hat conceptions of musical articulation govern the serialist writing of Pierre Boulez in the 1950s? What happens when this diehard modernist composer takes up orchestral conducting and delves deeply into the late romantic repertoire of Wagner and Mahler through the late 1960s and '70s? What changes can be noted when Boulez then returns to Pli selon pli, his main work from the late 1950s, and profoundly revises its musical form in the 1980s? And what differences in musical articulation can be traced when Boulez the conductor again takes up Mahler's orchestral works, and records them in new versions in the years around 2000? These are central questions that I wish to address in this article, which is mainly a study in musical performativity.
INTERPRETATIONS OF PERFORMATIVITYDuring the last few years, the concept of 'performativity' (Performativität) has emerged as a weighty challenge to the traditional practices of musical analysis, historiography, and interpretation. The so-called performative turn is claimed to have changed the optics of several related fields, such as the studies of theatre, art, music, literature, media, social practices and rituals, and it has also involved cultural studies, anthropology, philosophical aesthetics and speech-act theory. 1 Some call this a veritable shift of paradigm in the history of the humanities 2 -from semiotics to linguistic performance (Austin, W
What is time? What is the relationship between music and time? Does time flow towards us from the future to the past, or do we move through time from the past to the future? Is there even such a thing as the “passage of time”, or is that a just another metaphorical construction? “The now” in human short-term memory lasts for approximately 3–5 seconds. In this article, the topic is how the consciousness can construct, experience and maintain coherence in longer-term occurrences, for example, a musical composition lasting 20–30 minutes. The article suggests that the form of these musical compositions is perhaps structured analogously with the long-term memory’s own hierarchical divisions and mode of operation in the human mind. The article discusses the connection between overview (hors-temps, meaning outside time) and process (durée, meaning duration) in the listening experience. To be able to follow a long-lasting musical form, be it in performance or in musical listening, one needs to be both “in” the time-flow and outside of it at the same time. Hence, since “presence” and “distance” are clearly different perspectives, they form a paradoxical relation of being both contradictory and mutually interdependent. The interplay between musical detail, overview and direction is relevant to the concept of Fernhören, coined by Heinrich Schenker and Wilhelm Furtwängler. Since music needs to unfold during time, a large-scale musical work cannot be seen merely as an object (Sein, or being) but is also a process of constant re-shaping and change (Werden, or becoming) in the workings of perception, memory and expectation in the listening experience.
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