DOCSLIB.ORG

Susan Mcclary and the Epistemology of “New” Musicological Narrative, 1983-2007

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Susan Mcclary and the Epistemology of “New” Musicological Narrative, 1983-2007 Susan McClary and the epistemology of “new” musicological narrative, 1983-2007 by Douglas McCutcheon A dissertation submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree MMus (Musicology) In the Department of Music at the UNIVERSITY OF PRETORIA FACULTY OF HUMANITIES Supervisor: Professor H.H. van der Mescht April 2012 ii Abstract Title Susan McClary and the epistemology of “new” musicological narrative, 1983- 2007 Student Douglas McCutcheon Supervisor Prof. H.H. van der Mescht Degree MMus (Musicology) The aim of this research is to show how the “new” musicology differs from the “old” with regards to the creation of knowledge about music, which I refer to as “musicological epistemology”. If epistemology is described in the contemporary era as “justified, true belief” (Huemer 2002: 435), this dissertation discusses how McClary, acting as a “new” musicologist, has justified her “true beliefs” in order to create postmodern knowledge about music in the contemporary era, and how these “true beliefs” differ from “old”/modernist musicological opinions concerning the meaning of music. In this dissertation I have included short descriptions of how I believe the various categories of “old” musicology functioned epistemologically. In order to demonstrate how musicological epistemology has changed in the contemporary era, I have undertaken an epistemological analysis of four of McClary's core articles/musicological narratives included in Reading Music: Selected Essays (2007). I have chosen one article from each of McClary’s main subjects of discourse from 1983 to 2007, namely “interpretation and polemics”, “gender and sexuality”, “popular music” and “early music”, in order to ascertain the “nature, scope and limits” of the knowledge she creates through the writing of these narratives. I have found that McClary has incorporated a variety of postmodern debates into her musicological writing, which separates her, epistemologically, from the “old” musicology. This “old”/“new” musicological split is particularly established in my epistemological analysis of “The blasphemy of talking politics during Bach Year” (1987) in which McClary vehemently criticizes key aspects of the “old” musicology, as well as enunciates how she believes the iii “new” musicology should function epistemologically. The epistemological analysis of “The cultural work of the madrigal” (2007) shows McClary’s epistemology in its mature form. With regards to McClary’s epistemology, I have discovered that the knowledge she is creating is subject to the reader’s acceptance of the postmodern debates that inform her postmodern intellectual context (relativism, identity and deconstruction for example), which establish the conditions under which her work can be considered as knowledge. I have referred to this type of knowledge as “conditional knowledge”, specifically in the epistemological analysis of “Living to tell: Madonna’s resurrection of the fleshly” (1990). McClary’s knowledge is also subject to the contexts in which she situates these essays (a feminist context, for example), which I have referred to as “context-based knowledge” in my epistemological analysis of “Construction of subjectivity in Schubert’s music” (1994). These forms of knowledge admit a subjective viewpoint and are generally of a socially responsible nature. These elements clearly articulate McClary’s acknowledgement of her postmodern intellectual context with regards to Lyotard’s call for greater toleration and sensitivity in his seminal work La condition postmoderne: rapport sur le savoir (1979) (The Postmodern Condition: a Report on Knowledge), the essential aspects of which are also discussed in this dissertation. The micronarrative format of her knowledge also relates to Lyotard’s theories, as well as McClary’s open avoidance of grand narratives in her writing. Through my analyses I have affirmed that McClary has produced these postmodern forms of knowledge whilst adhering to the accepted principles of epistemic rigour. Postmodern theory has revealed a relativistic and subjective view of human language and knowledge. McClary, acknowledging this postmodern realization, has taken control of the production of musical meaning and is creating musical knowledge that is meaningful and useful to marginalized groups in the social and musical world. iv Key words Epistemology Susan McClary “Old” musicology “New” musicology Grand narrative Metanarrative Micronarrative Modernism Postmodernism v Who decides what knowledge is, and who knows what needs to be decided? Jean François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition (1984: 9) vi Contents 1. Introduction 1-1 1.1 Background to the study 1-1 1.2 Theoretical framework 1-6 1.3 Research questions 1-7 1.4 Aims of the study 1-8 1.5 Rationale for the study 1-8 1.6 Methodology 1-10 1.7 Literature review 1-12 1.8 Value of the study 1-15 1.9 Notes to the reader 1-15 2. Epistemology and the creation of musical knowledge 2-1 2.1 What is an epistemology? 2-1 2.2 What is knowledge? 2-3 2.3 What is musical knowledge? 2-5 2.4 What is a musicological epistemology? 2-5 2.5 Summary 2-6 3. The epistemology of the “old” musicology in the context of modernism 3-1 3.1 The intellectual context of modernism and the “modernist identity” 3-1 3.2 The difference between “old” and “new” musicology 3-4 3.3 Epistemological deductions concerning the “old” musicology 3-7 3.3.1 Music analysis 3-8 3.3.2 Historical musicology 3-10 3.3.3 The aesthetics of music 3-12 3.3.4 Ethnomusicology 3-15 3.4 Summary 3-16 4. Postmodernism: narratives, debates and postmodern musicological epistemology 4-1 4.1 The state of critical/“new” musicology in the context of postmodernism 4-1 4.2 The theoretical basis of postmodernism: Lyotard’s The Postmodern Condition 4-4 4.3 Postmodern narratives: grand narrative, metanarrative and micronarrative 4-9 4.3.1 Defining narrative 4-9 4.3.2 Grand narratives and metanarratives 4-10 4.3.3 Micronarratives 4-13 4.4 Interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity 4-15 4.5 Post-structuralism, “genealogy” and intertextuality 4-17 4.6 Relativism, absurdity and deconstruction 4-19 4.7 Feminism 4-22 4.8 Humanism, posthumanism (the “post-human”) and changing technology 4-24 4.9 Identity, “place” and “landscape” 4-26 4.10 Summary 4-28 vii 5. McClary’s epistemology according to her “Introduction: the life and times of a renegade musicologist”, in Reading Music: Selected Essays (2007) 5-1 6. Interpretation and polemics: an epistemological critique of McClary’s “The blasphemy of talking politics during Bach year” (1987) 6-1 6.1 “Introduction” 6-1 6.2 “The Pythagorean dilemma” 6-6 6.3 “Bach’s music as social discourse” 6-9 6.4 “Examples” 6-10 6.5 “Brandenburg Concerto No. 5, first movement” 6-10 6.5.1 “Tonality” 6-10 6.5.2 “Concerto-grosso procedure” 6-11 6.5.3 “Harpsichord” 6-12 6.5.4 “Discussion” 6-12 6.6 “Wachet auf” 6-13 6.6.1 “National identity” 6-13 6.6.2 “Orthodoxy/ pietism” 6-14 6.6.3 “Gender” 6-15 6.6.4 “Bach reception” 6-16 6.7 “Bach in today’s cultural politics” 6-17 6.8 Summary 6-18 7 Gender and sexuality: an epistemological analysis of McClary’s “Constructions of subjectivity in Schubert’s music” (1994) 7-1 Summary 7-13 8 Epistemological conditions: an epistemological analysis of McClary’s “Living to tell: Madonna’s resurrection of the fleshly” (1990) 8-1 Summary 8-14 9 Early music: an epistemological analysis of McClary’s “The Cultural Work of the Madrigal” (2007) 9-1 9.1 Introduction 9-1 9.2 “How to do things with modes” 9-7 9.3 Summary 9-9 10 Conclusions 10-1 Sources S-1 Video sources S-10 1-1 Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1 Background to the study The questions that have provoked this enquiry into the foundations of contemporary musicological epistemology are as follows: What is musical knowledge? How is musical knowledge obtained? How do musicologists extract meaning from musical knowledge, what methods do they employ, how do they “operate” (and thereby dissect the experience of music in its many guises)? Epistemology, with regards to music, is not a finite field in the contemporary era. There is no epistemology of “new” musicology that contemporary musicologists follow; they define their methods as they go along. There are methods of extracting musical knowledge that are a result of long musicological tradition, such as the “historical, analytical and theoretical modes of enquiry” (Hooper 1974: 1), all of which have strictly defined epistemologies. But what Hooper described in 1974 (1) as an “increasing number of interpretive or methodological approaches that resist such easy categorization”, may have been prophetic of the unpredictable direction the discipline was taking, due to the influence of certain intellectual currents that will be discussed in later chapters (specifically concerning postmodernism). The question remains, are these indefinable methods of generating knowledge effective? And if so, how do they generate knowledge? Essentially: what is their epistemology? The chief difference between the “old” and contemporary (“new”) musicological epistemology is that, since the generally accepted date of about 1985 (Middleton 2003: 1), the Enlightenment ideals of the “old” musicology, with its inherited positivistic, empiricist, autonomous and objectivist claims, have gradually been shed. This is discussed at length in Chapter 3. What is of primary importance to this dissertation is, as Lochead and Auner state 1-2 in Postmodern Music/Postmodern Thought (2002: 6), that the epistemology of musicology has changed in the contemporary era as “conceptions of perspectival knowledge have called into question the idea of truth and more generally the binary nature of all understanding”. Our definition of knowledge has changed in essential ways, and so has the type of knowledge that we produce as a result. In Chapter 2 I will describe how contemporary scholars view the subject of knowledge, and in Chapter 3 it is my intention to show how this subject has influenced the writing of “old” as well as “new” musicological narratives.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Recasting Gender
    RECASTING GENDER: 19TH CENTURY GENDER CONSTRUCTIONS IN THE LIVES AND WORKS OF ROBERT AND CLARA SCHUMANN A Thesis Presented to The Graduate Faculty of The University of Akron In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Music Shelley Smith August, 2009 RECASTING GENDER: 19TH CENTURY GENDER CONSTRUCTIONS IN THE LIVES AND WORKS OF ROBERT AND CLARA SCHUMANN Shelley Smith Thesis Approved: Accepted: _________________________________ _________________________________ Advisor Dean of the College Dr. Brooks Toliver Dr. James Lynn _________________________________ _________________________________ Faculty Reader Dean of the Graduate School Mr. George Pope Dr. George R. Newkome _________________________________ _________________________________ School Director Date Dr. William Guegold ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page CHAPTER I. THE SHAPING OF A FEMINIST VERNACULAR AND ITS APPLICATION TO 19TH-CENTURY MUSIC ..............................................1 Introduction ..............................................................................................................1 The Evolution of Feminism .....................................................................................3 19th-Century Gender Ideologies and Their Encoding in Music ...............................................................................................................8 Soundings of Sex ...................................................................................................19 II. ROBERT & CLARA SCHUMANN: EMBRACING AND DEFYING TRADITION
    [Show full text]
  • Lesbian and Gay Music
    Revista Eletrônica de Musicologia Volume VII – Dezembro de 2002 Lesbian and Gay Music by Philip Brett and Elizabeth Wood the unexpurgated full-length original of the New Grove II article, edited by Carlos Palombini A record, in both historical documentation and biographical reclamation, of the struggles and sensi- bilities of homosexual people of the West that came out in their music, and of the [undoubted but unacknowledged] contribution of homosexual men and women to the music profession. In broader terms, a special perspective from which Western music of all kinds can be heard and critiqued. I. INTRODUCTION TO THE ORIGINAL VERSION 1 II. (HOMO)SEXUALIT Y AND MUSICALIT Y 2 III. MUSIC AND THE LESBIAN AND GAY MOVEMENT 7 IV. MUSICAL THEATRE, JAZZ AND POPULAR MUSIC 10 V. MUSIC AND THE AIDS/HIV CRISIS 13 VI. DEVELOPMENTS IN THE 1990S 14 VII. DIVAS AND DISCOS 16 VIII. ANTHROPOLOGY AND HISTORY 19 IX. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 24 X. EDITOR’S NOTES 24 XI. DISCOGRAPHY 25 XII. BIBLIOGRAPHY 25 I. INTRODUCTION TO THE ORIGINAL VERSION 1 What Grove printed under ‘Gay and Lesbian Music’ was not entirely what we intended, from the title on. Since we were allotted only two 2500 words and wrote almost five times as much, we inevitably expected cuts. These came not as we feared in the more theoretical sections, but in certain other tar- geted areas: names, popular music, and the role of women. Though some living musicians were allowed in, all those thought to be uncomfortable about their sexual orientation’s being known were excised, beginning with Boulez.
    [Show full text]
  • Orientalism and New Musicology
    UDK 78:81’373.46 Izvorni znanstveni rad Rukopis primljen 13. VII. 2018. Prihvaćen za tisak 12. X. 2018. Sanela Nikolić Faculty of Music University of Arts in Belgrade [email protected] ORIENTALISM AND NEW MUSICOLOGY The aim of this paper is to outline the history of the concept of Orientalism in the field of New musicology and to point out that musicological discussions of Orientalism significantly changed disciplinary profile of musicology in the direction of interdisciplinary or contextual musicology. The area of Postcolonial studies has been recognized by New musicology as a possible starting point for theorizing the new issues related to the questions of music, race, ethnic and national otherness, and European colonialism. In 1991, with the publication of Ralph P. Locke’s text “Constructing the Oriental ‘Other’: Saint-Saëns’s Samson et Dalila” in Cambridge Opera Journal, the musicological research of the European professional music tradition from the aspects of postcolonial theories has been institutionalized and the concept of Orientalism has been introduced into the field of research objects of musicology. What is present as the common aspects of all musicological studies that address the issue of musical representations of the Orient are interdisciplinarity and contextuality. Contrary to the reduction of the complex Western European music practices to the idea of an autonomous work of music devoted to an aesthetic enjoyment, postcolonial musicology proposed poststructuralist analytical models of text and discourse and affirm the interest in the context of work of music. In that manner, musicology has been updated as a discipline that autocritically approaches Western European professional music practice by seeing it/ self as only one of the possible historical formations of culture/knowledge in which there are visible clusters, conflicts, and aspirations to present (Western) European capitalist patriarchal politics as a universal economic, political and cultural power.
    [Show full text]
  • FIVE CHALLENGES and SOLUTIONS in ONLINE MUSIC TEACHER EDUCATION Page 1 of 10
    FIVE CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS IN ONLINE MUSIC TEACHER EDUCATION Page 1 of 10 Volume 5, No. 1 September 2007 FIVE CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS IN ONLINE MUSIC TEACHER EDUCATION David G. Hebert Boston University [email protected] “Nearly 600 graduate students?”1 As remarkable as it may sound, that is the projected student population for the online graduate programs in music education at Boston University School of Music by the end of 2007. With the rapid proliferation of online courses among mainstream universities in recent years, it is likely that more online music education programs will continue to emerge in the near future, which begs the question of what effects this new development will have on the profession. Can online education truly be of the same quality as a traditional face-to-face program? How is it possible to effectively manage such large programs, particularly at the doctoral level? For some experienced music educators, it may be quite difficult to set aside firmly entrenched reservations and objectively consider the new possibilities for teaching and research afforded by recent technology. Yet the future is already here, and nearly 600 music educators have seized the opportunity. Through online programs, the internet has become the latest tool for offering professional development to practicing educators who otherwise would not have access, particularly those currently engaged in full-time employment or residing in rural areas. Recognizing the new opportunities afforded by recent technological developments, Director of the Boston University School of Music, Professor Andre De Quadros and colleagues launched the nation’s first online doctoral program in music education in 2005.
    [Show full text]
  • An Introduction to Music Studies Pdf, Epub, Ebook
    AN INTRODUCTION TO MUSIC STUDIES PDF, EPUB, EBOOK Jim Samson,J. P. E. Harper-Scott | 310 pages | 31 Jan 2009 | CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS | 9780521603805 | English | Cambridge, United Kingdom An Introduction to Music Studies PDF Book To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. An analysis of sociomusicology, its issues; and the music and society in Hong Kong. Critical Entertainments: Music Old and New. Other Editions 6. The examination measures knowledge of facts and terminology, an understanding of concepts and forms related to music theory for example: pitch, dynamics, rhythm, melody , types of voices, instruments, and ensembles, characteristics, forms, and representative composers from the Middle Ages to the present, elements of contemporary and non-Western music, and the ability to apply this knowledge and understanding in audio excerpts from musical compositions. An Introduction to Music Studies by J. She has been described by the Harvard Gazette as "one of the world's most accomplished and admired music historians". The job market for tenure track professor positions is very competitive. You should have a passion for music and a strong interest in developing your understanding of music and ability to create it. D is the standard minimum credential for tenure track professor positions. Historical studies of music are for example concerned with a composer's life and works, the developments of styles and genres, e. Mus or a B. For other uses, see Musicology disambiguation. More Details Refresh and try again. Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read. These models were established not only in the field of physical anthropology , but also cultural anthropology.
    [Show full text]
  • Logy and the Study of Western Music*
    New Musicologies, Old Musicologies: Ethnomusico­ logy and the Study of Western Music* By Jonathan P. J Stock Introduction Ethnomusicology currently engages with the study of Western music in two principal ways. On the one hand, there are specific ethnomusicological studies that focus on aspects of Western musical traditions. Examples in­ clude Paul Berliner's analysis of improvisation in jazz (1994), Philip Bohlman's study of chamber music as ethnic music in contemporary Israel (1991), and the examinations of music schools and conservatories by Bruno Nettl (1995) and Henry Kingsbury (1988). These works, in and of them­ selves, offer explicit and direct indication of what an ethnomusicological approach to Western music involves and what manner of insights can be produced thereby. Second, and more diffusely, ethnomusicological re­ search plays into the study of Western music through musicologists' adop­ tion, adaptation, and application of ethnomusicological techniques and concepts: some musicologists have drawn from specific ethnographies of non-Western musical traditions, and others have made recourse to the standard texts of ethnomusicological theory and practice (such as Merriam 1964 and N ettl 1983). Conference presentations, seminars, conversations, and, especially in the case of younger scholars, courses taken as part of their academic training also provide channels of contact between the rep­ ertory of scholarly ideas and procedures developed primarily for the ex­ planation of non-Western musics and the field of Western musical studies. The titles of such publications as Nicholas Cook's Music, Imagination, and Culture (1990) and Peter jeffery's Re-Envisioning Past Musical Cultures: Ethnomusicology in the Study of Gregorian Chant (1992) are clear in their referencing to this particular field of academic endeavor.
    [Show full text]
  • SEM Student News Vol. 7
    SEM{STUDENTNEWS} The Society for Ethnomusicology’s only publication run by students, for students. IN THIS ISSUE Ethnomusicology + Inter/disciplinarity Letter from the President 1 Student Union Update 3 The State of the Field 4 Dear SEM 6 Job Seeking Outside Academia 8 Volume 7 | Fall/Winter 2013 Volume Ethnomusicology, Jazz Education + Record Production 9 Conceptualizing Global Music Education 11 Expanding the Reach of Ethnomusicology 12 Join your peers by Ethnomusicology ++ : A Bibliography 13 ‘liking’ us on Facebook and get Our Staff 17 the latest updates and calls for submissions! Disciplinarity and Interdisciplinarity in Ethnomusicology a letter from the president of sem The choice of interdisciplinarity as anthropologists concerned with study of a set of natural-kind the theme of this issue of SEM music as a cultural phenomenon things-in-the-world (such as Student News usefully returns a were an important driving force in invertebrates or stars or minds) but longstanding concern of our field the foundation of our field. But rather as a group of people to the spotlight of critical ethnomusicology’s history has working in concord or conflict to attention. From ethnomusicology’s always been more complex and far try to grapple with some facet of founding in the early twentieth ranging than that, with scholars existence. Why, for example, are century through the nineteen- from a wide array of backgrounds sociology (the study, perhaps, of eighties at least, it had been a making contributions to our society) and anthropology (the truism that our field operates at literature, and that is even more study of humanity) different the intersection of anthropology true today.
    [Show full text]
  • Elements of Sociology of Music in Today's Historical
    AD ALTA JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH ELEMENTS OF SOCIOLOGY OF MUSIC IN TODAY’S HISTORICAL MUSICOLOGY AND MUSIC ANALYSIS aKAROLINA KIZIŃSKA national identity, and is not limited to ethnographic methods. Rather, sociomusicologists use a wide range of research methods Adam Mickiewicz University, ul. Szamarzewskiego 89A Poznań, and take a strong interest in observable behavior and musical Poland interactions within the constraints of social structure. e-mail: [email protected] Sociomusicologists are more likely than ethnomusicologists to make use of surveys and economic data, for example, and tend to focus on musical practices in contemporary industrialized Abstract: In this article I try to show the incorporation of the elements of sociology of 6 societies”. Classical musicology, and it’s way of emphasizing music by such disciplines as historical musicology and music analysis. For that explain how sociology of music is understood, and how it is connected to critical historiographic and analytical rather than sociological theory, criticism or aesthetic autonomy. I cite some of the musicologists that wrote approaches to research, is the reason why sociomusicology was about doing analysis in context and broadening the research of musicology (e.g. Jim regarded as a small subdiscipline for a long time. But the Samson, Joseph Kerman). I also present examples of the inclusion of sociology of music into historical musicology and music analysis – the approach of Richard increasing popularity of ethnomusicology and new musicology Taruskin in and Suzanne Cusick. The aim was to clarify some of the recent changes in (as well as the emergence of interdisciplinary field of cultural writing about music, that seem to be closer today to cultural studies than classical studies), created a situation in which sociomusicology is not only musicology.
    [Show full text]
  • Musical Pasts and Postmodern Musicologies: a Response to Lawrence Kramer
    Musical Pasts and Postmodern Musicologies: A Response to Lawrence Kramer By Gary Tomlinson Early last summer, not long after I was invited by the editors of Current Musicology to contribute to this special issue, the inaugural issue of an­ other music journal landed in my mail box. This was repercussions, pro­ duced by graduate students at the University of California at Berkeley. It opened with a position piece by Lawrence Kramer entitled 'The Musicol­ ogy of the Future"-a fitting beginning, given that the journal is devoted to fostering "critical & alternative viewpoints on music and scholarship" and that Kramer has ·emerged over the past decade as one of the shrewd­ est and most theoretically savvy of a younger generation of musical schol­ ars. But Kramer's essay, on closer inspection, was disconcerting. 'The Mu­ sicology of the Future" seems to me to linger over old viewpoints more than suggest new ones. It reveals patterns of thought that not only already threaten to harden into new orthodoxies of postmodern musicology but that have, at the deepest level, moved little from the putative truths they aim to leave behind. What follows is a brief rejoinder to Kramer's vision of the new musicology. I should say at the beginning that I do not think Kramer is alone in his difficulty in escaping the old orthodoxies; if he were, my differences with his approach would have no broader resonance than that of a personal disagreement. I sense, instead, that all of us who work in the methodologi­ cal realms he calls postmodern have experienced this difficulty, that we have all felt twinges of an unease that originates in our sense of the persistent proximity of our methods to those we thought we had moved away from.
    [Show full text]
  • EN October 2013
    ECOMUSICOLOGY NEWSLETTER!OCTOBER 2013 Ecomusicology Newsletter Discussion: Music in the Contents Anthropocene Features Discussion: Music in the by Nathan Currier Anthropocene, 1-2 Nathan Currier Currier responds to an earlier Ecomusicology Newsletter The Study of the Music & Culture of article and previews a longer article for our next issue. the Environmental Crisis, 3 & 20-23 Juha Torvinen & Andreas Engström “In some cases our work might have direct relevance to Previews environmental problems,” Marc Perlman noted in “Ecology and Ecomusicologies 2013, 4-5 Ethno/Musicology: The Metaphorical, the Representational, and the Dan Bendrups Literal” in this Newsletter 1, no. 2 (October 2012). “In other cases the relevance could be very indirect, or indeed conjectural; but I suspect Music, Nature, Place: A New Book that in most cases our ultimate concerns are environmentalist ones.” Series, 6 In my own case, it might be because of its direct relevance that my Sabine Feisst & Denise Von Glahn perspective is quite distinct from this literature: I have spent much Of Ecomusicological Interest at time in recent years outside of music dealing with fine points of AMS Pittsburgh, 7 climate science and policy. Climate change is central to the fate of the Aaron S. Allen biosphere, as well as to the economic, political, cultural and moral basis of society. Yet traditional environmentalism (i.e. the social Of Ecomusicological Interest at SEM Indianapolis, 8-9 movement emerging from the 1960s) has thus far found it di$cult to Kate Galloway adequately come to terms with this epic environmental problem. Climate science is itself a discipline full of internal upheaval, Reviews controversy, and complexities of communication.
    [Show full text]
  • Critical Theory for Musicology Conference Jan 12-13, 2018
    Emily Doolittle Critical Theory for Musicology Conference Jan 12-13, 2018 I’m a composer, not a musicologist, and I’m often surprised when I catch glimpses of the antagonism that so often seems to arise between “new musicology” and “traditional musicology”.* Of course context matters, and of course notes matter, and of course the interactions between context and notes matter – as I’m sure everyone here will agree. I often find myself wanting to mediate between random musicologists on the internet! Although I’m continually arguing for the value of both “new” and “traditional” musicology, I didn’t realize until recently the extent to which I had nonetheless internalized the idea that there is some kind of inherent opposition between the music that “new musicologists” might find interesting, and the music that “traditional musicologists” consider worthy of study. I’m a composer, and a woman, and for as long as I’ve been a composer – 27 years now – I’ve been disturbed by the lack of representation of women composers. Of course I have many fantastic colleagues and friends who are women composers. When asked to suggest some interesting living composers, I often find that my list is half women or more – without any intention on my part to preferentially list women. But when it comes to textbooks, to music histories, to the programming of major orchestras, to the cannon, women are almost completely absent. When women are included at all, it will be 3 pages out of 600. Or 2 pieces in an entire orchestral season. The included women usually come from musical dynasties – Clara Schumann, Fanny Mendelssohn, Lili Boulanger, Ruth Crawford Seeger.
    [Show full text]
  • II. Toward an Entangled History of Twentieth-Century Music in a Global Context
    II. Toward an Entangled History of Twentieth-Century Music in a Global Context 1. Preliminaries of an Intercultural Music Historiography The methodological reflections in the first chapter result in two understandings: first, the- ne cessity of recognizing the aesthetic, cultural, local, and individual particularity of specific art- istic positions. Second, the need to develop categories for comparing forms of music that come about under different sociocultural and culture-historical conditions without smoothing over their differences or presupposing any speculative claims of “shared roots” – but also with the aim of moving beyond a mere statement of multiplicity. In the light of recent (and not so re- cent) developments in music research, it is a given that this cannot take the form of an “either/ or” of aesthetics or history, of work history or social history, or of analytical or socioethnologi- cal methodology.1 Admittedly, as heated discussions of the work concept2 or historiographical methodology3 have shown, many of these polarities are still alive and well. For example, we still debate how music historiography, despite all postmodern objections, can continue to be con- ceived of as a “grand narrative” following “mainstreams,”4 or whether we should rather allow competing descriptions to exist alongside one another and increasingly seek out alternative sites, foregrounding once-neglected areas through a “micrology” of pétit récits.5 Naturally such 1 See the polemic in Taruskin, “Introduction: The History of What?,” XXVII–XXVIII against the polarities established in Dahlhaus, Grundlagen der Musikgeschichte. This is discussed in Christensen, “Dahlhaus in Amerika,” 135–136. 2 See Strohm, “Looking Back at Ourselves: The Problem with the Musical Work-Concept” and Goehr, “‘On the Prob- lems of Dating’ or ‘Looking Backward and Forward with Strohm,’” referring back to Goehr, The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works.
    [Show full text]