| Özet: | <p>My research focuses on the music of the Italian composer Salvatore Sciarrino (Palermo, 1947), with regard to how the concept of space relates to matters of sound and temporality. My thesis looks at theories of auditory perception and conceptual metaphor theory in order to provide a framework in which to analyze Sciarrino's music.</p>
<p>Chapter 1 and 2 are dedicated to introducing a short theoretical basis for conceptual metaphor theory and for auditory perception, with particular regard to the conceptualization of time and sound in relation to space. Sound is often mentioned in Sciarrino’s writings in relation to parameters that refer to concepts of mass, atmospheric phenomena, and the accumulation of memories or experiences. It is my view that the concept of space relates to matters of sonority and temporality in his music on the basis of a combination of perception and representation. On the one hand his materials and sonority are constructed to mirror our experience of the physical world by means of common perceptual categories in vision and audition (e.g. proximity, continuity, similarity, etc.); on the other hand, temporality relies on time being conceptualized in terms of space, and therefore form is to be understood as a structure aimed at representing a given sound space, rendering the sound objects that are part of it as well as the relationships among them.</p>
<p>Chapter 3 and 4 each comprise an analysis of a chamber work (the first of Sei quartetti brevi) and an orchestra work (Allegoria della notte) with particular attention to notions of space and auditory perception, in order to illustrate Sciarrino’s formal strategies, as well as some traits and processes constitutive of his musical language. The analysis of the first of Sei quartetti brevi in Chapter 3 revolves around the different uses of Sciarrino’s principles of organization in his own work, whereas the analysis of Allegoria della notte in Chapter 4 dives into a different instance of formal organization in order to highlight how and why some of his most typical compositional structures often hinge on processes of interference, periodicity and repetition. The analyses of these two works also clarify how our perceptual faculties and cognitive structures are at the basis of Sciarrino's compositional thought and how the concept of space is embedded in his music and influences it in the micro- and macro-structure through the integration of metaphorical thought and perception.</p>
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