Music History/Theory Workshop

We’re pleased to announce the next presenter for the Music History/Theory Workshop on May 15, 4:30pm, in the library seminar room, JRL 264. Chelsea Burns, graduate student in music history and theory at the University of Chicago will present her recent work on Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos. Her pre-circulated paper is available below.

ABSTRACT

In the period between the two World Wars, art and art music in Brazil were dominated by participants in the modernismo movement–artists, writers, and composers who prioritized creation of a Brazilian national identity within the arts. Modernista composers discussed concerns about outside influence and self-exoticizing, and they questioned which musical elements could best serve as representatives of this Brazilian identity within the confines of Western art music. Far from being a unified movement, modernistas provided different interpretations of these nationalist values. In this paper, I explore some of the cues and markers that were central to the movement, using Heitor Villa-Lobos’s A Prole do Bebê, No. 1 as an analytical example.

Please listen to four audio examples from Chelsea’s paper:

10 Characteristic Pieces, Vol. 1_ O Polichinelo No. 7

13 Characteristic Pieces, Vol. 1_ Caboclinha No. 3

14 Characteristic Pieces, Vol. 1_ Branquinha No. 1

28 Jimbo’s Lullaby

Pre-circulated written materials available here. Email marycaldwell@uchicago.edu or  aasheehy@uchicago.edu for the password.

Those needing additional assistance to attend this event should contact one of the graduate coordinators, Mary Caldwell (marycaldwell@uchicago.edu) or August Sheehy (aasheehy@uchicago.edu) 

We’re pleased to announce the next presenter for the Music History/Theory Workshop on May 8, 4:30pm, in the library seminar room, JRL 264. Marcy Pierson, graduate student at the University of Chicago, will be presenting recent work from her dissertation proposal.

ABSTRACT

Modernist composers often display uneasiness toward singing; they seem to be as unwilling to fully embrace the singing voice as they are to escape its signification entirely. My project deals with composers who exploit the expressive power of the singing voice, but also find it imperative to intervene, to obstruct. I rely upon a dialectic between the internalized qualia of the voice (freedom, expression, communication—song) with the externalities of the hand(systemization, laws, composerly technique—technology). Philosophers of music and philosophizing musicians often fantasize the tension between the voice and hand as a winner-take-all battle (examples I deal with here include disputes between Rameau and Rousseau during the Enlightenment, and between Stockhausen and Nono two hundred years later). But reality lacks a satisfying TKO: both the hand and voice are necessary for composition, and so neither one can be successfully suppressed. In this way, modernist music might provide a more realistic site of contestation than its written discourse.

Please listen to the following two examples: 01 Acte 1 – Prologue  12 – Intermezzo III

Pre-circulated written materials available here. Email marycaldwell@uchicago.edu or  aasheehy@uchicago.edu for the password.

Those needing additional assistance to attend this event should contact one of the graduate coordinators, Mary Caldwell(marycaldwell@uchicago.edu) or August Sheehy (aasheehy@uchicago.edu) 

First workshop of the Spring Quarter!!  Tuesday, April 24 @4:30pm in JRL 264.Refreshments will be served.

ABSTRACT

“It is no longer quite fashionable these days to use the word ‘spiritual,’” observed the eminent French historian of ancient philosophy Pierre Hadot. Yet he found the term necessary in order to explain practices of philosophy  before before such practices were relegated to their own specialized epistemic domain. For example, Hadot writes, “The Stoics…declared explicitly that philosophy, for them, was an ‘exercise’…not situated merely on the cognitive level, but on that of the self and of being.”

Taking Hadot’s essay “Spiritual Exercises” as a point of departure, in this workshop I will explore an analogy between practices of philosophy as a spiritual exercise and practices of music analysis. This exploration unfolds along two parallel tracks. The first is philosophical. That is to say—what happens if we think of music analysis not as (only) a “categorical quest” for musical knowledge, to borrow Jim Samson’s phrase, but as a means for shaping a certain kind of subject? In this case the focus would not be on “how it [music] works” but on the work one must do in order to understand, where “to understand” means to stand in a certain relationship to music.

In contrast, the second track is historical. The emphasis here will be nineteenth-century Germany—if not the birthplace, arguably the cradle of modern music analytic practices. Here questions of the spirit (or Geist) do not seem so strange; for example, the critic and theorist A.B. Marx, credited as the first to theorize sonata form, explicitly linked music analysis with spirituality and personal growth. More generally, I will suggest that there is evidence that the “pre-history” of music analysis as an institutionalized practice was in some instances conceived and carried out as something like a spiritual exercise.

Hadot’s essay is available here: Hadot 1995 Spiritual Exercises. A presentation structured around this essay will be followed by discussion.

Those needing additional assistance to attend this event should contact one of the graduate coordinators, Mary Caldwell(marycaldwell@uchicago.edu) or August Sheehy (aasheehy@uchicago.edu) 

Final workshop of the Winter Quarter!! Come celebrate the end of the quarter with Peter Smucker, graduate student at the University of Chicago in music history and theory, and work from his dissertation proposal!  Tuesday, March 6@3:30pm in JRL 264. Refreshments will be served. Please note that there is an audio clip and pre-circulated materials–see below abstract for details!

ABSTRACT:

This workshop contains several brief excerpts from my dissertation proposal. In the dissertation, currently titled “Narrative Time and Space in the Late Music of Elliott Carter,” I plan to develop a narrative theory of atonal music, with an analytical focus on Elliott Carter’ s compositions after 1990. Since around 1990, Carter’s compositional style primarily favors the use of a small group of specific set-classes with unique attributes. This compositional choice, and his continued development of dramatic interactions between “instrument/characters,” are markers of Carter’s mature style. By using theories of narrativity and temporality, the dissertation has two primary goals. Specifically, it offers analytical accounts of Carter’s late music in terms of the listener’s experience of the piece. More generally, the dissertation offers a critical engagement of narrative theory with applicability to atonal music.

Please do listen to Hiyoku, for 2 clarinets in preparation for the workshop!

Pre-circulated materials available here. Email marycaldwell@uchicago.edu or  aasheehy@uchicago.edu for the password.

Those needing additional assistance to attend this event should contact one of the graduate coordinators, Mary Caldwell(marycaldwell@uchicago.edu) or August Sheehy (aasheehy@uchicago.edu) 

We pleased to announce a special student-faculty session with Professor Jairo Moreno sponsored by the Workshop on Music History/Theory on March 1@ 3:00-4:30 in JRL 264.

Professor Moreno’s presentation, titled “Music Theory as Tool-Being” is open to all Music Department faculty and students and will address Moreno’s concerns about the domain of music theory today.  It will consist of a general meditation on the labor of music theory and music theory as labor, with an accent on questions of technics, followed by discussion.

Those needing additional assistance to attend this event should contact one of the graduate coordinators, Mary Caldwell(marycaldwell@uchicago.edu) or August Sheehy (aasheehy@uchicago.edu) 

Announcing a special workshop co-sponsored by the Music History/Theory Workshop, the EthNoise! Ethnomusicology Workshop, the 18th/19th Century Cultures Workshop, and the Nicholson Center for British Studies.  On February 21, @3:00pm at the Fulton Recital Hall, Professor Bennett Zon, from Durham University UK, will present his work on “Evolution and spiritual selection in Victorian musical culture.”

ABSTRACT

The history of religion and science has often been caricatured as strewn with mortal conflict. Early books on the topic, like John William Draper’s History of the Conflict between Religion and Science (1874) or Andrew Dickson White’s A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom (1896) did nothing to dispel this view.  The battle between religion and science was, however, never as consistently divisive as these books might suggest, and during the Victorian period there was at times an amicable, albeit dynamic, relationship between the two. Like twins separated at birth, religion and science occasionally rediscovered one another in the booming culture of post-Darwinian Britain, to find abundant similarities and curiously engrossing differences. This is the story of such a relationship, exploring the influence of evolution within the science and religion of Victorian Britain, and then tracing its impact on England’s leading music philosopher, Joseph Goddard (1833–1911).

Because Goddard published regularly throughout most of the Victorian period his work provides a helpful glimpse into the development of Britain’s musicological mind. That mind was deeply immersed in contemporary scientific, religious and philosophical debates, not least as they relate to changes in evolutionary theory. Indeed, as evolutionary theory evolved, so too did musicology. Goddard’s philosophy of music reflects those changes very clearly, from his early days as a flag-waving Spencerian to his later, more circumspect time as a devout Darwinian. Like many other intellectuals of the time, however, Goddard fell sway to the Darwinian argument, abandoning neither his good Spencerian principles nor his fundamental belief in the spiritual nature of the universe. To the extent that Darwin failed to resolve his own religious conflict, he was similarly compromised.  Darwin calls it his ‘muddle’, and it is that so-called muddle between scientific knowledge and religious belief, played out in vast swathes of Victorian intellectual culture, which one finds represented and resolved in Goddard’s philosophy of music.

This paper charts the history of Darwin’s muddle as emblematic of Victorian debates about religion and science, looking closely at the relationship of natural theology and the emerging science of evolution. It examines the resolution of that relationship into a theology consonant with evolution yet true to its religious roots, and then situates that theology broadly within Goddard’s philosophy of music.

*See attached Poster!

Persons who require assistance to participate fully in this event should contact Andy Greenwood at andyg@uchicago.edu in advance.

Announcing our next presenter for the Music History/Theory Workshop on a special day and at a special time–February 20 @ 5:00pm, in the library seminar room, JRL 264. Trent Leipert is a graduate student at the University of Chicago in music history and theory and will be presenting an excerpt from his dissertation, titled “A Metallurgy of Emotion; An Index of Metals.” The pre-circulated writing is available under the downloads page using the password that was circulated in via email–or, email marycaldwell@uchicago.edu or aasheehy@uchicago.edu for the password.

ABSTRACT:

This paper is an excerpt from a case-study chapter from my dissertation which explores the discursive, compositional and listening function/ing of affect and feeling in European new music since the 1970s. I examine Fausto Romitelli, Paolo Pacchini’s and Kenka Lèkovich self-described “video-opera,” An Index of Metals (2003) to argue that the distinction between indeterminate affect and knowable, localized emotion becomes especially important in experiencing this work and for recognizing its ostensibly hazy operatic allusions. An Index of Metals opens and closes with gestures of immersive transformation that rely on the capacity of affectability between image, sound and bodies. Between these bookends I examine how affect in this piece hinges on particular representations and configurations of subjecthood, capital, and media.

For Fausto Romitelli’s An index of metals, see  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5n0_cctMleU

Those needing additional assistance to attend this event should contact one of the graduate coordinators, Mary Caldwell(marycaldwell@uchicago.edu) or August Sheehy (aasheehy@uchicago.edu) 

We’re pleased to announce the next presenter for the Music History/Theory Workshop on February 14, 3:30pm, in the library seminar room, JRL 264. Andrew Westerhaus, graduate student at the University of Chicago, will be presenting an excerpt from his dissertation, titled“Stravinsky’s ‘Blocks’: Analogies and Metaphors of Play.” The pre-circulated writing is available here–for the password please email  marycaldwell@uchicago.edu or aasheehy@uchicago.edu or look in the announcement email.

ABSTRACT:

Since the premiere of Stravinsky’s Symphonies of Wind Instruments in 1921, countless commentators have identified the piece as a paradigm of novel formal construction and evidence of the composer’s object-oriented approach to musical materials. In its more recent reception history, the Symphonies has become widely regarded as the archetypical example of “block form” in Stravinsky’s music and the associated concepts of “blocks” and “block juxtaposition” have become dominant trends in musicological scholarship about the piece. This paper considers the metaphorical basis of the concept of a musical “block,” whose many associations have often led commentators to ascribe a playful or game-like quality to Stravinsky’s music. My approach draws upon existing methodologies in structural analogy theory, conceptual metaphor, and cognitive musicology to examine some of the ways in which the terms “blocks” and “games” are related and have specific grounding in Stravinsky’s music. I argue that musical metaphors like “blocks” encourage us to consider the many ways in which Stravinsky’s music challenges temporality through the apparent spatiality of his musical materials.

This chapter excerpt (§3.0-3.2 only) is drawn from my dissertation titled “Stravinsky and the Ludic Metaphor” (in progress). My dissertation concerns the metaphorical language employed in discourse about Stravinsky’s music and how the twin notions of play and games inform and create meaning for his unique compositional techniques. The methodology draws upon insights from ludology, musical metaphor, sketch studies, and cognitive science, and the chief works that I examine are Renard, Histoire du soldat, Symphonies of Wind Instruments, and Jeu de Cartes.

There will be two formal respondents at this workshop: Peter Shultz and August Sheehy.

Those needing additional assistance to attend this event should contact one of the graduate coordinators, Mary Caldwell(marycaldwell@uchicago.edu) or August Sheehy (aasheehy@uchicago.edu) 

We’re pleased to announce the next presenter for the Music History/Theory Workshop on February 7, 3:00pm [NOTE THE EARLIER TIME!], in the library seminar room, JRL 264. Seth Brodsky, Assistant Professor of Music and the Humanities in the College at the University of Chicago, will be presenting an article titled “Britten as Another: Six Notes on a Mystic Writing Pad.” This article will be appearing in Continuum’s Great Shakespeareans series. The pre-circulated article is available here–for the password please email  marycaldwell@uchicago.edu or aasheehy@uchicago.edu or look in the announcement email.

Seth Brodsky: “Britten as Another: Six Notes on a Mystic Writing Pad”

Those needing additional assistance to attend this event should contact one of the graduate coordinators, Mary Caldwell(marycaldwell@uchicago.edu) or August Sheehy (aasheehy@uchicago.edu)