Critically speculates on points of affinity and difference between musicological writings and the musical practices they attempt to represent, on the one hand, and the operation of deconstruction (defined in terms of the differential structure of our grip on presence and plenitude), on the other hand. Two prominent instances of misreading Derridean deconstruction in the context of musical writing (Rose Rosengard Subotnik and Kevin Korsyn) are outlined. This is followed by a brief description of music’s peculiar resonance with Derrida’s model of language; an argument that will be crafted across the terrain of music’s modern philosophical history (via Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Adorno, among others). The last section of the essay considers how the internal movements of actual musical pieces can (and cannot) articulate with deconstruction; a process that will figure deconstruction as mode of listening. Examples include moments in Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Babbitt, Cage, Ligeti, Lachenmann, and others
Heideggerian Thought in the Early Music of Paul Hindemith
The dialectical dimension of Hindemith’s early Gebrauchsmusik resembles a philosophy of Heidigger. Hindemith and Schoenberg, through their compositions, exhibited diverse attitudes towards music history. For Schoenberg, music of the past was absorbed into the integral, organic sanctity of the musical idea. For Hindemith, music of the past was cut and pasted onto the musical surface. This caused Adorno to critique Hindemith. Heideggerian though is exhibited in Hindemith’s suite, op. 26; Tanzstucke, op. 19; Kammermusic, op. 24; and Gebrauchsmusik.
György Ligeti and the Aka Pygmies Project
At the turn of the twentieth century, Gyorgy Ligeti’s late piano music was performed in various European concert halls alongside music of the Aka Pygmies of Central Africa. The acclaimed project culminated in a CD on the Teldec label entitled Ligeti/Reich: African rhythms (Pierre Laurent Aimard/Aka Pygmies) featuring works by Ligeti, alongside works by Steve Reich and music of the Aka. The article describes and evaluates the uneven critical reception of the project in relation to the precise formal connections between Ligeti’s etudes, on the one hand, and the music of Aka, in particular, and African music, in general, on the other. Some of the African citations in Ligeti’s etudes are traced to specific source materials, the original function and context of the music (even if they are not demonstrably known by the composer) is briefly described, and the ideological dimenstions implicit in the way African materials are put to use in a Western context are assessed.
From Blatant to Latent Protest (And Back Again): On the Politics of Theatrical Spectacle in Madonna’s ‘American Life’
This paper explores ambiguities of political resistance and anti-war protest in Madonna’s music video, `American Life’. We begin by tracing the history of the making, promotion and eventual withdrawal of the video in the context of the military build-up and media campaign that preceded the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. In these opening sections, we focus in particular on the (perhaps deliberately generated) controversy surrounding the work, and its problematic relation- ship with contemporary corporate mass media. We then proceed to describe the visual contents of the video, and present three distinct readings of it: first, as a gesture of overt protest against the war; second, as a work that is unaware of the manner in which its signifying textures unwittingly and covertly celebrate the culture it would critique, thus nullifying its overt subversive gesture; and third, as a work that is in fact far more politically resistant than it knows, through an uncanny form of protest that is dependent upon this very complicity.
Music, Corporate Power, and Unending War
Due to the extreme concentration of ownership of the mass media in recent years, the culture industry has become a major site of centralized power in the 21st century. Recorded music, for example, is the most concentrated global media market today: four leading firms are estimated to control between 80 to 90 percent of the global market. Since the passing of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, radio too has become vertically concentrated and horizontally integrated to an unprecedented degree. Today, Clear Channel is the world’s largest broadcaster, concert promoter, and billboard advertising firm. Given the circle of mutual assistance between these corporations and government (via campaign contributions and the like, which in turn assure corporate leverage over the political process), the distinction between official State policy and corporate interest becomes increasingly porous. Censorship of musical expression has taken on subtler, more nefarious forms in this new world of mergers and acquisitions, governments as affiliates of international businesses, and corporations larger than entire nations. With close readings of two popular hits in the wake of the Iraq War of 2003, attempts to acknowledge the weight of the new developments in musical production and consumption, which in turn reflect a mutation in capitalism after the Cold War.
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