Views of Folk Music Making in 19th-Century Visual Arts. Views of folk music making in 19th-century visual arts are marked by leading contemporary spiritual courses and artistic schools. The Romantic ...discovery of folk art, longing for non-artifical and simple phenomena, but also the search for the exotic, the country idyll and the characteristic - all this characterized visual art views of folk music making, singing and dancing. Special attention is given to the ideological use of the folk musician and singer motives. From Romantic idealization to late 19th-century positivism, views of folk music are precious sources both for ethnomusicology and the history of ideas on folk art. In this study less known visual sources, among which are also travelogues, are commented on, - forming by their visual material and accompanying texts - a category of sources, insufficiently investigated up to now.
Brauchen wir Musik? Kalisch, Volker
International review of the aesthetics and sociology of music,
12/1991, Letnik:
22, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Do We Need Music? In arts man meets himself, his interior and his ideas, as - vice versa - arts, and especially music, have a task to offer undefined inner layers, feelings and images. This ..."self-meeting" encompasses and links in a twofold manner: a psychological and self-reflexive dimension (a meeting with itself, and with individual "inner layers") and a sociocultural dimension (an experience of common feelings, ideas, etc.). Therefore, music is something essential to man, something which is in the same way usable and self-understandable, and, at the same time something wonderful and superior to him. Man and music prove to be indissolubly mutually imbued, because man understands himself through music in a particular way and - vice versa - experience and understanding of music bring us inevitably back within ourselves. The answer to the initial question - "do we need music?" - is: yes, we need it and we shall always need it, because by the means of music man can, as nowhere else, experience his humanness in an existential way.
The Concept of Revolution in the Theoretical Writings on Music before 1789. The first occurence of the concept of "musical revolution" appears during the 18th century in France. It is used as a way ...to describe an historical scheme. This late expression can be explained by the persistence of the idea of continuous progress. The concept of "musical revolution" is integrated into an astrobiological scheme. With the "Réflexions critiques" (1719 and 1733) of the Abbé Dubos a new way to exploit the expression becomes possible through the introduction of the concept of sudden perfecting. Unfortunately Dubos does not apply his new theory to music history. Chabanon, in his "Eloge de M. Rameau" (1764), inscribes the ideas of Dubos in his description of the revolution caused by Rameau. With four occurences he defines the meaning of the expression and the conditions of a musical revolution. The idea of a sudden and fast break becomes common. Marmontel gives to one of his essay (1777) a title with the expression "musical revolution". While the meaning is the same, the point of view of Marmontel differs from Chabanons. The pupil of Rameau has a retrospective perspective while Marmontel has a prospective one. His concept of musical revolution helps him more to define a musical poetics than a historical situation. The concept is already used during the 18th century in two ways: analytical and polemical. Chabanon and Marmontel inaugurate a tradition of critical writing still alive in our ending century.
Populäre Musik und ihr Publikum Rösing, Helmut; Rosing, Helmut
International review of the aesthetics and sociology of music,
06/1989, Letnik:
20, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Popular Music and Its Public. "Popular music and its public" - is not that a senseless title? Is it not one of the characteristica of popular music that it always has its public, unlike, for example, ...contemporary art music? If this were really so, some phenomena should not be considered to be included in the notion 'popular music': progressive rock, punk, rockjazz, ethnobeat, chanson and some others; and - according to general opinion - all this is included in 'popular music' because it does not belong to the so-called 'E-Musik'. Nevertheless, the public which appreciates folk music or the German 'Schlager' is completely different from the public, for example, which is delighted with international hits of Anglo-Saxon provenience, or with rhythm and blues or beat music. And, finally, what is meant by - public? Behind the quantitative shells of sales figures or the results of demoscopic research a qualitative core is hidden: the public as a composite whole made up of a great number of individuals with, from time to time, typical personal, time and socially conditioned variables. On the basis of data furnished by recent research of public opinion, attempts are made more closely to determine both the role of music in today's society, and expectations projected into music, as well as the needs and motivation leading towards musical activities. In spite of all limitations on the strength of expression, it is possible to discern - from the results of research - guide-lines towards a change of musical paradigms (thematicized on the examples of the German 'Schlager' and rock), a typology of listening, and the variability of musical preferences and ideologies. Primarily, however, it has been stated that a public for popular music exists, insomuch as popular music itself exists. In spite of all trends towards standardization of the music market, it can be stated that clear differences exist in the musical preferences of individual groups of the public. A manifold determinateness of musical activities speaks up to now against the thesis of complete standardization of music preferences imposed by the standardizing music on offer, directed by the mass media.
L'analyse melodique Mâche, François-Bernard
International review of the aesthetics and sociology of music,
12/1986, Letnik:
17, Številka:
2
Journal Article
The Melodic Analysis. Traditionally, the melody is analysed in function of harmony. The purely syntagmatical axis is neglected in profit of the paradigmatical axis. The gradual disappearance, in the ...20th century, of harmonical functions gives again all its importance to the concept of melodical "contour", pertinent in Schönberg as well in ethnomusicology. It seems that the contour can be isolated as such, independently of rhythm and of tonal or modal functions, as one of the important dimensions of a melody.
La forme musicale comme processus Osborne, Nigel
International review of the aesthetics and sociology of music,
12/1986, Letnik:
17, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Musical Form as Process. B. V. Asafiev (1884-1949), Russian theorist and analyst, was a founder of Soviet musical life. Before the Revolution Asafiev was an intimate of musicians of the national ...school of music (groupe of five). During Lenin's time Asafiev lead the movement for the promotion of contemporary Western music (Berg, etc.). Paradoxically, during Stalins's time his ideas supported aesthetic realism advocated by the authorities. His principal work, "Music Form as Process", (Muzikaljnaja forma kak process), consists of two volumes; the first one deals with form and process, while the second deals with the notion of intonation. The latter is considered a musical term which, like a pyramid, can have a wide meaning at its base, and more precise one at its summit. The history of music has always been a constant struggle for the survival of intonations. They can also be regrouped in reserves when bound by common feature. Musical form is a combination of intonations and musical flux. This flux implies the existence of laws of movement which arise from more natural laws (breathing, melos, etc.). If one intonation is incessantly repeated, a hypnotic effect is achieved in a listener, that is the effect of expansion, which represents an important element in Asafiev's reception of music. Form, connected with flux, depends on the phenomenon of an impulsive dynamism where one, two or three intonations are capable of creating a whole piece, as in the case of sonata form. The fact that Asafiev related some intonations to signs (icons, indices etc.) ranks him among the pioneers of semiology.
Informational Approach of Perception and Creation in Music. The variety of analyses of the musical message is correlated to the variety of theories underlying it, but they are supposed to converge. ...The paper outlines the basis of Information Theory as a rational expression of Gestalt's laws, of intelligibility, of "acceptability" applied to a "complexion" of sonic signs (repertoire). It stresses the flexibility of this theory which is provided by the concept of "hierarchisation" of perceptive levels, from atoms of sensation to large units. It shows the applications to music computer synthesis, composition in the conventional sense, and appraisal of authenticity of works of uncertain origin. Finally it points out the dialectics inherent in the production of a music oriented towards a perfect understanding by some too well defined target-public and its evolution toward "Kitsch", as a social factor linked to this intelligibility.
