Full-text resources of CEJSH and other databases are now available in the new Library of Science.
Visit https://bibliotekanauki.pl

Results found: 11

first rewind previous Page / 1 next fast forward last

Search results

Search:
in the keywords:  THEORY OF MUSIC
help Sort By:

help Limit search:
first rewind previous Page / 1 next fast forward last
1
Content available remote

BOUNDARIES AND DEFINITIONS: THE COMPOSITIONAL REALITIES OF POLISH SONORISM

100%
Thomas A.
Muzyka
|
2008
|
vol. 53
|
issue 1(208)
7-15
EN
The article focuses on the concept of sonorism and related terms as musicological and critical tools used in in the description of Polish music after 1956. The author demonstrates that this termonology has constituted a valuable component in musicological thinking in Poland, and he considers various advantages as well as stylistic and chronological limitations of sonoristic concepts for music composed beyond the 1960s
2
Content available remote

RELATIONSHIPS OF KAZIMIERZ SEROCKI'S MUSIC WITH SONORISM

100%
Paja-Stach J.
Muzyka
|
2008
|
vol. 53
|
issue 1(208)
107-118
EN
The article sets out to prove the hypothesis that the sonoristic aspect of Serocki's music is one of the main indicators of his mature and late style. The tendency to compose polychromatic sound structures is already marked in the works dating from the 1950s, and continues until the final years of his creative development. The composer combines sonoristic and dodecaphonic techniques with aleatoric methods of shaping the work, as well as - in a few compositions - with elements of traditional techniques.
3
Content available remote

SONORISTIC SPACE IN MAHLER'S FIRST SYMPHONY

100%
Dolp L.
Muzyka
|
2008
|
vol. 53
|
issue 1(208)
119-130
EN
Reception of Mahler's First Symphony has often concluded that it undermines the teleological premise of its symphonic principles. The aurhoress proposes that Mahler's 'failure' to achieve a clear syntactic process shows instead a proactive engagement with the potential of sonorities to create a meaningful, multi-dimensional space. This quality in his music can be framed as a type of early sonoristic project. The work shows a characteristic sensitivity to register, dynamics, and tone color. Mahler's spatial music facilitates a phenomenological pivot from a 'lateral' orientation toward one of 'depth'. This pivot magnifies the passage's experiential weight and, by extension, its capacity to symbolize the beginning of the hero's path.
4
Content available remote

LANGUAGE AND GAMES OR ON POSTMODERN MUSIC

100%
Krawczyk D.
Muzyka
|
2005
|
vol. 50
|
issue 2(197)
79-105
EN
The first distinguishing sign of the postmodern idiom is the restoration of faith in traditional subjects. This means a return to melodiousness, rhythmicity, shaping the form on the basis of models tried throughout history - in other words, a return to the past and to musical tradition, which at one time was consciously rejected by modernist '-isms'. However, postmodernism is not a simply a reaction to modernism, nor is it anti-modernism. The return to traditional subjects appears here as a result of a reworking of all musical heritage, in which modernism is also a tradition of a kind. Postmodernism does not give up modernity, but changes the way it is understood. Restraining the meaningless chain of modernist negations, of vetoing each new proposal in turn in the name of progress, postmodernism proposes a modernity which can be described as a simultaneity of the non-simultaneous; it means accepting and probing everything, without fear of looking backwards, but also without withdrawing into history. This attitude gives rise to a new feature, not encountered before, which marks the stylistic framework of postmodern music; this feature is double coding. The postmodern artist is a double agent, who closes the distance between the expert and the layman, who knows how to encode the content of his work in such a way as to make it accessible to different audiences. In analysing selected musical works composed after 1975, the authoress distinguishes four basic variants of postmodernism, each of which emphasises slightly different aspects of pluralism and double musical coding: (1) historical postmodernism, which employs familiar elements of styles of the past in order to find new meanings and contexts for them, or simply to play with them; (2)dialectical postmodernism, where various musical dialects encounter each other in order to create a new, multi-level language; (3) anarchic postmodernism, or radical eclecticism, where everything can be combined with everything else, and the elements of different musical languages are selected and juxtaposed ad hoc, depending on the aesthetic-sound quality requirements of the moment; and, finally (4) syntactic postmodernism, which turns to the syntax and stylistics of past eras in order to create on their basis its own, original musical language.
5
Content available remote

THE CONCEPT OF TRANSFORMATION AS A SONORISTIC PARADIGM

100%
Granat Z.
Muzyka
|
2008
|
vol. 53
|
issue 1(208)
31-45
EN
Jozef Chominski's writings from the 1950s and 1960s reveal that sonoristics was conceived as a theory that attempted to rationalize the musical language of the mid-century avant-garde and focused on the issues of timbre and texture. One of the most innovative aspects of this theory was the ability to explain the novel sound qualities of twentieth-century music as transformations of traditional musical elements, such as melody or harmony, into 'sonoristic values' - self-sufficient qualities of the musical work of a purely sonic character. This approach allowed for a positive evaluation of many non-traditional compositional means frequently found in twentieth-century music, such as clusters, sound effects generated by conventional instruments (e.g., violin as percussive instrument), or noise acquiring the status of musical material. This article examines a variety of transformational processes, both evolutionary and 'metabolic', that constituted the main objects of sonoristic analyses, and scrutinizes how the concept of transformation informs the analytical language itself. The article further demonstrates how the idea of transformation instigates a methodological shift from 'ideal' structures of tonal music (themes, harmonic progressions, or contrapuntal relationships) to 'real' sound objects given in aural perception. In effect, sonoritics is defined as an analytical theory that replaces the interest in structure deducible from the score with an emphasis on texture as an experiential phenomenon; and transformation is shown to represent the chief methodological paradigm of this theory grounded in the sounding manifestation of a composition.
6

Pięć nieporozumień dotyczących rozumienia muzyki

100%
Brożek A.
Kwartalnik Filozoficzny
|
2015
|
vol. 43
|
issue 1
117-132
EN
The article is an analysis of a number of theoretical misunderstandings connected with the understanding of music. The author first makes several remarks on the relation between experiencing and understanding music. Secondly, she distinguishes five kinds of understanding of musical compositions and calls attention to the fact that only some of them are “democratic”. Thirdly, the thesis that “music signifies itself” is explicated. Fourthly, the author analyzes the status of the theory of music as a discipline which facilitates or even makes possible the understanding of music. Fifthly, the thesis that “we understand music by metaphors” is commented.
7
Content available remote

HOW TO ANALYZE SONORISTIC MUSIC: PERSPECTIVES FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF JOZEF M. CHOMINSKI'S THEORY OF SONOLOGY

100%
Lindstedt I.
Muzyka
|
2008
|
vol. 53
|
issue 1(208)
47-63
EN
Józef Michal Chominski's postulate of investigating the 'real sound' of a composition is the most essential aspect of the theory of musical sonology; yet the existing analytical literature regards it primarily as a metaphor. In Chominski's approach, the 'auditive shape of sound' provides the true basis for investigation, whilst its music notation records the projection of the composer's creative intention. However, the sonoristic re-definition of the functions of particular elements of music is carried out exclusively on the basis of the score. Its results are thus not fully satisfactory, because of the gap which exists between the etymology of the concept of 'real sound' (a physical-acoustic fact) and the nature of the source - the written text of a work which is being analysed (a symbolic-sign code). If the theory of sonology is to develop, it seems necessary to relocate the point of gravity, from an interpretation of the sound phenomena encoded graphically in the score to the issues of their acoustic shape and their psychologically conditioned perception. As a condition of adopting such an approach, one has to enter the area of empirical musicology and to identify the 'real sound' using the methods and tools appropriate to it. The model of a sonoristic analysis of a musical composition presented in the first part of the article is based on three kinds of sources: the score (the music notation of a composition), a recording (the acoustic text of a music composition) and a sonogram (a mathematical-information text), which is a form of making the real sound of a composition, taken from its phonographic recording, 'permanent' by means of a visual time-frequency representation. In the later part of the article the authoress presents an analytical study of 'Threnody to the victims of Hiroshima' by Krzysztof Penderecki. This work is one of the most representative examples of the avant-garde style of the 1960s 'Polish school of composition', which the composer himself strongly associated with the idea of music sonoristics/sonology. An analysis of those aspects of sonoristic regulation of 'Threnody' which are given above allows one to observe that the score notation and the spectral image of the work - what might be regarded as a visualisation of auditive perception - provide a very convergent picture, confirming the composer's belief that the 'graphic logic' is reflected in the 'sound logic'. Moreover, the construction of 'Threnody' has certain features of symmetry already apparent on the diagram of the shape and amplitude of the sound wave, which are confirmed on the basis of theoretical-musical criteria associated with the distribution of states of density and dilution of sound and the movement of sound events.
8
Content available remote

SONORISM: POSITIVIST AND COGNITIVE APPROACHES TO THE PROBLEM OF SOUND

100%
Jarzebska A.
Muzyka
|
2008
|
vol. 53
|
issue 1(208)
65-79
EN
The development of sound-recording technology, as well as various avant-garde artistic manifestos promoting timbral experiments, led to increased interest in the problem of sound quality by twentieth-century composers and music theorists. Sound quality was regarded as being concerned with the experience of performed music (characterised through the metaphor of power or colour) and, in the second half of the twentieth century, also as being concerned with the electronic recording of sound (objets musicaux, sound object) and the visual result of its analysis (sonogram), described using the terminology of acoustics. In the modern theory and aesthetics of music, the problem of timbre has been discussed from the point of view of positivist or idealistic philosophy, and the end of the twentieth century saw the arrival of the cognitive approach, developed within cognitive psychology (Sloboda, Serafine, Bregman). The French language developed the concept of 'corp sonore' (J.-Ph. Rameau), English employs the term 'the power of sound' (E. Gurney), while German has the term 'Klangfarbe' (H.von Helmholtz). The term 'Klangfarbe', widely used by composers and music theorists, has been variously understood as the auditive experience of 'Tonsatz' associated with the means of performance and the metaphor of colour (Riemann, Erpf, Kurth, Schönberg), as a particular type of experimental sound (Lachenmann) and, in the theory of music developed by F. Blum, as the abstract aspect of the 'sound materia' (Tonstoff). Józef Michal Chominski's sonology theory has, on the one hand, a positivist character (it concerns a new technology for generating and transforming sound) but, on the other hand, it stresses the psychological-cognitive aspect of experiencing sound (differentiations: homogenous-polygenous, monochronic - polychronic sound). The term 'sonorism' refers generally to the auditive experience of avant-garde compositions and the new signs of music notation associated with them, but it also includes the 'colouring' effect of the traditional 'Tonsatz' mentioned above. The theory of music inspired by cognitive psychology proposes the term 'parton', which takes into account the concepts of 'gestalt' and of the 'invariant' (Jarzebska). In the article, the concept of 'sonoristic parton' is illustrated using the example of compositions by Lutoslawski (Venetian Games) and Stravinsky (The Flood).
9
Content available remote

TEXTUAL HERMENEUTICS: A PATCHWORK OR A WHOLE WOVEN CLOAK? (Hermeneutyka tekstów: patchwork czy szata calodziana?)

100%
Piotrowska M.
Muzyka
|
2007
|
vol. 52
|
issue 3(206)
123-136
EN
In spite of the title, this article is not devoted exclusively to the issue of either unity or dispersion of the achievements of the branch of hermeneutics called (as distinct from philosphical hermeneutics) textual hermeneutics. The extreme form of this unity (as well as continuity) is symbolised here by the 'whole woven cloak'; while the extreme form of non-coherence is referred to as a 'patchwork' with an irregular pattern (the authoress was inspired here by Gadamer's statement that 'the word 'text' really refers to a fabric'). Based on this distinction, the authoress presents a provisional outline of her main thesis: the theory of hermeneutics, with a tradition reaching back to the Stoics' reflections on Homer, represents a continuity, which has been becoming unbreakable since the nineteenth century, while the practice of hermeneutics, initially a regular patchwork (which since the days Schleiermacher has incorporated the psychological aspect, i.e., the personality of the author) shaped by canonical norms, has striven and strives towards freedom, resembling a 'crazy' patchwork, i.e., such in which the sewing on of indiviudal patches is the work of momentary inspiration. The article also emphasises a number of important elements in Gadamer's hermeneutical philosophy which are not sufficiently stressed today. These include the use of the ideas originating from ancient Greece, such as the role of dialogue in bringing about understanding (the influence of Gadamer's study of Plato over many years). The authoress also recalls the influence of Gadamer's thinking on the musicology of H.H. Eggeebrecht, and pays attention to Gadamer's hermeneutical praxis; his studies of the nineteenth- and twentieth-century poetry. These studies bring Gadamer (otherwise regarded as the creator of philosophical hermeneutics) into the hermeneutic of texts - in its modern version, only loosely connected with the canon.
10
Content available remote

SONORISM AND SONORISTICS IN THE MUSIC OF WITOLD SZALONEK: PROBLEMS OF ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION

100%
Humphries C.
Muzyka
|
2008
|
vol. 53
|
issue 1(208)
93-105
EN
Polish sonorism in general, and its specific form as developed by Szalonek, pose some unusual challenges for musical analysis and interpretative musicology, owing to the fact that they give prominence to aspects of music such as timbre and texture whose sensuously immediate character is sufficiently complex to mean that they are, or at least would seem to be, highly resistant to straightforward functional categorisation. Yet both musical analysis and the interpretation of music as a cultural sign-system presuppose a grasp of the internal functional organisation of the music they are concerned with. One possible solution to this problem is proposed by those who adopt a structuralist approach to timbre and texture as compositional variables. This article considers whether such an approach - as exemplified by Danuta Mirka's analysis of Penderecki's sonoristic works - can also be applied to sonoristic music in general, and to Szalonek's music in particular. It argues that such an approach possesses serious limitations, even though these do not show up in an analysis of the kind of sonoristic music that focuses largely on sound-mass effects, as Penderecki's compositions do. A consideration of Szalonek's more soloistic exploitation of sonoristic compositional techniques highlights both phenomenological deficiencies within the structuralist model and the extent to which it retains a formalistic conception of the ingredients of music - one that seems to run counter to the anti-formalist aesthetic that is a feature of sonorism. The author then considers what might be involved in seeking to develop an alternative strategy for analysing such works.
11
Content available remote

SONORISM: FOOTPRINTS AND FINGERPRINTS

88%
Maslowiec A.
Muzyka
|
2008
|
vol. 53
|
issue 1(208)
81-92
EN
Polish avant-garde music after 1956 has often been described by the term 'sonoristic', introduced into Polish musicology by the musicologist Józef Chominski. This trend, characterized by an emphasis on texture and timbre and often coupled with non-traditional instrumental and vocal techniques, became known as 'sonorism' [sonorystyka] and associated with the term 'Polish School'. While this paper touches on problematic issues such as the time-frame, definition and periodisation of the movement, its main focus is on the sonoristic repertoire and two complementary aspects which the authoress refers to, metaphorically, as footprints and fingerprints. The footprints are shared sonoristic features and characteristics such as texture and timbre used as primary structural elements, sharp textural contrasts, fast rate of change, and particular aspects of articulation and notation, all of which join to constitute criteria that enable one to distinguish virtually all sonoristic works from contemporary 'textural' pieces by composers such as Xenakis and Ligeti. The present discussion of fingerprints, which highlights highly diverse personalities within the general sonoristic trend, concentrates on three works: Schaeffer's 'Scultura' (1960), Serocki's 'Symphonic frescos' (1963-1964), Szalonek's 'Les sons' (1965). These works provide a useful supplement to more familiar instances of sonoristic fingerprints in the early works of, for instance, Penderecki and Górecki. Both aspects of such works are equally important for the understanding of the nature of sonorism. The paper concludes that, despite its problematic aspects, the notion of sonorism is not only justly imprinted as a term and concept in Polish musicology but is finally crossing the language barrier. The term 'sonorism' has come to usefully represent both the footprints and the fingerprints of the movement.
first rewind previous Page / 1 next fast forward last
JavaScript is turned off in your web browser. Turn it on to take full advantage of this site, then refresh the page.