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19TH CENTURY MUSIC Deconstructing d’Indy, or the Problem of a Composer’s Reputation JANN PASLER The story of a life, like history, is an invention. notion of someone well after their death—the Certainly the biographer and historian have roles social consensus articulated by the biographer— in this invention, but so too does the composer as well as the quasi-historical judgment that for whom making music necessarily entails we make with the distance of time. This often building and maintaining a reputation. Reputa- produces the semblance of authority, the au- tion is the fruit of talents, knowledge, and thority of one manifest meaning. achievements that attract attention. It signals In reality, reputation is also the result of the renown, the way in which someone is known steps taken during a professional life to assure in public or the sum of values commonly asso- one’s existence as a composer, a process in- ciated with a person. If it does not imply public volving actions, interactions, and associations admiration, it does suggest that the public takes as well as works. This includes all efforts to an interest in the person in question. The ordi- earn credibility, respect, distinction, and finally nary sense of the word refers to the public’s prestige. As Pierre Bourdieu has pointed out, these inevitably take place in a social space, be it of teachers, friends and enemies, social and professional contacts, institutions, jobs, awards, A previous version of this article, here expanded, appeared in French as “Déconstruire d’Indy,” Revue de musicologie or critics any of whom may influence the con- 91/2 (2005), 369–400, used here by permission.
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