Music as a communicative art: Kurtág, Lachenmann, Pearson

Pearson, William Ralph

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/115339 Copy

Description

Title

Music as a communicative art: Kurtág, Lachenmann, Pearson

Author(s)

Pearson, William Ralph

Issue Date

2022-02-24

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Taylor, Stephen

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

Taylor, Stephen

Committee Member(s)

• Carrillo, Carlos
• Tipei, Sever
• Gee, Erin

Department of Study

Music

Discipline

Music

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

A.Mus.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

music composition, communication, ostension, Lachenmann, Kurtág, aesthetics, philosophy of music

Abstract

In this dissertation I introduce and defend the notion of ‘communicative music,’ describing it both as a compositional orientation and applying it as an analytical lens to three works of music: Helmut Lachenmann’s Ein Kinderspiel for solo piano, György Kurtág’s Játékok Vol. I for solo piano, and my own Crazy Weather for chamber orchestra. In this paper I define communication as an interpersonal activity aimed at understanding what is meant and/or being understood in what one means. Communicative music, by my lights, is not simply ‘music that communicates’ or even ‘music that communicates particularly effectively,’ but is instead music that is preoccupied with, focused on, or particularly guided by the elements and challenges of the communicative activity. To begin, I contextualize the musical artform and its communicative potential relative to other artforms, primarily painting, photography, and poetry. I use the scholarship of various critics, historians, theorists, and philosophers to derive a set of artistically wrought communicative characteristics and articulate a nascent vocabulary for describing communicative art: as anti-theatrical, anti-affective, phenomenological, and ostensive. I then present the artform of music as posing particular challenges to the communicatively- minded composer—the multiplicity problem, the language problem, and the passive listener problem—and describe potential strategies composers might therefore employ to deal with such problems: using ostension, eliding together communicative junctures, and employing flexible or ‘pedagogically shaped’ musical structures. I analyze the three works listed above, describing how each work employs these communicative strategies in different ways. Finally, I conclude by considering the potential value of this communicative approach for composers os music who are interested in unifying or harmonizing their compositional process with their pedagogical and ethical lives.

Graduation Semester

2022-05

Type of Resource

Thesis

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2022 William Pearson

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