Determining indeterminacy
<p>This thesis investigates the role of Boulez's writings in encouraging a divergent reading of the music of the post-war avant-garde. Taking Nattiez's 1990 assertion that Boulez and Cage 'embody two radically opposed streams of post-war music history' as a point of departu...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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2000
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| _version_ | 1826315869558407168 |
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| author | Whitney, K Whitney, Kathryn |
| author2 | Franklin, P |
| author_facet | Franklin, P Whitney, K Whitney, Kathryn |
| author_sort | Whitney, K |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | <p>This thesis investigates the role of Boulez's writings in encouraging a divergent reading of the music of the post-war avant-garde. Taking Nattiez's 1990 assertion that Boulez and Cage 'embody two radically opposed streams of post-war music history' as a point of departure, it examines Boulez's claim to a serially derived, intentional independent musical aesthetic and contrasts it with his ongoing evaluation of the chance procedures of Cage.</p><p>Concentrating throughout on Boulez's writings as primary source material, this study traces the composer's account of his independent indeterminate musical work from 1949 through three principal stages. Stage one extends from his meeting with Cage in 1949 to his rejection of Cage's method of tossing dice in 1951. Stage two begins in 1952 and continues to 1957, when Boulez wrote 'Alea' and outlined his conception for the Third Piano Sonata. Stage three extends from 1957 through his 'open-form' compositions and 'works in progress' of the 1960s and 1970s to the premiere of <em>Répons</em> in 1981. It also incorporates commentaries written in the 1980s and 1990s by Boulez, Nattiez and others in light of the claim that <em>Répons</em> 'redeemed' Boulez's troubled post-war project.</p><p>Against this background, each of the chapters addresses a key assumption about the independence of Boulez's indeterminate aesthetic. Chapter One investigates the role of electronic music in Boulez's dissociation from Cage's work after 1952. Chapter Two addresses the claim that the open-form aesthetic of the Third Piano Sonata was a response to the inspiration of the writers James Joyce and Stéphane Mallarmé. Chapter Three examines the status of the Third Piano Sonata as an 'unfinished' composition and studies its aesthetic goals in light of Boulez's compositions in the 1960s and 1970s. Chapter Four explores the claim that Répons represented the culmination of Boulez's independent indeterminate aesthetic, and that its structural goals had been unique to Boulez since 1949.</p><p>This study is framed by questions about the wider implications of a belief in Boulez's independent indeterminate aesthetic for divergent trends such as Europeanism vs. Americanism, modernism vs. postmodernism and serial structure vs. non-serial structure. In conclusion it suggests that an ongoing tendency toward historical revisionism in Boulez's texts may be a function of the difficulty in articulating an intentional indeterminate aesthetic in light of the serial inheritance.</p> |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-06T19:38:47Z |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oxford-uuid:1ff0a118-6df6-4352-a567-303b2235ce31 |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-09T03:34:03Z |
| publishDate | 2000 |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:1ff0a118-6df6-4352-a567-303b2235ce312024-12-01T17:36:46ZDetermining indeterminacyThesishttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_db06uuid:1ff0a118-6df6-4352-a567-303b2235ce31History and criticismInfluence20th centuryMusicEnglishPolonsky Theses Digitisation Project2000Whitney, KWhitney, KathrynFranklin, P<p>This thesis investigates the role of Boulez's writings in encouraging a divergent reading of the music of the post-war avant-garde. Taking Nattiez's 1990 assertion that Boulez and Cage 'embody two radically opposed streams of post-war music history' as a point of departure, it examines Boulez's claim to a serially derived, intentional independent musical aesthetic and contrasts it with his ongoing evaluation of the chance procedures of Cage.</p><p>Concentrating throughout on Boulez's writings as primary source material, this study traces the composer's account of his independent indeterminate musical work from 1949 through three principal stages. Stage one extends from his meeting with Cage in 1949 to his rejection of Cage's method of tossing dice in 1951. Stage two begins in 1952 and continues to 1957, when Boulez wrote 'Alea' and outlined his conception for the Third Piano Sonata. Stage three extends from 1957 through his 'open-form' compositions and 'works in progress' of the 1960s and 1970s to the premiere of <em>Répons</em> in 1981. It also incorporates commentaries written in the 1980s and 1990s by Boulez, Nattiez and others in light of the claim that <em>Répons</em> 'redeemed' Boulez's troubled post-war project.</p><p>Against this background, each of the chapters addresses a key assumption about the independence of Boulez's indeterminate aesthetic. Chapter One investigates the role of electronic music in Boulez's dissociation from Cage's work after 1952. Chapter Two addresses the claim that the open-form aesthetic of the Third Piano Sonata was a response to the inspiration of the writers James Joyce and Stéphane Mallarmé. Chapter Three examines the status of the Third Piano Sonata as an 'unfinished' composition and studies its aesthetic goals in light of Boulez's compositions in the 1960s and 1970s. Chapter Four explores the claim that Répons represented the culmination of Boulez's independent indeterminate aesthetic, and that its structural goals had been unique to Boulez since 1949.</p><p>This study is framed by questions about the wider implications of a belief in Boulez's independent indeterminate aesthetic for divergent trends such as Europeanism vs. Americanism, modernism vs. postmodernism and serial structure vs. non-serial structure. In conclusion it suggests that an ongoing tendency toward historical revisionism in Boulez's texts may be a function of the difficulty in articulating an intentional indeterminate aesthetic in light of the serial inheritance.</p> |
| spellingShingle | History and criticism Influence 20th century Music Whitney, K Whitney, Kathryn Determining indeterminacy |
| title | Determining indeterminacy |
| title_full | Determining indeterminacy |
| title_fullStr | Determining indeterminacy |
| title_full_unstemmed | Determining indeterminacy |
| title_short | Determining indeterminacy |
| title_sort | determining indeterminacy |
| topic | History and criticism Influence 20th century Music |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT whitneyk determiningindeterminacy AT whitneykathryn determiningindeterminacy |