s):  
Male Gaze ◽  
History Of Photography ◽  
Sensitive Material ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
Point Of Departure ◽  
Passive Object

The article deals with the love of Zygmunt Krasiński to Delfina Potocka. The point of departure is the poet's definition of love as looking and reads Krasiński's relationship with his beloved in the context of two phenomena that fascinated him at the time: daguerreotype and magnetism. The invention of the daguerreotype in which the history of photography and spiritism comes together becomes a pretext for the formulation of a new concept of love and the loving subject. In the era of painting the woman was treated as a passive object of the male gaze; photography reverses this scheme of power. Love ceases to be a static relationship of the subject in love and the passive object – the beloved. The philosophy of developing photographs (and invoking phantoms) allows Krasiński - the writing subject to become like a light-sensitive material that reveals the image of the beloved.

Introduction: The Translation History of Virgil

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susanna Braund ◽  
Zara Martirosova Torlone
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Large Collection ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Individual

The introduction describes the broad landscape of translation of Virgil from both the theoretical and the practical perspectives. It then explains the genesis of the volume and indicates how the individual chapters, each one of which is summarized, fit into the complex tapestry of Virgilian translation activity through the centuries and across the world. The volume editors indicate points of connection between the chapters in order to render the whole greater than the sum of its parts. Braund and Torlone emphasize that a project such as this could look like a (rather large) collection of case studies; they therefore consider it important to extrapolate larger phenomena from the specifics presented here

Consensus by Schooling and Power: The Indoctrination of the Elites

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louçã Francisco ◽  
Ash Michael
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Chicago School ◽  
Ruling Class ◽  
Government Institutions ◽  
The Us ◽  
History Of ◽  
Hearts And Minds

Chapter 7 describes the origins of the Chicago School and its successful projection into the hearts and minds of the global ruling class. Working chronologically, there is a description of how this program took root in Chicago and how some of its central figures, Friedman and Harberger, undertook a hemispheric campaign to capture both academic and government institutions. A history of the deregulation movement in the US and case studies of Mexico, Chile, Argentina, and Brazil highlight the breadth and depth of the campaign. The chapter closes in Europe where the neoliberal insurgency faced more-developed social states. Its success varied in Britain, France, and Germany.

The Musicality of Canadian Cinema

2019 ◽  
pp. 390-408
Author(s):  
Michael Brendan Baker
Keyword(s):  
Popular Music ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
National Cinema ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Institutional Forces ◽  
History Of ◽  
Narrative Account

This chapter offers a narrative account of music in Canadian cinema that highlights the contributions of its pioneers. Case studies spanning the critically acclaimed, the curious, and the marginalized allow for an effort to flesh out the place of music, particularly popular music, in this national cinema. While the esthetics and dollars-and-cents of music in film may be similar in Canada as elsewhere, the expectations of filmmakers and audiences are perhaps uniquely Canadian as a result of industrial and institutional forces. Animation, the avant-garde, and documentary are particularly vibrant spaces for the innovative use of music and differentiate the history of music in Canadian cinema from other more commercially oriented contexts.

Pandemics

2018 ◽  
pp. 646-662
Author(s):  
Kathryn H. Jacobsen
Keyword(s):  
International Trade ◽  
Global Health ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
International Cooperation ◽  
Recovery Phase ◽  
Noncommunicable Diseases ◽  
Global Studies ◽  
Global Action ◽  
History Of ◽  
Strategic Goals

This chapter discusses the history of and responses to global epidemics of serious diseases. Case studies of cholera, influenza, and HIV/AIDS illustrate typical reactions to pandemic events. The initial stages of a pandemic are often characterized by collective anxiety and a desire for isolation. As the pandemic progresses, there are calls for collective global responses to protect human security and contain outbreaks while maintaining international trade and travel. As pandemics enter a recovery phase, there is often a shift toward the use of advocacy to promote international cooperation, secure continued funding for global health activities, and advance other strategic goals. The rhetoric of pandemics is now being used to describe obesity and other emerging noncommunicable diseases because the language of pandemics connotes risk and demands global action. Pandemics are the result of global interactions and globalization processes, and studies of pandemics are, by definition, global studies.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document