Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucsd!usc!wuarchive!udel!princeton!phoenix!roger From: roger@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig) Newsgroups: comp.music Subject: Re: Semantics of Music? Summary: Music and rhetoric Message-ID: <17030@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> Date: 6 Jun 90 18:02:40 GMT References: <136652@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> <2514@gmdzi.UUCP> Reply-To: roger@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig) Organization: Princeton University, NJ Lines: 45 In article <2514@gmdzi.UUCP> icking@gmdzi.UUCP (Werner Icking) writes: >eliot handelman writes: >>In article <2370@aipna.ed.ac.uk> geraint@aipna.ed.ac.uk (Geraint Wiggins) writes: >>>In another article, Eliot Handelman writes >>>> In article <2364@aipna.ed.ac.uk> geraint@ai.ed.ac.uk (Geraint Wiggins) writes: >>>> The ball's in your hands. I say "X does not exist." The only counterexample >>>> that I can think of would be "There is an X which does exist." That's >>>> your position, not mine. >>>Not really. It's up to BOTH sides of the argument to make a case. Maybe I've >>>been missing out on the discussion, but I only saw a claim, not an example or >>>counter example. >>Fine. I'm unaware of semantics in Pithoprakta. Happy now? >For BOTH sides it may be helpful to read > Nikolaus Harnoncourt: Musik als Klangrede > Nikolaus Harnoncourt: Musikalischer Dialog (both dtv/baerenreiter) >The titles already state that - long long ago - making music meant deliver a >speech or make conversation. This would be very difficult without semantics? Not having read these, I can't say; but the issue of rhetoric-and-music in the Baroque (which I assume is Harnoncourt's topic) is a very dangerous one. Many writers spoke of musical rhetoric and musical figures, analogous to rhetoric, figures of speech, etc., and even with the same names; but first of all, this sort of thing was ALWAYS applied to vocal music only, so the question of 'what's being said?' was obvious from the start; and second, there was no agreement as to how the figures worked, what they expressed, etc. Music was LIKENED to oratory; that did not MAKE it oratory. (While in E. Germany this week, I hope to get to Dresden to do some research on one of the best writers on this topic, J. D. Heinichen. I've written a paper on his theories, and want to check out what he did in practice. He seems to have made a specific point about expressing certain characteristics of a text through the harmony of the setting; I wonder whether his music bears this out. I have 3 operas and 63 cantatas to work with, so we can hope.....) Roger >I hope there is a translation of the two books - ask Roger -; otherwise for a >non german-speaking reader it would be only noise without any semantics. >-- >Werner Icking icking@gmdzi.gmd.de (+49 2241) 14-2443 >Gesellschaft fuer Mathematik und Datenverarbeitung mbH (GMD) >Schloss Birlinghoven, P.O.Box 1240, D-5205 Sankt Augustin 1, FRGermany