Musik & Ästhetik, 2020, Jg. 24, Ausgabe 94

The connections between music and memory are rich and manifold. This essay focuses on two manifestations of this: firstly, recourse to elements already presented at an earlier point in a piece (via ritornellos, reprises, leitmotifs and so forth), and secondly, recourse to other music and musical styles. The former activates a diachronic memory that decodes the meaning of a musical development through recollection and expectation, while the latter activates a cultural memory that understands what is heard via references to larger music-historical contexts.

The ongoing controversy about the presence or absence of anti-Semitic traces within Wagner’s musical works demands an intertextual perspective, which is here combined with the methodology of music analysis. Two examples are discussed: the sound of anvils in Siegfried and Halévy’s La Juive and a chord progression in the third act of Die Meistersinger that might be modelled on the »Blessing of the Daggers« in Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots. There are structural parallels between these two works, which combine topical dichotomies with successions of major and minor thirds. These analytical observations cannot eliminate the ultimate ambiguity between readings of Die Meistersinger as an anti-Semitic or an autonomous work of art, but rather project this ambiguity onto the work itself.

In the organ community, the notion of the machine is linked to its polarisation against the musical instrument: Associated with artificial, inanimate uniformity and alienation, the machine is considered the counterpart of the organic, spirited musical instrument, hence its expressivity is rated low. The author tries to counter the misconception that a machine cannot be an expressive musical instrument by clarifying the terminology, taking a closer look at the aesthetic attitude in question and showing how, leaving the »aesthetic of the machine« (Guy Garnett) behind, the organ’s recognition as a machine proves valuable to the discussion of expressive parameters in organ-playing. By arguing in this way, it is hoped that new ways of approaching expressive organ-playing will be stimulated and a contribution made to the digital organ’s recognition and discussion as a fully-fledged musical instrument.

Contrary to popular readings of music history, this essay posits an affinity between Helmut Lachenmann and Richard Strauss based on the kinship of their basic aesthetic stances across stylistic boundaries. Using a comparative analysis of the opening scenes from the operas Elektra and Das Mädchen mit den Schwefelhölzern, the author examines similarities of structural and sonic approach in the categories of syntax, ideal of transformative sound, virtuosity, compositional rigour, economy of means and form, arriving at the conclusion that while the richness and beauty of Strauss’s orchestral sound are transformed into a very different sonic world in Lachenmann, they lose none of their significance as ideals nonetheless.

Jan is not only one of the most important cultural scientists and the most well-known German Egyptologist, but has also been engaging with music for almost twenty years, especially works with an Egyptian or religious background (Handel, Mozart, Verdi, Schönberg). In doing so, he combines modern insights of an enlightened cultural theory and historiography with the themes of cultural memory, remembrance culture and monotheism. Informed by these perspectives, his approach to music constitutes an alternative to established forms of musicology.

Pop music is omnipresent as music and as a term in the cultural, sociological and musicological discourse. Accordingly, the literature, from the scene sheet to the extensive scholarly work, is overflowing, based on the popu­larity of pop. Divers is also the academic study of pop. In German-language musicology, for example, the term »Popularmusik« has become a neologism that obviously derives its academic significance from the established English-speaking Popular Music Studies, without, however, providing a further definition of its subject area beyond »popular music«. The academic study of pop is also diverse. In 2019 Bodo Mrozek presented a comprehensive contemporary history book with the all encompassing title »Jugend Pop Kultur« (Youth Pop Culture), which promises to adequately illuminate what he sees as the under-researched field of pop. This extended review attempts to elaborate and locate the book’s qualities with regard to the musical core of pop.