Department of Musicology Faculty of Music

International Journal of Music

Belgrade, I/2016 YU ISSN 0354–818X UDC 78:781(05) COBISS. SR-ID 80527367

International Journal of Music

Belgrade, I/2016

Publisher: Department of Musicology Faculty of Music Kralja Milana 50, 11000 Belgrade

Editorial Board: Mirjana Veselinović-Hofman Ph.D. (Editor-in-chief) Vesna Mikić Ph.D. (Deputy editor-in-chief) Academician Dejan Despić Dragoslav Dević Ph.D. Sonja Marinković Ph.D. Ana Kotevska M.A. Miloš Zatkalik M.A. Marcel Cobussen Ph.D. (The Netherlands) Pierre Albert Castanet Ph.D. (France) Chris Walton Ph.D. (South Africa/Switzerland) Eduardo R. Miranda Ph.D. (Brazil/UK) Nico Schüler Ph.D. (Germany/USA)

Cover design: Ivana Petković

Secretary of the Editorial Board: Biljana Leković Ph.D.

Editorial Board and Office: Faculty of Music Kralja Milana 50, 11000 Belgrade E-mail: [email protected] www.newsound.org.rs

The Journal is published semestrally. The Journal is classified in ERIH – European Reference Index for the Humanities CONTENTS

COMPOSER SPEAKS Vesna Mikić (Foot)notes on Music – An Interview with Kornelije Bata Kovač ...... 5

IN MemoriAM Vesna Karin Olivera Vasić (August 18, 1946 – October 28, 2015) ...... 19

Studies Bojana Matejić Vergebliches Warten? Badiou, Event, and Human Emancipation in Music . 23 Dragana Stojanović Strategies of Working with the Sonorous Body: Identifying Other/New Writing Techniques in the Field of Bodily Sound Expression ...... 45 Mina Božanić The Musical Space: A Sketch for a Broader Musicological–Semiotical Discussion ...... 55

INTERPRETATIONS Nikola Samardžić The Jazz Avant-Garde in the American Economy ...... 75 Aleksandar Šarović The Uses and Gratifications Theory (in the Case of House Music) ...... 87

NEW WORKS Milena Medić The Sumatraist Secret of Count Sava Vladislavić’s Great Dreaming: The Anamorphosic Aim of Theatrical Doubling, the Ex-centred Observer, and the Regenerative Power of Collective Memory ...... 99

3 RESEARCH AND TRADITION Eudjen Činč, Jasmina Stolić Romanian Composers’ Spiritual Creativity in the 20th Century – Musical Hagiography of the Ordeal of a Society ...... 121

Reviews Katrin Stöck Jelena Novak: Postopera. Reinventing the Voice-Body (Ashgate 2015) .... 129 Marija Maglov Sanela Nikolić: Avangardna umetnost kao teorijska praksa: Black Mountain College, Darmštatski internacionalni letnji kursevi za Novu muziku i Tel Quel [Avant-garde art as theoretical practice: Black Mountain College, Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music and Tel Quel] (Belgrade: Faculty of Music, 2015) ...... 131 Nikola Pejčinović The 11th festival Koncerti mladih autora – KoMA (Young Authors’ Concerts) ...... 135 The 24th International Review of Composers ...... 138 Marija Dumnić Back to the Future: Popular Music and Time (18th Biennial IASPM Conference in Campinas, 2015) ...... 144

DEFENDED DOCTORAL THESES Nataša Dimić Аспекти великог појања у контексту српске православне црквене музике (The Aspects of Great Chant in the Context of Serbian Orthodox Church Music) ...... 147

CONTRIBUTORS TO THE ISSUE ...... 151

4 COMPOSER SPEAKS

Article received on September 16th 2016 Article accepted on November 11th 2016 UDC: 78.071.1:929 Ковач К.(047.53) Vesna Mikić* University of Arts in Belgrade Faculty of Music Department of Musicology

(Foot)notes on Music An Interview with Kornelije Bata Kovač

Kornelije Bata Kovač (b. 1942) is a renowned composer and performer of popular music.1 Coming from a musical family, upon graduating at the

* Author contact information: [email protected] 1 Kornelije Bata Kovač (Niš, 1942) is a composer of popular and applied (film, television, and theatre) music, producer, songwriter, and author of three books. He has composed a large number of pop songs, some of which have attained evergreen status in ex-Yugoslav pop music (e.g. “Ti si mi u krvi”, “April u Beogradu”, “Milo moje”, “Zlatni dan”, “Ti samo budi dovoljno daleko”…). Some of them, such as “Moja generacija” and “Trla baba lan”, were performed by Korni grupa, one of the first big 1970s pop (prog-rock) acts in former Yugoslavia, a band founded and led by Kovač, which released six LPs/CDs and around 20 singles. According to his own selection (Muzička biografija, Belgrade: UKS, 2016), his most significant achievements include the following: national and international awards for the songs “Pastir i cvet” (Korni grupa, 1969), “Jedna žena” (Korni grupa, 1970), the musi- cal poem “1941” (a setting of verses by Branko Ćopić, Korni grupa, 1971), a Golden Arena for music originally composed for Bez, a film by Miša Radivojević (Pula, 1971), etc. He has collaborated with every important performer in Yugoslavia and with many foreign perform- ers. Stemming from his lifetime commitment to instrumental music, Kovač has also made six LP/CD releases in that genre (e.g. Između svetlosti i tame, 1976; Sampled Moonlight, 1986; Balkan, 1993; Dvojni identitet, 2000). He has scored 50 feature and documentary films, 20 theatre plays, and a large number of television shows and series. Kovač articulated his experiences from his Spanish sojourn in the book Tamne dirke (Novi Sad: Prometej, 2003) and tried his hand in fiction in a book of short stories, Falko i druge priče (K.K. Music Production, 2007), leaving his autobiographical mark in his book Fusnota (Belgrade:

5 New Sound 47, I/2016

Kornelije Bata Kovač (Photo Aleksandar Anđić)

Music Academy in Sarajevo (1964), Kovač embarked on what has become a 50-year-long career of an independent artist, collaborating as a pianist and key- boardist as well as arranger with various ensembles and singers and simultane- ously working as an author in jazz and pop music composition. After moving to Belgrade, Kovač founded Korni grupa (1968), one of Yugoslavia’s leading prog- rock bands of the time, with whom he gained much popularity (“Jedna žena”, “Moja generacija”, “Ivo Lola”, “Etida”, etc.). At the same time, Kovač tried his hand as an author of pop hits for famous Yugoslav singers (e.g. “Milo moje” by Bisera Veletanlić). In that regard, his most important collaboration was with Zdravko Čolić, for whom he composed songs that turned him into Yugoslavia’s first genuine pop superstar (“Ako priđeš bliže”, “Stanica Podlugovi”, “Jedna zima sa Kristinom”). Kovač spent the late 1980s and ’90s in London, working with various British musicians, and then extended his experiences of living and working abroad with another, longer stay in Spain, during the mid 1990s. Upon returning to Belgrade, he resumed collaborating with Serbian musicians, increas-

Laguna, 2010). Kovač has won a large number of prizes and awards in various domains of his oeuvre; most recently, he was the first recipient of the newly established lifetime achieve- ment award presented by the Composers’ Association of Serbia (the popular music chapter), the Darko Kraljić Award.

6 Mikić, V., (Foot)notes on Music – An Interview with Kornelije Bata Kovač ingly turning to instrumental music and his first love, free jazz improvisation in live public and unplugged performances. The professional authority and vitality of Bata Kovač recommended him for various posts and activities at the Compos- ers’ Association of Serbia, Association of Musical Artists of Serbia, and SOKOJ.2 Kornelije Kovač is the first laureate of the Darko Kraljić Award, the newly founded lifetime achievement award presented by the Composers’ Association of Serbia. In short, the poetics of Kornelije Kovač is characterised by a penchant for experimentation in terms of phrasing, form, and harmonic language of pop songs (often ballads), coupled with a refined sense of balance and sometimes “unforgiving” self-discipline and self-criticism. Bearing in mind that he boldly accepted all kinds of professional challenges and apparently, as a well-educated musician, found it easy to “reconcile” them, one may view his career as a sort of “amalgam” of a performer’s and author’s expression and his work as a unique product of various dualities and multiplicities of identity. That is why we went for a little “pun” in the title of this interview, referencing the title of the biogra- phy of another musician with a “double identity”, Darius Milhaud (Notes sans musique); also, we used the title of one of Kornelije Kovač’s books – Fusnota (Footnote), as well as his Muzička biografija (Music Biography).

On the eve of your 75th birthday, perhaps it wouldn’t be inappropriate to begin this interview by asking you, combining the titles/“contents” of songs that marked your career and crucial information from your music biography, to begin by providing a general (historical) overview of the challenges, risks, and opportunities of “Your Generation” (of 1942) in the domain of popular music? I think that when it came to popular music, “my generation” was, generally speaking, fortunate. Although we spent our early years in scarcity and with rela- tively few opportunities acquire crucial information, circumstances had already changed to a significant degree by the time we reached full creative maturity. And although, on the one hand, after the emergence of The Beatles everything changed in terms of wider audiences’ interest in other forms of music-making, which were my primary interests, like, say, jazz (the same period saw the initial formation of a specialised audience for this kind of music), on the other hand, the “door” opened to us for all kinds of experimentation in pop and rock sounds. We were able to work, perform, and earn our living that way, which certainly, given the current condition of the music industry and market, makes us a “for- tunate” generation.

2 Savez organizacija kompozitora Jugoslavije (Union of Composers’ Associations of Yugo- slavia), former Yugoslavia’s federal composers’ union – Translator’s note.

7 New Sound 47, I/2016

In your case, it seems as though there had been no dilemma in terms of choos- ing the kind of music (genre, type, field) you would pursue? How did you com- bine your classical music training with your “other” interests in music? Who were your “unofficial” teachers, when it came to music? Finally, what is your perception today of “Daddy Ko” and “Mummy Spo” in the context of the music history of your immediate family, the Kovačs? I wouldn’t say I was immediately aware of the choice I was going to make. At first, music was a “side business”, a family trade – at the time I was much more interested in kicking a cloth football around. But it is a fact that our family circumstances were such that music was always present and that in our home, classical and “light” music enjoyed the same status, that we listened to the radio and that very early on we also had a gramophone. My grandfather Kornél Kovács (Kornel Kovač) did not leave much behind. He spoke his native language, Hungarian, Serbian only a little, but why – as a child, I could only guess. The image of him sitting at the kitchen table in our family house at No. 26, Šantić Street, the little knife with which he cut bacon into tiny pieces, barely a piece of bread or two, and a glass with red hot chilies protruding from it, that was the inventory on the canvas that flashed in front of my eyes during long plane rides, which I didn’t quite enjoy, whenever I thought of my grandfather. That canvas could’ve been painted by Brueghel. Another scene in my memories of my grandfather Kornél used to take place on the veranda of our family house, almost every Sunday afternoon. Four pen- sioners, lost in profound deliberations about choosing the right card to tackle the combinations taking place in the middle of the table. But once a week, those card players would get together in the city centre, with their string instruments in their boxes. My grandfather always took me to these string quartet sessions. I would sit in a corner, confused, listening to Vivaldi’s Seasons, Beethoven’s and Haydn’s string quartets. Of course, sometimes I found their rehearsals mo- notonous, but I felt that even upon returning home, the harmony of those four instruments blending together nonetheless kept ringing in my ears. The third scene, in which my grandfather Kornél played a priceless role, happened when he was a member of the Subotica symphony orchestra. Ernő Lányi, a Hungarian conductor, came from Budapest to Subotica, which meant that quality and noteworthy music-making soon enriched the cultural life of the city and of Vojvodina in general. At a difficult moment, when the orchestra lost its one and only double-bass player, Lányi didn’t know how to resolve that un- expected predicament. The orchestra could not go on without the double-bass line. So my grandfather, who played the second violin, offered the conductor to replace the double bassist, who had passed away. Everybody was impressed and

8 Mikić, V., (Foot)notes on Music – An Interview with Kornelije Bata Kovač grateful. On the 50th anniversary of his engagement with the orchestra (1908– 1958), Kornél Kovács received a goldleaf seal. My father, Josip Kovač, was caned, when he was barely 11, whenever he failed to prepare his violin etude well enough. His first teacher was my grandfa- ther, an irritable choirmaster, violinist at the symphony orchestra, before that a teacher, who expected much more from his son and when his expectations fell through, he gave up on teaching him, enrolled him at the music school, and then secured him private lessons with professor Mirko Kramer, a well-known artist and conductor of the Subotica Philharmonic. When he turned 18, he wanted to learn a wind instrument and join the Sokol Band. At that time, they often marched up and down the streets of Sub- otica, playing in their wonderful uniforms, and he, as a young man, was en- chanted by that. Over the next few years, he learned to play several wind instruments: the trumpet, the trombone, and other wind instruments. Over the course of his career, he became a multi-instrumentalist, arranger, and conductor. He founded the Subotica Youth Festival, which saw performances by many young singers and musicians from all over former Yugoslavia. My brother Mihajlo Kovač and I were still very young when they put us at music school. I finished my secondary education in music with a major in the- ory and pedagogy and then took the entrance exam at the Music Academy in Belgrade. Much to my regret, I didn’t get a place, so I went to Sarajevo and got a place in the same department I majored in Subotica. During our schooling in Subotica, our father Josip spent more time on young musicians from the Festival orchestra and also on giving private lessons in violin, guitar, accordion, and saxophone. My brother and I were obliged to perform well at the music school. Our father did not expect us to become top pianists or anything like that.

Let’s go back, for a moment, to your “classical” music education. All the way from your jazz trio (1961) to Kovač-Mlačak-Džanefendić trio recently at the “Parobrod”, for 55 years, (jazz) piano was a constant in your performing and creative work. Could you describe how you articulated this feature in your music? For sure, it was most compellingly and, at the time, “most naturally” and relevantly articulated in your work with Korni grupa, that is, in your prog- rock/art-rock works for Korni grupa? My earliest (independent) experiences of music were mostly predicated on boring technical exercises for mastering piano technique and my futile attempts to find at least one or two interesting segments in those etudes by Czerny and Clem- enti. I discovered that Bach’s G-major Minuet also contained some nice passages.

9 New Sound 47, I/2016

Following those long repetitions and warming up sessions for my piano lessons at the primary music school in Subotica, I used to recuperate by press- ing random keys on the piano, hoping for a string of notes that might surprise me with a motive, a phrase, and then even a sentence or two. Then I quckly wrote down those phrases in my music notebook and started feeling happy that its pages were beginning to fill up with what I regarded as my own music, music I created without even knowing how. Thus I made my first steps as a creator and since I was good at solfège, those musings on the keyboard gave me much pleasure. That was when I first felt what it means to create something that is yours. And I also thought it sounded good, too. At least my schoolmates liked it, and then also my friends at the Academy. My secondary school teachers focused on classical music education, so in addition to radio, during my secondary school days, I acquired crucial informa- tion on other types of music mostly by going to lectures on jazz (bebop) and blues organised at the Workers’ University in Subotica. Also, I followed the Metronom magazine, which always included sheet music of popular standards. For instance, I practised and played Kosta Tepavica’s “Mambo” and, at the same time, worked out songs on the piano and tried to make melodies of my own. I was lucky, because at some point during the late 1950s (that is what they called it at the time, luck), I came into the possession of a handful of LPs, some of which made an impact on my black-and-white taste in music. Even today, they remain etched in my ears and memory. The first of them was an LP album by Oscar Peterson, the jazz pianist; the second was Elvis Presley and his Jail- house Rock; the third was Dizzy Gillespie and his bebop themes, and finally, Bobby Darin and his soft rock, “Splish Splash”. It was four different types of music, of which, in the beginning, my favourite was Peterson, whose technique truly knocked me right off the ground. One blues form, the so called 12-bar blues, I practised for months, even more than I practised Czerny’s etudes, first only the right hand and then the left, also by itself. I really wanted to play with both hands as soon as possible, but I didn’t dare to make that decisive step. I couldn’t wait any longer and of course, my left hand kept lagging behind my right hand and I was inevitably disappointed. Then I applied a technique from piano practice. Playing at half the tempo, then in triplets, then the first half of each bar pianissimo and the second half fortissimo, and so on... That went on for a year. Eventually, I was ecstatic, happy, and satisfied. Now, almost 60 years after accomplishing that mission impossible, I’m back to square one. And I have to fight with my hands, to coordinate them in terms of speed and staying together.

10 Mikić, V., (Foot)notes on Music – An Interview with Kornelije Bata Kovač

So be it. It’s OK to face “the enemy” again. Now, after all these years. In my case, I don’t think it’s important to “define” the music I perform as jazz – I couldn’t say that I’m a jazz pianist, or a jazz composer. For me, what matters the most is to establish communication, first and foremost with the performers I’m playing with. I call it “supersonic” communication – I tell young colleagues I play with that one shouldn’t “hold forth” forever, but stop and listen to the oth- ers. That kind of communication is more important to me than communicating with the audience. I don’t need to prove myself anymore, I’m where I’m sup- posed to be. I play the way I’ve always played – in “harmony” with myself. My favourite gigs are free gigs, with no fixed solutions, or limitations in terms of form or time. Nonetheless, before, while I was still in school, in Subotica and then in Sarajevo, although jazz was my first interest, the circumstances were such that I went for that which the audience wanted the most, on the one hand, and on the other, for the kind of music that I could pursue with much more ease, toward pop and light rock. It was easier to “work out” than bebop or other kinds of jazz. Had I been able to find sheet music with entire phrases written down back then, I would’ve probably made different decisions. We all had a problem with “working out” jazz harmonies. Also, during the late 1950s and ’60s, while I was studying, and later, more young people pursued pop than jazz. And although one of my first notable festival performances, which was also the first festival performance by a jazz ensemble from Bosnia and Herzegovina, when we also performed a piece of my own, happened at the jazz festival in Bled (Slovenia), in those years I found more work and gigs as a performer, arranger, and com- poser of pop music. In fact, a couple of producers from Radio Sarajevo heard me play in Sarajevo and enabled me to do not only covers and arrangements, jazz arrangements of foreign hits, but also to work with my own songs and compositions. And that wasn’t just me. That door opened to a lot of musicians – let me mention again – from “my generation” as well as younger. We made arrangements of San Remo songs, of Paul Anka’s hits, and the like, until The Beatles came, and then a lot changed. Nevertheless, I had not one but two stints working at Radio Sarajevo as a music editor and for years I was also the pianist of the Sarajevo Radio and Television Revue Orchestra, which meant I also played at important pop music festivals, such as Opatija. After that, I played with the Sarajevo band Indexi, so it only made sense, in a way, that I would eventually establish Korni grupa and not “go back” to jazz. But, of course, the way Korni grupa and its work were conceived combined my interests in jazz, classical music, and pop into a peculiar, in terms of the Yugoslav scene at the time, form of symphonic rock. One could say that at I was more of a keyboard- ist than a pianist at the time. Symphonic rock meant experimenting with elec-

11 New Sound 47, I/2016 tronic timbres and sound, but after awhile I got tired of technology. Today, from my current perspective, I can totally say that the acoustic piano, especially when it’s a good Steinway, was and remains at the centre of my musical being.

Your travels and cities have been an important factor in your life and profes- sional journey. From Niš via Sarajevo, Belgrade, London, with many additional “stops” on the way, and then returning to Belgrade, you’ve had opportunities to meet various kinds of people and establish a whole range of interesting col- laborations, developing along the way your own competences as a producer, editor, arranger, and performer. From one of those four guys from Trebević (“Četiri mladića...”), via “April” in Belgrade and “Podlugovi”, to winters in Vojvodina, it is clear that cities, landscapes, and visual stimuli are an important part of your poetics? In the first place, these were visual stimuli and personal experiences, con- fessions of sorts. Because I have always associated places with people, I can say that one could produce a hierarchy of places in terms of their significance in my career. First, there is Subotica and its vicinity – generally speaking, landscapes from Vojvodina, the winters in Vojvodina that I spent with close friends. Then, there is Sarajevo – my mates, dance parties, students’ joints, Bosnian jazz musi- cians doing “temporary work” in Germany, “working out” hits from Radio Monte Carlo and Radio Luxembourg with my “quartet”, travelling across Yugo- slavia with the Revue Orchestra, Yugoslav and foreign tours with Indexi. Then, of course, Belgrade from 1968. By contrast, London (1978–1982) and Spain (the mid 1990s) were an entirely different matter. There was none of that inspi- ration. I managed to see big and important concerts at Wembley Stadium. But my relations with the English were entirely professional. As soon as the job was done, communication likewise stopped. Interestingly, I was able to strike up a closer relationship with two Irishmen, one in London and another one in Spain. I have some nice memories from there as well. Still, you’re always a foreigner. Especially when they realise you’re competition, then they’ll always first pro- tect, hire, and promote “their own”. In Yugoslavia, despite my “double” iden- tity, never and nowhere have I felt like a foreigner. Even today, nowhere in former Yugoslavia do I feel foreign.

Not only due to the time period, but also to the context of its emergence and activity, Korni grupa may certainly be viewed as a sort of Yugoslav brand. In that context, which, among other things, must inevitably inform any consider- ation of expectations and conceptions concerning what went by the name of (Yugoslav) pop as well as pop-rock music, also encompassing some “(supra)

12 Mikić, V., (Foot)notes on Music – An Interview with Kornelije Bata Kovač national” aspects that were supposed to mark that music, so, in that context, how did you perceive the role of (musical) folklore? In other words, how did Kornelije Kovač, a Yugoslav pop-music composer, get from “Trla baba lan” to “Bum, Cile, bum”?

Since we were all Yugoslavs, Korni grupa was a Yugoslav band, too. I used my experiences from jazz and working with Indexi (on whom I never wanted to “impose” my ideas) to make Korni grupa. We had to work hard. The other members of the band had a different kind of education and experiences, so I had to “push” them to practise according to my ideas. Besides, I must emphasise that Korni grupa indeed was a Yugoslav brand, but not a regime band, so to speak. Sure, we had the backing of PGP,3 but back then there were no other la- bels anyway. As soon as I gained that kind of freedom, I “cut loose”... My for- eign models were bands such as Gentle Giant and Yes. However, symphonic rock didn’t have an easy time in Europe either. Maybe that was one of the rea- sons why I said goodbye to Korni grupa. Also, Korni grupa was Yugoslavia’s entry at the 1974 Eurovision song con- test in Brighton, which also affirmed its “Yugoslav” status (the song was se- lected to represent Yugoslavia because it had come first at the Opatija festival). Yugoslavia meant a lot to us and to me it still does. In addition to the song “Moja generacija”, which, as a symphonic rock ballad (with a complex struc- ture and complex harmonic features) couldn’t “fly” at the Contest, likewise ad- hering to the “Yugoslav idea” were my songs “Ivo Lola” and “1941”, an epic setting of verses by Branko Ćopić, with the extraordinary female vocals of Jo- sipa Lisac. Besides working at Korni grupa, I also worked on festival songs (Opatija, Zagreb, Sarajevo), because I wanted to see if I could make a song that would win one of the awards. In that sense I tried my hand in the so-called more com- mercial sphere of popular music, hence my work in some of Korni grupa’s al- legedly “easier” hits, such as “Trla baba lan”, should be viewed in that light – even though there are folk intonations of those verses, the treatment of song’s musi- cal text and harmonic vocal texture has nothing in common with folk music. Later bands were quite shrewd in packaging folk-music elements. In those days, everybody found it hard to forgive me for “Trla baba lan”, as though it was a kind of betrayal of “art rock”, the complexity of its constructions and “selling

3 Produkcija gramofonskih ploča Radio televizije Beograd (Belgrade Radio Television Gramophone Record Production), Serbia’s leading and one of socialist Yugoslavia’s major state-owned record label and chain record stores, the music production branch of Serbia’s state television network, Radio Television Belgrade – Translator’s note.

13 New Sound 47, I/2016 out” to the cheap preferences of the masses. Later, that song was also recorded by such a great star as Dalida, so I have nothing to be ashamed of. In my opin- ion, the same might apply to “Bum, Cile, bum”, except that in this case, it was the verses by Marina Tucaković that bore folk “overtones”, sung by the folk superstar Lepa Brena, and since the song took part in the “Jugovizija” contest (Yugoslavia’s national Eurosong contest), learning from my previous experi- ences, I made a “mix” of folksy and pop elements (the czardas-like instrumental intro and the simple poppy harmonic expression à la Bony M in the verses and chorus with tapans). In fact, however, I seldom entirely “yielded” to folk sound – even today, when, as I said, I no longer need to compete (I’ve already come first a number of times), and when, for instance, I’m playing with Ešref Džanefendić, who plays the kanun, it is precisely the fact that he manages to perform music that is not “oriental”, and thus cannot be considered folk, on an oriental musical instrument that entices me to collaborate with him.

In your case, folk inspiration has typically tended to “stop” at some typical linguistic, “folksy” twists and formulations, folk poetry, although it sometimes also extended to Romanticist national poets such as Branko Radičević. Al- though at least during the Korni grupa era you often wrote the lyrics as well, you often “turned” to important Serbian poets for your texts? And when that resulted in a hit (e.g. “Pevam danju, pevam noću”), performed, moreover, by top pop music performers – by superstars – it seems that in your case, classical, prog-rock “procedures” bore fruits that would be as unexpected in an artistic solo song as in a prog-rock ballad? In your Music Biography you attribute ex- treme importance to poets (ranging from Branko Radičević to Duško Trifunović and Dušan Radović) and recently I’ve also bumped into something you said about Yesenin? Poems by Vojvodina poets as well as my personal perceptions, mentioned above, of Vojvodina (winter) landscapes somehow matched, with their sensibil- ity, my prog-rock musical structures and “ranges”. Thus I wrote “Jedna zima sa Kristinom” (lyrics and music) in a very complex structure (evidently stemming from my work with Korni grupa). Then, similar “triggers” came in the form of lyrics by Vlado Dijak (“Stanica Podlugovi”) and Spomenka Kovač (the ballad “Ti si mi u krvi”). Likewise complex in terms of structure is my setting of Branko Radičević’s poem “Pevam danju, pevam noću”. Interestingly, some of these symphonic rock “relapses” became the greatest this of Yugoslavia’s great- est singer superstar – Zdravko Čolić. Basically, when I choose top poetry, I typically do it with a specific singer in mind. Simply put, Čolić was able to sing those lines by Radičević. Then there were also verses by Duško Radović, most

14 Mikić, V., (Foot)notes on Music – An Interview with Kornelije Bata Kovač notably my setting of his poem “Milo moje”, but it is less widely known that I did a lot of settings of his poems for children and television. And Yesenin is a special story! Namely, for a number of years now I’ve been working on a musical, Ispovest jednog mangupa (The Confessions of a Rascal). I started work on it in 1978, following the breakup of Korni grupa, when I went to England. It includes a number of heterogeneous textual sources by Yesenin (prose writings, lyrics, correspondence, memories, reviews), which I put together as a specific narrative about his life. Unfortunately, I’ve been struggling to finish the libretto and find proper people to complete it with me.

How significant were your activities in production, which you pursued whilst living abroad as well as upon returning to Belgrade, in your authorial work? It was a sort of expansion of my job as a composer, where intuition and experience played an important role, as well as financial means for securing equipment. First you must compose the music, then make an arrangement, which I call orchestration, and then comes the production, where you have your solutions all planned out, but then something else happens in the studio – and they you try it out... As a producer, I was never one of those who knew all the equipment; rather, I worked by ear, but I also arrived at some interesting results in terms of sound (for instance, working with Bajaga i instruktori).

We’ve already mentioned the singers. You’re credited not only with the “discov- ery”, promotion, and evolution of some of the leading stars of the former Yugo- slav scene, such as Zlatko Pejaković, Zdravko Čolić, Bisera Veletanlić, etc., since it was you who composed some of their greatest hits, which are today ev- ergreen songs in these parts, but one could also say that along with them you also traversed and in fact broke the path for Yugoslav music from zabavna muzika (entertainment music) to pop, which was, of course, conditioned by other, cultural and media circumstances as well. How important is the per- former to the composer of a song, given that in pop music (its production and reception aspects), performativity commands decisive importance? In other words, do you think that you would still be this Kornelije Kovač without Topić, Pejaković, Čolić, Bisera Veletanlić, Maja Odžaklijevska, Tanja Banjanin, and, finally, Aleksandra Kovač? And vice versa? There are no special explanations there. When, for instance, I wrote two songs for Dalibor Bruno, I knew what he’d sung before, I understood the man, and wrote the songs in line with that; for Zdravko Čolić I wrote songs that no one else would sing the same way; ditto for Bisera Veletanlić.

15 New Sound 47, I/2016

Another important aspect of your collaboration with performers/singers is cer- tainly your sort of “pedagogical” commitment, which, in fact, you’ve pursued for years now, promoting young singers? How important do you consider this kind of commitment, not only for yourself, but for Yugoslav pop music and how, in that context, do you see your efforts to revive the Subotica festival (the oldest festival of this kind in the country)? It doesn’t take me very long to tell whether someone has talent to do what they’re doing. So if I’m attracted to something, if I hear something out of the ordinary, then occasionally I support young people – singers and players. I in- vested much effort in reviving the Subotica Youth Festival, which was founded in 1961 by my father, who also ran it for the first five years. Our revival even started out nicely, but in the meantime the audience had changed completely. The original idea was to use the festival to present composers and entirely un- known singers from across the former Yugoslavia. It was total amateurism, but an honest and beautiful amateurism, with a refined audience; it was a real event. But today, when we’re totally surrounded by music reality TV shows, with en- tirely different habits in terms of lifestyle and music-listening, hardly anyone will come to see such performances or participate in such events.

Precisely those various “statuses” of your music, or, in this context, music- making, might serve to describe your trajectory from the piano to keyboard and back? For the sake of this conversation, could you “separate” your work in performance from your work in composition, or would that in fact be impossi- ble? Maybe it would be best to say: Bata Kovač – “a performing composer”? I prefer playing, for which I have fewer and fewer opportunities; because com- posing is something that happens unexpectedly; or you get a commission and it’s a job that needs to be done. When I’m composing by commission, it doesn’t matter what domain of music it is. And audience-wise, my songs were always more fortunate. When you have a text that is explicit – that’s what you say and what you sing – that has an effect on your listeners, they see a movie; whereas instrumental music is much stronger in terms of emotion, because it lets you create your own image – there’s nothing to guide or thwart you… Korni grupa never played dance rock. Whenever we played “Put za Istok”, our most r’n’r song, as soon as the tempo changed, the audience would stop, it bothered them, so I had to consider going back to the familiar, for their sake. When I’m playing jazz or, rather, free improvisation, I don’t think in those terms.

16 Mikić, V., (Foot)notes on Music – An Interview with Kornelije Bata Kovač

The last question may actually serve to take us to the following question, with which I’d like to conclude our conversation. Namely, in your discography, there is a release titled Dvojni identitet (Double Identity). In light of your various activities as well as the different historical/cultural formations that, because you were born in 1942, shaped your life journey, is it possible to speak of “dou- ble identities” of Kornelije Kovač – a composer and performer, a Yugoslav and an ex-Yugoslav, a Yugoslav star and an ex-Yugoslav celebrity? Specifically concerning that release, Dvojni identitet, which we recorded in my home during the bombing, I had neither a large pool of musicians to choose from, nor much equipment. It was later processed in a big studio. I didn’t have enough resources to realise what I wanted. On the other hand, if we look at my entire life story, throughout my life, I’ve always felt both like a Hungarian and a Serb. That release is precisely an expression of that “split”, which I, too, find somewhat hard to navigate. I get very emotional regarding some things from Serbian history, while I’m totally “owned” by Hungarian culture. No matter how I’ve identified myself, I’ve never met anyone who objected to my being one and the other. But above all else, I think, “black on white”, I’m a Yugoslav who managed to reach the stars by playing and composing using black and white keys and win the public’s approval as well as remain himself and win the approval of his peers. I think I’ve managed much better in that sort of “split”, which is, in fact, what life is all about.

17 New Sound 47, I/2016

18 In Memoriam

IN MEMORIAM

Article received on July 6th 2016 Article accepted on July 6th 2016 UDC: 394.4:793.3]:929 Васић О.

Vesna Karin* University of Novi Sad, Academy of Arts, Department of Music – Ethnomusicology

Olivera Vasić (August 18, 1946 – October 28, 2015)

Olivera Vasić – Coka, an ethnochoreologist and a retired full professor, passed away on the 28th October 2015, in Belgrade. She was a full time professor at the Faculty of Music in Belgrade, where she taught Ethnochoreology and Ethnol- ogy. Olivera Vasić was born in Gornja Badanja (a village in the west of Serbia). After finishing primary school she went to Belgrade, where she continued her education. Although she graduated from the Faculty of Economics, her love for traditional dances and customs proved stronger so she also studied Ethnochore- ology at the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade. There she earned her doctorate with the guidance of her doctoral advisor, Professor Petar Vlahović. The topic of her dissertation was The Dance Tradition of Podrinje in the Light of Modern Ethnochoreological Studies (1987). During her studies, she was an active dancer in the Cultural Artistic Society “Gradimir” in Belgrade, where she later worked as an artistic manager. After her studies, Olivera Vasić got a job at the Ethnographic Museum in Belgrade, but she parallelly did field research. While doing field research, she * Author’s contact information: [email protected]

19 New Sound 47, I/2016 met Dimitrije O. Golemović, with whom she started cooperation which lasted until the end of her life. It was Dimitrije O. Golemović who invited her in 1990 to the Faculty of Music in Belgrade to begin a career as a professor. The same year, she founded the Centre for the Study of the Folk Dances of Serbia, which in 2013 became an autonomous professional organization known as the Centre for Research and Preservation of the Traditional Dances of Serbia (CIOTIS). The idea behind the foundation of this Centre was to educate artistic managers of cultural-artistic organizations through seminars for learning the traditional dances of Serbia. For this purpose, Olivera Vasić and Dimitrije O. Golemović published, as editors, the work Folk Dances of Serbia, in which there are ki- netograms of the traditional dances of Serbs, Croats, Slovaks, Hungarians, Ru- thenes and Romanians, as well as descriptions of certain customs, transcriptions of melodies and songs of the studied regions of Serbia. Besides working as a full professor at the Faculty of Music in Belgrade, Olivera Vasić also worked at the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad, the Academy of Arts in Banja Luka (Bosnia and Herzegovina), and in 2006, she introduced the Track for Teachers of Traditional Dances at the Professional Higher School for Teachers in Kikinda, where she also worked as a professor. Her professional interests were Laban’s kinetography, typology of dance patterns and step patterns, so called ethnochoreological units of Serbia, dance events and ritual dances. That resulted in Professor Vasić’s systematization and grouping of traditional dances in so-called ethnochoreologic wholes in Serbia: north, central, west, northeast and southeast Serbia, with which she made a great contribution to science, and in that way established the ethnochoreologic dialects of Serbia, that is, a certain typology of basic patterns of steps in tradi- tional dances in Serbia. Additionally, she particularly participated in the com- parative research of dances and the research of ritual dances, about which she wrote in many papers. Moreover, the introduction of Laban’s kinetography within the subject of Ethnochoreology in universities is entirely to her credit. Thanks to Professor Vasić, who knew how to recognize the importance of this discipline for the correct understanding of traditional dances, today, we have a big collection of recorded dances (over a thousand) in a world known move- ment notation system. She published numerous scientific works and studies in Serbia and abroad, as well as 11 books with kinetograms and melodies. She was an active member of the International Council for Traditional Music (ICTM) and the International Council of Kinetography Laban/Labanotation (ICKL). In October 2014, she retired and ended her career as a professor. How strong and cheerful her spirit was can be seen from the answer she gave me

20 In Memoriam when I once asked her what she was going to do now that she had retired. Coka only laughed and said: “What do you mean, what am I going to do!? I am plan- ning to write eight more books, so I’m immediately getting down to writing.” And she did just that. She started to write, but... The realization of Coka’s plans must be continued by her successors. Olivera Vasić – Coka was a humane per- son, a friend, and a teacher. She was always there for her students and for all those who have traditional dances in their heart. With her selfless, honest and disciplined work, inquisitive spirit and incredible energy, Olivera Vasić left an indelible trace in the field of ethnochoreology, but also in our hearts. Translated by Sonja Gobec

21 New Sound 47, I/2016

22 STUDIES

Article received on September 29th 2014 Article accepted on February 24th 2015 UDC: 7.01 14 Бадју А.

Bojana Matejić* University of Art, Faculty of Fine Arts, Belgrade

Vergebliches Warten? Badiou, Event, and Human Emancipation in Music

Abstract: The polemic on waiting for human emancipation in music belongs to the mod- ern aesthetic plane, where Adorno’s and Heidegger’s manuscripts occupy a specific place. However, while Heidegger’s ontology of the waiting implies waiting for the metaphysics of presence (Will), Adorno maintains that music should rather express “waiting in vain” (vergebliches Warten) by its spatio-temporal structuration, given that “after Auschwitz” philosophy with metaphysical assumptions is no longer possible. In the light of Adorno’s modern interpretation of waiting in vain, my aim is to examine Badiou’s conception of the Event-Subject in music. The thesis of this paper is that Adorno’s concept of waiting in vain expresses defeatism of the known (perseverance-of-self) – which, due to its own character of filled affect of disappointment, does not leave time-space for newness. On the trail of Badiou’s ontology of subtraction, I oppose the conception of affirmative, non-es- chatological, chiliastic expectation (“surplus of waiting”) to the passive waiting in vain in music. Keywords: Vergebliches Warten (“waiting in vain”), non-eschatological, chiliastic expec- tation, Event, Subject of music, Wagner, Adorno, Badiou

* Author contact information: [email protected] 23 New Sound 47, I/2016

The question: “A new world? Yes, but when?”, which Badiou poses in his epon- ymous essay1 is a question about the gap between that which is “no more” or, rather, between dissatisfaction with the existing state of art (the art world) and the kind of art that is (eagerly) awaited – real art, its truth, real life, which is still not here. It concerns an emanation of the conflict between the empirical condition of the existing art world and its truth. Badiou begins from what is in his view an utterly modern issue, one that accompanied avant-garde art through- out the 20th century. He notes that throughout the 20th century, the politics of emancipation, that is, the idea of revolutionizing man was closely followed by a “lurking figure”, in the domain of art as well as in other spheres. This is a rather specific concept of waiting, which the new millennium has, for all intents and purposes, “rejected” and proclaimed, on the one hand, “futile” and, on the other hand, “terrorist”. Waiting or, rather, “lurking”, says Badiou, was meant to main- tain “pure vigilance”. However, modern, poetic waiting above all entailed pre- serving the threshold, keeping waiting (as I will demonstrate regarding Adorno) by maintaining indifference about that which may or may not occur. Because those who wait are those who may still have hope. So, departing from Brecht’s text “Das Proletariat ist nicht in einer weißen Weste geboren” (The Proletariat Wasn’t Born in a White Vest, 1932), Badiou discusses the modernist obsession with the discrepancy between the agonist, nihilist, and antagonist2 avant-garde tendency of destroying art (exposing the Real) and its “new” – its “beginning”: “When will the new finally come? Is the new already at work, can we already discern its development? Or are we still spellbound by what is merely an old form of the new, a ‘new’ that is all too ancient because it still prisoner to destruction? Consequently, the question is ‘When?’”.3 In the present context, I would point to Marx’s key claim in his “Letters to Ruge”: it is necessary to “develop the true reality” “from the forms peculiar to existing reality”,4 because all emancipatory, critical, avant-garde art rests on the assumption of a fundamental gap between the existing condition, critiqued from the perspective of its inherent, immanent conflicts, that is, an- tagonisms, and its immanent opposite – the truth or, rather, in the spirit of early

1 Alain Badiou, “A New World? Yes, but When?”, in: The Century, Cambridge, MA, Polity Press, 2007, 44. 2 Cf. Renato Pođoli [Renato Poggioli], “Agonizam i futurizam”, in: Teorija avangardne umetnosti, Belgrade, Nolit, 1975, 95–111. 3 Alain Badiou, “A New World?”, op. cit., 44. 4 Karl Marx, “Marxova pisma Rugeu”, in: Rani radovi, Zagreb, Naprijed, 1967, 52. Avail- able in English at https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/letters/43_09.htm (accessed 24 August 2016).

24 Matejić, B., Vergebliches Warten? Badiou, Event, and Human Emancipation ...

Marx, the realization of the true man, of true life, of life that one is born with. I believe that this claim, though following the trail of neo-Marxist interpretations, forms the basis of the 20th-century avant-garde maxim of the conjunction of art and life.

The Event, the Truth, and the Subject of Music The truth of/in art, in early Marx and Badiou alike, with all the contradictions of that notion in mind, does not denote the present condition of art, but nor is it an entity outside of the given reality. However, what is awaited is the realization of the truth in the existing art world and work of art. Although Marx believes in the total emancipation of society, that is, of art and culture, as well as of man from man by way of art and culture from the perspective of thinking the necessity of radical change, Marx certainly does not assume an authentic source of truth (“human nature”, “essence”, “the true man”) that would be a direct negation of the existing, static reality. In this light, the existing art world should be viewed as a specific historical given and its immanent truth as its historical moment, as something that is historically contingent and cannot be a moral postulate in the spirit of Enlightenment ideology, which Marx himself spurned. Ultimately, I be- lieve that that is what might be related with Badiou’s position: the event of true art, as a generic truth procedure, happens in a certain place in a given situation, so that the place may be localized (a new name: serialism, dodecaphony, Cub- ism, Dada, etc.): Truth is here the generic set of the evental consequences of these mutations of art. It’s a sequence of a specific art. There is, for example, a truth of the resources of sound discovered by serial music. ... the evental mutation renders the truth of the sequence that precedes it. It is absolutely evident, for example, that Schoenberg’s atonal proposition yields the truth of the point reached by tonality itself. In reality, Schoenberg produces, in a certain sense, the truth of Wagner or Mahler. The latter appear as figures of tonality’s decomposition at a juncture where tonality could no longer continue as such. This impossibility of continuing is sealed or validated by the new musical creation. The event opens up in this way the possibility of understanding the very situation in which it is produced. Dodecaphonic, then serial, music produces a definitive truth of the whole tonal sequence at the same time as it puts an end to it.5 In Badiou’s philosophical optics, the truth of art is that which is immanent to the work of art and not, as in the didactic Platonist transcendental regime of objective idealism, a normative instance imposed on art from without. ­Badiou

5 Alain Badiou, with Fabien Tarby, Philosophy and the Event, Cambridge, MA, Polity Press, 2013, 70–71.

25 New Sound 47, I/2016 clearly says as much in the opening piece in his Handbook of Inaesthetics,6 when considering the four historic-aesthetic dispositives of art: didactic, roman- tic, classical, and (avant-garde) didactic-romantic, and when he proposes a new perspective of thinking art as a “pedagogical practice” that has coincided, ever since classical ancient, that is, Platonic thought, with the modern problem of hu- man emancipation in the field of art. Let me briefly digress to point out that to a significant degree, such a perspective of understanding the modalities of emanci- patory art became the subject of the vulgar-materialist representational aesthetics of orthodox Marxism during the 20th century, which was, as is well known, most radically epitomized in the ideology of socialist realism. Badiou’s novel propo- sition of art as a generic truth procedure introduces thinking the truth of art as singular and immanent, which may be reduced to the following three statements: 1. truth is immanent to the artwork and and to art as a generic procedure; 2. art is coextensive [suprotežna] with the truths it produces; 3. art is not a means of expressing truths imposed from without. In Badiou’s conceptual matrix, another name for artistic truth is “the trace of the event” of art and in the context of music, say, Schoenberg’s new music, which is Badiou’s favourite example, the trace or truth of the event implies that element in Schoenberg’s pieces, from so-called atonal expressionism, which may be dis- cerned in terms of an abstract formula of organizing comprising 12 constituent notes. “Where there used to be the system of scales and the basic harmony of the tonal system”, Badiou says, “we now have the free choice of a succession of dis- tinct notes, fixing the order in which these notes should appear or be combined, a succession that is called a series”.7 As we may see, it is a specific, serial type of

6 In Badiou’s philosophical optics, aesthetics should not be viewed in terms of its modern definition as the philosophical discipline that deals with “lower sensory perception” – as that which is somehow “primary” and “superior” in relation to art. On the contrary, Art is one of the three remaining generic truth procedures (politics, love, science), in other words, a sphere that is “itself capable of truth” and that conditions aesthetics (philosophy). Therefore, this is neither aesthetics in the classical, traditional philosophical sense, nor anti-aesthetics, but inaesthetics as the kind of thinking art that is conditioned by its truth, based on “intra-phil- osophical effects”. Art as thought or, more precisely, the truths that art as thought activates, are irreducible to other truths: scientific, political, or truths of love. That means that art, as a singular regime of thought, is not reducible to philosophy – it cannot be identified with phi- losophy, theory, or any other cognitive sphere, because art and the work of art possess their own sui generis. 7 Alain Badiou, “Une variante musicale de la mètaphysique du sujet”, in: Logiques des Mondes. L’Être et l’Événement, II, Paris, Éditions du Seuil, 2006, 90. Cf. Alain Badiou, “A Musical Variant of the Metaphysics of the Subject”, Parrhesia. A Journal of Critical Philoso- phy, No. 2, 29–36.

26 Matejić, B., Vergebliches Warten? Badiou, Event, and Human Emancipation ... organizing the 12 tones of the chromatic scale, no longer subject to the hierarchy of tonal construction and the laws of classical harmony, but “treated equally”, according to the principle of succession. Such a serial type of organization di- rects tones to one another, “to their reciprocal relations in a determined acoustic space”. Moreover, Badiou asserts that the truth of the event in the context of music should not be mistaken for dodecaphonic or serial music as such, but that it denotes a certain novelty that is inscribed in the existing musical discourse, in its traces, which is, according to Badiou, easiest to express with the proposition that there may be an organization of tones as that which determines the musical universe on the basis subtracted [la soustraction] from classical tonality. In Badiou’s view, the truth/s of art is/are conditioned by the event/s, which is nothing but a disappearing separator8 – an un-temporal moment that sepa- rates an anterior state of an object (the state of art and/or form of a work of art) from a future state. Badiou’s argumentation regarding the possibility of af- firming the subject of art “from poststructuralism” involves proposing the af- firmation of the subject of art in terms of temporality – the time of “stitching together” artistic truth/s, which is/are the trace/s of the event/s, which, however, no one even knows when it/they took place, bearing in mind that this concerns the exempted/exceptional place of its/their occurrences – although that place may be localized – and the body of art that is the artwork itself, its materiality, “its fact” or, as Badiou would put it, that which “carries” the truth toward its “appearance”. The subject of art, I must note straight away, is not another name for the individual; rather, it denotes an artistic sequence/configuration, a set comprising a multitude of artistic truths, wherein they are “verified”. Badiou does not mean this proposition of the subject of art in terms of the tradition of avant-garde art, which would itself be oxymoronic, or, in the context of this analysis, in terms of the tradition of avant-garde music, but as a specific multiple generic sequence (which means, paradoxically, that it is temporally limited, but only in relation to a given historical situation, although it simultaneously belongs to an artis- tic configuration as a subject of art, which is endless and trans-historical, be- cause it can infinitely expand and proliferate across both time and space and thus come to encompass worlds that are temporally and spatially wide apart (epochs, histories, nations, etc.), wherein emancipatory change in art by way of subjec- tive temporality – of time as a subject of art – unfolds diagonally: on the one hand, this is subjection time [vreme subjektivacije], which enables separating individual events, so that each event may be discerned in its own singularity (an

8 Antonio Calcagno, Badiou and Derrida: Politics, Events and their Time, London, Con- tinuum, 2007, 75.

27 New Sound 47, I/2016 artistic sequence within a particular world); on the other hand, it is subjective time, which is subjective intervention as such, as that which resolves the event (an infinite artistic configuration in a trans-historical interval), i.e. as that which allows the event to be “recognized”. In fact, this concerns “fidelity” (fidélité) in a singular event, as the “undecidable multitude”.9 However, this singular change is neither ontological nor transcendental. The event “knows” no time. Therefore, one should stress that this subjective and subjecting time is not another name for history, although, paradoxically, Badiou argues that “there is only a history of the eternal, because only the eternal proceeds from the event”.10 This is a good time to cite another, even more paradoxical claim of Badiou’s, one that he explains in a number of instances and which appears to be in contradic- tion with the preceding claim: “there is no history”.11 The first paradoxical claim one should rather view in line with Badiou’s argumentation with which he seeks to defend it and which belongs neither to the system of classical metaphysics, where eternal truths exist regardless of any historicity, nor to post-philosophical relativism, which claims that there are no (eternal) truths, but only discursive constructs and utterances inscribed in a (given) historical-cultural context, there- by reducing the notion of truth to particular instances of making utterances in relation to a given field of reference. In other words, there is no history with a capital “H” in terms of a metaphysical totality, that is, a totality that might be recognized in the tradition of philosophical thought from Hegel to Marx, nor is there a mere plurality of histories where truths appear only as effects of a given cultural-historical inscription. Artistic truths are therefore eternal precisely be- cause they are historical: They insist in history, tying together temporal segments across the centuries, always unfolding more profoundly the infinity of their potential consequences, through cap- tivated subjects, separated sometimes by distant epochs, but all equally transfixed by the urgent eventality that illuminates their present.12 To wrap up this analysis: in Logics of Worlds, volume two of his major work, Being and Event, Badiou attempts to answer the question of how (artistic) truth appears in the world, in other words, to solve the problem of “linking” be- ing and “being-there” (existence) that unfolds in the (particular) world on a non-

9 Bojana Matejić, “Emancipation and Other in Art: Derrida alongside Badiou”, in: Nika Škof and Tadej Pirc (eds.), It’s Not All Black and White: Perspectives on Otherness, Gornja Rad- gona, A priori, 2013, 317. 10 Quentin Meillassoux, “History and Event in Alain Badiou”, Parrhesia, 2011, 12, 1. 11 Cf. Alain Badiou, Théorie du sujet, Paris, Éditions du Seuil, 1982. Cf. Alain Badiou, Logiques des Mondes, L’Être et l’Événement, II, Paris, Éditions du Seuil, 2006. 12 Quentin Meillassoux, op. cit., 4.

28 Matejić, B., Vergebliches Warten? Badiou, Event, and Human Emancipation ... essentialist and non-substantialist basis. What he means here is “worlds”, to put it simply, particular historical contexts, states of situations, cultural contexts, epochs, artistic moments – for instance, one of those worlds might be music itself, comprising infinite other worlds (for example, classicism, romanticism, music theory, minimalism, etc.) – wherein a singular event, a singular change may occur and keep occurring. Each world consists of infinite other worlds and each one of those worlds is, in a sense, “historical”. But that “historicity” is not a history inscribed by eternal truths. It concerns understanding the historicity of worlds as an immanent mode of temporising the inscribed into transcenden- tal regimes within given worlds. Since there are an infinite number of worlds, which are distinguished by their transcendental horizons, Badiou may argue that there are as many “histories” as there are worlds.13 However, those histories ul- timately “do not exist”. A world may be an epoch, the historical context of an art (for instance, the emergence of Schoenberg’s dodecaphony, bearing in mind that the truth of dodecaphony is trans-historical and trans-worldly), which means an infinite multitude of worlds and histories, which are temporally successive and synchronic, which ultimately entails that a given being or (emancipatory) truth may emerge in infinite various ways at one and the same time and in different (historical, cultural, epochal, etc.) worlds. The subject, therefore, is not an individual but a “set” of artworks, or, rath- er, a “differential point in an artistic procedure”. This “set” of artworks and ar- tistic phenomena consists of artistic sequences (“contemporary” or “new” art at a given historical moment, in a given art world), which come to be incorporated in the infinite trans-historical configuration of art, inscribed with eternal truths; truths that are only artistic truths, because, in Badiou’s words, “there is no truth of truth”.14 In Badiou’s argumentation, a work of art is neither an event, nor the truth of art. A work of art is only the body of truth, that is, a “fact” of art, “mate- riality” whereby art is realized as a generic procedure. In this process, the work of art itself is a “local instance or differential point of truth”. The individual is a living being that is “inscribed into the subject of the sensuous” – an artistic con- figuration. Furthermore, the author of a work of art is not the cause of the work, but rather its “disappearing cause”, because s/he is involved in the process of producing the work. Artistic truth does not emerge as an expression or reflection of the author. Finally, in Badiou’s antihumanist perspective on art theory, the subject is not another name for authorship.

13 Sergei Prozorov, “Universality and Historicity”, in: World Politics. Void Universalism I, New York, Routledge, 2014, 88. 14 Alain Badiou, “Art and Politics”, in: Handbook of Inaesthetics, Stanford, Stanford Uni- versity Press, 2005, 12.

29 New Sound 47, I/2016

The subject of art is constituted at the moment when an artistic sequence/ configuration is established, which, as temporality, unfolds between change in the world and non-change of being. An artistic configuration, Badiou claims, is a generic multitude of artworks without a corresponding name, form, or refer- ence to a genre or an “objective” period in the history of art; equally, it cannot be named or totalised on the basis of the technical dispositive of art.15 In other words, the subject of art is nothing but the subject of producing truth/s between singular change in art in a concrete situation and generic truth.16 Badiou illus- trates this rather well when he argues that “Schoenberg produces … in a certain sense, the truth of Wagner and Mahler”,17 just as Picasso produces the truth of the unknown author of a wall-painting of a horse from the Chauvet cave, where a “pure form of life”18 is realized as that which is shared (the universality of truth) in their particularities and different, historically and contextually remote worlds. One may note that in Badiou’s doctrine, the (artistic) event possesses, on the one hand, a universal dimension, at the same time, however, maintaining its particular dimension, without one excluding the other, as it happens in Hegel’s conception of absolute spirit and in the artistic domain of the radicalization of the “end of art” (Aufhebung), which means that these two dimensions “meet” and in that “meeting” “verify” each other. The particular truth of a singular event always unfolds in a given historical constellation, in a given art world, in a giv- en place (la site), “subtracted” from the classified knowledge of the existing art world and, paradoxically, partakes in subjection, a specific temporality that is nothing but a sequence of an infinite artistic configuration. In that context, the following example from Badiou may serve as a good illustration: The history of serial music between Schönberg’s Variations for Orchestra (1926) and, let’s say, the first version of Pierre Boulez’s Répons (1981) is not an anarchic history. It treats a sequence of problems, comes up against obstacles, … extends its domain … This history is coextensive with the existence of a subject (often bizarrely named ‘contemporary music’).19 This kind of perspective on thinking truth in art is, conditionally speaking, rather close to Marx’s, from his “Contribution to the Critique of Political Econ- omy” (1857–59), where he argues that the difficulty in understanding the very

15 Ibid., 13. 16 Alain Badiou, The Subject of Change: Lessons from the European Graduate School, New York – Dresden, Atropos Press, 2013, 120. 17 Ibid., 71. 18 Alain Badiou, “Example artistique: chevaux”, in: Logiques des Mondes, op. cit., 27. 19 Alain Badiou, Logics of Worlds: Being and Event, 2, London, Continuum, 2006, 81.

30 Matejić, B., Vergebliches Warten? Badiou, Event, and Human Emancipation ... essence of the truth of art and the work of art – he cites the example of ancient Greek art and epic – lies not so much in understanding the contingency of cer- tain forms of artistic activity and their historical, social, and politico-economic dispositive, but the reason why all these artistic truths are “alive” for all indi- viduals, regardless of their social status, epoch, or historical context.20 Therefore, the concept of infinite artistic configuration implies that which cannot be named, “counted”, “measured”, or “calculated” within the space of art in a given temporal context; at a historical juncture. Infinite artistic configura- tion affirms art as “subtracted” from all previous classifications and anticipa- tions. (Artistic) truths, says Quentin Meillassoux, “cannot exist in a Heaven of Ideas: they are the result of an undecidable event and of a fidelity of subjects that attempt to investigate their world in light of it”.21 What is involved in this unde- cidability of the event in the field of art as a generic truth procedure? Badiou’s argumentation regarding the undecidability of the event refers to the way the event itself should be thought in relation to the factual state of a given situation and, most importantly, to the mode of one’s own occurrence in space and time. In fact, as I already tried to show, the event does not occur, because it is always already something that has disappeared (an un-temporal moment) at the moment of its own inscription, that is, the localization of its place, on which basis one may cognize that the event really took place. However, precisely this perspective of thinking the event of art gives rise to the dimension of the unde- cidability of multitude in the world, because an occurrence of that sort, in a quite indeterminate way, implies the doubt that perhaps nothing really happened, “ex- cept the illusion of novelty”.22

Vergebliches Warten in Music: Adorno vs. Badiou Following this attempt to provide a careful explication of the important points in Badiou’s argumentation concerning the contingency of the subject of music and art in general on the event of truth, I can move on to the main issue: if the event, in a contingent way, “precedes” the subject of art and conditions the production of a subject that is an artistic configuration, does that imply that one shouldwait for events, that is, for situations corresponding to an affirmative emancipation of man, for an affirmativegeneric humanity? What does this affirmativityentail and in what way may pure waiting have an emancipatory dimension? How does the

20 Karl Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, New York, International Publishers, 1970. 21 Quentin Meillassoux, “History and Event in Alain Badiou”, op. cit., 1. 22 Ibid., 3.

31 New Sound 47, I/2016 human animal at all come into the possession of its own activity along the axis of recipient–author, which is, according to Hannah Arendt, in addition to work and production, a fundamental conditio humana, given that in acting and speak- ing man is confirmed qua man and thus emerges in “his unique diversity”?23 It seems that this is a question that “must not be posed”, because it evokes the “threat of the metaphysics of presence” of emancipatory art as concrete life, as “alive”, which in postmodernist culture bears the responsibility for “Auschwitz”,24 that which must happen never again. However, this question re- garding the Messianic status of the conception of event in Badiou’s conceptual matrix is neither unjustified, nor is it being posed here for the first time. Daniel Bensaïd is one of those who, a few years ago, similarly asked:25 What exactly is an event? Aleatory by nature, the event cannot be predicted outside a singular situation, nor even deduced from that situation without some unpredictable chance operation. … Badiou’s notion of the political tips over into a wholly imagi- nary dimension: this is politics made tantamount to an act of levitation, reduced to a series of unconditioned events and ‘sequences’ whose exhaustion or end remains forever mysterious. As a result, history and the event become miraculous in Spino- za’s sense – a miracle is ‘an event the cause of which cannot be explained’. Politics can only flirt with a theology or aesthetics of the event.26 I am not far from agreeing with Bensaïd’s position. Indeed, it seems as if in- dividuals, recipients, creators, authors, etc. are “condemned” to wait for mysteri- ous events that no one knows when or how they will occur, because in historical or, if you will, world terms, they happen in an utterly unpredictable fashion, without any possibility for individuals to affect them and in total disregard for individuals’ vital needs at a given historical moment and in a given art world. “Badiou remains silent on this score”, Bensaïd says.27 Paradoxically, doesn’t this issue concern that same maxim by Marx, already mentioned above, that the true reality should be developed from the forms peculiar to existing reality? For, in proposition No. 6 in his text “Une variante musicale de la métaphysique du sujet”,28 Badiou talks about the existence of two modalities of the subject: the first modality, he argues, “assumes the form of adjusting” within the old art

23 Hannah Arendt, Vita Activa, Zagreb, August Cesarec, 1991, 168. 24 Cf. Theodor Adorno, Negative Dialectics, London, Routledge, 1973. 25 Daniel Bensaïd, “Alain Badiou and the Miracle of Event”, in: Peter Hallward (ed.), Think Again: Alain Badiou and the Future of Philosophy, London – New York, Continuum, 2004. 26 Ibid., 97–98. 27 Ibid. 97. 28 Alain Badiou, “Une variante musicale de la mètaphysique du sujet”, in: Logiques des mondes: L’Être et l’événement, op. cit., 92.

32 Matejić, B., Vergebliches Warten? Badiou, Event, and Human Emancipation ... world; with regards to the existing art world and in that light, it entails opening a new possibility, one that is immanent to the existing art world, that is, music. The second modality examines the limitations that the art world imposes on the need for choice and in that regard, the subject’s second modality is what Badiou elaborated in his Théorie des points. In the former case, Badiou argues, the sub- ject is realized as “as an infinite negotiation with the world, whose structures it stretches and opens. In the second case, it presents itself both as a decision – whose localization is imposed by the impossibility of the open – and as the obligatory forcing of the possible”.29 And yet, both modalities are conditioned by the consequences of artistic events, as Badiou clearly states in the opening sentence of his sixth proposition. One cannot ignore the problem of thinking emancipatory music, which as- sumes “freedom” in music and art, that is, what Marx calls concrete, (human) generic life – elaborated and defended as the ideal of art and the politics of aestheticization especially by neo-Marxist authors – in the domains of modern philosophy, aesthetics, and art theory, comprised in interference with the theo- logical paradigm and tradition. Didn’t Badiou himself comment precisely on a situation from Christian theological discourse, the situation of St. Paul, as an object of re-reading with a view to examine the problem of a non-substantialist and non-essentialist “grounding” of universalism? It is a kind of philosophic- aesthetic Messianism, which is, to put it simply, closely linked with the notion of utopia, inasmuch as the latter expresses the necessity of opening a (new) fu- ture, that which is, to use Alain Badiou’s terms, present but not also included in the existing world of art. In the context of this problem and with reference to music, what comes to mind is the entire work of Theodor Adorno, who repeatedly asserted that “after Auschwitz”, modern philosophy, with its metaphysical assumptions, is no lon- ger possible. The failure of culture, the failure of the Enlightenment project,30 and, finally, the failure of change, of man’s emancipation (from man) and the need and demand for attaining autarchy in the field of art, Adorno claims, were all proven by “Auschwitz”, which was allowed to happen “in the midst of the traditions of philosophy, of art, and of the enlightening sciences”.31 What is the import of Adorno’s claim? It concerns the question of whether metaphysics is still possible at all, which “must reflect the negation of the finite which finite-

29 Alain Badiou, Logics of Worlds, op. cit., 82. 30 Cf. Max Horkheimer and Teodor W. Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2002. 31 Theodor Adorno, Negative Dialectics, op. cit., 366.

33 New Sound 47, I/2016 ness requires”.32 Because, as Adorno claims, the concept of truth, following the entire trajectory of German Idealism, from Kant all the way to Marx, may be reduced to the hypothesis of “something imagined for no reason”, with thought deluding itself into imagining that it possesses that which is lost (the generic quality of the humanum or, rather, the concreteness of a “living” work of art). This place of emancipated and emancipatory art, in a word, music as concrete life, as a total work of art (Gesamtkunstwerk), is the place that we eagerly await, but it is difficult to reach, because, apparently, it constitutes a Lacanian objet petit a, an object whose “Thing” (das Ding) resides on the other side of the plea- sure principle.33 It was the desire that haunted the entire 20th century in the do- mains of politics, art, science, and love, the desire to “expose the Real”, to reach the place of absolute autarchy, the experience of happiness, the concrete life of a social human being in the domain of artistic acting. If we come too close to this object, whose place is “that right” to assumed concrete life, we will realize that it is not there. That is the artistic demand expressed by the entire 20th century in the need to reach the other side of the illusion, to “reveal” the Real of art and the work of art and to localize its place. Echoing Kant, Adorno argues that precisely because we find ourselves inside and amidst the phenomenon, completely sur- rounded by it, that “inside” and “amidst” prevents us from seeing: “the person who is happy is too close to it to be able to have any standpoint towards it within consciousness”.34 “There is”, Adorno assures us, “an extremely deep constellation between metaphysical experience and happiness”, “something within objects and, at the same time, remote from them”.35 If the very feeling of happiness is still possible by means of finding somewhere something like the concrete life of art, then it is possible, Adorno argues, because it drives the subject of such an experience to equate “surviving traces of the life” with concrete life. Precisely for that reason, Adorno argues that “the form in which metaphysical experience still manifests itself with any compelling force today is not that which has made itself suspect as a sphere of Romantic wishing, but is the experience which leads to the ques- tion: Is that all?”.36 Adorno maintains that the form wherein metaphysical expe- rience is “revealed” to us most intensely is the situation of “waiting” (Warten).

32 Ibid., 392. 33 Stefan Köchel, “Vergebliches Warten: Die Kunst in der Kultur”, in: Das Gesetz des Re- alen: Lacan, Merleau-Ponty, Adorno, Vienna – Münster, MLit Verlag, 2013, 169. 34 Theodor Adorno, “Metaphysical Experience: Fruitless Waiting”, in: Metaphysics: Con- cept and Problems, 2002, 140. 35 Ibid. 36 Ibid., 143.

34 Matejić, B., Vergebliches Warten? Badiou, Event, and Human Emancipation ...

In Negative Dialectics, Adorno makes an extremely important claim, assuming a distinction between “waiting in vain” or “idle waiting” (vergebliches Warten) and expectation, arguing that idle waiting does not strive for “what we expect” at all, but “reflects the condition measured by its denial”.37 Despair itself, over the existing art world, the existing state of affairs, is transformed, Adorno argues, into transcendental ideas that “bridge” the gap between despairing and wishing. But isn’t despair, in Bloch’s words, that negative affective state, the negative af- fect of expectation that determines the defeatism of its mental state, as opposed to the positive affect of expectation (expectance), hope, which “wrecks fear, and confidence, which corresponds to despair”:38 “Danger and faith are the truth of hope, in such a way that both are gathered in it, and danger contains no fear, faith no lazy quietism. Hope is thus ultimately a practical, a militant emotion, it unfurls banners. If confidence emerges from hope as well, then the expectant emotion which has become absolutely positive is present or as good as pres- ent, the opposite pole to despair”.39 An emancipatory work of music would be a work, Adorno would say, that managed to express the situation of waiting in vain. Such a work of music would not imply the Hegelian philosophic-aesthetic essentialism of authenticity as that which emerges by overcoming the negation of the positive, the existing, a claim that made a significant impact on theoreti- cal interpretations of Marx’s positions toward the premise of art becoming life; such a work would be “alive” inasmuch as it would be realized as a mediation between individuals and society40 – a mediation of waiting for the Real in vain. For instance, the key segments of Alban Berg’s opera Wozzeck are precisely those that, according to Adorno, express waiting in vain, such as deferral, as do the narrative openness and literary structure in Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. Wozzeck, Adorno argues, expresses a tense retreat from its own starting position precisely at those moments when that position gains traction: “impulses of the work, alive in its musical atoms, rebel against the work that they produce. They tolerate no result”.41 However, this experience of waiting in vain in music, as a specific innervation, is entirely unrelated to authentic life, because, accord- ing to Adorno, “nothing could be experienced as truly alive if something that

37 Theodor Adorno, Negative Dialectics, op. cit., 375. 38 Ernst Bloch, “More on the Expectant Emotions (Anxiety, Fear, Terror, Despair, Hope, Confidence) and the Waking Dream”, in: The Principle of Hope. Volume One, Cambridge, MA, The MIT Press, 1996, 111. 39 Ibid., 112. 40 Stefan Köchel, “Vergebliches Warten”, op. cit., 171. 41 Theodor Adorno, Philosophy of New Music, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 2006, 56.

35 New Sound 47, I/2016 transcends life were not promised also”.42 Music is supposed to express with its narrative and spatiotemporal extent that there is no ultimate salvation one could hope for; in this perspective, waiting in vain implies waiting for the truth of art, the truth of the Real, but always with the reservation that it is only yet to come, meaning that it is never already here. Waiting is nothing but an experience of time; it is basically a utopian experience of not having a place. So, Adorno’s essential position regarding the negative imperative of wait- ing in vain expressed in music, aesthetics, and philosophy, is “Auschwitz”. It implies that something like that must happen never again and that music, among other things, must express that negative imperative. But what is the content of this negativity of a negative imperative? The answer lies in the unthinkability of the horror of the Real “Auschwitz” – in acting in the domain of music and art in line with what must never be repeated, which ultimately implies acting accord- ing to the principle of negating the negation of the positive. Therefore, Negative Dialectics implies that what is negative with regards to the positive must never turn into affirmation, into a totality, into something that one might, in Hegelian terms, overcome or transcend. Pursuing Adorno’s demand, Badiou seeks to examine the issue of affirma- tion as negation of the negative in “the case of Wagner”, bearing in mind that one of the key traits of waiting in vain in music is expressed in the ideality of the open work – a work that must never reach its absolute, its finality, its own ending. But why use Wagner as an example, the example of every critique of Wagner’s music, or, more precisely, of every critique of Wagnerism? Because the metaphysical problem of the Will and relating it to modernity, especially in the 20th century, is explicitly stated in all critiques of Wagnerism, from Nietzsche via Heidegger and Adorno, to mention only the most explicit examples, to the critiques that Lacoue-Labarthes developed in their wake. The politics of the Will and its “essential” link with modernity is at the heart of all critiques of Wagner’s music. The point is that in a certain sense, the very notion of waiting coincides with utopian Messianic waiting, which means with the problem that utopianism may transform into “bad science”.43 On the trail of Adorno’s Versuch über Wagner, Badiou opposes Adorno’s claim that Wagner’s operas are unable to express “any genuine waiting”,44 bear-

42 Theodor Adorno, Negative Dialectics, op. cit., 375. 43 Wesley Phillips, “The Metaphysics of Willing in the Case of Wagner”, Waiting in Vain? Metaphysics, Modernity and Music in the Work of T. W. Adorno, Martin Heidegger and Luigi Nono, Middlesex University’s Research Repository 2009, 58. http://eprints.mdx. ac.uk/11148/, accessed 4 June 2014, 13:56 PM. 44 Alain Badiou, “Reopening ‘The Case of Wagner’”, in: Five Lessons on Wagner, London – New York, Verso, 2010, 79.

36 Matejić, B., Vergebliches Warten? Badiou, Event, and Human Emancipation ... ing in mind Adorno’s position that Wagner’s expression of “waiting” in opera is one that is still “metaphysically oriented”, given that it concerns waiting for the final result. Adorno argues that “Wagner’s Bayreuth conception” of music rests on Hegelian absolute interest. Wagner’s operas are incapable of dramatiz- ing utopian modern waiting and instead express the expectation of evental fulfil- ment, Adorno claims. Besides implicating Wagnerism in Nazi ideology, Adorno accused Wagner’s music of anticipating cultural industry. In Badiou’s view, Adorno condemns Wagner’s music,45 arguing that it expresses a rigged sort of waiting, which is deeply teleological in its “latent dialectical Hegelianism”.46 Badiou’s critique of Adorno’s opposition to Wagner’s opera, which fol- lows the philosophical line that, each in his own way, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Lacoue-Labarthe also advanced, practically initiates a radical critique of Adorno’s reference to, for instance, one of the main scenes, in Act III of Tristan und Isolde, when Tristan dies and Isolde finally arrives, arguing that the very act of Isolde’s arrival demonstrates metaphysical expectation of the final. However, Badiou maintains that Wagner’s opera truly expresses futile waiting – pure wait- ing in the very spatiotemporal structure of that example. In many segments of the opera, according to Badiou’s interpretation, one may even detect a neglect of waiting in vain and emphasis on emptiness that is present in opposition to any kind of evocation of “final salvation” from Adorno’s theoretical-philosoph- ical perspective.47 Here, too, Badiou makes an extremely interesting and, in my view, rather important claim: in this particular situation, it is rather a case of a certain surplus of waiting, of exceeding waiting itself, because Isolde finally comes, but her arrival brings no “salvation” or “resolution” whatsoever to the conflicted, tragic situation, since Tristan dies anyway. Her arrival implies a type of waiting that exceeds waiting itself, when one is no longer, to use Jacques Lacan’s terminology, in the field of the Other’s desire, but on the other side of the pleasure principle, where the Will for pleasure in the desired object is evacu- ated. It is that domain of the relation of indifference that is established between the “principle” of happiness and the duty of individuals, as opposed to the void around which “pulsates” the death drive.48 Isn’t this that surplus of waiting that

45 One must take care in interpreting Adorno’s writings on Wagnerism, bearing in mind that his position is quite specific in regard to other critiques of Wagner’s music. He does not nec- essarily assume a pro or contra stance regarding Wagner, but only subjects Wagner to critical analysis, as a “phenomenon” in the history of music. 46 Ibid., 120. 47 Ibid., 122. 48 Cf. Alenka Zupančić, Ethics of the Real: Kant and Lacan, London – New York, Verso, 2000.

37 New Sound 47, I/2016 turns into expectation, but not the expectation of the metaphysical presence of an event, but the chiliastic non-eschatological expectation of the formalization of an artistic act? In Badiou’s surprisingly different interpretation of Beckett’s writing, espe- cially concerning Waiting for Godot (En attendant Godot), as opposed to the one attributed to the epoch’s existentialist perspective, Badiou emphasizes precisely the experience of loss, to put it more accurately, the disappearance of that which at the same moment, at the same place appeared as affirmation (as disappear- ing); that experience of an “error”, “mistake”, “lack”, “failure” “demands” and drives individuals to act and enables the perception of a place at the border of a void (event), a place of the disappearing experience of the generic quality of the humanum. In Badiou’s reading, Beckett demonstrates, similarly to Wagner, that the modern subject, at the most radical point of destitution, manages to turn around the given circumstances of an actual loss.49 And that is what Wagner’s operas, especially Tristan and Isolde, offer in plentiful supply: Isolde’s arrival implies no metaphysical fulfilment, end, resolution of the tragedy, because, to repeat, Tristan dies anyway, but an evocation of the experience of a lack as pure waiting, Badiou might say, as opposed to the passive dimension of waiting in vain. That experience of a lack implies neither passive disappointment over a (tragic) loss, nor the fullness of an experience of metaphysical salvation, but a surplus of waiting or waiting that exceeds itself, coming into the possession of aesthetic-political indifference. Furthermore, an important trait of Wagner’s music, Badiou notes, inheres in the very possibility of creating a perception of time, which is, as I showed above, nothing but the process of subjection itself, by citing three possible types of constructing time: a) the time of disparate worlds, or the time of wandering, as Badiou dubs it, which implies the process of transitioning from one world into another; b) the time of the period of uncertainty, which anticipates tempo- rality “in between”, meaning the creation of a utopian possibility that is always already not there; and, finally, c) thetime of the tragic paradox. One should also note that Badiou defends Wagner’s music in this segment, arguing that the dura- tion times of his music are entirely unrelated to this possible reading of time in Wagner’s operas. In fact, Wagner’s music, regardless of duration, always intro- duces, with its spatiotemporal structuring, a new perception of time.50 Although there are many indications of invoking a mere exposure of the

49 Chris Pawling, “Badiou and the Search for an Anti-Humanist Aesthetic”, in: Critical The- ory and Political Engagement: From May 1968 to the Arab Spring, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, 137. 50 Alain Badiou, “Reopening ‘The Case of Wagner’”, op. cit., 123.

38 Matejić, B., Vergebliches Warten? Badiou, Event, and Human Emancipation ...

Real of art, in other words, of aestheticizing politics in Wagner’s operas, among which, as the most explicit charges, one should cite the role of myth in produc- ing a construction of the origins of the German nation and the affirmation of to- tal art (Gesamtkunstwerk) in terms of a mere bio-political shaping of life and the implication of this notion with Adorno’s critically intoned cultural industry, Ba- diou cites several important trajectories for deconstructing the Messianic Will, which has been invoked against Wagner already since Nietzsche’s polemics: 1. the realization of the possibility of a subject, by showing the way whereby this subject of art may appear, in Wagner’s case, more closely connected to the very spatiotemporal process of performing music, Badiou argues, than to its accompanying narrative; 2. the multiplicity of hypotheses in Wagner’s operas as opposed to the unifica- tion of a Single Goal or purpose, whereby this multiplicity of assumptions is revealed at the moment of hesitating between them; 3. the demonstration of the splitting of the subject, which in Wagner’s music implies the presentness of an unresolvable division for which Wagner pro- poses a form (formalization of the act of splitting) and not form in terms of a final Hegelian reconciliation; 4. the principle of non-dialectic resolution, which Badiou identifies in Wagner’s attempt “to find a decisive figure” that would neither bring music to an end, nor centrally impose on the work a unifying Idea from without. It is a kind of resolution that is always “on the alert” – which prefers to examine the truth of art than “blindly” to adhere to it.51 Such a resolution rests on undecidability,52 which implies that there is no calculation, measure, or assessment to enable deciding in favour of One, that is, the Ego: and, finally, 5. transformation without finality, in a way that the form of this transformation should be sought in the resources of transformation itself.53

Waiting in Vain and Non-eschatological Chiliastic Expectation However, singular change in the field of art is not the same as absolute change, which is mostly interpreted by reference to the 20th century “passion for the Real”: the 20th century “passion for the real was the passion to create a new

51 I should mention that Badiou distinguishes between three subject figures: the believing, reactive, and obscure subject – sujet fidèle, sujet réactif, and sujet obscur. The present text concerns the sujet fidèle. 52 Alain Badiou, Ethics: An Essay on the Understanding of Evil, London – New York, Verso, 2002, 54. 53 Alain Badiou, “Reopening ‘The Case of Wagner’”, op. cit., 131.

39 New Sound 47, I/2016 world”.54 The demand for change, for emancipation as the absolute in the do- main of art, that is, music, as the 20th century showed in a number of instances and as the beginning of the new millennium, with the consequences of the fall of the Berlin Wall, keeps showing, has produced numerous “deviant” perspectives, such as those that Walter Benjamin characterized with the concept of “aestheti- cization of politics” (the conjunctions of fascism and art, socialism and art, com- munism and art, formal democracy and human rights and art, etc.). For, the issue of negating the existing state of art, of the fetishized givens of the senses, of the facticity of art, is not a strictly Hegelian issue, to which Badiou, to put it bluntly, adhered during his “Maoist phase”55 (the logic of contradiction, not difference), in other words, not dialectical materialism, but materialist dialectics. Badiou’s philosophy of event (in music) evokes the metaphysical problem of “waiting” (Warten) for the truth of an event for the sake of singular, eman- cipatory change in the domain of art (maturity of a situation), in other words, for the trace as requisite for the subjection process, bearing in mind that singu- lar change depends on the split in the objective world. From this perspective, Badiou’s affirmation of a new subject of art might be accused of “lazy quiet- ism”. For, the “threat” of the metaphysics of presence, as I argued above, almost inevitably coincides with the notion of waiting for something/anything (mere exposure of the Real), which goes hand in hand with the blind imperative of “destroying and purifying the Real of art” as a precondition for opening a rift or some other space in the existing state or world of art, as the starting point for reaching a “higher”, “possible” level of (human) freedom. Accordingly, my intent, finally, is to try to answer what kind of waiting for human emancipation in the domain of art and music as well as what kind of emancipation of music from the existing world of art this is. My intent stems not from a need to argue necessarily “for or against” Badiou’s theoretical perspective, which is extremely complex and rather heterogeneous, wherein I would locate the sheer difficulty of performing its reception and interpretation, but in a sense to “expand” Badiou’s theoretical perspective and try to offer a new vector for thinking this problem. Finally, this question coincides with another serious problem in Badiou’s aes- thetics, which occupies, among other things, the entire volume two of Being and Event – the question of the mode of relation in the dialectic pair affirmation/ne- gation, especially taking into account the defence of his thesis of emancipatory art as affirmative art. There is a place where Badiou says that one should not seek to set as an imperative a “revival” of events such as the famous May ’68, Schoenberg’s do-

54 Alain Badiou, The Subject of Change, op. cit., 116. 55 Cf. Alain Badiou, Théorie du sujet, Paris, Éd. du Seuil, 1982.

40 Matejić, B., Vergebliches Warten? Badiou, Event, and Human Emancipation ... decaphony, etc., because any programmatic attempt at such a “revival” would lead into Terror, the politicization of aesthetics. On the other hand, he argues that the “best thing we can do” as individuals in the present state of a radical expansion of global corporate capitalism, the global hegemony of democratic materialism, and subjection of art to this imperative is “to create the intellectual and practical forms of minimal fidelity [fidélité] to the earlier sequence and to the revival of its novelty”.56 Therefore, Badiou, on the one hand, argues that it is necessary to “construct” a framework (discourse?) for receiving events-to-come or events that-perhaps-won’t-come, in other words, to “prepare” (?) to receive the truth(s) of art as post-evental consequences. That somewhat approximates Foucault’s mode of thinking practices as preparing to access the truth (epimeleia heautou).57 On the other hand, he argues that the power of individuals’ actions, which means the power of subjections in the domain of art, depends exclusively on the emergence of this kind of artistic event/s in a particular world and on rec- ognizing their traces-truths, because events may occur without individuals be- ing “able” to “recognize” their truth/s. On the one hand, Badiou’s starting point approximates the radical humanistic position, which is, at least concerning his interpretation of Beckett’s play, inclined to think the emergence of a generic hu- manity, close to the Marxist humanism of Sartre, who, conditionally speaking, posits the subject as a project to be reached through a concrete process of eman- cipation, while on the other hand, he strives to remain faithful to post-Marxist anti-humanism, so that the realization of the subject of art depends entirely on unpredictable event/s.58 However, if the individual within a given world of art is “capable” of the practice of preparing for the truth, without any unpredict- able event that would condition that preparation practice, I could argue, follow- ing Badiou’s inaesthetic perspective, that precisely this practice of preparing a “framework” for recognizing the truth assumes the shape of pure waiting that exceeds itself. In other words, in line with this construction, the event of this new, emancipatory art is no “miracle” that may suddenly occur or that occurs and may give rise to a recognition of its consequences – in other words, the truth of subjection/s, but that event/s itself/themselves is/are break/s in the objective world, un-temporal non-beings, which are “always in their place” and which, as such, insert individuals into new chains of needs, desires, and drives for generic life. Events are therefore rare, instantaneous supplements of/within situations and introduce the new by establishing truth procedures.

56 Alain Badiou, “Thinking the Emergence of the Event”, in: Cinema, Cambridge, MA, Pol- ity Press, 2013, 110. 57 Michel Foucault, The Hermeneutics of the Subject: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1981–82, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2005, 29. 58 Alain Badiou, On Beckett, Manchester, Clinamen Press Limited, 2003, xxii.

41 New Sound 47, I/2016

In this context, I should right away point to an important statement Badiou makes in Logics of Worlds, which appears to explain the problem of the para- doxical relation between the event and the subject: “only if the subject is there, the event may appear at the evental place” – a place that is always at the border of a void (an empty set / non-being / event). This statement points to an almost “common-sense” question: what comes “first”, the event or the subject? The an- swer is that nothing comes “first”. At its very basis, the question betrays the answer that it seeks. This concerns a certain logic of reversibility, whereby not only does the event condition the subject, but the subject also conditions the event. In other words, event/s cannot even “appear” by way of a trace without there being those rare individuals who will “recognize” those traces and begin a new artistic sequence of a subjective truth procedure. In yet other words, sub- jective cognition (subjection) of an event always occurs a posteriori: I come to know that there was an event, a rift in a given world, only after a subjective his- torical sequence has been “exhausted”. In this kind of thinking perspective, one may identify a distinction between waiting in vain in the sense of Adorno’s concept and chiliastic non-eschatologi- cal expectation as pure waiting that exceeds itself. It concerns a creative surplus that is “always already there”, a surplus of waiting (expecting) as a tense surge of time that may “awaken” singular events and the realization of a new artistic sequence in a given world. But this surge of time does not disappear through a simple negation of ordinary life, but through a reverse that has no connec- tion whatsoever with a mere classical negation of the Hegelian type. In other words, in Badiou’s theory of art, there may be a logic of negation within the phenomenal world, but not in the sense of the classical philosophy of negation and its transcendental condition. For, the concept of negation, as Badiou sees it, entails rather a reverse, whose “only common ground” with the classical con- cept of negation is that being-there and its reverse in the same world do not have “anything in common (the conjunction of their degrees of intensity is nil)”.59 Following Deleuze, or, rather, Badiou’s reading of Deleuze, one might call this disjunctive synthesis.60 Accordingly, thinking the appearance of negation, which is another name for Badiou’s conception of artistic truth, along the lines of early Marx, should be sought in Badiou’s ontology of subtraction, which implies a “new type of dialectics” – in materialist dialectics. If Badiou defines the present global state of affairs with hegemonic democratic materialism, which, as the official global

59 Alain Badiou, Logics of Worlds, op. cit., 107. 60 Cf. Jean-Jacques Lecercle, “Disjunctive Synthesis”, in: Badiou and Deleuze Read Litera- ture, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2010, 6–38.

42 Matejić, B., Vergebliches Warten? Badiou, Event, and Human Emancipation ... ideology, also subsumes art and thereby prevents emancipation through, includ- ing in art, and which says that there is only “Two”, that is, the “sovereignty of language and the body”, then one may juxtapose it with materialist dialectics, where, instead of the essentialist Hegelian “reconciliation and overcoming” of a contradiction, one could think this Third Pole as “excess”, a “supplement” or “complement of the reality of Two”: “there are only bodies and languages, ex- cept that there are truths”.61 It is that creative surplus that moves “in the direc- tion of the intensity of life, a ‘limitless gift’, a ‘greatness’, ‘clear flames woven into living chimeras’”.62 An artistic, avant-garde rebellion, says Badiou, “means that within the extremity experienced in negative excess abides the certainty that we can change its sign”.63 In that sense, chiliastic non-eschatological expectation, in my view, does not incline toward a passive Adornian negation of negation (the affect of de- spair), or to the transcendental metaphysical experience of awaiting the abso- lute (an absolute affirmation of authentic humanity / exposure of the Real), but, rather, to the process of transforming a negative surplus into an affirmative sur- plus – the transformation of the (tragic) experience of loss, of a lack, as I dem- onstrated regarding Badiou’s interpretation of Wagner’s operas, into an endless rebellion capable of performing the operation of a reversal. Avant-garde, tense chiliastic expectation operates by experimenting with the future in the present, hic et nunc, concretizing, although always already “failing”, the promise of the generic human. Precisely due to this failing, an emancipatory operation is never without a remainder. A negative remainder implies “failure”, but not in terms of the passive affect of disappointment, fear, despair, or angst over the affirmative disappearance of the chiliastic process of subjection. Rather, I would interpret the “surplus of waiting” in terms of the affect of hope, which may not be equated either with the negative affects of waiting (vergebliches Warten) or with dispo- sition as such, and would therefore lead to “new chains” of expectation. In my view, Adorno’s vergebliches Warten inclines toward the affect of despair, that, by all accounts, filled affect, which, due to its own fullness, leaves no space-time for the new, for human emancipation in the domain of music/art. It expresses the defeatism of the known, i.e. “perseverance-of-self” (suum esse conservere), as Badiou might say, echoing Spinoza. I propose, as a concept, the practice of non-eschatological, activated, tense, anticipating chiliastic expectation, which would rely neither on the filled affects of despair, fear, angst, or disappointment over the unthinkable (Auschwitz), nor

61 Alain Badiou, Logics of Worlds, op. cit., 4. 62 Alain Badiou, The Century, op. cit., 142. 63 Ibid., 143.

43 New Sound 47, I/2016 on the practices of remembrance, memory, or nostalgia, which typically assume the form of regurgitating existing texts of culture in a self-satisfying play of historical illusions and allusions, in other words, neither on waiting that expects nothing, nor on waiting that expects something, nor on waiting in vain, nor on waiting as the Will, but the practice of preparing (surplus of waiting) for singu- lar change in the domain of music, to receive the truth in art.

44 Stojanović, D., Strategies of Working with the Sonorous Body ...

Article received on August 8th 2015 Article accepted on October 15th 2015 UDC: 7.01 82.0 Dragana Stojanović* Faculty of Media and Commuincations “Singidunum” University, Belgrade

Strategies of Working with the Sonorous Body: Identifying Other/New Writing Techniques in the Field of Bodily Sound Expression

Abstract: The issue of the entanglement and interdependence of corporeality and textu- ality in the process of creating writing attracts attention both in the field of sound and of semantic and bodily expression in sound. When the body is established in the process of semanticization (and re-semanticization), as a specific threshold of writing, the place and role of the sonorous body forms the focus of theoretical research in that discursive space. This text explores the body’s relational connection with writing, focusing on the always present transformative potential of speaking writing (again) as a consequence and condi- tion of bodily expression in sound. Keywords: the body, corporeality, textuality, writing, working with writing aloud.

The complexity of the relational connection between the place of the voice, the body, and writing is increasingly attracting attention in the domain of contempo- rary theories of sonorous corporealities and textualities.1 As the body is not only a place of images,2 but also a place of sounds (of the voice, of vocalizing, of sounding),3 so the Other, in the process of subjection viewed from the platform

* Author contact information: [email protected] 1 See Jelena Novak’s discussion in Postopera: Reinventing the Voice-body, Farnham (UK), Ashgate, 2015. 2 The place that sees an image (of itself, through an other), which calls (upon) her from the place of the Other in the form of presenting the body as the symbolic carrier of subjectivity. 3 “‘A voice means this: there is a living person, throat, chest, feelings, who sends into the air this voice, different from all other voices’ (Calvino, qtd. in Cavarero 1). The voice is always

45 New Sound 47, I/2016 of theoretical psychoanalysis, returns (to the body-subject) not only a reflection, but also an echo.4 In other words, the Other speaks and from there announces one of the fundamental paradoxes that enables subjection and is especially note- worthy in the domain of theories of the sonorous – the mutual exclusivity and simultaneously interdependence of the sonorous body, voice, and writing. In the words of Jacques Lacan, “there is cause only in something that doesn’t work”;5 that is, the field of fascination (and the field of trauma) is gen- erated in places where the expected smooth logic of reasoning according to the posited/selected code breaks down as a result of friction, grain, inconsistency, or disagreement. One of those places is certainly the place where corporeality and textuality are relationally entangled through the aspect of voice. A body that sounds – a sonorous or vocalic body6 (a body that makes sounds by producing a voice, a loud body)7 is in a direct and, I would say, mutually exclusive relation with the issue of the subjection of the body. To put it more simply, the law of the Symbolic operates on the basis of excluding the body as the carnal, semi- otic element,8 whereby, paradoxically, the semiotic element is not (completely) excluded,9 but is, quite to the contrary, included in the Law as its other side, the foundation whereupon the Symbolic is constructed, that is, as its necessary impossible (unallowable!). As the carnal, physical, physiological, pulsional ele- ment that produces the voice as a material vibration, the body appears in this context as the ground on which and for whose sake the voice as a semantic or Symbolic value acquires an illusion of the real, signifying, legislative,10 where realizing the semantic value of the message is conditioned precisely by exclud- ing the carnal, material element of the sounds that the body produces in the pro- the voice of someone”; Dominic Pettman, “Pavlov’s Podcast: The Acousmatic Voice in the Age of MP3s”, differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies, 2011, 2–3, 149. 4 Mladen Dolar, “The Burrow of Sound”, differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Stud- ies, 2011, 2–3, 117. 5 Jacques Lacan, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan. Book XI: The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, ed. Jacques-Alain Miller, New York/London, W. W. Norton & Company, 1998, 22. 6 Jelena Novak, op. cit., 6. 7 Cf. Roland Barthes’s concept of writing aloud or vocal writing, which is discussed further below. See Roland Barthes, The Pleasure of the Text, New York, Hill and Wang, 1998, 66–67. 8 This refers to Julia Kristeva’s notion of the semiotic, which is further discussed below. See Julia Kristeva, Revolution in Poetic Language, New York, Columbia University Press, 1984 and Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, Columbia University Press, New York, 1982. 9 For more on the dynamic between the symbolic and the semiotic, see Julia Kristeva, Revo- lution in Poetic Language, op. cit. and Powers of Horror, op. cit. 10 Mladen Dolar, A Voice and Nothing More, Cambridge (MA), The MIT Press, 2006, 54.

46 Stojanović, D., Strategies of Working with the Sonorous Body ... cess of voicing itself.11 Or, in other words, the body may be recognized in the locus of the subject only in the process of renouncing its materiality. That claim points to the following question: namely, if the body becomes a body-subject only if it renounces the body qua body-carnality, does that mean that corpore- ality is knowable to us only through its own (Symbolical!) concept, that is, is corporeality cognizable only through the image and the voice of the Other (or its Law)? Is it ever possible to reach (feel?) the point of the corporeal so that it does not come down to merely speaking the body, denying the (material) body its place in the coordinates of the intelligible and, by extension, cognizable?12 Those questions inevitably bring us back precisely to that missing (re- moved, hidden) point, that is, the place of the voice as the material sonority of the body, the place of the sonorous body as a body voicing itself (by means of its voice issuing from its raw materiality). The problem with the issue of the voice is multifaceted; in theoretical psychoanalysis, both the gaze and the voice13 constitute objets petit a; in that sense, they are unattainable, intangible, and thoroughly formative in locating and directing the subject’s desire (which is what places the subject in the coordinates of the Symbolic, which gives it its artificial – the only intelligible – life). However, unlike the gaze, which always implies a distance, separation (the gazed at is other to the beholder, whose gaze returns [from the Other], establishing a difference), the voice includes contact, proximity, a material feeling of producing and projecting the vocal body.14 The eye does not generate friction or grain between the materiality of the body and its environment or itself the same way that the vocal apparatus does, which, in the process of voicing, uses friction, the vibrating of the vocal chords, the oral cavity, the tongue, the lungs, the chest, the entire body emanating its voice into the surrounding environment. In Dolar’s view,15 the voice is even more directly addressed to the Other and precisely that immediacy generates the persistent is- sue of the crisis of a subjectivity that is voicing itself, the crisis of the sono- rous body in the Symbolic structure. However, that certainly does not imply that

11 Mladen Dolar provides a clear exposition and explication of that claim in Mladen Dolar, A Voice and Nothing More, op. cit. 12 “This gives rise to a spontaneous opposition where voice appears as materiality opposed to the ideality of meaning. The ideality of meaning can emerge only through the materiality of the means, but the means does not seem to contribute to meaning. […] if we speak in order to say something, then the voice is precisely that which cannot be said.” Ibid., 15. 13 In addition to the breast and faeces; see Jacques Lacan, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book X: Anxiety, 1962–1963, http://www.lacaninireland.com, accessed 30 January 2013. 14 Mladen Dolar, A Voice and Nothing More, op. cit., 79. 15 Ibid.

47 New Sound 47, I/2016 there is no crisis of the gazing subjectivity; on the contrary, the subject is always a subject in process (and thereby also in crisis),16 be it the process of gazing or the process of voicing (sounding, speaking). Nonetheless, in contrast to the gaze, which, due to the establishment of the Imaginary dimension in the mirror phase,17 preserves the subject’s wholeness by maintaining its illusion that the gaze belongs to it (which is in fact inversely proportional to the abstract quality of the gaze as such!), the voice is sensibly torn off from the body (that tearing off is felt as the vibrating of the body while it is projecting its voice into the environ- ment, for instance, the air), in that moment tearing the body in two, in a sensu- ously cognizable way (the speaking body and its voice, which is now separate) and thus irreversibly becomes/remains something that does not belong to it (i.e. to the body).18 Returning to the point of inverse proportion between abstraction and illusion in the game of formulating and preserving the status of subjectivity, it is precisely the materiality of the voice that causes the inadequacy of the sub- ject’s illusion of fullness. Paradoxically, the voice fragments the subject, departs from the body, and at the point of its emergence already disappears (as a mate- rial wave – a sound that ceases to vibrate). Therefore, the voice (a product of a sonorous body) is cognizable only as an echo (of the Other), in a game where the sonorous body becomes bodily and materially exposed in an almost obscene and abject way.19 That exposure of the body stems precisely from the place of the gap – the break between the voice and the body, at the very moment before the voice is coded into a message (a meaning), whereby the Signifier inscribes its trajectory, deriving with it the coordinates of the Symbolic and the subject’s place in them (the Signifier locates the body in the place of the subject, includ- ing it virtually, not materially, into its system of exchange and thereby makes it existent, cognizable). The moment of the realization/reification of that gap in the break between the body and (its) voice performs (access) to materiality pre- cisely via the point of the break (the place of horror, the place of silence, where the image emerges!),20 the place of the disconnect between the corporeal and

16 For the notion of subject in process, see Julia Kristeva, Powers of Horror, op. cit. 17 Jacques Lacan, “The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Function of the I as Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience”, in: Écrits: The First Complete Edition in English, New York / London, W. W. Norton & Company, 2006, 93–81. 18 On the break or gap between the body that produces/performs the voice/speaking and the voice itself, see Mladen Dolar, A Voice and Nothing More, op. cit. and Slavoj Žižek, “‘I Hear You with my Eyes!’, or, The Invisible Master”, in: Renata Salecl and Slavoj Žižek (eds.), Gaze and Voice as Love Objects, Durham (NC)/London, Duke University Press, 1996, 90–126, and Jelena Novak, op. cit. 19 Mladen Dolar, A Voice and Nothing More, op. cit., 80. 20 Slavoj Žižek, op. cit.

48 Stojanović, D., Strategies of Working with the Sonorous Body ... the textual, and the place of the (subsequent) recoding of corporeality through textuality. In other words, the place where the voice is torn (off) from the body is the place that points to and exposes the very process of symbolic coding (the Symbolic is not a given, even though it presents itself as such; the Signifier is an illusion, a deceit),21 which returns the focus on the body; moreover, the claim just made suggests that it is possible to return the focus on the body – at least for a short while – and theorize it, even though it is thereby killed once again, through symbolization (which gives it life – intelligibility – within the bounds of the Symbolic). At the same time, this supplies a possible answer to the question whether corporeality may be grasped beyond/outside/free from textuality: that answer is neither absolutely yes nor absolutely no; at the moment of speaking about corporeality, corporeality is indeed already textuality, which also applies to all kinds of thinking, semantic cognition of the body/corporeality, but on the other hand, if corporeality qua materiality may not be captured, it is still grasp- able, precisely in the process/moment of producing or performing the voice, in a body that is voicing itself, in a sonorous body. The sonorous body is thus established as a sort of locus of friction or grain between the semiotic and the symbolic, that is, the corporeal and the textual. Re- turning to Kristeva’s thesis that the semiotic (which is in this context precisely the field of carnal/material pulsion) is the necessary ground whose incomplete or, rather, (deliberately, necessarily) failed exclusion, conditions the construction of the Symbolic, which prescribes every possible/cognizable reality,22 whereby precisely the semiotic ground conditions and defines the possibility of symbolic coding (in other words, of the existence of the Symbolic as such – that is why the exclusion/ignoring/abstraction of the semiotic from the Symbolic is always necessarily incomplete, failed), it seems that the point of friction between the semiotic and the Symbolic, the material/carnal and the textual/semantic is pre- cisely the place where/through which the Symbolic/semantic is realized/reified, the place where (text) comes to life. Since meaning is generated and enabled by this friction, it follows that precisely working with the materiality of the body may effect changes/shifts in the field of the Symbolic and that, in that case, the Symbolic is not necessarily a prison consisting of petrified, immutable relations in which the subject (and its body as the material ground of subjectivity that

21 See Jacques Lacan’s theoretical theses concerning the issues of the signifier and the Phal- lus as the ultimate Signifier. 22 This certainly concerns the Lacanian terminology of the lower-case-r real. See Jacques Lacan, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan – Book XXIII: Joyce and the Sinthome, 1975–1976, translated by Cormac Gallagher from unedited French Typescripts, http://www.lacaninire- land.com, accessed 20 February 2013.

49 New Sound 47, I/2016 disappears in the process of subjection) is condemned to a set of predetermined givens; on the contrary, the subject (especially its material corporeality) is an active agent in the system of relational performances of the dimensions of the Symbolic, Imaginary, and Real, and this is precisely the place that brings the study of the sonorous body in focus. The body that voices itself becomes a point wherefrom one may work with the semanticity of the Symbolic, wherefrom oth- er – soft – or entirely new writings may be derived.

Working with the Sonorous Body qua Working with Writing: Strategies, Possibilities and Platforms The potential of working with the sonorous body has been noted and relatively often directly or indirectly discussed by various theorists of language, corporeal- ity, and textuality, that is, by theorists of writing(s). More precisely, what is theo- rized is the very place of the body, which is inscribed or inscribes itself in the text precisely by means of its materiality (in reality, the only thing the body may invest is its materiality, which is also all that is needed for generating semantic content – of course, on the condition of disavowing the body that is called upon in the guise of subjectivity, in the guise of the called upon, of the cognizable). However, this materiality remains/survives as the ground of the Symbolic and in it, one may hear – as noise, grain, or interference – a surplus (of materiality, of carnality) exposed to the impotence of the Signifier to semanticize it entirely.23 The sonorous body is therefore always exposed24 – in the symbolic turn, its mate- rial factual positivity is transformed into negativity, which the Symbolic attempts

23 According to Mladen Dolar, the voice (as a material product, a leftover from the body) is always a matter of excess from the signifier; Mladen Dolar, A Voice and Nothing More, op. cit., 81. As such, it is a constant reminder of the impotence of the signifying structure (of the Symbolic) to perform symbolization all the way. In that failure, the symbolic structure is exposed as abstract/constructed (subject to deconstruction, transformation, transgression, collapse), whereas the voice (a material surplus) is established as the only positive ground of inherent negativity, which derives its existence (meaning) in the semanticization turn at the expense of a negativization, exclusion, ignoring (of the material body) that never quite suc- ceeds. Or, in Mladen Dolar’s words: “It [the voice] is a non-signifying remainder resistant to the signifying operations, a leftover heterogeneous to structural logic, but precisely as such it seems to present a sort of counterweight to differentiality; the differential logic always refers to absence, while the voice seems to embody a presence, a background for differential traits, a positive basis for their inherent negativity. To be sure, its positivity is extremely elusive – just the vibrations of air which vanish as soon as they are produced, a pure passing, not something that could be fixed or something that one could hold on to, since one can only fix the differences, as phonology has exhaustively done”; Mladen Dolar, A Voice and Nothing More, op. cit., 36. 24 Ibid., 80.

50 Stojanović, D., Strategies of Working with the Sonorous Body ... to hide (to derive it as negativity) in the process of deriving meaning, in the pro- cess of symbolization. Still, the materiality of the body in the voice is something that, as I argued above, may be heard, while, on the other hand, it constitutes the ground and means whereby the semantic component of language/textuality is supported/maintained, as well as, potentially, altered. Therefore, working with the carnal aspect of corporeality realizes/reifies the body’s potential to inscribe its presence into the text, to use the text, whilst balancing at the very edge of fe- tishization and/or ecstasy,25 potentially to modify the structure of the Symbolic. Pursuing the trajectory of corporeality’s entanglement with textuality, Lacan notes a subtext of language, which he terms lalangue.26 In fact, lalangue would be the sonority of language that diverges from language as a carrier of meaning.27 In that sense, the friction of the (bodily) grain of lalangue in language becomes that which realizes/reifies language as a means of uttering messages, in such a way as to provoke the awareness of inscribing a specific body (every body is a separate bodily-textual position) in the language spoken by that body. Lalangue is that which enables pleasure in (material) language, that which takes pleasure in language; that which enjoys language as such. Assuming a completely trans- gressive stance, lalangue consumes language in an individual way; it modifies language by means of sonority, from which there is no escape (just as there is no escape from the impotence and failure of the structure of language). Lalangue is a vocal surplus, an object inside the signifier, an object that is enjoyed and an object that enjoys (consumes [language]). In Dolar’s words: “It is as if the ob- ject, the object voice, and hence enjoyment, became integrated into the signifier, but integrated in such a way that their divergence is what drives lalangue”.28 Therefore, working with the platform of lalangue opens the potential of work- ing with the semantic dimension of language by way of working with the grain of the body (without which there is no platform of the symbolic/semanticizing either), which, in turn, introduces the possibility of potential modifications as well as transgressions of the linguistic structure. In other words, lalangue is one of the strategies of focusing on corporeality entangled with textuality, whereby

25 For ways whereby the voice that eludes semanticization is pacified by being turned into a fetish object or provokes, for the same reason, ecstasy, see Mladen Dolar, A Voice and Noth- ing More, op. cit. 26 In the same work, Dolar elaborates on lalangue in the domain of the sonorous. 27 Not differs, in terms of there being a distance from language in an a:b proportion, but di- verges, in terms of being present and entangled in language so much that it is separated from it only by points of differences (whose frictions with language are precisely manifested as lalangue) in an a:a.varied (a.divergent) proportion. 28 Ibid., 144.

51 New Sound 47, I/2016 one may perhaps attain a change, a shift of fixed points along the coordinates of semanticization. Kristeva notes a similar interdependence between the corporeal as carnal and the textual as semanticizing, and dubs those platforms the semiotic (pre- symbolic, extra-symbolic, corporeal, pulsional) and the symbolic (linguistic, se- mantic, signifying).29 Although in the process of subjection (of recognizing the subject in the structure that was already prepared for it), the symbolic codes the semiotic ground, inscribing itself into it and obscuring it,30 the semiotic does not disappear in that code; on the contrary, as Kristeva also notes, it remains actively present as the other side of the Symbolic, as the grain of the body, whose acting, similarly to lalangue, reifies and enables the linguistic message. The boundary between the symbolic and the semiotic is thus permeable and walking along it is precisely the place where the sonorous body operates, which thus directly participates in the dynamic of the inscription of meaning. Kristeva’s term for this dynamic of the divergence of writing(s) is poetic language, which she views as a powerful tool for resisting, changing, and transgressing the rigid structure and law of the Symbolic.31 Poetic language thus becomes another possibility of language, always present and open in its perpetual multi-dimensionalization, whereby language, retaining the faculty of communication, acquires a hetero- geneous quality, quite different from the homogenizing symbolic structure. A body breathing in language may also be identified in the concept of geno-text, elaborated by Kristeva and Roland Barthes,32 which is likewise directly related to the capacities and transformative potentials of the sonorous body, being that which is by-linguistic – not a matter of language as a means of communica-

29 See Julia Kristeva, Powers of Horror, op. cit. and Julia Kristeva, Revolution in Poetic Language, op cit. 30 In this case, the semiotic ground is not hidden – it is not removed, entirely covered, but only obscured – repressed only as much as the symbolic is able to accomplish (the Lacanian Real, which is closely related to Kristeva’s semiotic, is never entirely repressed from the structure of the Symbolic, which rejects it, which is horrified by it, which does not allow it, and which, searching for it in a kind of paradox, uses it to distinguish itself, to constitute itself, and take pleasure in that difference). For a more detailed discussion of the relation be- tween the semiotic and the Real, see Dragana Stojanović, Interpretacije mapiranja ženskog tela u tekstualnim prostorima umetnosti i kulture, Belgrade, Orion Art / Fakultet za medije i komunikacije, 2015. 31 Julia Kristeva, Revolution in Poetic Language, op. cit. 32 See related discussions in Leon S. Roudiez, “Introduction”, in: Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art by Julia Kristeva, New York, Columbia University Press, 1980, 1–20 and in Roland Barthes, The Pleasure of the Text, op. cit.

52 Stojanović, D., Strategies of Working with the Sonorous Body ... tion but as an organ.33 Barthes even explicitly calls this kind of writing writing aloud, pointing to the sonorous body as that which brings difference (to the is- sue of understanding, communication, (re)semantization): “Writing aloud is not expressive; it leaves expression to the pheno-text, to the regular code of commu- nication; it belongs to the geno-text, to significance; it is carried not by dramatic inflections, subtle stresses, sympathetic accents, but by the grain of the voice […] writing aloud is not phonological but phonetic; its aim is not the clarity of messages, the theater of emotions; what it searches for (in a perspective of bliss) are the pulsional incidents, the language lined with flesh, a text where we can hear the grain of the throat, the patina of consonants, the voluptuousness of vowels, a whole carnal stereophony: the articulation of the body, of the tongue, not that of meaning, of language”.34 Each one of those theoretical concepts (lalangue, the semiotic, geno-text, writing aloud) points to the place of the punctum of the sonorous text.35 The punctum represents a point that tears through smooth perception, being the sur- plus, error, or elusion. The punctum is the very point of difference between cor- poreality and textuality, a painful (pierced!)36 point on the body that invests its materiality into performing the reading of the text, that exposes itself to the text, and resists penetration by the signifying practice. In the context of the sonorous text, what hurts is the sonorous body, which is invested into the sonorous text it produces/performs, so that it may, at the moment when it is torn off from the body, surrender it to symbolization. However, that surrender is never complete (neither is symbolization) – the Real(ity) of the vibration of the sonorous body, that noise/grain/friction of the voice, the simultaneous friction of the throat against the cutting edge of the semanticization process and against its own hum- ming flesh derives the borderline of the entanglement of the semiotic and the symbolic, of lalangue and langue, of the corporeal and the textual, working with a sort of ground zero37 of a sonorous writing that generates a materiality of tex- tuality and a textuality of materiality, constantly challenging the autonomy of

33 Roland Barthes, The Pleasure of the Text, op. cit, 67. Cf. Roland Barthes, Fragmenti ljubavnog diskursa, Zagreb, Pelago, 2007, 74. 34 Roland Barthes, The Pleasure of the Text, op. cit., 66–67. 35 The term punctum comes here from Roland Barthes, who uses the example of visual per- ception to explain it and applies it to the domain of the sonorous in the same capacity. See Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography, New York, Hill and Wang, 1982. 36 Cf. Hélène Cixous, “Preface: On Stigmatexts by Hélène Cixous” in: Stigmata: Escaping Texts, London / New York, Routledge, 2005, x–xiii. 37 Cf. Roland Barthes, Writing Degree Zero, New York, Hill and Wang, 1967.

53 New Sound 47, I/2016 both and generating space for work in (sonorous) language. Language no longer appears like a cage, but as the horizon of the possible (with the plaisir and jouis- sance of language working in conjunction).38 In practical application, these dialogues along the trajectory of the ground zero of sonorous writing would involve working with pleasure in sonorous writ- ing; working with transgressions of writing in the domain of sound; working with the disallowed (or working with the limits of the allowable in the intel- ligible code of sonorous writing); working with silence (not with silence as a pause or break – with coded semanticized silence – but with silence as a spasm, aphonia, the Real, with an ecstasy that cannot be fetishized, working with the silence of the sonorous body); working with breath (to breathe means to live or experience sound with one’s body); working with pre-linguistic and by-lin- guistic materials (to hiccup, stutter, scream, sing beside the expected code (and in parallel with it), to write with laughter).39 To count on the gap between the sonorous body and the voice; to re-imagine the relationship between the body and (its) voice;40 to focus on the affective and not beware its entanglement with the text (to enjoy the affective in the text, through the text, by the text, and with the text);41 to produce soft writings; to produce other writings; to produce di- vergent writings; to inscribe (one’s) body into sonorous language (and into all other kinds of language!), because the body is never the erased place of writing; on the contrary, the body is the place where writing is performed (and the place where writing performs itself!), the place of working with writing, the place of a re-semanticization, of a reform of writing. The body is that point wherefrom writing begins, a point that is never (entirely) lost; therefore, the body is the place of the very threshold of writing; the place that always resounds with new possibilities.

38 For more on the concepts of plaisir and jouissance, see Roland Barthes, The Pleasure of the Text, op. cit. 39 Cf. Hélène Cixous, “La”, in: Susan Sellers (ed.), The Hélène Cixous Reader, London, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2000, 59–61; Luce Irigaray, This Sex Which is Not One, Ithaca (NY), Cornell University Press, 1985; Anne Pellegrini, “(Laughter)”, in: Patrick Campbell and Adrian Kear (eds.), Psychoanalysis and Performance, New York, Routledge, 2001, 177–191. 40 This thesis is elaborated in detail in Jelena Novak, op. cit. 41 See a constructive discussion of the issue of the relationship between the corporeal and the textual as the affective and the semantic in Ana Hofman, Glasba, politika, afekt: novo življenje partizanskih pesmi v Sloveniji, Ljubljana, Založba ZRC, 2015, 47–57.

54 Božanić, M., The Musical Space: A Sketch for a Broader ...

Article received on July 18th 2016 Article accepted on October 15th 2016 UDC: 78.01 Mina Božanić University of Arts in Belgrade, Faculty of Music, PhD student

THE MUSICAL SPACE: A SKETCH FOR A BROADER MUSICOLOGICAL–SEMIOTICAL DISCUSSION

Abstract: The subject of this paper is an examination of the analytical competences of musical semiotics and prolongation analysis applied to the organisation of the musical space in the music of the 20th century. By means of presenting one of the possible ways of organizing the musical space – the organisation of pitches and registers – one can derive the synthesis of Eero Tarasti’s semiotics of the musical space and certain segments of prolongation analysis. Starting from the assumption that the organisation of the musical space is the key determinant of the music of the 20th century (Masnikosa, 2010: 242), I will argue that the musical space has its ‘stronghold’ in the works of European high mod- ernism. By confronting Tarasti’s model of the musical space with some segments of pro- longation analysis (more precisely, with the theory of harmony by Olli Väisälä and tonal pitch spaces by Fred Lerdahl, with the addition of the theory of musical forces by Steve Larson), I will try to show how the organisation of the musical space can be implied in the analysis of Iannis Xenakis’s (1922–2001) work Metastaseis (1953/4). Key words: the musical space, the organisation of the musical space, Tarasti, prolongation analysis theory, Xenakis.

The notion of space is very broad and very diverse in character. In order to de- fine it (or, better to say, describe it) we must trace the ideas of space in philoso- phy and science, and confront them with rather different concepts of spatiality which are manifested in the arts and in music as well.1 And if we do so, it is just

* Author contact information: [email protected]. 1 Cf. Maria Anna Harley (Maja Trochimczyk): Space and Spatialization in Contemporary Music: History and Analysis, Ideas and Implementations, Ph.D. Dissertation, Montreal, Quebeck, Canada: McGill University, Faculty of Music, 1994, PDF Reprint, Los Angeles, California: Moonrise Press, 2011, 18–115, http://www.moonrisepress.com/dissertation.html,

55 New Sound 47, I/2016 a part of what space represents – especially now, we are faced with different spatial paradigms in very distinct and diverse disciplines, such as mathematics, physics, architecture, geography, linguistics, sociology, ethnology etc. There- fore, I choose to explain and to explore the notion of space in music, in order to sketch some preliminary thoughts and ideas about the development of the spa- tio–temporal organisation of musical/sound material in the course of the music of the 20th century. In that sense, I shall (roughly) trace the changes of the musi- cal language from the beginning of the century up to the 1960s. My aim is to emphasize those changes which affected the melodic, rhythmical and harmonic aspect of the piece of music.2 Therefore, I will select one specific (and, admit- tedly, rather narrow) line of composers which were, as it may seem, the carriers of such development.

The emergence of the musical space in the music of the 20th century (1900–1960) One of the main preoccupations since the first decades of the 20th century was to find new ways of musical expression.3 The results of this search can be repre- sented by the total ’collapse’ of tonality as the main paradigm of European (ton- al) music and the shift from melody as a primary carrier of the musical idea to the motive and, in later decades, harmony. However, there were some external factors that also had an influence on the music production from this period; for example, the exploration of sound and its acoustical and physical characteris- tics, and the development of new technologies in recording sounds significantly marked the paths for music composed between the wars. Although very diverse in character, the music of prominent European com- posers in the period before World War I – namely, Erik Satie (1866–1925), Ar- nold Schoenberg (1874–1951), Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971), Anton Webern (1883–1945) and Alban Berg (1885–1935) – shared some similar features, re- accessed November 2013. The more informative discussion about the development of the ideas and concepts of space in philosophy, science, the arts, and music is also a part of my PhD dissertation The musical space in the analysis of selected works of European music of the second half of the 20th century, which I am writing under the mentorship of prof. Marija Masnikosa, Ph.D. 2 Detailed analysis of the concept of musical space and the analytical model for interpreting the musical space is a part of my Ph.D. research. 3 This was something anticipated a while ago – if we think of the general history of Euro- pean music, we can trace those critical points that directed the path of the European music in the 20th century, i.e. the expansion of the tonality, the increasing chromaticism, the loosening of basic harmonic relations, etc.

56 Božanić, M., The Musical Space: A Sketch for a Broader ... garding the relation to the musical language. Specifically, the selected compos- ers operated in the domain of two main spheres. The one was the sphere of poly- tonality, bytonality, octatonality and the whole-scale system (Satie, Stravinsky) and the other was the sphere of atonality, i. e. the lack of any harmonic hierarchy in the course of the musical flow. For those composers who had not abandoned tonality, the answer to the problem of the musical expression was not in the ab- ruption of the tonal system. On the contrary, they operated in the extended tonal sphere, in which harmonic relations were still important, but not definite, rigid and transparent. This enabled them to focus on different musical parameters, such as rhythm, timbre, texture, and on their role in the creation of the piece of music. In other words, they focused – maybe more explicitly than the other group of composers from that period – on the specific spatio–temporal organisa- tion of the piece of music.4 The other answer to the “collapse” of the previous system was to develop a new one, which was exactly what Arnold Schoenberg and his students did. They emphasized the role of dissonance in the tonal hierarchy, i.e. they an- nulled the dominant status of consonance and equalized it with dissonance. In that sense, they managed to free the musical flow of any rules that prevailed throughout the centuries of the dominance of tonality as the major organizing principle in the melodic and harmonic sphere of the piece of music. However, one should not assume that the period of “free atonality” (1908–1912) was an- archistic in character: although the rules established through the use of tonality were no longer valid, the liberation of the piece of music from the constraints of the tonal system introduced some new rules on the scene. In fact, tonality was replaced, in a certain way, by some other organizing principle, which – as we shall later see – relies on the intervalic structure of the piece of music. Since there were not any stable tonal surroundings for the development of a melodic material, the aforementioned changes also affected the melodic aspect of the piece of music. It was challenging to create a melodic phrase without the support of the tonic, dominant and subdominant chords. Therefore, a melody was replaced by a motive, which became the main structural and developmental material in the piece of music.

4 Of course, this statement raises the question whether the composers thought rationally on the problems of spatio–temporal organisation, i.e. was this organisation in their poetical fo- cus while composing the music or not. So far, I haven’t found proofs to claim if they were aware of the spatio–temporal organisation, or to claim otherwise; only a few composers actu- ally wrote on the topic of musical time and space, and if they wrote about it, they didn’t treat the problem of spatio–temporal organisation as the primary paradigm in their poetics.

57 New Sound 47, I/2016

However, there were – as mentioned – some external factors which also made a significant impact on the music of this period. In that sense, one com- poser certainly distinguished himself from the musical ’mainsteam’ represented by Schoenberg and his students on the one hand and Stravinsky and Satie on the other: it was Edgard Varèse (1883–1865). His output clearly denotes his preoc- cupation with the sound itself and different possibilities to ’liberate’ that sound from traditional musical instruments and playing, setting the scene ready for electroacoustic music.5 Varèse focused not on the melodic quality of the sound, but rather on its duration and timbre. He was not concerned with the questions of musical expression and musical language itself; he was occupied with the acoustical potentiality of the sound as the only means of expressing music. In the period between the wars (1918–1941), most of the leading compos- ers from before World War I continued with explorations in the domain of musi- cal language and musical style. The result was, on the one hand, the constructiv- ist phase,6 represented through the use of the twelve-tone technique developed by Schoenberg and his students, and, on the other, the neoclassical phase, which marked the works of Stravinsky and the group of French composers.7 Despite the diverse stylistic qualities and tendencies, one can notice that parameters such as pitch, rhythm and timbre came into focus in the aforementioned techniques. The use of the twelve-tone technique emphasized the basic tone parameters and give them a prominent role in the shaping and creating of the musical material. The pitch, for example, became an important factor in creating the interval ’fundus’ of the piece of music; since there were no harmonic relations, intervals took the role of tonally based harmony. On the other hand, the duration and the rhythm were also important in manipulating the temporal aspects of a piece of music. In the works which were created under the influence of neoclassicism, one can trace the expansion of the registers, i. e. the expansion of the acoustical frame of the piece of music. This expansion is manifested through the differentiation of registers on the instrument, thus creating strong “gaps” between the high and the low registers. The major changes in musical language – and, indirectly, in the spatio– temporal organisation of the piece of music – occurred after World War II. The

5 Varèse’s most influential and most explicit contribution on the topic is “The Liberation of Sound”, reprinted in: Christof Cox and Daniel Warner (Eds.), Audio Culture: Reading in Modern Music, New York, The Continuum Books, 2004, 17–21. 6 Cf. Марија Бергамо, Елементи експресионистичке оријентације у српској музици до 1945. године, Београд: САНУ, 1980, 17–18. 7 Namely, Georges Auric (1899–1983), Louis Durey (1888–1979), Arthur Honegger (1892– 1955), Darius Milhaud (1892–1974), Francis Poulenc (1899–1963) and Germaine Tailleferre (1892–1983).

58 Božanić, M., The Musical Space: A Sketch for a Broader ... circumstances that influenced the creative output оf the leading composers of this period – Pierre Boulez (1925–2016), György Ligeti (1923–2006), Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928–2007) and Iannis Xenakis (1922–2001) – came from two different sides. On the one side, they continued with the explorations of sound and its parameters, exploring the possibility of the serialisation of different pa- rameters, such as pitch, duration, intensity of the sound, etc. On the other side, they were strongly influenced by the development of electroacoustic music and electronic studios.8 In these studios, composers had the opportunity to directly explore the sound and its qualities by recording and combining different (real and synthetic) sounds, manipulating with the specific qualities of the sound, i.e. by expanding or shrinking the pitch height, thus creating rather different sound effects, etc. These explorations resulted in works in which the spatial qualities of sound prevailed; therefore, space became one of the four basic criteria for electronic music.9 Although one cannot claim whether this new genre of music influenced tra- ditional instrumental and vocal music, it is symptomatic to notice that the music composed after World War II definitely found new ways of musical expression. More precisely, the works of Boulez, Ligeti, Stockhausen and Xenakis synthe- size the tendencies from the earlier decades of the century, which were directed towards the new spatio–temporal organisation of the piece of music. This new organisation is characterized by the general ’staticity’ of the musical flow and is claimed to be the answer to the problems of musical expression.10 This ’staticity’ is often manifested in a piece of music as a lack of development of the musical material, which can be related to the usage of large portions of sound instead of one distinctive motivic or melodic cell, and the collage technique implied to organize these portions of sound in the work. On the other hand, when there is no melody or motive that will grasp the listener’s attention, the rhythmical as- pect of the works comes to the fore. This situation is reminiscent of one of the concepts of spatialized time, which was taken from the philosophical discourse of Henri Bergson (1859–1941). Since time and space are complete opposites of each other, making time measurable, i. e. represented in space, we evoke the concept of spatialized time.11 If we agree on the notion that the music of the post-war period (up to the 1960s) was static, it means that we admit the possibility that it has no tempo-

8 Cf. Vesna Mikić, Muzika u tehnokulturi, Beograd: Univerzitet umetnosti, 2004. 9 Cf. Karl Hajnc Štokhauzen: Četiri kriterijuma elektronske muzike, prev. Miloš Miladinović i Predrag Cvetičanin, Niš, Studentski kulturni centar, 1989. 10 Cf. Harley: оp. cit., 1994, 3, 13. 11 Ibid., 39.

59 New Sound 47, I/2016 ral qualities whatsoever, which cannot be true. We can metaphorically speak of staticity, regarding the spatio–temporal organisation of the piece of music, in which certain techniques and the way of organizing the musical material create an impression of staticity in the musical flow. In that case, the staticity character- izes one specified opus (containing the works of different composers) in which we can detect the paradigm of “spatialization”, i. e. “the musical utilization of the physical-acoustical-perceptual spatiality of sound.”12 As Maria Anna Harley describes it, “the presence of spatialization can be recognized in every situation in which spatial extensions, positions (directions and distances) of the sound sources as well as the acoustic quality of the performance space are given com- positional significance.”13 Despite the fact that the music of the second half of the 20th century opened up a new sphere of thinking about, composing and listening to music, the ques- tions regarding spatiality and temporality have much deeper roots. One of the ways of defining the spatio–temporal organisation of the piece of music is the musical semiotics of Eero Tarasti.14 Tarasti’s methodological approach to the piece of music relies on three inseparable components: the musical time, the mu- sical space, and the musical actoriality. Through the organisation of these com- ponents, one can trace the process of musical semiosis, i.e. the process of the creation of the musical meaning. However, the three components can be sepa- rated, in order to establish the organisation of each of the components in Tarasti’s semiotical model. In that sense, I will emphasize the musical space, which is one of the subjects of this article.

The musical space in the light of musical semiotics: Tarasti’s approach The essential idea of musical spatiality is that there are different “microspac- es”, i.e. “registers” modalized in various ways, creating the tension compelling them to move toward, against, and away from each other.15 In order to explain the structure of the musical space, Tarasti further interprets the phenomenon of space in music as real or as fictive.16 By the real musical space, the author con- siders the piece of music itself (i.e. structured and organized sound material),

12 Ibid., 3–4. 13 Ibid., 4. 14 Eero Tarasti, The Theory of Musical Semiotics, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994. 15 Ibid., 85. 16 Ibid., 78. I presented Tarasti’s model of musical space in my MA thesis entitled Организација музичког простора у камерним делима Јосипа Славенског и Љубице Марић, Београд, 2012, 34–38.

60 Božanić, M., The Musical Space: A Sketch for a Broader ... while the fictive musical space is associated with the possibility to imply the narrative strategies on describing the musical space.17 However, Tarasti leaves aside the fictive musical space, focussing his attention on the real musical space. The real musical space, according to Tarasti, can be differentiated as the inner and outer musical space. The essential feature of the inner spatiality of music is the concept of centre and periphery, i. e. the centripetal and centrifugal forces within the inner musical space.18 The centre/periphery pair creates the energetic field in the inner space, and its referring – in the narrower sense of the word – to the pitch organisation of the piece of music. On the other hand, the outer musi- cal space has several possible meanings (and functions) in Tarasti’s semiotical model. Firstly, it denotes the acoustic ’frame’ of the piece of music, i. e. the disposition of the sound material into different registers, since every acoustically based material can be measured according to the register it occupies.19 The other possible meanings of the outer musical space call to mind: 1. the position of the performers in the concert hall; 2. the gestures of the conductor; 3. the orchestration (as the specific way of using the instruments in por- traying the melodic or harmonic aspect of the piece); 4. the human voice.20 However, Tarasti focuses on two primary manifestations of the inner and outer musical space – the pitch organisation and the texture (or register disposi- tion of the musical material). By selecting and presenting the concrete models of the inner and outer spa- tiality in music, Tarasti concludes that both inner and outer space can be articu- lated in the following ways: 1. horizontal (before/after); 2. vertical (up/down); 3. depth (in front of/behind); 4. centre/periphery (foreground/background).21 The first three dimensions of the musical space are the same as with physical space, but the fourth dimension is something Tarasti adds to the previous three.

17 Tarasti, op. cit. 18 Ibid.¸79. 19 Ibid. 20 Ibid. Although Tarasti recognizes many possible meanings of the outer musical space, he doesn’t categorize the selected meanings according to one specific criterion. In that sense, the outer musical space may also refer to the actual (physical) space in which the music in performed. 21 Ibid.

61 New Sound 47, I/2016

This fourth dimension, I would add, is a manifestation of the energy within the musical space, since the categories of centre and periphery imply the notion of centripetal and centrifugal forces, i. e. the engagement and disengagement from one chosen point (usually, the centre of the inner musical space) to the other.22 Considering the role of the energy in the organisation of the musical space, Tarasti offers the preliminary classification of musical spaces: 1. the point-like spaces; 2. the transitional spaces; 3. the musical fields. According to Tarasti, the point-like spaces refer to separate tones and pitch- es. This type of space contains a strong hierarchy between the points, and here we can trace the notion of the centre/periphery in its most transparent manifesta- tion. Every point has its unique modal value, which is “measured” in relation to the other points in space.23 Tarasti interprets the transition between one space to the other as transition- al space. Tarasti calls the transition lines between the spaces musical vectors.24 Finally, the musical fields represent the more or less ordered segments of sound; they are homogenous, but functionally undifferentiated segments of the piece of music.25 This brief elaboration of Tarasti’s model of the musical space requires some further explanations. Firstly, Tarasti defines the musical space in the light of mu- sical semiotics, which means that the principal role in segmenting the space in music goes to the modal values of selected microspaces.26 However, in his anal- ysis of the organisation of the musical space, one cannot trace the path of these modal values; he is relying on the organisation of pitches and registers, as the primary manifestations of the inner and the outer spatiality in music.

22 It may seem strange to isolate and emphasize the energy of a musical space in this con- text. Having in mind that Tarasti sees the musical time as separate and relatively autonomous phenomenon in his semiotical tripartite model, the isolation of the energy seems justified, because the energy is, also, a part of the space. 23 The relations between the points, as well as the energy and the type of the movement spe- cific for the point like spaces, are relevant in the analysis of the organisation of such spaces. 24 Ibid., 85. 25 Cf. Ibid., Maрија Масникоса: „Организација музиког простора дела – један од кључних елемената (музичког) модернизма Љубице Марић”, у: Дејан Деспић и Мелита Милин (ур.), Простори модернизма: опус Љубице Марић у контексту музике њеног времена, Београд: САНУ, 2010, 245. 26 The modalization is the concept of allocation the extra-musical meaning to the piece of music or its parts. A detailed explanation of the modalization can be found in: Tarasti, op. cit., 38–43.

62 Božanić, M., The Musical Space: A Sketch for a Broader ...

Where do the musical space and the prolongation analysis theory meet? As it may be noticed from the previous section, the “focal points”27 in Tarasti’s model of the musical space are pitch, energy and the centre of the musical space. However, these terms need to be re-contextualized, in order to be applied to the analysis of the music of the 20th century. To achieve this, I will use key features of the prolongation analysis theory as a supplement of Tarasti’s model of the musical space.28 The pitch is “the carrier” of the inner spatiality in music, therefore, the anal- ysis of the inner musical space relies on the analysis of the pitch organisation. In Tarasti’s semiotics of the musical space, this pitch organisation refers primar- ily to traditional Western tonality, therefore, this model is bounded exclusively to the repertoire from Haydn to Chopin. However, in the analysis of the music of the 20th century, the pitch organisation relies not on the concept of tonality, but on different pitch structures, such as modes, extended tonality, whole-scales, octatonic scales, twelve-tone scale, etc. In that sense, if we wish to analyze the organisation of the inner musical space in modern music, we must make certain adjustments to Tarasti’s model of inner spatiality. Firstly, the pitch structure of the music of the 20th century is very diverse and rich. So the organisation of the inner space must recall all those pitch structures that can be found in the works of composers of the 20th century. In other words, we cannot rely on one definite tonal/pitch hierarchy; instead, we must find a specific interval fundus for each analyzed work. Following Fred Lerdahl’s theory of tonal pitch spaces, we can find those pitch spaces that correspond to the actual pitch structure of the piece of music.29 Lerdahl in detail elaborates the structure and the organisation of diatonic pitch space, but he also explores the chromatic tonal space, and the atonal struc- tures (or flat spaces). In short, he develops a model of the tonal hierarchy, which lies at the base of every piece of music.30 The diatonic pitch space contains five structural levels/spaces:31

27 The term by Ludmila Ulehla, denoting the salient melodic or harmonic tones in the seg- ment of the musical flow. Here, the term is used metaphorically. For the original meaning and its application in the semiotics of musical space, see: Ludmila Ulehla, Contemporary Harmony: Romanticism through the Twelve-Tone Row, Rottenburg, Advance Music, 1994, 306 and Масникоса, op. cit., 248. 28 This type of analytical tool is a preliminary version. The full and detailed elaboration of this tool is a part of my Ph.D. research. 29 Fred Lerdahl, Tonal Pitch Space, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001. 30 Ibid., 41 et pass. 31 Ibid., 47.

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1. the level of octave or root space; 2. the level of fifth space; 3. the level of triadic space; 4. the level of diatonic space, and 5. the level of chromatic space. This structure represents a “basic space”, which can be further elaborated, shifted and discussed. The key feature of this type of space is that at each level of the space it elaborates into (vertically) less stable pitch classes; it represents the diatonic scale and the triad.32 Every basic space can be segmented into pitch class, chordal, and regional levels. This segmentation shows the functioning of the deeper space layers in a piece of music. For example, at the pitch class level one traces the distances of the other pitch classes to the tonic (pitch class 0), both vertically and hori- zontally. These calculations show, firstly, the depth of such a level (by counting the number of levels down in the basic space), and, secondly, the generalized notion of step and skip.33 At the chordal level, calculating the proximity of any two chords within a region occurs by the diatonic circle of fifth and common tones.34 This level of the basic diatonic space makes it possible to comprehend the structure of the deeper layer of the inner musical space, especially in relation to tonally based music. By establishing the types of chordal progression within a chordal space, it is possible to observe the chord proximity across the regions (i.e. the changes in the diatonic collection).35 Basically, the structure of the diatonic pitch space can be transformed into the chromatic tonal space. This space is constructed, because of the shift from fifth relations to third relations within the diatonic region. Thus, the chromatic tonal space does not have just one possible collection of pitches and space lev- els; there are triadic/octatonic space, triadic/hexatonic space, nontriadic octaton- ic spaces, and whole-tone and mystic spaces.36 In that sense, the inner musical space of Tarasti’s model seems rather sim- plified in contrast to Lerdahl’s pitch spaces. It is not sufficient to refer to a pitch organisation; the pitch organisation must be strictly defined and analyzed in or- der to fully grasp the organisation of the inner musical space. In order to achieve that, one must also rely on harmony as one of the primary organisational prin-

32 Ibid., 48. 33 Ibid. 34 Ibid., 53 35 Ibid., 59. 36 For detailed elaboration on these spatial models, see: Ibid., 252–268.

64 Božanić, M., The Musical Space: A Sketch for a Broader ... ciples in the piece of music.37 If we undertake the analysis of pitch relations, intervals, chords or specific melodic/bass progressions in the piece of music, we are on the way not only to establishing the basic pitch structure for the choosen work, but also to firmly defining the centre of the inner musical space (which plays an important part for Lerdahl too).38 One of the possible ways of defining the centre of the inner musical space may be the prolongation analysis theory by Olli Väisälä.39 According to him, the centre of the inner musical space in post-tonal music (i.e. the music of the 20th century) must be associted with the harmony.40 More precisely, it is necessary to analyze the structure of intervals in one specific piece of music, since – as Väisälä noted – certain interval classes act as a substitute to the traditional harmonic relations.41 The analysis of the types of interval classes enables the differentiation between harmony (the vertical asp- cet) and melody (the horizontal aspect), i.e. the differentiation of background (the structurally deeper layers of the piece of music) and foreground (the mani- festation of these deeper layers). In that sense, Tarasti’s centre of the inner musi- cal space can be positioned as a prominent point in both the background and the foreground, and Väisälä’s prolongation analysis theory is a way to demonstrate the role of this point in the piece of music. To demonstrate the structure of the centre of the inner musical space, one must differentiate between the harmonic and melodic intervals in a chosen piece of music. For example, the interval class 1 (for C=0) usually denotes the melodic interval, because it is manifested as a “step” from one pitch to the other. On the other hand, the “transposition” of ic1 (seventh or ninth) denotes the harmonic interval, since it usually occurs as a leap from one pitch to the other. Thus, the harmonic intervals are perceived vertically, simultaneously, and spatially, while

37 By the term harmony, I do not consider the traditional definition, but rather the traces of the classical harmony which are still evident in the modern music. For example, the bass pro- gression, the fifths, fourths and octaves in the melodic or bass line, different manifestations of tonic–dominant relationship, etc. Cf. Ulehla, op. cit. 38 Tarasti does not specify what he means by the term centre, nor he gives us any hints on what it could be, there is a perplexity in defining the centre of the inner musical space. How- ever, he briefly suggests that the centre may be any point in the musical space: Tarasti, op. cit., 79. 39 Oli Väisälä: Prolongation in Early Post-Tonal Music: Analytic Examples and Theoreti- cal Principles, Ph.D. thesis, Sibelius Academy, Department of Composition and Music The- ory, Studia Musica 23, 2004, http://ethesis.siba.fi/ethesis/files/nbnfife200910222275.pdf, ­accessed July 2014. 40 Ibid., 40. 41 Ibid., 62 et pass.

65 New Sound 47, I/2016 the melodic intervals are perceived horizontally, as a movement in time.42 How- ever, this example needs to be additionally supported by the concept of registral distinction, which plays a great part in Väisälä’s prolongation analysis theory. He argues the importance of registral distinctions of interval classes, because if we reject this notion and treat the interval classes as they were (in respect of the octave equivalence of the set-theory), we may not obtain a valid analytical insight into the intervallic structure of the piece of music. Therefore, the position of the pitch in the outer musical space is a distinguishing factor in the analysis of the importance of that pitch in the total intervallic/pitch fundus of the piece, and it is empirically based in the psychoacoustical analysis of the significance and function of certain interval classes in the musical flow.43 The idea of energy in the musical space is another aspect that needs to be re- contextualized. Since energy is one of the basic parameters of spatiality (move- ment is crucial for experiencing space!), this notion can be explained with Steve Larson’s theory of musical forces.44 According to Larson, the musical forces (i.e. the metaphor of musical mo- tion and musical forces) have a prominent role in the perception of melody and rhythm, since their meaning evokes the stereotypes of natural forces.45 Larson identifies five types of musical forces – three melodic and two46 rhythmical. The melodic forces are: melodic gravitation (the downstep movement), melodic magnetism (the melodically unstable pitch has a tendency towards the nearest stable pitch, while the energetic tension is increasing), and musical inertia (the pitch tends to continue in the previous state of pitch, duration or both).47 If we apply Larson’s musical forces in the structure of Tarasti’s inner musical space, we will contribute primarily in the expanding and/or clarifying of Tarasti’s clas- sification of point like, transitional spaces and musical fields. For example, the points (pitches, intervals or chords, added M. B.) in point like spaces are posi- tioned according to some modal value they are assigned (based on how much they are wanted, obligated, needed, desired, etc.). However, if we consider these modal values to be musical forces, we can notice completly different relations

42 Ibid., 62–63. 43 Ibid., 63. It should be noted that Väisälä’s notion on registral distinction resembles Taras- ti’s notion on how acoustically based material can be measured in respect to the register it occupies. 44 Steve Larson, Musical Forces: Motion, Metaphor and Meaning in Music, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2012. 45 Ibid., 19. 46 Ibid., 21. 47 Ibid.

66 Božanić, M., The Musical Space: A Sketch for a Broader ... between the points. In that sense, if the selected point is melodically unstable (like ic1, minor second), it has a tendency to gravitate towards the nearest stable point in the musical flow. This type of force is called melodic magnetism. On the other hand, if the selected point has no tendency to change its position, or direc- tion, or pitch, remaining the same in a chosen period of time, we are dealing with melodic inertia, etc. Therefore, by exploring the nature of musical forces in a piece of music, we would certainly clarify the organisation of the inner musi- cal space, namely, the relations between the points of the space and the type of forces that prevail.

The analytical competences of the adjusted model of the musical space: the case of Iannis Xenakis’s Metastaseis (1953/4) The analytical model of the musical space, presented in the previous section of the article, needs to be verified in the musical analysis of the organisation of the musical space. In that sense, I chose a work from the repertoire of European high modernism – Iannis Xenakis’s Metastaseis (1953/4). This piece represents the paradigm of musical spatiality and the organisation of the musical space in the music after the World War II. In order to adequately discuss the organisation of the musical space in Xe- nakis’ work, we must outline the segments of the musical form.

Table 1: The musical form of Metastaseis48

А B C A1 (1–103) (104–149) (150–308) (309–345)

a (1–34) a (150–166) a (309–333)

b (35–46) b (167–173) b (334–345)

c (47–57) c (174–208)

d (58–85) d (209–221)

e (86–103) e (222–235)

f (235–263) g (264–282) h (282–295)

48 Cf: Iannis Xenakis, Metastaseis, London, Bowsey and Hawkes, 1967 [full score].

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Table 1 represents the traditional analysis of the musical form. On the other hand, James Harley analyses the work by differentiating the techniques used in each segment of the work:49

Table 2: The musical form of Metastaseis (according to Harley)

А B A′ C C′ D A (retro) B′

Massed Fragmented Sus- glis- Clus- Quasi-serial Massed Glis- glissandi tained sando ter Serial (develop- glissando sando (develop- unison from chord ment) to unison ment) to end unison

34 52 18 23 24–28 115 16 13

115 104 (30%) 98 (28.25%) 29 (8.5%) (33.25%)

The first segment of the piece (mm. 1–103, Table 1) is an exposition of the entire piece. The main event in this segment is a cluster chord, which appears in m. 34 for the first time. According to Tarasti’s classification of musical spaces, this segment can be described as point like space; there are clearly defined mu- sical “lines” (the glissando), which traces the paths from the beginning of the piece to the cluster chord. The starting point is a tone g, which represents the ex nihilo point for Xenakis’ composing process. The composer is “drawing lines” from the tone g (with the glissandi in all the instruments), which are headed in different directions, thus intensifying the sound volume. The movement of the musical material in this segment of the inner musical space is mainly directed towards the cluster chord in m. 34. The outer musical space is homogenous in the beginning; but, it soon begins to disintegrate and to expand in two direc- tions: to the upper and to the lowest registers. However, the climax of this seg- ment of the musical space is m. 34 – the outer musical space completly opens in all registers, while the inner musical space becomes centred (the movement of all parts is directed toward m. 34).50

49 James Harley, Xenakis: His Life in Music, New York–London, Routledge, 2004, 10. 50 For the explanation of the term “centred”, see: Божанић, Организација музичког простора..., op. cit., 33.

68 Božanić, M., The Musical Space: A Sketch for a Broader ...

It is interesting to discuss the status of the cluster chord in m. 34, since it is the most salient event in this segment of the musical space. The cluster chord is the result of directed movement of the musical lines (glissandi) in mm. 1–34. In a way, we expect the cluster chord to appear, since the musical logic of the piece and the movement within the musical space suggest so. On the other hand, the cluster chord has no structural meaning at all – it is not structured as a chord, there is no intervallic structure in its core, nor is there any logic in the appear- ance of the tones in the cluster chord. However, we cannot deny its perceptual significance in the context of this segment of the musical space of the piece, since it is expected and, in a way, logicaly prepared. The question is, can we proclaim it as the centre of the inner musical space of this segment of the piece? Considering the fact that the inner musical space contains some sort of pitch or- ganisation, we can hardly claim that the opening segment of the piece possesses any sort of pitch organisation. On the other hand, the movement usually changes to the opposite direction when the music reaches the centre of the inner musi- cal space; but, in this specific case, the movement does not change. The music remains on the cluster chord even when all the parts get to it, thus creating a sort of sound plateau. In that sense, this cluster chord could not be treated as the cen- tre of the inner musical space, but it is surely a most salient and perceptually the strongest point in this segment of the piece. The greatest intensity of the cluster chord can be felt in mm. 47–55. After that the musical space divides into two layers: a cluster chord forms one layer (it will be repeated in intervals), and the percussions (with the addition of the horn, trumpet and trombone in m. 60) forms the other layer. The next segment of the musical space (mm. 104–149, see Ex. 1) could be classified – according to Tarasti – as a transitional musical space. In fact, this segment represents the transition from segment A to segment C. The basic sound material of this segment is a ten-row set, with the d as a starting point. The set is split between the violins (the first four pitches, 0, 1, 7, 8) and the cellos (the rest of the set, 6, 11, 10, 9, 5, 4). The outer musical space is saturated, since every pitch occupies a certain register. However, the inner musical space is centred, be- cause of the ten-row set. Xenakis exposes the twelve transpositions of the origi- nal set in succession, leaving out the cellos in the fifth and the last transposition. There is no centre of the inner musical space, since there are not any simultane- ous events, or, if there were any, they would be the result of an accidental over- lapping of the tones of the set.

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Example 1: Iannis Xenakis, Metastaseis, mm. 104–109.

The segment C (mm. 150–308) is developmental in character; it is formed from various microsegments that share a similar motivic nucleus. The inner mu- sical space of this segment is both centred and decentred, while the outer musi- cal space remains wide. Also, there is an intensive linear movement in this seg- ment – all melodic lines move quite independently from each other – and that complicates the identification of the centre/centres of the inner musical space in this segment. There is no one specific nor perceptually salient event (like the cluster chord in the opening segment) which could be structurally important. It can be noticed that the organisation of the musical space in this segment of the piece relies upon some secondary parameters, like dynamics or articulation – we can trace the segmentation of the musical space from m. 202. Xenakis also oper- ates with the density of the musical space, by adding some instrumental groups. The most intense events occur in mm. 264–308 (see Ex. 2). The glissando reap- pears in this segment of the piece, but with a change in function – it has become the means for the regulation of the dynamics of the musical flow.

70 Božanić, M., The Musical Space: A Sketch for a Broader ...

Example 2: Iannis Xenakis, Metastaseis, mm. 300–308.

The final segment of the piece, A1 (mm. 309–345, see Ex. 3) represents the inversion of the opening segment: the glissando is directed downwards, until it reaches the tone #g. The other pitches are spread accross the outer musical space, with the tendency of shrinking into the unisono at the end of the piece. There is no centre of the inner musical space, and the musical space can be, overall, classified as point like space.

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Example 3: Iannis Xenakis, Metastaseis, mm. 317–346.

72 Božanić, M., The Musical Space: A Sketch for a Broader ...

Example 3, continued.

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The conclusion One of the aims of this article was to discuss the musical space from the musico- logical and semiotical perspective. As a musicologist, I can say that the musical space represents one of the pillars of the structure of the piece of music itself, which is – I hope – demonstrated by means of the analysis of Iannis Xenakis’ Metastaseis. However, we can trace the emergence of the musical space accross the 20th century (and even before that time!) – in the outline of the changes and the evolution of the musical language from the beginning of the 20th century up to the 1960s. Through the changes of different musical features and parameters – especially pitch, rhythm, harmony and texture – we could outline the evolu- tion of an awareness of the importance of spatial organisation of sound material and its parameters. More specifically, the composers explored the sound and its organisation with more care and more curiousity than before, which led to the specific organisation of the musical space. As a (beginner) semiotician, I could argue that the musical space represents one of the basic ways of organising the sound material and creating specific extra-musical values in different segments of the piece of music. In the light of musical semiotics, the musical space is constructed according to the tension that exists between various messages and meanings inscribed in the musical mate- rial. However, the analysis of the musical space does not always seem to be an easy task; especially in the context of the music of the 20th century. Different compositional strategies, and numerous available messages created a complex web of meanings around and in every piece of music. Therefore, the analysis of the musical space needed to be expanded in the domain of the analysis itself; the best way to achieve it was through the prolongation analysis theory. Combin- ing the two seemingly different methodologies – Tarasti’s model of the musical space and selected parts of prolongation analysis theory – we could create a unique analytical tool for the analysis of the organisation of the musical space. The significance of the analysis of the spatial organisation of the sound ma- terial is manifold; however, it is yet to be fully explored. In this article, I intend- ed to sketch some basic ideas about one possible way of defining, describing and analyzing the spatial organisation of one specific piece of music. Translated by the author

74 Samardžić, N., The Jazz Avant-Garde in the American Economy INTERPRETATIONS

Article received on July 12th 2015 Article accepted on October 15th 2015 UDC: 78.036.9(73)”1940/1970”

Nikola Samardžić* Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade

The Jazz Avant-Garde in the American Economy

Abstract: Jazz originated and evolved in a free market economy and complex mutual relations with unregulated social conjuncture. Coping with social challenges during the Progressive era (1890−1920) contributed to the partial emancipation of marginalized groups; however jazz, in its first decades, remained directed to the general need for mass entertainment (the “jazz era” in the 1920s). The artistic development of jazz was therefore temporarily delayed during the economic crisis, Great Depression and the new recession of the late 1930s (1929−1938). The first movement in jazz that could be considered to be an art for art’s sake, while renouncing any populist elements, appeared in 1939 Coleman Hawkins’ Body and Soul recording. Market and social conditions for the emergence of the avant-garde began to mature only during the years after 1945, within a new business cycle in the US economy. The prosperous and conformist decade of the 1950s stabilized the middle class and directed general social preferences towards the benefits of higher education. European immigration from the inter-war period, and a new wave of immigra- tion at the end of the Second World War enabled the growth of American universities in terms of quality and social influence. Universities recruited the jazz avant-garde audience, and supported other progressive art movements in the 1960s “decade of turbulence, pro- test, and disillusionment”. Thanks to market support, the jazz avant-garde managed to survive free of the influences of state institutions, as John Coltrane’s Love Supreme, often listed amongst the greatest jazz albums of all time, was sold in about 500,000 copies by 1970. A similar development, with the emergence of the baby-boom generation in the late 1960s, has contributed to the maturing of European avant-garde audiences and markets (ECM, 1969). The study will also examine avant-garde movements in relation to historical changes in economic and social disparities, from the thirties to the early 1970s. Keywords: jazz avant-garde, economic trends, social differences, market, high education

* Author contact information: [email protected]

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Widely interpreted, the jazz avant-garde embraces authors who themselves have lived or even created different styles, phases, and also historical periods. The first movement in jazz that could be considered as art for art’s sake, while re- nouncing any populist elements, appeared in 1939 Coleman Hawkins’ Body and Soul recording. Bebop emerged with its new, sofisticated and complex language in Manhattan bars in early 1940s, revealing a new audience, a new incoming cultural, social and economic environment. Bop was an elitist and artistic break- through. Bop was even compared to quantum physics, as the music was appear- ing in each succeeding moment, in altered, impenetrable forms and structures. “Bebop was meant to be difficlult and baffling. It was meant to scare the non- talents off those early Harlem stages, to shock the commercial, white jazz es- tablishment, and generally to leave audiences in a state of slightly bewildered awe”.1 In that way, bop needed a complex theoretical basis and elitist market support. Already long before the birth of bop a conservative entertainer, Louis Armstrong, considered bop as a “modern malice”, “no tune to remember and no beat to dance to”.2 And although there were references to the “back to the roots”, bop was ob- viously, almost inextricably, relying on European heritage, even to that which preceded Stravinsky or Schoenberg. The economic and social background also revealed an emerging white, educated audience. During the 1950’s and 1960’s, led by strong experimental impulses, jazz musicians directed jazz to more ex- ploratory domains. Inherited forms, harmony, melody, and rhythms were consid- erably extended. Saxophonist Ornette Coleman and trumpet player Don Cherry issued fundamental albums The Shape Of Jazz To Come and Free Jazz. Bop and post bop remained a strong basis with more conservative currents in jazz avant- garde. Pianist Cecil Taylor, with his percussive playing style, included disso- nant clusters of melodies and fast technical passages, exempt of any particular harmonic or rhythmic obtrusion. Musical highpoints of the avant-garde were reached by saxophonist John Coltrane, in the mid 1960’s. Further flows can be traced through jazz fusion or ECM production during the 1970s. Jazz Avant-Garde definitions vary, as the following ones: avant-gardists (for want of a better term) such as the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Cecil Taylor and Archie Shepp ..., Sam Rivers, Anthony Braxton, Ornette Coleman, McCoy Tyner, Keith Jarrett, Dewey Redman; mainstreamers Elvin Jones, Art Blakey, Eddie (Lockjaw) Davis, Bill Evans, Phil Woods, Zoot Sims, Dizzy Gillespie, Dexter Gor-

1 Dmitri Tymoczko, “The End of Jazz? Bebop: The Music and Its Players by Thomas Owens (review)”, Transition, 1996, 70, 72. 2 Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, 2 edition, Edited by Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates, Oxford University Press, 2005, 359.

76 Samardžić, N., The Jazz Avant-Garde in the American Economy

don, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Gary Burton, Oregon, two Generations of Brubeck, Stan Getz (with Joao Gilberto); pop-jazz performers Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Stan- ley Turrentine, Donald Byrd, Hubert Laws, Jean Luc Ponty, Patrice Rushen, Airto, Flora Purim, Weather Report, Freddie Hubbard, George Benson, Jackie and Roy, George Shearing, Ramsey Lewis, Sonny Rollins, Hampton Hawes... Definitions of the jazz avant-garde have been usually concentrated around a few important figures, but the wider thematic frames or periodisation were subject to review.3 How to define the jazz avant-garde in a vague economic and social context? “From the beginning jazz musicians refused to limit themselves; they reached out to embrace the themes, the techniques, the idioms of any music they found appealing and they did so with a minimum of fuss or comment”.4 Jazz avant- garde was a thorough process of searching and expression, founded on enormous talent, feelings and knowledge, sometimes even endless, unrestricted improvisa- tion, or wandering through extremely complex but interrelated scales and harmo- nies. The avant-garde laid out new artistic and theoretical standards that became a definite basis for the later academicism. Significant, previous influences could be traced back as far as the European classics, especially the French Impression- ists. Jazz avant-garde invented a complex, ingenious musical structure, by the use of 9ths, llths, 13ths, etc., and almost algorithmic harmonic progressions, and a two-part counterpoint with double-bass playing crotchets, a solo instrument or voice, and a drummer left to almost unrestrained creativity.5 New standards have been issued even by memorizing previously improvised riffs or phrases. Charlie Parker occasionally reused phrases recorded on “Now’s the Time” (Nov. 26, 1945, for Savoy), and Miles Davis has frequently quoted his own phrases originally available on Kind of Blue (April 22, 1959, for Columbia).6 Insufficient attention is paid to the connection between the history of jazz and the American economy and capitalism. The social history of jazz was more progressivist and left- liberal oriented, exploring the phenomena of social and racial inequality, focused on urban poverty, personal misfortune, misery, social persecution, and social neglect. The conservative-liberal approach is not often represented in the available academic research, and is more focussed on em-

3 Frank Kofsky, “The State of Jazz”, The Black Perspective in Music, 1977, Vol. 5, No. 1, 44. 4 Lawrence W. Levine, “Jazz and American Culture”, The Journal of American Folklore, 1989, Vol. 102, No. 403 , 17. 5 Patrick Gowers, “Modern Jazz”, The Musical Times, 1962, Vol. 103, No. 1432, 389. 6 Mark Gridley, Robert Maxham and Robert Hoff, “Three Approaches to Defining Jazz”, The Musical Quarterly, 1989, Vol. 73, No. 4, 523.

77 New Sound 47, I/2016 phasizing individualism and the realization of personal or economic freedom that enabled jazz to become, together with the film industry, the most specific expression of American culture.7 The beginnings of jazz coincide with the rapid changes in the economic and social conjuncture that deeply transformed the world in the late 18th and early 19th centuries in the series of technological, organizational, and political devel- opments. The pre-history of jazz belongs to the Malthusian revolution, whose fullfilement in demography and changes in living conditions could be traced from the beginnings of the 19th century. People, goods, and ideas began to move faster than ever before in history, and for the first time after 10,000 years, the improvement of living conditions significantly lengthened the average life ex- pectancy. Overall progress also affected the intensification and democratization of human relations. In 1866, the transatlantic telegraph service was established. The great expansion of the railway network took place in the late 19th century. In the 1850s and 1860s, four innovations lowered the cost of steampowered ocean transport: the screw propeller, iron hulls, compound engines, and surface con- densers.8 During the Malthusian and First Industrial Revolution, New Orleans was becoming an important spot in international trade and world economy and, as such, a destination of migrants and immigrants. Two important relocations di- rected jazz towards a more profound artistic transformation: the Great Migration to the urban North, and moving from the outdoors to more sophisticated urban interiors, such as clubs, theaters and concert halls. The Great Migration, a long- term social and economic relocation of the African Americans, was oriented to- wards New York City, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Chicago, St. Louis and Los Angeles. In the long term, the Great Migration lasted from 1916 to 1970. From the 1930s, Harlem was inhabited by 300,000 African Americans. The eco- nomic basis of the Harlem Renaissance was industrial employement. The Great Migration deeply transformed the northern cities. Jazz acquired a new audience and became a subject of the entertainment business. Jazz artists were given the opportunity to express their inner sensations and affinities. Urban structures al-

7 John Gennari, “Jazz Criticism: Its Development and Ideologies”, Black American Litera- ture Forum, 1991, Vol. 25, No. 3, 449−523. 8 General references: Douglass Cecil North, Understanding the Process of Economic Change, Princeton University Press, 2005; Gregory Clark, A Farewell to Alms : A brief eco- nomic history of the world, Princeton University Press, 2007; Michael Lind, Land of Prom- ise: An Economic History of the United States, Harper Paperbacks, 2013; Gary M. Walton and Hugh Rockoff, History of the American Economy, 20th Edition, South-Western, Cengage Learning, 2014.

78 Samardžić, N., The Jazz Avant-Garde in the American Economy lowed access to a richly structured, profound, and “deep” market.9 Jazz became a commodity, a service, intended for fun, physical and emotional pleasure. Over time, artists and consumers also appeared, in search of a more profound spiri- tual and intellectual experience. We still do not have an overall economic history of jazz. The history of jazz is largely made up of individual destinies. The economy of jazz was easier to understand in the first jazz period, from the late 19th century to the emergence of bebop and avant-garde, after 1939, or during the 1950s. The emergence of jazz announced the era of the commercialization of leisure and entertainment. Jazz was a commercial and social element of the eponymous jazz era during the 1920s. The chances of prosperity and more leisure time led to social and cultural changes. Women gained the right to vote and, in public, their behavior became more equated with men’s, such as smoking cigarettes, drinking whiskey, and playing men’s games. Reforms and economic growth supported increased education, a reduced birthrate and smaller families. Already in the 1920s, the modern American standard of living was accessible to a broader middle class. After the collapse of 1929 and the Great Depression, the “swing era” coincided with the attempts in economic and social recovery. The jazz avant-garde departed from the previous patterns of popular mu- sic, including “classic” jazz from the 1920s and 1930s. Its economic and social outlines were reflecting the emergence of a new, broader market in the post-war American capitalism and social development. Although measured in hundreds of thousands, eventually even millions of listeners, that market was able to adopt to artistic innovation. The US government sponsored jazz in Cold War propa- ganda purposes exclusively. During the first half of the 20th century reducing social inequalities enabled the democratization of culture and the emergence of more diverse oriented cul- tural facilities. The jazz avant-garde appeared only after the previous economic and social conditions were fullfilled during the 1950s: the stabilization of the middle class, the gradual emancipation of African Americans, the development of universities. Intense cultural influences were brought by the immigration from Eastern Europe. European influences also encouraged elitist attitudes and behav- ior. However, jazz was already broadly democratized, thanks to the develop- ment of sound carriers, radio and the emergence of sound film. In the post-war period, after 1945, the strong American economy and political impact enabled even deeper cultural, educational and scientific contacts with Europe. New intel-

9 A trade zone where a large number of shares can be bought and sold without drastically affecting the price. Might also refer to the buyers and sellers following a particular issue as well.

79 New Sound 47, I/2016 lectual resources within American cociety confirmed that primordial capitalism has disappeared into the irrecoverable past. The “Golden Age” of the American economy and social evolution, between 1945 and 1975, coincided with the West German “Wirtschaftswunder”, econom- ic miracle, or “les trente glorieuses”, the glorious thirties in France. After the slow recovery during the 1930s from the 1929 crash, a new American economy was born from the previous history of stock and bank failures, unemployment and commercial paralysis, and also the new role of government during the Sec- ond World War. In 1958, John Kenneth Galbraith coined the phrase “the afflu- ent society.” The first three post-war decades are also related to the reality, or impressions of a high growth and rapid expansion of the mass middle classes, new forms of social insurance and increased government regulation of banking, industry, the electrical supply system or interstate highway grid, together with the decentralization of production, work, shopping and housing. New house- hold technologies (refrigerators, washing machines, dishwashers) allowed the members of America’s new middle class to enjoy listening to the radio, watch- ing television shows, and going to the movies. The South was gradually inte- grated as the federally sponsored infrastructural and agricultural modernization was followed by the civil rights movement. South and West were beginning to attract, again, immigrants and investors. Many of the African American and white farm laborers and tenants were migrating to cities in the South, or to the North, as new technologies, or even air-conditioning, accelerated the migration of Americans from the Northeast and Midwest to the booming states like Cali- fornia, Texas, and Florida. The federal government built great numbers of army bases, air bases, naval facilities, and defense-production plants in the South and West. Postwar Americans enjoyed more personal space, and more personal time. The work week has declined to forty hours. The major sectors of the American economy were organized as govern- ment-backed cartels or dominated by a few huge corporations. The industrial sector was largely privatized from government property after 1945. The larg- est industrial corporations were mostly successful between 1954 and 1976. The Truman administration adopted an antitrust policy. Investment bankers were separated from commercial bankers and forbidden to be on the boards of direc- tors of corporations. Industry was financed primarily from within, as borrowing from banks and issuing securities accounted for only a quarter of capital. The economic boom allowed many firms to finance themselves to a greater degree from retained earnings, reducing the influence of the financial sector over corpo- rate America.

80 Samardžić, N., The Jazz Avant-Garde in the American Economy

The 1920 census confirmed that urban Americans outnumbered rural Amer- icans. By 1950, two thirds of native-born white Americans lived in urban areas. After the war, Americans were more educated than the previous generations. American society was stabilized in the 1950s as the previous reductions in European immigration reduced the average flows between 1915 and 1950 to only one-fifth of its earlier rate. From the 1950s, the federal program of Social Security and the federal state unemployment and welfare programs created a modern safety net for a new ur- ban society. Mostly thanks to the welfare programs, as the Economic Opportu- nity Act of 1964, which promoted jobs and training for the poor, from the 1960s until the end of the 1990s, black poverty declined from a little more than 40 percent to 22 and 24 percent. Between 1966 and 1969 alone, black poverty fell from 40.9% to 30.9%. The poverty persisted mainly due to the mass immigra- tion that followed the 1965 immigration reforms, as the immigrants originated mainly from Latin America. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 abol- ished the national origins quota system, replacing it with a preference system that focused on immigrants’ skills and family relationships with citizens or U.S. residents. More as a consequence of the various unexpected results of this act rather than due to this act itself, the new immigration wave changed America’s demographics, economic and social structure, enabling immigration from Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. The Latin American population also dramatically increased from 1965. In the long term, the new immigration involved changes in cultural preferences. In other words, the new structure of immigration focused the artistic direction towards entertainment and ethnic music. The American “world society”, instead of jazz, introduced new “world music”. Globalising artistic movements, jazz and rock died together with globalisation, also within American society. The new immigration stimulated economic growth, which had been very dynamic since the beginning of the 1980s. During the seventies a transition took place towards the sector of services, information technology and a market knowledge and skills. Changes in the employment sector ranged from a decline in agriculture, 68% of total employment in 1800, to 41% in 1900, 15% in 1950, and only 2% in 2012, while industrial production was rising from 18% in 1800 to 28% in 1900, and 34% in 1950, and falling to 18% in 2012, to a steadily growth in the services’ sector, from 13% in 1800 to 31% in 1900, 50% in 1950, to 80% in 2012.10 Income inequality in the US fell between 1941 and 1945, since the state, faced with wartime needs, was redirecting financial and production activities.

10 Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2014, 69.

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Inequality continued to decline slightly in the early 1950s, and remained mostly stable until the beginning of the Reagan-Thatcher era in the1980s. In the absence of a national program of higher education, distribution, a diffusion of knowledge in American society, especially during the jazz avant- garde era, roughly between 1940 and 1970, was mostly spontaneous. But also the emergence of jazz, from its roots, and the emergence of the avant-garde, belonged to the general flows of cultural association, social assimilation, immi- gration and urbanization. In the absence of governmental intervention, forces of divergence, and the growth in differences, were more dynamic than in Western Europe. The calming factors that contributed to the appearance of jazz avant- garde audiences, institutions and markets, were the huge accumulations of capi- tal, arrivals of educated immigrants from Europe between the two world wars, and private investments in universities. Income inequality in the US largely de- creased from 1950 to 1955, stagnated until the end of 1960s, slightly declined between 1968 and 1970, stagnated during 1970s, and rapidly grew in the 1980s and 1990s, to be temporarily halted at the beginning of 2000s.11 The postwar era of American capitalism was coming to an end during the 1970s. Americans had been loosing faith in the New Deal order “constructed by Roosevelt and Truman, ratified by Eisenhower, and expanded by Kennedy and Johnson”.12 Oil shocks, following the Arab-Israeli War of 1973 and the Iranian Revolution of 1979, deeply disturbed, but also diverted the global economy. American domination over world trade also came to an end, with the eonom- ic rise of Japan and Western Europe. From 1973 to 1996, American economic growth fell dramatically, compared to the previous two decades. All the indus- trial economies suffered a productivity slowdown around the same time, perhaps as a result of the maturity of second-industrial revolution technologies like elec- tricity and automobiles. “The unchallenged supremacy of the US economy in the world could last only until America’s industrial rivals recovered from the dev- astation of World War II − in large part because of generous American help”.13 As capitalism is a general economic and social order characterized by pri- vate property, the exchange of goods and services ran by free individuals and their enterprises and assotiations, jazz was both a product and reflection of the American economy. The spread of capitalism generated a general leap in human progress: living standards, cultivation and investment in human potential, devel- opment of individualism and the concept of human rights and freedoms, includ- ing the democratization of arts. Artistic individualism was exposed directly to

11 Ibid., 23. 12 Michael Lind, op. cit., 207. 13 Ibid., 208.

82 Samardžić, N., The Jazz Avant-Garde in the American Economy the market. In the long term, the post-war rise of American capitalism, including post-industrial trends, affected the growth of inequality. Inequality has spawned a social and cultural elitism, economically powerful enough to support new ex- periments in arts or humanities. On the other side, even the very distinguished jazz individualism was promoting a specific form of inequality, underlying per- sonal success based on abilities. “Interviews with 118 randomly selected jazz musicians and four months of participant observation” in 1967 confirmed that: jazz musicians are becoming less hostile toward audiences and the larger society, that in-group norms promoting cohesiveness are weakening, and that jazz musicians are becoming less inclined to interact only with their own kind. These major attitudinal shifts are attributed to an increased positive valuation of jazz music by the general public.14 Jazz was gaining an increasing degree of public recognition and approval as a serious musical form, and that has been confirmed by the proliferation of jazz education at schools and universities, the increasing use of “jazz tours” by the State Department’s cultural exchange programs, and the increasing number of jazz concerts held at prestigious locations, such as the White House or the Carnegie Hall. Jazz transition in more formal educational circles was “in part, an outcome of demands arising from increasingly critical recording techniques, the increasing complexity of jazz music, and the development of more sophisticated public tastes.”15 The rise of the jazz avant-garde must be considered also in the context of economic and cultural relations with Western Europe. Since the late 1940s to the late 1970s, during the “famous thirty” years, economic growth in Western Eu- rope was spectacular, and almost permanent. The US growth was more moder- ate, just over 2% from 1950 to 1970, and slowed to less than 1.5% between 1990 and 2012.16 The two economies were approaching each other, the two markets were balanced, and the two technological systems were coordinated. From the beginning of the 1960s, the US was again under a strong and important Euro- pean cultural influence, which culminated in a “British wave” in 1964. Europe was the most important foreign market for American goods. It even became a market for the jazz avant-garde. The mutual relations in this regard probably culminated when Manfred Eicher founded in Munich, Germany, in 1969, a re- cord label ECM (Edition of Contemporary Music). Also in 1969, the English guitarist, bandleader and composer John McLaughlin joined Miles Davis on his

14 Edward Harvey, “Social Change and the Jazz Musician”, Social Forces, 1967, Vol. 46, No. 1, 34. 15 Ibid., 40. 16 Thomas Piketty, op. cit. 73.

83 New Sound 47, I/2016 landmark electric jazz-fusion albums In A Silent Way, Bitches Brew, A Tribute to Jack Johnson and On The Corner. English bassist Dave Holland joined Miles Davis in 1968, recording in September 1968, and appeared on half of the album Filles de Kilimanjaro (1968, with Miles Davis, Chick Corea, Wayne Shorter and Tony Williams), undoubtedly a high point in modern jazz. The Down Beat critic John Ephland estimated Filles de Kilimanjaro to be a turning-point album for Davis, with only five tunes, and with a mood and rhythms that change gradu- ally from start to finish. And while considering free jazz as grating and unpleas- ant, Miles was nothing short of an avant-garde spirit in his need to find a wider audience. “For the first time, his bebop roots were essentially severed, rockier rhythms, electricity and ostinato-driven bass lines now holding sway”. Is jazz one of the best products of American capitalism, and not just the most authentic outcome in American culture? Is it possible to establish a cor- respondence between cultural development and economic cycles? Was avant- garde jazz confirming a deep social diversification? During the postwar period, there arose a new generation of consumers. The appearance of this generation was a consequence of the social and educational diversification. Jazz artists benefited from the stabilization of economic devel- opment and income inequalities, although their personal features, habits and life style were exceptional, sometimes even eccentric. They still managed to survive on the open market, deprived of governmental or foundational aid, sup- port which might have suffocated their innovation or excellence. Moreover they could enrich themselves. Miles Davis had a collection of Ferraris, Mercedes and Lamborginis, and remained uncompromising, compelling and unique. On its latest cover, Kind of Blue is pronounced ‘perhaps the most influential and best selling jazz album of all time’. The sales figures for the album support at least the second part of this claim: the latest estimates provided by Sony Music put total sales at about 4.5-5 million units.17 James Collier challenged assumptions that jazz was “a people’s music” and “a ghetto music”, reminding that:

Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller, and Count Basie were growing rich and famous playing the music, and dozens of others (such as Billie Holiday, Art Tatum, Roy Eldridge, and Dizzy Gillespie) were buying Cadillacs and furs from the proceeds of their music.18

17 Samuel Barrett, “‘Kind of Blue’ and the Economy of Modal Jazz”, Popular Music, 2006, Vol. 25, No. 2, 185. 18 Idem

84 Samardžić, N., The Jazz Avant-Garde in the American Economy

Coltrane was treated with almost religious adoration. John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme, which borders on jazz-rock and on free jazz, is after all one of the most popular jazz records of all time, and probably not thanks to Col- trane’s many beboppish technical excelences. Like much free jazz, A Love Supreme is appreciated as an unrestrained musical bacchanalia, a pireco of 1960s psychedelia, a sort of jazz Sgt. Pepper.19 Coltrane’s Love Supreme, often listed amongst the greatest jazz albums of all time, was sold in about 500,000 copies by 1970. In the post-war period, each wave of development in economy or technol- ogy generated new waves of social temptations, political turmoil and artistic responses. Jazz avant-garde did not oppose the application of technological in- novations, and was open to cooperating with related movements, such as art and industrial design, poetry, film or photography. Even, at its peak, jazz avant-garde was using rock culture experiences, or direct cooperation, while establishing communication with the market and broader audience. Jazz avant-garde took advantage of the adoption of new technologies in mu- sic and art production. Historically, in the very foundations of HiFi culture, mod- ern jazz albums also belong to the best sound recordings ever realized, as the recording technology of modern jazz was dependent on valves and tapes. Avant- garde jazz recordings ranks within the the heights of artistic sound processing and the convergence of direct musical expression towards broader audiences. Con- temporary Blue Note, Prestige, Impulse! Riverside vintage vinyl pressings from the 1950s and 1960s remain also physically exceptional musical experiences. The economic crisis in 1974 increased the cost of vinyl, while impure recy- cled vinyl, reduced the vinyl thickness, the excessive numbers cut before chang- ing the stampers or insufficiently frequent quality sample checks, contributed to lowering the quality of the sound transmission. Finally, the gradual introduc- tion of transistors to replace valves, and the definite predominance of solid state circuitry from the mid-1970s impoverished the hitherto warm, immediate and dynamic sound of the previous era, which also belonged to the jazz avant-garde. The jazz avant-garde highlights were reached with the superb, unique artis- tic individualism of Miles Davis, Bill Evans, John Coltrane, McCoy Tyner. Their personal appearance cannot be explained by economic forces, market or social structure. But the economic strength, urban development, maturing of American society and the rise of educational resources enabled their popularity and the survival of refined, elitist art within a free market economy. Their uniqueness, sometimes considered as “the death” of jazz, remains, however, definitely ex- cluded from economic explanation.

19 Dmitri Tymoczko, op. cit.,76.

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With regard to the previous research that places the jazz avant-garde in the context of the specificities of American society as a free market and free audience, unfettered by governmental pressure or influence, many important questions still remain unsolved and subject to eventual future concern. Does American jazz avant-garde marginalization, or even irrelevance, obvious in the 1980s and after, accidentally coincide with the rise of economic inequality, as a product of economic growth? Did economic growth democratize popular music styles to such an extent that the avant-garde has been virtually lost within the mass commercialization of matter? Does capitalism afford opportunities to those more competent, such as jazz avant-garde leaders have shown in their ability to create and survive the unregulated market challenges?

86 Šarović, A., The Uses and Gratifications Theory ...

Article received on March 4th 2016 Article accepted on October 15th 2016 UDC: 789.983 316.74:789.983 Aleksandar Šarović Professor of Saxophone and Clarinet Belgrade

The Uses and Gratifications Theory (in the Case of House Music)

Abstract: The paper pays particular attention to teaching of Denis McQuail who consid- ered that people are accessing the mass media with their needs, and focusing themselves in observing, listening, or reading, by complex of expectations or pursued gratifications. According to McQuail, the most important gratifications that are provided by media are: diversion, personal relationships, personal Identity and surveillance. In the paper we will expose these effects, ie. uses and gratifications that music provides, in the case of house music. House music fits perfectly in the uses and gratifications theory which insists on the activity of creators, emitters and the recipients of the messages (the audience). Keywords: mass media, human gratifications, the uses and gratifications theory, music, House music

People approach the mass media from the perspective of their own needs and orient themselves in observing, listening, or reading by means of an aggregate of expectations or pleasures they seek; these needs are generated in one’s per- sonality and social circumstances. Therefore, in any analysis of the impact of mass media, it makes sense to pay attention to the needs of the audience and the pleasures afforded to it by the media. In his main work, Mass Communication Theory, Denis McQuail asserts that the idea that a potential audience member’s media use pattern depends on the pleasures, needs, desires, and motives that are familiar to them is almost as old as media research itself.1 Namely, audiences often form on the basis of similari-

1 Denis McQuail, McQuail’s Mass Communication Theory, London, Sage Publications, 2005, 423–424.

87 New Sound 47, I/2016 ties between individuals’ needs, interests, or tastes. Many of those needs have social or psychological origins. Typical needs include those for information, re- laxing, socializing, diversion, and “escape”. The kinds of pleasures that typically emerge in many different studies of mass-media use usually include the following: acquiring information and news about one’s immediate or wider environment; alleviating tedium, loneliness, tension, personal difficulties, and finding escape paths usually leading to a world of fantasy, often using the mechanism of identifying with a hero or heroine; pro- viding support, security, and enhancing one’s self-esteem; contributing to social interaction by offering subjects for conversation; supplying ritual performances of daily activities that make the day special, contributing to the mood, support- ing family environment. In other words, the basic pleasures afforded by the me- dia include the following: information and education, guidance and advice, en- tertainment and relaxation, social contacts, value-system reinforcement, cultural satisfaction, emotional release, forming and affirming identity, expressing one’s lifestyle, forming and strengthening the sense of safety, sexual arousal, and fill- ing time.2 Generally speaking, the majority of media content may be classified as “en- tertainment” and that is the main reason why the media are so popular.3 Pro- ducers and the audience alike seek entertainment. Entertainment is difficult to define, but the main idea appears to be diversion or preoccupation with a narra- tive or spectacle. More specifically, it means to entertain oneself with something; to experience emotional arousal in order to feel sorrow, happiness, rage, relief, excitement, fear, etc.; to get rid of anxiety; etc. Likewise related to this is the so-called distractive function of mass-communication media, which “allows the individual a moment of ‘respite’, so that they may continue to expose themselves to information, interpretations, and prescriptions that are so vital to them in con- temporary world”.4

The Uses and Gratifications Theory This way of thinking belongs to the school of research known as “the uses and gratifications approach”, whose origin lies in attempting to explain why people pay so much attention to certain media contents.5 Research performed

2 Denis McQuail, McQuail’s Mass Communication Theory, op. cit., 428. 3 Ibid., 500–501. 4 Miroljub Radojković and Mirko Miletić, Komuniciranje, mediji i društvo, Belgrade, Učiteljski fakultet, 2008, 177. 5 Denis McQuail, McQuail’s Mass Communication Theory, op. cit., 423–424.

88 Šarović, A., The Uses and Gratifications Theory ... in this theoretical tradition has shed light on the nature of basic audience re- quirements and the way they are structured. Therefore, the uses and gratifica- tions theory differs from traditional research in media effects by virtue of trying to explain what people do with the media rather than how media messages affect them. It emphasizes the notion of an active audience, whose members use the media to fulfil their own needs. The main questions that the uses and gratifications theory seeks to answer are the following: 1. What do people do with the media? 2. Why do they choose certain media, i.e. what do they use them for? 3. What is the impact of their media use? Its basic precepts are the following: 1. The audience is conceived as active.6 2. The initiative in associating the gratification of needs with the choice of media belongs to the audience. 3. The media must compete with other sources of needs gratification. 4. People have enough awareness of their media use, interests, and motives, which allows them to provide researchers with a clear picture of that (Uses and gratifications theory). The first studies of this kind date from the 1940s, with focus on the sourc- es of popularity of various radio shows, especially radio soap operas and quiz shows, as well as on reading daily papers. Interviews conducted with readers of daily paper revealed that newspapers were more than just a source of useful information – they were also important in terms of supplying their readers with a sense of security as well as common topics for conversation, and informing the structure of their everyday routine. Elihu Katz was the first to give an account of the uses and gratifications theory, in his 1959 response to Bernard Berelson’s position. Namely, Berelson had argued that the field of communication research was dead. In his response, Katz argued that the really dying field was that of studying mass communica- tions from the perspective of their function of persuasion. Instead, he proposed that the field of communication studies should focus on responding to the ques-

6 Media users are not passive or unconscious but active participants, who generate mean- ing and make informed choices of certain media contents (Laura K. Hahn and Scott T. Paynton, “Chapter 8 – Mass Communication”, in Survey of Communication Study, https:// en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Survey_of_Communication_Study/Chapter_8_-_Mass_Communica- tion, accessed 4 November 2016.).

89 New Sound 47, I/2016 tion concerning what people do with media.7 Audience requirements are there- fore considered a major intervening factor in studying media effects; “media re- searchers ought to be studying human needs to discover how much the media do or do not contribute to their creation or satisfaction”.8 Writing in 1963, Wilbur Schramm likewise asserted that people make their media choices on the basis of how satisfied they are likely to be by using a specific type of media.9 According to McQuail, when the uses and gratifications approach was re- discovered and reformulated, twenty years after its first, pioneering studies, its basic precepts were the following: 1. In general, the selection of media and media contents is rational and driv- en by specific aims and pleasures (the audience is active and its formation may be logically explained). 2. Audience members are aware of their media-related needs emerging in their personal (individual) and social (shared) circumstances and are able to ex- press them in terms of motives. 3. Broadly speaking, personal gain is a more significant determining factor in audience formation than are aesthetic or cultural factors. 4. All or most of important factors in audience formation (motives, imag- ined or accomplished pleasures, media-related choices, etc.) are, in principle, measurable. Therefore, in his 1972 study “The Televised Audience: A Revised Perspec- tive”, having examined a large number of radio and television programmes in Britain, McQuail proposed a typology of media-personal interactions, compris- ing the most important types of media pleasures: Diversion: escape from everyday routine or problems; emotional release. Personal relationships: companionship; social utility. Personal identity: self-reference (self-understanding, self-persuasion, etc.); reality exploration; value reinforcement. Surveillance (forms of information seeking about events and states of af- fairs.10 Summarizing the meaning and significance of the uses and gratifications theory, we may say that it constituted a major breakthrough in mass communica-

7 Rozanne Kotzee, “The Uses and Gratifications of Music, by Personality Type, of a Central South African Radio Station’s Audience”, Communitas 2013, 18, 78. 8 Elihu Katz, quoted in Dan Laughey, Key Themes in Media Theory, London, Open Univer- sity Press, 2007, 26. 9 Laura K. Hahn and Scott T. Paynton, op. cit. 10 Denis McQuail, McQuail’s Mass Communication Theory, op. cit., 425.

90 Šarović, A., The Uses and Gratifications Theory ... tion studies because it was the first theory to posit the audience not as passive and subject to easy manipulation but as an active recipient of mass-media mes- sages. It moved from the classical approach of Harold Lasswell, Paul Lazars- feld, Carl Rogers, and Pamela Shoemaker, whose main focus was on discussing what the media do with the audience, toward discussing what people do with the media. This theory thereby advocates functionalism from the perspective of the audience, rather than, as before, from that of the media.11

Music and Pleasure Mass communication studies and theory have paid relatively little attention to music as a mass medium.12 That constitutes a major deficiency and problem, because music has an exceptionally high number of effects, especially in terms of moods or excitement. Thus Alan P. Merriam, a major American ethnomusi- cologist, claimed that “there is probably no other human cultural activity which is so all-pervasive and which reaches into, shapes, and often controls so much of human behavior”.13 The significance and presence of music in people’s lives may also be illustrated by the following piece of data. In 2000, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) found that music, as a universal means of global communication, affects every human being on the planet, generating a hefty sum of 40 billion dollars every year. What are the connections between us and music? The pleasure gained from listening; the warmth and friendship from being part of a group making music; the stimulus and satisfaction from regular practice and rehearsal; the intellectual delight from exploring the intricacies of musical forms and structures; the physi- cal energy released within us by both playing and listening to music, inspiring us often to move and dance.14 The “Big Three” of music listening, i.e. the main reasons why people listen to music, are the following: people listen to music to achieve self-awareness, social relatedness, and arousal and mood regulation.15 A. J. Lonsdale and A.

11 Bernice Agyekwena, “The Uses and Gratification Theory in Relation to Television”, licen- tiate degree dissertation, Rome, Pontifical Gregorian University, 2006, 2–3. 12 Denis McQuail, McQuail’s Mass Communication Theory, op. cit., 36. 13 Quoted in James D. Belcher, “An Examination of the Influence of Individual Differences, Music-Listening Motives, and Music Selection on Post-Listening Music Discussion”, doc- toral dissertation, Kent State University, 2010, 1. 14 Durgesh K. Upadhyay, “Music Preferences, Music Engagement and Healing”, Interna- tional Journal of Social Science and Humanity, 2013, 3, 3, 287. 15 Thomas Schäfer, Peter Sedlmeier, Christine Städtler, and David Huron, “The Psychologi- cal Functions of Music Listening”, Frontiers in Psychology, 2013, 4, 511.

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C. North emphasize eight dimensions of music: identity, positive and negative mood management, reminiscing (memories), diversion, arousal, surveillance, and social interaction. Earlier studies stressed the following: social functions of music (expressing one’s own identity and personality); emotional functions (inducing positive feelings); cognitive or self-referential functions (such as es- capism); and functions related to arousal (such as relaxation or spending time). All of these insights, made in studying music as a means of communication, affirm the basic precepts of the uses and gratifications theory, above all that a given type of media or media content attracts our attention because it satisfies certain important needs in our life.

The Technological Basis of House Music In order to understand the phenomenon of house music, one must set out from the basic social and communication framework wherein it emerged and is still produced, which was decisively marked by the processes of growing (electronic) technologization and (computer) digitalization of all spheres of contemporary human practice. As electronically produced music, house is closely associated with the (digital) machine and its “soul”, much more so than any style or genre of music before. Ralf Hütter, of the cult German band Kraftwerk, the pioneers of electronic music, has said: “The soul of the machines has always been a part of our mu- sic. Trance always belongs to repetition, and everybody is looking for trance in life… in sex, in the emotional, in pleasure, in anything… so, the machines pro- duce an absolutely perfect trance” (Electronic Dance Music).16 House music likewise produces trance by means of music machines and that is what defines it to a considerable degree. It was the first totally technologi- cal form of popular music. In house, there is an intimate personal relationship with the energies of one’s technological environment, as well as a huge number of sub-styles, which keep emerging and proliferating on the basis of (new) tech- nology. Ravers, belonging to a major house genre, therefore like to say that the music incessantly keeps reinventing itself.17 Therefore, “the performer and the composer – two fundamental categories in Western music – in digital worlds are no longer privy to an exclusive status: the machine is a partner, co-author, an indispensable prosthetic extension of hu-

16 Electronic Dance Music, http://www.enovine.net/muzika/i25/05iv01muz/05iv011112muz/ em.html, accessed 4 November 2016. 17 Peter Rubin, “Let the Spirit Make You Move: Technological Restructuring and the Sub- culture”, paper delivered at the Ars Digitalis conference at the Hochschule der Kunst, Berlin, 1996, 18–19.

92 Šarović, A., The Uses and Gratifications Theory ... manity and thus also of art. In some domains of culture, musical authorship is still associated with an artist who controls all aspects of the making and real- ization of the work, as well as with the techniques of an accomplished use of sound (samples, quotes, synthesized instrumental and vocal timbres), a nomadic moving across musical genres, histories, and cultures. Musical performance, in addition to the power to control the body, instrument, and voice, is increasingly reduced to instances where human presence is only a necessary addition to digi- tally generated sounds, or “live” presence is contextualized in such a way that it may no longer be realized outside of a technological environment”.18

House Music and Communication Theory In the digital age, the consumer determines the choice of media, as well as the format in which she will consume their content.19 But in house, that applies not only to the consumer, but also, and even more so, to those who create music. That is why house music corresponds rather well with the uses and gratifications theory, which insists on the activity of the creator, emitter, and recipient (audi- ence) of messages. The role of the DJ (disc jockey) is vital in club culture, in which house mu- sic is performed. The club atmosphere, mood, or vibe is generated in the interac- tion between the DJ, the crowd, and their shared physical space.20 The cult of the DJ is a central part of the clubbing scene, a star figure who deftly assesses the mood on the dance podium, reacting to it and directing it whilst blending tracks into a seamless whole.21 In that regard, Frankie Knuckles, one of the founders of house and a famous DJ from the earliest stages of house music, made the follow- ing statement: “House music is what you make of it. Purity and consistency can only dirty things up. [...] The main thing I wanted to make sure this album had is, for lack of a better description, flava”.22 “Flava” is a term meant to signify precisely that kind of originality, autonomy, and uniqueness of a track or a set of tracks and their sound, created by a DJ.

18 Iva Nenić, “Tehnologija i zvuk: od digitalizacije muzike ka muzikalnosti digitalnog”, E- volucija, 2006, 12. 19 Douglas Davidson, “Uses and Gratifications of Digital Media: The End of Physical For- mats?”, master’s dissertation, Johns Hopkins University, 2010, 4. 20 Roy Shuker, Popular Music: The Key Concepts, London–New York, Routledge, 1998, 84. 21 Ibid., 45. 22 Rich Thomas, “My Philosophy: Frankie Knuckles”, Magnetic Magazine, 30 June 2011, http://www.magneticmag.com/2011/06/my-philosophy-frankie-knuckles/, accessed 4 No- vember 2016.

93 New Sound 47, I/2016

The interaction between the DJ (emitter) and her audience (recipient) is an essential feature of house music. That is why analyzing house music is best suit- ed to the ritual (expressive) model of communication: “In the ritual or expres- sive model of mass communication, the communicator aims at a kind of perfor- mance that uses signs and symbols to express her cognitive as well as emotional mental contents. The recipient consumes and shares the sender’s experience, and thereby participates in a ritual, game, or the production of cultural goods. Social control is not the top priority… Mass communication is a ritual, i.e. expressive, because it enables ritual self-affirmation in a specific socio-historical context, not only on the part of those sending messages, but also of those receiving them, allowing them to rely on the same or similar values and share and generate a common culture.23 This shared culture that house generates in (night) clubs brings us to some additional insights from communication theory. Club culture is a taste culture, because the clubbing crowd comes together on the basis of a musical taste shared by its members, on the basis of consuming the same media and, most importantly, of preferring people with similar tastes.24 Incidentally, the concept of “taste culture” was coined by Herbert Gans in 1957 to describe a kind of audi- ence created by the media on the basis of a convergence of interests, rather than a shared locality or social background. He defined it as the “aggregate of similar contents chosen by the same people”. Taste cultures are more like sets of similar media products than sets of people – an expression of a form, presentation style, or genre that capture the lifestyle of a segment of the audience.25 Also, certain contemporary theories of popular culture, especially those of consumerism, may be fruitfully applied to the practice, that is, process of creat- ing, emitting, and receiving house music. Thus John Fiske argues that “popular culture is made by the people, not produced by the culture industry”. The audi- ence is “a fluid, heterogeneous formation of productive consumers who embody ‘a shifting set of allegiances that cross all social categories’”.26 Henry Jenkins talks of a “participatory culture” – “participatory cultures of fandom ‘transform the experience of media consumption into the production of new texts, indeed of a new culture and a new community’”.27 Roger Silverstone argues that “ev- eryday consumer practices feed back to producer practices, which are in turn

23 Miroljub Radojković and Mirko Miletić, op. cit., 85–86. 24 Roy Shuker, op. cit., 45. 25 Denis McQuail, McQuail’s Mass Communication Theory, op. cit., 409–410. 26 Quoted in Dan Laughey, op. cit., 170. 27 Ibid., 178.

94 Šarović, A., The Uses and Gratifications Theory ... fed back to consumers”.28 The process of encoding is shaped not only by the encoders, but also by the decoders, who also wield some influence in the matter. Consumption and production are not entirely separate processes, but function together.29 Finally, the process of understanding house better may also include con- temporary philosophy. The removal of any distance between the DJ (creator/ performer) and the audience (listeners/dancers), as well as among audience members themselves, which is so amply demonstrated by house, may be ex- plained by reference to the philosophy of Jean Baudrillard. Namely, Baudrillard claimed that the “ecstasy of communication abolishes the concept of the subject; the end result is a miniaturization and fractalization of the subject, fractured into a multitude of miniature egos that are all alike. The subject no longer recognizes herself in relation to others but only in relation to herself, while others no longer even exist, because for us, due to communication, nothing and no one is other anymore” (Maksimović 2006).30

The Religious Character of House

That “dance” dimension of house, i.e. a large number of individuals dancing together in a club or outdoors, with bodies touching and permeating each other, pervaded by an energy flow connecting everybody and erasing all divisions to Me and Others, where everyone becomes Us, equal members of a community and consumers of a shared culture, constitutes an important and specific feature of house as opposed to other musical genres. In house, there are no longer dif- ferences or divisions based on race, class, nation, religion, sex, language, etc. “Dance is associated with the pleasures of physical expression rather than the in- tellectual, the body rather than the mind”.31 (Henry Torgue) Тhe spectacle is no longer centred exclusively on the melody and harmony, but also on the rhythm, which governs spatial behaviour.32 As a subgenre of techno-house music, rave highlights especially those mo- ments of rituality, trance/ecstasy, “escapism” (escaping into another, different, “higher” reality), in a word, religiosity, taking the word “religion” in its origi-

28 Ibid., 179. 29 Ibid., 181–182. 30 Quoted in Irina Maksimović, “Tehno kao paradigma popularne elektronske muzike: prilog teorijskom utemeljenju koncepta”, E-volucija, 2006, 12. 31 Roy Shuker, op. cit., 72. 32 Miroslava Lukić Krstanović, Spektakli XX veka: muzika i moći, Belgrade, Etnografski in- stitut SANU, 2010, 97.

95 New Sound 47, I/2016 nal meaning, “to bind together, to (re-) connect”. Rave and religious practice in archaic communities share some important similarities. Thus the DJ may be viewed as a sort of medicine man (shaman), who directs the religious ritual, while the audience, who are listening and dancing at the same time, might be viewed as the community itself, which, by means of self-transcendence and reaching a “higher” spiritual reality in a state of trance, comes together, i.e. becomes integrated in the ritual (Émile Durkheim and other functionalists put special emphasis on the integrative function of religious rituals in primitive cul- tures). Besides, within techno-house music, “trance” does stand out as a radical subgenre. That is why one may say that rave culture is a hedonistic, “hectic cul- ture” of escapism and striving for a transcendental, higher consciousness: “Rave is more than the music plus drugs; it’s a matrix of lifestyle, ritualized behaviour, and beliefs. To the participant, if feels like a religion”.33 All of those essential features of house music find a clear illustration and confirmation in the thinking of its fans and followers themselves. Thus a Serbian connoisseur of house writes on his blog: “House is a music of movement. It is a music one dances to, in addition to listening to it. If House doesn’t give you an opportunity to dance, then it’s not House... Sensibility in dancing brings you a deeper experience of life and overall pleasure.” “House is the kind of music that’s supposed to bring you to your feet and put you in a mood for dancing and moving. If House fails to do that, then it’s failed its mission and raison d’être.” “That is why House is sexy. It counts on your heart, not your head. It makes you get out of your skin and demolish the barriers erected by social dogma and false morality. Whilst settling the score with social prejudices ‘by force’, House music, a music of dance and movement, does it by seducing you… Therefore, give your body what it wants. Let it speak out in the language of movement. Be- cause the world of sound and movement is your own world, too.” “You’ve probably had a chance in your life to see ritual dances in travel shows from the remote rainforests of Amazonia or some such place. What were you able to notice there? In addition to the ritual colours and finery, there is also music, whose task is to help the ritual dancers fall into a state of trance. The drums keep holding the same rhythm, which has an evocative effect and intoxicates the dancers with its monotony. That is precisely the kind of thing you’ll experience here. A sort of rhythm that won’t relent. A sort of rhythm whose vibrations force you into a ‘trance-like’ state. It will surround you, cap-

33 Roy Shuker, op. cit., 223.

96 Šarović, A., The Uses and Gratifications Theory ... ture and hold you in its ‘clutches’ so tightly that you won’t be able to move a finger”.34 On a foreign website dedicated to “the philosophy of house music”, “House” itself has the following to say: “I will bind where cohesion seems most unlikely. I am the ultimate match- maker; for I see not color, creed or religion. I am pure vibration. Bring your masses, your gathering of souls and I will free you to ‘be’. I enlighten others so they may see the light in you is – the light. Hold a mirror to me and you will see love regardless of race, strength balanced among gender and spirit that soars be- yond all human reason. In me you find support and healing from hurt.” Whereas Lester K. Spence, assistant professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University and a longstanding passionate follower of house, argues the following, concerning house and its significance in his life: “‘House is our release, house is our sanctuary…can you feel it like I feel it?’ The quote above is taken from a track that I play every now and again. For those of us whose lives have been changed from exposure to house music, the quote captures a great deal. I am a father, a husband, a professor, a writer. But with the exception of the birth of my children, the closest I’ve come to God was on the dance floor. Closer than jazz, closer than the finest art, closer than even the most power- ful sermon. When I need to work, I use house music to give me laser-like focus – most of my academic and non-academic production was accompanied by a driving DJ set. And its [sic] had this effect on me for almost thirty years. Going back to the roots of the word ‘religion’ (religion refers to the act of binding or fastening together), house music is my religion. […] House music...creates what could be called a ‘counterpublic’. One that is, in its own way, as aggressive as hip-hop, but one that aggressively promotes a loving other world. One where your ability to dance doesn’t matter. But more importantly, one where race and class doesn’t [sic] matter. One where gender and sexuality doesn’t [sic] matter. What matters is love for the music, and the belief that another world is pos- sible, even if only for a few hours.”35

34 Slobodan Simeunović, “House”, http://mojsvetmuzike-video.blogspot.rs/2011/02/house. html, accessed 4 November 2016. 35 The Philosophy of House, https://philosophyofhouse.wordpress.com/, accessed 4 Novem- ber 2016.

97 New Sound 47, I/2016

Conclusion Based on the entire foregoing discussion, we may conclude that the uses and gratifications theory provides an excellent account of house music. House mu- sic certainly affords its consumers numerous pleasures otherwise afforded by the media: information, diversion and relaxation, social contacts, value-system reinforcement, cultural satisfaction, emotional release, identity formation and affirmation, expression of lifestyle, formation and strengthening of a sense of security, sexual arousal, and a way to spend time. At the same time, one should especially highlight the function of escapism, of escaping from an often tedious and negative reality into a better and happier world. Because, as DJ Jeff Mills put it: “In Detroit, techno performs the function that hard hip hop performs in LA or New York. It’s a sort of escape. For Christ’s sake, in Detroit you kill for fun!”36

36 House Techno Music, https://sites.google.com/site/housetech, accessed 4 November 2016.

98 Medić, M., The Sumatraist Secret of Count Sava Vladislavić’s Great Dreaming NEW WORKS

Article received on April 17th 2016 Article accepted on June 30th 2016 UDC: 782.1 78.071.1 Божић С. Milena Medić* University of Arts in Belgrade Faculty of Music Department of Music Theory

THE SUMATRAIST SECRET OF COUNT SAVA VLADISLAVIĆ’S GREAT DREAMING: The Anamorphosic Aim of Theatrical Doubling, the Ex-centred Observer, and the Regenerative Power of Collective Memory1

Abstract: In her discussion of Melanholični snovi grofa Save Vladislavića (The Melan- choly Dreams of Count Sava Vladislavić), an opera by Serbian composer Svetislav Božić, the author begins by discussing the composer’s operatic allusion to anamorphosis, an ar- chitecture and painting technique, in both of its application modes (the perspectival and the catoptric). The trans-media and temporal conversion of this visual tool into the aspect of staged drama is notable in the theatrical procedure of reflective doublings of roles/ characters and production of visual syntactic parallelisms, which deepen semantic rela- tions between otherwise unrelated personages and events from various but important lay- ers of Serbian cultural and intellectual history (Nemanjić, Nikola Tesla, Count Sava Vladislavić). The logic of unclose similarity and borderline contact relates anamorphosis

* Author contact information: [email protected] 1 This study was produced as part of Identiteti srpske muzike u svetskom kulturnom kontekstu (Identities of Serbian Music in the Global Cultural Context, project no. 177019), a research project implemented at the Department of Musicology (Faculty of Music, Belgrade) and supported by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia.

99 New Sound 47, I/2016 to a special way of ordering the imagery of dreams, whereby the symbolic interiority of a hidden image, the mysterious pattern of sense, may be penetrated only by finding the correct viewing angle. In its longing for the obscure, anamorphosic focalization counts on the ex-centred spectator’s capacity to approximate the remote and relate the unrelated. In that sense, shaping the Count’s great dreaming by means of a polyphony of oneiric sub- jects and states and a heteroglossia of remote contexts and other people’s stories and lyrical contemplations suggests Sumatraism as a chronotope, as the idea that there is universal connectedness and harmony in the world. The idea of Sumatraist connections informs both the understanding of the opera libretto’s inter-textuality (along the lines of the quotation-collage form of the cento, the literary genre) and the arc of association that the composer draws in harmonic-motivic terms as well, in order to produce a special nexus of music-dramatic narration and presentation. In that Sumatraist inter-textual nexus, other people’s stories and lyrical contemplations, qua manifestations of a collective con- sciousness, are deepened by means of a collectively unconscious (archetypal) perspective of a mythical, allegorical, and phantasmagorical dance-pantomime procession, as yet an- other oneiric form, whose typical Dionysian sequence, intoxicatio-phalophoria-sparag- mos, affirms not only the theatrical model of anamorphosic doubling and Sumatraist connections, but also a unique theme in this operatic narrative – transcending sacrifice, tribulation, and death in a foreign land by means of the regenerative power of collective (historical and cultural) memory. Keywords: Svetislav Božić, opera of oneiric states, anamorphic perspective, Sumatraism, collective memory

Since Perspective is but a Counterfeiting of the Truth, the Painter is not obliged to make it appear real when seen from Any part, but from One determinate Point only.2 (Andrea Pozzo, Perspectiva pictorum et architectorum)

With these words, stated in his two-volume treatise Perspectiva pictorum et ar- chitectorum (1693 and 1698), the Baroque fresco painter, architect, stage de- signer, and art theorist Andrea Pozzo (1642–1709) did more than just describe the concept of a special kind of architectural illusion, which he produced on the ceiling of the dome of the Sant’Ignazio church in Rome, where he used the trompe l’oeil technique to paint the saint’s ascent to heaven in such a way that there is only one position from which the observer may perceive the scene as though it were real, in three dimensions, with the illusion of perfection. Also, he

2 Quoted in Maurice Henri Pirenne, Optics Painting and Photography, Cambridge, Cam- bridge University Press, 1970, 90.

100 Medić, M., The Sumatraist Secret of Count Sava Vladislavić’s Great Dreaming evoked the famous early-Flemish-style painting by Hans Holbein the Younger (1497/8–1543), The Ambassadors (1533), in which this renaissance German artist simultaneously affirmed and challenged the rules of linear perspectivae communis and conventions of representation. Observed from a centrally located position, this painting, actually a double portrait, represents two well-known male figures, one of whom, on the left, is dressed in secular garb while the other, standing on the right, is dressed like a priest. The objects included in the paint- ing (a terrestrial and celestial globe, a book on arithmetic, a lute, a hymnbook or Psalter, etc.) quite obviously represent the Quadrivium world of the liberal arts (geometry/mathematics/astronomy and music). Between them, in the forefront of the painting, in its lower central part, there is a quite indistinct and distorted image – if observed from a conventional angle – which may be recognized, how- ever, only if one steps away from the centre, to the right. In other words, only by shifting the usual focal point may the observer encounter something that makes sense, which is a memento mori (Image 1). In renaissance and early baroque painting and philosophy, the figure of the human skull, combined precisely with the arts mentioned above, was classified as a symbol of melancholy and death. Melancholy is the shadowy suffering of a man of scientific and creative genius,3 death is a prerequisite of regeneration, while nostalgic evocation of the past is a guardian of collective (historical and cultural) memory. If taking an unconventional viewing angle on the observer’s part conditions the possibility of reshaping (ana-morphosis) a distorted image that is superfi- cially twisted either perspectivally (by means of perspective) or catoptrically (by means of a mirror) and viewing it as essentially un-deformed, then viewing an image from a special angle in other words means being able to see it in its true shape. To solve such a visual riddle means, furthermore, to be able to possess its secret, to resolve its meaning. The creative and spiritual call of anamorphosis to engage in an (a)perceptual and cognitive play with the conventions of view- ing and seeing, perceiving and understanding, has an effect precisely due to its longing for the obscure. That is precisely why its call counts on an ex-centred observer, because, by tying her to the object of gazing by means of decentring and pulling her into а game of uncovering meaning by reshaping a distorted im- age, it expects her to approximate the unclose and capture that glimmer of un- close similarity. The fact that anamorphosis allows various scenes to unfold and mix, while at the same time hiding the image, a mysterious matrix of meaning

3 Since as early as Aristotle and Plato, via the medieval Arab philosophers, to the renais- sance neo-Platonist Marsilio Ficino, melancholy was viewed as a sort of divine madness, which means that it was associated with divinely inspired cogitations and was therefore as- cribed to all great ingenious minds.

101 New Sound 47, I/2016 and sense, brings us to the possibility of relating it to a special mode of order- ing the imagery of dreams. Observed from the surface, from, so to speak, the forefront of dreaming, images follow one another in isolation, incoherently, and fluidly. However, upon taking a more penetrating view of the symbolic interior- ity of dreams, and that means by seeking out an adequate anamorphosic viewing angle of the fluidity of its images, we come to face a coherent whole featuring a special logic whereby one image resembles the next, which in turn suggests a third image, etc., in a word, with the logic of unclose similarity and borderline contact.

Image 1. Hans Holbein the Younger (1497/8–1543), The Ambassadors (1533)

There is not only the possibility of a temporal version of this painterly and architectural technique of creating images and scenes on the basis of anamor- phosic focalization, familiar already in the early renaissance, in other words, a version that includes a trans-media conversion of a visual tool into one of drama and staging (for instance, in some of Shakespeare’s plays), but equally, one might easily transpose the fictional structure and episodic logic of dreams, with their altered reality and flexible causality, temporal and spatial transitions, intrusions and tangles, into an epic narrative and theatre play (which was af-

102 Medić, M., The Sumatraist Secret of Count Sava Vladislavić’s Great Dreaming firmed already by Freud and Jung). The interrelation of anamorphosis, in either mode, as a perspective of dramatic representation onstage and a way of relating unclose similarity, and dreams, as a motive, literary trope, narrative structure, and plot tool, will shape together, following in the footsteps of the Sumatra- ist perception of the world, my interpretation of the latest stage-music work by Serbian composer Svetislav Božić, Melanholični snovi grofa Save Vladislavića (The Melancholy Dreams of Count Sava Vladislavić), an opera in seven dream visions. The opera was premièred on 28 February 2015 at the National Theatre in Belgrade, directed by Aleksandar Nikolić, choreographed by Aleksandar Ilić, and conducted by Đorđe Pavlović.4 Referring in the title to (melancholy) dreams as the motive and, in the sub- title, to (seven) dream visions as the dramaturgical model of his work, the com- poser clearly presents a vision of the work as an opera of oneiric states. In other words, the operatic model he develops rests on multiple subjects, forms, and functions of dreams. Although only seldom visible onstage and for the most part invisible,5 that is, freed from corporeality, but intensely the omnipresent, main character of the opera, Count Sava Vladislavić is,6 in fact, the chief dreamer. His dream visions, coloured by foreboding, pain, consolation, and nostalgia, dive into important historical layers of the Serbian collective being, or, rather, give rise to the dreams of giants of Serbian spirituality and science (members of the Nemanjić dynasty and Tesla). By constantly weaving one dream into another, the forms of the Count’s great dreaming are shaped together and reshaped as a dream within a dream, a dream of a dream, a vigil of a dream, consolation from a dream, suffering in a dream, the shadow of a dream, and daydreaming, not only leaving the identity of the main dreamer in constant fluctuation, but also dissolving the borders that define the remaining characters as well. The shift- ing and hence unstable relations, interrelations, and blending of these oneiric subjects shift the perspective of watching, albeit, however, always from one and the same epitomized position: the count’s great dreaming. In this light, it seems

4 The stage set was designed by Boris Maksimović, the costumes by Katarina Grčić Nikolić, and the set was computer-designed by Milica Maksimović. 5 He appears in visible incarnations in the opening and final scene, when he wakes up and goes to bed, as well as in the third vision, when he walks around the stage with a lighted candle in his hand. 6 Count Sava Vladislavić Raguzinski (1668–1738), born to the same Herzegovina family that would later spawn the poet Jovan Dučić, was a seafarer and a highly educated man. Setting out to sea, he found himself in Imperial Russia, at the court of Peter the Great and Catherine I, where he was entrusted with a number of diplomatic missions, most notably to China. It was owing to his spiritual activities that the first Serbian school was established in Sremski Karlovci. Shortly before dying, he erected Saint Sava’s Church in Kyakhta, Siberia.

103 New Sound 47, I/2016 as though the composer and the director produced a sort of operatic allusion to the perspectival technique employed by Holbein in his double portrait, enabling an ex-centred observer/listener metonymically to conjure the referenced image. On the one hand, the conversion of a catoptric-type instance of anamorphosis to the mise-en-scène is notable in the development of the narrative’s internal world around the doubling of roles, which has the consequence of turning the singers/ actors who sing/act various roles/characters also into co(de)notative character mates/doubles despite their respective costumes’ visual differences7 and, related to that, around theatrical visual syntactic parallelisms – Thanatos- and Eros-ori- ented8 – which deepen and intensify the semantic links and proximities of oth- erwise remote characters and contrasting events. On the other hand, the opera’s narrative flow is pervaded by sudden appearances of Count Sava Vladislavić’s dark and obscure ghost (the black-costumed figure), rather like the perspectiv- ally distorted human skull (memento mori) from Holbein’s painting (Image 2). The effect of concealment and mystery is a desired effect for anamorphosis and its semantic uncovering is precisely its objective. However, the parenthetic qual- ity not only of the Count’s ghost, but also of the doubled roles does not require the audience, in this operatic anamorphosis, to move during the performance in order to find an adequate anamorphic viewing angle, but, rather, entails that the

7 These include: The Ruler/Tenor-Tesla/Nikola Tesla; the Female Ruler/Mother in Black/ Angel of Temptation; Muse/Dove/Ellen; the Boy Ruler/Tesla as a Boy; Prince/the boy Niko- la; Princess/Remorse; Girl/Vision. 8 The opera’s Thanatos line of syntactic theatrical parallelisms comprises the follow- ing: the crowd crucifying the Pagan deity Pan (I) – the young prince Nemanjić killing the girl/“dragon”/ (I) – the young prince Nemanjić stabbed, dying (II) – a mother dressed in black, holding a baby in her arms and then laying her in her grave (IV) – the mass crucifying (Ellen’s) female body (VI) – the furies crucifying the Ruler (VI) – Count Sava taking the sac- rificed dead female body (of Ellen) in his arms (VII). The Eros line of theatrical syntactic par- allelisms in the opera includes the following: the pagan sacrificial dance of Pan’s satyrs with virgins/nymphs dressed in white robes (I) – the Amazon seductive dance around the phallic pole of the Angel of Temptation dressed in black trousers, leather boots, and with a cigar in its mouth (IV) – the Angel of Temptation seducing Nikola Tesla (IV) – Ellen hopelessly in love with Tesla (V) – the virgin dance of a semi-nude Girl/nymph, whom the Furies clothe in a white dress, similarly to the opening, virgins’ ritual dance (VI) – the Girl/Vision, now wear- ing a white dress, touching Tesla with her hands, who is dressed in a white suit (VI), just as Ellen was touching Nikola Tesla wearing a black suit (V). Another line of theatrical syntactic parallelisms in this opera might be labelled divine/heavenly: the Dove descending from the sky and scattering her feathers (I) – the Dove descending from the sky with the deceased young prince (III) – the Dove descending from the sky with the deceased baby (IV) – the black ghost of Count Sava touching the “white” Tesla with white gloves on his hands, whose fingertips are covered with feathers similar to those scattered by the Dove (V).

104 Medić, M., The Sumatraist Secret of Count Sava Vladislavić’s Great Dreaming dramatic narrative and theatrical performance do that instead. The anamorphic quality of theatrical doubling, reified by means of metonymic relations and ex- changes of characters and dreams, reveals that dreams are the medium and ex- pression of dream visions in the sense of seeing in and through dreams.

Image 2. The operatic allusion to perspectival anamorphosis used in the painting by Hans Holbein the Younger (the replica of Holbein’s painting was produced by Vesna Milanović Bombek, a formally trained painter and graphic designer)

The dream visions of Count Sava Vladislavić are articulated along an axis comprising seven scenes and forming dense tangles of events in all three tem- poral hypostases, as evocation [pri-zivanje], phantasm [pri-viđenje], and provi- dence [pro-viđenje]. The evocation of memory (memoria) is manifested either

105 New Sound 47, I/2016 as a collective (national) memory based on the sacrifice and suffering of the Serbian people (visions 1, 2, and 4), as well as the principle of spirituality and faith in the fulfilment of divine justice (visions 1, 2, and 7), as their personal (the Ruler’s, Tesla’s, the Count’s) memory of their native and maternal roots, child- hood, and youth (visions 2 and 4). Present phantasms (phantasma) comprise a bundle of (Tesla’s, the Count’s) phantasmagorical dream visions of contrasting dancelike female figures, seductive (virago) and virgin (virgo), under the veil of shadow or, rather, whiteness (visions 4 and 6), as well as the vision of a sil- houette-like mass of male and female characters scattered under the dark veils of pain and melancholy (vision 5). The premonition of the future (praemoni- tius) is concentrated in a painful anticipation of death (vision 4), as well as new, unknown forms of life in the Hyperborean eschaton (vision 5). The pervasion of the Count’s great dreaming with numerous reminiscences of real individuals and real events from different layers of history and culture – transformed into unreal fictions where one finds connections and proximities, as well as portents of the destinies of all dedicated giants, which are repeated again and again – suggests more than just the live presence of the past and the future in the pres- ent. Even more importantly, entirely in the spirit of the Sumatraist vision of the world and life, developed in his literary poetics by the author Miloš Crnjanski (1892–1977), emanates the idea of universal connectedness, the idea of world harmony, whereby the distant may become close and the close may become dis- tant, in temporal and spatial terms alike. Exploring the domains of happiness in Crnjanski’s works, the literary his- torian and critic Petar Džadžić asserts that the Sumatraist hero is omnipresent, infinite, almost divine (“the gigantization of the subject in poetical images”).9 Pursuing unknown and cosmically infinite distances and searching for his cos- mogonic paths to the Hyperborean origin of everything, he lives his great dream, entirely devoted to science, art, or some other, noble, spiritual goal, and at the same time strives to retain his moral purity. Permeated by the hero’s tormenting internal dilemma between his homeland and a foreign land, between the pres- ent and the past, between Thanatos and Eros, the elegy and the dithyramb, light and darkness, the sun and the moon, the temple and the sphinx, the Sumatraist dream also reveals the Odyssean states of the soul and achieves fulfilment in Odysseanism as one’s fate. The intensity of the desire to return home (as another mode of longing for distances) and to the privileged domains of one’s childhood and youth (as the domain of happiness, serenity, and bliss) culminates at the moment of a premonition of the imminence of death (Tesla: “I, too, will be see- ing /Smiljan/ when I come close to dying”). That is why the Sumatraist hero’s

9 Petar Džadžić, Prostori sreće u delu Miloša Crnjanskog, Belgrade, Nolit, 1976, 50.

106 Medić, M., The Sumatraist Secret of Count Sava Vladislavić’s Great Dreaming

Odyssean fate is shaded by the semantics of melancholy and loneliness, which also explains the hero’s rejection of Eros in favour of something more sublime. After the Odyssean wilderness between Circe/Calypso and Nausicaa, and driven by the desire to return to his origin and roots as well as to remain untainted, the premonition of the end of life turns into something metaphysical, namely, into a new desire – the desire to return to the origin and eternity, because the sources of consolation and calm are those that provide meaning. In a Sumatraist world, the transformation of opposites, differences, and distances into connections and proximities, which can merge into one only in dreams and eternity, unfolds in the vast domains of text as the expansion and reshaping of one meaning into another and their mutual reflection, burdened by numerous allusions to other texts. Consequently, inter-textuality, a major trait of textuality (in Miloš Crnjanski), is revealed as yet another type of Sumatraist connections stemming from the community of ’giant’ writers. In that light, al- though Svetislav Božić formally works with the so-called special inter-textuality of operatic librettos and does that along the lines of the quotation-collage struc- ture of the cento, a literary genre from late antiquity, thereby exclusively from various already existing literary (lyrical and dramatic) texts by ’giant’ Serbian authors (Momčilo Nastasijević, Jovan Dučić, Dejan Medaković, Miloš Crnjan- ski), it is nonetheless entirely Sumatraist in its ideality, as is the semantic-asso- ciative arc that the composer draws, linking different and distant characters and cultural-historical levels of time and space, in order to form an entirely different and specific procedure of music-dramatic representation and narration and pour such a densely networked operatic text into a coherent whole. Oneiric presences and states, their distinctions, contrasts, and analogical configurations, encounters and lapses have various effects in the dramatic con- struction of the opera, informing its ring-like composition, episodic structure, as well as its internal multilayered event flow, wherein an entire mosaic of mo- tives forms relations without a clear sense of continuity, like fragments torn out from collective history, from one’s personal past, childhood, dreams, or visions. The overall complexity of the opera’s narrative dynamic stems from its juxta- position of divergent but parallel narrative flows, stories-within-stories (explic- itly, about the Nemanjić dynasty and Nikola Tesla; implicitly, about Count Sava Vladislavić). The dream visions are dramatized by means of a dynamic interplay between two distinctive forms of narrativity, mimetic (presented onstage) and diegetic (telling the story). Although so-called exposition in mimetic form, re- ferring to visual-musical representation of temporal series of occurrences and their spatial organization and stage design, as well as to characters singing in monologues and dialogues, their gestures, movements, dances, pantomimes, etc., is a typical constitutive element of theatre and opera, in this opera, there

107 New Sound 47, I/2016 is also the presence of the diegetic narration technique. It features a subtle way of using diverse narrator figures and narrative forms, which are functionalized in relation to the space and time of the events occurring in the dream visions. On the one hand, the narrator’s role is performed by intra-diegetic narrators (the Ruler, Nikola Tesla, Count Sava Vladislavić), who tell their own stories or those of others, which means that their narratives are present in the world that gives rise to their discourse and, on the other hand, the choir as an extra-diegetic nar- rator, whose narrative is extraneous to the world of the story. In creating the op- era’s dramatic structure, the composer used not only narrative elements from an- cient drama (the choral parodos, parabasis, and exodos), but also contemporary developmental dramatic flows, which, in addition to extensive staging directions that have a narrative quality (thereby forming another, external textual level), also include the form of play-within-a-play, a memory play, an embodiment of the narrative into a dramatic dialogue or monologue and even trans-generic nar- rative strategies, such as the diegetic use of lyrics (forming an internal textual level). In the first vision, which emerges from the orchestrally and choreographi- cally conceived Prologue and projections of scenes from Herzegovina and the Mediterranean on movable screens, a mixed choir performs decasyllabic verses from “Hrišćansko proljeće” (Christian Spring), a poem by Jovan Dučić (1871–1943). The frequency with which single notes, groups of notes, indi- vidual chords, chord progressions, and bichords are repeated in the voice parts (which are organized homophonically and polyphonically, imitatively) reifies the continual, reciting tone of singing. It is supported by a pervading, multilay- ered presence of an ostinato-based, polymetric, and mixed-metrically directed sonic fluidity in the orchestra. In four quatrains, separated in the musical flow by orchestral interludes and constructed in a configuration featuring a double motivic core – one, rhythmic (the repetition of a tone), and the other, melodic (chromaticism spanning a tritone) – the choir relays the New Testament parable of sacrifice, death, and rebirth, thereby assuming the function of the parodos or the opening choral song in ancient Greek drama. The idea of resurrection, which gives rise to the poetic image of a Christian spring, is paradoxical in na- ture because it reveals death as a precondition of life. This paradox clarifies the sprouting of the entire choral song from interactions and transformations of dia- tonic and chromatic, modal, and non-modal collections of tones, stemming from the opening, tonally ambiguous (Lydian-whole-tone) segment encompassing six bars centred in D (D–E–/F/–F sharp–/G/–G sharp–A sharp, Example 1). The twofold division of the ancient Greek parodos into a stanza and an anti-stanza encompasses here two quatrains each, precisely comprising the Christian turn from Thanatos (“the horizon is all edged in blood/an early blackbird is sing-

108 Medić, M., The Sumatraist Secret of Count Sava Vladislavić’s Great Dreaming ing thinly and thinner still/Saint George killed the dragon… by the church a black cypress tree grows denser…”) into a catharsis of resurrection (“a dove shining in the sun / holy arias dripping from the leaves…/with a message from immaculate Mary’s son… and shines the eternal and new halo/of the lamb that walks across the meadow”). In musical terms, this is a turn from a rhythmically quick and sharp (Allegro; quaver-based metres) as well as chromatically intoned delivery, spanning a circle of semitone- and tritone-related modal areas (Phry- gian, Lydian, and Aeolian),10 to a serene kind of delivery marked by retaining a Dorian D minor, a rhythmic deceleration (Moderato; crotchet-based metres), sustained durations in the ison parts, and more ethereal texture with pastoral arpeggios on the harp, giving rise to a rather gradual, intervallic rise of a diatoni- cally purified melody (from a unison via a second and third to a fourth and fifth from the ison D), blending into medievally amplified vocal parallelisms (sixths in relations to the ison D).

Example 1. Vision 1, opening choral song, “Hrišćansko proljeće” (Christian Spring)

The choir’s extra-diegetic narrator voice (in the third person) unfolds paral- lel to a choreographic staging of the archaic and archetypal ritual of making a sacrifice to the deity Pan and the rite of spring (the Girl).11 The opening super- imposition of a diegetic and mimetic flow, of telling and presenting, and, fore- most, the poetic images of “a dove shining in the sun” from the third stanza and “the fall of a ray of beams from the middle of the sky” from the fourth stanza of the choral song give rise to a literal embodiment of the Dove onstage, the harbinger of apprehension in Count Sava’s dream (and the amazing companion

10 First stanza: Phrygian D minor – Aeolian C-sharp minor – Lydian A major – Aeolian E-flat minor – Aeolian E-flat minor – Aeolian C-sharp minor – Phrygian D minor; second stanza: Aeolian F minor – A-flat major – Phrygian G harmonic major. 11 Pan was performed by Miloš Marijan and the Girl by Ivana Kozomara Duduković.

109 New Sound 47, I/2016 of Nikola Tesla), scored for a mezzo-soprano.12 With the poem “Bratu” (To My Brother) by Momčilo Nastasijević (1894–1938),13 marked by semantic tension inherent to ideas of listening by means of singing the mystery of the origin, life, and death, and invoking the brother’s voice from below, in an archaic syntax, the Dove’s song lyrically reflects and sublimates the opening description of the pri- meval beginning and the primordial cry. The song’s ur-ancient intonation drove Božić to plunge the harmonic flow of his music from the opening Aeolian D minor to the depths of the concluding Aeolian C minor. The elegiac colouring of the verses’ native melody, so quintessential to Nastasijević’s poetic language, called for a Phrygian inflection in the music, conforming to the semantics of melancholy apprehension and death. It is manifested by means of a descending semitone fabric of melodic lines in lower-register chamber instrumental accom- paniment, which secures a peculiar melancholy gravita quality, as well as by means of pedal and held tones at the ends of phrases, contributing to its protract- ed duration. The concise, condensed, elliptic, and enigmatic poetic expression is also shaped by the narrow melodic range of concise vocal phrases, which are linked like the verses themselves – in lyric circles (Example 2).

Example 2. Vision 1, Elegija (Elegy), a lyrical song for mezzo-soprano

Precisely at this point, when the mimetic flow stops, the diegetic flow begins in a trans-generic way – with Dučić’s sonnet “Žitije” (Hagiography), which

12 The Dove/Muse/Ellen was performed by Sanja Kerkez. 13 In the libretto, the title of this song is “Elegija” (Elegy).

110 Medić, M., The Sumatraist Secret of Count Sava Vladislavić’s Great Dreaming relates, in dodecasyllabic verse, the story of an emperor who spent “three nights and three days” reading the Book of Ancestors and “saw passing across the ceiling the terrible spectre of Nemanja, in a triumphant stride”. The object of the story is also the performing subject – the theatrical character of the Ruler, scored for a tenor.14 In other words, the object of the implicit narrator’s narration in the poem, which is the emperor, performs (in alternation with the choir’s homophonic recitation) the narration onstage, performing the role of an intra- and homo-diegetic, character narrator, by means of a narrow-ranged recitative declamation centred on D. The accompanying D minor cantabile melody featuring a melancholy and nostalgic tone in the clarinets and arpeggiated harmonies in the harp (as well as G minor harmonic progressions in the winds and strings) contextualizes the harmonic flow in a doubled tonic complex, which at the very beginning of the opera suggests the Sumatraism of the connection between the Ruler and Tesla, manifested only later. Telling us about himself, the Ruler begins a story-within-a-story, therefore, one of the three hypo-diegetic lines of the opera’s narrative structure (Image 3). The diegetic narrativity is further extended and transformed by means of hypo-diegesis throughout the second, fourth, and fifth vision, where the com- poser, borrowing dialogic material from Miloš Crnjanski’s play Nikola Tesla (1952–66), develops a sort of play-within-a-play. This dramatic centre of the opera is shaped using the technique of framing dream visions reversibly. Name- ly, it is initiated by Count Sava’s falling asleep and dreaming of Nikola Tesla’s American period, which is first introduced, along the lines of a realist theatrical production, in an inter-media fashion, by means of an onscreen cinematic time machine featuring scenes from the history of New York’s everyday and theatre life of the late 1920s and early 1930s, and then represented with a configuration of stage and costume symbols (a dark backdrop filled with vertical arrays of lights and a couple of pantomimists wearing aprons and hats designed as styliza- tions of the red and white stripes of the American flag and the American army beret). That dramatic centre is re-rounded by submerging Tesla’s dream into that of Count Sava. Within this wider dramatic framework, wherein Nikola Tesla as a musical character (baritone)15 is marked by an arioso melodic style, there are occasional parlando bursts of autonomous acts of him telling his story or other people’s stories to other characters, for instance, when he remembers, in the first person, his homeland in spring and his early troubles in America, or when he mourns, in the third person, his deceased friend Nikola. This immersion, so to speak, of a character into and extraction out of the narrator, in a word, an act of

14 The Ruler and Tesla in a White Suit were performed by Nenad Čiča. 15 Nikola Tesla in a Black Suit was performed by Marko Kalajanović.

111 New Sound 47, I/2016 narration wherein the narrator is also a participant in events that are not shown onstage but that he relates to us in terms of memories, evokes a sort of memo- ry play. This manifestation of its generic traits is also enhanced by the staging of Nikola Tesla’s character, for the most part seated on a wooden chair, on the right-hand side of the stage, facing the audience.

Image 3. The Ruler

These diegetic breaks are comprised within the broader mimetic framework of Tesla’s monologues and dialogues with his laboratory technician, friends, and

112 Medić, M., The Sumatraist Secret of Count Sava Vladislavić’s Great Dreaming

Ellen, which are always accompanied by a lyrical song as a reflection of the con- tents of the preceding monologue or dialogue. Thus, in the second vision, Tes- la’s memory of Becquerel’s fake and unfulfilled promise of a large payment if he repairs his ship, while Tesla was offering his own great discovery of electricity “which would be cheaper than anything ever before”, gains its full form in a grotesque antithesis between the poetic image of “building a temple as white as a monastery” and a nostalgic “walking of a crying Moon inside it” (instead of light and joy) in the first quatrain and the poetic image of the “monstrous smile of a black Sphinx rising over the temple” (instead of a cross) in the second qua- train of Miloš Crnjanski’s poem “Groteska” (Grotesque), sung by the Woman Ruler (mezzo-soprano).16 The inter-textual interaction between Nikola Tesla’s monologically embodied and utterly personalized narration and the Woman Rul- er’s metrically disembodied and depersonalized song rests on the procedure of subjecting the opposing motives (white and black, that is, divine and demonic) of the dramatic dialogue to satiric-allegorical lyricization. The effect of a gro- tesque distortion of the visual image of a temple as white as a monastery and the sonic image of the monstrous smile of a black Sphinx is produced in the music by means of a paradoxical deviation from harmony: in the first case, by means of a Phrygian intonation of the vocal melody (a descending intervallic spiral, like a melodic plunge) and orchestral parts (a rhythmicized descending second), as a sonic semantization of death, whereas in the second case it is achieved by means of a rising vocal melody in crescendo, arpeggiated harmonies in the woodwinds’ staccato lines, and the bass instruments’ lines in a protracted rising chromati- cism, as a sonic stylization of sarcasm. In the fourth vision, Tesla’s moving story of his tormented childhood friend, who dies on the voyage to America and who, at the moment of dying, sees his beautiful homeland, just as Tesla would in his own time, is accompanied by a dark lyrical reflection, once again scored for a mezzo-soprano, but now in the role of a bereaved Mother, dressed in black.17 The free, non-rhymed verses, bor- rowed from the second and third stanza of Miloš Crnjanski’s poem “Himna” (Hymn; Anthem), express contents that are entirely at odds with the poem’s title, which suggests a precisely defined lyric genre with an exalted theme, religious inspiration, and rapturous tone. By contrast, the focus here is on the dynamics of vanishing and the disappearance of “forests, hills… mother, home”, a grim destruction of everything, except blood. In other words, the subject of this cult celebration and exaltation is blood. In Božić’s music, this parodic distortion of the hymn into an anti-hymn is manifested in terms of subverting D major’s func-

16 The Woman Ruler/Angel of Temptation was sung by Jadranka Jovanović. 17 The role of the bereaved Mother in Black was sung by Jadranka Jovanović.

113 New Sound 47, I/2016 tionalized harmonic progressions, teleologically directed toward the certainty of a cadence, in a key that is traditionally associated with hymns and majestic qual- ities, using the dissonant quality of the Lydian fourth (D–G sharp). This is the same quality that had earlier, in the first vision, marked the motivic core of the opening choral song (“the horizon is all edged in blood… Saint George killed the dragon with his silver spear precisely at dawn”). In Božić’s music, the ele- giac tones of death and loss, of wasteland and inadequacy, which Crnjanski pro- duces in his subversive distortion of the basic precepts of the hymn as a genre and of hymnicity in general, call for a vocal stylization of lamenting within a D major tonal framework, using a twofold procedure of shaping the melodies of vocal phrases: one, defined by its initial figure of epic recitation on a single note (d2) and its final figure, characterized by a descending flickering, trembling of the voice, while the other rests on a rhythmically uniform and slow-moving chromatic vocal descent. The motives of parting and departure are intensely concentrated in Nikola Tesla’s dialogue with Ellen, at the beginning of the fifth vision. Densely pervad- ed by a Phrygian-inflected auxiliary motive (A–G sharp–A–B/A–G sharp–A–F sharp) in parallel thirds scored for the flutes, this dialogue, ironically enough, unfolds in D major, in a waltz rhythm, a type of dance that traditionally brings a man and a woman close together, whilst also employing singing in parallel thirds as a conventional device from operatic love duets. The Eros in the music serves to ironize the Thanatos of this moment in the drama. The darkened end- ing of this waltz-intoned dialogue in the tonic D minor is introduced, like a sort of hint of something that is as yet unknown, by a quick ascent of an arpeggiated dominant 12-3 chord with a hard-diminished base (A–C sharp–E flat–G–B flat– D flat–F). Nikola Tesla’s feeling of depletion and cheerlessness in life on the eve of death is metonymically lyricized into the “lacklustre smile”, hard, “tired” breathing, and pervasion by a “terrible shiver and an endless sorrow” borrowed from Miloš Crnjanski’s poem “Stenje” (Rocks),18 which the Tenor, erstwhile singing the role of the Ruler but now transformed into the character of Tesla in a White Suit, sings (“serenely, with pain”) almost on the border of speaking (slow recitative) and whispering (pp). This song about taedium vitae takes the rela- tional centre of F minor, which had emphasized the image of the black cypress tree’s thickening in the second stanza of the choral parodos, alternately saturat- ing it with the tritone quality of the Lydian fourth (as in the Lydian major-minor scale) and the chromatic quality of the Phrygian second (as in the Phrygian mi- nor scale). This Thanatos tension culminates in the final polarization between the tonic and the Lydian subdominant in the same hard-diminished guise (B–D#–F),

18 In the libretto, the poem appears under the title of “Predosećanje” (Premonition).

114 Medić, M., The Sumatraist Secret of Count Sava Vladislavić’s Great Dreaming which already served to introduce the character of Nikola Tesla in a Black Suit in the second vision, but functioning there as the dominant of (a Phrygian-related) E minor. The sinking of Nikola Tesla’s dark feeling into forebodings of undreamt of, endless lines, this Sumatraist blending of one opposition into another, is simul- taneously revealed on the staging level of mimetic presentation, first in their vi- sually literal (black and white) encounter in the mirror and then in their holding together, in their hands, the opposite ends of the same thread of destiny woven by the Fates.19 The Sumatraist negation of (the fear of) death, metaphorized in Tesla’s act of entangling and disentangling the severed thread of destiny, makes an unexpected point about strangeness and incredibility, because it offers Hy- perboreanism as a synonym to Sumatraism – by virtue of their shared longing for transcendence. That is why, as the composer indicates in the stage directions, Tesla’s premonition of the beams of Hyperborea is “continued” and “sung fur- ther” – by extending the broad tonal-harmonic line, established in vision 1, from D mode via E minor to F mode and even further – to F-sharp minor. In Miloš Crnjanski’s poem “Sumatra”, sung by Ellen, the premonition crystallizes into a vision of “far-off coasts, beyond the seas”, “the snowy peaks of the Urals”, “ca- ressing distant hills and icy mounts, tenderly, with hands”, where, to use Miloš Crnjanski’s own words from the conclusion of his poetic Creed, “all of that in- tricacy turned into an immense serenity”, while sorrow paled and transformed into “limitless consolation”.20 Hence also the call, again, for a musical concep- tion of the idea of catharsis in resurrection from the poetic image of a Christian spring featured in the opening choral song, a conception expressed in polar in- teraction with a functionally closed harmonic element (F-sharp minor) of a non- functional and open element such as the whole-tone scale (here starting from C). The elegiac transformation of consciousness, whereby not only the expansive sensuality of feminine eroticism is abandoned, but also the coolness of a spring evening, scattered sorrow, and bitter questions are freed from pain, described in Miloš Crnjanski’s poem “Stražilovo”, to be sung con dolore, in F-sharp minor,21 with minimal melodic movement, softly and contemplatively, by Tesla (Tenor), at the beginning of the sixth vision, opens the way toward “cosmic etherealism”. On the one hand, an ethereal perception of the world is another synonym of Sumatraism by virtue of understanding death as a transformation of being in an

19 The Fates are performed by Ines Marković, Drina Pešić, and Iva Ignjatović. 20 Miloš Crnjanski, “Objašnjenje ‘Sumatre’”, Srpski književni glasnik, 1920. 21 Although the orchestral prelude and postlude are conceived in C-sharp minor, the vocal part of the song is set along a circular axis from F-sharp minor to A major and back, thus affirming the tonal-harmonic line explained above.

115 New Sound 47, I/2016 entirely new dimension and, on the other hand, by finding peace and consolation in equal measure. This is indicated both by the composer’s opting for maximum textural etherization of sonority (just the strings, in no more than two layers) and the parallel undulation, at the edge of the stage, of a female figure, nude in the manner of Jovan Dučić, in “white, immeasurable silence, far off”,22 as a symbol of beauty, petrified and cooled down by life’s fatigue, vanishing in the mist. The opera’s diegetic narrative line reaches completion in the sixth and sev- enth vision, with the first incarnation of Count Sava Vladislavić, who was up to that point seen onstage only as an obscure, curled, or floating spectre (Image 4). He announces himself in a painful and spectral bass soliloquy, whose melodic narrativity resembles that of the Ruler’s soliloquy from vision 1. With an ana- phoric repetitivity of unthinkability as a permanent, resonating strangeness and dilemma, the non-rhymed verses of Dejan Medaković’s poem “Nezamislivo je, ali ipak” (It Is Unthinkable, But Still) tell us about the repeated tribulations of the Serbian people as a collective and its suffering “to the edge of a vanished world”. That is also the subject of the succeeding chorus, a setting of Miloš Crn- janski’s poem “Blagovesti” (The Annunciation), which performs the role of the exodos or closing choral song in ancient Greek drama. Following the parabasis or central choral song, which was in ancient drama separate from the main plot and placed midway through the play, while in this opera it is found in the third vision, with the central liturgical lines of the Creed (Symbol of Faith), the clos- ing chorus in the sixth vision completes the arc that was begun by the opening chorus in vision 1. It does this by using the semantics of white lilies, that is, the antithesis between their “glow” (the verses of the opening chorus) and their “lack of fragrance” (the verses of the closing chorus). This antithesis is burdened by another significant antithesis, the one between “beams of light” and “the in- nocence of a lamb”, on the one hand, and “a night full of sorrow and painful debauchery” on the other. The only thing that remains from this personal yet transient state at the border between dreams and reality, when even “over and above unhinged premonitions and intentions there is a heavy and painful sword hanging, under which one cannot venture even in dreams”, as it says in the stage directions, is the preservation of the personal and collective memory of the spiri- tual roots of identity, whose symbol is the Great Book of Ancestors, in the future and for the future.

22 Paraphrased from Miloš Crnjanski, op. cit.

116 Medić, M., The Sumatraist Secret of Count Sava Vladislavić’s Great Dreaming

Image 4. Count Sava

Although existentially and ontologically specific, the opera’s three hypo-di- egetic flows (stories-within-a-story), though running in parallel, come together, at the end, in a single point of meaning – the Great Book, “the central conver- gence point of the energy of the dream and dreams” – revealing themselves as fragments of a single and yet plurilinear flow. Its fragmented – when observed from without – episodically abrupt chronology is a consequence of variations in the temporal structure of the dramatic narrative, achieved by means of metalep- sis, prolepsis, ellipsis, pausing, and summarizing. However, observing it from within, in depth, one sees time circling around its spiritual centre, the divine origin, which is at the same time the eschaton as well. In relation to that, the opera’s multilayered event flow develops according to the logic of dreams, in other words, around similarities and borderline contacts between the characters in terms of dream visions, until the initial ontological vertigo (visions 1–4) cul- minates at the anamorphosic moment (midway through vision 5), whose catop- tric effect rises from the fact that the Tenor, who is simultaneously Tesla and the Ruler, dressed in a black suit, occupies the position of a mirror reflection of Nikola Tesla, the Baritone, who is dressed in a black suit right from his first appearance (vision 2). In the sixth vision, the catoptric culmination, where the Tenor sings Tesla and the Count’s painful dream, Tesla’s burdening under the weight of the Count’s spirit, leads to a series of successive catoptric convergen- ces: first, between Nikola Tesla and the Ruler, because at that point, Tesla’s role is for the first time assigned to a tenor; then, between Nikola Tesla and Count

117 New Sound 47, I/2016

Sava, because Tesla switches from his dream to that of the Count; and, finally, between Count Sava and the Ruler, whose spirits are seen floating in parallel, over the darkened areas of the stage. At that point, for the first time, Count Sava himself speaks out as a character in his own right, in a soliloquy, and indeed, in the final, seventh vision, he repeats the Ruler’s initial words: “Written at Gradac, illuminated at Žiča, bound in heavy gold in Venice, the Book of Ancestors, the pride of the Empire…” (Example 3). This kind of completion shows that the dreamers and their visions form one and the same consciousness of dreaming, which is the same from the very beginning. That consciousness is no longer just that of the Count or Tesla or the Ruler or the composer, but may be the collec- tive’s consciousness of its “moral lesson”.

Example 3. Vision 7, Count Sava, the poem “Žitije” (Hagiography)

The emanation of a “moral lesson” from the repository of the memory of collective consciousness, which is articulated in the opera by means of verbal dialogic and lyrical interaction, gains its dynamic reflection in non-verbal forms of mimetic narrativity, in dance and pantomime, as manifestations of the col- lective unconscious. The tragic-elegiac pattern of narration and contemplation

118 Medić, M., The Sumatraist Secret of Count Sava Vladislavić’s Great Dreaming in dream visions is deepened by an archetypal perspective of mythic, pastoral, allegorical, and phantasmagorical figures and scenes. In its unity around the dra- matic narrative’s overarching theme – that of sacrifice, suffering, and dying in a foreign land – as well as in its integration with the dream visions in their shared Sumatraist semantic teleology (universal connectedness), the conception of this visual-choreographic setting of a spectacle, as an elaborate play-within-a-play, evokes the overall model of late-renaissance theatre, namely, verbal dramatic representations with various visual-musical-costumed intermedii or intermezzi. Beginning in the first vision, with the sacrifice of a young female body to the de- ity Pan, this dance-pantomime procession culminates midway through the fourth vision, in the lascivious seductive dance of the Angel of Temptation, introduced by Miloš Crnjanski’s poem “Bespuća” (Wilderness), assigned to the Mezzo-so- prano. The dance and the song express, “with horror in her eyes, debauched, cheerless… with a gloomy smile”, a reminder that the end is close, “far, some- where around the world… where everything yields to peace”. The procession is completed in the sixth vision, with the act of a ritual sacrificial dismemberment of a female body. Manifesting a readily recognizable Dionysian archetypal im- pulse, with the typical sequence of intoxicatio–phalophoria–sparagmos, these dance-pantomime presencings in an oneiric form only further affirm the basic theatrical model of anamorphosic doubling, because the archetypal-mythical at- tribute of Dionysus is not only the xenos or stranger, foreigner, or alien, which is what both Tesla and Vladislavić were in their real lives, but also the dithyrambos or the twice-born, the reborn, which is indicated by the opera’s catoptric and Su- matraist relations. From that impulse, one may also understand the meaning of the cyclical alternation, articulated throughout the opera, between mortal sing- ing and profound suffering and sorrow, nostalgia and melancholy, by way of divine ascendancy into heavenly joy in the Hyperborean eschaton.

119 New Sound 47, I/2016

120 Činč, E., Stolić, J., Romanian Composers’ Spiritual Creativity in the 20th Century RESEARCH AND TRADITION

Article received on March 31st 2016 Article accepted on June 30th 2016 UDC: 783(498)”19” 78.071.1(498)”19”

Eudjen Činč* Faculty of Music, West University Timisoara Jasmina Stolić Preschool Teacher Training College “Mihailo Palov”, Vršac

Romanian composers’ spiritual creativity in the 20th century – musical hagiography of the ordeal of a society

Abstract: The spiritual music creativity of Romanian composers in the 20th century un- derwent numerous phases, between their zenith and despair, due to societal events specific for all of eastern Europe in the past century. Despite the fact that this creativity, in essence, expresses the tradition of the East, and does not seek to minimize its Byzantine roots, many composers, especially in the second half of the 20th century, left aside the elements of these aesthetics and directed their creative focus towards new creative tendencies. This work reviews the works based on spiritual topics by 20th century Romanian composers, from the first decades, including the years of Communist government, till the days when they set out on a postmodern creative course, and it presents the names of the majority of composers who dedicated their works to the worship of the Almighty, analyzing thor- oughly the information found at the Union of Composers and Musicologists of Romania in Bucharest. Keywords: spiritual repertoire, vocal music, instrumental music, stages pieces of a spiritual character

Byzantine music and the music of Byzantine tradition represent an integral and very important part of the Romanian cultural space. It was preserved and

* Author contact information: [email protected]

121 New Sound 47, I/2016 it circulated from generation to generation thanks to the few who were liter- ate, monks, teachers and predicators that carried out their activities near monas- tic settlements. Around these dwellings, during many years, real schools were founded there, where spiritual (ecclesiastic) music was created. It’s impossible not to mention, for example, the existence of the famous School in the mon- astery Neamt (Şcoala de la Neamţ) in the 15th century, or of the School in the Putna monastery (Şcoala muzicală de la Putna) in the 15th – 16th centuries.1 The schools from Brasov or Bucharest were also well-known, and all of them pre- served both the tradition of the music itself and the old neumatic music notation. When we talk about the Romanian cultural space and its historical aspect, we should not omit one very important fact. The Romanian people lived its des- tiny between three big musical pylons, and they were: folk music, religious mu- sic and the music that originated in Occidental culture. Although these three py- lons had separate developmental paths, they influenced each other, many times with intersecting paths and this fact helped them to survive all the challenges that arose on their way. Contrary to folk music that always circulated orally, Byzantine music and music of the Byzantine tradition2 have numerous written traces in libraries and archives. However, there were situations when religious music circulated orally, especially ecclesiastic cantillation that existed in various parts of the Romanian countryside. The manuscripts of Byzantine music include ecclesiastic chants for Ortho- dox rites written in a so-called old system, and also the written ones in the new or Christian system, that was practiced from 1814 till nowadays. The majority of the manuscripts found on actual Romanian territory have an autochthonous ori- gin and they were written in monasteries by more or less known authors. Others were brought from Constantinople or from Mount Athos or from other Christian eastern spiritual centers in many ways and in, at least, interesting circumstances.3 In Romania, nowadays, there are approximately 250 manuscripts of old mu- sic made before 1814. As we have already said, the majority of them were writ- ten on Romanian territories and these realizations were usually grouped in an- thologies whose titles were given, depending on the place where they were kept.

1 Titus Moisescu, Muzicabizantină in spaţiul cultural românesc (Byzantine music in the Ro- manian cultural space), Bucureşti, Editura Muzicala a Uniuni Compozitori lorşi muzicolo- gilor din România, 1996, 8. 2 The term “music of Byzantine tradition” was used by the musicologist Titus Moisescu in his works, and by this term implies the religious music created in the Byzantine manner after the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453. 3 Titus Moisescu, Ibid.

122 Činč, E., Stolić, J., Romanian Composers’ Spiritual Creativity in the 20th Century

(For example Antologhionul de la Putna). The famous manuscripts from Putna, 10 of 11 manuscripts are anthologies that include chants for Vespers, Matins or Liturgies. In the main, the manuscripts from Putna contain 478 chants, 374 in Greek and 104 in the Slavonic language (the old Church Slavonic language).4 In musical ecclesiastic manuscripts, the Romanian language would be used later, especially thanks to Filothei, the son of Aga Jipa, a psalt from the Metropoly of Ugro-Wallachia and his work Psaltichia rumaneasca written in 1713.5 The value of Byzantine music became evident thanks to all the medieval manuscripts preserved on Romanian cultural territory. Those manuscripts repre- sented a huge source of inspiration for future creators. The composers of the 20th century were also familiar with this musical treasure. Actually, in this period, the core investigation of Byzantine music really begins in a modern way and a return to Byzantine music, although there were some attempts before, in the 19th century.6 Romanian musical creativity from the 20th century, inspired by religious music, represents a natural sequel of the previous composers’ works, those com- posers who founded Romanian musical culture. One of the predecessors whose influence on composers from theth 20 century was notable was the composer Gavriil Musicescu (1847–1903). He brought full affirmation to homophone choral chant, which, probably, was a consequence of his folklore studies and psaltic music. Musicescu had always been in favor of keeping the specific model of the ecclesiastic chants. He was an excellent connoisseur of the works of the Russian artists, which can be confirmed by analyzing his works, and we espe- cially mention the Prohodul for the 1st voice.7 Musicescu was not the only composer to have a clear impact on 20th cen- tury composers. Another big inspirational pylon to religious music composers was Eusebiu Mandicevski (1857–1929). He composed Liturgies in the Old Re- naissance style, with Renaissance motets, imitations, modal harmony and tonal inflexions. In the chant Evloghimenos from the Liturgies nr. 12, Mandicevski creates a fusion between eastern antiphonies, psalm music and divided choirs that are specific for the Renaissance.8 Among the composers that also made their

4 Eugen Cinci, Opusurimuzicaleromânești (Romanian musical opuses), Vršac, Književna opština, 2006, 11. 5 Moisescu, Titus, op. cit., 8. 6 Eugen Cinci, “Muzica religioasă românească între glorie şi declin (Romanian religious music between ascent and disaster)”, Dealul Vârşeţului, year IV, no. 7, 4. 7 Vasile Herman, Forma si stil in noua creaţie muzicală românească (The form and style of new Romanian creation), Bucureşti, Editura Muzicală, 1977, 30. 8 Herman, Vasile, Ibid., 49.

123 New Sound 47, I/2016 contribution to the structure of the creative direction of the last century were: Alexandru Podoleanu, Gheorghe Ionescu, Ioan Bunescu. They had an important role in forming the national school of ecclesiastic music, both, monadic and har- monic. The same path would be pursued by Gheorghe Cucu, Ioan D. Chirescu, Nicolae Lungu, Ioana Ghika – Comăneşti, Sabin V. Drăgoi and many others. Among the generations that followed, we can mention Paul Constantinescu, Marţian Negrea, Doru Popovici, Viorel Munteanu, Ştefan Niculescu, Tudor Jar- da, Liviu Comes, Gheorghe Firca, etc. It is evident that every period leaves a visible trace regarding the creative style and, in general, the artistic language that is being used. From this point of view, it seems, that the 20th century surpassed all the proceeding moments. In just hundred years, religious music underwent tremendous changes. At the beginning of the century, composers did not dare to write any work that was not intended for performance during church services. In the second half of the cen- tury the situation was completely different. New compositions came into being whose very titles indicated that they were of sacral music. In the first half of the 20th century, the composers’ attention was drawn to vocal a cappella9 music. They used to write choral opuses which, thanks to their form, structure and adaptations, could easily be included in any religious ser- vice, be it Orthodox or Catholic services. Because of the previously mentioned motifs, the music of this period can truly be called ecclesiastic music. Contrary to this kind of church music, the creation of the second half of the century ad- dressed its attention to the artistic scene. As we can understand, the Romanian music of the last century, inspired by the religious repertoire, followed the natural course of other creative genres. Nevertheless, we should not forget that the musical genre we are discussing, in the 20th century experienced many dark moments – of course, we are referring to the period after the World War II, to be more exact, the period after the fif- ties. The regime installed in Romania, the new ideas and visions about art, about its role and society in general, heralded difficult times for religious Romanian music. In order to publish works of an evidently sacral nature, composers had to modify their titles and sometimes even the content.10 Consequently, nowa- days, difficulties arise when tracking down works with religious elements in the Union of Composers and Musicologists of Romania. The titles given to some works, in order to pass the censorship, were misleading in that they revealed

9 Eugen Cinci, op. cit., 33. 10 Valentina Sandu-Dediu, Muzica românească intre 1945–2000 (Romanian muisic between 1945–2002), Bucureşti, Editura Muzicală, 2002.

124 Činč, E., Stolić, J., Romanian Composers’ Spiritual Creativity in the 20th Century little evidence of any kind of religious content, and sometimes it was impossible to discover their real character. The post-monarchical period was not the only time when composers, in or- der to create freely, had to fulfill some political criteria. Therefore, in the forties of the previous century, while Romania was still governed by a monarchy, some selections with a political background were made. At the end of 1944, so-called cleaning commissions were set up whose purpose was to eliminate political op- ponents from public life, mainly former legionnaires. The composer Dimitrie Cuclin was sentenced to do forced labor because of his legionary sympathies and Harry Brauner was arrested, along with his wife, on the pretext that he be- longed to Patrascanu’s politically inappropriate group, and that he was a dissi- dent.11 But, in spite of all the difficulties, religious music managed to come to life again. In the second half of the previous century, among Romanian composers there appeared names, such as Valentin Gheorghiu, Tudor Ciortea, Liviu Glode- anu, Richard Waldemar, Sigismund Toduţă, Franz Xaver Dressler, Hanz Weisz, Şerban Nechifor, etc.12 They have given a new vision to religious musical cre- ation and we can notice that the chants no longer have ecclesiastic features and that they have become closer to scenic performance. After the events in December 1989, when the political regime was over- thrown, new works with an evidently religious aspect appeared on the Romanian music scene. We could say that in recent years, it has gone to the other extreme, and we can speak of a super saturation of musical pieces with sacral elements. The 20th century Romanian compositions whose source of inspiration came from the religious repertoire can be classified on the basis of two important cri- teria, such as: – Music criteria and – Religious criteria According to the music criteria, we can classify the works into: – Vocal, – Vocal-instrumental and – Instrumental. When we talk about religious criteria, the works can be classified as follows:

11 Ibid. 12 Franz Metz, “Muzica bisericesca si cea sacra după 1945 în România (Ecclesiastic and religious music in Romania after 1945),” Muzica, 2002, no. 2, 120.

125 New Sound 47, I/2016

– Real religious works – Works significantly influenced by religious topics – Works with a lesser influence of religious topics The first category comprises works that can be used in any religious ser- vice, without being adapted, considering that their content and form correspond to church needs. These, generally, are Orthodox liturgies, Catholic masses, and parts of them that can be performed as independent works. They are mostly writ- ten for choirs (Răspunsuri Liturgice, Trisaghion, Heruvicul, Pre Tine, Tatăl Nos- tru, Priceasna, etc.). The same category includes musical pieces that are part of the Vespers and the Matins of the Orthodox rites, or even their complete services (Matins hymns or stihira and sedelne – chants that can be performed while the listeners sit down), the pieces that are included in the service of the Sacred Mys- teries or the entire services, and also the special services found in the Molitfenic (Funeral rites for newborns, Prayer when entering in church, Prayer for school- children, etc.). The second category consists of pieces that, given their content, approach and form cannot be part of a religious service. They mostly have a title that could correspond to religious works, but not their content. We enumerate here vocal- instrumental, instrumental or simply vocal works that in terms of their content cannot be included in a religious service, especially in Orthodox churches. The works from the third category are those works that do not penetrate so deeply into the religious sphere, but only use certain elements, quotes from the religious repertoire. They are intended for the stage and not for religious prac- tice. The lyrics of some of them are based on the composers’ creation, not on spiritual texts, or on the creation of some famous Romanian poets. The works in recent years mostly belong to this category, and they represent a new way of approaching the religious repertoire. (For example, the choir liturgy and rhythm section).13 It is almost impossible to describe on just a few pages, the musical cre- ation that marked the entire 20th century in the Romanian space. The registers of the Union of Composers and Musicologists of Romania have hundreds of them, irrespective of whether their titles are obviously religious or the religious elements should be sought between the title and the content. In this work, we present the creation of only a few composers who were working on instrumen- tal religious music, which, by its structure and form, could not represent a part of religious services but were intended for artistic performance. Some of them

13 Cinci Eugen, op. cit., 36.

126 Činč, E., Stolić, J., Romanian Composers’ Spiritual Creativity in the 20th Century have the evident features of the Eastern Church but, considering their form, they cannot constitute part of religious services. The composers are given according to the registries of the Union of Composers and Musicologists of Romania, in alphabetical order.

– Andricu Mihail (1894–1974): Legenda op. 6 based on liturgical topics (1927); – Constantinescu Paul (1909–1963): Two Etudes In The Byzantine Style for String Trio (1929), Byzantine Sonatina for Solo Violoncello (1940), Triple Concerto for Violin, Violoncello, Piano and Orchestra based on ecclesiastic chant. – Dănceanu Liviu (1954): Holy Communion for Chamber Orchestra – pre- miered in Bucharest, 1998. – Drăgoi Sabin (1894–1968): Spiritual Divertimento for Chamber Orchestra – premiered in Bucharest, 1935. – Dumitrescu Gheorghe (1914–1966): Suit No. 2 for Orchestra, op. 23 – Four Byzantine Frescoes (1943), Tenth, Sacral Symphony – Holy Trinity, op.168 (1990). – Firca Gheorghe (1935): Three preludes for organs with quotes of the School from Putna (1987). – Georgescu Remus (1932): Symphony Requiem – premiered in Timisoara 1973. – Grigoriu Theodor (1926): Byzantium after Byzantium – Concert for Violin and Orchestra (1994), Byzantium after Byzantium – Sonata for Violin and Piano (1999). – Maiorovici Harry (1918–2000): The Flood – stage music (1941), King Solo- mon stage music (1941). – Mânzat Laura Ana (1969): The First Stihira – for Solo Piano (1994), The Second Stihira – for Clarinet, Violin And Piano (1996), The Third Stihira – for Two Violoncellos (1998). – Nechifor erban (1954): Epikaleitai – Recitation and Chamber Orchestra, Text Ș – written by Saint Simenon New Theologian (1994), Petra – for Clarinet, Fagot, Guitar, Violin, Violoncello, Piano And Percussion (1989). – Popovici Doru (1932): Symphony – based on Byzantine quotes (1954), Byz- antine Poem based on topics from the 10th and 11th centuries (1967–68). – Vieru Anatol (1926): Psalm 1993 for Orchestra.

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Conclusion The creativity of Romanian composers of the 20th century inspired by the ec- clesiastic repertoire represents a typical aspect of the public confession of the collective temptations, suffering and sins of the entire nation. The fate of this kind of creation has not been easy, at all. Often, the content of a piece had to be corrected or changed in order to pass the censorship and to be published or performed. Despite all of this, the last century brought many interesting pieces of a religious character to the Romanian music scene. Although, it was not long ago that a new century began, some works already show some features of ex- ceptional musical value. The creators will certainly look for new and unexplored sources of inspiration and compose to worship the Savior of all people.

128 REVIEWS

Article received on May 6th 2016 corporeal aspects of culture and arts. Also, Article accepted on June 30th 2016 theatre and media sciences encompassed UDC: 782.01(049.32) the facilities provided by the theories of these turns. But musicology is always Katrin Stöck* struggling with new methods and that is Leipzig University why the corporeal turn or body turn has en- tered discussions much more slowly, espe- cially regarding music theatre. Jelena Novak: Postopera. Another problem that can often be Reinventing the Voice-Body, analyzed in studies of musical theatre is the Ashgate 2015 fact of the gap between musicology and the theatre sciences, while speaking about the same topic, speaking about music theatre, Jelena Novak’s study Postopera. Reinvent- has not been thoroughly dealt with even ing the Voice-Body (Ashgate 2015) at the today. very first moment seems to be a very small However, in her book, Jelena Novak book that only considers some special succeeds in bringing together theoretical works. But entering the discussion and ob- discussions about corporeality and voice serving the dissemination of the explained with the knowledge of musicology, theatre body-voice theory, one realizes the very sciences, philosophic and cultural studies. broad theoretical basis Novak’s explana- She gives a substantiated theory of body tions are founded on. and voice in music theatre, combined with th In the 20 century, in cultural studies the explanation of theoretical texts and the several ‘turns’ were ascertained, beginning detailed description and analysis of the op- with the linguistic turn in the 60s and then eras Writing to Vermeer and La Commedia continuing with the cultural turn especially. by Louis Andriessen, La Belle et la Bête by The iconic turn and the performative turn Philip Glass, Homeland by Laurie Ander- kept at hand new methods and possibilities son, Three Tales by Steve Reich and One for describing and analyzing the objects to by Michel van der Aa. The concentrated see more correlations and to describe cul- view regarding minimalist operas origi- tural phenomena more extensively. Finally, nates in her special interest in that kind of the corporeal or body turn focused on the musical theatre. Additionally, during the * Author contact information: analysis she also discusses further works. [email protected]

129 New Sound 47, I/2016

She describes the operas with enthusi- voice gap as the initial point of her research. asm and deep understanding – especially Then, she discusses several occurrences of the textual, dramaturgical, theoretical and this phenomenon, always creating a parallel also musical aspects and discusses the re- between theoretical discourse and concrete sults by mirroring them with the theoretical analysis. For example, she discusses ques- texts. With that parallel motion of theoreti- tions of the singing body and machine, cal explanation and analysis of the works, prosthesis and amputation, live-singing and Novak gives a very intensive presentation its confrontation with the media and techni- and forms the many particular aspects of a cal conditioning. Novak takes bride range very detailed image. for the discussion of body, voice and gender From a theoretical point of view the aspects, focussing so-called monstrous reader also receives a summary of such singing by fixing monstrous bodies, as well studies like that of Carolyn Abbate, Mi- as monstrous voices. She explains all as- chelle Duncan, Peter Brooks, Michal Gro- pects of gender in the handled opera pieces ver-Friedlander, Joke Dame, Slavoj Žižek, from the voice-gender-relationship to spe- Richard Leppert, Steven Connor, Adriana cial questions like vocal drag, counter-cas- Cavarero, Jean-Luc Nancy, Tereza Havel- trato and breeches parts. Another large part kova, Brigitte Felderer, Bojana Kunst, of the book deals with disembodied voices Mladen Dolar, Rick Altman, Hélène Cix- and unvoiced bodies, discussing facets of ous, Shoshana Felman and Judith Butler. ventriloquism and de-synchronization, as Therefore, Novak’s book is a walk through well as the theory and practice of the inten- the voice-body-theory of the English sive relationship of opera and film. speaking world and, at the same time, we Only one wish remains: the music – in find a guide to some important operas of musicological studies mostly dominating the last two decades. the discussion – retreats into the back- She describes in detail the relations ground. I also would like to read more between the storyline, the text, the staging, about how and what (music) the bodies are the bodies of the actors/singers, their voices singing, because Novak asked rather that and the various uses of media in the works. and why and also what (text) in that context In terms of these relations, she discusses all the figures are singing. Certainly it would the theoretical possibilities of interpreta- need more scope to describe also the music tion with her extensive knowledge of the of the singing body. But to discuss gender works themselves, the ideas and intentions aspects, relationships between figures, as- of the composers and staging directors, and pects of machine and body, ventriloquism, on the basis of the theoretical works. In so monstrous singing, aspects of presence/ doing, she enables the reader to imagine non-presence, corporality/non-corporality, the discussed works almost completely in and so on, the character of the produced his mind’s eye. music, the melodies, the rhythms, the co- After introducing the Postopera term lour and timbre of the voices, and all other and finding her own definition linking up special musical attributes, from my point of with Hans-Thies Lehmanns theory of post- view, are very important to catch the rela- dramatic theatre, Novak states the body- tionships again more comprehensively.

130 Reviews

Nevertheless, Jelena Novak provides Article received on April 5th 2016 a broadly informed work and shows her Article accepted on June 30th 2016 great overview to the theoretical and philo- UDC: 7.037/.038(049.32) 7.01(049.32) sophical discourses. For further studies, her book offers the way to connect the discus- sion of these selected operas with the his- Marija Maglov* tory of opera and some other concrete and University of Arts in Belgrade, outstanding works of music theatre of the Faculty of Music, PhD student 20th century. It would be interesting to his- toricize the discourse and to show how some of the body-voice-relationships, Sanela Nikolić: Avangardna umetnost shown in the present study already, were kao teorijska praksa: prepared in the operas and pieces of musi- Black Mountain College, Darmštatski internacionalni letnji kursevi za Novu cal theatre and opera of the last century. muziku i Tel Quel One example of my special interest: the [Avant-garde art as theoretical practice: separation of body and voice in music the- Black Mountain College, Darmstadt atre already occurred as early as in some of International Summer Courses for New Bohuslav Martinůs stage works of the Music and Tel Quel] 1920s and 1930s, for instance, in his opera Belgrade: Faculty of Music, 2015. Hry o Marii (1935), where he divided some (Monographic Series, Tempus Project of the figures into a singer and a dancer, InMusWB, VIII), combining folkloric traditions, ideas of the ISBN 978-86-88619-60-8. 337 pages mystery play of the Middle Ages and epic theatre. The additional view to some con- temporary composers like Heiner Goeb- The book Avangardna umetnost kao teorij­ bels, Helmuth Oehring and Olga Neuwirth ska praksa: Black Mountain College, could also enrich the discussion about Darmštatski­ internacionalni letnji kursevi Postopera just as the perhaps complemen- za Novu muziku i Tel Quel is the revised tary voice-body-theories by Christa Brüstle PhD thesis by Dr. Sanela Nikolić, defended or Helga Finter. at the University of Arts, Belgrade (Inter- Jelena Novak establishes a compre- disciplinary Studies Programme, Art The- hensive examination of the term Postopera, ory and Media Studies Group) in 2011. The using it as a concept of post-dramatic and reviewers were Dr. Mirjana Veselinović- simultaneously postmodern recent opera. Hofman (who was also the mentor) and Dr. This term should be established in music Miodrag Šuvaković. In her book, the au- theatre sciences because of its ability to de- thor questions the status of theory in art, scribe the phenomenon of such operas politics and culture, focusing on the three more exactly and to differentiate the vari- chosen avant-garde art worlds, and states ous development directions in contempo- that the roles of artistic and theoretical rary music theatre.

* Author contact information: [email protected]

131 New Sound 47, I/2016 practice within these worlds were equally draw the conclusion that the avant-garde important. More precisely, the main thesis both practically (through artistic work) and is that “in relation to existing and surround- theoretically, radically deals with both in- ing discourses, every avant-garde made an trinsically artistic questions and the status impact as a theoretical practice, but also, of art in the social context, leading to the the theoretical work of artists was a consti- problematisation of the mechanisms of the tutive part of the mechanism of every constitution of social acting (37). Because avant-garde, the common signifier of mu- of this, Nikolić brings in Althusser’s con- tually different phenomena and an impor- cepts of social practice and epistemological tant condition of shaping the avant-garde break, and works with them in the context as theoretical practice and acting out spe- of the theory of the artist, as another impor- cific epistemological breaks” (13). Nikolić tant concept for the development of her ar- defends her thesis through an argumenta- gument. Since the role of theory in the tion based in interdisciplinary research avant-garde was not only to explain the art- which draws on the metatheoretical ap- ist’s poetics a posteriori, but to legitimize proach where Louis Althusser’s concept of new forms of artistic production and to me- theoretical practice is in question, but also diate between arts and culture, Nikolić sees on examination of the published material/ theory as the constitutive discourse of art texts by actors of three chosen art worlds. (44), leading to both art and theory as The book is divided into five chapters equally important parts of the realization of with an author’s foreword, an introduction avant-garde art. The theory of the artist, ac- which presents the research subject, prob- cording to Nikolić, results in epistemologi- lem and theoretical frame (Predmet cal breaks since it deals with the ideology istraživanja, problem i teorijski okvir [The of modernist art and brings new models, Subject of Research, Problem and Theoreti- and it is recognized as practice because of cal Framework]), a bibliography, name its form of “doing and questioning in rela- index and biographical data on the author. tion to the ‘social’ of art” (56). There is also a valuable contribution in the The next three chapters are dedicated form of lists of selected writings by teachers to the analysis of the three chosen art- and students of Black Mountain College, worlds, which are, in Nikolić’s opinion, texts published in the Darmstädter Beiträge institutionally constituted as such precisely zur Neuen Musik from 1958 to 1990 and because of the interrelation of artistic and texts published in the Tel Quel magazine theoretical practice, variously exemplified between 1960 and 1983, which served as between them. Methodologically, these the source material for the research. chapters follow the clear idea of presenting In the first chapter, titled Avangardna a given artworld in the first part as a social umetnost, teorija i praksa (Avant-garde art, practice, with informative details on the theory and practice), Nikolić lays the theo- context in which they emerged and the in- retical ground on which her analysis of tervention they were going to make, and chosen artworlds will be given. First, she then as avant-garde theoretical practice in presents different theories and discourses the second part of each chapter. The chang- on the avant-garde which enables her to ing conceptualization of both avant-garde

132 Reviews theoretical practices and their recognition that process. The continuation of the line of in discourses on the avant-garde is given in modernist music and the international char- understanding Black Mountain College as acter of the courses were both established avant-garde, Darmstadt International Sum- as opposite values to those of Nazi Ger- mer Courses as neo-avant-garde and Tel many and the concept of the modernist au- Quel as post-avant-garde practice. tonomy of music had its role in Cold War Thus, the second chapter, Black politics, as an opposition to the realism of Mountain College kao teorijska praksa the Eastern Bloc. Nikolić explains that (Black Mountain College as Theoretical through their artistic work (aimed at the Practice), deals with the formation and ac- critical deliberation of musical material) tivity of the College in the midst of educa- and theoretical practice (autopoietic texts, tional reforms in the democratic American the educational dimension of courses, mag- society and the need for profiling American azine), composers (notably Boulez, Stock- art as opposed to European artistic tradi- hausen and Cage, but also others) formed tion. Ideas of ‘progressive education’ and the system of meaning which legitimized active aesthetic experience with art as part New Music and overcame existing mod- of everyday life, coming from the philoso- ernist norms (149). Thus, theory was a con- phy of pragmatism, were at the core of stitutive part of the idea of New Music, these reforms. Experimental artistic prac- whose neo-avant-garde effectivity was evi- tice, nourished at the College, became the dent in its intrinsically artistic sphere, as specific signifier of American art. After ex- well as the social, political and ideological amining various artistic problems (fluxus, problematizations related to art. performance, events, poetry as verbal ac- In the fourth chapter (Tel Quel kao tion, open work, etc.) and texts of artists teorijska praksa [Tel Quel as Theoretical active at the College (for example, Joseph Practice]), the author examines the activity and Annie Albers, Cage, Olsen), Nikolić of the group related to the Tel Quel maga- concludes that their theoretical practice zine, which emerged in the time of the New gave a new epistemological model differ- Left in France and its ideas regarding the ent from the high modernist conception of end of capitalism. The activity of the group art as an autonomous sphere, which served was directed towards the transformation of as a radical avant-garde move from the tra- language, because of the idea that the de- ditionally established European paradigm construction of language in bourgeois soci- of autonomous art (94). ety leads to the deconstruction of other The Darmstadt International Summer forms of ideology and the capitalist system Courses for New Music, the subject of the as a whole (229). Nikolić emphasizes the third chapter (Darmštatski internacionalni innovations of the group which included letnji kursevi za Novu muziku kao teori- the elaboration of the concepts of language, jska praksa), were formed as part of the writing and text, the semiotic platform, sig- process of the denazification of Germany nifying practice and intertextuality (203). in the post-war period and, because of the After a detailed examination of these and specific role of music for the German cul- other problems and the texts of authors like tural identity, played an important part in Sollers, Althusser, Derrida and Kristeva,

133 New Sound 47, I/2016 but also of the question of “theory after the roles of the theoretical in the constitution end of theory”, Nikolić cocludes that, with of the artistic, with the conclusion that the Tel Quel, theory had the role of critical avant-garde served as an initiator of the practice because of “the revolutionary sta- productive powers of theory, which re- tus of theory and the role of theory in the sulted with new epistemological models of transformation of social relations” (252). understanding art and permanently changed Further, theoretical practice was the field the relation between the ‘artistic’ and the of social work where epistemological ‘theoretical’ (261). breaks were played out (252), and, with the The book by Dr. Sanela Nikolić brings distinctive post-avant-garde effect of the an exciting thesis, with an effective argu- group’s activity, the borders between literal mentation and examples, delivered in a true and theoretical work were deconstructed, interdisciplinary manner, through system- leading, with emphasis on writing as a atic and firm presentation. Bearing in mind meaning/means of problematization, be- that literature on the local theoretical scene yond the artistic in the field of the political, dealing with (discourses on) the avant- ideological, social and cultural. garde is not quantitatively strong, the pub- The final chapter brings Conclusive lication of research which covers the dif- remarks – the importance of the avant- ferent avant-garde artistic activities and garde as theoretical practice (Zaključna emphasizes the crucial role of theory is zapažanja – značaj avangarde kao teorijske also a valuable contribution of the Faculty prakse), where the author completed the of Music’s publishing activity to the litera- argumentation by summing up the different ture on art theory.

134 Reviews

Article received on October 22nd 2016 bagrema (Scent of Acacias) for soprano, Article accepted on October 22nd 2016 clarinet, and guitar by Marko UDC: 785.6.091.4(497.11)"2015"(049.32) Karanfilovski,5 as well as in two works for chamber orchestra, Varijacije (Variations) Nikola Pejčinović* by Milana Milošević6 and Transfiguracije (Transfigurations) by Mirjana Veljković.7 It The 11th festival Koncerti mladih autora seems as if the seeds of individual musical – KoMA (Young Authors’ Concerts) expression, whose initial developmental stages we could certainly hear in these mostly programmatic pieces, had fully blossomed only in the works of more sen- The 11th festival Koncerti mladih autora – ior authors: Dinarska svita (Dinaric Suite) KoMA (Young Authors’ Concerts) was held for oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, and piano on 19 May 2015 at the Belgrade Philhar- by Marko Kovač;8 Jednom sam negde monic Hall. The programme, comprising čuo... (Somewhere, I Once Heard…) for pieces by BA and MA students of composi- clarinet, piano, and string quartet by Lazar tion, offered the audience an array of works Đorđević;9 Concerto da camera for ampli- featuring, as one might expect in this con- fied harpsichord and chamber orchestra by text, strong academic authorial voices, but Aleksandar Beljaković;10 and Kam- with a clear tendency among the authors to merkonzert – The Archivist for 18 musi- search for musical solutions that might cians by Jug K. Marković.11 help them to achieve their own individual In Kalenić, a solo song, Jovičin syn- styles of composition. This was perhaps thesized neo-impressionist, neo-expres- less pronounced in the works by younger sionist, and neo-avant-garde procedures to composers: Kalenić for soprano and piano produce a sound picture based on a play of by Damjan Jovičin;1 Trubaduri (Trouba- dours) for oboe and bassoon by Ana year of BA studies in composition in the class of 2 Krstajić; Zašto, molim (Why, Please) for Prof. Tatjana Milošević-Mijanović. soprano and piano by Mira Milosavljević;3 5 Marko Karanfilovski is a student of the third Put u podzemni svet (The Road to the Un- year of BA studies in composition in the class of derworld) by Aleksandar Savić;4 Miris Prof. Tatjana Milošević-Mijanović. 6 Milana Milošević is an MA student of com- position in the class of Prof. Svetlana Savić. * Author contact information: 7 Mirjana Veljković is a final year student in [email protected] composition in the class of Prof. Tatjana 1 Damjan Jovičin is a student of the third year Milošević-Mijanović. of BA studies in composition in the class of 8 Marko Kovač is an MA student of composi- Prof. Zoran Erić. tion in the class of Prof. Isidora Žebeljan. 2 Ana Krstajić is a student of the fourth year of 9 Lazar Đorđević is preparing for his PhD in BA studies in composition in the class of Prof. composition in the class of Prof. Zoran Erić. Isidora Žebeljan. 10 Aleksandar Beljaković is a final year student 3 Mira Milosavljević is a student of the fourth in composition in the class of Prof. Isidora year of BA studies in composition in the class of Žebeljan. Prof. Zoran Erić. 11 Jug K. Marković is an MA student in com- 4 Aleksandar Savić is a student of the fourth position in the class of Prof. Zoran Erić.

135 New Sound 47, I/2016 clusters and dissonant vertical sonorities, tical and soft neo-impressionist clusters in generating a form built on contrasts be- the piano’s high register and a tranquil tween densely and more transparently tex- melody in the violoncello. Then, adhering tured segments. Since Jovičin’s song is to the title of the work, the sound moves based on the eponymous poem by Serbian ‘down’ and switches to the low register, poet Vasko Popa, the soprano vocal line presenting thematic material in the violon- was for the most part oriented toward por- cello part supported by an ostinato sound in traying the verses, with the overall drama- the piano part and lending the work a turgy of the piece following it in the same clearer formal profile. Miris bagrema by direction. Ana Krstajić realized her work Marko Karanfilovski is structured along Trubaduri as a cycle in three movements. similar lines. The work opens with frag- The main axis of the slow opening move- mentary, broken motivic ideas but then its ment is a gradual development of folklore- form grows tighter, based on a triple inflected motivic material in a dialogue rhythm and periodicity. As for the sonic re- between the oboe and the bassoon. The fast sult of this, compared to the multilayered middle movement evokes the music of the tissue of Put u podzemni svet, it is consid- troubadours, with a wealth of ornaments erably lighter, due to playing with uncon- and sweeping motivic clichés, even, at one ventional performing techniques, such as point, producing the impression of an im- over-blowing on the clarinet. provised musical flow, while the piece as a The possibilities of the variation prin- whole comes to a peaceful end in the anti- ciple were explored in two works for string climax of the final movement’s bleak at- instruments: Varijacije by Milana Miloše­ mosphere. Compared to the rigid style of vić and Transfiguracije by Mirjana Veljko­ Kalenić, it seems that Trubaduri demon- vić. The form of Varijacije rests on con- strates a more daring break into the domain trasts, that is, on alternating between soft of musical folklore, which certainly felt and light episodes and rhythmically tense refreshing at this point of the evening. In segments featuring a neo-expressionist har- her piece Zašto, molim, Mira Milosavljević monic language enriched with harsh verti- produced a picture similar to that of cal sonorities. By contrast, Transfiguracije Jovičin’s work, first by alternating between is based on the principle of generating a fast atonal passages and breaks, and then musical flow by following an ostinato-like also by achieving a wide timbral range be- rhythmic pattern, which was in this case tween the vocal and piano parts. However, realized by using the instrument’s body as unlike the rather harsh sound picture of a percussion instrument. But despite the Kalenić, the musical language of Zašto, domination of the rhythmic principle, this molim is more moderate and the dynamics work is more melodic than Varijacije, are softer, with fewer contrasts. which is demonstrated by its folklore-in- One could say that up to this point in spired material coloured by dissonant fric- the concert, Aleksandar Savić’s Put u tion in the harmony. One might also note podzemni svet showed the highest potential that, unlike in Varijacije, whose texture is in terms of programmatic music. In this vertically directed, in Transfiguracije this piece, the listener is initially met with mys- musical parameter is guided by a horizon-

136 Reviews tal principle, by interrelating the melody piano parts served the author as a means of and the accompaniment. Therefore, in playing with colour in moments of anticli- terms of technique, in both works, the two max. authors worked more with changes in the Up to this point, the concert was dom- domain of rhythm, timbre, and harmony, inated by works that may be placed in an than with the musical material itself. In academic stylistic framework, with their both pieces, the overall sound tissue leaves musical expression shaped mostly by neo- one with the impression that Varijacije are impressionist and neo-expressionist means more developed in terms of dramaturgy, and with occasional breaks into the folk- with more pronounced culminations, due to loric domain and neo-avant-garde amplifi- the work’s sharper musical expression, cations. In that regard, unlike those pieces, whereas Transfiguracije, owing to its folk- the concertante works of Aleksandar loric musical construction, generates the Beljaković and Jug K. Marković, Concerto impression of an elegiac work with a lyri- da camera and Kammerkonzert – The Ar- cal sensibility. chivist feature a kind of treatment of mate- The second part of the 11th KoMA fes- rial that also includes, among other things, tival opened with Marko Kovač’s Dinarska postmodernist creative strategies. One svita. The work comprises ten dramatically could hear this first in Beljaković’s Con- contrasting scenes based on opposing soft certo da camera, a re-examination of the folkloric motivic fragments, broken with harpsichord’s sound identity. Beljaković pauses and dynamically gradational cluster achieved this by subjecting neo-baroque segments. Generally speaking, Dinarska figuration in the harpsichord part to elec- svita features a rather well developed tronic manipulation, thereby moving it into rhythmic component, primarily due to a new, modernized musical context, con- using irregular metric patterns and percus- sisting of prolonged cluster sounds in the sive effects in the piano part, while the chamber orchestra corpus. But viewing the work’s best quality is perhaps the fact that evening as a whole, one may openly say Kovač managed to achieve a rather full and that its pride of place was occupied by piercing sound with a relatively small en- Marković’s Kammerkonzert – The Archi- semble (oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, and vist, not only in terms of scope and com- piano), by skilfully shaping the instru- plexity, but also its creativity and maturity ments’ mutual relations in terms of register of Marković’s authorial expression. This is and manipulating their sound colours. a work of a broad dramatic range, which is Lazar Đorđević’s piece Jednom sam negde presented right at the outset, by means of čuo, from its neo-impressionist opening to gradation and timbral transformations, the culmination in extremely sharp neo- leading to the presentation of the thematic expressionist ostinatos with clusters in the material. The overall structure of the work string corps, generates the impression of a is tripartite, with the middle section featur- lavish sound palette. That palette’s main ing the piano in a more prominent soloist carrier was certainly the string section, es- role. And precisely in that segment pecially in the construction of pronounced Marković offers a re-conceptualization of dramatic tensions, while the clarinet and the traditional concept of the solo instru-

137 New Sound 47, I/2016 ment’s function, that is, its deconstruction Article received on October 22nd 2016 of sorts. Namely, instead of clearly shaped Article accepted on October 22nd 2016 themes, Marković used minimalist tools to UDC: 78.091.4(497.11)"2015"(049.32) generate the musical flow in this section of the piece, repetition and gradation that, Nikola Pejčinović through dense and dissonant sonorities, grow into a culmination, realized by means The 24th International of expressive piano arpeggiations and Review of Composers rather intense orchestra dynamics. Finally, another interesting feature in Kammerkonz- ert is the author’s decision to use a musical th quotation to strike up a dialogue with an- The 24 International Composers’ Review other concertante work, one from the was held in Belgrade between 24 and 30 standard repertoire. The quotation is a mo- September 2015 under the title of The tive from Brahms’s Second Piano Con- Music Box. In some 67 featured works by certo, which in Marković’s piece appears authors from 18 countries (countries of the twice – at its first appearance, it is easily former Yugoslavia, the United States, recognizable, whereas the second time it is Netherlands, Cyprus, Greece, Poland, partly obscured by a torrent of fiery pas- Great Britain, China, Romania, Sweden, sages in the piano part. Italy, Lithuania, and South Korea), last What one might criticize regarding year’s festival developed its chosen the- Beljaković and Marković’s works is their matic framework in various ways, but for insufficient work on defining concrete the- the most part in conceptual and mimetic matic materials – they generate the tissue terms, by evoking the sonic and timbral of their works primarily by layering (clus- qualities of music boxes. Thus drawing in- ter) sections and repetitive figurations one spiration from this mechanical instrument, on top of another, whereas in the preceding the composers sought to realize their cre- pieces one could clearly hear their authors’ ative potentials and explore how the work- need to shape concrete thematic entities in ings of a musical box might be transferred/ constructing the overall sound picture. That posited in the discourse of art music. is why in Concerto da camera and Kam- A possible answer to that question merkonzert it seemed, at times, as if form was offered already on the Review’s open- had taken precedence over content. How- ing night, on 24 September, on the Raša ever, that certainly cannot diminish their Plaović stage of the National Theatre in overall quality, which truly raised these Belgrade, with a concert programme titled two works above the rest of the repertoire Kaleidoskop (za decu i odrasle) Nade and thus marked the 11th KoMA festival. Kolundžije (Kaleidoscope (for Children and Grown-ups) by Nada Kolundžija). The presentation of the Mokranjac Award to composer Svetlana Savić for her work Zarobljena (Trapped) for women’s choir and electronics was followed by a multi-

138 Reviews media programme conceived by American Speakers, and Theremin) and Odbrojavam director Scott Fielding. It comprised 16 (And Counting) by Irena Popović, because pieces, most of which were premièred that they offered a sublimation of two elements evening, for piano, toy piano, musical that were woven together throughout the boxes, and electronics, performed by pia- concert: repetitive sound environments and nists Nada Kolundžija, Jovana Đorđević, the concept of a children’s theatre play. and Darja Damjanović, with the participa- Thus, in Barić’s work we could see a doll tion of Bojan Barić, an animator, and Miloš “playing the role” of a performer and, con- Milić, a pantomime artist. Indeed, panto- nected to the Theremin, “performing” mime was the tool the artists used to lend music on that instrument, while Irena the entire evening, right from the start, the Popović based her piece on a synthesis of character of a performance with a critically the multi-layered sound of musical boxes driven narrative as a commentary on our and a simple repetitive text similar to a time. Milić’s character is one who lives nursery rhyme. However, despite having quickly, in monotony, and without much sought to offer a more potent artistic con- thinking. One day, he stumbles upon a mu- cept, the entire repertoire left the impres- sical box under his bed, which changes his sion of unpretentiousness and simplicity life and way of thinking – by setting its and it is certain that the programme of Ka- mechanism in motion, he, along with the leidoscope (for Children and Grown-ups), audience, enters the world of music, that is, which opened the 24th Composers’ Review, the concert. And there we were greeted by afforded the greatest pleasure to the young- a repertoire whose mechanical musical est members of the audience. flow sent us, in a peculiar way, a message On the second day, September 25, the similar to the message of Milić’s acting. In Hall of the National Bank of Serbia hosted the first place, we would locate in that cat- The Construction Site Ensemble, who per- egory pieces that featured toy pianos: Pre- formed Aleksandar Perunović’s Metal- ludijum (Prelude) and Nađino kolo (Nađa’s glasswork for piano, Darija Andovska’s Round Dance) by Miloš Raičković, the DOrMIrNO for flute, clarinet, and piano, Suite by John Cage, Satie Blues and Night- Dimitris Maronidis’s Anthems for flute, mare Rag by Toby Twining, The Memory clarinet, piano, violin, and violoncello, of Roses by Louis Andriessen, as well as Drei Musikhomeopathistucke for violin, pieces featuring musical boxes: Andries- clarinet, and piano by Dragana Jovanović, sen’s Deuxième chorale, Fofi & Michalis Melanholija (Melancholia) for oboe, vio- and mobylette by Yannis Kyriakides, Trace lin, violoncello, and piano by Milan by Richard Barrett, Mehanička tema (Me- Mihajlović, and Katarina Glowicka’s Fa- chanical Theme) by Ivan Elezović, and vola for piano and electronics. Regarding Verbatim by Miroslav Savić. Especially these pieces, one should take special note noteworthy were Barić’s Iz dečjeg ugla – of Metaglasswork, Anthems, Melanholija, Serenada za lutku, klavir, Debisija, mikro- and Favola, primarily on account of their fon, Logic, dva zvučnika i teremin (From a notably postmodernist approach to the Children’s Angle: Serenade for a Doll, treatment of musical material. In Metal- Piano, Debussy, Microphone, Logic, Two glasswork, Perunović offers the listener a

139 New Sound 47, I/2016 peculiar, deconstructivist take on Philip ments such as a chromaticized musical tis- Glass’s Music Box (the opening track of the sue (Head on Vortex), changes of timbre horror film Candyman). Perunović accom- (Tree of the Knowledge…), and a melodic plished this by varying the melody and ac- line supported by a pedal point (Psalm companiment of Glass’s piece, whilst re- XIII). In that sense, the only piece that taining the steady movement and stood out was Ana Kazimić’s Pirouettes of repetitiveness of the original material and Emerald, implementing the same material making changes to the melody, rhythm, in three different characters and accelerat- and tempo, evoking the sound of a music ing and decelerating the musical flow as a box. Maronidis took a similar approach in way to allude to the mechanism of a musi- his Anthems, a postmodernist artistic pun cal box. on the subject of national anthems from On the same night, the main event various countries. Since anthems are usu- featured a concert of the Romanian ensem- ally serious in character, this new musical ble devotioModerna from Bucharest, who environment lent them a more subtle sensi- presented works by Romanian composers: bility. By contrast, instead of focusing on Sonata for solo clarinet by Tiberiu Olah, working with musical materials, it seems Sonorities and “Forget-me-not” for flute that the authors of Melanholija and Favola and piano by Ulpiu Vlad, Mithya I. for solo concentrated on re-examining sonorities flute by Doina Rotaru, Four Inscriptions and portraying various moods. In the musi- for piano by Adrian Iorgulescu, den der cal tissue of Melanholija, the main motive Tag war noch ganz for flute by Carmen – a descending minor third (B-flat–G) – is Maria Cârneci, Triplum for clarinet, vio- used in various combinations of colour and loncello, and piano by Ştefan Niculescu, changes of character. In Favola, Katarina apfelStrudel for flute, clarinet, violoncello, Glowicka re-examined the sonic potential and piano by Mihai Murariu, as well as a of an entire medium – the piano – by plac- work by a Serbian composer, Dejan ing it in conflict with an electronic sound Despić’s Manchester Trio for clarinet, vio- environment. loncello, and piano. The most memorable The next day of the festival, day three, aspect of this concert was its repertoire, was marked by two concerts. The first was featuring works by Romanian composers the concert by the Belgrade-based Mixed from various periods, including the 1960s String Quartet, featuring Vuk Kulenović’s (Sonata for solo clarinet), 1970s (Triplum String Quartet No. 6, Ana Kazimić’s Pirou- and Four Inscriptions), and 2000s (Sonori- ettes of Emerald for oboe and string quar- ties and “Forget-me-not”, Mithya I., den tet, Đuro Živković’s Psalm XIII for string der Tag war noch ganz, and apfelStrudel). quartet, Hadi AyanBod’s Tree of the Knowl- The overall sound picture of the concert, edge of Good and Evil for oboe and string except the more moderate and coherent quartet, and Man-Ching Donald Yu’s Head Manchester Trio, was extremely expres- on Vortex. It seems as if these works, in sive, primarily because the Romanian com- terms of their sound qualities, had little in posers’ works are for the most part predi- common with the thematic concept of last cated on avant-garde compositional year’s Review, since they are based on ele- devices, as well as on re-examining the

140 Reviews potentials of various non-standard per- hardly say that they attracted much atten- forming techniques. tion, mostly due to the unpretentious ex- In their second performance at the 24th pression, as well as simple but insuffi- Composers’ Review, The Construction Site ciently developed conceptions. By contrast, Ensemble held a concert on Sunday, 27 Ana Gnjatović’s Phyllody. Quiescence and September 2015, at the National Bank of Nina Perović’s Klanjalica, which finished Serbia Hall. The concert featured the fol- the evening, featured a more carefully con- lowing works: Wreck of Silence for mezzo- ceived structure and a more dynamic musi- soprano, baritone, violoncello, and elec- cal flow resulting from ideas full of imagi- tronics by Ivana Ognjanović; Buka u nation. unutrašnjoj tišini (Noise Amid Internal Si- The main attraction of the festival’s lence) for flute, oboe, clarinet, percussion, day four was The Box, a performance con- and piano by Miloš Zatkalik; I Do Not ceived by the Swedish Themus Ensemble, Love You – Except I Love You for soprano comprising Tony Blomdahl, Andreas Hall, and flute by Jasna Veljanović; Kapričo and Mansoor Hosseini. In a sort of theatri- (Capriccio) for solo clarinet by Ante Grgin; cal performance based on improvisation, Odmrzavanje (Thawing) by Božo Banović; this ensemble sought to explore the possi- Trag (Trace) for soprano, clarinet, and bilities of using everyday items – mugs, piano by Aleksandar Vujić; Phyllody. Qui- spoons, newspapers, and a wooden box – escence for flute, piano, accordion, violon- to generate sound. The overall impression cello, and double bass by Ana Gnjatović; of the entire performance was one of absur- and Klanjalica (Bowing Song) by Nina dity and shock, due to its seemingly inco- Perović. The concert began with Ivana herent form, as well as the content itself Ognjanović’s Wreck of Silence, a piece re- and the way it was realized. Playing with alized by combining an electronic sound objects onstage, the artists generated layer, comprising short and slowed down sounds and rhythmic patterns, without a musical fragments of an ordinary music clear dramaturgical plan. The climax of the box melody and a vocal-instrumental part. show was the smashing of a mobile phone In his piece, Zatkalik produced an interest- that had ostensibly started ringing in the ing play of silence and an expressive type audience (in fact, this was part of the of musical flow in a series of contrasting show), which was followed by breaking the movements, whose titles – Vrisak (Scream), wooden box and the table, which marked Krici i šaputanja (Screams and Whispers), the end of the event itself. With this perfor- ...kao da je sama magla kliknula... (…as mance, Themus Ensemble offered the audi- though fog itself were shouting…), Glas ence the freest treatment of the concept of onoga što viče u pustinji (The Voice of One “music box” in last year’s Review. Crying Out in the Desert), Buka i bes The fifth day of the Review likewise (Noise and Rage), and Ostalo je ćutanje offered two concerts. First, we had an op- (All That Remains Is Silence) – are already portunity to attend the concert promotion an indication of a rather dramatic musical of a CD at the Ceremonial Hall of the Bel- tissue. As for Grgin’s Kapričo, Banović’s grade City Assembly. The CD was a re- Odmrzavanje, and Vujić’s Trag, one could lease by pianist Vladimir Gligorić, featur-

141 New Sound 47, I/2016 ing piano works by Serbian composers: deau, originally written for a symphony Intime (Intimacies) by Vasilije Mokranjac; orchestra, concert-goers in Serbia have had Empromti (Impromptus) op. 12, Nos. 1 and opportunities to hear it in various instru- 2 and Komad (Piece) op. 9, No. 2 by Vlas- mental combinations; Movement Trio per- timir Trajković; Impromptu by Ivan formed it in an arrangement for violin, Brkljačić; and Il circo by Isidora Žebeljan. clarinet, and piano. The best quality of That final piece was precisely the one that their interpretation of Rondeau was playing attracted the most attention. In it, the au- in such a way as to generate dynamically thor sought to relay the sonic experience of flat layers of sound, void of all emotion a mechanical piano providing the musical and expression, just as they should be in a accompaniment to a scene from a piece of musically repetitive and reductionist work. musical theatre. This was accomplished by And that was reflected in a clear differen- fragmenting the musical flow, by con- tiation between minimalist thematic blocks, stantly changing its pace, as well as by primarily by means of changes in timbre using dissonances to allude to an out-of- and dynamics. Among the works per- tune mechanical piano, and it seems that formed that evening, the best impression the entire musical reference to the sound of was made by Srđan Hofman’s Kroz kutije a musical box in Il circo was quite conve- zvuka. The work is based on a few simple nient in terms of promoting Gligorić’s re- motives, taken through several “boxes” lease at last year’s Review. featuring various musical stereotypes and The second concert on the festival’s ending with sound “trapped” inside a real fifth day was held at Radio Belgrade’s Stu- box – a speaker. The work’s material is first dio 6. It gave us an opportunity to hear processed through a rhythmically devel- works for the violin, clarinet, and piano, oped tissue, realized by means of horizon- interpreted by Movement Trio: Come un tal polymetre, whereupon its sound picture Ricordo by Ada Gentile, Rondeau by Vlad- gains neo-impressionist contours, produced imir Tošić, Kroz kutije zvuka (Through by chordal structures in the piano part. The Boxes of Sound) by Srđan Hofman, Shaken work’s entire musical flow then undergoes from a Crane’s Bill by Ivan Božičević, intensification through neo-expressionist Šetnja sa Rinom (A Walk with Rina) by means – treating the piano as a percussion Tatjana Milošević, and Tempo mobile by instrument and fragmenting quasi-folkloric Svetlana Savić. The evening began with clichés in the violin and the clarinet; fi- Ada Gentile’s Come un Ricordo, a melan- nally, the repetitive pattern breaks down to choly work of a lyric sensibility, whose an ambiance drone, realized in the elec- overall sound picture rests on a synthesis tronic medium. between a subtle sonic environment in the On the sixth day of the festival, LEN- piano part, violin harmonics, and pro- semble (Lithuanian Ensemble Network) longed soft tones in the clarinet’s high reg- presented a selection of works by Lithua- ister. With this kind of three-layer texture nian composers at the Hall of the National the author enables the audience to experi- Bank. The concert opened with Rain for ence various colours of each of the three Cracow for violin and piano by Osvaldas instruments. As for Vladimir Tošić’s Ron- Balakauskas, a piece characterized by a

142 Reviews simple musical flow based on developing a by Anica Sabo; Scene III by Moon Young single piece of motivic material. By con- Ha; Canti di vita e morte by Predrag trast, Vytautas Germanavičius’s Cadenza Repanić; Bajka (Fairytale) by Milica for violin and accordion was much richer, Paranosić; Diamond-Meadow by Szilárd primarily in terms of colour and form, and Mezei; and Melanholične svetkovine (Mel- applying experimental performing strate- ancholy Feasts) by Draško Adžić. The gies, such as striking the body of the instru- overall impression is that the concert was ment, whistling and hissing, which pushed by and large dominated by Repanić’s piece, the music out of its traditional sound con- featuring a genuine postmodernist musical text. Compared to Germanavičius’s piece, web comprising various quotations and ref- Vykintas Baltakas’s Recitativo for violin erences – artefacts taken from the “box” of and piano and Commentum for violoncello music history. The composer thus used the and piano did not offer very imaginative procedures of paraphrasing and parodying compositional solutions, featuring an inad- within a mostly polyphonic texture in order equately elaborate treatment of musical to develop musical materials by other com- material and simple dramaturgy, with gra- posers in a rather free fashion. Among dation around the middle and an anticli- those materials, already at the start of the mactic ending, in both works. By contrast, piece, one could recognize motives from Borderline by Sonja Mutić made a more “Frère Jacques”, Niccolò Paganini’s Ca- favourable impression, with a dramatically priccio No. 24, the Kyrie from Mozart’s rather well constructed musical flow, en- Requiem, and Bach’s Art of the Fugue, riched with constant ups and downs, and a which form the basis of a canonical musi- more intense kind of expression. The con- cal flow, first in the major and then in the cert ended with two more pieces by minor mode. Set in this way, that sound- Germanavičius, Stone’s Suite for solo ac- scape then intensifies in a contrasting clus- cordion and Chanson for violin, piano, and ter texture, with references to the stylistic accordion. Stone’s Suite was especially idioms of mostly expressionist and avant- well received, based on juxtaposing two garde composers, such as Alban Berg and layers, the first of which rests on develop- György Ligeti. The dramaturgy of the en- ing a repetitive minor-third motive in the tire piece rests on a conflict between a bass and the second on long, extended tonal and atonal sonic environment, where, notes in the right hand. Those two mutually in the end, in the struggle between life and contrasting parts then come together in the death, suggested by the title of the piece – middle section’s cluster texture, only to Canti di vita e morte – death triumphs. come apart once again toward the end of The overall impression of the 24th the piece. Composers’ Review is that the participants, The final day of the 24th Composers’ inspired by the festival’s thematic concep- Review took place in the same venue that tion, managed to offer a heterogeneous and hosted the LENsemble concert. This time, extensive repertoire of works. Thus, over the honour to close the festival went to the the course of the festival, which went on Metamorfosis string ensemble, with the for seven days, we could see the various following repertoire: Kazivanje (Narration) faces of the sound world of musical boxes.

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This was initially demonstrated by Nada ternational professional society for popular Kolundžija’s Kaleidoscope (for Children music research. As an interdisciplinary or- and Grown-ups), with direct allusions, in ganization, it gathers researchers mainly terms of timbre and sound, to music boxes, from areas of ethnomusicology, musicol- and then in a series of performances where ogy and media studies who are interested the music box was used as a conceptual in various problems of popular music source of creative potential (the perfor- (mainly Western/global music). IASPM mance by the Swedish ensemble Themus; held its 18th Biennial conference in Campi- Vladimir Gligorić’s concert and those of nas (São Paulo, Brazil) at Universidade Es- Movement Trio, Construction Site, tadul de Campinas from 29 June to 3 July Metamorfosis, and Mixed String Quartet). 2015. The organizers claimed that approxi- Another peculiar feature of this Review mately two hundred participants of various was that two concert evenings were de- academic levels came from all over the voted to two national musical scenes: the world to present and discuss issues of “so- Romanian, presented by devotioModerna, nority, styles, performances, contents, pro- and Lithuanian, presented by LENsemble. duction contexts and consumption”. The conference topic was “Back to the future: Popular music and time” which included the sub-themes such as: ageing times (memory, archiving, ageing, recy- st Article received on April 1 2016 cling), historical and social times (history, Article accepted on May 12th 2016 genealogy, revitalization, timelessness), UDC: 787:005.745(81)"2015"(049.32) modern times (contemporary, new, future Marija Dumnić* time), and phenomenological times (cre- ative process, performance, listening). In Institute of Musicology SASA, Belgrade addition, several papers were devoted to structural times (rhythm, tempo, ‘groove’, flow, periodicity, repetition, synchroniza- Back to the Future: Popular Music and tion). Such themes provided enough th Time (18 Biennial IASPM Conference breadth for scholars devoted to various ma- 1 in Campinas, 2015) terials and simultaneously, directed them to the extremely important topic for music The International Association for the Study research in general – temporality. of Popular Music (IASPM) is the main in- The symposium was organized in par- allel sessions (five to eight sessions), which * Author contact information: was challenging to follow, especially be- [email protected] cause some of the sessions were in the Por- 1 This review is written as a part of the projects tuguese language. Surprisingly, the ses- City sonic ecologies: Soundscapes of Bern, Lju- sions were not chaired, but luckily, on most bljana and Belgrade, funded by the scientific occasions that enabled equable discussions co-operation between Eastern Europe and Swit- among the participants. My listening zerland and realized at the Institute of Musicol- schedule consisted of following the leading ogy SASA.

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trends in popular music studies (several as crucial in nostalgia production. His pre- relevant authors appeared as speakers), and sentation was followed by Ian Biddle’s pre- topics related to my own research which I sentation which problematized the Yiddish presented at the Conference — ‘old urban song revival in Europe parallel with the music’ (starogradska muzika) perfor- movement which claimed klezmer authen- mances in Skadarlija (Belgrade, Serbia), as ticity, and he focused on a critique of cor- the constructors of a nostalgic soundscape. relationism and ethnography. The panel Several interesting papers regarding “Music and Translation” was interesting, the topic of ageing times were presented. too. Sergio Mazzanti dealt with a descrip- Adam Behr dealt with the topic of rock tive analysis of translations of musicals (on performance and ageing, and according to the example of several national versions of his material, the rock genre shifted from a Jesus Christ Superstar from 1970). Each youth genre to heritage or even a canon. variant has semantic, tonal and rhythmic Leonieke Bolderman researched the expe- differences, due to the local context and rience of music tourism, pilgrimage and language, thus depicting the levels of “cul- fandom, demonstrated on the case of tural borrowings”. Isabel Campelo was in- Bayreuth, Stockholm and Dublin, while terested in translations and adaptations of questioning nostalgia as a marker of iden- pop-rock songs in English for the recording tity (interestingly, in her cases, it is inter- industries of Portugal and Brazil, espe- preted as a negative discourse in terms of cially problematizing the agency of lan- general popular music). Grant Olwage pre- guage in the shaping of popular music. sented four vignettes about historical re- Also, there was a special panel (Detlef cording, using the case of Paul Robeson, Siegried, Michael Rauhut) devoted to the tracing the changes in the sound of his historical research of jazz, i.e. its promoters voice made possible by the developments in early postwar Europe. Apart from that, of audio technology. Olivier Julien analyti- Ádám Ignácz’s paper revealed an interest cally presented the results of research on in this part of Europe. He talked about the four-track recording and the sound of the concept of national popular music under 1960’s, trying to answer the question “how the communist regime in Hungary (1949– does a recording format come to embed a 1989) and questioned the extent to which sound in an era”. the Soviet cultural pattern (beyond the My attention was mostly focused on Western) played the global role. the sessions about historical time. Richard A good panel of UK researchers, deal- Elliot gave a presentation on excavating ing with the topic of phenomenological the fado, which as a nostalgic music phe- time was devoted to timing in popular nomenon corresponds to starogradska music. Matt Brennan gave an interesting muzika in some aspects. In the first part of presentation about the relationship between his paper, he talked about the song Coim- drummers and musical time, emphasizing bra and its later versions while in the sec- syncopated, machine and bad time con- ond, he reversed the chronology, so he ex- cepts. Mark Doffman presented his re- plored music as a tool for place creation, search on groove breakdown in endings of emphasizing the materiality of the archive jazz performances. He dealt with the cogni-

145 New Sound 47, I/2016 tive ethnography of the jam session on the graphical, chemical-mechanical, elec- British jazz scene and analyzed timing tronic, digital) and added the level of through the musicians’ discursive and immaterial. Hemming’s distinction be- bodily practice. Sara McGuinness, as a re- tween digital and immaterial was illus- searcher and performer, compared Cuban trated through the shift from downloads to son and Congolese rumba, focusing on the streaming music. In this session, a presen- structure and creation of groove. Simon tation given by Franco Fabbri was very im- Zagorski-Thomas (winner of the IASPM portant. He was dealing with one of the book prize for 2015) gave a lecture on ges- major problems in popular music studies tural consistency vs. timing accuracy in — labelling/tagging. His topic was “What contemporary performance and production if big data are wrong?” i.e. are computer practices. He used variables such as tempo classifications of genre, style, form, mode, (overall and within bars), rhythm (consis- etc., unreliable, because they are user-gen- tency and coincidence), dynamics (per- erated usually without musicological ex- formed and processed) and timbre (same pertise. and different objects, and processing) with Despite some organizational short- an ‘ecological approach to perception and comings, my impression as a first-time at- the notion of embodied cognition’, to ex- tendee at a IASPM conference is that it is a amine whether the other parameters affect/ vibrant society for exchanging experiences mirror the perception of rhythmic consis- regarding the approaches, critical interpre- tency. tations and information related to the phe- Modern time was actually the topic nomena of contemporary popular music. At for researchers dealing with various con- this moment, methodologies in popular temporary issues in popular music, and music studies are dominantly borrowed some of them are highly relevant for popu- from the other music research traditions lar music studies nowadays. Jan Hemming (therefore, there are structural analyses of (organizer of the conference to be held in scores, sound field recording, statistics, de- Kassel in 2017) gave a well-structured pre- scription, reception questioning, etc.). sentation about ‘mediamorphosis’ in the However, they are enriched with larger light of possessing music as a commodity. media knowledge. What is interesting is Relying on the term of the sociologist Kurt that this interweaving became obvious Blakopf (from 1989), he adopted five lev- even at distinguished congresses of musi- els of mediamorphosis (graphical, repro- cologists and ethnomusicologists.

146 Defended Doctoral Theses

DEFENDED DOCTORAL THESES

Article received on July 5th 2016 tinuity in practice has not been interrupted Article accepted on October 15th 2016 and up to now was studied systematically, UDC: 783(043.3)(049.32) melismatic songs are – due to the highly demanding interpretation and structural Nataša Dimić* complexity – almost completely ostracized from current practice and neglected in the Аспекти великог појања у контексту field of scientific research. From the stand- српске православне црквене музике point of national cultural identity, the con- (The Aspects of Great Chant in the sequences are unethical, because the highly Context of Serbian Orthodox aesthetic values of the national church 1 Church Music) music tradition are left to oblivion. Since, as a result of multi-year affini- ties towards the aesthetics of church music As the essence of the liturgy expresses of Byzantine provenance, Nataša Dimić through unity with a strictly defined drama- realized the existence of a hybrid-type of turgy of symbolism, the polarity of the phe- songs – those that cannot be directly cate- nomenological aspects of the basic types of gorized in either one of the two basic types chanting in the Serbian Orthodox Church, of Serbian Orthodox Church musical ex- the syllabic short and melismatic great pression, syllabic and melismatic – the chanting, proves to be a factor of their com- need arose for filling the void, so far non- plementarity, and regarding their roles in existent, with a comprehensive scientific the liturgy, these two types of hymns gener- picture of a corpus of so-called recent Ser- ate an inextricable interrelationship. Also, bian church folk chanting. Therefore, by the disruption of the service dynamics, Nataša Dimić conceived her PhD on the through the lack of melismas where they methodologically precise verification of are envisaged by patristics, the intermedi- identity, the definition of the types of inter- ary role of musical symbols between the relationships and multidisciplinary contex- believer and the divine is violated. How- tualization – liturgical-patristic, cultural, ever, unlike the short chanting, whose con- sociological, historiographical – of all those chants which are not based solely on * Author contact information: [email protected] (syllabic) melodies of the Osmoglasnik, 1 Thesis was defended on December 29, 2015, and with an accent on the great chant. at the Faculty of Music in Belgrade. A supervi- Thus, the text of this doctoral thesis is sor was Dr. Ivana Perković, an associate profes- based on three extensive chapters: “The sor.

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Theological-Philosophical Aspect”, “The chanting” were considered, identifying the Cultural-Historical Aspect” and “The Mu- circumstances in society that could influ- sical Aspect.” ence the development of Serbian church The chapter “The Theological-Philo- music: wars, daily life, and church events. sophical Aspect” offers a theoretical over- Hence, the textual segment “The Karlovci view of the key terms, such as: beauty, art, Metropolitanate in the 18th and 19th cen- aesthetics, aestheticization, canon and cre- tury,” which sheds light on general church ativity. During the consideration of these circumstances in the period of expansion of terms, attitudes of the philosophy of art and great chanting. The author also directs her Christian thinkers were “crossed”. The au- scientific attention to the history of Serbian thor gives special importance to the consid- education in the 18th and 19th century, and eration of some essential questions: what is the potential impacts that the manner of the position of art in the Church and canon education could have had on the history of settings? Does utilitarianism, when it the great chant. Given the fact that the Ser- comes to great chant, “withdraw” before bian church dignitaries at certain historical some other “moments”, such as aesthetic stages acted as secular leaders, they brought pleasure, creative expression and musical Russian and Greek teachers who left a sig- imagination? Then, what justifies creating nificant imprint on Serbian culture. and practicing extremely melismatic Nataša Dimić has also conducted a church chanting? In order to provide the detailed comparison of Serbian sacral ar- answer to these questions Nataša Dimić be- chitecture and fresco painting with great gins from the biblical writings, and then chanting. By considering the potential sty- discusses in detail the attitudes of the listic influence of the Baroque and, to a Christian fathers continuously from the 1st much lesser extent, Classicism, on great century AD to the zenith of the Byzantine chant, she noted some analogies. Espe- Empire in the 15th century. Attention was cially important and original observations paid to the issues of beauty and art in Or- are those concerning the non-compliance thodoxy in the post-Byzantine period, of monumental Baroque bell towers with where the author especially deals with the the other buildings in the churchyard and concept of “music theurgy”, present in con- the excessive length of hymns in great temporary Russian musicological litera- chant compared to other chants during the ture. At the end of the chapter dedicated to church service. the theological and philosophical aspects, In fresco painting, the styles of west- Nataša Dimić pointed out that church art, ern European and Byzantine art were inter- and thus the great chant, has a prayer, edi- twined, as much as – as assumed – these fying and sanctifying roles. were represented in great chanting. The Ba- The next chapter, “The Cultural-His- roque, probably through the indirect effects torical Aspect,” provides information on the on chanting, could contribute to increasing influences of cultural, educational and his- the level of melismaticity of the already torical circumstances on great chant. Firstly richly developed, late Byzantine melody, the “Cultural and historical circumstances while Classicism could influence the modi- in the development of recent Serbian church fications of the chant microstructure.

148 Defended Doctoral Theses

In the third and most extensive sec- Namely, the hymns are composed of for- tion, “The Musical Aspect,” the musical mulas forming sections, while the sections characteristics of great chanting were con- are stacked as a mosaic constituting a great sidered through a large number of authen- church song. Finally, the insights into the tic scientific prisms. Firstly, an “Overview melodic properties of great chanting were of musical anthologies with chants of great presented, so in the chants of great chant- chanting” was presented, noting that, de- ing significantly higher ambituses were spite the neglect of this kind of chanting in established than in short chanting hymns, practice, the number of existing musical as well as a large number of alterations. anthologies containing great chant is very Through a meticulous analysis of hymns, large. There are about 34 anthologies and Nataša Dimić found that the melody in manuscripts of Serbian church chants, be- great chanting, although perceptively dom- ginning with medieval hymns from the 15th inating the liturgical text, however, does century, all the way to the Pentikostar of not disturb the understanding of its mean- Branko Cvejić, published in 1973. Given ing. The chantors have traditionally taken that Tihomir Ostojić and Stevan Stojanović care of the understandability of the text Mokranjac, unlike other collectors, were despite the developed melody. They did also occupied with a scientific examination not hesitate from splitting the words into of church singing, Nataša Dimić also dis- syllables, extending the syllables to a num- cussed their relation to the great hymns. ber of bars, permuting the syllables or The author then systematized and other interventions, but after such altera- summarized the results of her meticulous tions, those words, whose understanding analytical insights. On this occasion, the was impaired, were clearly sung in their original definition of a great chant has been entirety. offered, which is worth quoting in full: “It By addressing the chances for the mu- is an extremely melismatic to syllabic sical systematization of great chanting, as chanting, with its peculiar constructional well, Nataša Dimić analyzes the categories features, which may, but need not belong to of Serbian chants created by different au- any of the eight church voices, and whose thors (Nenad Barački, Branko Cvejić, Petar voice properties differ from those in the Bingulac, Vojislav Ilić), while noting that short chanting.” Then, the “Categorization not everyone has given the same impor- of chants to church singing voices; the di- tance to great chanting. For this reason, the vision according to the manner of chant- author attached the table listing all the ing,” was considered, outlining a critical chants of great chanting that can be found review of erroneous or free interpretations in the music anthologies. After comparing of categorizing great chants to the church Serbian chants with Greek classifications singing voice, due to the absence of the of church hymns, Nataša Dimić challenged well-known fact that great chant, as well as the traditional thinking that great chanting short chant, may be classified according to completely originates from papadic melos, the “manners” of chanting. and concluded that Serbian seating melos The author also devoted considerable originates from the post-Byzantine irmo- space to structural aspects of the chants. logical melos.

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Attention is also paid to the mutual In the final segment of the chapter combinations of melos (manners of chant- dedicated to the music features of great ing), on the one hand, and sub-manners chanting, Nataša Dimić devoted her atten- (manners of chanting within great chant), tion to one of the “leitmotif” topics for re- on the other hand, which led to the creation searchers of Serbian chanting: how did the of “hybrid forms of hymns” in church assimilation of folk elements into religious music, as pointed out. hymns occur, and how can they be identi- In the subsection “Points of contact of fied? The possible solution offered is very two forms of chanting are opposite in po- pragmatic, through a comparison of the larity: syllabic and melismatic. In “Kaluđer song” (Monk song) and the Com- Mutibarić’s revision”, the author offers a munion song Hvalite (Praise), following review of the question of the redaction the melody of the “Kaluđer song,” recorded which was, according to historical sources, by Kosta Manojlović after the chanting of carried out by Jerotej Mutibarić in the first Lazar Terzin. As the author points out, the half of the 19th century. In this context, chanter chose the secular song for modifi- Nataša Dimić considered the problem of cation which in structure corresponds to bordering forms of chanting, which cannot the traditional form of the chant Hvalite be classified either as great or short chant- (Praise), bringing the changes in tempo, ing. rhythmic pulse, and also a variation of indi- Innovative scientific procedures in vidual notation values ​​in order to achieve a connection with great chanting were pre- logical accentuation of words. An almost sented also in the section “Evolutionary “microscopic” detailed analysis carried out phases of great chanting and interventions by Nataša Dimić showed all the subtleties of chanters’ creativity in the genesis of the of the subtle interventions that were carried chant.” Completely authentically, several out during the genre transformation of the potential chronological phases were sug- song. gested in the evolution of great chanting: In the “Conclusion” the author sum- older generic (the late Byzantine) phase, marizes the most significant contributions dating from the 13th century to the begin- of the doctoral dissertation: redefining the ning of the Turkish dominance in Serbia traditional division of Serbian church (late 15th century); the younger generic music and the proposed solution to the phase, from the beginning of the Turkocracy problem of the relationship between great until the time when Stefan Stratimirović, and short chanting, on the one hand, and who ordered compressing melismatic great chanting and folk songs, on the other; hymns, was the Metropolitan, and the third, considering great chanting in consultation degenerative phase, which runs from Stefan with patristics, the history of architecture Stratimirović to modern times. and fresco painting; setting up a scientific Considering the “similarities and dif- basis for future research. In this context, ferences in the creation of hymns of great Nataša Dimić also “announced” some – and short chanting,” the author notes a cer- very provocative – topics related to future tain incongruence between short and great scientific considerations of great chanting. chanting.

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CONTRIBUTORS TO THE ISSUE

Vesna Mikić, PhD, musicologist, a full-time professor at the Department of Musicology, Faculty of Music in Belgrade, and Head of the Department. Deputy Editor-in-chief of the International Journal for Music New Sound.

Vesna Karin, PhD, ethnomusicologist, a teaching assistant at the Department of Music – Ethnomusicology, at the University of Novi Sad, Academy of Arts.

Bojana Matejić, PhD, is a contemporary art theoretician and visual artist. She is an as- sistant professor at the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Arts in Belgrade.

Dragana Stojanović, PhD, is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Media and Com- munications, Singidunum University in Belgrade (courses: Theory of Art and Media and Culture and Cultural Studies).

Mina Božanić, MA, musicologist, is a PhD student at the Departement of Musicology, Faculty of Music, University of Arts in Belgrade.

Nikola Samardžić, PhD, a full-time professor at the Department of History, Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade.

Aleksandar Šarović, MA, a teacher of saxophone and clarinet at the music school “Marko Tajčević” in Lazarevac; PhD student at the Faculty of Culture and Media, Depart- ment of Communicology.

Milena Medić, PhD, is an assistant professor at the Department of Music Theory, Faculty of Music, University of Arts in Belgrade.

Eudjen Činč, PhD, since 2012 working as an assistant teacher for the courses of music theory at the Faculty of Music, West University, Timisoara, Romania.

Jasmina Stolić, MA, she received the title teaching associate in March 2014 when she started working at the Preschool Teacher Training College “Mihailo Pavlov” in Vršac.

Katrin Stöck, PhD, musicologist, is a research assistant at the Institute of Musicology at the University of Leipzig.

Marija Maglov, MA, is a PhD student at the Departement of Musicology, Faculty of Music, University of Arts in Belgrade.

Nikola Pejčinović, MA, is a PhD student at the Departement of Musicology, Faculty of Music, University of Arts in Belgrade.

Marija Dumnić, PhD, is a research assistant at the Institute of Musicology SASA.

Nataša Dimić, PhD, musicologist, is a freelance researcher.

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New Sound International Journal of Music 47 – I/2016

Translation: Žarko Cvejić Language editor and Proofreader: Tamara Rodwell-Jovanović

Prepress: Dušan Ćasić

Printed by: Ton plus, Belgrade

Circulation: 400 copies

Publication of this issue was sponsored by: The Ministry of Culture – Republic of Serbia Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development – Republic of Serbia Sokoj – Serbian Music Authors' Organization

CIP – Katalogizacija u publikaciji Narodna biblioteka Srbije, Beograd 78 NEW Sound : international Journal of Music / editor-in-chief Mirjana Veselinović- Hofman. – 1993, no. 1– . – Belgrade : Department of Musicology Faculty of Music, 1993– (Belgrade : Ton plus). – 24 cm Dostupno i na: http://www.newsound.org.rs. – Polugodišnje. – Ima izdanje na drugom jeziku: Нови звук = ISSN 0354-4362 ISSN 0354-818X = New Sound COBISS.SR-ID 102800647

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