Musik & Ästhetik, 2000, Jg. 4, Ausgabe 15

From unchained fiction to furtive appearance. On contemporary requirements of an aesthetic theory of form

The dissolving of the fictitious form and the production of a furtive appearance in its place is the main focus of this essay. The relationship between the artistic reference points of fiction form and material is defined anew by each cultural epoch. Since the classical modernity (Schönberg Picasso Kafka) ended – along with its constructive ideas of form and its technological exploitation of the integral work – fictionality lost a considerable amount of its semantic potential. In view of the increasingly fast changes in styles fashions and modes of reception aesthetic action orients itself primarily on the marketability places its stake on flexible pleasure and direct effects. The new media contribute greatly to the reinforcement of such deformations of works and levelling out of forms. Only through direct structuring measures can the newest art tie onto its former deep dimension.

Instrumental Souls in Strait Jackets. On Klaus K. Hübler´s Third String Quartet

In his analysis of a notoriously dense yet largely forgotten work the author attempts to find the simple within the complex in order to recognise the truly complex and thus reach a relativised understanding of the perception of complexity. Within this understanding the quintessence of complexity is less the density of a given passage than its context which in turn determines its semantic function. Through the develeopment of this function this work´s spectrum is notably expanded and the discourse that takes place within it is likely to continue for some time after the last note has beeen heard.

Esaltazione serena. On the third piece of Giacinto Scelsi´s »Tre canti sacri«

The goal of the analysis of the third piece of Tre canti sacri by Giacinto Scelsi is to show that rational thoughts have left their mark on the score although Scelsi himself regarded notation as the written recording of intuitive improvisational processes. The Tre canti sacri point to the Quattro pezzi per orchestra (ciascuno su una nota) a work that occupies a key role in Scelsi´s oeuvre inasmuch as a reduction to only one pitch is radically realized here. In the Tre canti sacri on the other hand one finds – as one does in the later works for orchestra – harmonically complex phenomena as well. The third piece of the Tre canti sacri is distinguished by a clear formal structure. The structural analysis reveals a rich interplay of relationships especially of symmetries. The way in which the text is treated is particularly notable. For the most part language is relieved of its semantics vowels and consonants being used as musical sound material. Nevertheless the music is able to interpret the text as an emphatic conjuring of a real peace.

Music poetry revelation. The aesthetics of Franz Rosenzweig

In the transition from the first to the second book of Stern der Erlösung [Star of Redemption] Rosenzweig shows how the ur-phenomena of the eternal pre-world (world God and mankind) are in a position to substitute for one another only in the dimension of the revelation which holds together the origin (creation) and the end (redemption). Stern II applies its theory of art for each of these three moments. Rosenzweig concerns himself not only with the meaning of the work of art and the role or the being of the »author« (artist) but also shows how music and poetry – by virtue of their indispensable connection with time – are the only art forms that are in a position to even approximately approach the »occurring and therefore temporal experience of the revelation«.

The aesthetic function of Beethoven´s Ninth Symphony in Alejo Carpentier´s novel »Los pasos perdidos«

In the novel Los pasos perdidos (1953) by the Cuban author Alejo Carpentier music fulfils the most diverse functions. This article examines an aspect that is regarded as central here even though it has so far only been dealt with marginally namely the aspect of which aesthetic function Beethoven´s Ninth Symphony has in the text. In two passages in which the musical structure of the symphony is produced in language two contrary moments of reception of the symphony happening at different times are presented by the first-person narrator. The Ninth Symphony functions there as a key for the protagonist´s memories of his childhood and youth in Latin America and in the USA but also of the atrocities of the Nazi regime which he experienced as an eyewitness. The Ninth Symphony epitome of Western culture and of the aesthetic of the sublime is rejected by the first-person narrator in view of its being misused by the Nazis and their perversion of the moral concepts of the European enlightenment. Instead the replacement of the exhausted Western aesthetic by a vital Latin American one is propagated which is just presented as a utopian ideal though.

High-flying and compromising. Facets of the practice of music criticism

The music business and institutionalized music criticism that belongs to it and that is at the same time distanced from it still exist. In some media even ambitious music criticism appears to be unchallenged. Nevertheless the impression is growing that this is a matter of an ecological niche a matter of saving mere left-over forms of an emphatic understanding of art. It is possible to imagine a future of civilization without art or perhaps an afterlife of art in aesthetic phenomena of a reality totally controlled by communication technologies and commercialization. A first step in this direction is »pop music« in a way the most important artistic phenomenon of the twentieth century and it is simultaneously more (and less) than art. In the face of these challenges contemporary music criticism relies too much on previous experiences on routine professionalism instead of trying to work on a theoretical understanding of the unclear development. Being faithful to the avant garde which was still a sign of spiritual alertness until just recently no longer protects one from narrow-mindedness. Despite the questionable nature of the situation one can still claim: It is the appreciation of the text and of the subject that keep music critical energy alive from day to day.

Adorno meets Jimi Hendrix

The cellist Frank Wolff tells his odyssee between Adorno Bach Cage and Hendrix in form of a road-movie with short cuts. He discusses the art of collage which forms the text itself. Music of our times corresponds with many experiences: politics philosophy art film poetry – Are You Experienced?

Critical theory in the Federal Republic

Two extensive studies portray the post-war development of the so-called Frankfurt school. In Die intellektuelle Gründung der Bundesrepublik [The intellectual founding of the Federal Republic] and Der nonkonformistische Intellektuelle [The non-conformist intellectual] sociologists attempt to find an explanation for the not only surprising but also far-reaching history of the influence of the social theory that was shaped by Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer. Written from two very different perspectives these monographs go beyond a mere scientific history and offer a history not only from a media perspective but also from an educational point of view as well. Both studies culminate in the attempt to define the role of the critical theory for the ´68 generation movement. In doing so questions about the coming to terms with Germany´s Nazi past and the democratisation process play a decisive role. Ultimately the studies deal with the possibilities and limits of critical intellectuals in a post-fascist society. The authors of the one study do not shy away from seeing in critical theory´s cultural and socio-political role a kind of spiritual-intellectual foundation of the state one which made a form of re-nationalization possible. At the same time the author of the other believes he is able to recognize in the writings and behavior of Horkheimer and Adorno the model for the type known as a »non-conformist intellectual.«