Musik & Ästhetik, 2002, Jg. 6, Ausgabe 21

Egypt in Verdi's »Aida«

With Aida Verdi composed and staged an Egyptologist's daydream. Mariette invented a plot as a pretext to embed it in the milieu of ancient Egypt which was reconstructed as exactly as possible. Verdi lent Mariette's Egypt the overwhelmingly aesthetic presence of grand opera. Egypt with the theatricality of its rites and the enormity of its monuments is the true protagonist of the opera and antique historicism is its aesthetic principle.

The French direction of spectral music: Gérard Grisey Tristan Murail and their context

The history of French spectralism points to the scientific definition of the spectrum (results of a sound analysis relationship between time and frequency) and Helmholtz's research on tone color. Following that the ensemble »Itinéraire« - as it were the birthplace of spectral music in the 1970s in Paris - is considered with respect to musical institutional and epistemological aspects. Spectralism is presented extensively using as examples two composers and their works: Gérard Grisey and Tristan Murail. Grisey works spectrographically using the model of additive synthesis and relates the temporal dimension externally to the spectral characteristics. Murail uses the model of the sound synthesis to achieve pitches works with ring modulations and frequency modulations and is interested in sound transformations. A concluding remark concerning the necessity of syntax analysis as a complement to the current practice of analysis follows.

Derrida Mozart and Cultural Identity

Perhaps the most prominent trend in recent musicological writing has been a rejection of the traditional view of musical texts as something ›concrete‹ enshrining a singular definitive meaning capable of revelation exclusively by means of technical procedures drawn from within the music itself. In rejecting such formalism the so-called ›new musicology‹ has borrowed from interdisciplinary encounters with literary criticism postmodern philosophy and New Historicism adopting a stance according to which music is conceived not as an intellectual ›thing apart‹ enclosed within the boundaries of its notation but as an art both implicated in and moulded by the broader cultural aspirations of its particular time. Such a shift in emphasis is symbolic of the changing cultural identity and aspirations of the discipline of musicology in recent times a topic discussed in the first part of this paper. In the second part a critical approach derived from the work of Jacques Derrida is applied to three piano concertos by Mozart (KV 413-415) in an attempt to understand them as social documents that posit as inversion of traditional cultural assumptions and identities within Mozart's late-18th-century audiences.

The concept of structure in musical deconstruction

The First Modernity was based upon concepts such as dialectics progress and criticism and its last advocate might have been Mathias Spahlinger. In distancing itself from this movement a new intellectual approach to composition has emerged since the early 1980s which has on the surface drawn on a deconstructivist vocabulary (difference non-linearity paradox). What this means for composing is shown comprehensively and systematically. Starting with a concept of musical structure aimed at non-identity liquefaction and permanent-immanent self-criticism which can be seen in Stravinsky's work mutatis mutandis its consequences for compositional technique performance practice as well as listening of this Second Modernity is considered just as closely as the self-image of those composers who actively pursue this »deconstructive composing«.

The game with the truth and the administration of experience. Thoughts on the occasion of a new autonomy-aesthetic

On the basis of an examination of Ruth Sonderegger's book Für eine Ästhetik des Spiels (For an aesthetic of the Game) several basic assumptions of the newer aesthetic debate based on Kant undergo fundamental critique. At the center of this critique is the concept of the newer aesthetic autonomy which is contrary to the traditional image of the autonomous work of art. Behind it is harbored the claim that there is such a thing as a categorical and real independent realm of human world-behavior which is activated exclusively in the encounter with aesthetic objects. In Sonderegger's book it is the concept of the game that is supposed to guarantee the monadic indivisibility of this realm. The critique exposes the uncertain argumentative foundation on which the concept of the game rests. Furthermore the critique follows the consequences that are so devastating for philosophy science and art - the consequences that would result from an uncritical adopting of this autonomy-aesthetic approach. In the conclusion a countermodel is developed which - starting from an individual work of art - attempts to relate to one another in a dynamic context all the experiences and types of experiences that can be done on it.

The »Pastoral« the nature project and the postmodern sell-out

The text discusses - in the form of a review of Roland Schmenner's book Die Pastorale. Beethoven das Gewitter und der Blitzableiter (The Pastoral. Beethoven the storm and the lightning rod) - problems of a hermeneutically and culture-theoretically enlightened type of musicology. Schmenner's remarks on the »physicotheology« on the »sublime« and on the »simulation« of nature through music touch on important problem areas but he does not succeed in presenting a coherent design because he does not adequately reflect on his terminology (nature/culture present/history). Certainly the question he has stated presents a challenge for historical musicology: If it wants to emerge from its academic isolation then it must permit or itself deliver exchanges between strict »work immanent« analytics and a »culturalistic« criticism.