Musik & Ästhetik, 2022, Jg. 26, Ausgabe 102

This article explores W. A. Mozart’s song Als Luise die Briefe ihres unge­treuen Liebhabers verbrannte (KV 520), focusing on how iconicity on surface and more abstract levels (cadences and key relations) helps contribute to the semantics of the song. It is argued that the main body of the song (mm. 4-18) constitutes an oversized structural parenthesis triggered by the emotional outbreak of the female protagonist. While the lyrics leave open the question whether Luise will ever be able to free herself from the painful memories of her unfaithful beloved, the music gives a more definite and indeed negative answer. In addition, the paper offers a reading of the song in terms of an aria-like adaption of a minor-mode sonata form, one that features a three-key exposition, a developmental retransition, and an utterly fragmented recapitulation. Without actually being in sonata form, Mozart’s song may be seen to engage in a dialogue with the concept and the conventions of that form.

Melody and music form a recurring point of reference in the work of Henri Bergson, which circles in many variations around the rehabilitation of other forms of cognition and seeks to acknowledge the durational abundance of the inner and outer world. This essay examines the significance of music for »Bergsonism«, its role as a metaphor for something that cannot be discursively grasped or depicted via presentation as well as an »obstacle, tool and barb« of (aesthetic) intuition. The author seeks to illuminate the darker areas via Vladimir Jankélévitch’s work and resolve open questions in order to show that in »Bergsonism«, music is far more than the temporal art kat’ exochen, more than merely the equivalent of the sugar cube Bergson describes dissolving in a glass of water; rather, its weighty role seems tied more to other properties – and, beyond this, to hint at the potentials of these supra-intellectual philosophies for the current discussion of post-hermeneutical approaches to music.

There is a gap between Beet­hoven’s emphatically emotional relationship with the ›Cavatina‹ and the mostly form-focused commentaries on it that cannot be closed, but perhaps it can be made smaller. Was he aiming for a totality that would permit as little distinction as possible between sections, melody and accompaniment and as few clear cadences as possible? No two bars are the same; with each new one, the first violin’s melody seems to grow anew from the eloquent polyphony of the textural undergrowth. Beet­hoven, seeking to maintain the intensity of a continuous becoming, does not grant it a self-consistent shape. Was he striving for an ›elementarity‹ of music that keeps the ear close by preventing us from feeling calmed by clear messages about what we are hearing?

Michael Quell’s compositions of the last ten years refer to hypotheses from astrophysics. The reference is more than just symbolic, and leads to the development of concrete musical techniques. A central element of this is the spatio-temporal idea of the vortex, which is traced here as a musical form in the composition Dark Matter. How it relates to available collections of musical sound types and figures is as much a question of music history as the cosmological aspect of the composition.

For some time, an impaired sense of self-worth has been spreading in the Western world, expressing itself in such phenomena as gender-sensitive language, discussions on racism, moral rigorism and doubts about Europe. Its radical form leads to a culture of abolition that already has a name: cancel culture. This essay discusses various present-day manifestations and places them in the context of four attempts at cancellism: Beatriz/Paul Preciado, Pol Pot, Otto Mühl and recently the Taliban in Afghanistan.

In his new book on Beet­hoven, Hans-Joachim Hinrichsen claims that Beet­hoven’s music represents the philosophical ideas of Immanuel Kant. In response, this contribution to the discussion asks whether music can represent philosophical ideas at all. It begins by debating the relationship of the music to the artist’s life story and intentions, then examines the plausibility of the attempt to listen to Beet­hoven’s symphonies in parallel with Kant’s critiques, and concludes with some fundamental music-aesthetic reservations about the suggested interpretation. The result is negative: music cannot represent philosophical ideas.

Late in the summer of 2021, Pierre Boulez’s ensemble piece Polyphonie X was performed again for the first time in 70 years. This essay casts a comparative eye on the interpretive approaches of Lin Liao (Lucerne Festival) and Baldur Brönnimann (Donaueschingen Festival) and makes suggestions for aesthetic reflection. It also addresses difficulties concerning the aesthetics of production, a factor that led to a ban on performing Polyphonie X and – thus the author’s thesis – is connected to the contrary interpretive approaches.