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1

Poetic Images of Nightingale in the Art Song. On Some Aspects of Musical Meaning

100%

Żerańska-Kominek S.

Interdisciplinary Studies in Musicology

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2019

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issue 19

117-134

EN

Birds are not only part of nature, but also an important element of culture. The life and behaviour of some bird species has been reflected in literary tradition in the form of poetic images and representations reflecting existential problems and stereotypically associated with specific states of the human psyche. These images and their poetics inspired composers of the Romantic era to create their musical, semantically charged counterparts. A special place in European poetry and music is occupied by the nightingale, which has wide symbolic connotations. My article discusses the musical replicas of the nightingale’s poetic representations in the songs of F. Liszt, J. Brahms, F. Schubert and K. Szymanowski. Each of the presented songs constructs meaning and relates to the poetic images in a different manner, despite the suggested or even expected repeatable nature of the emotional expression and experience symbolically associated with this bird.

2

Domain-specific character of tonal cognition and its consequences for the semiotics of music

75%

Podlipniak P.

Interdisciplinary Studies in Musicology

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2015

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issue 14

274-297

PL

The experience of tonal relations elicits different emotions of stability in listeners. Thus, tonality can be understood as a tool of emotional communication. For many semioticians every communicative phenomenon should be explained in terms of the sign theory. However, the pre-conceptual character of emotions of stability raises doubts about the applicability of a semiotic framework as a means of interpreting tonality. According to the author’s opinion, the applicability of a semiotic framework in music research is useful only if there is a single system for generating meaning in the brain, which is engaged in the processing of all kinds of meanings in language, music, and other communicative phenomena. Both music and language are complex phenomena which, in fact, share many communicative mechanisms. Nevertheless, they also possess traits which are specific solely to each. If the evolution of music and language branched out at some point in the anthropogenesis, some of music’s communicative features (among them tonality) would have become domain-specific. This means that the interpretation of a tonal message is based on another rule, and not the one involved in the interpretation of meaning in language. Thus, interpreting the message of tonality in terms of the semiotic sign theory is not a legitimate procedure. From this point of view, the only way of applying the semiotic framework to research into tonality is to understand signs in a purely functional sense, independent of the process of interpretation. Such an understanding of signs necessitates, however, a reformulation of semiotics.

3

Music and its meaning, how has the last 30 years of music psychology research progressed our knowledge?

75%

Sloboda J. A.

Interdisciplinary Studies in Musicology

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2011

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issue 10

31-46

PL

There are three different types of scholarship, primary, secondary, and meta-scholarship. This paper applies a meta-approach to the question of musical meaning, which involves some assessment of where the enterprise as a whole has come from and is heading, its value and external impact. Three aspects of meaning are discussed: referential, functional and socially transformative. Referential meaning refers to our ability to apprehend a musical object as pointing beyond itself. Functional meaning refers to valued personal outcomes that musical engagement engenders. Transformative meaning refers to effects on the wider society. Consultative data from an expert panel is used to frame the discussion. This data shows multiple ways in which recent psychology research has advanced our understanding of how music acquires referential and functional meaning. To date, stronger theoretical clarity has been achieved in the area of referential meaning than in functional meaning. The strongest socially transformative effect of music psychology research has been on the discipline of musicology itself. Weaker, but still significant, effects are found in the wider society, relating to understandings of the benefits of musical engagement, and the acceptance universality of musical capacity as an inherent human attribute.

4

Hudba a význam. Sémioticky a hermeneuticky orientované metodologické přístupy v anglo-americké muzikologii posledních desetiletí

32%

Čurda M.

Hudební věda (Musicology)

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2023

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vol. 60

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issue 3

323-375

EN

This study offers a selective overview of the most important methodological approaches and theoretical concepts relevant to the study of musical meaning which have emerged in the Anglo-American musicological tradition since the 1990s. It takes as its starting point the work of Lawrence Kramer, which represents the conceptual underpinnings of New Musicology, and continues with Michael Klein’s study of musical intertextuality, which helps to further illustrate the implications of post-modern philosophy for the hermeneutical interpretation of music. A significant portion of the text is dedicated to Robert Hatten’s work on markedness, correlation, gestures, topics, and tropes. The discussion of the topic theory also covers the contributions made by Raymond Monelle, Danuta Mirka, and others. The overview continues with Esti Sheinberg’s theory of musical incongruities and her typology of modes of semantic ambiguity, including irony, satire, parody, and the grotesque. To complement the traditional text-based approach to musical meaning, this overview also considers meanings communicated through the movements of the human body, referencing Nicholas Cook’s thoughts on embodied cognition and Robert Hatten’s approach to interpreting musical gestures encoded in a musical text. Attention is also paid to the line of thinking leading from Edward T. Cone’s ideas on the presence of different voices and personae in seemingly singular musical works, through Fred Maus’s conception of music in terms of dramatic interaction of musical agents, to Hatten’s theory of virtual agency. This is followed by the summary of Byron Almén’s theory of musical narrative, i.e. the capacity of music to articulate a trajectory leading from one state to another, propelled by the dynamic forces of conflict and resolution. Subsequent chapters discuss the relevance of recent approaches to the study of musical form (William Caplin, James Hepokoski, Warren Darcy) and the possibilities/limits of musical narrative in music since 1900, in which the conventional principles of syntax (tonality, form, motivic/thematic structure) are often questioned. In the closing section, the author returns to Kramer’s ideas, takes a stance with regard to the opposition of semiotic and hermeneutic approaches, and discusses ethical issues associated with the act of interpretation (and misinterpretation).

CS

Tato studie nabízí přehled nejvýznamnějších metodologických přístupů a teoretických konceptů vztahujících se ke studiu hudební významovosti, které se objevily v anglo-americké muzikologické tradici od devadesátých let minulého století. Výchozím bodem je dílo Lawrence Kramera, které reprezentuje ideová východiska tzv. Nové muzikologie, a pokračuje studií Michaela Kleina o hudební intertextualitě, která osvětluje některé další implikace postmoderního myšlení pro hermeneutickou interpretaci hudby. Podstatná část stati je věnována dílu Roberta Hattena, tedy konceptům jako příznakovost (markedness), korelace (correlation), hudební topoi (topics) a tropy (tropes). V diskusi o teorii hudebních topoi je rovněž zohledněn přínos autorů jako Raymond Monelle, Danuta Mirka aj. Navazuje výklad o modech významové nejednoznačnosti (semantic ambiguity), tedy o hudební manifestaci principů ironie, satiry, parodie a grotesky, jak je popisuje Esti Sheinberg. Kromě významů obsažených v (hudebním) textu je pozornost věnována též významům komunikovaným skrze pohyby lidského těla. Obecnou charakteristiku pojmu „vtělené kognice“ (embodied cognition) nabízí Nicholas Cook; možnosti studia významu expresivních gest zakódovaných v hudebním textu systematicky demonstruje Hatten. Opomenuta není též pozoruhodná myšlenková linie vedoucí od úvah o přítomnosti různých hlasů či „person“ v hudbě (Edward T. Cone) přes pojetí hudby jako dramatické interakce různých hudebních agentů (Fred Maus) po Hattenovu sofistikovanou teorii virtuální agence (virtual agency). Následuje kapitola představující teorii hudební narativity (Byron Almén), tj. schopnost hudby vyjádřit dějovou trajektorii směřující z počátečního do koncového stavu na základě dynamiky konfliktu a rozuzlení. V této souvislosti je diskutována relevance novodobých přístupů ke studiu hudební formy (William Caplin, James Hepokoski a Warren Darcy) a otázka možností a limitů hudební narativity v hudbě po roce 1900, v níž jsou často zpochybňovány konvenční syntaktické principy (tonalita, forma, motivicko-tematická práce apod.). V závěru se autor vrací k tezím Lawrence Kramera, zaujímá vlastní stanovisko k opozici sémiotických a hermeneutických přístupů a akcentuje etické problémy související s aktem interpretace (a desinterpretace).

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Poetic Images of Nightingale in the Art Song. On Some Aspects of Musical Meaning

Domain-specific character of tonal cognition and its consequences for the semiotics of music

Music and its meaning, how has the last 30 years of music psychology research progressed our knowledge?

Hudba a význam. Sémioticky a hermeneuticky orientované metodologické přístupy v anglo-americké muzikologii posledních desetiletí