by Marie-Pierre Lassus | Vol 32 (1) 2014
Playing, for a musician, is not reducible to the production of notes but involves entering into resonance with the movement of music through different levels of integration of the gesture. Between sounds and silences a “space in movement” wells up, creator of a new subjectivity, always “to be born” like the music itself. This opening into a new spatiality is favourable to the creation of a milieu where people can “grow together” while all remaining singular. The orchestra constitutes, in this regard, an ideal of harmony when guided by a leader able to coordinate the symphony of human rhythms as musical, out of the space of resonance in each one. So, we can see that playing is an act of freedom, revealing the human power of acting.
by Pat Jacops | Vol 23 (3/4) 2005
This article is the result of a collaboration between the author and the Kunstarbeidergezelschap of Ghent on “Maulwerke” by the contemporary composer Dieter Schnebel. It outlines briefly the importance of the figure Dieter Schnebel for contemporary experimental music and the idea behind his “Maulwerke”. The “Maulwerke” (1968-1974), generally considered to be his masterpiece, was written during the period that Schnebel undertook his analysis. Schnebel calls this work the product of his analysis and it is here he introduces his concept of “psychoanalytic music”. The author explores the meaning of “psychoanalytic music” and asks whether the psychoanalytic framework can help us to understand something of the gripping character of this musical work.
by Sabine Lichtenstein | Vol 23 (3/4) 2005
More than any other art form, music in its essence manages to hide its meaning, while at the same time still producing in the listener a strong affect. On foot of this remarkable ability, music was hailed in the 19th century as the most important art form, a pronouncement for which Schopenhauer provided the philosophical basis. But music can also be seen as a language. Composers of music, with or without text, have techniques at their disposal, using all musical parameters, with which they can impart information which is non-musical and sometimes not even (unambiguously) expressed by the text. Opera composers such as Mozart, Verdi and Wagner used musical means to underline, expose or contradict situations or feelings of characters that might be consciously or unconsciously hidden. In some cases, the music may be interpreted as “body language”. Depicting unconsciously hidden feelings, music shows similarity with the dream from a Freudian viewpoint. Music also seems to depict hidden “truth” in symbolic, and thus veiled, form. While not always straightforward, it is nonetheless necessary in psychological interpretations of opera characters to differentiate, just as in literary fiction, between utterances ascribed by the composer to a character and those that he ascribes to an omniscient.
